Agile Manifesto Archives

14Jan 2020 by jerrye316@aol.com

The Agile Paradox

"Since we are Agile, we choose not to be really Agile." This the Agile Paradox. Many organizations claim to have adopted Agile Software Development. But most organizations will then tell you that they are not really Agile. They have decided to pick and choose those things from Agile which they want to adopt and ignore the others. Although some argue that they are simply "adapting to their environment", it may be that they are not getting the full benefit from a commitment to be more Agile. Agile is more than simply "saying you are Agile". Agile Software Development originated as a mindset or philosophy guided by the values and principles in the Agile Manifesto. In summary, these encompass various approaches where solutions evolve in short increments through self empowering, motivated,…

09Jul 2018 by jerrye316@aol.com

Healthy Agility Requires Finding Your Sustainable Pace

agile, Agile Manifesto, Scrum, sprint

Agility involves delivering and adapting in short iterations. In Scrum the iterations are called "sprints." Sprints are generally scheduled right after each other without much or any recovery time. In races, sprints imply exhausting every bit of energy to be first at the finish line. This raises an often asked question "Why don't Scrum team members get burned out?" The answer to healthy agility is to value "Sustainable Pace Over Faster Sprinting." Think about the long distance competitive swimmer. The swimmer must swim as fast as possible each lap (the sprint). But the goal is to complete all laps. The swimmer must train to get better at swimming each lap quickly while still have enough energy to finish the race. The same is true of working in iterations to make it…

14Jun 2017 by jerrye316@aol.com

The Executive’s Project Dashboard – Red Light, Green Light

agile, Agile Manifesto, Predictive Agility

Executives want to view overall project status with a quick glance. Project managers often create the stop light dashboard as a tool to visually convey this information. How do we measure progress in Agile projects? According to one of the twelve principles from the Agile Manifesto, working software is the primary measure of progress. Revising the dashboard to reflect actual rather than planned progress may give a better indicator of project progress. The dashboard consists of multiple stop lights to display status. Each stop light reflects the status for a feature or planned activity of the project. The light is green if the status is "on track", is yellow if the status is "at risk" with minor issues, and is red if the status is "behind schedule or off track."…

24Apr 2017 by jerrye316@aol.com

Do You Value Chef Over Recipe In Your Agile Restaurant?

agile, Agile Manifesto, Scrum

"Individuals and interactions over processes and tools." The first value stated in the Agile Manifesto is the one which most intrigued me about Agile. I have been part of large organizations where everything was driven by the process. As such, it commonly felt like the processes were getting in our way and slowing us down. For example, I submitted a design document for peer review. The majority of feedback was concerned with whether I followed the approved "style guide." The approval process contained formalized steps with the stated purpose to verify that we followed our standard documentation management system and storage process. Few of these steps had anything to do with whether the design was any good or not. So this first Agile value seemed like a good one to me. Later, a chat with a colleague…