best practices Archives - Agile2Success

20Jan 2020 by jerrye316@aol.com

Fixed Deadlines Make Us Work Efficiently

agile, best practices, Scrum, sprint, Uncategorized

The best way to get the most important tasks done within the shortest time is to have fixed deadlines, thus, framing our work within a time box. In our daily lives, we experience fixed deadlines. Some examples are: Catching an airplaneCelebrating a holiday (Christmas, birthday, etc)Participating in a wedding ceremonyCompleting weekend chores from our "to-do" list (weekend ends Sunday night)Winning a sports game against an opponent in the regulation time (game over when time clock reaches zero) In all of these, we have to be ready within the appointed time. Otherwise, we suffer potential and costly consequences such as missing your plane, or even worse, your wedding! Fix deadlines force us to be more efficient. Some reasons are: We prioritize. We identify the tasks that must be done and work…

Cultivating Agile: WIP As A Mindset

agile, best practices, Kanban, Predictive Agility, Scrum

Limiting work in progress (WIP) is a mindset shift! Limiting WIP has many benefits. What is your WIP mindset? The blog Do A Few Things Insanely Great emphasizes that we can actually "do more with less". The idea is that we can increase our flow rates, decrease wait times, and eliminate bottlenecks when we limit WIP. This leads to increased productivity, improved team morale, more visibility into ongoing work, and better metrics on velocity and project progress. There is more personal satisfaction in seeing things actually completed rather than having a full plate of ongoing work. Limiting WIP also makes us identify and focus on those tasks which have the highest value since we can only work on a few things at a time. If we can only do a few things,…

Best Practice Is Not To Use The Word “Best”

agile, best practices, Scrum

How many times have we heard a software consultant or tool vendor say the phrase "best practice?" In this context, best practice is mostly marketing lingo to get us to use their services or tools. It is selling by guilt. After all, if it's the best, we would be a fool not to buy it! If it is the best, then it must be worth the high price the vendor is charging. Or is it? Let's analyze the word "best." First, I am reminded of a cartoon about Father's Day. The young son is looking for a gift and sees a rack of several T-shirts with the words "Best Dad Ever." The son looks up at the mom and says "If a dad is the best, shouldn't there only be one of these…