The following is an excerpt from a recent presentation I did on Agile and Coldfusion - the subject of this excerpt is Indecision.   more »

The following is an excerpt from a recent presentation I did on Agile and Coldfusion - the subject of this excerpt is Detailed Specification.   more »

I've just finished to read the best Project Management book since Mike Cohn's "Agile Estimating and Planning" ..."Making Things Happen"   more »

there are many teams who would say they run iterations or sprints when in fact they are running increments or phases and therefore missing out on the real benefit of iterations or sprints   more »

More often than not the management is doing everything it can to adapt to changing circumstances but they cannot make that effective without the full support of the team, and the team isn't going to offer its support if they are disenfranchised by the management's apparent incompetence. Tricky!   more »

These days I only suggest reading the book to people who come to me and express a particular interest in the subject.   more »

Mike Cohn is wrting a new book and is seeking feedback from the agile community on the first draft of the first chapter   more »

A problem that can often occur in planning poker is a stalemate situation - i.e. the same cards are played by each player for more than one round without a consensus being reached   more »

If you're involved in planning and managing software development read this book and it will alter your mind.   more »

If anyone plays a ? card this should be taken as an indication that they have something important to say and therefore should be given the floor first in that round...   more »

As a general rule in planning its good to employ practices that mitigate against presumption influencing reality and this is well illustrated by the success that Planning Poker can bring to the software development process.   more »

Agile teams should strive to ensure the daily stand up is firmly established as their focal practise - but that can be a challenge and while it is something else more amenable needs to take its place.   more »

TDD (Test Driven Development) is a highly disciplined technique for producing high quality software, but it's possible to get benefit from its basic principles without following the practise to the Nth degree.   more »

The customer usually wants to see a plan as early as possible - it’s a reasonable request and its perfectly ok to do this providing the communication of the plan and its risks is carefully articulated and the pros and cons of the method are clearly understood by all. The key to mitigating the cons coming into play is to have a poker game with the senior management from both the customer and supplier.   more »

Clients who want to be confident about a schedule to deliver an agreed set of functionality on time and within budget will benefit from the development team implementing standard deviation buffers...   more »

When a developer recieves a brief that isn't detailed enough its no surprise - we can't necessarily expect the business to fully understand how to articulate its requirements to a technical team. But when the business suddenly realises there's an important detail they didn't mention before just when the developer is proudly admiring his wonderful work on the last day of build - you can't deny him is startled expression. Especially as its communicated as "I have an urgent business critical change that must be delivered on the planned deployment date come what may."   more »

In Mike Cohn's book Agile Estimating and Planning there is a chapter entitled "Why Planning Fails" which cites estimates becoming commitments as one key reason for this...   more »