This weekend I've released the first beta version of my new agile tool at CardConversationConfirmation.com - and its completely FREE to use.   more »

... a challenge when there are dependancies on another team, in another organisation, who are not running an agile project. How should these types of dependancies be managed effectively while maintaining an agile sprint orientated approach at home?   more »

There are many software development teams who are working in an ad-hoc way and are desperately looking for improvements in the processes that define their working lives and their business - here will be benefits for the developers, the management and the customer.   more »

Card Conversation Confirmation is described by Ron Jeffries as the three critical steps of User Stories. If there are any development teams looking for that magical balance between cycle and ceremony in their processes Card Conversation Confirmation is at the heart of the answer. Add into this Planning Poker and you've got all you need to implement a lean software development team - its a Software Development Lifecycle, in a nutshell. Hopefully this can be read as a journey of self discovery for the team and the individuals that make it up too.   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 »

Recently I went to a retrospective that was very well run with a simple change to approach. The team in question was in the habit of de-prioritising the retrospective. This probably came about because it was a rather dull affair - everyone sitting looking solemn at a projector screen while the project managers read out everyone's feedback and occasionally a subject would be raised that would lead to a 'hot topic' discussion.   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 »

Satisfaction criteria certainly must be agreed between customer and supplier but should that agreement extend to the detail of test scenarios and scripts?   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 »

PlanningPoker.com is a fantastic way to play planning poker with distributed teams...   more »

Planning Poker requires the teams full attention, dedication, preparation and most of all time...   more »

Is there such a thing as the opposite of SCRUM? And can it work? ...   more »

I'm introducing mcLEAN as a new blog focused on real life experiences, good and bad, of implementing lean and aglie ...   more »