Risk-aware Product Development (a.k.a. Agile)

“There’s no predictability/commitment in Agile” Over the years I’ve heard my share of these kinds of statements from various levels of executives: “When my guys run a product development release I really want to know what I will get at the end so I can make business plans accordingly” “In the old days when we …

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How to use Kanban to help improve your recruiting process

Background I recently had the opportunity to talk with a couple of HR managers who were interested in how agile can help the HR department become more effective. This was a context where the product development is well into their agile journey, and we are talking about a group of about 20-30 people providing HR …

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Lean/Kanban approach to Teams

To Team or not to Team? If you look at the definition of Kanban or Lean, you wouldn’t find teams anywhere there. If you look at the Agile Manifesto, you can find “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams” Scrum is quite clear about the topic (Quoting the Scrum Guide 2011) “Scrum …

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What do I need to know to start being a Product Owner?

  What is the basic role of the Product Owner? http://blog.crisp.se/2012/10/25/henrikkniberg/agile-product-ownership-in-a-nutshell (New) http://scalingsoftwareagility.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/ch-11-role-of-the-product-owner-rev-12.pdf http://www.agileproductdesign.com/downloads/patton_product_owner_role.ppt Starting with user stories: User stories are the most common way to handle requirements in the agile world. One of the first things you’ll need to do as a product owner is familiarize yourself with them, and start to provide them to …

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