export-nov-2018

Uncertainty & the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe™)

What is the connection between Uncertainty and the Scaled Agile Framework? Uncertainty is one of the core reasons we need to be agile. Different modes of Business/Requirements/Technology uncertainties impact our economic costs in product development – especially the potential impact of risk. The first principle of SAFe™ is “Take an economic view”. I frequently use …

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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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Guest Post – Is starting with Kanban really easier than with Scrum?

Today I’m proud to host a guest post by another AgileSparks coach – Yael Rabinovitz. Yael has been working with several clients on Scrum implementations and has recently started using the Kanban Method (I wonder who gave her that crazy idea…) and is sharing her thoughts about the first steps into both approaches. Without further …

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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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My thoughts on how Kanban and TOC Critical Chain relate

Background I recently had a short twitter chat with Catherine Swetel and Steven Holt about the relation between TOC Critical Chain and Kanban. This post will try to sum up my thoughts in a way that is a little bit more persistent, as well as add a bit more color and depth that is not …

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Patterns for getting to a lower WIP level in a system – The Freeze, No New Work, Limit Later, and some Mashups…

Some of us have the luxury of designing processes for greenfield systems meaning there is no history/legacy to deal with. Typically though, we are dealing with Brownfield/Legacy systems – This usually means there is some work in the system already, there are outstanding commitments, and some existing queues between steps in our processes. I’m working …

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