Scrum @ 21

Scrum at 21 – A Look Back Through the Eyes of Ken Schwaber, its co-creator I’m told that it has been 21 years since Scrum became public when Jeff Sutherland and I presented it at an Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages & Applications (OOPSLA) workshop in Austin, TX in October of 1995. Time sure does fly. Things … Continue reading →

Scaling, the Nexus, and Scrumbling

I will be conducting a Nexus workshop in Boston on November 17-18, with Richard Hundhausen and Rob Maher, based on the Nexus Guide. Of interest to many, SDK, API architectures, and remediation Scrumbles, and DevOps. Many Scrum teams deliver a “done”, potentially shippable increment at the end of each Sprint. As the number of teams rises, as the project scales, … Continue reading →

Greed and Control Can Ruin an Industry and Movement

It has come to my attention that Scrum Alliance is trying to register a trademark on, “SCRUM USER GROUP,” at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  Word on the street is that that the Trademark Office has indicated that it will publish this trademark shortly for opposition.  If no one opposes, I understand that the … Continue reading →

More on Scaling Scrum

I’ve been working with people who have actually made Scrum scale for large projects and product initiatives over the last twenty years. Our smallest project experience was 3 teams, average 25 teams, and largest was 80 teams. We abstracted a framework for this scaling which we named Nexus, defined as a causal link between things, … Continue reading →

Scrum Scaled for Large Projects and Organizational Initiatives

Jeff Sutherland and I have helped hundreds of organizations scale their projects, enable their entire product development, and thread Scrum through their organizations. For sure, none of them were easy, and each had its own unique challenges. Each had its own structure, culture, goals and strategies, challenges, current practices and infrastructure, domains of competence, existing … Continue reading →

Agile

I am returning from the Agile Alliance conference. I thought I would share the answer to several questions that I was asked in my session: 1. What is “Agile” Any software activity that conforms or attempts to conform to the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto for Software Development. 2. If you could add … Continue reading →

Evidence of Software’s Value to an Organization

The following material is excerpted from what I’ll be presenting Wednesday at the ALM Forum in (wet) Seattle. It contains the foundational ideas for software’s contribution to organizational value Only the outcomes that unambiguously measure value have been selected as direct evidence for Evidence-Based Management of Software Organizations (EBM). Many other contenders were discarded either … Continue reading →

Evidence Based Management

I’ve had many, many customer ask me how they are doing, how much better they are doing than a year ago. The entrance of SAFe, the IPO of Rally, and the flood of “just in time” experts and training companies make an ability to answer that question even more important. If organizations invest heavily into … Continue reading →

Do you think there are culture barriers in promoting the idea of Scrum in China?

No more than any other culture. The sticking point for how well a culture can take advantage of Scrum is the belief in predictability. People who are culturally attuned to predictability want to believe that they can predict the future. Their job is then to cause the future to come true by forcing the people … Continue reading →

unSAFe at any speed

The boys from RUP (Rational Unified Process) are back. Building on the profound failure of RUP, they are now pushing the Scaled Agile Framework (e) as a simple, one-size fits all approach to the agile organization. They have made their approach even more complicated by partnering with Rally, a tools vendor. Consultants are available to … Continue reading →