FREE eBOOK – Kanban and Scrum: Making the most of Both
This FREE eBOOK DOWNLOAD by Henrik Kniberg and Mattias Skarin is excellent ! It clears up the fog, so you can figure out how Kanban and Scrum might be useful in your own environment. Thanks to InfoQ for posting it.
There isn’t a single “best” way to do things; you have to think for yourself and figure it out – based on your situation !
LEARN ABOUT…
- the difference between Scrum and Kanban.
- their strengths and limitations,
- when to use each
- how and when to improve upon Scrum, or any other tool you may happen to be using.
- how to apply them in real life situations
- and more….
Mary Poppendieck writes:
Henrik Kniberg is one of those rare people who can extract the essence of a complicated situation, sort out the core ideas from the incidental distractions, and provide a crystal clear explanation that is incredibly easy to understand. He makes it clear that these are just tools, and what you really want to do is have a full toolkit, understand the strengths and limitations of each tool and how to use them all. The important thing is not the tool you start with, but the way you constantly improve your use of that tool and expand your toolset over time.
David Anderson, the founder of Kanban, writes,
Kanban is proving useful to teams doing Agile software development but equally it is gaining traction with teams taking a more traditional approach. Kanban is being introduced as part of a Lean initiative to morph the culture of organizations and encourage continuous improvement.
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Keep up to date on Agile-Lean News with Paper.li
One of the greatest tools I’ve found to stay up to date on what is going on in the Agile/Lean space is Paper.li. It is a tool that sends you daily emails from all kinds of social media resourcs on the Agile topic – in newspaper format. So you don’t have to goto twitter, facebook, RSS feeds — it does it for you. Talk about saving you time.
You type in some key words and Paper.li will give you a list of newsletters available to you to subscribe to.
When you subscribe to one – you will get a newsletter emailed to you….
If you don’t see something you want – then create one yourself ! It is super easy. Enjoy !
NEW RECORDING: COACHING – Accountability: Creating a Winnable Game
Can you make people do anything they don’t want to do?
Holding others accountable is a myth. It’s like Sisyphus being condemned to pushing the rock up the hill… It’s exhausting. If you are a manager whose job it is to get a team to work together and get the job done, this may be bad news. I am sorry.
I know it can be extremely frustrating when nothing you say or do seems to make a sustainable difference with some people.
You can micromanage, push, scold, even threaten certain people and get what you need for a little while, but as soon as you turn them loose, the rock rolls downhill again. And you start over, doing the same thing you have been doing – pushing, scolding, complaining like a broken record.
Glossary of Agile Terms
I found an excellent glossary of Words and Terms common to Agile that is very helpful. Thanks goes out to DAVISBASE for providing this to ASPE.
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.Terms like:
- Burn Down Chart
- Burn Up Chart
- Velocity
- Story Points
- Cadence
- Persona
- and much more….
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NEW WEBINAR RECORDING – Playing Games: Project Management’s Next Innovation
Communication and social dysfunctional relationships are often associated with project teams’ inability to meet their project goals and objectives. This all too often leads to project’s coming in over budget and/or schedule.
The social and emotional skills of a project teams and individuals have been de-emphasized in favor of process and procedural fulfillment on part of the project profession. In some respects, this is leading towards the commoditization of project management.
There’s a clear need to acknowledge and value of emotional and social intelligence in project teams. Research shows the best way to increase emotional and social intelligence is through experiential processes like ‘serious games’. Serious games provide a powerful, proven new tool for the PM toolkit. They are an engaging, economical way to create respect, trust, appreciation for diversity and ultimately organizational value.
Ten Lessons for Leading During Crisis
I like to share great articles I find – since we can all learn from each other. This one from ProjectTimes.com talks about a great book by Linda Henman on ‘Landing in the Executive Chair’ where she talks about what a leader should learn in order to prepare for a crisis and what a leader should do during a crisis. If you haven’t read the book – get it – but this article will give you the highlights and lessons that you can put into practice right away.
It doesn’t matter if you are using Agile – Lean – Waterfall – or some other practices…Crisis rears it’s ugly head in many projects – and when you least expect it. Project Managers will find these ten lessons of great value in preparation to minimize the impact to their projects and their organizations.
Lesson 1: Heed the Early Warning Signs
There are often early warning signs that a storm is brewing. Sailors have a saying, ‘Red sails in morning, sailor take warning, Red sails at night, sailors delight.’ Take notice of early warning signs in your project. Be aware of persistent customer, stakeholder or project member complaints, rumors, turnover in the project, and resistance to change due to innovation or technology. These always seem to start off small and begin to swell. Don’t ignore them and find out exactly if there is the potential of a problem brewing over the horizon.
Read more
Top Ten Agile – Kanban Tools
The Agile Evangelist shares:
Even though Kanban will conjure up images of whiteboards and stickers more than anything else, truth is we also need software tools. If you are anything like me, the only two things you know you’d never lose are your head and the stuff you keep in your computer/online. Also, if you work with teams and people in remote locations, these tools can ease things up. From robust all-around tools such as Hansoft to more personal lightweight application such as Lino, here you have an always convenient list of agile tools, reviewed.
1. Agile Zen
Agile Zen is a simple, pay per month Agile tool that gets extra points for their do-good philosophy. If you work for a not-for profit organisation you get 50% off their already low price. Also, if you are working on a open source project, you get the tool for free.
The only downside to it I find is how, at this time is only offered as a hosted tool. However, if you want to try it out today, you can! Head over to AgileZen today to get started.
2. Flow
3. Pivitol Tracker
4. Hansoft
Click here for the full list of TOP TEN TOOLS…
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FREE Agile Project Management Tool from Rally
Rally Software is offering a a free 10-seat subscription to their award-winning Agile lifecycle management solution COMMUNITY EDITION. The COMMUNITY EDITION is Rally’s on-line project room pulls together everything a cross-functional team needs to collaborate around their iterations and daily work. It is an ideal alternative to open source project management tools because it enables your team to pilot Agile in a no-cost, low burden Software-as-a-Service environment. Rally Community Edition also provides a seamless upgrade path to Rally Enterprise Edition, so you can incrementally adopt and scale Agile.
Organize Stories, Tasks, Tests & Defects -Centralize everything the team needs to build and rank backlogs, estimate size, and groom items for planning and scheduling.Plan and Track Iterations (Sprints) -Balance commitments against your team’s velocity and help everyone focus on advancing ideas to delivery.Collaborate via Personal Dashboards & Social Media Tools -Participate in the flow of activities on your team and tailor your views and notifications to help you get the right things done.Automatic Reports and Agile Metrics – Trend your performance and easily share progress and forecasts with all stakeholders.High-performance web service is zero effort to deploy and maintain – Deliver great software and trust Rally to protect your data and keep it accessible to your global teams.Rally Community Edition includes:
- Free for 10 Users, One Project
- Seamless Transition to Enterprise
- Extensive Web Support
- Defect Management and Test Tracking
- 3 Custom Fields, Views and Reports
- No Obligation or Commitment
** Get Your Free Subscription to Rally Community Edition <click here>
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Receive weekly updates about new books covering the subjects you love.
Subjects like:
- Audio books
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Click Here to subscribe for Free
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Like what you read? Get hot news on the Agile-Lean community, upcoming webinars, case studies and tools you can use to help you be as Agile-Lean as possible….delivered right to your inbox weekly. No spam or junk mail. You can unsubscribe at any time.
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The Agile Business Analyst
Rapidly changing market conditions are requiring companies to shorten delivery cycles and become more responsive to customer expectations. Agile development methodologies are leading the way, helping software development teams adjust to the new economy. Agile challenges our notion of software engineering best practices, project management methodology and how we lead our teams.
The agile movement impacts every role on a project team differently and creates opportunities to learn new skills and develop new ways of working together.
Let’s Connect!
My Speaking Engagements …..
-Nov 10: HOW TO PLAN, MANAGE, and TRACK ITERATIONS (ProjectTimes) -Dec 16: DEALING WITH THE TOP 10 ISSUES DURING & AFTER AN ITERATION (ProjectTimes) -Jan 13: AGILE REQUIREMENT GATHERING & DOCUMENTATION - BEYOND USER STORIES (ProjectTimes) -Feb 10: DEALING WITH THE TOP 10 ISSUES IN AGILE ADOPTION (ProjectTimes) Some Agile User-Groups and Links…
