David Bulkin is an agile coach, trainer and consultant with over 25 years experience in delivering high value software systems. For the last decade David has been leveraging agile methods to increase collaboration, shorten time to market, increase quality, reduce risk and increase profitability. David is a Vice President at LitheSpeed, where he helps organizations and teams adopt and grow agile. David is a frequent speaker at agile conferences where he is known for his high energy, practical insights. In addition to writing news for InfoQ he blogs on LitheSpeed's site.
James shares his experience as one of the Agile Manifesto co-authors, fathering the original Agile estimating game (which became Planning Poker) and how Agile methods fit with embedded software development. James also discusses his new book, Test Driven Development for Embedded C, while sharing some surprises, such as his recommendation that teams stop using Planning Poker.
The Lean Software & Systems Consortium (LeanSCC) whose mission is to improve the world by improving its systems and system-building capabilities (well known in the agile community for promoting the use of Kanban for software development) reorganized as the Lean System Society. The goal is to accelerate and deepen the Lean paradigm and bring together thinkers and doers from different perspectives.
Many predictions for agile in 2012 were gloomy, with themes including adoptions by organizations that don’t know how, resulting in a lack of addressing management impact across teams and engineering practices in teams. With nearly four months of hindsight, readers can make their own judgments while remaining diligent so that 2012 won’t end gloomy.
The Project Management Institute is softening the eligibility requirements to qualify for their new PMI ACP (Agile Certified Professional) certification test. Previously individuals needed 1,500 hours of experience working on an agile project, with those hours accrued over the last two years. Now the requirement is 1,500 hours of experience on an agile project accrued over the last three years.
Historically, some product owners have prioritized backlogs by making pairwise comparison of projected economic return between two items in isolation. Successful Agile teams often take a holistic approach, accounting for risk, dependencies, and the complex interplay among and across backlog items.
The CSM Certification from the Scrum Alliance is granted to individuals that participate in a two day certification course and complete a pass/pass (e.g. can’t be failed) test. The testing process will be changed in 2012 to include a pass/fail test, and a new Professional Development Unit (PDUs) program will be rolled out no later than January 2013 for CSM’s to maintain their certification.
Are there repeated patterns of failure on Enterprise Agile Enablement efforts? Does success at the team level always result in success at the organization level? Sanjiv Augustine and Arlen Bankston discuss the Seven Deadly Sins that organizations repeatedly make so you can steer clear of them and benefit from a successful Enterprise Agile Adoption.
Michele Sliger helps bridge the divide between traditional project management and Agile so that classically trained PM’s can successfully apply Agile practices, and more importantly, an Agile mindset. Along the way, Michele clears up some of the confusion about the strengthened Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Professional certification and the new PMI Agile Certified Practitioner certification.
In Agile, adoption and transformation are typically viewed as one big event. Mike Cottmeyer provides a holistic perspective that looks as adoption as the implementation of practices, and transformation along two dimensions, organizational and personal. Mike discusses how they are a means to an end, and how to avoid the trap of focusing on practice adoption as a goal.
Funding models and portfolio management approaches need to account for increasing levels of uncertainty, change and competition by compressing planning horizons, speeding time to market and recalibrating frequently. In short, organizations should apply real options and Agile methods for project approval, planning and oversight, not just for execution.
Linda Cook, a well-known agilist, and board member of both the Agile Alliance and the Agile Leadership Network, discusses the agile coaching profession. Among other things, she covers servant leadership, being as a role model, types of individuals appropriate for the profession, and the differences between being an external coach versus being an internal employee in the coach role.
