InfoQ Homepage Teamwork Content on InfoQ
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Mike Cottmeyer on Agile Adoption and Transformation
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.
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Jeff Sutherland: Are Agile Teams Truly Agile?
Ten Years after the Agile Manifesto Jeff Sutherland muses the question of whether Agile teams are truly Agile. You’re not Agile if you’re not producing product at the end of each sprint. Jeff discusses doing scrum well, velocity and production measurements and the next big challenge for Agile leaders.
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Lyssa Adkins and Michael Spayd on the Role of the Agile Coach
In this interview, Lyssa Adkins and Michael Spayd, cofounders of the Agile Coaching Institute, discuss the role of the Agile Coach and the competencies (i.e. facilitation, mentoring, teaching, and coaching) necessary to become effective in that role. Also discussed are ways an Agile coach can transform teams and organizations while reinforcing behaviors that will endure after the coach leaves.
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Jeff Patton on the Product Owner’s World
In this interview, Jeff Patton discusses the Product Owner role and points out that Agile has never been very focused on the customer. While Agile development excels at “delivery”, it struggles to support “discovery” (i.e. defining what the customer really needs). Also discussed are techniques such as Lean Startup and story maps and the importance of defining business value in an Agile context.
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Linda Cook Discusses the Agile Coaching Profession
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.
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Creativity and Brain Science with Mark Levison and Roger Brown
Agile teams are an ideal environment for collaborative creativity. Great teams can apply creative ideas to problem solving and innovation for new product ideas. Neuroscience gives us new insights into how creativity works. Research into creativity enhancement gives us ways to guide people in a group to create results that are greater than the sum of its individual members.
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Systems Thinking for Management
Esther Derby talks about common management and team traps that can impact organisations adopting Agile methods. She describes the conditions needed to form "real teams" and how management can create the right environment to nurture the formation of self organizing teams.
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Rod Johnson on Entrepreneurialism
Spring creator Rod Johnson discusses the importance of vision, teamwork, perserverance and sacrifice as he relates what it took to successfully build SpringSource from a small open source consultancy to a middleware powerhouse aimed at simplifying Enterprise Java, that sold to VMWare for hundreds of millions.
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Elastic Leadership
Roy Osherove talks about the challenges and opportunities of being a software team leader. He shares his hard won experiences in growing teams, their members and influencing behaviour. Being a software team lead is about getting out of your comfort zone, creating trust and commitment in your team but also about knowing about team maturity levels and the different approaches needed.
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ThoughtWorks’ Fowler and Humble Talk Continuous Delivery
Two of ThoughtWorks’ finest, Martin Fowler and Jez Humble, talk about the notion of Continuous Delivery, which enables organizations to build software that is production ready at all times. To do this, enterprises automate the build, deployment, and testing process, and improve collaboration between developers, testers, and operations. The duo discusses a variety of related issues.
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Transforming Businesses to Agility
M Dwyer of BigVisible Solutions talks about the process of transforming businesses to agility, including the concept of Agile localization in global efforts. Dwyer says that with distributed teams across multiple time zones and cultures it is good to establish a group of Agile missionaries to go forth and train people on Agile. He also discusses how to transfer Agile skills to the next generation.
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Johanna Rothman: Managing Agile Teams
In this interview, Agile management expert Johanna Rothman talks about the process of managing in Agile environments, particularly for distributed teams. Rothman also helps to distinguish between self-directed, self-organized and self-managed teams. And she stresses the importance of clear communication amongst team members, as well as the ability for managers to learn new skills.
