Design Thinking Frameworks
I remember a time when a boss said to me, “I’ve been reading about Design Thinking, and from now on, we’re going to apply design thinking to how we do our work. ” I thought, “Oh no, he’s read another blog entry and he’s going to start micro-managing the design team. ” So I immediately called up my…
Read more
The anatomy of a bad decision
I was talking about mistakes in my last post and I said I might look at bad decisions. Thinking about thinkingI have made bad decisions because I did not wait to find out more information, but I have also gone off to find more information, only to regret not making the decision early. Oh dear, it…
Read more
Learning to unlearn and change behaviours
In a time of constant change; changing market conditions, changing customer expectations and new and emerging technologies, organisations need to be continuously transforming and adapting to keep up with the rate of change. For both organisations and individuals to thrive in a world of digital…
Read more
How can agile and DevOps work together?
As the DevOps movement gains more and more momentum in the enterprise world, there seems to be even more confusion about the relationship between agile and DevOps, with some thinking that they are completely different and opposing ideas. What is more important is what they have in common and how…
Read more
Safe to fail: naughty or just a mistake?
I am an agile guy now so I believe in things like psychological safety, “safe to fail” and trusting people. Just like all agile coaches, I am a nice guy and I believe everyone else is too. So I let people try new things, they make mistakes and we are pretty happy about it all since we know mistake…
Read more
Mistake proofing your process
You can apply mistake proofing to a user story in an agile project or to anything you want, but the approach described here comes from old-school process modelling:1. Start with something to analyse – such as a value stream map or process model. 2. Assess who is involved in the process – who doe…
Read more
Five steps toward increased organisational agility
At a recent Project Management Institute New Zealand Chapter (PMINZ) event, author, trainer, and SoftEd director, Iain Fraser spoke about the need for increased organisational agility. Fraser's talk, Five Steps Toward Increased Organisational Agility explored why organisations of the future need to…
Read more
Want to build high-performing teams? Prioritise psychological safety
A high-performing team is your most powerful weapon against poor quality products and a negative work environment. But the team is only as strong as the leaders that build and support them. So, what is the secret to building a high-performing team?In 2012, Google researchers embarked on a quest to…
Read more
Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation Explained
The Agile Manifesto refers to working software over comprehensive documentation (Agile_Manifesto, 2001). The key to all aspects of the Agile Manifesto, however, is the last statement. That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. One of the greatest…
Read more
Getting Acceptance Criteria Right
This article is in split into two parts. The first part discusses acceptance criteria. The second part discusses how to get the “right” acceptance criteria. The paper argues that the terms “acceptance criterion” and “requirement” do not have the same meaning, but are closely related. Some people…
Read more
Why is psychological safety being ignored?
In one of the most extensive business research projects ever conducted, Project Aristotle, Google found, to their surprise, that the number one driver of team performance is psychological safety. This is a gift on a plate to organisations. Want to radically improve your performance? Then simply…
Read more
What do testers do on Agile projects?
I was just talking to someone who is on the journey towards the good life in Agile. But in their early projects, they have hit a snag. It seems that the testers want to record lots of bugs in their log so they can show them to their friends. They also want to talk to the developers about all those…
Read more