Agile Learning Labs

Long Live Lucky Oliver

On Wednesday, I'm doing a presentation on doing presentations. One of the little gems that I was looking forward to passing on was Lucky Oliver. It has been my favorite source for images for presentations and the web. The quality and variety of the images has been consistently great, and the prices were more than affordable. Today I discovered that Lucky Oliver will be closing down on May 15th. I'm sad to be losing this source for great photos, and sad to see the business fail. Best of luck to Bryan, and everyone else at Lucky Oliver.

Now where am I going to get my images? Any suggestions?

Cheers,

Chris

Technical Management Events and Such

Greetings!

I'm back home, in the San Francisco Bay Area, after a couple of weeks on the road. I went to Chicago for the Scrum Gathering, where I presented Agile 101, and What Makes Agile Projects Succeed (or Fail)? I also facilitated a couple of open space sessions. Notes from one of those, Let's Practice Agile Estimation, can be found here on the Agile Alliance Wiki.

After Chicago, I headed up north to Canada, where I ran a half-day workshop From Tester to Leader as part of the KWSQA's Targeting Quality conference. I'll be posting some notes from that session soon.

For the moment, I'm catching up and getting ready for a busy week. This Wednesday, the Bay Area Engineering Managers Support Group is meeting. In addition to the usual peer-support and problem-solving session, I'll be doing a presentation on doing presentations. Perhaps next month I'll do a presentation on doing presentations on doing presentations. OK, maybe not. This event is free, and includes some good food, thanks to our sponsors: The Technical Management Institute and Rearden Commerce. You can RSVP here.

Thursday, the IEEE Technical Management Council of Silicon Valley is putting on a dinner event featuring Elisabeth Pate-Cornell, Chair of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford. Her topic for the evening is Risk Analysis as Decision Support. You can get more information and RSVP here.

Cheers,

Chris

Our First Video Lecture!

OK, this isn't really from the Technical Management Institute, but I think it sets a high bar for computer-based learning.

Cheers,

Chris

What Makes Agile Projects Succeed (or Fail)? at the 2008 Chicago Scrum Gathering

Greetings from the 2008 Chicago Scrum Gathering! On Monday I led two sessions: Agile 101, and What Makes Agile Projects Succeed (or Fail)? I posted my notes from the first session here.

Almost 50 people gathered to consider the question: What Makes Agile Projects Succeed (or Fail)? In under an hour and a half, we generated and ranked about 50 ideas. Here, in order, are the things that this group felt had the biggest impact on the success of the agile projects that they have been involved with. You can compare this list with generated by previous groups here, here, and here.

The runaway winner for most important thing to the success of and agile project was:

Prioritizing the Backlog

Tier 2
Well-Refined Features
Availability of the Product Owner
Retrospectives at the end of each iteration

Tier 3
Self-Governing Teams
Unit Testing
Organization Commitment to Agile
Good Acceptance Criteria
Co-Location
Dedicated Teams
Come Prepared to Standup Meetings
Demo with Product owner at the end of each sprint

Tier 4
Small Short Cycles
Team Estimation
Team Size
Verifying Completed Features

Tier 5
Velocity Drives Deadlines
Cross-Functionality
Decisive Product Owner
Automated Regression Testing
Appropriate Product Owner
Rhythm of Daily Stand-ups
Not short-changing QA time

Cheers,

Chris

Agile 101 @ 2008 Scrum Gathering

Greetings from the 2008 Scum Gathering!

At 9:00 AM this morning I was surprised to see about 25 more-or-less bright shinny faces in the room for Agile 101. I was even more surprised as people continued to trickle in until the room, setup for 50, was at capacity. Wow!

Many thanks to all who came out and participated. Here are the slides. (Update: Fixed broken link)

Cheers,

Chris

One-on-Ones: Agenda Item One

I promised more detail about One-on-Ones. Over time, I'm planning to cover each item on my One-on-One agenda. As a refresher, here is my agenda for a half-hour One-on-One meeting:

• How are things going personally?
• How are things going at work?
• Action Item Report: Manager
• Action Item Report: Report
• Feedback (+ and/or -)
• Annual Review Goals
• Personalized News (down-flow)
• Anything Else?
• Action Items for Next Time

Let's have a look at the first item: How are things going personally?

You manage people, not 'resources'. Make a point of knowing the names of spouses, children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, pets, or whom-ever is important in their lives. Do they have hobbies? Are they involved in charity work? Do they follow baseball? Badminton? Be ready to share this type of information about yourself as well.

If you haven't had these types of conversations before, you can initiate one something like this:

"Bob, I realized that we don't know much about each other, apart from work, and I'd like to change that. I would like you know more about who I am, and I'm interested to know more about you.

My wife, Sue, and I have two kids. Jimmy is 14 and Tammy is 12. They both play basketball, and their pretty good too! Last year, Jimmy's team went to State, and had a real shot at the title.

If you don't mind sharing, I'd like to know a bit about your life outside of the office."

Most people will be thrilled that you are interested. If you happen to have a direct report who really wants to keep their personal life private, respect their wishes, of course. If you find that several of your reports are resistant, this may be an indicator of deeper trouble in your relationships with them.

Over time, you may want to ask questions like:

• Where did you grow up?
• Where did you go to college?
• What are your plans for the weekend?
• How was your weekend?
• How is your son Bobby doing in school?
• Do you follow any sports?
• Are you involved in any organizations?

You get bonus points if you ask follow-up questions about things that came up last time:

• How did Bobby do in the spelling bee?
• Is your mother feeling any better?
• Did the dealership ever figure out what was wrong with your car?
• How did Fluffy do at doggy day-care?
• Did Brenda get the job?

Take it slow. Be genuine.

Have some insights or experiences to share? Leave a comment!

Cheers,

Chris