Understanding Why Estimates Don't Really Matter
"No scene from prehistory is quite so vivid as that of the mortal struggles of great beasts in the tar pits. In the mind's eye one sees dinosaurs, mammoths, and sabretoothed tigers struggling … more
Contents tagged with waterfall
Understanding Misalignments in Software Development Projects
Note: This post is a work-in-progress; I expect to iterate over the design and wording of the misalignments to improve clarity and incorporate new ideas and information which may change some … more
Misaligning How You Work with the Work You Do: Why Waterfall and Agile Don't Mix Redux
Note: Be sure to also read my subsequent post, Understanding Misalignments in Software Development Projects, for a deeper analysis of the concepts I discuss here.
A recent blog posting … more
The Cost of Waterfall Contracts
While reading over Mitch Lacey's excellent new book, The Scrum Field Guide last night, I came across an image in the chapter about traditional vs. agile contracts that I think rather hilariously … more
Five Reasons Not to Mix Agile with Waterfall
Note: I returned to this topic in a later post to expand on the reasons to not mix single-pass/phased methodologies with agile frameworks: Misaligning How You Work with the Work You Do: Why … more
No Silver Bullets - Just Hard Work
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong. - H.L. Mencken
Early in my experiences evangelizing agile practices with teams and managers, I was often met with an … more
Illustrating Agile Concepts
Yesterday I came across a couple of finds on my Twitter feeds that I think are quite inspired in how they communicate agile software concepts using simple illustrations.
First, a visualization of … more
Understanding Sustainable Pace in Software Projects
For today's post, I wanted to briefly introduce the agile team practice of sustainable pace with a standard text-and-picture entry - that was before a friend turned me on to a new web-based … more
Advice on Starting Scrum in a Waterfall Environment
Earlier this week, a colleague at a customer firm I coached last year passed along a link to me to a LinkedIn discussion group topic that asked:
"We are big company and thinking of adopting Scrum for … more
Queues, the Theory of Constraints and Subway Sandwiches
Update: See this video by Bill Hammack that shows why queues block up and how to untangle them - and why if you're in a single queue it always seems the other line is moving faster...
In my posts so … more
