How Should We Use Velocity?
In Scrum, velocity is how much product backlog effort a team can handle in one sprint. This can be estimated by viewing previous sprints, assuming the team composition and sprint duration are kept constant. Velocity is used in sprint planning to f...
Scrum Is Already Out There
When some people talk about the future of Agile approaches, and Scrum in particular, they consider the spread of Scrum outside of IT. To properly accompany the Agile transition to another world, I think that asking how to move Agile outward from I...
Evolution or Revolution — Implementing Scrum Is Tough!
Please don't excommunicate me!
This article may seem a little Machiavellian, because it is. There's a lot of soft stuff talked about business change. Anyone who's implementing Scrum in a Waterfall-centric organization will understand that the rea...
Comparing Agile and Waterfall Values
The cleverness and dexterity of Egyptian workmanship, as evidenced in the pyramids, is magnificent. In them we can see the unlimited human capacity for imagination and architecture. Even today, researchers still study the organizational chart and ...
Agile Contracting: A Story-Point Billing Model
Introduction
Contracting and billing models have always been a point of debate in the IT world. Fixed price or time and material? Which one to select? Both models have been criticized for their biased features toward vendor or customer, but this ...
Experiences in Agile Coaching: Courage as a Value
Agile teams find a lot of benefit from external coaching. Especially teams who, for whatever reasons, have not been focusing on continuous improvement. In my experience as an Agile coach, I've come across many situations where I could add value as...
How to Form Teams in Large-Scale Scrum? A Story of Self-Designing Teams: missing subtitle
How long does it take an organization to reorganize in order to adopt Scrum? Three hours. Really.
Background and goal
Bank of America's Merrill Lynch (BAML) Global Securities Operations Technology decided to adopt Scrum — and needed some c...