6 Mantras for Managing Self-Organizing Teams
In Part 1 of this blog post, I put a new spin on an old set of “commandments” that I learned early in my career. Drawn from a book given to me by a key mentor, those commandments encouraged me to challenge the very hierarchical environment in which I worked. Our organization structure looked like […]
The Reality of Organizing a Self-Organizing Team
As I was thinking about writing on the topic of self-organizing teams, I ran a Google search to see what popped up. All the top-level results were references from agile sites like scrum.org. That would lead one to believe that the concept of self-organizing teams is new, something that was somehow invented along with agile […]
3 Key Factors for Building an Elicitation Plan
I really love teaching. I guess that’s not surprising, given that I’m (at least) a fourth-generation teacher. Check this out: This is a clip from the 1920 Wyoming Census. The first entry on this page, Gertrude Shaw, is my great-grandmother. Widowed at 29 with three children to support, she taught in a one-room schoolhouse in […]
7 Guidelines for Achieving Business Process Improvement Project Success
I like to focus on the positive. I’m the person who skips right over the headlines about attacks and shootings to get to the stories that make me feel good. I figured out a few years ago that if something was really important and world altering, somebody in my family would tell me about it […]
Going Beyond the “Who” to Analyze Stakeholders
Maybe it’s just me, but I frequently find that the most challenging aspect of a project is the people. We refer to the people involved in a project as “stakeholders”. Just knowing who your stakeholders are isn’t enough. We need to analyze stakeholders and develop a thorough understanding of them in order to work effectively […]
Measuring Agility: It’s Not The Same
Metrics of the Past Have Taught Us A Lesson Many traditional KPIs can instigate and proliferate bad behaviors in software development. In the past, programmers have measured their progress by how many lines of code they’ve written, quality was measured by the number of bugs fixed, and user needs were considered met by checking off […]
Keep Calm and Limit WIP
Twas the night of Thanksgiving,And all through the houseAll the dishes were readyThe food was set outAnd while we were eating,Just out of the blue,It hit: the newsletter!!Oh, what do we do?! Our oldest child does a lot of the artwork and graphics for B2T4U, our monthly newsletter. While cleaning up after Thanksgiving dinner, they […]
6 Steps to Creating – and Using – a Persona
The first step in developing a customer journey map is knowing your customer. Sounds basic, right? It’s easy to forget, though, that there is no such thing as a “generic customer” for most businesses. Before we can understand how a customer will interact with our product or service, we have to understand *them*. I recently […]
Requirements Analysis: Have No Fear!
I have to admit, I hate horror movies. I’m the person who covers her eyes and waits until the scary parts have passed before I can watch again. If you’re hosting a Halloween party featuring a “Friday the 13th”movie marathon, don’t bother to invite me. Not gonna happen. Nuh-uh, no way, no how. Being a […]
3 Key Elements of Your Requirements Elicitation Plan
I really love teaching. I guess that’s not surprising, given that I’m (at least) a fourth-generation teacher. This is a clip from the 1920 Wyoming Census. The first entry on this page, Gertrude Shaw, is my great-grandmother. Widowed at 29 with three children to support, she taught in a one-room schoolhouse in Wyoming. Pretty cool, […]
