Almost any improvement method is hailed as the best way to save busi-ness from problems when it is new. Unfortunately, a few years later, this same method is now the reviled, flawed method that a new method is replacing. This parable tells how this happens.

On my recent visit to Wellington I was talking to some colleagues working with government departments interested in Agile. It was a bit of an eye opening experience and given the AgileNZ Conference in Wellington is only 2 weeks away is something I would like to start talking about.

So…. can Agile work in government?

In part one we we saw the beginnings of self-management emerge out of chaos. In part two of this two part blog I complete the learnins from the Scrum Training game. 

I love being Scrum Trainer, mentor and coach. It provides regular insights into human behaviour that I personally find utterly fascinating.One of my favourite exercises that I use in Scrum Training is the Ball Game. It is a simple game and gives teams a wonderful opportunity to experience the power of self-organisation, frequent micro-planning and retrospection.

Clarus Test Practice Lead Ian Ross featured in the cover story of the latest UK based Test Magazine.

 

Recently I was fortunate enough to attend a workshop by the legendary Donald Reinertsen called “The Science of Lean Product Development”. The workshop was part of QCon San Francisco 2011.

Scrum.org requires all trainers to attend a regular Face to Face session so this year I headed off to Seattle, Redmond and San Francisco for 2 weeks. I attended the Scrum.org F2F session, 2 Qcon workshops and then Lyssa Adkins Coaching Stance workshop. This series of four blogs outlines my experiences at these events. 

Recently I attended a Lean/Kanban training event in the US.  I found it an incredibly interesting session, not because of the material presented but because of the team dynamics at play and what I saw unfold in front of me. This blog is number 2 of a series of 4.

A number of people have been asking us recently what the difference is between the old Scrum Alliance style courses and the new professional Scrum curriculum at Scrum.org.  In the blog post I will try to answer this question!

In this movie "I want to run an agile project" we follow the experiences of one such brave project leader, Luke, as he has many different encounters throughout the enterprise, working to establish and deliver his Agile project.

Recently I have been helping a fellow Scrum practitioner with a strategy for working with a client who is determined that Scrum cannot deliver fixed date projects. The company has made wonderful leaps forward using Scrum but under pressure the evil, highly ingrained habits of predictive, deterministic thinking emerge and the company now risks the rocket we launched falling back down to earth as gravity drags them back to the same of way they have always done things.

For the last two years we have had an exclusive relationship with the Scrum Foundation. This commercial relationship meant that we managed all training in New Zealand for the Scrum Foundation. It has had some wonderful moments; bringing Scrum co-founder Jeff Sutherland to New Zealand twice was certainly a highlight. However, this relationship came at a price. It prevented Clarus, a New Zealand owned and operated company, from providing any form of certified Scrum training in our own back yard.

After a prolonged effort to negotiate a win-win, we are sad to say our relationship with the Scrum Foundation is now over. Unfortunately we were not able to negotiate a situation that allowed Clarus to be able to provide training to the local market while also being able to bring out trainers from the Scrum Foundation.

There was a shockwave of disbelieve and anxiety on Saturday night as the New Zealand rugby public saw their heroes handed a loss by a very energised and deliberate Wallabies side. The All Blacks lost the game for one reason and one reason only – an inability to change tactics to meet the scene in front of them. And this isn’t the first time they have suffered this flaw either. The funny thing is that it has striking similarities to software projects.

It seems everyone is obsessed with Scrum tools these days. Every time we run a Scrum course people ask “what tools do you recommend?” The answer is always the same – whiteboards, index cards and post-it notes. The reasons for this are many. In my coaching work I see team after team try one of the myriad of tools available and the result is almost always the same – a slow Scrum uptake. Why is this?

We are pleased to announce the official opening of Clarus Auckland. Read on for more details!

We are pleased to announce the opening of temporary offices at 390 Montreal Street, Christchurch. 

We held a great event recently to help our Christchurch team forget about the events of February 22nd and the on-going challenges of life in Christchurch.  We decided to go to town and really do something fun. Danicia ran the project and arranged a Married to the Mob themed dinner down at Hinton’s – one of the few restaurants still open in Christchurch!

In our experience helping companies implement Scrum, Product Ownership recurs over and over again as THE big issue. In this blog article we provide some guidance on what makes a good product owner and include a Product Owner position description.

Agile Australia was a really good event this year. Quite a reasonable sized contingent of Kiwis made it over the ditch to Sydney to enjoy what was a really good few days of complete Agile immersion.

The highlight for me was Alistair Cockburn. I attended his Advanced Agile pre-conference workshop and really enjoyed hearing another perspective on Agile. It was particularly relevant to study with another one of the original Agile Manifesto signatories during a celebratory 10^th year since its inception.

Here are some of my learnings from the two days. I have posted them here as something of interest for the Agile community that could not attend.