The Shu Ha Ri Agile learning metaphor Agile learning is crucial to agile transformation. And, nobody tells the Shu Ha Ri learning metaphor better than Alistair Cockburn as I discovered listening to his Sushi-slicing version whilst in France last year. As I was in France, I was inspired to write a Chef version of Shu […]

The work of the agile business analyst is never done is one of the conclusions reached in my first agile article for online journal InfoQ User Stories Are Placeholders for Requirements. At 3500 words plus five key take-away points, and with editorial and peer-review by the wonderful agile writer and educator Ben Linders, this was […]

There is a workplace evolution underway, lots of people are signalling it. Dan Pink came-up with the label ‘Motivation 3.0’ in Drive; Jurgen Appelo followed suit with ‘Management 3.0’; and many of us speak of a move towards a Lean or Agile enterprise. Earlier this year, Frederic Laloux published Reinventing Organisations in which he not […]

Don’t be Fooled by this Agile Craze If you are in a management or leadership role, the best way to help an agile team succeed is to learn what your team needs from you. Increase Agile Management Beyond the Team It’s relatively easy to agilise a single team, but the real challenge lies in ensuring […]

There’s a quiet revolution going-on right now fueled by people’s expectations of work and productivity. Everyone has a fantastic user experience with their devices and apps at home, and see no reason not to have the same at work. If Agile is about steady transformation, “big bang” is big risk As the next generation take-on […]

Another true story about the art of Agile Estimation About 14 months ago, I wrote this story card: We should sell estimation cards online, to offset the cost of producing them We gave it an estimate of 50 points as it seemed “do-able”, but no-one was exactly sure “how” to do it. Amazon was a […]

Construction runs to a well-established plan Simon is a project manager who is having some building work done at home - an extension with a new kitchen. We were discussing Agile project management and specifically Estimation Cards. He pointed-out that his "development team" consisted of builders, electricians, plumbers and kitchen fitters, who all worked to […]

Agile Training, The Agile Way What are the common challenges for training, and what solutions can Lean or Agile methods provide? In-House Learning Problem 1: Today's Lean organisations are reluctant to send a whole team away for a week's training. Apart from the risks for business continuity, the stress of changing travel, social and childcare […]

Development Occurs over Time, not on a Training Course During our many combined years as trainers with Learning Tree International, the average instructor grade exceeded 3.8 of a possible 4.0. Attendees loved the training, and provided fantastic testimonials. But that doesn't mean they used what we taught them, or that they improved because of the […]

All rights for this image belong to Google Generations of Users Relate to Rubik Today the creatives at Doodle gave us something that perfectly matches its user generation that's interactive, colourful and engaging. A working Rubik's cube! Just last week I dared to ask why Google were paying their people to decorate the top of […]

Slothful Behaviour is Good If ever an animal captured the principle of "maximising work not done", it must surely be the sloth. A curiously slothful practitioner of business agility. Strangely endearing and charmingly enigmatic, sloths are surprisingly inspiring. There exists a Sloth-Club which was formed "to promote slothful behaviours" such as ecology, economy and vegetarianism […]

I gave this talk Starting Lean - Running an Agile Enterprise to a group of founders of mostly small businesses. You can view and download the slides from the link. The talk is based on Ash Maurya's book, called Running Lean, a firm favourite because it's so practical. Think of this as Lean Startup applied […]