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What Lifecycle or Agile Approach Fits Your Context? Part 6, Create Your Agile Approach

Johanna Rothman

I discussed the origins of the agile approaches in Part 5. In this post, I'll discuss how you can create an agile approach that fits your context. Why should you create your own agile approach? Because your context is unique to you, your team, project, product, and culture. Remember, an agile approach starts with a team.

Agile 60
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Unemployed Agilists: How to Show Your Value to Support What Managers Want, Part 1

Johanna Rothman

Every day, I hear more stories of agile coaches or Scrum Masters losing their jobs. Several reasons: No manager cares about “agile” even if they care about agility. So, selling “agile” into the organization doesn’t create any traction for change. You might not like these ideas.

Agile 75
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Managers Make the Real Product Quality Decisions

Johanna Rothman

In a conversation about product quality, the product owner said, “If the testers found the problems faster, we would be done faster.” That's because product development is a system of work. If you pressure one piece of the system and don't accommodate that pressure elsewhere, you create bad products.

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Agile Transformation: More Possible Organizational Measurements, Part 5

Johanna Rothman

I’ve been thinking more about possible measurements in an agile transformation journey. The first Possible Measurements post focuses on product throughput measurements. This post will focus on measurements you might see when the culture changes with an agile transformation. Again, do start with your why. Do join us.

Agile 46
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One Pragmatic Thought: Reward Collaboration, Not Individual Work

Johanna Rothman

If you're trying to use an agile approach, what do you care about in terms of finishing: That the team finish the work, regardless of the personal or team cost? Successful product development requires the team learn together—the faster, the better.) Agile teams always know who did what. Not in an agile team.

Agile 56
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How WIP Insights Allow Us to Revisit Brooks’ Law About Adding People to a Team

Johanna Rothman

So many of the rules/suggestions/laws in The Mythical Man-Month refer to the lessons Brooks learned in the 1960s. The first is that Brooks strongly suggested the idea of a “surgical team” That hierarchical team was a feature- or product-based team. Yes, the premise of my Agile and Lean Program Management book.)

Agile 95
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How to Use Flow Metrics to See if Your Economies of Scale Offer Value, Part 3

Johanna Rothman

That's another form of centralization and what organizations refer to as economies of scale. See Why Shared Services “Teams” Don’t Work with Agility and Unearthing Your Project's Delays.) That's not product development—and that's the first place we get stuck with Economies of Scale thinking.

Metrics 63