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The Power of Smaller Teams

The issue of team size comes up very often in my interactions and online.  People are very anxious about this detail and for good reason.  The size of a team directly effects the culture and work they do, for good or bad. Documents Say… The Agile and Scrum literature, including training classes, recommend a team […]

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Remember Your Foundation

I had the opportunity to work with Mike Vizdos for a one-day Scrum coaching session.  A team in Chandler, Arizona was interested in finding ways to improve, to get outside eyes to help them see what they might be missing.  We and the team had a great day.  I re-learned something important about working on […]

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A Powerful Poster

We’ve seen the “motivational posters” on office walls.  These can be very valuable.  They also can be a target for snickers and dirision.  There’s even an entire market for “demotivational” posters! The best way to make sure a poster has value for your company or team is to start out with good information.  Platitudes don’t […]

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A Great Retrospective

Today is planning day for our largest team. After an interesting Sprint Review in the lab, we retired to the larger training room for the Sprint Retrospective. The feel in the room was largely up-beat but had some unspoken tension. I shifted gears quickly to start different than planned. I asked that we go around […]

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Retrospective Changes Culture First Time It’s Used

Recently a discussion kicked up in Twitter about picking the one, key Agile practice.  Obviously the answer can vary by situation, but the consensus I saw settled on the retrospective as the answer.  Declan Whelan, in reply to Esther Derby, seemed to say it best: @estherderby If there was only 1 agile practice what would […]

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Agile Team as a Product?

James Carr (@jamescarr, http://blog.james-carr.org/) is an agile developer in Missouri, USA.  I met him through Twitter and hope to meet him in person one day.  A nice guy with usually good things to say! This morning James posed a question about sharing lessons learned between teams: Any quick suggestions on how to facilitate a retrospective […]

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