What Does Safety Mean?

When I talk with other coaches about teams, I hear a lot about “creating safety” and “safe teams”. I don’t hear much about how to do that. While debriefing a coaching simulation the 2010 AYE Conference we listed things coaches did and...

Beating Brooks’ Law

Joe Little does a marvelous job recruiting speakers for the Agile-Carolinas meetings. This month was no exception. Israel Gat from BMC Software discussed “Leading the Disruption”. This presentation focused on releases 2.3 and 2.4 of their distributed...

Better People, Better Process

The current mantra for software development hinges around “better, faster, cheaper.” To support these efforts, companies attempt to improve their development process. While helpful, improving the current process has two negative side effects: diminishing...

Jim Said More

One of the smartest things I did as Interim VP of Engineering for Padcom was let Don talk himself into coming to play with us over the course of several hours overlooking the Puget Sound one weekend morning. Padcom was a small tech company with some unique...

The Problem Definition "Golden Rule"

“Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.” Murphy’s Golden Rule I talked with a friend today who regaled me with the problems they’re currently experiencing at work … teams being assembled, and then reassembled, departmental barriers,...