Getting started with Agile is straightforward; succeeding with it is challenging. You can’t just introduce a new approach, like Scrum or Kanban, and automatically gain all of Agile’s benefits. To really succeed with Agile, you have to adapt it to the specific needs of your team and your organization. That can be very difficult; most […]
9 Signs You’re Struggling with Agile Adoption
Your team adopted Agile to get better—to accelerate delivery and improve performance—but now that you’ve been at it for a few months, it doesn’t feel like it’s fulfilling the promise. You’re following the practices. You’ve got the routine down. You expected to transform to a new way of working, but it’s starting to feel like […]
The Manifesto for Scaling Agility
At Excella, we believe that continuous learning and knowledge-sharing fuels innovative thinking. The company created space – the time and the opportunity – for our Agilists to document their experiences with Agile at scale. The resulting product is the Manifesto for Scaling Agility: it’s a new way to approach the challenges of scaling, and I’m excited […]
Agile Ancestry: A Mindset for Solution Development and Beyond
Some may believe that the Agile mindset is new and was recently “discovered.” In reality, it has a long history. We can trace its roots as far back as the early 17th century, starting with Francis Bacon’s introduction of the scientific method. Those empirical foundations provide the basis for how we work in an Agile-minded […]
Kanban in Action: The Workshop
As the two Kanban Trainers at Excella, Mark Grove and I think a lot about Kanban and how to spread knowledge of it. We’ve recently had a lot of success with a workshop we call “Kanban in Action.” We’ve presented it at meetups, the AgileDC Conference, and Lean Kanban North America. In August, we’ll be […]
Your Code Base is a Living Space – Sarah Mei’s Delightful Concept
I was at IBM’s INDEX Developer Conference earlier this year and it was a nice change to be surrounded by code—and how to think about code. Before I was an Agile Coach, I was a software developer, so this was a way to return to my roots. I thought the most compelling talk at the […]
Scrum vs. Kanban: Management’s Explicit Invite
Kanban and Scrum ask different things of management; what do they explicitly say about management’s involvement and how might that influence adoption? Just as Paul did in his second post on becoming a catalyst, we will use the following principle from the Agile Manifesto as a vehicle for our investigation: Build projects around motivated individuals. […]
Scrum vs. Kanban: “Renting vs. Owning” the Process
I have always found the analogy of owning vs. renting a useful tool for exploring the differences between Scrum and Kanban. Although neither the Scrum Framework nor the Kanban Method are “processes,” teams use them as a basis for creating their processes, and, in my experience, teams starting with Kanban generally have a stronger sense […]
Lean Agile Scotland – Designing the Future
Once again, Lean Agile Scotland was an excellent conference full of thought-provoking ideas and stimulating conversations. It was a pleasure to attend and speak at the event. I gained numerous insights; here are some of the most interesting. Design or Lean Agile? At the start of the second day, Cameron Tonkinwise challenged the audience with […]
Agile 2017 Key Takeaways
Last week, five of Excella’s Agilists traveled to Orlando, FL for Agile 2017 for a jam-packed week of learning about all things Agile! Here they share their top takeaways of the conference. Security Testing in an Agile World – Dan Davis One of my favorite presentations this year was Abhay Bhargav’s talk on how to […]