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Tag Archives: Larry Lawhead
Economic Theory & Wisdom of Crowds Applied
Once you’ve been in the Agile mindset for a while, you begin seeing the world through a different lens. As I apply the “wisdom of crowds” to the projects my teams undertake, I find their estimates more expressive of their … Continue reading
Another Transition?!
We are about to be exposed to enormous pressures on how much we value each other. Continue reading
DevOps Overview for Scrum Masters
Requires System Thinking DevOps creates a process (system) where by the development team and IT operations teams communicate issues, define priorities, complete work and report outcomes. DevOps grew out of the necessity that development and IT operations teams understand who … Continue reading
Posted in Recent Posts, Scrum Master Stuff
Tagged Agile Scrum, critical numbers, Kaizen, Key Performance Indicators, KPI, Larry Lawhead
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Middle Management Reformation!
Agile Adoption has a Problem I’ve been in a few conversations lately where middle managers appear lost as they find themselves in an Agile transformation. Command and control is out the window. So is the concept of “reports”. How do … Continue reading
Discovering the Narrative Behind Failure
Surprised by Failure? When your amazing idea results in unexpected outrage, do two things. Observe the Japanese proverb, When something goes wrong fix the process, not the blame. Then, discover the narrative. Tell the Story With 40,000 years under our belts, … Continue reading
Posted in Product Owner Stuff, Recent Posts, Scrum Master Stuff
Tagged A3 Root Cause Analysis, Agile Scrum, Kaizen, Larry Lawhead, Lean
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Value Stream Maps
Stopwatch Development? Learning to see is a bit more difficult than it may appear. If Ohno’s trainees found it hard to “see” manufacturing improvements, what’s a software manager to do? Looking over the shoulders of your development team, will only … Continue reading
Reduce Corruption through Agile Values
Whatever Happened to “Old Ed”? There is hardly anything that makes the man on the street feel more helpless than a trusted institution’s fraudulent or negligent behavior. We’ve moved from “Old Ed” down at the general store who had everything … Continue reading
Have a new Team? Establish Your Working Agreement
Establishing Boundaries via Distributed Control A solid working agreement between the Scrum Master and the team is the foundation for all improvements. Accountability, courtesy or law-and-order are not the key reasons. Boundaries simply make everyone feel comfortable. Comfort comes from … Continue reading
Posted in Recent Posts, Scrum Master Stuff
Tagged Agile Scrum, Distributed Control, Larry Lawhead, project teams
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What do you see?
Learning to See Taiichi Ohno is the Japanese industrial engineer who played a major role in pioneering the Toyota Production System. When training a new manager, legend has it he drew a circle on the shop floor and have the manager … Continue reading
Can’t Stop Learning!
Passionate Learner I am hooked on learning. An explanation that finally clicked, came while taking the Gallup Strengths survey. If you’ve not taken it, do so. The easiest way is to read their book Strengths Finder 2.0. The book gives an explanation of the … Continue reading
Posted in Random Stuff
Tagged Agile Innovation, Agile Scrum, Kaizen, Larry Lawhead, product owner, Scrum Master
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New Scrum Guide – Emphasis on Values
A Classic Apple Move On July 6th the creators of the Scrum Framework (Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber) discussed their highly anticipated update. Even though the move was due to popular demand, their emphasis on Scrum Values hit me more like a … Continue reading
Posted in Product Owner Stuff, Scrum Master Stuff
Tagged Agile Scrum, Jeff Sutherland, Kaizen, Ken Schwaber, Larry Lawhead, Scrum Guide, Scrum Values
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Battleground “Innovation”
I read an interesting article this week from the Deutsche Welle. The central theme was China’s goal to be the world’s top innovator by 2030. By 2049 China also intends to lead the world in science and technology; just in … Continue reading
Why is that guy still here…?
It’s Not the Person, It’s the Process A while ago, I over heard a product owner voicing his displeasure with a team member by asking, “Why is that guy still here?” Initially my adrenaline spiked as the pressure in my … Continue reading
Posted in Scrum Master Stuff
Tagged Agile Scrum, Kaizen, Larry Lawhead, managing issues, project management, Scrum Master
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I Love my Teams!
I love managing and mentoring teams. Creating high performing teams out of groups of individuals has always been a major PM challenge and remains a distant dream for many. Discovering Agile Scrum offered just the framework I was looking for. … Continue reading
Things I love
Today’s my wedding anniversary. The occasion gives opportunity to reflect on things I love. After many project management years, I ran into Agile Scrum. The simplicity of the framework caught my attention right away. Little did I realize what lies under … Continue reading
How to Decompose a Release Plan – User Story Mapping
A while back my team overcommitted themselves on a technical debt Sprint. It became apparent we did not have a decent model to expose those pesky “unknown – unknowns”. No matter how much talking and diagramming and more talking we did, we … Continue reading
Posted in Product Owner Stuff
Tagged Agile Scrum, Larry Lawhead, planing, project management, User Story Mapping
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How to Decompose Epics & Stories
Assigning Epics effort estimates is risky business. However, since organizations usually require schedules and budgets when uncertainty is at its highest, continuously defining effort as the decomposition process evolves may work. It must be remembered, no estimate is completely accurate but this process does … Continue reading
Numbers, Time and Benchmarks
What do you value? Numbers and time are interesting. They have no value in themselves, but success is constantly measured by them. Sports teams, businesses, families and even religious organizations have their set of sacred numbers and times. Either is simply … Continue reading
Project Cost Example
Important Please read the previous post explaining this model, before reviewing the example below. This example uses the following steps. Adds employee salary, benefits and contractor fees as cost variables. Calculates how much these variables cost each week. Sets highest number of story points … Continue reading
Calculating Project Costs Using Story Points
Fibonacci Numbers & Dog Breeds? Managers using the cost accounting method to estimate projects are often lost when it comes to calculating the cost of Agile Scrum projects. Where the cost accounting method typically uses cost of time per project task as … Continue reading
Profits Falling – Don’t Panic!
Expenses vs. Income – Distracts from Finding the Real Problem When it’s all said and done any companies’ goal must be to make money. No money – no business. It’s that simple. The trick to making money is to know how … Continue reading
Posted in Random Stuff
Tagged Agile Scrum, Kaizen, Larry Lawhead, Process Improvement, Project Costs, Throughput
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The Yin and Yang of “Hacktivism”
I ran across an interesting Ted Talk by Keren Elazari about hackers. She makes some bold statements such as, “…you just can’t see something broken in the world and leave it be.” She also states “I think we need hackers, … Continue reading
Posted in Random Stuff
Tagged honesty, Larry Lawhead, PMI Code of Ethics, project management
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Neutron Jack vs. Transcendent Teams
During his tenure as CEO at GE, Jack Welch popularized a “Rank and Yank policy” by firing the bottom 10% of his managers. Some argue the downside of his scorched earth team management methodology pressured employees to cut corners. This … Continue reading
Posted in Scrum Master Stuff
Tagged Agile Scrum, Larry Lawhead, project management, project teams
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Book Review – Naked Statistics Stripping the Dread from the Data
Title – Naked Statistics Stripping the Dread from the Data Author – Charles Wheelan Publisher – W. W. Norton & Company Summary – The need for getting good data is widely understood. Bad numbers lead to bad decisions leading to bad … Continue reading
Posted in Good Books & Papers
Tagged book review, critical numbers, Larry Lawhead, project management, statistics
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Improper Planning – The Skeleton in the Closet
I had a long talk last week with a guy we will call Joe. He works for a company who has undertaken a large data conversion project. Mid way through that project the sponsors became very concerned about the project’s … Continue reading
Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds – Part Four (Test Round Scenario)
Now that we understand the overall project risk and have our project matrix in place, we are ready to actually plan our tests and follow the critical numbers. The purpose of this example is not to be entirely accurate in every … Continue reading
Posted in Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds, Quality & Value
Tagged critical numbers, Key Performance Indicators, KPI, Larry Lawhead, managing software tests, managing test rounds, project risk, project risk assessment, risk assessment, software test management, software test scenario, Software testing, software testing matrix, software testing types
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Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds – Part Three (Developing the Project Matrix)
Now that we understand how to assess the project risk, we are ready to actually plan and manage our test rounds. Since software development is a dynamic process, each level of testing must allow a great amount of flexibility. Offering … Continue reading
Posted in Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds, Quality & Value
Tagged critical numbers, Key Performance Indicators, KPI, Larry Lawhead, managing software tests, managing test rounds, project risk, project risk assessment, risk assessment, software test management, Software testing, software testing matrix, software testing types
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Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds – Part Two (Assessing Quality Assurance Risk)
“What gets measured gets managed and what gets managed gets done.” – Peter Drucker Before the project is organized and critical numbers are calculated, I recommend running a risk assessment exposing weaknesses in your quality assurance planning and processes. This analysis … Continue reading
Posted in Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds, Quality & Value
Tagged critical numbers, Key Performance Indicators, KPI, Larry Lawhead, managing software tests, managing test rounds, project risk, project risk assessment, risk assessment, software test management, Software testing
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Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds – Part One (Understanding the Nature of Software Testing)
Professor Cem Kaner J.D., PhD explains the “Impossibility of Complete Testing” in his lecture notes. This lecture mathematically demonstrates how impossible it to test all the options of a given set of enhancements. The testing straggly is to identify the … Continue reading
Managing Software Quality Assurance Test Rounds – Introduction
Thus far we have discussed two fundamental areas of testing software. These are Architecting the Environment (Principles behind setting up hardware environments.) Quality Assurance Management (Principles behind managing QA projects.) Now we are ready to discuss Managing Software Quality Assurance … Continue reading
A Balanced Approach to Software Testing
In his reconstruction speech given to Congress on April 11, 1865, Abraham Lincoln warned the nation that creating inflexible plans will, “…become a new entanglement”. The quality assurance manager can draw a number of lessons from the broader context of … Continue reading
Quality Assurance Planning – Part Five (A Final Word – Nothing trumps experience)
You will become better at planning your test cycles the more often you execute them. There is no substitute for experience. A plan is basically a prioritized list of tasks assigned to a resource. A plan is like a noun. … Continue reading
Quality Assurance Planning – Part Four (Selecting the Appropriate Test Type)
Here is how I break-down quality assurance types and what questions I ask to determine which should be included in the test cycle: Development (Have the coding architectural errors been identified and resolved? This can only done as a white … Continue reading
Quality Assurance Planning – Part Three (Acceptance Testing)
Now that the system has been tested by the developer during their unit tests, the load test is complete and the quality assurance team has successfully executed their standard and new test cases, we are ready for our restaurant’s “Pre-Opening … Continue reading
Quality Assurance Planning – Part Two (Integration & System Testing)
Integration testing is the most extensive level and the one which requires the largest portion of the test plan. At this point you should plan for a full regression test as well as functional testing to insure new features work … Continue reading
Quality Assurance Planning – Part One (Unit Testing)
Unit testing should be done by the developer and include two tests. The first of these is to walk through each line of his code to insure it works correctly. This is a normal part of the development process, however … Continue reading
Quality Assurance Planning – Introduction
“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” Dwight D. Eisenhower — These words apply to everything that is important; both personally and in business. Software testing is no exception. If you don’t formulate your plan then you have nothing. Continue reading
Book Review – The First 20 Hours
Title – The First 20 Hours Author – Josh Kaufman Publisher – Penguin Group US Summary – If you are wondering how to accomplish your desire to learn new skills or polish up on ones you have forgotten, then this book is … Continue reading
Architectures for Good Software Testing – Part Five (Production Environment)
The Production environment must be considered “sacred”. If the previous processes have been conducted thoughtfully and with a huge amount of dedication and hard work, the application that finds its home in production should make work easier for the end … Continue reading
Architectures for Good Software Testing – Part Four (Staging Environment)
The Staging Environment serves as a place to hold tested applications until deployment schedules are established. It is possible some customers will not want a certain release. It is also possible that customers cannot accommodate a release as soon as … Continue reading
Architectures for Good Software Testing – Part Three (Quality Assurance Environment)
My father-in-law was a well known Slovenian metal sculptor. He would heat, pound, weld, pound, re-heat and re-pound his scrap mettle until it became an amazing work of art. I see quality assurance in much the same light. The QA … Continue reading
Architectures for Good Software Testing – Part Two (Development Environment)
One of the most important issues with development environments is “gold plating”. To put it simply, this is when the developer tries new technologies, or approaches to make his job more interesting or challenging. If the enterprise does not allow … Continue reading
Architectures for Good Software Testing – Part One (Finding a Home)
Deploying a solution to an unsuitable environment is like dumping a newly purchased gold fish in a bowl that is several times colder than the temperature in its take home bag. The chances of our new shiny pet surviving are extremely poor. Continue reading
Architectures for Good Software Testing – Introduction
Through out history architecture and engineering has created masterful physical assets such as bridges, houses and office complexes. Some constructions such as the Barnenez (France), Sechin Bajo (Peru), Mehrgarh (Pakistan) and Pyramid of Djoser (Egypt) have lasted for thousands of … Continue reading
Book Review – The Athena Doctrine
…feminine values drive broad business benefits by creating lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with customers and communities. Continue reading
Software Development Risk Management Model
Quantifying elements that make up problems creates clear pathways to action. This sample Software Development Risk Management Model creates meaningful data offering “actionable” information. Continue reading