Why would a company want to invest in the Agile process? It has gone beyond the fad of the month and is becoming more mainstream in what is being done and how. There are lots of reasons that exist to be all about that Agile, but getting a company over the hump to commit to truly being Agile is nothing short of transformative. The goal is to help your teams be more communicative, efficient, effective, nimble and be able to bring products to market sooner. So, why not? Communic

The retrospective is one of the single most important ceremonies to help agile teams improve. Facilitation methods vary but can help teams d

We hear this countlessly within our Agile efforts that the most effective mode of communication is face to face. Yet increasingly the effort to minimize cost for having someone “in person” is utilized in companies around the world. Let’s visit the concept from a coaching perspective. Why does an in-person or on-site coach matter? Certain conditions must be acknowledged in this effort: Solutions such as FaceTime, Skype and countless other video conferencing tools are effective

When implementing Scrum into our workflow we don’t often think about the meaning of the word Scrum. Where did it come from? What does it stand for? Most people seem to think it’s an acronym for something. Jeff Sutherland created the framework in 1993 and he borrowed the term “Scrum” from professors Takeuchi and Nonaka’s publication in the Harvard Business Review “The New New Product Development Game” wherein they compared high performing teams to a rugby team. “In today’s

In many organizations throughout the world, Agile has become much more than a buzz word. It has become a way of operating, a way of doing things and a way of seeing success on a regular basis. With this ongoing emphasis in marketplaces throughout the world of catering products, services and options that clients will find appealing, useful and worth their time and money, how do you make sure your company is focusing on the right things now? Many solutions and companies will su

Certain species of caterpillars rely on pheromone trails to find food and shelter. Jean-Henri Fabre, a French entomologist, observed and documented these patterns. He once tricked a line of caterpillars into forming a circular trail on top of a ceramic palm vase to see how the caterpillars would behave. To his amazement, the caterpillars walked in circles for more than a week, dutifully following the pheromones in one another’s silk. They marched through stifling heat. They h

Colleges and universities are teaching Scrum and Agile throughout the country. The Scrum Alliance continues to increase offerings throughout the globe with an increased footprint. Even the Project Management Institute (PMI) is adopting more Agile techniques in the PMBOK while many other organizations trying to carve a niche out for themselves in the space of continuous learning and improvement as Agile continues to thrive throughout the world of software, manufacturing, gover