New(s)

Doc List writes about one of my favorite activities on his blog, Circle of Questions. I added a few comments there as well.

Jim Shore posted on his blog about two courses, The Art of Agile Planning and The Art of Agile Development, that he and I will take to Europe this spring. He's put in photos and and comments from evaluations when we held the class last October. Participants said nice things, like "The facilitators were excellent! I really enjoyed the 'jump in and swim' approach to applying what we learned as we went."

Since Jim did such a great job, I'm not going to try to duplicate it. I'll just send you here to read about it.

In this video from the ÖreDev conference, I present some ideas about the changing role of managers in organizations that have adopted Agile methods.

I've been on the road a lot and away from my blog lately. I'm glad to be back and happy to announce the latest iteration of:

Secrets of Agile Teamwork: Beyond Technical Skills

February 24-26, 2009, at the Kennedy School in Portland, Oregon.

Invest in three days with Esther Derby and me learning the interpersonal tools and skills that support highly collaborative software development.

Improve team communications, learn how to give and get feedback in a way that builds strong working relationships, identify and navigate conflict, and help grow your team.

We'll be back at the Kennedy School in Portland, Oregon...complete...

As the chair of the Agile Alliance board over the last year, I’ve had lots of occasion to think about the effect of group values and principles on work. This pondering led me to invent a new activity for the the “Gather Data” phase of retrospectives.

Instructions for Values Activity:

Have plenty of sticky-notes available. I like the 4”x4” super-sticky kind. Accompany the sticky notes with black, broad-line felt tip marking pens. I like the water-based kind that don’t bleed through the paper, but permanent ones will work too.

Ask team members to pair up or get in...