The book Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister has been released in a 3rd edition, and the topics addressed in it are still very important. Software development is about people: when, how and where they can work together. If you truly are concerned with people, and looking for ways to improve how you collaboratively develop and deliver software, then this book is a must read.
What can agile projects do to improve collaboration between teams, and increase their contributions in the project? Doing retrospectives of retrospectives is a way to share learnings across a project, and to solve problems that a project is facing.
Als een een probleem moet worden opgelost bedenkt men vaak zelf iets nieuws Leren van collega’s gebeurd te weinig. Waarom zijn nog steeds zoveel mensen bezig om het wiel opnieuw uit te vinden? Er zijn wielen zat, in alle soorten en maten, dus laten we ze (her)gebruiken om ermee te gaan rijden!
A 1 word retrospective is a technique that helps if a team is struggling with the way they collaborate, or if there are issues which are not dealt with. All team members state in 1 word how they feel about the sprint, and a discussion is facilitated. It is an effective way for the team to discuss what is hampering them, and agree on how to deal with it and get it out of the way.
Retrospectives bring benefits to Agile teams, they help them to improve and deliver value to their customers and the company. This first article in the series Retrospective Benefits explores how you can benefit from retrospectives, by getting improvement actions that will be done by the agile team.
The book The Clean Coder by Robert C. Martin is about attitude and discipline in software development. Robert explores how soft skills matter in IT, how people communicate and collaborate and develop their skills to become a professional programmer.
Wat kan Scrum doen voor de kwaliteit van producten en diensten, en hoe kan samenwerking met de gebruikers zorgen voor een betere kwaliteit?
In deze gastblog laat Wendy Geurkink zien wat organisaties kunnen doen om klantgerichter te worden, en hoe co-creatie en samenwerking dmv the workimprovers connection daaraan bijdraagt.
IT is viewed by many people as being something technical. They have a vision of managers with lot's of plans, documents and spreadsheets, and nerds that are sitting behind their computer doing the "real work". It may be out there, but I don't see it that often. What I see are people working together to deliver software solutions that work, which help their customers in their daily work, and deliver business value to the company. Communication and collaboration are essential to make people and teams successful. So for me, soft skills really matter in IT!
Is het wel zo erg als er een keer iets fout gaat? Als het fout kan gaan, laat dat dan maar zo snel mogelijk gebeuren, want dan kun je er van leren. Creëer een cultuur waarin falen mag, samen op weg naar minder fouten!
A list of the success factors that helped organizations to get Scrum implemented and used, and to make a difference.
To do small changes, or to get an improvement journey started in an organization, I use a short cycled "observe and change" approach, that consists of a couple of hours of observation with a 1 page feedback and change advice.