Technical and personnel leadership
After I went over the various reasons why Agile may be perceived dead, or undead, it’s time to take a look on the reasons why Agile is alive – and I think it will remain so for some time. Maybe the goldrush times of Agile are over, but there are certainly some things that will stick. Let’s explore again.
Other entries in this series:
Continue reading Agile is aliveContinuing our journey in the “Agile is dead” space, I thought Halloween was the perfect date to explore the ways in which Agile is actually not just dead, but undead in many companies. If you read my earlier entry, you might have come across the thought that this was where we were heading towards. Let’s investigate further.
Other entries in this series:
Continue reading Agile is undeadThis entry is a continuation of the discussion I started yesterday. Stick long enough in any community, and over time you will hear claims about the movement being dead. For some communities, there is some reasonable truth to the claim – at a certain point in time. To others, there is not. Let’s tackle some of the background on why I think that Agile might be dead.
Other entries in this series:
Continue reading Agile is deadStick around long enough in the agile world, and sooner or later you come across the age-old discussion about whether agile is dead – as is the case at the time of me writing these lines. Just when I had that discussion again at two recent user groups, I recalled on my way back home that I had that kind of discussion about a decade ago. So, when I came home, I had to digest my old blog entries. To my surprise, I found something similar, yet, seemingly different in my blogosphere past.
Other entries in this series:
Continue reading “Agile is dead” – and I thought I had that conversation…It’s been four years since – sadly – Gerald M. “Jerry” Weinberg passed away. Ever since then, I struggled with some public mourning about him, until recently I had just the right idea. On a weekly basis, I will publish a review of a book I read that Jerry either wrote himself or is about some of his work. One of the final physical books I recall reading is about Jerry’s work, not written by him, but by his students: The Gift of Time, edited by Fiona Charles with contributions from James Bach, Michael Bolton, Esther Derby, Naomi Karten, Tim Lister, Johanna Rothman, Dani Weinberg, his wife, and more. My copy of the book is copyrighted in 2008 and published by Dorset House.
It’s been four years since – sadly – Gerald M. “Jerry” Weinberg passed away. Ever since then, I struggled with some public mourning about him, until recently I had just the right idea. On a weekly basis, I will publish a review of a book I read that Jerry either wrote himself or is about some of his work. For today, I picked Amplifying your Effectiveness, edited by Jerry, James Bach, and Naomi Karten. It contains collected essays from authors attending the AYE conference format that Jerry co-organized for a couple of decades. My copy of the book is copyrighted in 2000 and published by Dorset House.
It’s been four years since – sadly – Gerald M. “Jerry” Weinberg passed away. Ever since then, I struggled with some public mourning about him, until recently I had just the right idea. On a weekly basis, I will publish a review of a book I read that Jerry either wrote himself or is about some of his work. Today, we continue the topic of consulting as I picked More Secrets of Consulting – The Consultant’s Tool Kit published by Dorset House in 2002.
A colleague of mine shared something online that got my brain working. Just earlier I pointed out a lesson to another coach that I learned from Diana Larsen regarding errors or failures.
Let’s dig into this.
Continue reading Celebrate failureI found this old draft blog entry while going through some older blog entries. Since this has been laying around for many years now, I figured, it should be time to publish it now. Enjoy.
A couple of years ago Michael Bolton started a blog series on testing and management mistakes, to which I contributed four follow-up blog entries with an introduction, replacing blaming with placating, congruent responses, and causes. All of this was based on a single psychological model, or better, my understanding of it after having read through most of Jerry Weinberg’s work.
Recently I started to dive into some topics in psychology. While working through work from Schulz von Thun, I remembered this series when I crossed the idea of the inner team. I decided to revisit the original conversation and discuss it in the light of the inner team.
Schulz von Thun describes the inner team as a collective of personalities that each of us develops and carries with us. In any conversation, we face the struggle of forces for or against an argument. We also have a team leader, which could be stronger developed with some of us, or weaker, thereby yielding to different responses – sometimes even incongruent ones depending on the inner team member that cries the loudest at any given time.
Let’s revisit the conversation of the project manager asking a tester to work over the weekend, and take a closer look at the inner team within this tester.
Continue reading Testing and Management Mistakes: The Inner TeamIt’s been four years since – sadly – Gerald M. “Jerry” Weinberg passed away. Ever since then, I struggled with some public mourning about him, until recently I had just the right idea. On a weekly basis, I will publish a review of a book I read that Jerry either wrote himself or is about some of his work. Today, I picked An Introduction to General Systems Thinking in its 25th-anniversary edition published by Dorset House Publishing in 2001, the original being published in 1975.
