Articles

Adopting/Transitioning to Agile

Agile Light Bulb Moments
Many of us have our personal identities wrapped up in our jobs, which can make change hard, particularly in agile environments. Recognizing the power of storytelling, Michele Sliger started collecting first-person stories about how adopting agile affected individuals and what their "light bulb moment" was like. Find out how agile adoptions have changed individuals—their perceptions of agile, their leadership styles, and even their personal lives.

Selling Agile: How to Respond to Concerns from Management, the Business, and the Team
This is a white paper excerpted from Michele Sliger and Stacia Broderick's book The Software Project Manager's Bridge to Agility.

New Focus for Project Managers
Agile project managers' focus tends to shift from mediation within the team to negotiation between the team and others in the organization, as the team becomes more successful.

The Cost of Coexistence
What is the cost of having both agile and non-agile teams co-existing in the same organization? Can it even be done?

ScrumBut: Failure to Deliver
Some Scrum teams allow unfinished features to slide from one sprint into the next, creating a pattern of failure in meeting their sprint commitments—a pattern that the team considers acceptable, but I don't.

Little Scrum Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf
Half-hearted agile adoptions have led to half-hearted results, leaving organizations straddling a tipping point that they more often than not slide backwards from, back into the waterfall.

Advice for the New Leader
A story about the basics of good leadership

Traces of Agile in the Big Apple
How Rudy Giuliani's efforts as the mayor of NYC followed agile conventions

Bridging the Gap: Agile Projects in the Waterfall Enterprise
How to co-exist with non-agile departments as your team adopts agile.

You Can Teach an Old PMO Agile Tricks
A story about how PMOs adapt to an Agile environment

Fooling Around with XP
My first-person account of learning about Agile and XP

Agile Practices

Is This Chaos OK?
How agile planning meetings can look chaotic and still be productive

Questions You Should Ask
Don't stop at the five why's -- try so? and why not? as well

Sixty Steps in the Right Direction
This simple exercise illustrates the power of self-organizing teams

Discussion Toolkit
A set of phrases that come in handy in Agile team facilitation

Meeting Agenda #1
Start on time!

In Search of Commitment Clarity
A story about the importance of making and meeting realistic commitments

Miscellaneous

How Far We’ve Come
At the start of a new year, Michele Sliger looks back across the recent decades of information technology advancement—from the dawn of the personal computer to the abundance of social networking websites—and (with some pointers from Ron Jeffries and Linda Rising) ponders how those advances have impacted our view of change, software, and ourselves.

The PMI and Agile

Relating PMBOK Practices to Agile Practices
Part 4 of 4

Relating PMBOK Practices to Agile Practices
Part 3 of 4

Relating PMBOK Practices to Agile Practices
Part 2 of 4

Relating PMBOK Practices to Agile Practices
Part 1 of 4

Values and Vision

Agile Ethics and Values
Why should you consider adopting agile? Because it's the ethical thing to do.

Five Questions on Agile
A provocative opinion on Agile as a practice, and the ethics and values involved

Let Your Values Be Your Guide
How values drive behavior

Sharing the Vision
The importance of having a vision and sharing it with the entire team