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Technical leadership topics learned in the field.
Blockers versus Friction
By Sean Rich & Justin Browder Agile promises hyper-productive teams with off-the-charts velocity. As we’ve learned, that’s difficult to achieve. To improve team velocity, we often focus on the removal of blockers. In fact, removing blockers is a large part of our role as Agile leaders. But there’s something even more corrosive to team productivity […]
Broken windows theory
March 12, 2012
James Q. Wilson, co-author of the 1982 article that introduced the broken windows theory, died last week. My wife called it out, saying “weren’t you telling me something about broken windows? I just read an article on the BBC that the guy who came up with theory, died.” (Maybe I talk too much about my […]
Posted in: Uncategorized
Why Agile Works – Pull Systems
February 18, 2012
I am working with a team that, as a normal practice, “pre-schedules” the highest priority stories into a future sprint instead of leaving them in the unscheduled backlog. The Product Owner and ScrumMaster get together to determine, based on the team’s historical velocity, how much work would fit into the next sprint and they’d pull […]
Posted in: Agile Development Methods
Problems versus Difficulties
July 7, 2011
I learned something tonight that would have been useful to me this morning (hate it when that happens!). I learned about the difference between problems versus difficulties. Problems have a solution. Difficulties are just those pain-causing things that we live with. As an example, in this morning’s project meeting our data architect, Sherry, let the […]
Posted in: Problem Solving
Communication Culture
April 14, 2011
Sometimes on Saturdays I’ll visit our neighborhood Starbucks to get my wife a coffee and the kids a donut. I had an interesting experience a couple Saturdays ago there. I ordered my wife a “grande soy latte, no foam (please)” and the barista repeated back to me “grande-soy-no-foam-latte?” Interesting, I thought to myself, that she […]
Posted in: General, Problem Solving
Modeling Team Empowerment
March 30, 2011
Motivated teams are productive teams. Empowerment is motivating for teams if managed correctly. If managing empowered teams were easy, then everyone would do it (the benefits are not disputed). But managing empowered teams is hard. Some managers have a hard time of “letting go” of control for fear that work won’t get done. Some managers […]
Posted in: Leadership, Quality Software Management
Simple is Hard
July 15, 2010
I’ve played soccer most of my life from the age of 5 through college and afterward. What’s known about soccer is that although it’s a relatively simple game (because it has comparatively few rules), it’s a difficult sport to master. The reason for this is that it’s so dynamic; no game – no play – […]
Posted in: Agile Development Methods
Justin Browder
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s3anrich
November 1, 2012
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