Agile Mindset

My favourite bit of coaching kit

It’s so important to me I keep it strapped to my body. It’s my Casio watch, from the F-19 range. Honestly, value for money, this cheap, reliable timepiece is just so easy and intuitive for me to use. And I’m talking specifically about the timer function. It’s faster than a physical timer. It’s less intrusive…

Driving Cars not Building Trains

In his book Extreme Programming Explained, Kent Beck includes a chapter of just two pages that illustrates the importance of using a metaphor to teach concepts and create healthy products.

How I Memorised the Scrum Values

When Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland added the five values of Scrum to the Scrum Guide in the 2016 iteration, it created a new, rich dimension to the framework. Much like the Agile Manifesto, having a set of values as well as more detailed principles gives the reader a sense of direction. In conditions so…

The Chatham House Rule

A simple but powerful facilitation technique developed at a unique and fascinating institution…

Writing with (Economist) Style

I’ve said elsewhere that I used to be an intelligence analyst in a risk mitigation company based in their Lloyds of London office (and occasionally in Baghdad, Aberdeen and Dubai). This role was where I first became a Product Owner (for an intelligence portal). A Cool Delivery Framework It was also where I first stumbled…

Introduce Scrum to your Organisation with a Hackathon

Agile adoptions can be messy, especially in larger organisations with a broad range of people, job roles and experiences (including bad experiences of Agility). A hackathon can offer a fast-paced, engaging and high profile experiment that can help tip the balance towards more dynamic, collaborative ways of working.