Agile Complexification Inverter

Just imagine proper form and you can increase strength in your pinky finger 35%. Imagine Increased Muscle Strength!-Experiment In a fascinating experiment, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation discovered that a muscle can be strengthened just by thinking about exercising it. For 12 weeks (five minutes a day, five days per week) a team of 30 healthy young adults imagined either using the muscle of their little finger or of their elbow flexor. Dr. Vinoth Ranganathan  and his team asked the participants to think as strongly as they could about moving the muscle being tested, to make the imaginary movement as real as they could. Compared to a control group – that did no imaginary exercises and showed no strength gains – the little-finger group increased their pinky muscle strength by 35%. The other group increased elbow strength by 13.4%. What's more, brain scans taken after the study showed greater and more focused activity in the prefrontal cortex than before. The rese...

What is the difference between a test and an experiment? I propose that in the 21st century and the realm of software development that these definitions must morph to our needs.  There is little difference in the general definition. Yet many people in quality control or quality assurance departments appear to dislike the word experiment.   Defining actions a person takes to perform a 'test-case' as an experiment appears to rankle feathers.   I find this interesting. Test - (verb) take measures to check the quality, performance, or reliability of (something), esp. before putting it into widespread use or practice. Experiment - (verb) perform a scientific procedure, esp. in a laboratory, to determine something. I would like to define that within the modern software world that the word test have a more specific meaning.  I propose: Test - (verb) a highly repeatable measure to check the quality, performance or reliability of (something), esp. before (somethi...

A typical impediment sticky annotating the blocked task. Just making an impediment list is not good enough.  Yes, it is a start.  But only the start.  Raising impediments at the daily stand-up meeting shows that a team is mature enough to recognize that all problems are better solved in the light of day.  Problems are easier to solve when more than one person is working on the issue.  One of the first steps to getting multiple people working on an impediment is to make it known to the team. Yet this is the start, not the end of the process.  Yes many newbie teams believe that the Scrum Master's job is to resolve these impediments.  That is a wonderful misconception and will work for a while as the newbie team learns the power of an agile mindset.  But only the maturing teams learn that it is their job to remove these impediments. So what are 7 aspects on a great impediment card living on the top of your impediment list? Title - th...

Agile Games 2012 conference in Cambridge. " The Marshmallow Challenge is a remarkably fun and instructive design exercise that encourages teams to experience simple but profound lessons in collaboration, innovation and creativity." David presenting the challenge at Agile Games conference. Watch Tom Wujec's TED.com talk about his many experiences with this exercise.   Agile Games 2013 ! See Also:   Results Oriented Web conference Marshmallow Challenge workshop Don't mistake the Marshmallow Challenge with the Marshmallow Test by Walter Mischel.  One is a design challenge - the other is an experiment designed to see if personality traits such as self-control are malleable. Cephalopods Have Passed a Cognitive Test Designed For Human Children Cuttlefish were given a new version of the marshmallow test, and the results may demonstrate that there's more going on in their strange little brains than we knew.

Pictures from a recent Product Owner Scrum Immersion workshop. Agenda for Scrum Immersion workshop Here are some Panoramas of the simulated sprints (also see photosynths ). what do you want to get out of a Scrum adoption by the team? Scrum Immersion simulation roadmap What we learned at the Global Sales Conference Clients - Wish list (that's not a backlog) Management "launches" a new team Project plan - simulation of 2 product releases What is Agile Release Planning Release Planning - a simulation Product Backlog (has Size & ranked for business value delivery) Sprint Planning (the What & the How) Sprint 1 - Bootstrap team's capacity to forecast unknown velocity A schematic of a 5 min. Simulated Sprint 15 sec. for a simulated Stand-up meeting The prime directive - DO IT! 5 min. for Simulation Sprint review meetings 2 sprints then Release 1 - demo with Cu...

Compare Titanic to Costa Concordia :: 100 yrs apart - what have we learned? Titanic has 19th century tech but barely able to use it to the fullest ( wireless radio - morse code - very small message payload - poor distress procedures & discipline in industry).  Used 18th c. tech - flares to signal distress - but ignored by closest vessel.  Left the ship watches binoculares in port (I've done that).  Capt'n made errors in judgement - full steam ahead through known ice flow with no binos on watch... stupid move. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-extraordinary-story-of-the-titanic http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/costa_concordia The Costa Concorda's captain made several big blunders in judgement.  He may wish he had gone down with his ship, as Capt'n Smith of the Titanic did. While both captains made blunders of judgement, the state of the art of sea distaster has changed in 100 years.  The two disasters are not very compara...

So I hear someone say: My company is not thinking of hiring Scrum Masters for the current Scrum adoption initiative that is underway. We appear to have plenty of Project Managers (yet that community believes they need more "heads"). Yes, "heads" is the unit of measure for our "resources."  So the apparent logic that I have explained to me - because I'm just too illogical to arrive at the obvious is ... we will just let the PMs do the SM roll. Right, no problem there. It shouldn't take too much time to do the Scrum Master's job... just a few meetings and that silly 15 minute stand-up each day. Yep - that's the plan. So now lets look at one metric and ask ourselves why this trend is happening.  Let's compare salaries of Scrum Masters to Project Managers.  You can get the   latest info via  Indeed.com .   data from Indeed Salary survey   David Bland (Scrumology) did this some time back and reported that a SM in 2009 average...

How frequently do you revise the training that you give people?  I try to change something each time I present.  Purposefully mutate the presentation, then reflect on the outcome.  These are not scientific experiments, more intuition based  learning - which I believe is very worth while.  So one technique that helps me to change the presentation is to not use computer generated slides (Power Point). With slide decks - one may change an individual slide an assess if it was better or worse; however when one creates unique artifact each time it will naturally mutate.  Some times for the better, sometimes for simplicity, and at times for the worst.  Yet with a flip chart artifact, if it is unclear, you can just pull out a marker and fix it in real-time.  And you may learn what will improve the artifact the next time you use it. Some people don't like the high amount of time required to create posters for a cours...

Are the capabilities of a CEO leader similar to the leadership needs of a ScrumMaster or Agile team leader?  I think they are very similar.  And if so then the risk factors that are associated with CEO succession planning would also effect the Scrum team's succession planning (assuming anyone is concerned about the leadership changes to a Scrum team). So let's look for the fractal nature of self similar systems within the Agile company. Here are the top risk factors for CEO succession planning. "Of the top 11 factors HR executives cited as the most common causes for CEO succession failure, eight pertained to deficiencies in interpersonal skills -- failure to build relationships and a team environment, a mismatch for the corporate culture, inability to win company support, being egotistical, not flexible, poor management skills, poor communication and lack of political savvy."  ( p. 51, Chief Learning Officer, Apr. 2012 www.CLOmedia.com ) Source: Chal...

Agile Palooza - at Sabre HQ - March 8th. The Agile Coaches table at Sabre's Agile Palooza had a guest, Lance Dacy, Founder of DFW Scrum . The person responsible for the "Agile Palooza plan coming together" Charlsi, with the leadership, Chuck & Lisa. Overall feedback was very positive. Some of the feedback on the sessions - I think we call that a success!