Archive - November 2010

A big thank you to the presenters at last night's event Your Organisation in their Hands. It was an excellent evening which I really enjoyed. I was particularly interested in the presentation by Steve Dale and his practical advice regarding the development of online Communities of Practice (CoP).

24

NOV

Backlog or Yule Log?

24 NOV 2010 | Posted in agile approach, agile governance, scrum | Author Rob Smith | 3 Comments

I've just left a meeting in which the programme manager asked a senior business manager, "are those your backlog projects?".  "No" was the response, "they're the projects we'll run next year".  Much hilarity ensued but after the common vernacular from Scrum was explained the Business Manager pointed out "Backlog sounds negative, it implies that work should have been done but hasn't been completed".

I raised this in the IndigoBlue office to be told that others have encountered this issue. Perhaps it's something we should address. Is it time for a new name?

I've just been watching Euan Semple's "Do Lecture" - Real Work on the use of social media in large companies.

He has some great stories from his time as Head of Knowledge Management at the BBC and from his current work as a social media evangelist

03

NOV

Measuring success?

03 NOV 2010 | Posted in agile governance, agile project management, incremental delivery, metrics | Author Rob Smith | 1 Comment

We're often asked how we measure the success of an Agile adoption. In reality this is difficult. The definition of success is subjective and dependent upon the prevailing context, and there is often an absence of a baseline for measurement.