James Yoxall
User experience of agile project: I have never known a project to develop at such a rate."
- Bio
Process Director
Joint founder of IndigoBlue. He has over 25 years IT project experience. He started his career at Logica and worked with numerous global companies including Shell Oil, Deutsche Bank, Reuters and JP Morgan. He is experienced in a number of roles, including Projects Director, Project Manager and Chief Architect.
James is one of the foremost Agile consultants in Europe and has led a number of large-scale Agile adoption programmes including Specsavers, IFDS and Aviva.
Amongst other speaking engagements, James presented the keynote at the Agile Business Conference 2011 - Delivering Agile in Government; Learning Lessons from the Commercial Sector.
My Most Recent Posts
What's in a Story (Part 2)?
27 APR 2012 | Posted in agile value, incremental process, story | Author James YoxallIn a previous blog I raised some objections to the acronym INVEST, a widely-used definition of what a good story should be. In this post I introduce the alternative acronym that we use: VISIT. But more importantly I provide a concrete and rigorous definition of a story.
The acronym VISIT stands for:
Agile Business Conference Keynote
13 OCT 2011 | Posted in Agile Business Conference 2011, agile governance, agile principles, incremental delivery, uncertainty management | Author James YoxallI had the privilege of presenting a keynote at the Agile Business Conference last week "Delivering Agile in Government; Learning Lessons from the Commercial Sector", together with Jerrett Myer of the IfG (Institute for Government).
Agile in the Cricket World Cup?
25 MAR 2011 | Posted in agile reporting, project velocity | Author James YoxallWith the cricket world cup in full swing (but with games taking place during the working day) I have discovered that you can get a very accurate picture of the ebb and flow of a game simply by checking the standard graphs.
Somewhat bizarrely, this proved very useful in a conversation with a governance group I am working with when discussing the relative merits of different ways of reporting velocity.
There still seems to be confusion around what exactly a Story is, and how you differentiate between good and bad Stories. There are existing answers out there, but there is still too much vagueness. This is the first post in a series proposing a more definitive answer.
The de facto criteria for stories is the acronym INVEST. When an organisation we are supporting tried to use INVEST though, we found ourselves resorting to phrases like: "it should only be used as a guide". This is an unsatisfactory situation.
So what are the problems with INVEST?
Does Agile Reduce Design?
21 DEC 2010 | Posted in agile engineering, design | Author James YoxallI often hear the complaint that Agile reduces the amount of design possible on a project. The typical scenario cited is that design work has had to be "cut short" because the developers are ready to play the story. I get the image of a nest full of baby birds clamouring for food.
The intent is quote the opposite: Agile should increase the amount of design, but decrease the amount that occurs up-front. This requires a fundamental mindset shift: design is not synonymous with up-front design.
I have been doing some work recently applying Agile techniques on a business process reengineering project. This has led to some thoughts on what I am calling the "Solution Gap".
I see the Solution Gap as the gap between the intended value of a system and the solution that is supposed to deliver that value.
The Solution Gap is particularly significant when the intended value is people-oriented. IT systems are a good example of this. An IT system might be intended to make people's work more efficient, or it might be intended to engage with people more effectively. People however do not react in consistent, obvious, or predictable ways.
MY RECENT BLOG POSTS
In a previous blog I raised some objections to the acronym INVEST, a widely-used definition of what a good story should be. In this post I introduce the alternative acronym that we use: VISIT. But more importantly I provide a concrete and rigorous definition of a story.
The acronym VISIT stands for: