Last week I visited a local client of mine to see how they were doing on their Agile path. I was speaking with the project manager who told me that they had ditched story points and went back to estimating in hours, as they were, “pretty much the same.” At the time I failed to  Read more »

So far we’ve looked at who motivates the Agile team, and how we can motivate them. Now it’s time to get to the nitty gritty. Still Harping on Trust I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, nothing happens without trust. I’ve seen many teams lose their motivation to do better due to a  Read more »

Scott Magdalein wrote a great post the other day titled, “Don’t be stupid, bosses are not a liability.” He talks about the disdain many have for upper management and executives. The point of the post is that bosses have value, manifested in various forms. You just have to take a step back and look at  Read more »

I’ve found that honesty is always the best policy. Honesty alone isn’t always enough though. Often times, added explanation is required. Take for instance a manager who asks if a feature is going to be delivered on time. Not taking into account whether or not you had anything to do with the date they were  Read more »

I’ve written about how customers are people not invoices, employees are not expenses, and employees are people not resources. Recently Alan Dayley ranted on the scrumdevelopment list about this same topic, and Johanna Rothman wrote an excellent response. Long story short, words matter. And they matter a lot. Since we’re on the topic of resources  Read more »

My background is in corporate IT, and for years I switched between working as a network admin, and working for consulting companies, setting up and managing networks for clients. In both cases I was working with both business and IT folks. As business evolved, the reliance on IT grew. Business process were automated, and the  Read more »

ATTENTION DEVELOPERS: If you’re being told how to do your job, then you are not Agile. I recently read a post by a developer in India – Ravi Mohan – titled Let the Agile Fad Flow By. It sounds as if Ravi has run into a manager or consultant that was trying to tell him  Read more »

Companies adopt Agile for a reason – to solve business problems. What business prroblems can Agile help solve? Well… I’ve spoken with a number of CEO’s that didn’t know what or when their teams were going to deliver. I’ll give you one guess to what that did to the dynamics in that organization. And it  Read more »

When a business views their employees as expenses trust is broken. In many companies, especially larger ones, people are seen as a labor expense to be managed. The bigger the company, the worse the problem. Companies need to focus on helping their people achieve their goals, and thus achieving the goals of the company. What  Read more »

Trust can take years to build, and moments to destroy. Communication lies at the heart of trust, and the more you communicate, the more trust you can build. Keep things to yourself, and people begin to fear for the worst. Full Transcript Hey everyone.   I’m Robert Dempsey, CEO and founder of Atlantic Dominion Solutions. And  Read more »