On April 30, 2010 I did a couple of presentations at AgileDotNet 2010 in Dallas. Here are the slides and supporting code samples from those presentations.

Our marketing team here at Improving uses Scrum on a daily basis. The team recently wrote an article about their progress. It’s an interesting read and reminds me to look around for ways to improve by noticing ideas and practices that help solve problems in other areas and disciplines.

There are a myriad of methods IT managers use to try and increase their team’s productivity, some are good and some are terrible. One of the best ways to increase productivity is to maximize the team’s sense of personal ownership of its goals.
1) Have the team make its own estimates all the time, and be very careful not to pressure them into modifying those estimates. If you’re curious about the reasoning, ask for elaboration, but never indicate you disagree. If you’re in a position of authority they …

A few years ago I worked with an organization to build computer-based-training modules to teach Java. My team and I worked with a professor from the Education Psychology department at Texas A&M to study how computer-based training could actually be effective. I think these ideas are equally as applicable to instructor-led training.
The challenge was to include content in the course if and only if it added discernible value toward the course’s objectives. To make sure the progress is discernible, we used a method of task-analysis to iteratively define finite activities …

I got my new business cards today.  Our business cards at Improving are unique, they are customized for each person including pretty much whatever text each employee wants.  My cards include a quote from Warren Buffett: “Price is what you pay, Value is what you get.”

I heard this quote a couple years ago and it has really stuck with me.  I know what it means to me, but I decided to google it today, just to see what others had to say about it.  I found a 2003 post from …

I’ve had this debate several times with other agile developers and project managers. I find myself staunchly on the side of not tracking actual effort toward tasks on an agile project.
I am assuming a few things when making this point.

The team in question is operating as a self-organized team.
As a self-organized team, the team itself is responsible for making sure its members are motivated and working efficiently.
The team’s members are trustworthy and there is no reason to believe that someone must be micromanaged to ensure they are not wasting their …