Upcoming agile events in June (DARE, Agile world, Scrum day)

Some interesting upcoming agile events in June

Yesterday I got an nice information from Jurgen Appelo about the upcoming Dare 2013 and I thought to provide a short overview about interesting events regarding AGILE in June.

DARE 2013

Jun 14-15, Dare 2013 (Antwerp, Belgium)

I guess this will be really a cool conference. Already their layout of the conference web page is amazing. And the location in the Hangar 26 seems to be an outstanding location.

Maybe we meet each other there. I reserved my tickets already yesterday ;-)

AGILE WORLD

Jun 26-27, Agile World (Neubiberg, Germany)

A free conference near Munich - but at the moment it's already fully booked. But there is a chance to get a ticket by putting yourself on a waiting list.

SCRUM DAY 2013

Jun 11-12, Scrum Day 2013 (Berlin, Germany)

With speakers Jeff Sutherland and Dean Leffingwell. 


Do you have more recommendations? 

Leave a comment and share it with us ;-)

Weekly Scrum readings follow up - CW7+8+9/2013 (Personal Kanban, Management 3.0, Metrics, Employee handbook)

Background

This time you'll find inspiring input on designing an employeer handbook, how to organize yourself by considering Henrik Kniberg's presentation, some input for hiring and more about using agile metrics.

• An Appropriate Use of Metrics (Blog Post by Martin Fowler)
• Valve’s employee handbook is as inspiring as the games it makes (Manual by Valve)
• Stop starting, start finishing (Presentation by Henrik Kniberg)
• 10 Crucial Questions Agile Developers Should Ask Employers (Blog post)
• Management 3.0 seminar and Munich Stammtisch

Impressions from the awesome management 3.0 course with Juergen Dittmar

My last 2 days where full of impressions and learnings about the new way of management. I took the management 3.0 course hosted by Juergen Dittmar based on Jurgen Appelo's management 3.0 ideas.

One and a half year ago I read the amazing book Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders (Addison-Wesley Signature) and was fascinated by all the fresh ideas Jurgen described. That time I was working as a ScrumMaster and already used some of the ideas in my daily work. But...

ScrumMaster. Clarify roles to boost your teams productivity!

Background

Did you ask yourself - What's going on here? Why don't we come to a decision? Why is this task pending forever? Who are all the attendees in this meeting? ...

Unclear roles cause unclear situations and produce a lot of waste! 

Reading this post you'll find some answers on situations to watch for role conflicts, possible solutions and consequences if you don't take the responsibility. 

Playing Jurgen Appelo's moving motivators with Scrum teams (Team development)

Background

You're a ScrumMaster or in a role interested in developing teams? You heard about intrinsic motivation and would like to understand your current state of motivation in the team?

Based on Jurgen Appelo's fascinating game Moving Motivators this post explains how you can play it with your (Scrum) teams. Find a detailled step by step description and some helpful tools and have some fun time with your teams.

Weekly Scrum readings follow up - CW05+06/2013 (Productivity, Teams, Responsibilities)

Background

The past 2 weeks were a bit busy with inspiring feedback talks and a nice workshop with Andre Häusling. Readings were about cross functional teams, problems with multitasking, human responsibilities, agile architecture and productivity.

Readings Overview

• Cross functional team - building a shopping cart (Youtube video)
• What multitasking does to our brains (Post by Leo Widrich)
• Amazing animations by RSA Animate
• The principles of agile architecture (Alex Yakyma and Dean Leffingwell)
• Universal declaration of human responsibilities
• The science of productivity (YouTube) 

Weekly Scrum readings follow up - CW02-04/2013 (Career development, Stifle innovation, Comraderie, Motivate, Meeting killers)

Background

The past 3 weeks my readings followed the direction career path, innovation and motivation. 

This time you'll find a collection of nice and compact resources about leadership, agile carrer development, Love-Comraderie-Adventure and innovation.

Readings Overview

• Lessons learned in agile career development (Slides by Ionel Condor)
• Love-Comraderie-Adventure ... The spirit of Scrum (Post by Joe Little)
• Rethinking how to motivate at work (18' TED talk by Dan Pink)
• Meet the meeting killers (Post by Sue Schellenbarger)
• Nine rules for stifling innovation (Post by Rosabeth Moss Kanter)
• The Key Missing Ingredient In Leadership Today (Post by Denning) 

Weekly Scrum readings follow up - CW01/2013 (Agile Atlas, Team traps, Agile Guide as a subway plan, management secret)

Background

The first week in 2013 passed with interesting input regarding agile management. Through exploring I found a cool agile practice subway and stumbled upon an good talk about team traps by Esther Derby.

Readings Overview

• Agile Atlas (Scrum Guide)
• Guide to Agile Practice (cool subway plan by agilealliance)
• The Best-Kept Management Secret On The Planet: Agile (A series of posts by Steve Denning)
• Surprising science behind agile leadership (Slides by Jonathan Rasmusson)
• Team Traps (Nice talk by Esther Derby)
• Refreshed Agile - Scrum's foundation - between becoming an endangered mainstream buzzword and it's evolution to THE management driver (check out my previous post about agile)

Refreshed Agile - Scrum's foundation - between becoming an endangered mainstream buzzword and it's evolution to THE management driver

Background

VersionOne, Inc. [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Today I face the word AGILE everywhere. Often it seems to me that its not clear what it means to be AGILE and to use agile development. With this post I try to contribute to refresh the meaning of agile.

• It starts with a broad definition of agile
• followed by why working agile is beneficial
• next with some agile myths uncovered
• combined with Scrum - as Scrum's foundation
• a description of enablers for working agile
• it's latest evolutions
• closed by a rich set of further readings.

Weekly Scrum readings follow up - CW52/2012 (Way to Agile, Personal Development, Work Expo, Books)

Background

This week passed with some interesting sources about book recommendations for 2012 and the work expo by Jurgen Appelo, a nice daily update on Agile by Gil Broza. 

Readings Overview

• 12 recommended books by Jurgen Appelo (Blog post by Jurgen Appelo)
• Johanna Rothman's Three Tips for 2013 (Blog post)
• Work Expo (Pdf by Jurgen Appelo)
• The New Economics For Industry, Government & Education (Book summary for the book of Edward Deming)
• 22 Killer Personal Development Resources You’re Missing Out On (Stumble Upon Post)
• Something Happened on the Way to Agile (20-day, email-based mini-program by Gil Broza)

Weekly Scrum readings follow up - CW51/2012 (Metrics, Performance Appraisals, Software in 30 days)

Background

Again a week of learning and cross reading with the resulting hub connection. This weeks topics covered/started - performance appraisals, metrics - continued, productivity tools and Scrum input for the management. 

Readings Overview

• Performance management for agile people (Blog post by Tech Well)
• Hyperproductive metrics (Webinar by Jeff Sutherland)
• Discovered Zemanta, Spring Pad and GetPocket
• Software in 30 Days: How Agile Managers Beat the Odds, Delight Their Customers, And Leave Competitors In the Dust
• Started reading of Abolishing Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead

Weekly Scrum readings follow up - CW50/2012 (Metrics - Measure up, Pay for performance, Story Points)

Background

This week was full with readings in the direction metrics. As the year ends and performance reviews and setting new goals and objectives is knocking on the door - a lot of reading investment went in this direction. 

I finally finished reading  The Human Side of Agile - How to Help Your Team Deliver and Real life Scrum (Minibook on InfoQ by Jesper Boeg). Book notes are provided soon ;-)

Readings Overview

• Appropriate Agile Measurement: Using Metrics and Diagnostics to Deliver Business Value (Pdf by Deborah Hartmann and Robin Dymond)
• Measure up (Essay by Mary Poppendieck)
• Measuring Process Improvements – Cycle Time? (Blog post by Mishkin Berteig)
• Agile estimating (Presentation and Youtube Video with Mike Cohn)
• Pay for performance and evidence based management (Pdf by Jeffrey Pfeffer)

To commit or not commit - that's the questions here

Background

Following the Scrum guide the sprint commitment is now transformed into the sprint forecast - and again my previous way of thinking about the commitment evolves.   

"However, enough work is planned during the Sprint Planning Meeting for the Development Team to forecast what it believes it can do in the upcoming Sprint"

"In this part, the Development Team works to forecast the functionality that will be developed during the Sprint"

Having read many posts titled like "The sprint commitment is dead", "We don't need a sprint commitment" this post explains my current way of thinking about it (to be honest I prepared writing about the sprint commitment - but let's move forward and transform it to the sprint forecast). 

Weekly Scrum readings follow up - CW49/2012

Background

The last week passed with reading in various areas. I learned more about How to help Melly?, found an amazingly simple and nice summary of the Product Owner Role and scanned various cool games to play with your team. Velocity and team commitment followed and are adressed in my next post. Last but not least to mention the mini book Real Life Scrum.

Readings Overview

• Real life Scrum (Minibook on InfoQ by Jesper Boeg)
• Lets help Melly (Presentation on Slideshare by Jurgen Appelo)
• Linking Agile to HR theory (Blog Post by Mike from Leading Answers)
• Agile Product Ownership in a nutshell (Youtube sketching video by Henrik Kniberg)
• Various cool games to play with your teams (Game collection portal)

Avoid technical debt and address software architecture in Scrum with the help of team architects

Background

It took us some time to figure out a good way of handling architectural topics within our Scrum environment. In this post I'd like to share how we deal with technical debt vs. feature development, how teams contribute to the architecture and our way of syncing on architectural topics across the teams.

Weekly Scrum readings follow up - CW48/2012

Background

This time you can follow my readings about agile metrics, the professional ladder (HR) and a nice input how to improve your way of doing code reviews. In the middle - find the relaxing moment ;-)

Readings Overview

• Agile Metrics (Pdf presentation by Danube technologies), Running Tested Features Metric (Blog post)
• I stumbled upon - stumble upon and started reading about 50 life secret tips and as it's the web ende in the fascinating world of alternative sleep methods and a cool speed reading software
  http://www.
  . ?
• Peer Code review: An Agile Process (Pdf overview by SmartBear)
• Just enjoy and relax for a short moment (click and see)
• Professional ladder (Blog post), 12 steps to better code (Blog post)
• 5 reasons your top employee isn't happy (Blog post)  

Weekly Scrum readings follow up - CW47/2012

Background

It's time for the 2nd weekly Scrum reading post. This time around creativity, incentives, agility and decision helpers.

Readings Overview

• How to build a high performance agile team (Blog post by Michael Lant)
• Agile Transition - What you need to know before starting (Pdf by Andrea Tomasini, Martin Kearns)
• Software development and creativity (Blog post by Michael Lant)
• Do you hire for IQ or Klout score (Blog post by Andrew Razeghi)
• The Future of Innovation (Minibook by Andrew Razeghi)

Foster innovation by creating a learning and social networking environment for your teams

Background

How many new ideas did your team have during the past 6 months? And how many were transformed to innovations? 

With this post I'll try to share thoughts on becoming more innovative by building an environment that supports learning and social networking - as an important driver for innovation and being agile.

Weekly Scrum readings follow up - CW46/2012

Background

See this kind of post as an experiment, how to best spread my favorite readings of Scrum related input and gain possible input for additional valuable sources from the agile community - meaning YOU. Along with this I'd like to avoid spamming - therefore let's start with summarizing it weekly and having only the top 5 readings listed.

Readings Overview

• Combine scrum roles in one person (Web-Article at Heise,language: German)
• The Human Side of Agile - How to Help Your Team Deliver (Book, Author: Gil Broza)
• Scrum Metrics for Hyperproductive Teams (Pdf by Jeff Sutherland, Scott Downey)
• 6 Rules for awards - Kudo box (Blog-Post by Jurgen Appelo)
• Enterprise Scrum: Scaling Scrum to the Executive Level (Pdf by Daniel R. Greening)

Evolving sprint planning II - split only stories that you start working on

Background

During our agile journey we discussed and tried various improvements to the way we do our sprint planning II - the Scrum artefact to get to the tactical sprint level and decide how the implementation for stories looks like in detail. 

Since about one year we made good experiences, only splitting stories on top of the sprint backlog - this post explains benefits and drawbacks of this approach.