Retrospective Exercises

Feedback is a cornerstone of Agile approaches. It's the important pause teams regularly take to "inspect-and-adapt", to learn and improve.  Great retrospectives have a way of really getting a team to work together and to energize them ahead of a new challenge. Running one retrospective is easy, but even a good retrospective can become boring in time.  There are lot’s of creative, amazing and fun ways to do retrospectives. Here is a fine collection as recommended by  the agile world professionals.

Dialogue Mapping - Another Fine Collaborative Tool

“Dialogue Mapping is a radically inclusive facilitation process that creates a diagram or ‘maps' that during the discussion in a meeting, captures participants' comments as a meeting conversation unfolds. Dialogue Mapping creates forward progress in situations that have been stuck; it clears the way for robust decisions that last. It is effective because it works with the non-linear way humans really think, communicate, and make decisions…”

In this Roojoom will cover the technique a long with some examples and real “how-to’s”.

Enjoy :)

One Piece Flow - There is no Place for Problems to Hide

One-Piece flow is one of the most important principles of lean manufacturing. In simple words it means To finish building one product before starting to build the next. That is, the right parts can be made in the right quantity at the right time. Once work on a product begins, it should never go back into storage, and it should never stop moving until it is a finished product.  This principle leads to the elimination of batches. When we eliminate batches, we complete a product sooner. Let’s explore what  is it and how it works (Including its implementation in software development).

Lean Humor Collection

Lean can also be fun. Here’s a Roojoom with a fine collection of lean humor, funny production lines and more lean related amusing videos. I usually use that stuff during workshops and training sessions.

So… Enjoy

What Moves the World Forward? The Production Lines.

I love production lines; i think assembly line is one of the important invention ever. Its the motion that moves the world forward and without this continues flow of material to product we would have been left with a lot less then we have today: from food , to machines, technology, close , house and whatever you may think of. I like the way people think of improvements, team work and early feedback as part of having a better and efficient production line.  Here is a collection of my favorite with some of the finest exists, new technologies and production line brake throe and .. Some oldies.

Dealing with The unknown? You can "Spike" your Backlog

Spikes are a really good way for teams to figure out stuff that they don't know and need to know in order to understand the complexity so that it can be properly estimated, or quoted on or simply to find out if something is technically possible or not. [agilebuddy]. The work is not focused on the finished product. It may even be designed to be thrown away at the end. When do you need a spike? When no shippable product is the goal,  What god comes out of it after all?

Are you limited by Yesterday’s Tester Job Defininition?

Automated testers?! Everything changes for them. What is that new mindset expected form them? How are they expected to integrate a good automation framework with agile concepts? what are the “new” skills needed?  and how do they deal with all types of tests in the agile environment?  JoEllen had this to say: "Be aware of the change in mindset/culture. Experiment with modern tools. Keep the big picture of the application in mind and consider individual user stories within the bigger context. Think holistically, and encourage the rest of the team to do so as well."

Agile & Scrum Smells

Scrum Smells are signs that something might be wrong. Those are symptoms in a process 'that possibly indicates a deeper problem.  It doesn’t always mean the bad smell is indicative of a true problem, but most times it is" [charlesbradley]. Here's a fine collection from the web of more than just a few scrum smells.