So the other day a VP asked our team for an estimate on a project. Now, putting aside whatever feelings you may have about the usefulness of estimates, we did a little planning, a little investigating, a little debating, and came up with an estimate for the project. I brought the estimate back to the VP and then the fireworks began. Apparently he had been thinking of a different number than we had given him. He wanted it done in half the time that we had forecast. Whoops. Now

If there is one thing that I would add to XP2011 I think it would be some sort of speaker evaluation system. Right now there is nothing and I think the conference organizers are missing a great opportunity for some feedback for the speakers that they invite to the conference. Of course in the absence of any conference organized feedback system, there are still some reasonable alternatives: Each speaker can gather feedback on their own in their session. That’s what we did in o

I learned a good lesson today. When tackling impediments, sometimes it pays to take on the small stuff first. Here are a few reasons why: Feedback: taking on the small issues first allows you more rapid feedback regarding your change efforts. Momentum: Building on a few small successes can make it easier to take on the bigger issues. Credibility: With each small achievement you build more credibility within the organization. If you are like me, you love a big challenge and te

The new school year is beginning and my daughter is starting first grade. I had an opportunity to go to her elementary school open house the other day. A word to the wise: never let an Agile development geek into a first grade classroom. I thought I had died and gone to information heaven. I took a camera with me and took some pictures of the kinds of information that they put on the walls in a children’s classroom. It was amazing! In the meantime, my wife fervently denied th

“Praise Sandwich” that critiques the compliment-defect-compliment model of feedback. That reminded me of another feedback technique: “Gifts and Greats”. They’ve been very popular in the Agile community for a while (I can’t recall where they came from). Just to be perfectly clear: I hate them. The technique is really quite simple: Start with the gift: some feedback that highlights a weakness or area for improvement. Preferably something painful that only one “who really cares”

Tired of doing the same old retrospective every sprint? You know how it goes: what went right/what needs improvement/action items. Are you running out of ideas for improvements? Here’s an idea: at the end of each sprint do a 360 review. Use a survey tool and have every member of the team review each other’s performance in the past sprint. Just a couple of questions would do it. A good tool would summarize the data for each team member. Then, based on that feedback, each indiv