01 Oct 2024
For all the years I’ve been helping teams grow, I’ve rarely met one who felt that they were exceptional. It’s one of those quirky things where, in one conversation, the leadership will proclaim how great their teams are, and the next, pull me aside and beg for help. There are always issues, so I thought I’d write about some things I’ve noticed that turn good teams into great ones.
28 Aug 2024
While I would never say that I was some rockstar developer in my prime, I seemed to hold my own well, and folks seemed to regard my work well and ask my advice. So, I thought I’d share some of the less obvious lessons I learned along the way. Obviously, there are many things, and I’m kind of picking three, so this isn’t a complete list.
13 Aug 2024
Refactoring is one of those terms that shows up almost daily with engineering teams, yet for most, the definition is pretty loose. What’s more, that loose definition leads to actions that often have undesirable outcomes, delays, and arguments about how to handle the fallout. So, let me break down how I approach refactoring with engineers and teams.
29 Jul 2024
Some friends were discussing a post by Jeff Sutherland about how AI will make estimation easy. What I thought was odd about that post was looking at where AI would begin to replace various Scrum activities, so I thought I’d plug in a prompt to see what AI will cook up for something like a sprint planning. You can see the results below.
13 Mar 2024
At this point, I think almost everyone has heard that research shows that motivated teams perform better than those who aren’t motivated. What is often less obvious, from what I can tell, is how to motivate teams and individuals.
02 Mar 2024
I bet most of you are wondering what the word piseog is and it is pretty tricky to look up. I first encountered it in one of my favorite books, “The Once and Future King” by T.H. White. If you’ve ever watched “The Sword in the Stone” animated movie, you’ve seen the book’s first quarter. It’s a wonderful and tragic telling of the story of King Arthur. I highly recommend it.
