Influence Diagram Episode

I discovered influence diagrams several years ago in an Appendix in Kent Beck’s Test Driven Development by Example book. I love the concept and find myself routinely drawing this influence diagram to help enterprises see that more onerous project management isn’t the answer to failed projects or an IT organization not delivering business value. Then I offer agile/Scrum as a way to break the death-spiral.

Defined vs. Empirical Episode

While this is not an original drawing by any means (I think it exists in the Certified Scrum Master training materials), it can be an effective way to introduce plan oriented people to empirical or experienced based approaches like agile/Scrum.

Individuals & Interactions Episode

The Agile Manifesto leads with valuing "individuals and interactions over processes and tools." This is something I find myself drawing on whiteboards to gently coax people who may be leaning towards tools in their agile adoptions back towards individuals and interactions.

Customer Collaboration Episode

In this episode I’m going to talk about, why product owners, on-site customers, real customer involvement and users on your team are essential ingredients to successful agile projects.

Extreme Programming Explained, 1st edition, cited “on-site customer” as one of its practices. The 2nd edition built upon this concept and advocated “real customer involvement” and having actual users on the development team.

Similarly, Scrum identifies the “product owner” as one of the critical roles on a Scrum team. Clearly both Scrum and Extreme Programming recognize the need and benefits of filling this type of role on agile projects.

In my experience, the greatest benefit of this product owner role or user involvement concept is in the collaboration that takes place as a result. This is summed up nicely in the Agile Manifesto as valuing “Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.”