Feedback
I just read this article at cio.com. It had some excellent advice about how to give, and how not to give, feedback to others in the workplace. Feedback is one of the most powerful tools in a manager’s...
View ArticleComplaints!
Heads up! The Chief Happiness Officer is urging people to complain at work. His point is that complaining in a constructive way can make the workplace better. Fair enough, but what if you are a new...
View ArticleMy First Meeting at Geekaplex
It was a bad day at Geekaplex. A star developer’s computer had crashed hard, taking a week’s worth of new source code with it. The big boss was furious! How could it be that there was only one copy of...
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A Different Kind of Tolerance in the Workplace
Dannyman pointed out this quote from William L. McKnight, past Chairman of the Board at 3M. As our business grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to delegate responsibility and to encourage men and...
View ArticleCompliments – Positive Feedback
Compliments and criticism are the two edges of the feedback sword. Today, The Chief Happiness Officer’s Blog explains that to be effective, compliments must be specific. This generalizes well to...
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Practice Practice! Practice!!
This coming Tuesday, I’ll be facilitating the first meeting of the Bay Area Engineering Managers Support Group. The event will start off with a short workshop focused on one of the key criteria for...
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Paper Prototyping
LinkedIn has a cool feature that let’s you ask a question of your whole network. This morning, someone in my network asked this question: Tools for visualising interactive prototypes? What do you...
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Introduction to User Stories and Splitting Stories
A common problem among the scrum teams that I coach is user stories that are too big. When a user story is too big, it is hard understand, estimate, and implement. So what is a good size for a user...
View ArticleSplitting User Stories with Conjunctions and Connectors
As I described last week, splitting large user stories into smaller user stories has many benefits for the scrum team and the business. We also agreed that before we try to split a user story, we want...
View ArticleSplitting User Stories with Generic Words
This is the third in my series on splitting larger user stories into smaller user stories. If you are just joining us, go back and read part one and part two. Don’t worry, I’ll wait right here for you....
View ArticleSplitting User Stories with Acceptance Criteria
This is the fourth part of my series on splitting user stories. If you are just joining us, start with the first installment and work your way forward from there. Today’s technique is the third of four...
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Story Point Accounting Across Sprints
How should a scrum team count the story points for user stories (product backlog items) that are started in one sprint but completed in a later sprint? This question comes up frequently and has...
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Daddy, Where Do Product Backlog Items Come From?
A scrum team works from a prioritized list called the product backlog. Product backlog items are often called user stories. In this article we’ll examine the lifecycle of a product backlog item. It...
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Lessons From My First Failed Meeting
It was a bad day at Geekaplex. A star developer’s computer had crashed hard, taking a week’s worth of new source code with it. The big boss was furious! I spoke up, “We need source control and a...
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The Best Agile Conference List On The Web!
A great way to continue your agile learning journey is attending conferences. You’ll learn, build your professional network, and earn SEUs to renew your scrum certifications. To make the conference...
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