Articles for category: Delivery

July 22, 2023

Greg Thomas

Failure to Sprint

When you learned how to walk and fell flat on your face the first time did you give up? (Maybe for a bit). The same goes for Sprints and any new development process you are implementing – it’s not success out of the box – it’s a slow burn growth and then mass acceleration once it clicks with your team. If you fail to sprint the first time, start jogging the next (remove tickets), build up a tolerance, figure out what works for your team, and then try again. But don’t throw it all out because it didn’t work the

July 19, 2023

Greg Thomas

Good Backlogs

Everyone needs a backlog. If you don’t have a backlog, it doesn’t mean you are done, it means you don’t know what comes next. And that’s the value of a backlog, knowing what comes next, and taking it into account when building new features and planning for the future. When you start building out your first release, you plan for two iterations – the first release and the backlog – one is to deliver the now, and the other is to deliver the future.

July 17, 2023

Greg Thomas

Outside Leaders

Outside leaders are those that are not directly within the team or project that is being delivered but need to be kept in the know of its delivery. An Outside Leader can offer feedback, guidance, and mentorship in the delivery of a solution or they can be handed off only requesting updates where necessary. The Outside Leader doesn’t care what methodology, framework, or tools you use – if you need something, they want to get it for you – otherwise, it’s not in their purview. Your challenge as a leader of the immediate is to ensure that you are keeping

July 16, 2023

Greg Thomas

Missed Deliverables

You will miss deliverables. They will slip. Something will crop up that will make it impossible for you to hit. The questions that matter more are; Did you give people notice weeks or hours before? Do you have a backup plan? Are you short on resources to accomplish the goal? What changed that impacted things? Often we aren’t concerned about the missed deliverable, but why it happened, when did we think it was going to happen, and what’s the plan for getting back on track. That’s what builds leadership in software delivery.

July 15, 2023

Greg Thomas

Sprint Farming

Sprints are a race to get work done in a smaller period of time.  We’re not rushing to get work done, hopefully, we’re taking on just what we can, but the word itself is a sprint – so we are trying to get it all done. Farming on the other hand, is slow, meticulous, and planned out by pre-determined steps that take a period of time to accomplish.  You can’t demonstrate farming at the end of two weeks to show how far you’ve come, because sometimes you can’t see it. You don’t always have to have an end demo for