Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 31, 2024

In Effective Agility Requires Cultural Changes: Part 1 , I said that real agile approaches require cultural change to focus on flow efficiency, where we focus on watching the work, not the people. If you and your team have been practicing real agility, you might say these ideas barely show any agility at all. That's fine.

Agile 71

Agile Metrics Efficiency Culture 71

Epicflow

FEBRUARY 20, 2025

By providing real-time insights and streamlining complex workflows, project portfolio management tools empower organizations to handle diverse initiatives with precision and agility. It supports Agile methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban, ensuring adaptability to different workflows.

Tools 130

Tools Management Software Resources 130

Johanna Rothman

NOVEMBER 27, 2023

I have a new book: Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility. I wrote it because I'm concerned about what I see in too many supposedly agile teams: Crazy-long backlogs and roadmaps. Worse, sometimes the team doesn't demo or deliver. The post Tired of Fake Agility?

Agile 85

Agile Productivity How To Management 85

Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

They've started to use agile approaches. Capitalization for Agile Work. Let me walk you through an example of a 5-person agile team. So, let's assume the team spends a total of 4 hours planning, retrospecting, demoing, all that non-creation time out of the 40 hours the team works. (I Why Capitalize?

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Agile Software Finance Company 74

Johanna Rothman

MARCH 6, 2024

In Effective Agility Requires Cultural Changes: Part 1 , I said that real agile approaches require cultural change to focus on flow efficiency , where we watch the flow of the work , not the people doing tasks. Can you create an agile culture for your team even if you can't change how the organization works? 1,2 and so on.

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Agile Culture Efficiency Metrics 81

Johanna Rothman

JUNE 28, 2018

Many new-to-agile teams use some form of iteration-based agile approach. Back in Time You Spend in Agile Meetings (near the bottom of the post), I enumerated all the possible meetings. I mentioned how you could integrate the demo work into an iteration if you create a column for the demo.

Agile 51

Agile Meeting System Productivity 51

Johanna Rothman

MARCH 28, 2019

You can see demos. Agile and Lean Program Management , and in Create Your Successful Agile Project. When people outside of technology use agile approaches, they can start their work before the product is done. I would definitely watch demos every week or two, to make sure we're getting closer to the milestone criteria.

Agile 63

Agile Productivity Software Marketing 63

Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 6, 2023

” For years, I explained that the more often the team or program could demo, the more the project or program could engage its stakeholders. See Customers, Internal Delivery, And Trust for a recent post about demos and trust.) The more frequently you can demo, the more your partners can trust you to deliver something.

How To 125

How To Efficiency Meeting Productivity 125

Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 20, 2020

I discussed the origins of the agile approaches in Part 5. In this post, I'll discuss how you can create an agile approach that fits your context. Why should you create your own agile approach? You deserve an agile approach that helps you achieve the business outcomes you need. What do you need? Start with the Team.

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Agile Culture Productivity Development 60

Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 21, 2019

I started asking if you actually need an agile approach in Part 1 and noted the 4 big problems I see. Part 2 was why we need managers in an agile transformation. Part 4 was about how “Agile” is meaningless and “agile” is an adjective that needs to be applied to something. That would be resilient.

Agile 65

Agile Culture Efficiency Guidelines 65

Johanna Rothman

APRIL 6, 2022

A colleague unfamiliar with lifecycles or agility asked, “How can we use sprints in this approach?” Not the thinking and learning that go into the deliverables where you end up with something demo-able, if not usable.” See Create Your Successful Agile Project for more details.). ” “Oooh.”

Agile 90

Agile Productivity Finance Software 90

Johanna Rothman

JUNE 25, 2018

Whenever I teach agile approaches, I discuss the possible meetings a team might choose. A demo once every two weeks. A demo once every two weeks. (I I prefer a demo every time you release a story, but that’s me. If you use kanban, you might integrate a demo into the board. No demo meetings necessary.

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Agile Meeting Consulting Management 46

Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 6, 2020

In Costs of an Agile Approach for Hardware Products , I suggested that an iteration-based approach for hardware was too expensive. Agile software teams are cross-functional and interdependent. Many agile software teams have somewhere between four and seven people. Hardware Costs Limit Agile Approaches.

Agile 52

Agile Productivity Software Development 52

Johanna Rothman

DECEMBER 11, 2019

Scrum Master or Agile Project Manager? ” (You might like Why an Agile Project Manager is Not a Scrum Master.). She's an agile project manager. When she manages programs, she's an agile program manager. See a ton more about this role in Create Your Successful Agile Project.) Scrum is not her job.

Agile 60

Agile Productivity Management Meeting 60

Johanna Rothman

MARCH 18, 2024

That part discusses why managers see agile coaches and Scrum Masters as staff positions, not line jobs. This post is about your deep domain expertise, first in product, then in agility. Assess Your Product Subject Matter Domain Expertise There are at least two kinds of domain expertise: the product itself, and agile/lean expertise.

Agile 81

Agile How To Metrics Productivity 81

Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

Instead, I see assumptions that reveal a divide-and-conquer, and possibly a command-and-control culture, not an agile culture. Divide and Conquer is Anti-Agility I see the product owner and dev team as a divide-and-conquer approach to work. Agility requires a collaborative cross-functional team. When was the most recent demo?

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Interviews Culture Agile Efficiency 96

Johanna Rothman

MARCH 30, 2020

See Agile Program Measurements to Visualize and Track Progress and Measure Cycle Time for my suggestions of what to measure. I have more ideas and a more in-depth discussion in Create Your Successful Agile Project.). Here are some examples: Demos, even of partially working product. I expect to see some kind of running code.

Management 92

Management Agile Metrics Video 92

Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 6, 2024

If you took an agile workshop sometime in the past 15 years, you probably played the “ ball game.” Especially since they've probably suffered through way too many “agile” workshops with more and more games. Show a demo of whatever you complete at the 15-minute mark. Why do I have to play a game?”

Agile 75

Agile How To Exercises Efficiency 75

Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 28, 2019

You have an agile roadmap to see where you're headed. Your team hates having to translate the agile planning into more traditional planning. If you're in this pickle, your manager might think your agile team doesn't replan very often. That manager might assume your team uses an agile approach only as a way to deliver.

Data 68

Data Agile Culture Management 68

Johanna Rothman

MARCH 22, 2023

Her ideal readers are the teams doing the work, so they can change their demos and reporting frequency. As a company, we need more demos and more data. However, we all need to see weekly demos according to the attached format. Please ensure your demo is ready every Wednesday by noon Eastern. Was Polly a little snarky?

Report 89

Report Culture Sales Training 89

Epicflow

JANUARY 21, 2022

Adopt Agile frameworks for product development. As car manufacturers have to quickly respond to customers’ growing demands and the automotive industry’s trends, Agile approaches can be successfully used in automotive manufacturing. Read more: Agile Product Development: Agile Methodology Explained.

Automotive 130

Automotive Industry Resources Agile 130

Epicflow

APRIL 19, 2024

After that, they are given access to a simple demo environment with a standard set of configurations, where they can test how our system works. If your company uses other project management tools like Jira, MS Project, or Oracle Primavera, the demo environment will be adjusted accordingly. Data adjustment and integration.

Software 130

Software Resources Training Training 130

Johanna Rothman

APRIL 3, 2020

That leads to people using agile approaches to focus on delivery. I have many suggestions in Agile and Lean Program Management for how to organize multiple cooperative and collaborative teams without a ton of bureaucracy.). (You might like the Balance Innovation, Commitment, & Feedback Loops series.). How You Might Discover.

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Agile Data Productivity Management 102

Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

If you work at a place new to agile approaches, work on streamlining the releases so you always release once a month. (I Agile approaches create empirical measurements: what we have actually completed, not predictive measurements, what we want to have completed. Release finished features often. Then move to releasing every two weeks.

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Agile Management Productivity Training 53

Johanna Rothman

JULY 27, 2023

might demo the feature. That defect escaped all your checklists, approvals, and demos. See What Lifecycle or Agile Approach Fits Your Context? Finally, they moved to an incremental lifecycle and then to an iterative and incremental but not agile lifecycle. Finally, the team, a product leader, or the customer(!)

How To 81

How To Agile Productivity Data 81

Johanna Rothman

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

Does this sound a lot like what agile teams do? Managers will want to see demos in these four weeks to inform the next four weeks of portfolio planning. Managers can explain which demos they expect to see, especially if the managers explain the experiments they want. It does to me. Managers Commit Three Decisions to Teams.

Management 87

Management Agile Data Productivity 87

Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017

Because features change in value and because some feature sets need to deliver value on a more regular basis, the real roadmap looks more like this graphic, “When the Agile Roadmap Changes.” They noted MVPs and demos on their roadmap—a new idea for them. They decided to use one-month rolling wave planning.

Agile 57

Agile Productivity Examples Management 57

Johanna Rothman

JULY 31, 2019

Early on in my agile practice, I believed in generalizing specialists. Here's how this might work for your agile team. You don't have an agile team because they're not collaborating on the work. Hooks for logs and demos. Anything else that makes development, testing, demo, and release easier.

Agile 67

Agile Development System Management 67

Johanna Rothman

JUNE 17, 2021

I see too much micromanagement, even in supposedly agile organizations. As an example, when managers don't bother to learn agile measures and what they mean and instead want a Gantt chart, “because how long could it take?” ” Or, when a manager imposes a “standard” agile approach.

Leadership 75

Leadership Agile Management Training 75

Harvard Business

SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

Kassir Hussain, former director of Connected Home, told us: “In a space that can often be confusing and frustrating to consumers, our focus on regular user interviews, meetings, tests, and demos allowed us to build a product that was simple, easy to use, and addressed real consumer needs.” Help Employees Embrace Agility.

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Media Fashion Agile Sales 135

Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Nor do the teams demo on a regular basis. The teams miss the feedback loops so critical for an agile approach. Their agile transformation falls apart. Let's think about how to create agile projects with short feedback loops, not projects that look like waterfall. Prevent Agile Projects that Look Like Waterfall.

Agile 58

Agile Productivity Retail Management 58

Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 2, 2023

Yes, the premise of my Agile and Lean Program Management book.) I have never seen those three conditions in any non-agile project, but that could be my experience and not universal. This team started off with a serial lifecycle, so they didn't even plan to have a demo until about September or so.

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Agile Analysis Management Productivity 95

Johanna Rothman

JULY 27, 2022

When we already have a pretty good idea of what to do for a product, we can use demos to show our progress. Does that mean the portfolio team should watch the demos? But how can they see the value without watching the demos? Because a report does not convey the same information as a demo of some sort does.

ROI 93

ROI Productivity Management Tools 93

Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

In Create Your Successful Agile Project , I recommend the team end an iteration in the middle of a week. The Wednesday Agenda 9:30- 10 am (or thereabouts) demo the progress the team made. You might be using an agile approach, but it's not Scrum. See What's Wrong With Wednesday? That day needs an agenda. Read the Scrum Guide.)

Leadership 89

Leadership Meeting Agile Productivity 89

Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

In Part 1 , I suggested that when we organize by function, the recognition and rewards might prevent a successful agile transformation. I have found agile managers can succeed when they ask questions such as these: How can I make it easier for the people to do the right thing? I didn’t know anything about agile approaches then.

Productivity 65

Productivity Agile Efficiency Management 65

Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 28, 2023

The longer the backlog, the less agile you can be, because no one's incorporating learning into the work. Instead, use the brainstorm ideas in Alternatives for Agile and Lean Roadmapping: Part 1, Think in Feature Sets. Create a weekly cadence of public demos. If you use an agile approach, I recommend teams stop estimating.

Agile 75

Agile How To Productivity Management 75

Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 25, 2023

I needed to demo more often. This is the same problem as in Want to Be More Effective (and Agile)? The demos build trust—and might offer the team feedback on the product and the product leader feedback on the backlog. .” Aha! Rethink Three Classic Management Assumptions.)

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How To Productivity Agile Management 78