Posts

Things in 2020 I’m Bringing Into 2021 A lot of people want to forget 2020. For me, I’m bringing three things from 2020 into 2021. Happy New Year, folks! I know – it’s been a while since my last newsletter. To say that I’ve been busy is an understatement. The...

An Alternative Way to Teach, and Estimate with, Story Points I recently gave a lightning talk a few weeks ago at the Cambridge Agile Exchange MeetUp. The topic I covered was about an alternative way to teach and do story pointing. This alternative technique was something I came up with...

Was your business agile enough to respond to 2020? Hello again!  I can’t believe it’s October – the beginning of the fall season here in the northern hemisphere. I can’t believe time went by so quickly. It feels as if it were only yesterday when we had to go into...

A Lightweight Performance Review Template for Monthly Discussions In my series of newsletters on preparing for your performance review, I mentioned a template you can use when talking with your manager during your one-on-one meetings (1:1s). A colleague and I have also mentioned this template in our talks on performance...

Phrases to Say to Demotivate Your Teams There is this one phrase that can quickly demotivate people. I’ve seen a number of executives use this phrase in several conversations I’ve had. It doesn’t matter whether I’m an engineer, a manager, or a director. Neither does location matter – I’ve heard...

Slicing Your Hiring Dinosaur to Pieces Many companies have gone Agile over the years, undergoing transformations and seeing their teams deliver quicker (hopefully). Organizations seem to lust after delivery teams going faster. And yet as an organization, we hamper them in other ways, such as hiring. Let me illustrate this...