Who killed Velocity?
During an update of our courses at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, I was told that we would no longer be teaching about planning poker in Scrum projects. Apparently, measuring velocity was no longer part of the orthodoxy. I found this puzzling, as I had taken the rituals of estimating and measuring velocity to be part of the core processes of Scrum. Had I misunderstood the framework, or were there other forces at play?
Read MoreCursed problems in facilitation
What happens when we take the analytical work of a game designer and feed it back to a group of people working on real-life collaboration problems?
Thanks to the invitation of Myriam Hadnes I was able to put on my mad-scientist hat once more and create a workshop for the Never Done Before community of facilitation professionals. By definition my workshop had to be something new and for this one I thought I’d use as a starting point a talk from Alex Jaffe called “Cursed problems in game design“.
Read MorePopular posts
How to use elements of game design for your workshop design
I had the pleasure to be interviewed by Myriam Hadnes for her podcast Workshops Work. From the initial question “What can video game design teach us about workshop design?” we ventured into education, codesign, Agile, facilitation and even existentialism. That was so much fun to do!
Read MoreWhy is Scrum so much fun? Part 1: The Goal
In the past few years I had the opportunity to explore various uses and dimensions of Scrum. On projects working with Scrum and the Agile philosophy, I always felt more energized, accomplished and enthusiastic. The atmosphere in my team was better, we were more productive, engaged, and overall we experienced much less stress. To put it simply: Working on projects with Scrum was fun. I started to ask myself why it was so much better to run a project with Scrum than without.
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Holacracy: How does it work?
By Fabien Bataille
This article was originally published in French on Fabien’s blog Agile, Lean et Compagnie
As part of my research on new ways of working in organizations, which currently abound, I recently discovered Holacracy. It is used by Zappos, the
largest online shoes seller, in the United States
(see here [FR]). Closer to us in France “SOPRODI” (SME in industry in Clermont-Ferrand) and Antonutti-Delmas (SME transport, near Paris).
This new mode of business management, which was invented by the American company “Ternary Software”, then sold under license through the structure “HolacracyOne“, is now spreading around the world.
Read More3 things I learned on Agile with primary school teachers
The Agile philosophy is not only applicable to IT projects. It makes sense in any collaboration context, because it is just a better way of working. My recent experience of Agile with primary school teachers has shown me that the approach truly can be used everywhere and that it will quickly be of benefit to the team that uses it.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Fabien Bataille is the owner of the blog Agile, Lean et Companie (in French), which contains many insightful articles and book reviews. I invited him to be the first guest on this blog, with a translation of our favorite articles from his site. Today, a review of a classic management book.
-Coline Pannier
Among a bunch of books that a former colleague of mine left behind, I was especially interested in this one about team spirit.
After a first experience as a manager that didn’t go so well, where I had the feeling to always improvise instead of really managing, I’ve been looking for the best way to manage people (if this really exists).