Posts by Robert Pieper
Being nice isn’t always nice
I recently performed an organizational agile assessment and learned a great deal about how they served their customer’s technology needs. We investigated their technical practices, processes to develop and release, but also dug deep into how the people worked together from the people side of things. What we discovered was fascinating. Everyone in the technology…
Read More6 Questions to ask before hiring your next agile coach
It’s safe to say Agile software delivery is here for good. With so many agile coaches in Chicago, where I live and out there in general, it’s helpful to understand the differences between them so you can make an informed decision when hiring one for a full-time role or a consulting engagement. What follows will…
Read MoreUse Scrum to manage your employees
If you’re new to Scrum and want to get the most out of a team of under-performers, you should try Scrum!! Used a certain way it can be the best form of 21st century micromanagement. Don’t worry about your teams resisting the push of Scrum. If you simply make the use of Scrum a company…
Read MoreLead Time vs Cycle Time: A Bedtime Story about Beer and Mustangs
My friend John is a delivery lead at a local Chicago software firm. He’s trying to get the hang of using metrics to help improve the performance of software development in his organization. He was originally looking at lead time and cycle time but was really confused after some internet research. It seems many people…
Read MoreUse Scrum to Say Goodbye to Risk in Hardware Development
Companies who build hardware often ask if it’s possible to benefit from Scrum. In order to answer this question, I need to first introduce you to my friend Risk. Risk is a terrible friend. Risk likes to keep information about the future from me and show up when I least expect. Risk has a very…
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