The blurring of the lines between work and play, the company and the customer, and the employer and the employee, give rise to some interesting new dynamics and some interesting new possibilities for the workplace of the future. As part of the Biz Dojo, we are already exploring a new way to work.
I just love it something great coalesces from the ether, out of creative people’s minds, off the paper, and into reality. I especially love it when an idea that I have been raving about, magically arrives in my browser, courtesy of some equally passionate people on the other side of the world. Welcome to Better Means …
One of the things that a lot of executives have trouble with is the concept that multi-tasking is bad for productivity. Unfortunately, research has shown that doing more things at once actually slows down delivery.
One of the most important things for any agile team to understand is their velocity. Velocity is a term used in agile software development to illustrate the “rate of progress” for a team, related to a project or program.
Agile Adoption can be very difficult. We often underestimate the ability of ourselves or others to understand and adjust to change – and it is a cultural change required in order to really be successful in adopting the agile mindset.
As a proponent of customer-centric development efforts, agile methods, and frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, it probably comes as no surprise that I am also a big fan of story tests and test-driven development (TDD) in general.
A lot of people are very enthused with the ideas and concepts behind Agile methodologies, but are hesitant to apply them in their current situation. I often hear people talk about the “risk” involved in moving to a new way of working.
With the best of intentions, many IT Managers and CIOs have inadvertently set themselves and their teams up for failure through an overly prescriptive focus on process, metrics, and best practice.
Great sketch by Ken Hope from our partners Motive8 that illustrates a prevalent attitude in NZ organisations – one that causes a lot of challenges.
There is danger in attempting to change the world in one step. Whilst a big fan of Agile methods, I spend a lot of time ensuring that people understand the magnitude of the task they have ahead of them, and how difficult it will be, without curbing their enthusiasm.
