AGILE IN ACTION

Sometimes it's amusing working where I'm working. People in the office seem to be genuinely intrigued by how we work, although they often look on perplexed. They ask lot's of questions, they survey our informative workspace and take the time to read our information radiators as they pass by. Occasionally, one person comes and stands outside our bullpen and gazes upon the hustle occurring within. It's great. I don't think they get Agile yet but they're interest encourages and motivates us. And what's gratifying is that they tell us how happy and impressed they are with the work we do. It's wonderful to feel valued and appreciated. And it's great that they see the business value being delivered.

We played the XP Game last night with 2 teams of 4 people. Team A beat Team B. The XP Game is always a huge amount of fun. And it's a great way to experience and understand the principles and techniques of adaptive planning and estimation. Lots of interesting comments and insights came out of the iteration retrospectives, and these mapped directly to situations and behaviors the team are experiencing in real-life work. What I found particularly interesting was that Team A described themselves as self-organizing (and this was indeed what we observed as coaches) while Team B felt they missed the presence of a Team Leader. I don't think this is the only factor that contributed to the outcome of the game, but I'd like to run 3 more iterations with 2 people from each team swapping over. I wonder what would happen?