Empire Building happens when we focus on building everything around us, getting all the right laptops and tablets, all the best tables, all the perks, all the bodies, all the chairs, all the everything that goes along with building an empire except doing the one thing that truly matters to building an empire. The requirements, i.e., the work that needs to be done, understanding the problem you are trying to resolve, realizing what order of…
You don’t start with 1, you start with 0 – Sprint 0. Where you iron out the bugs on how things are going to work. Where you put the team together and see them in action for the first time. Where you proof out the foundation and realize what you have and what you are missing. Where you work with the team to get the requirements for the next iteration. Where you figure out what…
Do it because you need it to make your product better. Do it because makes logical sense. Do it because it’s useful. Shiny objects aren’t going anywhere, we’ll always be kids in a candy store picking out the next best thing.
We can iterate, nimble, agile, push, ship daily and continuously improve as much as we want, but if the team isn’t catching up you’re doing more harm than good. This doesn’t mean you give up, this means you find the breaking points, you find what is holding people back and you zone in on them. Doing the basic math, if they are stuck on Step 1, then you know they are going to be stuck…
People. A room of people all engaged, all sharing the workload, all working towards a common goal. A team of people that don’t care what their roles are, only what has to get done. A group of people that are less concerned with individual skillsets but more concerned by what they can do if they all pitch in. We all know it, but we often forget just how we really get there (and how we…