Articles for category: Leadership

October 31, 2019

Greg Thomas

Last Day Productivity

If your team is closing all their stories and tasks on the last of the sprint you should consider moving your sprint duration to being one day. This sounds dumb right? It is. So is holding onto work that has no movement on it for two or three weeks and then magically closing everything on the last day. If your not sure if your team is guilty of this practice, check the work completed on the last day of the Sprint is it 85 hours across 5 people? If so, you might want to check where the issues lie in

October 28, 2019

Greg Thomas

Going Backwards

In sports, passing back is one of the hardest skills to learn as you grow older. For years you’ve taught to push through, go forward, don’t stop, look up, look at the goal, etc, etc (enter all the sports here). But to get to the next level, you need to learn to pass backward. You need to use your team. If you look ahead and they are all busy, the person behind you is the one who needs the pass, not in front. The goal is that will alleviate the pressure so that this person can then pass up and

October 24, 2019

Greg Thomas

Avoid Empire Building

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 work needs to be done, etc, etc. It’s the “stuff” that goes into creating an empire. When I say “bodies” I mean the extra bodies,

October 23, 2019

Greg Thomas

Begin with Sprint 0

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 does and doesn’t matter. Where the seeds for delivery and what everyone will do when certain situations is planned out. Sprint 0 is not about

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