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Charlie Rudd

Charlie Rudd, SolutionsIQ CEO I’m Charlie Rudd, CEO of SolutionsIQ, an Agile company. I’m interested in learning better and better ways to unleash the power of teams by applying Agile management principles and practices throughout the enterprise.

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The Agile CEO: A Blog About Agile Management

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Scaling Agile is Scaling People

  
  
  
Scaling Agile is Scaling People

The challenge of scaling Agile can be posed quite simply: How do you extend the power and magic of a high-performing Agile team to a larger group of people?

Patent Trolls Beware: Humanity Strikes Back!

  
  
  
Patent Troll

Check out this ruling from the United States District Court of California sanctioning attorneys for predatory behavior and abuse of copyright law. You don’t expect to be entertained by reading a court document but then court docs usually don’t quote Spock:

The Lean Startup, Agile, and the Harvard Business Review

  
  
  
The Lean Start Up and the Harvard Business Review

Steve Blank has an article in the May 2013 edition of HBR entitled Why the lean startup changes everything. It is an excellent example of the crossover of Agile principles from the software domain to the much broader context of business management. The fact that it is published in HBR and not Computerworld is significant.

More Waste in Software Development

  
  
  
Over-production in software development

Last week we explored how inventory and waiting, two of the original seven lean manufacturing wastes, have analogs in software development.

Waste in Software Development

  
  
  
Waterfall software project WIP

In the first in a 5-part series that explores how Lean principles are applied through the practice of Agile, we discussed how the differences between Lean and Agile in software development are more about when particular practices might be best applied under particular conditions and less about how the two approaches are fundamentally different. In fact, Agile and Lean hold many guiding principles in common.

Agile vs. Lean: False Debate?

  
  
  
Agile vs. Lean: A false debate?

Ever since Mary and Tom Poppendiek wrote their book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit, there has been a lot of discussion about Lean and Agile in the world of software development. Sometimes we hear about how Agile and Lean are different and sometimes we hear about how they are the same.

Why Agile is Not a Methodology

  
  
  
Why Agile is not a methodology

If Agile isn't a methodology, what is it?

What is a methodology?

A methodology is a process taxonomy designed to govern a work domain (e.g. software development). Each process is defined in terms of a set of prescriptive formulas or rules. Rules generally take on forms similar to the following:

  1. Under these circumstances, do these activities.
  2. When you get to this point, do this activity.
  3. An activity is defined by executing this task sequence.
  4. The input of this task is “X” and the output of this task is “Y”.
  5. And so forth…

Agile in the Mainstream: The Daily Standup on WSJ Front Page

  
  
  
daily stand up meetings are becoming mainstream agile scrum

Here's another indication that Agile and Scrum in particular are catching on like wildfire. Agile’s radiation through the tech sector is easily explained since it fits hand-in-glove with software development, but when we hear about it in the Wall Street Journal, we witness something else: Penetration of these ideas into the business mainstream. What is a stand-up but a vital daily status meeting ruthlessly stripped of all waste? You can’t get more lean than that. Agile is a pointer to a waste-intolerant, performance-driven culture obsessed with the pursuit of excellence. What business would not want some of that?

Software Development is Design Work, not Construction Work

  
  
  
software development is more like desiging than building

In my last post, we discussed why software development is more like designing than building. The following diagram illustrates the point:

Why Agile Spreads Like Wildfire: Upfront Specification is Impossible

  
  
  
Why Agile Spreads Like Wildfire Upfront Specification is Impossible

In my last post, I talked about why it’s really hard to produce a software specification before you start work that is as complete as the blueprint you would use to guide the construction of a building. Today we will discuss why it’s also impossible.

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