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• The Incentive Trap

• The Incentive Trap

  I often talk with teams about why software projects fail, yet we have answers. We have modern engineering practices that give us faster technical feedback, reducing technical and integration issues and resulting in higher quality products. We have ways Read More... Posted 16 March 2010 16:31 by mark.summers | 1 Comments Filed under: Agile, Scrum, Scrum Gathering, team dynamics, self organisation, motivation, The Incentive Trap, incentives

• Cool Wall Retrospective

  At the Munich Scrum Gathering last week, Harvey Wheaton from Supermassive Games did a presentation entitled “Growing Self Organising Teams”, which was exceptional and I found it very inspiring, the presentation can be found on the Scrum Alliance web-site Read More... Posted 28 October 2009 17:25 by mark.summers | 2 Comments Filed under: Agile, Scrum, Scrum Gathering, Retrospectives

• Risk at the Munich Scrum Gathering

  Next Tuesday I am speaking at the Munich Scrum Gathering on how Scrum deals with Risk. I am very excited about the session as I believe we often talk about how Agile drives down risk, but we rarely explore the topic that deeply. This will be a talk based Read More... Posted 16 October 2009 14:05 by mark.summers | 1 Comments Filed under: Agile, Scrum, Product Owner, Risk, Risk Management, Scrum Gathering

• Situational Coaching with Agile Teams

  The "Situational Leadership" model, developed by Hersey & Blanchard, shows us how good leaders can adapt their behavior depending on an individual’s competence and commitment to achieving a specific goal or task. Through my work coaching Agile teams Read More... Posted 17 August 2009 13:37 by mark.summers | 1 Comments Filed under: Agile, Agile Coaching, Situational Leadership

• Ball Point Game illustrates why Agile works

  It was at the Spring Scrum Gathering 2008 Chicago that Tobias Mayer did an Open Space session on simulations to help get Agile ideas across to people, in a way that brings them to life. One that was new for me at the time was the ball game, originally Read More... Posted 03 June 2009 12:53 by mark.summers | 0 Comments Filed under: Agile, Scrum, Agile Training, Games

• Notes to a Friend on Managing Scrum Projects

  I was recently catching up with an old friend from school; he was interested in Scrum, as he had started to get requests for proposals that specifically asked for Agile. We were on a Stag do at the point of the initial conversation, so I probably didn’t Read More... Posted 28 April 2009 10:39 by mark.summers | 0 Comments Filed under: Agile, Scrum

• Who is this Product Owner?

  Lots of work has been done to understand the role of the ScrumMaster, there has been far less written and said about the role of the Product Owner. Who is this person who is responsible for the ROI of the project? I have tried to create a number of statements Read More... Posted 08 December 2008 10:54 by mark.summers | 2 Comments Filed under: Agile, Scrum, Product Owner

• Scrum Problems With Managing Scope

  IT projects failures are unfortunately not uncommon. We hear stories of projects that never deliver, projects that are either late or well over cost. One of the main reasons identified for this is Scope being out of control. In waterfall projects all Read More... Posted 21 November 2008 16:05 by mark.summers | 0 Comments Filed under: Agile, Scrum, Scope Attachment(s): tree.JPG

• Managing Bugs in Scrum

  It’s something that people always ask ‘how do we manage bugs in Scrum?’ or ‘what do we do with the bugs at the end of a Sprint?’. I always try to make people understand that they are asking the wrong question, what they should be asking is ‘how do we Read More... Posted 15 October 2008 15:25 by mark.summers | 0 Comments Filed under: Agile, Scrum, Bugs

• Agile 2008 - Insights into an Agile Adventure with Offshore Partners

  On Wednesday 6th August I shall be delivering an experience report at Agile 2008. I have attached my paper and presentation for your convenience . If you saw the presentation or you have comments on the experience report then I would love to hear your Read More... Posted 05 August 2008 17:59 by mark.summers | 0 Comments Filed under: Agile, Scrum, Agile 2008 Attachment(s): summers-offshorepartners.zip