My First Ever Visit to Agile Tour London 2016
So many agile conferences! What a wonderful world we live in 😉 I have playfully nick-named September-October this year as 'Conference Season'. Not everything falls within this time window, but a large majority does, so it was handy and allows me to say things like:...
Great Value for Time & Money: Lean Agile Scotland
I fell in love with Lean Agile Scotland on my first visit, and it's now a must-attend conference for me. As ever, it was thrilling from day 1, absolutely chock a block with so many of my favourite agile people. What made Lean Agile Scotland so good? I adored the...
Interviewing Monsters with Confidence – Delighted to Volunteer
I've already written about how I volunteer occasionally through Inspiring the Future organisation. I give up half a day of my life periodically to do mock interviews with 6th formers. Its usually fun, and I am amazed every time just how 'together' the young people...
What is it like transitioning to be a Scrum Master?
Some time ago, the Scrum Master Community at NewVoiceMedia played about a bit with some podcast ideas. It was more about learning how to do it, rather than actually setting up a regular podcast in any way. I was reminded of this recently when I stumbled on the mini...
New Wroclaw Agile Day was ‘Epic’ Success!
We knew Wroclaw Agile Day was a great idea when we ran it last year. Last year it was just for the NVM Wroclaw office. It's main purpose was as a sort of induction. We wanted to ensure the culture of agile working we enjoy at NewVoiceMedia was really understood and...
Why Rules Are Made to Be Broken
My last post was about interviewing Scrum Masters, and why elitism is not the way to go in my opinion. Whilst writing it, I was naturally reminiscing about some of the Scrum Master interviews I have done in the past. Just to give you some context here: in the last...
Your Journey to “better” is about you, not them
I recently read this article by Aurynn Shaw and it inspired me to write this blog post about our journey as agile practitioners. Aurynn's article talks about how Dev culture has been (and still is to a degree and in some spaces) afflicted by elitism. She explains...
5 Things Every Day To Help You Become a Better Scrum Master
As a Scrum Master I run lots of little experiments with my team to see if we can get better at something. As an Agile Coach, I run lots of little experiments with other Scrum Masters to see if we can get better at something. Experimentation is at the heart of the...
When Change is Great and When Change Sucks
A change is as good as a rest as the saying goes. Change can certainly be refreshing and invigorating. It can also be unsettling and cause anxiety - even fear. Change happens throughout our lives, and we often talk about it as just being part of life - particularly...
Death Sims – How to help a team match their words & actions
One of my sessions at Agile Cymru gave different workshops and exercises that were great for teams at different stages of their life cycle. I talked about workshops for helping new teams feel comfortable and productive together. I also talked through an exercise as...