10. For Distributed Agile Teams, It’s Not All about the Tools
Many managers and distributed team members think that if they just had the right tools, they could make some agile approach work. Maybe, but tools only enhance the work of a collaborative agile team. Before you select tools, make sure you have people who can work together and have enough skills and capabilities for your distributed team. Tools do not make the team; they support the team. By Mark Kilby and Johanna Rothman
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9. Using Agile to Learn Anything
Acquiring new skills is always admirable, and it can even help you find new opportunities in an increasingly competitive job market. By going in with a plan and organizing your self-improvement activities, you’ll be learning new skills in no time. Agile can help. Here's how forty-five minutes a day and a structured approach using kanban can set you up for success. By Shakeel Muhammad
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8. Business Storytelling in an Agile Context
Storytelling in business is about sharing the context—explaining different aspects of the same information through different perspectives, such as the customer’s wishes or various internal department needs. The more each person shares their point of view, the more the knowledge deepens, which provides a solid story in a business context. Here's how storytelling can help your agile team. By Karen N. Johnson
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7. How to Get Value from Measuring Agile Team Health Metrics
One common metric in agile measures team health or team happiness, but creating a way to measure this that is valued by the team is not an easy task. It’s having clarity on the reason you’re measuring these metrics and who benefits from it that gives you real value. Here are some ways you can measure this elusive quality, as well as how to make sure you're gaining useful information. By Vic Bartash
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6. It's Not Just Culture: When Teams Impede Agile Adoption
Cultural norms can hamper successful agile transformation. Many of these habits and customs are started and perpetuated by senior leadership, but that’s not always the only source of resistance. Often, ingrained behaviors and thinking can occur within the team, including business partners, that also can hinder agility. Five of these barriers are explored here, as well as mindset antidotes to help get the team on the road to agile success. By Joe Schofield
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5. Empower Your Agile Team in 4 STEPs
New agile teams often start projects after some brief training on the Agile Manifesto and agile frameworks. But without additional coaching, these teams will struggle to deliver continuous value to their clients. Teams should be coached on how to tackle unexpected Situations, use appropriate Tools, conduct agile Events, and adopt appropriate agile Practices—four agile STEPs. By Ajeet Singh
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4. 7 Key Factors for Scaling Agile in Large Organizations
Agile adoption has grown from a small number of agile teams within an organization to many agile teams, larger teams, and entire organizations themselves, bringing a new set of challenges and complexities. Regardless of the framework, some important factors play a major role in making large-scale agile adoption successful. Here are seven aspects you should consider when scaling agile across an organization. By Pooja Wandile
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3. 8 Scrum Meeting Mistakes to Avoid
Scrum meetings aim to increase productivity and reduce rework by improving and enhancing the level of daily communication. Doing so helps teams stay on the same page, properly break down work into small and manageable tasks, and keep everything running smoothly. However, Scrum meetings can go wrong very quickly if they are not done properly. Here are eight common mistakes you should try to avoid. By Freddie Tubbs
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2. Redefining the Project Manager Role in Scrum
Scrum teams are meant to become self-sustaining, so it’s natural for project managers to wonder how they will fit into this new environment. But they still have important skills. Their new role may—and probably will—look different from the traditional project manager role they’ve been used to, but there are still plenty of opportunities to provide real value to their new Scrum team. By Pratik Kothari
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1. The Eroding Agile Test Pyramid
The test pyramid is a great model for designing your test portfolio. However, the bottom tends to fall out when you shift from progression testing to regression testing. The tests start failing, eroding the number of working unit tests at the base of your pyramid. If you don't have the development resources required for continuous unit test maintenance, there are still things you can do. By Wolfgang Platz
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