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David Lowe

Lightbot

Within minutes my 7 year old daughter understood two important concepts: Testing frequently is better than waiting until the end; That it is okay to fail. This wasn’t because I’d started reading Lean Startup as a bedtime story; it was the result of a few minutes playing on Lightbot Junior. The… Read More »Lightbot

Best books of 2015

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  • 6 min read

I’ve read some cracking books over the last 12 months. Some of them have literally changed my life. So, in case you’re looking for a good read this Christmas or struggling to decide what to buy the PO in your life, here are a few recommendations from me and my… Read More »Best books of 2015

Is Father Christmas agile?

I recently met the head of one of the world’s oldest organisations. Despite being incredibly high profile and serving millions of customers each year, their delivery process is far from perfect. As we sat chatting over a glass of sherry and a mince pie (apparently he never tires of them), the… Read More »Is Father Christmas agile?

Scrum Gathering Prague 2015

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  • 3 min read

Would a Scrum Alliance conference be boring? Would I learn anything? Would it be attended by the same old people peddling the same old, by-the-book, approaches? On the other hand, how bad could 3 days in Prague be? My mind was made up: I’d go to Prague for the 2015 Scrum… Read More »Scrum Gathering Prague 2015

Kanban in the factory

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  • 2 min read

“It’s the oldest working car plant in Europe with an output of 1 car every 68 seconds … 1,000 cars per day. Each car takes 24 hours from start to finish.” Last month, the BBC aired a two-part live show entitled Building Cars Live from the Mini plant in Oxford. It… Read More »Kanban in the factory

How short should your sprints be?

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  • 3 min read

How long should your sprint be? Although the latest version of The Scrum Guide (version July 2013) says it should be time-boxed at “one month or less”, the most common length in practice seems to be two weeks. The underlying rules for sprint lengths are: choose the length that is best for your… Read More »How short should your sprints be?

The Coach’s Casebook

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  • 3 min read

Is part of my job to be a psychotherapist? I know that I need to foster a desire to improve and help people adjust to change, but should I also be trained to deal with people’s neuroses too? We are all strange and have our idiosyncrasies, but if someone is… Read More »The Coach’s Casebook

Visualisation

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  • 2 min read

  I want my kids to do well in life. I encourage them to embrace new experiences and challenges. I think that I offer words of encouragement on a regular basis. However, like most parents, the words I use apparently don’t help them to succeed; they encourage failure. “Don’t spill… Read More »Visualisation

Calibration tests

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  • 5 min read

How to improve on a guess Guessing (aka intuition or expert judgement) is probably the most common method of estimating that we use, but also the most inaccurate. Most people fall into the trap of giving a single answer when asked for an estimate. Don’t. Instead, offer a minimum (lower bound) and… Read More »Calibration tests