Our blog

Tips for getting things done

by Darci Dutcher
2 Comments
October 19, 2015October 17, 2015
3 min read

2 tips from cognitive psychology for getting things done in agile teams Everyone wants their teams to be successful and accomplish their goals. Small ‘a’ agile approaches to work seem to be everywhere now, but have you ever wondered how the various agile/Scrum/Kanban concepts can be supported by cognitive psychology… Read More »Tips for getting things done

Visualisation

by David Lowe
October 13, 2015October 13, 2015
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

When gradual improvement is not enough

by Jiten Vara
October 5, 2015July 15, 2022
3 min read

We’ve all heard of the term Kaizen, and we all know that it is the practice of continuous improvement. The practice of Kaizen has served many of the teams and organisations I have worked with well. Teams that were previously floundering in mediocrity grew into great teams by the fact… Read More »When gradual improvement is not enough

Calibration tests

by David Lowe
September 28, 2015September 28, 2015
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

Story Points & Velocity (with Planning Poker)

by James Wyllie
September 21, 2015July 15, 2022
5 min read

Story points and velocity are probably the most well known tools for estimation in Agile environments. They are the basis for predictability with Scrum. To begin with, we should be clear on what a story point is. Most people reading this will have heard at least one definition, and probably more… Read More »Story Points & Velocity (with Planning Poker)

IMPROVing Agile Teams

by David Lowe
2 Comments
September 14, 2015July 15, 2022
2 min read

If you think about it, there’s a lot of similarities between improv and the teams we work with: every day we face uncertainty about what we are going to have to deal with, we rely on the people around us to help us achieve success (and they rely on us),… Read More »IMPROVing Agile Teams

Student’s t-statistic

by David Lowe
September 7, 2015July 15, 2022
4 min read

Introduction In 1908, a guy at Guinness found a way to measure which types of barley produced the best beer-brewing yields: he called it the “t-statistic”. However, because Guinness was paranoid about giving away trade secrets, he had to publish his ideas under the pseudonym “Student”. Although we now know… Read More »Student’s t-statistic

Johari Window

by Jiten Vara
August 31, 2015
4 min read

We all know that trust is the cornerstone of all good relationships, whether that be with family members, friends or even with our teams at work. Patrick Lencioni backs this notion up in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by illustrating that an ‘absence of trust’ will mean teams… Read More »Johari Window

A new game

by David Lowe
August 19, 2015July 22, 2023
5 min read

Although we don’t favour revolutionary changes, most of us first experience agile through a radical and wholesale transformation to Scrum. Along with all the changes to roles, meetings and working approach, we find ourselves bombarded with new terminology. Two terms that seem to confuse many newbies (and not-so-newbies) are incremental… Read More »A new game

What is Behaviour-Driven Development?

by David Lowe
August 17, 2015August 7, 2015
3 min read

I’ve been asked about TDD and BDD by a few people over the last couple of weeks, so I thought I’d post a couple of summaries and some useful links. Last week I posted about TDD, so this week it’s BDD’s turn. Whilst TDD is a technical approach written by… Read More »What is Behaviour-Driven Development?