Posts on Value

Announcing the release of Discover to Deliver: Agile Product Planning & Analysis

by Mary Gorman and Ellen Gottesdiener

We are pleased to announce our book Discover to Deliver: Agile Product Planning and Analysis is now available.

Discover to Deliver provides the essential planning and analysis practices you need to collaboratively deliver high-valued products. It gives you a visual language to streamline and simplify your planning and analysis. You and your team get practical guidance in how to collaborate continually to discover and deliver an evolving product.

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Structured Conversations at Agile 2012

What really is value? How do you get diverse stakeholders with sometimes conflicting views of value to obtain—and sustain—a shared understanding of product needs?

We discussed these questions and more with Tech Target’s Melissa Webb. Melissa interviewed us to learn more about our Agile 2012 tutorial The Product Partnership: Using Structured Conversations to Deliver Value.

Melissa’s interview synthesizes a number of the key concepts in our new book, Discover to Deliver: Agile Product Planning and Analysis, which will be released at Agile 2012!

You can read the complete interview here.

Going to Agile 2012?

We’re also pleased to be delivering workshops, each chock-full of learning activities:

That Settles It! Techniques for Transparent and Trusted Decision-Making on Your Agile Team Wednesday morning, August 15, 2012 with Ellen Gottesdiener.

The Contracting Two-Step: Patterns for Successful Collaborations, Wednesday afternoon, August 15, 2012 with Mary Gorman.

Hope to see you there!

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Experiencing Agile: 6 Agile Planning and Analysis Practices to Try

What practices can you adopt to help your team experience Agile?

This question was raised by a listener to the podcast we recorded on agile analysis practices with BA coach Yamo. (Find the podcast here.) The specific question that Katie Metcalf asked us was this:

“What Agile techniques would you suggest introducing to a software development team that is currently not using the Agile approach but would like to get a flavor for the methodology?”

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This Week’s Business Analysis and Requirements Workshop: 2 Days of Learning in Las Vegas

I was recently interviewed by SearchSoftwareQuality editor Yvette Francino about this week’s Business Analysis and Requirements Workshop at the Better Conference/Development Conference this week in Las Vegas, Nevada (6-7 June, 2011).

Yvette asked me to explain the logistics, if we would be emulating gathering requirements for a particular project and if the workshop be relevant regardless of domain area. Here are my answers: As conference chair,

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Are Your Software Development Practices Jumping the Shark?

By Ellen Gottesdiener and Mary Gorman In September 1977, the TV sitcom Happy Days had über-hip Fonzie, clad in leather jacket and swimshorts, water ski over a shark to prove his mettle—and at that moment even diehard fans knew that the show was past its prime. They were right. After that episode, ratings plummeted, and the…

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Agile Product Needs book: Sneak Peek

Mary Gorman and I are in the midst of writing a book.  The title is still a WIP (work in process). A couple of contenders are “Agile Product Needs: <subtitle1:> ” and “The Agile Product Partnership: <subtitle2>”.  We’ll be looking for your help on settling on a compelling title – stay tuned, we can use…

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What Inquiring Minds Want to Know: 120 Brains, 30 Minutes, 13 Themes

What Tough Agile Analysis Questions Do Business Analysts Need Answered? This is the question I posed to the participants in a facilitated workshop at the Building Business Capability Conference (BBC) 2010 this past fall. The BBC conference, held in the Washington, D.C. area, was the first official IIBA ® conference. It offered tracks for business…

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Presentation Skills for Technical Professionals

“Oh drat”, you think. “I’ve got to do a presentation!” Nevertheless, you smile and ask, “Oh, sure—what’s the date?” Presentation Skills for Technical Professionals to the rescue! Out comes Naomi’s Karten’s splendid book. You open it, eager for your sit-down with your personal presentation skills coach.  You are easily captivated by Naomi’s clever style and…

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Being Agile when Designing and Playing Agile Games

By Mary Gorman

In my Stickyminds.com column “Playing at Work: Agile Games Deliver Value” I share game ideas and experiences – the benefits games can provide, selecting an appropriate game, facilitating a game, and designing a winning game.

Designing and Facilitating Agile Games

When writing the column I got to thinking how agile principles could provide a basis for good game design and facilitation. I reflected on a recent experience I had at Deep Agile 2010: Empowering Teams with Agile Games. Working in a small group we created a new game, tested it, and retrospected both the game and our design process in less than half a day. We consciously (and some times unconsciously!) were being agile! (To see and learn more about our game, read Michael Sahota’s summary at The Backlog Is in the Eye of the Beholder.)

Games and The Agile Manifesto

To clearly communicate the agile-ness of our work and what we learned I did a quick mapping to the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.

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