Over the years, we—so-called Agile and Lean experts—often focus on fancier and more complex stuff. However, while flight levels or maturity models of this world may be interesting to some, they are also niche. What teams in numbers need are still the basics.
Here comes the problem. We’ve been there, done that, and it’s not interesting anymore. Standups? Boring. Iterations? Give me a break. Retrospectives? Oh, for heaven’s sake, no! Isn’t there a Scrum Master or someone to teach you that stuff?
But wait, what would happen if we returned to the basics again, using all the experience and insight to improve how teams work? Would we follow the guidelines? Now, would we, really? Or we’d rather hack the system, keep things that work, patch those that don’t, ignore the egos of all kinds of founding fathers and purity of all sorts of methods, but make stuff roll?
So that’s me, going back to Agile 101, sharing some quick and dirty hacks about standups, visual boards, iterations, estimation, and (let me burn in hell) retrospectives. So grab a coffee, and let’s go for a ride around the most basic the basics can get. Let’s see if I have any surprises for you up my sleeve.
