Justin York – Simdesk

“Del's leadership was instrumental in bringing agile methodologies to our development team. While transitioning to scrum, I often consulted with Del about how to handle things in the scrum framework. Once our team was fully running on scrum, I felt that we were at least twice as productive as we had been in the past.”

Matt Willson – Pervasive Software

“As Delmar's manager for over a year, I was very impressed with the simplicity of his designs, the quality of his software, and the tenacity he brought to problem solving, especially customer issues. Delmar provided strong leadership for the developers who worked under his tutelage.”

Steve Mook – Pervasive Software and Simdesk

"Del is experienced,enthusiastic and tenacious - an excellent team lead with expertise in UI design and development and Scrum project management. He is willing to learn new technologies, challenge assumptions, take risks, and be accountable for results. His skill and leadership would benefit any team that seeks to improve its ability to deliver value to customers and to the business."

My Agile Experience

What was really exciting was to see the Scrum methodology adopted company wide at Simdesk. Because of the success of our team I was able to train and mentor other team leads, managers and corporate executives to use Scrum. This lead to increased productivity and better communication among the teams, support, product managers and upper management. Goals are well defined and consistently meet.

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books change collaboration learning management release team Team Member training

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My Reading List

Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Cohn)) by Lyssa Adkins (Paperback - June 14, 2010)

Available on safaribooksonline.com as a Rough Cut.

Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum [Book] by Mike Cohn - Addison Wesley

Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time by Susan Scott

Collaboration Explained: Facilitation Skills for Software Project Leaders - Paperback (Jan. 16, 2006) by Jean Tabaka

Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love (Addison-Wesley Signature Series) Roman Pichler

Practices of an Agile Developer by Venkat Subramaniam and Andy Hunt - Pragmatic Book Shelf

Jan
25

Introducing Agile Change

By Delmar Hager

Change is difficult for all of us. We get comfortable in a routine and like to maintain it. This is especially true at work where we spend a majority of our waking hours.

It becomes a challenge to Agile practices to an organization or a team because of resistance to change. Here are some ideas on how to introduce change :

  1. Sell the team on the problem that needs to be fixed
    Many times we need to convince the team there is a problem. It is important we explain what the problem is and have the team agree that the problem needs to be addressed.
  2. Have the team read about Agile
    Introduce the team to reading materials that clearly explain the Agile concepts you want to introduce. These may include blogs, white paper and books.
  3. Attend Agile user group meeting
    There are Agile user groups in any metropolitan area. It is good to attend these meeting to get other developers opinion about Agile.
  4. Do not be fanatical about Agile
    When you are passionate about Agile methodologies it is easy to be fanatical. This will turn people off because you do not listen to their concerns.
  5. Choose one Agile practice to introduce
    To much change at one time overwhelms a team. Introduce one new Agile practice a month. This will make change easier because the team will have time to learn about the practice and apply it.
Categories : Adoption