4 Great Articles About Agile Even Though They Aren’t

1. Operational Excellence, Meet Customer Intimacy

Brad Power writes a great piece weaving Lean concepts in and out of Michael Treacy’s Value Disciplines. He profiles Tesco’s successes in making these two concepts work together. If you don’t think Agile is headed to the enterprise, read this article, then think again.

2. You Need to Get Into Flow: Concentration At Its Best

Dianne Schilling isn’t talking about the continuous flow of Kanban, she’s talking about personal mental flow and achieving maximum productivity. When you extend this thought to continuous flow in a team environment, though, the benefits are the same.

3. 7 Employees You Should Fire Now

Yep. I know, we don’t like to think about this side of running a development shop, but Agile doesn’t work with just anybody. As a leader, your first step is to get the right people on the bus. Steve Tobak identifies the types of employees that don’t belong on that bus.

4. A Line to See Someone Is Not Cool, But Is Blocking Progress

Steven Sinofsky paints such a good picture of the problems that the Agile community is trying to solve every day: command and control, establishing appropriate accountability, establishing team rhythm. He does it by dissecting the barrage of employees waiting their turn to speak to  a busy manager and pointing out exactly what’s wrong with it. He also offers some some helpful solutions.