Engineer, Systems Engineering

Many teams have a relatively easy time adopting the tactical aspects of the agile methodologies. Usually a few classes, some tools' introduction, and a bit of practice lead teams toward a fairly efficient and effective adoption. However, these teams quite often are simply going through the motions and neither maximizing their agile performance nor delivering as much value as they could. Borrowing from his experience and lean software development methods, Bob Galen explores essential patterns -the "thinking models" of mature agile teams- including large-scale emergent architecture, relentless refactoring, quality on all fronts, pervasive product owners, lean work queues, stretching above and beyond, providing total transparency, saying "No", and many more. Bob also explores the leadership dilemma of self-directed teams and why there is still the need for active and vocal leadership in defending, motivating, and holding agile teams accountable.