Agile Estimations: Understanding and Mitigating Basies

Estimations are a cornerstone of Agile project management, offering teams a means to forecast effort, set expectations, and make informed decisions. However, the accuracy of these estimations can be significantly influenced by various cognitive biases. Understanding these biases and their impact is crucial for any team striving to improve their estimation practices and overall project […]

Understanding Kubernetes: A Primer for Technical Program Managers

What is Kubernetes? Kubernetes, often abbreviated as K8s, is an open-source platform designed to automate the deployment, scaling, and operation of containerized applications. Originally developed by Google, Kubernetes has since been donated to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and has become the de facto standard for container orchestration. Why is Kubernetes Important? Key Concepts […]

Dealing with Dependencies

Dependencies in software development is an inevitability, especially when it comes to complex projects involving multiple teams, components, or external vendors/systems. As a technical program manager, managing these interdependencies is what makes or breaks you, and leadership look to you to ensure a timely delivery and maintain agility. In this article, I explore strategies to […]

Agile Metrics: What to Measure and Why

In my early days as a Technical Program Manager, I vividly remember a project where we proudly embraced Agile methodologies. We were a “raving” team, enthusiastic and committed to delivering high-quality software. However, as we progressed, it became evident that our enthusiasm alone wasn’t enough. Leadership were skeptical of the merits of agile, and we honestly needed a way to measure our progress, identify bottlenecks, and ensure we were genuinely delivering value. This realization led me down the path of understanding Agile metrics.

Continuously Improve your Projects by always asking ‘What?, So What?, Now What?’

As an agile evangelist, ensuring my teams continuously improve is a pinnacle component of sprint planning and executing. I always insist on having one story dedicated process and operational improvement each sprint to ensure we constantly evaluate and improve our methods and practices to achieve better results and outcomes. There are many ways to evaluate […]

What is Evidence-Based Management and how can I leverage it in Scrum Projects

Evidence-Based Management (EMB) “is an empirical approach that helps organizations to continuously improve customer outcomes, organizational capabilities, and business results under conditions of uncertainty“, according to the EBM Guide, a framework for delivering value through strategic goals through intentional experimentation and evidence (measures) in order to improve organizational performance over time. Goals Through a series […]

Writing User Stories for Every Phase of the Development Lifecycle

There is this preconceived notion that authoring user stories is confined to the requirements gathering phase. In fact, user stories post a critical role in communication between stakeholders and development teams throughout the development lifecycle. I will explain in this article how you employ user stories as the vehicle of communication between stakeholders continuously across […]