This week we revisit the age-old statements, “I don't want to be measured” and its alter ego, “management will use metrics against me.”  While often stated as if they are questions, both are positions. We weave in two recent techniques from our Re-read of Agile Conversations to consider the interests behind the statements  

Also, Jeremy Berriault weighs in on the need for testing strategies in agile on this edition of this QA Corner.  

Re-Read Saturday News 

Week 7 of our re-read of  Agile Conversations by Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick begins Chapter 5 addressing the ‘Why Conversation’. Like the ‘Fear Conversation’, we will approach this in two parts; focusing this week on two areas, positions and interests, and inquiry and advocacy. We will tackle joint design next week. 

My experiment of the week:

I set out to create a fear matrix – that sounds like a movie title.  I failed, BUT more importantly, I was able to use the fear matrix approach as a structure for a retrospective.  It worked well. The idea of exposing and mitigating fears shifted perspectives nicely. Interestingly, what was hard was tying the fears and mitigations to an espoused norm. In conversations afterward, it became apparent that it is hard to admit that your behavior is or was at odds with the norms of the team and organization. It will be worth another conversation to make sure the link is clear.  

Next week, I am going to explore building a position-interest chart.

https://amzn.to/3vEjr55 

 

Week 1: Logistics and Introduction - https://bit.ly/3EZspxT 

Week 2: Escaping The Software Factory - https://bit.ly/3HIlivg 

Week 3: Improving Your Conversations - https://bit.ly/3ty0nYe 

Week 4: The Trust Conversation - https://bit.ly/3ApUrSk 

Week 5 The Fear Conversation (Part 1) - https://bit.ly/3gahSpt 

Week 6 The Fear Conversation (Part 2) - https://bit.ly/34lLON4 

Week 7 The Why Conversation (Part 1) - https://bit.ly/3Jg6KE2 

 

Next SPaMCAST 

Next week Kevin McKeel will visit the SPaMCAST to talk about AI and software estimation tools. Is this the end of the world for the software estimating profession or the beginning of a golden age?