I participated to a panel at Agile 2008, with Diana Larsen, Chair of the Agile Alliance board of directors, and Jim Shore. In this interview made by Deborah Hartmann during the conference, Diana and Jim talk about patterns observed in CTOs’ activity. CTOs emerge as real people caring for other people in their organization, and are put under a lot of pressure and constraints.
Project retrospectives help teams examine what went right and what went wrong on a project. But traditionally, retrospectives (also known as “post-mortems”) are only performed at the end of the project — too late to help. In organizations where teams develop using iterative, incremental methods, Agile retrospectives at the end of each iteration or increment stimulate continuous improvement throughout the project. Exceptional software process and project improvement grows out of solid data and good planning. Esther Derby and Diana Larsen, authors of Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great, will introduce you to a framework for effective retrospectives, provide tips and pointers for sustaining interest in retrospectives throughout the project, and suggest ways to maintain the relevance of improvement to the work of your team.