andre.schweighofer

Make better predictions, stop estimating

Over half of all software projects are late or over budget. But isn’t late only a failed expectation, an expectation solely based on a team’s estimate? Is your team confronted with the questions of when will it be done or how much will it cost? We tend to respond to these uncomfortable inquiries by sticking our heads together and coming up with an educated guess.

Maybe there are easier, more transparent ways to make predictions about our software releases?

The Hidden Downsides of KPIs

In our complex world KPIs can give us a false sense of control. They ignore the chaotic nature of our lives and reduce humans to numbers.

What could we achieve if we acknowledged all sides of our humanness?

Crafting a lean roadmap

Traditional roadmaps make too many assumptions which causes miscommunication, wastes time and effort and renders you unresponsive to changing circumstances.

The idea behind Lean is to reduce waste. Let’s make our roadmaps less wasteful and create a lean roadmap!

Good intentions make bad roadmaps

What makes a good roadmap? More is always better! More milestones, more details, more predictions. That was my naive approach to creating roadmaps for a while. I didn’t realise how counterproductive most of that was.

A tweet from Janna Bastow last year inspired me to question my simplistic concepts.

Anxiety in product development

Over the last year I learned to recognise and work on my own anxiety. It also lead me to recognise anxiety in others.

Soon I realised this does not only affect other people but also organisations and processes. Let me introduce you to anxiety driven development.

How to measure technical debt

In my years as a software engineer I was always drawn to the shiny new things. But time and time again I got confronted with code ridden with technical debt. If you are working in tech you probably heard of technical debt.

For product managers it is the sword of Damocles alluding delayed projects and rejected feature requests. For engineers it can be a tremendous source of frustration and reason to quit jobs and move on. Why is technical debt so widespread and why is it so hard to beat?

Common product owner anti-patterns

Product owners need a diverse skill set to be successful. Your past experience, your current organisation and the specific industry make the requirements to your job unique. Nevertheless there are some common pitfalls and anti-patterns which many product owners unwillingly fall into. This short list of product owner anti-patterns hopefully helps you to avoid these common errors.

Collaborative product ownership meets reality – Part 3 of 3

A sure way to improve your product is to involve the whole team in product ownership. This third and final part focuses on practical steps you can take to accomplish shared ownership in your daily work life.

My TILs of the week 14/20

This is a summary of my “Today I Learned” moments of the calendar week 13 and 14. Topics are product inceptions, the DIBB framework and audio editing.

Kanban as an evolution of Scrum

In agile teams the use of both Scrum and Kanban is widespread. What is the difference between Scrum and Kanban? At what point does it make sense to use Kanban over Scrum?

This article helps you identify the limitations of Scrum and when it is time to break with the rules. It outlines how Kanban can be a natural evolution for Scrum teams.

My TILs of the week 12/20

This is a summary of my “Today I Learned” moments of the calendar week 12. Topics are working remotely, maturity models and a quick summary of the book Radical Focus.

Benefits of collaborative product ownership – Part 2 of 3

The product owner role is overburdened with too many responsibilities. Therefore a product owner can become a bottle neck and knowledge silo. Both of these traits lead to a cascade of issues.

This second part focusses on the benefits of a more collaborative but unfortunately less common approach to product ownership. It will highlight the principles, advantages and risks of collaborative product ownership.

My TILs of the week 11/20

This is a summary of my “Today I Learned” moments of the calendar week 11. Topics are innovation games, schemaless databases and measuring output.

My TILs of the week 10/20

This is a summary of my “Today I Learned” moments of the calendar week 10. Topics are user interviews, technical debt and getting ready for being a podcast guest.

What’s wrong with traditional product ownership – Part 1 of 3

The product owner is a crucial role in every Scrum team. They are the interface between stakeholders and the development team. They stay in close contact with customers and listen to their wishes and needs. They organise the product backlog

Unfortunately this role is doomed to fail. Here is why and how we can fix it.

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