Agile Otter Blog

Bridging two worlds is not easy. See if you can spot the non-agile assumptions in all of these questions: You find one team is only meeting schedules and pleasing customers because they have been padding schedules and cutting scope. How can you get them to plan and execute more aggressively?  One of your teams is hogging some of the QA resources full-time, and have been since the start of the project. How do you ensure you'll have a full complement of testers for your other team's testing phase?  One of your teams has stopped turning in estimates and long-range plans. They seem to be producing well enough, but how do you reign in their manager without hurting productivity?  Of your two teams, one group works overtime and weekends but the other refuses to stay late even during mid-week days. You have many projects in the pipeline. How do motivate those clock-watchers?  Your team has severe technical problems, but instead of keeping their nose to the grindstone,...

Note: There is good news on this front. Apparently the copyright has been settled, and we have new copies printed last year by Solis press. You may still be able to buy a cop y from Amazon! Now on with the original post.... In 1926, Graham Wallas published a book which has been cited in organizational theory texts all over the world (as well as papers on the  Philosophy of Art ). It presaged cognitive psychology and built a model of creative thought that has helped millions of people recognize and appreciate their own ability to think creatively -- and teach it to others. I don't have a copy of The Art of Thought.  I know it by reputation and reference only. It seems like every once in a while I stumble across yet another reference to the Wallas Model of Creativity , and still I don't have a copy, and have never read a copy of the original work. Why? Because I can't have one. Amazon doesn't have it. Google books doesn't have it. Barnes and Noble doe...