Why Agile Adoption Fails (+ 8 Ways to Find Success)

Agile adoption failure stories are abundant, especially in large organizations. There are many vague reasons and lame excuses for this: "Our culture doesn’t support change initiatives." "Our leadership won’t adopt an agile mindset.” "Our change order process can’t integrate with an agile process." And so on. Here are some concrete things you can do or […]

Four DOs and DON’Ts for Software Systems Integrations

Systems integrations can be wonderful when they work, but they often end in failure. Here are four tips to improve your success rate.

How I’m Improving Predictability with Pivotal Tracker’s “Team Strength”

I was reluctant to embrace Pivotal Tracker when I joined Atomic because I valued Jira so highly. But over the last year, I’ve come to rely on a handy feature that I didn’t have with Jira — Team Strength. Why? It allows me to adjust overall velocity by configuring variations in my team’s schedule from […]

More than a “Manager” – How to become a Career Coach & Help Your Makers Thrive

There is a big difference between being a good manager and a good coach. Managers focus on making sure team members are meeting expectations and help them navigate the policies of the organization. Good coaches, on the other hand, bring out the best in team members so they can reach their full potential.

Two Ways to Improve Your Daily Stand-Up with a Large Team

At this point, anyone who is doing Agile software development is familiar with the daily stand-up. Traditionally, during that meeting, each team member answers the following questions for the larger group: What did you do yesterday? What did you do today? Is there anything blocking you from moving forward? This approach works well for teams […]

What Makes a Good Scrum Master?

Atomic does not have a dedicated scrum master position. The closest comparison is our delivery lead role, which is a blend of project management, account management, and product management. However, we often work with clients that do have dedicated scrum masters. Many times, the people in these roles were hired as traditional project managers, but […]

Cross-Functional Development Teams – A Thought Experiment

Publication of the Agile Manifesto in 2001 turned the software development world on its head. Waterfall, with its months of comprehensive planning followed by months of heads-down development, was out; Agile was in. The Agile Manifesto lays out its values and the principles behind them, but it avoids defining a process. And this is good. […]

Getting Work Done – What a Year at a Mechanic Shop Taught Me About Process

I took a gap year later in life and worked at an auto shop while I contemplated my next career move. It was really interesting to work in an industry that was completely different from technology. One of the most fascinating things was seeing how patterns of work evolved at the shop. They mimicked many […]

Practicing Agile with a Growing Team – Part 2: Everything Else

This is the second in a two-part series about adjusting Agile practices for larger teams. In Part 1 of this mini-series, we took a look at how individuals and interactions impact Agile practices. In Part 2, I’ll share what we’ve seen in the other areas. Confession: Most of these points still come down to individuals […]

Practicing Agile with a Growing Team – Part 1: Individuals and Interactions

Our project teams usually fit into most people’s definition of a small team, even if you include key players from our client in the count. As a result, many of our default Agile practices are best suited to that smaller team size and need a few adaptations as team size grows. On a recent project […]

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Atomic Object’s blog on everything we find fascinating.

Project & Team Management