Darian Rashid, Author at Agile Ethos

By Darian Rashid In Agile Leadership Posted September 17, 2017 0 Comments

In the years I’ve been transforming organizations, a few requests get me worked up like a two-year old who skipped a nap. Two of these are, “The right process will solve our people issues” and “The right tool will solve our people and process issues.” While I agree, processes and tools are important, people are […]

Stabilize The Patient First

By Darian Rashid In Agile Leadership, Agile Testing, Process Posted August 10, 2017 0 Comments

So, I was watching one of those Trauma in the ER shows, and one phrase kept coming up: “We need to stabilize the patient before we can do anything else.” It makes me glad that some of us software developers didn’t go into medicine. If we treated patients the way we treat our code, well, […]

Automation Will Never Replace Exploration

By Darian Rashid In Automation, Experimentation Posted July 9, 2017 0 Comments

We here at Agile Ethos are obviously kind of huge fans of automation, be it test automation or otherwise. Having lived through much proverbial bloodshed and having witnessed too many large-scale applications drown in their own regression bugs, we feel our obsession is well merited. Most organizations we’ve worked with had a large chunk of the […]

Does Testing Add Value?

By Darian Rashid In Agile Testing, Organizational Structure, Process, Technical Skills, Vertical Slicing Posted March 20, 2017 0 Comments

My simple answer: “No, it does not.” Ok, before you get your nickers in a twist, I am not saying you should get rid of the Q/A team or ship a product that’s hanging together by dental floss. On the contrary, we should always ship a product of the highest quality. But despite that, I […]

Experimentation Means it’s OK to Fail

By Darian Rashid In Agile Leadership, Agile Roles and Responsibilities, Experimentation, Project Risk Mitigation, ScrumMaster Posted December 5, 2016 0 Comments

Experimentation is the key to learning and continuous learning is the core of Agile and iterative methods. A wise man once told me that we know the least about our product and the optimum process to build that product when we first start. I could never (or never wanted to) argue that point. When we […]

ScrumMasters are not Task Masters

By Darian Rashid In Agile Leadership, Process, ScrumMaster Posted September 20, 2016 0 Comments

It always bewilders me to think about the amount of teams out there who designate the ScrumMaster as a ‘Task Master’. In these teams, the ScrumMaster’s role is often seen as that of an administrator. This ScrumMaster schedules, plans and runs the meetings, including the Daily Scrum. His job is to make sure all the […]

Q & A is Part of the Team

By Darian Rashid In Agile Testing, Organizational Structure, Process, Technical Skills, Vertical Slicing Posted July 20, 2016 0 Comments

It is almost guaranteed that when I work with new organizations, one of the first questions that comes up is “How does the development organization work with the Q/A organization?” This question is a stinker. A seemingly simple question actually is pointing out much deeper organizational issues that go beyond testers to how we see […]

I Didn’t Learn to Drive by Reading the Manual

By Darian Rashid In Agile Leadership, Agile Transformation, Culture, Experimentation, Process, Training Posted February 20, 2016 0 Comments

I remember that day like it was yesterday. The click of the camera, the awful picture, the waiting for what seemed like hours and finally, that moment where I was handed, still hot off the lamination machine, freedom, emancipation, liberation – or as you may call it, a driver’s license! That was one of the […]

Organizational Transformation Barrier: Corporate Security Policies

By Darian Rashid In Agile Transformation, Barriers and Impediments, ScrumMaster Posted January 18, 2016 0 Comments

The Barrier This is the first post in the ‘Barriers to Organizational Transformation’ series and it is the Friday before Memorial Day so I thought I’d start with something light but important: Those corporate security policies that disallow openly displaying information on walls, hallways, etc. The Effect As you can imagine, the problem with […]

When Did Agile Stop Being Agile?

By Darian Rashid In Agile Leadership, Experimentation, General, Soapbox Posted August 20, 2015 0 Comments

I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend lately where pundits, bloggers, and practitioners keep insisting there’s only one way to practice Agile software development, and it’s usually their way (go figure). I can’t tell you how many times I’ll read or hear about new Agile practitioners who asked a simple question on an online group or […]

Empowerment Doesn’t Mean Anarchy

By Darian Rashid In Agile Leadership, Agile Roles and Responsibilities, Culture, Process, Soapbox Posted July 19, 2015 0 Comments

One of the most misinterpreted and misapplied terms in our Industry is the term ‘empowered’. I hear it used over and over from organizations that are new to Agile concepts and have usually know just enough to be dangerous – and dangerous they become. Although I’ve seen this term misapplied in many different roles, it […]

Transforming a Traditional Manager Into an Agile Manager

By Darian Rashid In Agile Leadership, Agile Roles and Responsibilities, Culture, Experimentation, Organizational Structure, Process, ScrumMaster, Soapbox, Vertical Slicing Posted April 20, 2015 0 Comments

Many pundits preach that the agile organization will not have managers – that teams will self-manage and can carry out all responsibilities of traditional functional management. This includes HR responsibilities, major conflict disputes, etc. “The team is self-managing, which includes all management responsibilities,” or so I keep hearing. Call me a heretic, but I’ve never […]

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