Agile Otter Blog

I've had enough questions and references to this that I need to explain this odd effect with the fashionably Asian-sounding name, which is being mentioned in boardrooms and team rooms all around the earth today. It's not from any Asian language. It is "poo" (such as you might unhappily find on your lawn), and "shoe" which you might happily purchase for your feet. The poo-shoe effect is when you stepped in something, and it stuck to you so that you will have to work long and hard to rid yourself of the stink of it. Now, this doesn't refer to bad choices or acts of temper or moments of ill-will or malfeasance that will be remembered. That is simply "bad reputation" and is a component of social justice. That's not worthy of being considered an instance of the poo-shoe effect. Nor is it about the honest or unintentional kind of mistake or accident that can mar ones reputation "oh, yeah, he's the kid who peed his pants in third ...

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,...