A couple weeks ago we were lucky enough to have the incredible Joel Tosi here delivering training on agile project design. I've known Joel for a long time. He's one my go to guys when struggling on process related issues or if I just want to make fun of Sharepoint. Joel does a lot of work with David Hussman, aka The Agile Dude, through DevJam. I have high regard for David and his approach to software development. It was through he and Jeff Patton I first heard about Story Mapping. That was 2008. Unfortunately I don't see very much of it these days. I was attempting to use it on a recent project and realized I could use a refresher on the technique, so we at DevMynd offered to host DevJam's Agile Project Design course with Joel as the instructor.

One of the patterns we see over and over again at DevMynd is urgency leading to failure. Urgency crops up in many different ways and for many different reasons, but the end result is almost always a negative outcome.

Brad and I, in our roles at DevMynd, get to spend a lot of time speaking with startup founders. That bit of sage advice from our good friend, Ice Cube, applies to much of those conversations.

Over the course of my career as a consultant I’ve been party to many sales meetings and negotiations. There’s one theme that’s an ever present thread linking these encounters: the group of documents known as non-x (non-disclosure, non-compete, non-poach, etc). It may be subtle, but behind these documents is paranoia, a fear that someone you are engaging with is out to get you.