If you’re new to my writing, these posts are a good place to begin. They capture how I think about Agile and productivity – practical, human, and rooted in real experience.
- A new chapter: opening my productivity and agile coaching programme
I can help you find clarity and calmness in your life and work. - Agile is a toolbox
Agile isn’t one method or process. It’s a set of tools you can use to fit your context. - User stories change people
How writing user stories changes more than just projects. - A retrospective model for Modern Agile
A simple, flexible approach to running meaningful retrospectives.
My latest book
Scrum is simple to understand, but difficult to practise well.
What kind of problem is this? helps Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, Product Owners and delivery leaders use the sense-making Cynefin framework to make better sense of real team situations.
This practical field guide shows how Cynefin can help you recognise the nature of the work in front of you, choose more suitable Scrum practices and avoid applying the right technique in the wrong context.
Writing on Agile
🌱 Agile mindset, principles, and culture
Perspectives on what makes Agile more than a process — how values, simplicity, and continuous learning shape how teams thrive.
- High-trust teams need less process
- What teams taught me by failing safely
- My new book is available: What kind of problem is this?
- Agile as a learning system, not a delivery framework
- Scrum Masters and Cynefin – when the team needs stability first
- Scrum Masters and Cynefin – where learning matters most
- Scrum Masters and Cynefin – when the team needs expertise
- A moment of deliberate non-intervention
- Scrum Masters and Cynefin – when simple rules help
- The Scrum Master’s hardest skill is knowing when not to act
- Cynefin is about ontology
- When rhythm matters more than velocity
- Cadence matters more than many teams realise
- Psychological safety in Scrum teams and the complex domain
- Scrum Master not process police – choosing the role that actually helps teams
- Cynefin as an antidote to dogmatic Agile
- Why metrics distort reality in complex systems
- Scrum events as Cynefin domain transitions
- Psychological safety is a prerequisite for adaptation
- Cynefin and Scrum – why Scrum works best in the complex domain
- Cynefin and constraints – what is really holding things back?
- Busyness is not flow
- Cynefin for beginners – understanding the nature of the problem
- Agile doesn’t eliminate uncertainty. It manages it
- What Scrum Masters do when they ‘do nothing’
- Scrum Master as systems steward, not process police
- When ‘keeping people busy’ feels safer than finishing work
- Scrum embodies ‘wu wei’ – effortless alignment with complexity
- The Product Owner is the moral philosopher of the system
- The highest level of Scrum maturity is invisibility
- Scrum is a cultural inoculation against bureaucracy
- Scrum Masters manage energy, not people
- A sprint is not a box to fill – it’s a boundary for learning
- Scrum is not about speed – it’s about entropy management
- Joy, simplicity, compassion: Trinitarian gifts in the agile workplace
- Marginal gains for development teams
- Self-organising teams
- The Joy of Work
- Scrum makes one promise only
- How agile helps us build the right things
- Agile is a toolbox
- Steadily delivering quality
- Shu ha ri—three stages towards agile maturity
- The primary purpose of a development team is…
- Simplicity and maximizing the work not done
- Be agile not Agile™
- Agile is about culture not processes
🛠️ Agile practices and techniques
Guides to user stories, planning poker, prioritisation methods, and other building blocks of Agile practice.
- What happens when the Sprint is shorter than the development feedback loop?
- Scrum creates opportunities for feedback, but XP makes feedback technically possible
- GTD and Cynefin – a personal productivity angle
- Better than brainstorming: how Scrum teams should generate ideas
- Does agile velocity actually help?
- A new Scrum Master’s first job – understand the system before changing it
- The hidden mistake – treating complex work as complicated
- Your first month as a Scrum Master – why observation matters more than action
- The biggest mistake new Scrum Masters make – trying to fix the team too quickly
- Velocity is a mythical comfort metric
- The Daily Scrum is a synchronisation ritual, not a status update
- Definition of Done is the closest thing Scrum has to law
- The backlog is a moral document not just a technical one
- Should agile user stories follow the Single Responsibility Principle?
- User stories change people
- Instead of focusing on better estimates…
- What is a Definition of Ready?
- How to create new MoSCoW prioritisation statuses in Jira
- The importance of small user stories
- Planning poker
- Business process modelling at Lean Agile Dundee
- Spikes: supporting agile practice
- Pair programming: supporting agile practice
- What are story points?
- INVEST in good user stories
- Using a process map to help create definitions of ready and done
- Impact mapping at the first Lean Agile Dundee
- How and why we QA
- MoSCoW planning poker
- The difference between acceptance criteria and definition of done
- How do you know when you’re done?
- MoSCoW prioritisation is on effort
- Beginning to think about risk management in Agile projects
- Velocity and why it’s important
- Planning poker—why and how we estimate
- Agile release planning with multiple projects
- Agile planning poker
🔁 Retrospectives and continuous improvement
Models, ideas, and reflections to help teams learn from experience and adapt together.
- What I listen for in a Scrum team when numbers stop helping
- Scrum events as Cynefin domain transitions
- When slowing a team down increased delivery
- The Retrospective is the system’s self-consciousness
- A retrospective model for Modern Agile
- Retrospective idea: Sailboat
- Retrospective idea: one-word
- Retrospective idea: starfish
- Continually improving our work processes with retrospectives
- When retrospective objectives stack up
- Using Trello for team retrospectives
- Continually improving our work habits with retrospectives
👥 Team facilitation and collaboration
How Agile teams plan, communicate, and collaborate — including facilitation tips and practical examples.
- As trust grows, the Scrum Master steps back
- How psychological safety shows up in everyday team moments
- How to influence when slowing down is the right move
- When agile teams stop performing progress…
- Agile Team Facilitation
- Using Zoom polls for planning poker in Agile teams
- What rules do you have for meetings at work?
- What happens during a sprint review?
- Sprint planning in Scrum
- Meet our sprint planning document
- How we schedule work requests from other projects
- Exception reports, or what happens when a project goes off-track
- How we name our sprints
- The challenges of resource management in our Agile team
🧑🎓 Learning and community
Book recommendations, cheat sheets, and experiences from Agile meetups and podcasts.
- A new chapter: opening my productivity and agile coaching programme
- I was a guest on the new Ways of Agile podcast
- New job
- Version numbering schemes: an observation
- Lean Agile Edinburgh meetup at Royal London, March 2018
- Seven of my favourite books on Agile
- DSDM Agile project management cheat sheet
If you’re also working on personal effectiveness and sustainable delivery habits, explore the Personal productivity page.