David Putman

It was 2005, some years after the dotcom boom and a financial software house asked Colin to help with a project they just couldn’t seem to deliver. Colin sat down at the table with the development team and Henry, the Marketing Director. “Ok,” he said, “You’ve been working on this project for three years but haven’t released any software. Can anyone tell me what the problem is?” Henry spoke up first, “We’ve told them many times what we need but they keep building something totally different.” Mike, the development team lead, shook his head and said, “Yes, but you keep asking for things that can’t be built!” After some similar exchanges, the conversation looked like descending into total chaos so Colin held up his hand to get everybody’s attention. “Can you give me an example?” he asked. “You have to understand we are working in regulated environments,” said Henry, staring angrily a...

Willy, the CEO, was at his desk feeling very satisfied and confident as he read the monthly IT report. Everything was looking good, the report told him the development teams were really performing well and velocity was up yet again. Unfortunately, an email from Jackie, the CFO, disturbed his calm. “I can see the IT teams are busy,” read the email, “but busy doing what? Can we get our changes delivered? They will save us hours of work every month. Why haven’t they been delivered? – Jackie.” To see if he could resolve Jackie’s issues, Willy hosted a meeting between her and RJ, the CTO. “Right, what’s the issue, Jackie?” asked RJ, keen to get the meeting started. “RJ, every month I get reports telling me how many more points your teams have delivered.” Said Jackie, visibly frustrated. “In the latest one, you’re bragging about some of the teams delivering sixty points a sprint for the last three sprints. The...