Assembling a group of people and declaring them a team doesn’t make them one. Do you have the conditions necessary for the team to form? What activities have they completed to help them find an identity, their purpose, and how they’ll interact with each other?

On the surface, a Broadway musical, a newspaper, and software may not seem to have much—if anything—in common, but they have one common thread. All are delivered on a fixed schedule. But of the three, software tends to stray the most from the fixed schedule. In this week's column, Jeff Patton says that by focusing on the readiness of the entire product—as done in theatrical performances and when publishing a newspaper—and not just on the completion of the planned bits of work, you can produce software on a fixed schedule that you know is ready to ship.

When it comes to the conversation between a project management team and a client, many complaints lead back to the same root cause: failure to manage expectations. Here, Payson takes a look at some of those complaints and reminds us that work product definitions aren't the enemy.

Whoever claims that work has no room for play or play might not be a form of work may not know about the serious purpose of agile games. You can learn from games, use them to instigate change, innovate, and make product decisions. This week's column explores how Mary Gorman selects, plays, and designs games. Mary explains how games improve collaboration, deepen learning, and help teams focus on value delivery.