Michele Sliger
Member for
21 years 10 monthsMichele Sliger has extensive experience in agile software development, having worked in both XP and Scrum teams before becoming a consultant. As a self-described "bridge builder," her passion lies in helping those in traditional software development environments cross the bridge to agility. Along with co-author Stacia Broderick, their book The Software Project Manager's Bridge to Agility focuses on the topic, helping PMI-trained project managers make the transition. Michele is a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). If you have a question, or would like help with your agile adoption, Michele can be reached at [email protected].
All Articles by Michele Sliger
All Stories by Michele Sliger
| How Far We’ve Come (and How Far We May Go) | |
|
New Focus for Project Managers The jump from traditional software practices to agile can be daunting for some project managers. After all, agile teams are all about "self-organizing," right? What's a manager to do? Michele Sliger has encountered a fair number of worried project managers and, in this article, offers a more uplifting perspective. |
| A Manager's Role in Agile Development: The Light Bulb MomentMichele Sliger shares stories about how agile adoption has affected people like you and how it has changed individuals—their perceptions of agile, their leadership styles, and even their personal lives. | |
| The Cost of Coexistence Some organizations want to make the transition to agile, but aren't ready to trade in their old ways overnight. They'd rather spend some time getting to know agile—letting it coexist alongside already established, traditional methodologies. In this article, Michele Sliger and George Schlitz explain that such coexistence is possible, but that there is a cost of coexistence of which all organizations should be aware. |
|
| ScrumBut: Failure to Deliver In this article, Michele Sliger discusses one of the more common "ScrumBut" practices that, while allowing teams to say "We suck less," isn't really in keeping with intended Scrum practices. This ScrumBut practice is the persistent failure of the team to complete the agreed-upon features in the iteration or sprint. |
|
| Agile Ethics and Values Why use agile methods? You've already heard enough about how agile allows software development organizations to do more with less. In this column, Michele Sliger offers a completely different reason—one that's often overlooked but nevertheless critical. |
|
| Little Scrum Pigs and the Big, Bad Wolf While continuing to grow, the state of agile adoption seems to be plucked straight out of an Ayn Rand novel, where the acceptance of mediocrity has infected the masses like a plague. Half-hearted adoptions have led to half-hearted results (as in "we suck less") that in turn are leaving these organizations straddling a tipping point from which they more often than not slide backwards, rather than making the push over the top to high performance and exponential growth in ROI. |
|
| Is This Chaos Ok? | |
| Traces of Agile in the Big Apple Michele Sliger is often asked if the agile approach can be used for things other than software development. She gave the question some consideration and found the following example of a non-IT case of agility in action, which she highlights in this week's column. |
|
| Sixty Steps in the Right DirectionMichele Sliger uses a simple exercise to exemplify the changes self-organized teams cause in any company, especially with the project manager. In this column, Michele explains how to conduct this exercise and how to review and use the results to improve work relationships and communication. Above all, this exercise should help your whole organization understand how everyone's knowledge of a project's initiatives and goals affects the project's success. | |
| Discussion ToolkitSaying the right thing at the right time can be difficult. Prepare yourself with a handful of phrases that will help you keep the conversation going in the right direction. In this week's column, Michele Sliger offers a few of her own phrases to help you build a discussion toolkit. | |
| Meeting Agenda #1: Start on TimeOur society is founded on the importance of meetings, and it seems that the higher on the corporate ladder one climbs, the more meetings he must attend. Indeed, one of Michele Sliger's coworkers calculated that the amount of time she spends arranging meetings, getting to meetings, and in meetings equates to almost her entire workweek-thirty-six hours on average. Even though we may lose track of time in meetings, we all are painfully aware of the time we spend waiting for everyone to show up. In this column, Michele Sliger explains some of the tactics she's seen teams use to ensure that meetings start on time. | |
| Sharing the Vision In this article, Michele Sliger discusses why sharing the vision with the project team is so important and how this knowledge helps the team in its delivery. With examples from Walt Disney and software development, Michele explains how bringing everyone together and getting team members on the same page allows for belief in and commitment to the project, which is a must for a successful outcome. |