I stopped writing on Medium. If you want to stay updated on my latest articles then register to my newsletter at mdalmijn.com. If you want to work with me head over to dalmyn.com. 🖖 My name is Maarten Dalmijn. I help teams beat the Feature Factory and discover better ways…

The Penguin Principle for Agile transformations — I was in the fifth and final round for a Product Owner position. I remember being tired of responding to all kinds of questions, often the same I had answered before. Especially considering I already jumped through quite a few hoops— I had completed a personality test and an intelligence…

Splitting User Stories into more User Stories often means you are deceiving yourself (and your users too!) — Nussi Einhorn posted the following picture on LinkedIn: The left-hand side of the image portrays a confusing mess of User Stories. Try scanning them and getting the gist — you won’t. The right-hand side of the picture showcases a crisp and clear alternative by using descriptive titles that summarize the…

Crafting a clear and overarching Sprint Goal during Sprint Planning — Boxer Mike Tyson once said: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” — Mike Tyson In military warfare a similar saying exists: “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” — Helmuth von Moltke the Elder No matter how much time you spend planning, you can…

I struggle with perfectionism. Nothing is ever good enough. I had to learn to be proud, even when I kept noticing all the things that were wrong or could be better. That's why my book going into production is a big step for me. Your book going into production means…

The time has come to go into hibernation. — I’m grateful for how Medium has helped me to grow my online presence and personal brand. However, I don’t see any benefit to becoming bigger on a platform that limits how I can engage with all my followers. What is the point of more followers if you can’t reach them? …

The biggest tragedy of the one-year feature GANTT chart, together with precise timelines, is not that we will deliver less value by operating as a Feature Factory. The true disaster is the death spiral of demotivation. Let me break down what I’ve often seen happen: • One of the first big…

These two blockbuster movies show the messy nature of complex work, though what comes out is the opposite of a mess. The two movies had opposite starting points: Movie A : They knew from the outset they were trying to do things nobody had done before. …

Famous last words at the Daily Scrum. I have heard them repeated many times over. “It is done but not yet tested” is another example. And then it still turns out it it isn’t done — “We need a bit more time”. And then it is almost done again, yet…