Software the Agile Way....

Establish and clearly communicate objectives and outcomes to focus your participants and clarify what’s in and out of scope. The purpose of your meeting should determine the right attendees. Are you trying to brainstorm, solve problems or share information? Invite key stakeholders, decision-makers, and influencers when making cross-functional decisions that impact organization-wide processes. Unsure if a participant should join your meeting? Ask! People may come with their own agenda so clearly define the list of topics that need to be covered in the meeting. Make sure you allocate enough time to address each topic listed. If you have a packed agenda, consider scheduling two separate meetings. Want people to wait to ask questions at the end? Specify in your agenda when questions are welcomed, so people don’t interrupt you or try to jump ahead in the presentation. How many times have you received a calendar invite for a meeting that is set to take place in 30 minutes? If it’s not...

Productivity is defined as the production output per unit of input. I.e. dollars out / dollars in.  Assuming a fixed team working on a single product, your cost is (almost constant) for each sprint. The only way productivity can increase is by increasing the delivered value. That can be done by:  1) not building anything with 0 value, thus minimizing waste.  2) minimizing dead time. In software development that translates to:  - fast dev machines (minimize the devs waiting on builds and deployments).  - keep the build fast  - make deployments simple (e.g. hot deployments with JRebel)  - minimize dev env setup time (e.g. using Vagrant).  3) minimizing rework. This one translates to:  - keep the code releasable at all times using CI  - high coverage, layered automatic testing (aka agile release onion).  4) allowing the team to work uninterrupted  - minimizing external interference (including from management :) ...