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 :) ...

There is no TRUE way of doing retrospectives. Teams are different in motivation, competence, culture and size. What works for you, might be ineffective in my context.  For me, the key indicator of good retrospective - developed action plan to improve process. How you get there is not as relevant

Stage 0 - Discovery : Activities designed to discover opportunities and to generate new product ideas. Stage 1 - Scoping:  A quick and inexpensive assessment of the technical merits of the project and its market prospects. Stage 2 - Build Business Case:  This is the critical homework stage - the one that makes or breaks the project. Technical, marketing and business feasibility are accessed resulting in a business case which has three main components: product and project definition; project justification; and project plan. Stage 3 - Development:  Plans are translated into concrete deliverables. The actual design and development of the new product occurs, the manufacturing or operations plan is mapped out, the marketing launch and operating plans are developed, and the test plans for the next stage are defined. Stage 4 - Testing and Validation:  The purpose of this stage is to provide validation of the entire project: the product itself, the production/manufactu...

Team Formation Requirement workshop and identifying the Epics and stories Initial technical architecture Initial Release goal Secure Funding Development Environment setup  Risks identification

Values diverse opinions Cultivates a culture of trust Develops other leaders Helps people with life issues Encourages Sells instead of tells Thinks you, not me Thinks long-term Acts with humility Source- http://www.skipprichard.com/9-qualities-of-the-servant-leader/

source- http://www.industryweek.com/lean-six-sigma/7-steps-leading-lean-respect-people 

CMMI is a sophisticated method for performance management. It helps companies predict costs, create schedules, and ensure quality. There's a whole  CMMI culture  that can train someone on the CMMI models and how to use them.

Agile is a cultural change that impacts people, processes and tools in different ways across the organization; based on iterative, time boxed and incremental approach , where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing and cross-functional teams , Agile promotes adaptive planning , evolutionary development and delivery and encourages a rapid and flexible response to change . 

Some of the approaches to scale scrum are mentioned below: - Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), by Dean Leffingwell; - Disciplined Agile Development (DAD), by Scott Ambler; - Large Scale Scrum (LeSS), by Craig Larman and Bas Vodde. Each has pros and cons and suited for different types of organisations or projects. What's more important is when we implement any practice is to track the impact of the change using hard direct evidence and see if the change is positive or negative. Look at evidence based management  to help track it.