Author Archives: Brian Lucas

About Brian Lucas

In his life, Brian Lucas has been a coach, farm worker, forester, health care advocate, life guard, general contractor, mechanic, mixologist, musician/singer (in a rock group), salesman and teacher. Brian has worked as a project manager, technical marketer, methodologist, manager, software architect, systems designer, data modeler, business analyst, systems programmer, software developer and creative writer. These efforts include over a hundred hi-tech initiatives in almost every business and industrial sector as well as government and military projects. Among them, he designed and developed a quality assurance system for the first transatlantic fiber optic communications network, a manufacturing system for a large computer manufacture’s seven manufacturing centers, a data mining system for steel production, an instrumentation system for cable systems, defined requirements for government’s information systems and designed and developed human performance management systems. Brian has educated and mentored many over the years, designing programs to discover and develop talent. He has also lectured extensively to a variety of audiences. Brian is currently devoting as much time as possible to the innovation of business agility and human capital management along with the next generation of agile software development. As an amateur theoretical physicist he is working on joining general relativity and quantum mechanics through a multidimensional time corollary on string theory and negating the uncertainty principle with Louis de Broglie’s wave/particle hypothesis. He is also an avid blue-water sailor and wilderness backpacker. He enjoys billiards, boxing, chess, cooking, famous battle reenactments and war gaming, fencing, flying, gardening, horseback riding, martial arts (particularly Ninjutsu), philosophy and psychology, playing musical instruments (7 so far), poker, rapid-fire target shooting, reading (he tries to read a new book every night), painting with oils, scuba diving, skiing and recently writing novels.

A Natural Agilist Finds a Home with Main Line Health’s “Healthy” Agile Organization

By Brian Lucas Main Line Health is a shining star of agility in Southeastern Pennsylvania’s health care industry.  In fact, it is one of the most progressive health care organizations in the country.  Main Line Health is not a small enterprise; … Continue reading

Posted in Agile Arguments, Agile in the Enterprise, Interview with a Natural Agilist, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 61 Comments

Interviews with a Natural Agilist

By Brian Lucas “Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.” – Marcus Aurelius “When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to … Continue reading

Posted in Agile and Strategic Planning, Agile Arguments, Agile in the Enterprise, Interview with a Natural Agilist | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 47 Comments

Is Agile a Return to Common Sense?

By Brian Lucas “Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.” –Harriet Beecher Stowe A  post of mine, “HCM, HIM and Agile are Perfect Together“, had the following reply from Dave Francavilla: Brian, Very … Continue reading

Posted in Agile Arguments, Agile for Beginners, Agile for Software Development, Agile in the Enterprise, Interview with a Natural Agilist | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 78 Comments

Using Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server to Your Agile Best

By: Dave Smith and Brian Lucas Since I posted the first set of tips about TFS usage for agile, I received so many requests for additional information that my friend and colleague Dave and I happily collaborated on a list … Continue reading

Posted in Agile Arguments, Agile for Beginners, Agile for Software Development, Agile in the Enterprise, Agile Tool | Tagged , , , , , , | 58 Comments

HCM, HIM and Agile are Perfect Together

By Brian Lucas In the recent past, I was asked to address the subject of human capital management, the emergence of human interaction management and their effect on agile.  The fact is that the people element in the system is … Continue reading

Posted in Agile and Strategic Planning, Agile Arguments, Agile in the Enterprise | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Tips for Using Microsoft TFS with Agile

By Brian Lucas While I don’t, as a policy, generally make product recommendations; I do feel comfortable offering tips and tricks about a particular tools use.  Particularly a very popular one.  Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server (TFS) is very popular and … Continue reading

Posted in Agile for Beginners, Agile for Software Development, Agile Tool | Tagged , , , , , | 36 Comments

What do you do with an entrenched skeptic?

By Brian Lucas “Facts are stubborn things; whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” – JOHN ADAMS What can you do when someone honestly doesn’t … Continue reading

Posted in Agile Arguments, Agile for Beginners, Agile for Software Development, Agile in the Enterprise | Tagged , , , , , , | 27 Comments

A Simple Definition of Kanban Leads to Agile Productivity

By Brian Lucas “If you seek the kernel, then you must break the shell…” – Meister Eckhart I was discussing Kanban the other day with several people who were very confused by the concepts.  One viewed it as Kanban vs. … Continue reading

Posted in Agile for Software Development, Agile in the Enterprise | Tagged , , , , | 23 Comments

Scott Ambler on The Glacial Methodology™ Workshop: A Data-Centric Software Development Process

I love a tongue in cheek satire especially about dogmatically held beliefs.  Here is a great one by Scott Ambler.  It could readily be applied to those who believe in creating copious amounts of documentation and following a waterfall process instead … Continue reading

Posted in Agile for Software Development | Tagged , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Middle of the Road CIOs are Getting Hit by the Innovation Truck

By Brian Lucas “It is better to err on the side of daring than the side of caution.” –Alvin Toffler The other day I heard a manager state that he was “a middle of the road kind of guy.” At … Continue reading

Posted in Agile and Strategic Planning, Agile Arguments, Agile in the Enterprise, Agile Thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments

From the Leader’s Guide to Radical Management by Stephen Denning

By Brian Lucas “The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.” -Mark Twain The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management by Stephen Denning … Continue reading

Posted in Agile and Strategic Planning, Agile in the Enterprise | Tagged , , , , , | 26 Comments

Agile Concepts Graphics

By Brian Lucas I created this simple graphic to demonstrate what the generic concept behind agile is.  What are your favorite agile diagrams?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Agile Savings versus Traditional Methods

By Brian Lucas Time-to-market savings realized by agile methods comes from many different aspects of agile’s natural mechanisms and flows.  Most of these have a combined effect that contributes even greater economies.  To begin with let us look at two … Continue reading

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Why CEOs Fail in Today’s Agile Business Environment

By Brian Lucas “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin CEOs have always come in all flavors … Continue reading

Posted in Agile and Strategic Planning, Agile in the Enterprise | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments

Best Reply of the Month Winner

By Brian Lucas There have been so many great replies to the posts that I thought some form of recognition would be in order. So we have created this special post to record and honor the best reply of the … Continue reading

Posted in Best Reply of the Month Winner | Tagged , , , , , | 27 Comments

Employee Suggestions

By Brian Lucas “Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” -John Steinbeck A glimpse of life in an agile business versus a non-agile enterprise. At the … Continue reading

Posted in Employee Suggestions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

A Tale of Two Companies – A glimpse of life in an agile business versus a non-agile enterprise.

By Brian Lucas “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” – Benjamin Franklin If you look at the history of people and progress, you’ll see three types of people: those who are … Continue reading

Posted in A Tale of Two Companies, Agile and Strategic Planning, Agile Arguments, Agile for Beginners, Agile in the Enterprise, Employee Suggestions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Debunking the Case Against Agile

By Brian Lucas “A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.”  William James (1842-1910) American philosopher and psychologist. The Case Against Agile: Ten Perennial Management Objections, which was … Continue reading

Posted in Agile for Beginners, Agile for Software Development | Tagged , , , , , | 22 Comments

My first agile project

By Brian Lucas “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” -Lao-tzu I have received so many emails and phone calls (how did all these people get my cell phone number) since I started this blog.  The majority … Continue reading

Posted in Agile for Beginners, Agile for Software Development | Tagged , , , , , | 26 Comments

When to use epic user stories

By Brian Lucas One day a traveler, walking along a lane, came across 3 stonecutters working in a quarry. Interested to find out what they were working on, he asked the first stonecutter what he was doing. “I am cutting … Continue reading

Posted in Agile for Software Development | Tagged , , , , , | 21 Comments

So what is Agile?

By Brian Lucas I am dedicating my first post to Michael Milutis, who encouraged me to begin blogging and sharing the small store of wisdom I have gathered over the years.  Here’s to you Mike! “By three methods we may … Continue reading

Posted in Agile Arguments, Agile for Beginners, Agile for Software Development, Agile in the Enterprise, Agile Thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 77 Comments