I’m excited to share that on November 26, 2025, I will be speaking at the Agile Consortium Annual Conference 2025—the premier event for agile professionals in the Netherlands. This year’s theme, “Shaking Agility”, promises fresh perspectives and meaningful discussions.
I’m really looking forward to meeting you there, sharing experiences, and exploring how we can truly shake up agility—in the best possible way. You can register via https://jaarcongresnl.agileconsortium.net/
If you’d like to connect or discuss something during the conference or in advance, feel free to reach out.
In this episode, Jurgen Meheus and I dive into the world of Agile transformation. Jurgen is managing partner at M2Q, and invited me to discuss how Agile requires a completely different mindset than traditional software development. We will address the challenges of implementing Agile methodologies in large organizations, the importance of continuous improvement and adaptation to local conditions, and the critical role of documentation in Agile projects, especially in regulated industries…
I am proud to share a new article with you. It is based on experiences I had in my last assignment, during which I had the opportunity to sit with each Scrum Master in one-on-one sessions.
Since there was always a lot going on, we never really got past the “what’s keeping you occupied” and “what is hot today” questions. I felt we also needed to discuss some other topics. With the Clover Model, I am pleased to have defined a checklist that allows us to do so, while simultaneously triggering relevant discussions for those topics that are crucial for successful transformations.
While I believe the Clover Model covers essential aspects, I welcome additional suggestions or insights. How do you envision using this model, and what benefits do you foresee beyond those discussed here? Your input is valuable – please share your thoughts.
When developing solutions it’s the dependencies that make things complicated and slow down the delivery. They can result in delays, more expensive solutions or sometimes cause the product not to see operational daylight at all.
In my latest blog for Bits & Chips I explain different types of dependencies and explain what you can do to identify them during refinement. I wonder do you recognize these 5 types and what do you to identify them?
I am thrilled to be invited to the Quality time session organised by Qnation. The session will be held on a special location, the national aquarium of Denmark. While we look out over the sea, I will tell you about my new book; the waves of agile. I’ll and share his ideas on how to deliver value, explain why working agile is hard when applied in medium and large organizations, but also provide some solutions.
Agile adoption comes in waves, and I am looking forward to provide tips for Agile coaches and leaders and quality ambassadors to combine forces and guide your organization into the next wave of Agile. Are you an agile leader, agile coach or agile tester? Are you interesting to gain more insight in how to adopt the agile way of working and built quality in your product, then attend this seminar?
I heard the room is filled by now, and Qnation had to extended the number of participants already. Maybe there is some place left. Details can be found on the event page
Recently I had an interview with Marcella Koopmans about the book “Waves of agile, value delivery in medium and large organizations. Marcella lives in New Zealand and is the head of Agile for her company. She is an Agile enthusiastic and likes to focus on the human aspects of the transformation. In the interview she states that there is a need for a fundamental understanding of the transformation since it impacts a lot of aspects of the organisation: “We need to understand the scope of this freaky thing.”
The program of the InflectraCON™ 2022 is announced. And I am proud to be part of it! Set in the heart of the US’ s capital, InflectraCON 2022, is a two-day multi-track conference celebrates all aspects of Software Development, Testing, Agile, DevOps, Cyber, Leadership, and Innovation.
I will contribute with a great story, and hope that together with the other speakers, we will inspire you about what’s on the horizon for technology in 2022 and beyond! Check the line up on the event-page and see who’s there beside Mindy Bohannon, Jennifer Bonine, Ard Kramer and Jeffery Payne.
Join us for an all-out party marking the 16th anniversary of Inflectra and our collective emergence from the pandemic! Be part of the conversation about digital transformation! Network and rekindle friendships with your teammates, fellow technologists, and friends during the end-of-the-conference reception and party!Come to InflectraCON 2022 and join the people like you who are influencing their organization’s growth and the future landscape of Agile and DevOps!
I met Daniel Maslyn at the Agile Testings Days, held in Potsdam Germany. Together we settled down in the (empty) pub of the hotel, and I asked him for his opinion. Daniel is a Passionate and Creative test professional. He is known for his energy and enthusiasm which he uses to meet the current challenges of IT in many environments and business domains. Daniel shares his impression of the book: “It’s very pragmatic: You got an issue? Check-it!”
I am thrilled to announce my contribution to the Agile DevOps conference that is organized by TechWell coming November. I will speak about refinement and how to unlock its potential.
Good refinement makes development more predictable, leads to better solutions, and enables the Product Owner to set the right priorities. Still, many teams fail to unlock the full potential of refinement. Not only is the time spent on refinement often limited, but many of the refinement meetings I join are also inefficient. Join this session if you are an Agile Coach of SM and want to help your team(s) to get more out of refinement. If you are a PO and feel a need to boost quality and predictability, or if you are a member of a distributed team and want to involve your fellow team members.
Agile-thoughts is a free online magazine that aims to disclose experiences and enable meaning-full connections. The editors collect treasures from bold agile thinkers and share them with their readers.
Yesterday the July issue of Agile-thoughts has been released. Since the release date coincides with the launch of my new book, the editor has picked a very special theme for the magazine: WAVES.
In the editorial a nice point is made. The special thing about the covid situation is that we were all going through the same phases. This enabled us to adapt quickly. I like the connection made to the waves of agile. As stated: “Understanding the nature of those waves and recognizing the way they materialize along the Agile journey becomes priceless: first, it provides clarity of what to expect through the transformation, and second, it helps grasp a better sense of what is happening in the organization.” In short if we understand the phase we are in, this will speed up the transformation.
Beside referring to the book, other authors allign with the theme as well. See for instance the article by Mattia Rapisarda: Waves, Surfing and Agile, which shares a experience story of Agile Transformation in a Italian Finance Organization.
Check out the magazine and the other articles by Jerilyn Edginton, Aino Vonge Corry, Sonja Blignaut, Fernando Cuenca and Monica Viggars
On 5 July I will be presenting my new book: The waves of agile, Value delivery in medium and large organizations. In a free webinar we will celebrate that the book is finished. Join me in this event and I’ll explain what the book is about and we’ll have nice contributions from Nils van Schaik and Wilco Dona.
We’ll have the following program:
How to deal with change? – Nils van Schaik (Director at Squerist)
The customer in the driver seat – An interview by Vincent Verloop (Agile Consultant at Squerist) with Wilco Dona (Head of products at RTL)
Introduction to ‘The Waves of Agile’– Derk-Jan de Grood (Agile Coach at Squerist )
More information about the book can be found in the book session on this blog. Please join us on Monday July 5 between 16:00 and 17:00. You can reserve your seat by registering on the event page
On 24 september the CorporatiePlein was held. With more than 500 registrations from employees of housing corporations, its the largest and most visited online event for housing corporations in the Netherlands.
I gave a presentation about agile. In my talk I explain why agile is beneficial for housing corporations and give an introduction on what to consider with an Agile/Scrum transformation. The event and my talk is in Dutch (sorry, for the non-dutch followers) and can be viewed below.
Today the CorporatiePlein will be held. It’s the trade fair for professionals in the housing corporation business. With more than 500 registrations from employees of housing corporations, the tenth edition of CorporatiePlein will immediately become the largest and most visited online event for housing corporations in the Netherlands.
The event offers an online exhibition floor with dozens of suppliers and advisors with a focus on the housing association sector. Additionally the CorporatiePlein Online offers knowledge and content in the form of interesting presentations in the fields of Finance, Real Estate, Maintenance, Housing, Communication and Operations, Innovation & ICT.
I am proud to share Squerist will be present with 4 presentations on Robotica, Agile Testing, Agile transformation and the TROMP maturity scan.
My talk, about what Agile can bring for housing corporations will be presented at 11:30.
On 11 and 12 September the Agile Business Day is being held. Two days of conference with a great line-up of speakers. I am proud to be one of them.
This week I have been preparing my talk on refinement, which I will give on 11 September. In my talk I will share (anti) patterns that I see around me. I will also give tips to get more out of your refinement sessions and enjoy the benefits of good refinement.
Special attention will be given to distributed teams, where distance and culture make active involvement of all the team members more challenging. The details about my talk can be found on the conference website.
Below I share a sneak preview of some of the slides I will be using. I hope to ‘see’ you in the room. Like many conferences, the ABD2020 will be online this year. So no traveling required, only WIFI.
For the Agile Alliance I wrote an experience report about how to overcome the struggling many organisation have in getting the various roles in place. In this experience report I will share my approach with striving for role agreements. The report is the fundament under my talk on the XP2020 conference
In order to have effective teams it is crucial that everyone understands their role. In small organisations I had success with mission statements for e.g. the Scrum Master and Product Owner. But what approach do you choose in a large department where opinions varies from team to team and exceptions rule? Where management is in a transition from traditional management toward agile leadership?
I learned that in a multiple team session the search for a single truth is futile and it is better to stimulate communication and alignment. The result of this approach was that a dialogue was started, and PO, SM and managers aligned rather than getting stuck in a discussion on the formal role description.
In the report I share the mission statements I used and the approach we took to get role agreement between PO and manager. This yielded in some insight on how we wanted to share responsibilities between the SM, PO, Manager and the Team. The article lists this in a big overview, that you can use to discuss and align the roles in your own organisation.
Derk-Jan de Grood 