SPaMCAST 539 features our essay titled, Assessment and Continuous Process Improvement. Assessments and continuous process improvement are intertwined. Assessments being both a source of ideas and a tool to validate change and other experiments.  Other essays that have appeared on the SPaMCAST blog on agile assessments include: Assessment and Continuous Process Improvement - Components Of A Solid Assessment Plan Assessments: Being or DOing An Assessment: A Mall Map For Change We will also have part 2 of Susan Parente’s discussions on distributed agile.  This week we will focus on tools. Susan reminds us that unless you spend time building trust and learning how to communicate, a tool won’t solve a communication problem. Re-Read Saturday News This week we conclude the re-read portion our tour through Malcolm Gladwell’s by tackling both the conclusion and the afterword. The Tipping Point is a theory that viral change—epidemics, in Gladwell’s word—can be caused and shaped by few actions and people. The Law of the Few tells us that connectors, mavens and salespeople can affect whether or not a concept, idea or movement moves across the tipping point and becomes an epidemic. Check out the current entry of Re-Read Saturday at I have had several excellent suggestions for what to read next, right now the leader in the clubhouse is The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.  Thoughts? Next SPaMCAST SPaMCAST 540 will be a TREAT.  My interview with Mark Kilby and Johanna Rothman will be featured!   We discussed their new book, (Buy your copy ). Distributed agile teams are a fact of life, Johanna and Mark provide an extraordinary amount of wisdom for making distributed teams exceptional.