CollabNet Scrum and Agile Blog

Estimation and Release Planning with Fruit Salad

Lyssa Adkins — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:11:11 +0000

Some late breaking events caused several students in a recent Certified Scrum Product Owner class to reschedule, leaving only five students in the class. I (Lyssa) had arranged for a candidate Certified Scrum Trainer (CST), Brian Rabon, to co-teach with me in this class. He and I had some fancy footwork to do as many [...]

Scrum and Kanban – Do they play together?

Katie Playfair — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:40:50 +0000

Below is an excerpt from an email response I sent someone asking me about Kanban and Scrum and what they should do to determine which is more appropriate for their teams. This is just my personal opinion on this subject and I’m sure our trainers have MUCH better perspective to add! Kanban for software is an [...]

Scrum is not something “IT does”

Katie Playfair — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:57:30 +0000

Thanks to a ton of help from Michael James, I just put the finishing touches on my new webinar, “Necessary conditions for enterprise agile success: The subtle stuff you’re probably getting wrong.” In this presentation, I plan to review the common mistakes and pitfalls I witness at organizations around the world who have tried to [...]

How Teams Self-Manage: Lessons from the Ball Point Game

Angela Druckman — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 16:26:18 +0000

Like many Scrum trainers, I use the Ball Point Game in my Certified ScrumMaster course. We do it fairly early on, in the first hour, before we’ve gotten know each other. I use the Ball Point Game to show teams that they in fact already know how to do Scrum, meaning they know [...]

How To Have An Effective Daily Scrum – When The 15 Minute Meeting Takes Longer Than 15 minutes.

Tamara Sulaiman — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 10:33:12 +0000

In the first installment of this blog series on How To Have An Effective Daily Scrum (“When The Daily Scrum Isn’t Daily” posted April 30, 2010 ) I reviewed the purpose and some good practices for effective daily scrum meetings. We also examined the first in a series of “smells” that can contribute to your [...]

Millennials and Scrum, made for each other

Lyssa Adkins — Mon, 24 May 2010 01:29:42 +0000

This year, I encountered my first classroom-full of people who had never worked waterfall. Now, I don’t talk a lot about waterfall versus Scrum when I teach the Certified ScrumMaster course, just enough to set the stage for why Scrum arose when it did. I show some data about the appalling failure rates [...]

Techniques For Improving Your Daily Scrum: When The Daily Scrum Isn’t Daily

Tamara Sulaiman — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 18:23:13 +0000

The daily scrum is one of the most valuable practices that any team can use. Teams that are new to Scrum, particularly teams that are transitioning from a more traditional project management methodology can fall victim to less than stellar habits in their daily Scrum meeting. The value that should have been derived from this [...]

What is Agile ALM anyway?

Laszlo Szalvay — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 15:44:39 +0000

As part of any good acquisition it was our job (as Executives) to evaluate what we brought to the table and position the companies (CollabNet and Danube) as one. CollabNet, as everyone on the planet knows, is Subversion.

Addressing upper management challenges with Scrum

Lyssa Adkins — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 05:49:14 +0000

Common challenges often laid at the doorstep of upper management as an organization starts to see the benefits of Scrum are a noisy host of problems that usher in the need for a trio of mind-set changes: resource utilization vs. throughput, competition vs. collaboration and command-and-control vs. servant leadership. In my experience, most of [...]

Neurotic Interventionism

Michael James — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:04:14 +0000

When we’re anxious about the way things are going, we have an urge to do something. Doing things makes us feel like we’re helping, reducing our anxiety. This is part of being human, and usually it’s beneficial. Sometimes this urge compels us to interfere with natural processes working the best they’re going to. Why have we [...]

Scrum, Rugby and Teamwork

Angela Druckman — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 23:24:35 +0000

With the recent popularity of the film “Invictus” and its inclusion as an Olympic sport coming in the 2016 games, many Americans are being exposed to rugby for the first time. Those of us who engage in agile software development practices know that the term “scrum” has its origins in rugby and that Scrum, the [...]

Positive Psychology and Team Performance

Lyssa Adkins — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:56:13 +0000

Do the teams you coach seem to be stuck in a rut? Do you wish they would stand up for themselves when company management hands down a decision that harms them? Do they blindly accept situations that cause impediments to their work, assuming they can’t affect them anyway? If your attempts to [...]

Is your Scrum team a dinghy or an oceanliner?

Lyssa Adkins — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:19:29 +0000

Humor me. Try this. Find a private place – a small conference room will do nicely. Stand in the center of the room and imagine that you are a boat in the middle of the ocean. The BIG ocean. First imagine that you are a dinghy. [...]

Scrum = Weight Watchers for Companies

Lyssa Adkins — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:31:05 +0000

The treadmill inspired this blog post. The “post workout results” notified me that I had burned a whopping 132 calories. “Really?” I thought, “That’s all?” So, I guess I can afford one Reese’s peanut butter cup today or perhaps five Doritos. It reminded me that jogging can only be one part of a [...]

What Does Your Factory Produce?

Angela Druckman — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:36:48 +0000

Brian Tracy is an author and public speaker who specializes in helping people improve their effectiveness through, among other things, better time management. I was fortunate enough to hear him speak at an event many years ago. In his presentation, he said something that made quite an impression on me. Though I didn’t know it [...]

Video: The ScrumMaster Checklist

Michael James — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:41:33 +0000

In this latest installment of Danube’s video blogs, CST Michael James discusses the importance of the ScrumMaster role and how his ScrumMaster Checklist can help ensure individuals in that position fulfill its many demands. Read Michael James’ ScrumMaster Checklist here. Watch the rest of Danube’s video blogs here.

Looking backward and forward – Scrum in 2009 and 2010

Katie Playfair — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:00:23 +0000

I read an article on DZone today http://agile.dzone.com/articles/agile-2009 in which several members of the agile community reflected on agile in 2009 and made predictions about 2010. There are many great observations but what struck me the most was Mary Poppendieck’s 2010 prediction – “I expect that in 2010, more people will realize that software development, and [...]

Video: Why Is Scrum Different?

Jimi Fosdick — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:19:06 +0000

In his previous three video blogs, Certified Scrum Trainer Jimi Fosdick defined the Scrum framework in terms of what it is, what it isn’t, and the benefits it yields for teams that practice it. In this fourth installment, he explains how all this adds up to an approach to project management that is dramatically different [...]

What is Agile Coaching?

Lyssa Adkins — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:07:48 +0000

Coaching is an artful conversation in which the coach helps the coachee see new perspectives and possibilities so they can take the next step in their personal and professional growth. In the context of agile teams, coaching takes on the dual flavor of coaching and mentoring. Yes, you are coaching to help someone [...]

Video: What Scrum Teams Can Learn from Other Fields

Michael James — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:39:09 +0000

In this latest installment of Danube’s video blogs, CST Michael James discusses lessons from other fields that would benefit Scrum teams. Watch the rest of Danube’s video blogs here.

Personal Heroics vs. Team Success

Laszlo Szalvay — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:53:58 +0000

As I thought, HR 'best practices' will continue to be challenged in our discourse as Scrum adoption continues to mature. In fact, if you are struggling with these issues right now, it may be a signal that your Scrum adoption is maturing.

Video: Why Do Scrum?

Jimi Fosdick — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:38:20 +0000

In his previous two video blogs, Certified Scrum Trainer Jimi Fosdick has defined the Scrum framework both in terms of what it is and how it differs from other project management models. In this latest installment, “Why Do Scrum?,” he outlines the benefits that Scrum delivers for teams that practice it. Watch the rest of Danube’s [...]

Too Much Meeting and Discussion, Not Enough Coding

Michael James — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:22:45 +0000

Hey Mike, I just finished enjoying the excellent webinar that you hosted today. My team has been tasked with being the first team to go through our company’s transition to 100% Scrum environment and have been through our first two sprints. So far, my experience has been that we seem to spend way more time in meetings/discussion [...]

agile Adoption in the Enterprise

Laszlo Szalvay — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:59:44 +0000

The movement to Agile is fundamentally changing the way in which organizations build software. In situations where the requirements and the technology are far from understood -- where there’s a lack of clarity -- processes become more and more complicated. So a traditional approach, which requires planning, can’t possibly work.

Video: What Goes Wrong With Large Organizations?

Michael James — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:26:52 +0000

In this video blog, Danube Software Process Mentor and Scrum Trainer Michael James discusses the challenges that large organizations face. Given Scrum’s recent rise in popularity–especially among enterprises–James offers commentary on common pitfalls and how they can be avoided.

How Agile is Danube?

Victor Szalvay — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:58:31 +0000

Danube’s ScrumWorks development team, along with other agile tool vendors, was recently challenged by a well-intentioned fellow named Mark Levison to see just how “Agile” we really are. In other words, do we eat our own dog food. Mr. Levison was making a broader point that often “Agile” is used to mean “fast and crappy [...]

Are You a Next Generation Project Manager?

Laszlo Szalvay — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:22:07 +0000

According to the report, in which Danube’s own CTO Victor Szalvay was listed as a source contributor, project managers hoping to compete in today’s business landscape require “enhanced leadership skills,” flexibility and a focus on business value, and, more than ever, a strong familiarity with agile project management techniques and processes.

Video: What’s Not Scrum?

Jimi Fosdick — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:09:51 +0000

In this video blog, Certified Scrum Trainer Jimi Fosdick takes a different approach to defining the Scrum framework–namely, by explaining what Scrum isn’t. Since Scrum marks a dramatic departure from traditional management methods, highlighting the practices and values absent in Scrum can illustrate how it leaves many dysfunctional aspects of traditional management behind. Watch Jimi’s previous [...]

Feedforward?

Laszlo Szalvay — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:54:13 +0000

What strategies do you use to make sure that the feedback you provide to teammates is positive and inspiring?

Distracted? Unproductive? Thank “Resource Management.”

Michael James — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:13:13 +0000

Unnecessary task switching is wasting millions of dollars of human attention. Teams lack the focus and months of continuous membership stability to reach the self-managing state needed for high performance and high quality. This fibrillation isn't caused by having "too much to do" or "not enough resources" or "changing business climate." It's caused by bad habits and misconceptions.

Scrum Article in Japanese

Michael James — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:36:36 +0000

●SCRUMとは何かあるとき、電気工学の博士過程に進んだ友人が、彼の博士論文を私に説明しようとしたことがあります。その友人は、自分が開発したプログラムを一行ごとに説明しだしたのですが、私は工学の分野に詳しいわけでも、ましてやコンピュータプログラマでもないので、彼の言っていることはちんぷんかんぷんでした。専門用語を駆使することが日常になっていた彼にとって、外の人間に自分の研究を説明するのは容易なことではなかったようです。

Video: What Is Scrum and Why Should You Do It?

Michael James — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:35:21 +0000

In this video blog, Danube CST Michael James starts with the basics by considering what Scrum is and what organizations stand to gain from implementing it. To take a look, simply click on the video below. Be sure to check back soon for more video blogs from Danube’s trainers.

Improving the Daily Scrum Meeting

Dan Rawsthorne — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:59:53 +0000

Ahh, the Daily Scrum Meeting… Everybody who knows Scrum knows the three questions: What have you done since the last Daily Meeting? What are you going to do until the next Daily Meeting? and What impediments are standing in your way? Many people are confused, and think that the [...]

Self Work Assignment vs. Architectural Integrity

Michael James — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:55:51 +0000

Hi Michael, I was part of your last Scrum training in NY. One of the questions that often comes up at my work place is self work assignment and architects input on those items. I’m an architect and managers of the engineering team. We have really promoted the idea of self work assignment and training people [...]

Thoughts on Enterprise Agile in Australia

Laszlo Szalvay — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:52:40 +0000

With the Agile Australia conference about to be held in Sydney in October, iTWire recently ran a story teasing some of the talks planned there for representatives from large Australian enterprises. Namely, they’ll be discussing the truly disruptive effort required to successfully implement agile at an enterprise. Citing financial services company Suncorp, who began its [...]

Video: Michael James Interviewed by DZone

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:38:25 +0000

Danube CST Michael James was recently interviewed by DZone’s Lindsey Clevesy about the benefits and pitfalls organizations face when they adopt Scrum. It’s a lengthy interview, full of a lot of great insight for companies considering a Scrum implementation as well as those in the thick of one. Take a look here. While you’re on the DZone [...]

Video: What Is Scrum?

Jimi Fosdick — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:07:09 +0000

In the first edition of Danube’s new video blog series, CST Jimi Fosdick starts with the basics by answering “What Is Scrum?” Click below to watch and be sure to check back for more video blogs soon.

Looking Back: Thoughts on Retrospectives for Large Organizations

Laszlo Szalvay — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:17:39 +0000

As many have discussed before, one of the ways Scrum helps teams inspect processes and adapt to emerging conditions is through the retrospective meeting. To review, the retrospective meeting is a meeting which occurs at the end of every sprint. At this time, team members come together to discuss the previous sprint and consider what [...]

Scrum and Relationship Management

Laszlo Szalvay — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:39:07 +0000

Those who’ve tried to implement agile or Scrum at their organization know all too well that one of the biggest obstacle to a successful adoption is cultural. That is, whether an agile transformation sinks or swims usually comes down to the team members who must adjust their ways of working to align with the values [...]

Scrum Alliance launches CSM exam requirement

Victor Szalvay — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:35:35 +0000

So it’s finally official, the Scrum Alliance has formally added an “exam” requirement to the ScrumMaster Certification process. http://www.scrumalliance.org/news_items/74 The flow works like this: First you must take an accredited two-day ScrumMaster Certification course, like ours. Following successful completion of the course, you must take an online test administered by the Scrum Alliance. (Edit Sept 25th: in the comments, Michael [...]

What the ScrumMaster Does NOT Do

Michael James — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:33:54 +0000

Does your ScrumMaster make business decisions for your team/PO? Does he make technical decisions for your team? Does he make promises on behalf of your team? Is he your team’s representative at a “Scrum of Scrums” meeting? Does he assign tasks to team members? I’m alarmed by reports of ScrumMasters “managing” their teams, preventing them from reaching their potential. The ScrumMaster [...]

What Everybody Knows

Angela Druckman — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:36:37 +0000

An important part of the Certified ScrumMaster course I teach is the question and answer session. Typically held near the end of the second day, it gives attendees a chance to ask questions about specific issues they are experiencing with Scrum in their own organizations. It also gives me a glimpse, as a Scrum trainer, [...]

Integrating UI Design and Scrum: Consultancies and Clients

Luke Walter — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:29:04 +0000

Earlier this month, I received a question from a participant in of one of Michael James’s CSM courses about how to integrate UI design into the Scrum framework. I’d already been working on a post addressing this subject broadly, but the inquiry provided an opportunity to summarize my main points while including some specific considerations [...]

Who is the Project Manager in Scrum?

Dan Rawsthorne — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:25:03 +0000

There has been a lot of talk about the Project Manager in Scrum. Two of the more popular statements have been: Scrum projects have no Project Manager, and the ScrumMaster is the “Agile Project Manager” I believe that both of these statements are wrong. My position is that all Scrum teams that are working on projects have [...]

ScrumWorks Pro 4 Launch – Interview with Product Owner

Victor Szalvay — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:23:01 +0000

We’re excited to announce the release of ScrumWorks Pro 4, focused on bringing Scrum to large and complex organizations. In the video below, I discuss what we tried to achieve in this milestone and how we went about it. Please read the release notes for more information on ScrumWorks Pro 4. We’re looking for your feedback [...]

Measuring Individual Performance: Can a Person Be Reduced to a Number?

Jimi Fosdick — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:12:35 +0000

One question that seems to come up again and again, with unfortunately greater frequency given the realities of lay offs in the current business climate, is: “How do we use Scrum to measure individual performance?” The short, and admittedly unsatisfying, answer is: “We don’t!” The team is a single unit in Scrum that succeeds or [...]

Product Owner and Team Advice from a USMC General

Michael James — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:11:09 +0000

While the U.S. military has historically relied on size and strength, a small book issued by Marine General A.M. Gray advocated an alternative approach relying on speed and skill as force multipliers. Effective Scrum teams, with business-savvy Product Owners, have also learned to outmaneuver larger competitors. I’ve picked a few quotes to encourage you to [...]

Evolution of Scrum

Dan Rawsthorne — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:09:48 +0000

I’ve been using and studying Scrum ever since I heard about it from Linda Rising 12 or so years ago. At its core, Scrum is a pattern language and it’s been evolving as people find better ways of doing things, and the patterns have changed. This post will give a very quick overview of what [...]

Soft Skills – What Do They Have to Do with Scrum?

Katie Playfair — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:08:58 +0000

On my Danube blog, I really try to stick to Scrum-specific topics that will help our clients, the software community, and other interested folks navigate the challenging process of Scrum transformations. In my daily life as a Scrum advocate, I encounter many misinterpretations of Scrum and I hope that, through my blogs, I can contribute [...]

Dear Mr. Clarke: What Do You Mean by “Lean and Agile?”

Katie Playfair — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:03:26 +0000

In an email intercepted by the Associated Press last week, GM North America President Troy Clarke said, “In these unprecedented times, GM is reinventing every aspect of our business, including our organizational size and structure, to create a lean and agile company.” I immediately started wondering what Clarke meant by “lean and agile.” Ultimately, everybody [...]

Shoe Shopping and Scrum – An Analogy to Explain the Pros of Certification

Katie Playfair — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:00:24 +0000

Everyone who was at Agile 2008 last year in Toronto probably remembers a dinner speech which poked equal fun at XP and Scrum enthusiasts with a punchline I don’t remember about XP and one I do remember about Scrum. The punchline was “certification!” Yes, it’s true – we Scrum professionals love our CSM, CSP, CSC, [...]

Get Your Boots On — A Close Up View of the Toyota Production System

Michael James — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:08:34 +0000

Genchi genbutsu sounds vaguely like “getcher boots on” and means “go and see for yourself.” My Japanese fiance is currently translating Taiichi Ohno’s original words in the book Toyota Production System for me, as the published English translation has some issues. But there’s nothing like actually seeing it, as I did this week at Toyota’s [...]

Ambling Madly: #5 Helsinki — Scrum Dining

Tobias Mayer — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:07:00 +0000

#5: Helsinki, February 2009 To my shame, on this trip I never left the hotel in the heart of (yes, very cold) Helsinki. Get there, eat, sleep, teach, write… go home. With no external input from the culture my mind stagnated, and I struggled to think of anything to write for this blog entry. I had [...]

Story Point Estimates – Under-Estimating Large Items

Victor Szalvay — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:00:41 +0000

At Danube, we’ve long espoused the value of using relative, story point estimates over estimates based on strict chronology. We’ve written papers on why macro metrics are better than granular task based estimates due to the inherent uncertainty latent at the task level. And we eat our own dog food; the ScrumWorks team uses [...]

When a Contract Puts a Ceiling on Sustainable Pace

Jim Schiel — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:47:23 +0000

I recently received the following question from one of my students: “I manage a project using Scrum but the team is limited to 40 hours/week, not a minute more, due to contractual obligations. According to Ken Schwaber, Scrum relies on personal commitment – folks will do what it takes to succeed. How do I best use Scrum [...]

Perfectly Predictable – Why Story Points are Better Than Detailed Estimates

Jim Schiel — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:31:36 +0000

I warn many of my students at the beginning of CSM classes that some of what they hear during the class may some counter-intuitive. I’m concerned that there are “truths” they’ve “grown up” believing and practicing in the development of software applications that may lead to trouble during the class. For example, when I talk about [...]

We’ve Been Managing Software Development All Wrong!!!!

Jim Schiel — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:55:14 +0000

Today, I chose to write about one of those questions that I’m asked over and over again in my CSM classes and coaching opportunities: “Why is management so different in an agile organization than in any other?” I decided that I was going to find out. My search for answers took me back to whitepapers and [...]

Ambling Madly — The Travels of a Certified Scrum Trainer

Tobias Mayer — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:26:18 +0000

Snow. My plane on Monday was diverted from Heathrow to Prestwick, near Glasgow. It took me an additional ten hours to reach London, in addition to the thirteen I had already traveled. When it snows Britain comes to a standstill. No trains, no airports, no buses and no schools. It is as if it has [...]

Slicing Work Vertically

Michael James — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:55:45 +0000

My friend Tobias has a requirements analysis exercise called “Planning a Party.” I’ve used it twice this year already. The president of your company is throwing a Christmas party for his employees. He’s asked you to help getting his large house ready. He’s given you a list of unprioritized and poorly formed tasks such as [...]

I’m a Certified ScrumMaster… Now What?

Jimi Fosdick — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:41:09 +0000

I make ScrumMasters… sort of… Actually, I teach a CSM course for those who want to become ScrumMasters. I make a point of telling my students that a CSM course is only the beginning. Most of the work required to become a ScrumMaster (or at least a good ScrumMaster) happens during the daily battle to facilitate [...]

Scrum with Cockburn-style Use Cases

Michael James — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:27:17 +0000

From the mailbag: Michael, I enjoyed the course and found the information practical and useful. I had meant to mention something that occurred to me regarding User Stories. User Stories seem to serve the same purpose as the user goal statements of use case analysis as implemented by Alistair Cockburn. As I’m sure you know this approach captures [...]

Why Are Scrum Teams Supposed to Be Small?

Jimi Fosdick — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 08:44:10 +0000

One of the things we advocate in Scrum (and really most agile proponents do as well) is small cross-functional teams. I discussed what we meant by cross-functional and some of the reasons why in a previous entry. Now I’d like to look at why we recommend small teams. Two of the key principles of Scrum are [...]

Ambling Madly: #2 Amsterdam, January 2009

Tobias Mayer — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:06:54 +0000

Ambling Madly — The Travels of a Certified Scrum Trainer #2: Amsterdam, January 2009 Shortly before midnight, sleep deprived and head buzzing as it always is after running a training course I kitted up and headed for the hotel gym to run off some of the excess energy. It was closed. All dressed up with nowhere to [...]

Is My Boss On The Scrum Team?

Michael James — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:53:12 +0000

The impressive thing about self deception is the way it covers its own tracks. That is, we deceive ourselves about how much we deceive ourselves. If I have amazing powers of observation, I might catch a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. Did you know only two percent of college students think [...]

“I Can’t Do Backlog Grooming, I Have WORK to Do!”

Jimi Fosdick — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:03:28 +0000

An interesting discussion that frequently crops up when introducing Scrum to certain organizations and individuals is the argument that they don’t have time for backlog grooming because they have “work” to do. I get this argument a lot during coaching engagements when I tell team members they need to spend five percent of their time [...]

Done/Done/Done/Done

Dan Rawsthorne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:14:05 +0000

A few years (about 6-7, I think), I introduced the term “done/done/done” into agility in order to describe what “done” meant in an agile setting. It is now pretty established the “done” is a HUGE concept in Scrum, but at the time we were just figuring it out. My thinking at the time was that [...]

Product Owner Foundation Skills

Angela Druckman — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:51:04 +0000

Maybe you have a whole department of people in your organization who have the sole task of managing their given product lines. Maybe they are already well versed in what it takes to manage the end-to-end life cycle of a product to maximize ROI and minimize risk. This entry is not for you. It is for the [...]

Ambling Madly: #1 Helsinki, January 2009

Tobias Mayer — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:25:54 +0000

Ambling Madly — The Travels of a Certified Scrum Trainer #1: Helsinki, January 2009 Short days, low suns, frozen sea. Grey buildings. Serious people. Fish. Those little rock-hard lumps of sugar that never seem to melt in your coffee. This is Helsinki, my first stop on a series of twenty-five CSM courses throughout 2009. I have set [...]

Scrum Is Effective, Not Efficient

Dan Rawsthorne — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:06:04 +0000

I’d like to rant a little bit on something that I find prevalent in the teams that I coach and in the classes that I teach. When I talk to people about Scrum (and agility in general), I invariably hear things like, “I’d like my teams to be more efficient”; “We’re using Scrum so [...]

Precision of Measurement Is No Guarantee of Usefulness of What’s Measured

Jimi Fosdick — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:31:59 +0000

One of the main myths of traditional project management relates to measurement precision. Traditional project managers have numerous statistical tools in their arsenal. Such measures as earned value or cost performance indicators etc. are touted as providing a precise scientific measure of how we’re doing. All of this points back to a Tayloristic view of [...]

“But We Don’t Want to Be Cross-functional!”

Jimi Fosdick — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:53:23 +0000

One of the principle practices in Scrum (and in fact most if not all agile methods) is the use of “cross-functional” teams. Somewhat surprisingly, there is often resistance at the team level to creating these cross-functional teams, but sometimes this is a result of misunderstanding what we mean when we say that a team is [...]

Innovating Your Way Out of a Crisis Using Scrum – The Battlestar Galactica Connection

Katie Playfair — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:31:36 +0000

Innovating Your Way Out of a Crisis Using Scrum – The Battlestar Galactica Connection It’s no secret around the Danube offices that I am a Battlestar Galactica (BSG) fan. I’ve been teased as the resident sci-fi geek for a long time now (although I’m slowly getting each employee addicted to the Sci-Fi Channel show). For those [...]

Going Down the “Metrics” Rabbit Hole

Jimi Fosdick — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:50:56 +0000

When we are introducing Scrum to a new environment, we often get into debates, sometimes heated, with people who question the validity, truth and/or value of a particular agile or Scrum principle. My general feeling is that any time spent having a philosophical argument with a client/Product Owner is time not spent adding value. In my [...]

Scrum Does Not Say What You Think It Says…

Jimi Fosdick — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:31:08 +0000

At a recent meeting of a Scrum users group in Portland, Oregon, the topic of release planning came up. Management is demanding release dates a year out, but Scrum says not to do that because of the rapidly changing environment that is software development. My first response is simple, if unsatisfying (and possibly pedantic): Scrum doesn’t say [...]

Scrum Hype vs. Scrum Education

Michael James — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:04:14 +0000

From time to time, we see people complaining about Scrum and agile being sold as a magic painless solution to all your problems. We can’t seem to catch anyone in the act of making these claims. So who’s going around saying Scrum is a silver bullet, and that it’s all you need? Ken Schwaber’s not saying [...]

A Lesson From Open Space — Whatever Happens Is the Only Thing That Could Have

Jim Schiel — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:04:03 +0000

I’ve had the great privilege of learning about Open Space meetings from one of the best practitioners in the business: Diana Larsen. One of the principles of Open Space meetings is that “whatever happens is the only thing that could have.” Assuming that our Scrum team is working in good faith (which is to say, [...]

The ScrumMaster Certification Test

Michael James — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:13:06 +0000

Starting April 1, 2009, you will need to pass a multiple-choice test, in addition to taking a CSM class, to become a Certified ScrumMaster. This step was debated in the Scrum training community. I was initially skeptical whether a multiple choice question could add any value. But I’ve become convinced this is a positive step after [...]

Programming Is Not Rocket Science

Michael James — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:02:49 +0000

If only it were as easy as rocket science! Writing fast reliable multithreaded software is a harder problem than rocket science. A famous example of this was Therac-25, an X-Ray machine that occasionally killed people due to multithreading issues. It’s even harder now that we usually have multiple processors/cores running the same program. I recently heard of an online [...]

Momentum and Stickiness

Laszlo Szalvay — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:30:06 +0000

Those who know me know that I love analogies. Whenever I try to explain what it is I do or train new employees, I seem to always rely on analogies. When we consult our customers on Scrum transformations, we are often quizzed about the stickiness of the transformation as a means to justify the ROI of [...]

Is the Product Owner on the Scrum Team?

Michael James — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:32:52 +0000

There’s still some confusion out there about whether the Product Owner is a member of the Scrum Team. Rather than pile on the confusion, please stick to Ken Schwaber’s terms: “Scrum Development Team” for the subset of the team that excludes the Product Owner, and “Scrum Team” for the dev team + ScrumMaster + Product [...]

Estimate by Proxy? Not in Scrum.

Katie Playfair — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:49:57 +0000

Estimation is one of the topics I receive the most questions on from Scrum professionals of all experience levels. It’s such a popular topic that all of our trainers have written blog posts on our website about estimation topics including discussions of actuals vs. estimates, estimation games, release planning estimates, and many others (scroll down [...]

PO Is a Person and a Role

Dan Rawsthorne — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 05:00:07 +0000

There has been a lot of talk lately about the Product Owner and people are getting quite heated about it. Here’s my take on it. The Product Owner is the person (not role, person) who is held accountable for the success of the team. He or she is the boss, commander, one throat to choke, MFIC, [...]

The Basics on Creating Organizational Definitions of DONEness

Jim Schiel — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:59:53 +0000

(I’ll add to this post more in the near future, but I wanted to get it started based on an email I answered for a student of mine.) As for creating a definition of DONEness, my recommendations would be as follows: 1. Get as many different examples as you can find of DONEness definitions. The more material [...]

The Value of Games: Ingraining the Intangible in an Audience

Katie Playfair — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:51:41 +0000

On Thursday, September 11th, I had the pleasure of speaking to an audience of around 75 PMPs at the Silicon Valley Chapter of PMI (http://www.pmisv.org/). Anup Deshpande was kind enough to invite me. As it turned out, I was greeted by a great audience with so many questions that we didn’t get to the Ball [...]

Make-up Stories

Dan Rawsthorne — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 05:00:02 +0000

Imagine our Product Owner says: “I want this feature by tomorrow and I don’t care if you’ve got to hack it in. If we don’t deliver it tomorrow, it will cost us millions of dollars!!” What do we do? That’s a rhetorical question, I hope. Of course, we just hack it in. You intentionally create technical [...]

Release Sprint

Dan Rawsthorne — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 05:00:13 +0000

Imagine you are at the Sprint Review and the Sales Manager says, “That looks good! I can sell the heck out of that. Ship that puppy!” Now what? What do you need to do to get the system shipped, and how and when will you do it? First of all, what does the Sales Manager mean [...]

When Under-Commitment Is the Order of the Day

Jim Schiel — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:45:51 +0000

How much your team is willing to commit to during any Sprint is going to depend on a lot of things, starting with how comfortable your team is with not achieving all of the planned results. Many Scrum teams will deliberately under-commit because they work (or are under the impression that they work) in an [...]

Private client Scrum gatherings

Kane Mar — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:36:01 +0000

I’ve got a great job! As part of being a CSM trainer, I’m frequently invited to client sites, where I can see what clients are doing and observe their agile practices in action. Sometimes clients are just starting to adopt Scrum and, other times, they’ve been practicing for a while. Sometimes they are just exploring [...]

Your Career in Scrum – Pathways to Starting a Scrum career

Katie Playfair — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:23:26 +0000

Scrum is inspiring to me because it is one of the few management paradigms that seems to capitalize on the best of human psychology, yielding a result that is both best for workers and for business. Scrum can make work fun and, when you spend eight or more hours per day at work, it ought [...]

Scrum Mechanics – Introduction to the Basic Scrum Engine

Katie Playfair — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:46:38 +0000

If you asked a few people in the Scrum community to define Scrum, you might be surprised to receive a different answer from every person. To me, it’s a management paradigm, a set of guiding principles, a key to employee retention, the embodiment of good application of organizational psychology, and just plain common sense. But [...]

What Is Scrum? The Five-minute Explanation for Folks Not Yet Practicing It

Katie Playfair — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:52:58 +0000

A friend of mine, who was pursuing his doctoral degree in electrical engineering, once tried to explain his dissertation to me by showing a program he wrote, walking me through the code line by line. I’m not an engineer, so I had no idea what he was talking about. But because he was immersed in [...]

Capitalization of Sprint Activities

Jim Schiel — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:45:09 +0000

Capitalization of a software project is extremely important to organizations engaged primarily in application development these days. To put it simply, the US government allows a company to defer the taxes that would normally be paid on research and development activities until such time as the product is generally available and the company can begin [...]

Should Scrum Teams Re-Estimate Stories That Can’t Be Completed During the Sprint?

Jim Schiel — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:22:02 +0000

If a user story isn’t completed during a Sprint, the cleanest way to deal with it is to leave the story point value as is and return it to the Product Backlog. When Sprint Planning occurs, if you’re using a commitment-driven model as we often do in CSM training, you can make the team aware [...]

Should Scrum Teams Re-estimate Work in Progress?

Michael James — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:45:35 +0000

I attended your training class a couple of months ago. We are continuing along with our scrum process, and we are learning a lot. I have one question – hope it is ok to ask. We did story point estimation as part of our team’s Sprint planning, and came up with the total story points [...]

An Alternative Approach to Tracking Research and Development Tax Credits Utilizing ScrumWorks® Pro

Laszlo Szalvay — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:53:53 +0000

For many managers adopting Scrum, one of the hardest traditional project management practices to leave behind is tracking hours spent. It’s not hard to let go of because tracking hours is essential to effective management, but because Scrum’s tenets of self-empowerment and transparency are in direct conflict with that kind of micromanagement. [...]

Who Is on the Scrum Team?

Michael James — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:38:01 +0000

A Scrum Team is: A Product Owner A Scrum Development Team A ScrumMaster The Product Owner is the “single wringable neck” responsible for what the Scrum Team builds. This entails prioritizing the Product Backlog, making the final call on requirements questions (while not necessarily providing detailed requirements), negotiating with the Scrum Development Team during the Sprint Planning Meeting, and [...]

Putting Task Estimates in their Place

Jim Schiel — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:20:19 +0000

Let’s look at how a team makes use of task estimates. During Sprint Planning, teams create tasks and task estimates from the backlog items that they are potentially going to commit to finishing. Sometimes, these estimates have some effect on whether or not the team is actually going to commit to completing the backlog item, [...]

Reasons to Disable Your Tool’s Estimates vs. Actuals, Ideal Line, and Individual Burndown Charts

Michael James — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:08:25 +0000

Organizations that are looking for an automated tool to help manage Scrum fall along a continuum. At one end are the Scrum purists, who feel that resistance to doing real Scrum is an organizational impediment to be exposed and rooted out rather than accommodated as business as usual. These folks believe the highest performance and ingenuity [...]

It’s Software, Not a Unicorn – Why Tools Won’t Solve Organizational Dysfunction

Jim Schiel — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:27:46 +0000

When I was much younger, it was explained to me that sticking my dad’s screwdriver into the electrical outlet was not a good idea. As a good little boy, I obeyed and convinced my older brother to try it, instead. Fortunately, we used an outlet at the end of a long hallway, so my brother’s [...]