Before you read:

The following is a generalized description of problems I have seen. The path offered is just one-path; there are more. You will find a mix of Scrum Mastering and Product Ownership issues that form a common line of concerns many corporations face.

Dual Crisis:

Corporations face aging products¹ and an aging workforce². Many large corporations are secure in their market position, but will they stay there? These companies have the financial means to sustain a substantial loss, providing them with a safe margin for error - Are they lax?

Vulnerable:

The door for nimble, smart competition remains wide open and invites a direct attack on what was once an unimaginable and unassailable position in the marketplace. The products need to evolve to stay competitive, yet, they cannot do so for reasons like the following:

• Unacknowledged loss of memory and aging minds
• Lost expertise from retirement
• Large crevices of technical debt that resist change
• Legacy systems that were built with an understanding that is no longer present
• Regulatory frameworks that make enhancement cost prohibitive
• A desire for the status quo in organizational structure 
• An unspoke belief that nothing makes a difference 
• Long tenure in one position that locks in corporate structure
• Failure to provide a means for meritus advancement
• A lack of appreciation of mentorship to the next generation and reverse mentoring
• Reciprocal systems that strengthen dedication to the company and self-development
• Old habits ingrained by ineffective cultural norms
• A growth mindset that sees new opportunities where others do not

How can a corporation overcome these obstacles? How vulnerable are they?

Find Fresh Eyes:

Professionals, switching from mastery in one domain to another, provide a means for corporations to reinvigorate their product lines and culture. Many large organizations face aging baby boomer groups with tremendous expertise in their product lines. Unfortunately, many baby boomer experts have already retired or forgotten more than they know about the products they built; acknowledging this loss is akin to accepting that we all grow old.

The right professional intent on mastering another domain can provide fresh eyes and the germ for something different. An excellent cultural mixture has new professionals focused on mastery, existing professionals that engage and mentor, young professionals seeking mastery, and professional teams. Teams are the mixing pots we stir to brew greatness in product development, and teams are the essence of Scrum. Teams provide the best means to build understanding, products, culture, and resilient systems.

Get Hands-On:

Get hands-on, Get your hands dirty, and dig in. You need engineering leaders who favor action over prolonged periods of sitting and talking. There is a need for talk, but those conversations should be moderated and kept short.

Be Relentless:

Spend each day getting a handle on workflow - walk around product stations and surface hidden concerns. Leadership must be tireless to understand what is happening in product development today and show they care by being hands-on (this does not mean micro-managing!). Leadership listens far more than they talk.

Product Ownership decides what to detach from (let go) and what to attach to (hold close). Most product features fail; identifying promising features and evolving those features is where success blooms. Leading your teams with confidence in an uncertain environment builds greatness. Make small steps and adapt. Do not allow fear, anxiety, and doubt to debilitate your confidence in decision-making.

The most important meeting of the day should be no meeting of the day. Instead, adapt and shepherd along conversations that lead to action. Absorb a comprehensive picture of progress so that the next steps originate from ground-floor observation, not hopes and dreams.

Build a Dynamic Culture:

Scrum Teams typically leverage four practical time-based rhythms to generate results, capture feedback, and build dynamic culture.

1. Intra-day teams manage their attention and swarm effectively on the work-at-hand.
2. Daily teams review and adjust their plan for that day’s work.
3. Weekly/Sprintly teams guide and select for next steps.
4. Long-term teams assess market impact, ROI, vision, mission, progress, etc.

Long-term is often less predictable and harder to assess. Complex environments are loosely predictable. Favor speed of adaptation over the fight for prediction. Leadership must adjust expectations and not let fear of uncertainty cloud production teams' efforts.

Scrum Teams leverage all four rhythms. The production teams focus more on the first 1-3, and the leadership teams focus more on the last 4-2. Effectively, multi-team environments meet in the middle, where friction naturally occurs, and we identify opportunities.

Team relations are improved a long way, and everyday leadership seeks to strengthen them.

Do Quality Work:

Road signs of quality should demark all aspects of product engineering. Without quality work, future change is crippled or completely disabled. You must avoid evolving a mess in engineering that leads to dead design. Dead design can set your efforts back to 0 or worse.

To seek speed over quality is gross incompetence and a failure of leadership. Focusing on speed will create a mess, especially in complex problem domains—instead, nurture pride in craftsmanship everywhere. Pride in craftsmanship does not guarantee results; however, it is a far better bet than a mess.

Get Out of the Way:

There is executive oversight. Still, it should have minimal impact on production teams. It should not tie production up with 

• Long meetings,
• Progress reports,
• Audit needs, 
• Imposed processes,
• Budgeting anxiety,
• Quarterly earning noise,
• Stock buybacks, and 
• other activities meant to appease the emotional concerns of untamed uncertainty.

Uncertainty is a reality, and focusing on unproductive emotional processing that does not lead to quick action is counterproductive. Counter emotional uncertainty with an action-oriented mindset and good leadership. Keep extraneous interference (fear) away from your production teams.

There exists a need for executive leadership, but their product is an environment that enables production by limiting extraneous interference (fear) and encouraging collaborative outcomes (wins).

Move Early, Often, and in Small Steps:

Design acceptance trials and strengthen feedback loops vigorously so that engineering can detect how to adapt the product. Keep the cost of change to a minimum to accommodate future changes.

When building complex products, believing you will know what to do before trying to do something is arrogant. Again, move in small steps (agile), produce quality outputs, study impact for feedback, adjust, and do it again. Your goal is a product that can impact the marketplace and displace competitors. You should encourage adaptive, energized teams that see each setback as an opportunity to understand and evolve the product.

Adjust plans to the needs of the product. Sometimes things are more predictable, and additional preparation can help roll things out smoothly. Prove it! If yes, continue, or you just talked yourselves into a fantasy with no factual basis. Base plans on observable facts, not hopes of predictability, and that the universe will stop upsetting your dreams. Work in small steps (agile), confirm what you are doing quickly, and adjust whenever necessary. 

If you feel profoundly stuck, do something, anything at all, and quickly regroup. Avoid sitting still and contemplating how to make perfect steps. Ask questions like ‘What else can we try?’ Action-oriented is better.

Model Support:

Relationships among the teams are paramount. Each team member should be engaged at some social level and actively share information, review, and pool knowledge with team members. Each team member should willingly swarm with members of other teams. 

Train each team member in technical skills and effective collaboration. Train each team member that feedback and action are encouraged and that being right is not as important as the right idea. Yes, egos need a pat on the back but not at the expense of collaboration or product outcomes.

Do not live in fear of losing a great resource. If someone wants to leave, then let ‘them’. Accommodating each person’s demands sickens and weakens the team. Sick, weak teams do not build great products and ultimately cost the company far more. If you fear the cost of personnel change, you will become paralyzed trying to make perfect steps and avoid discomfort, which signals the need for change. If one person is that important, why have you not mitigated the risk of loss? Lower the cost of change. Hire for great teams. Set up reciprocal merit systems that reward a culture of collaborative behavior. “Oh, so and so works best alone -- it's their personality type.” well, encourage them to work elsewhere; you will screw up your teams, products, and culture if you accommodate them.

That means credit for favorable outcomes and impact is showered on the teams rather than on leadership. Outstanding leadership does not seek the limelight of attention and praise for personal, professional, or monetary advancement. Great leaders are reluctantly pulled into the limelight by their subordinates and peers. Great leaders do not undermine the direction of the teams by seeking to show authority over subordinates simply to appease their ego or desire to display power. It's not about being right; it's about better ideas and outcomes - always (Note: that is not a rule for the narrow-minded to distort and justify their bad behavior).

Improvement mindset:

• Move early, often, and in small steps (agile). 
• Work as a team (scrum). 
• Allow the team to pull work; don’t push (lean). 
• Adapt to reality and adjust (agility).
• Explain and acknowledge decisions, especially failures (accountability).
• Clarify decision-making authority (ownership).
• Display confidence even when you are not (leadership).

Scrum Teams (3-8 people) are the center point for all long-term success. If you cannot build a great team in the small, greatness in the large will be impossible. Scaled Agile frameworks that cannot prove small teams are fantasy³, and adopting one is akin to a drug-induced high -- it will be deflated⁴ by reality (it might take a while (months or years), but it will happen). The company's product line has the best chance for long-term success when leadership positions for Professional Scrum Teams.

We can ensure the future if we adopt an improvement mindset. Scrum provides a team-based approach to building great products, and leadership must be the counterweight tone to reinvigorate when weakness inevitably shows up.

Can Scrum help reinvigorate your organization with fresh eyes in the face of dual crises?

The post Reinvigorate Your Organization With Fresh Eyes Through Scrum appeared first on 3Back.

In today's evolving global labor market, the benefits of Scrum development methodologies are becoming increasingly apparent. Bringing together teams of people with various skill sets, from traditional software engineers to non-technical professionals such as marketers and product managers, allows organizations to harness the benefits of different expertise to transform their operations.

By taking A Scrum development approach, organizations transform into smaller versatile teams to produce results faster and in shorter cycles. Shorter cycles allow organizations to implement product updates without waiting for a large delivery cycle, thus strengthening agility. In addition, the approach allows for greater degrees of automation and insights into customer behavior that further optimize operational performance. Ultimately, well-managed transformations improve the quality of life for all, and Scrum teams are at the center of those transformations.

Fundamental transformations demand that scrum teams master the combination of theory and domain-driven skills.

Top Growing Skill Areas*

These skills are in increasing demand, and job roles requiring them will grow by at least 10-30% by 2030.

1. Analytical Thinking
2. Active learning and learning strategies
3. Complex problem-solving
4. Critical Thinking
5. Creativity Through Trial and Error

6. Leadership and Social influence
7. Technology Use
8. Technology Design and Configuration
9. Resilience and Stress Tolerance
10. Reasoning and Problem-Solving

11. Emotional Intelligence
12. User Experience and Support
13. Servant-Leadership Orientation
14. Systems Analysis and Evaluation
15. Teamwork

*Skill list and growth projection adapted from WEF Future of Jobs report 2020.

Four Steps for Growing Skills with Scrum

1. Develop Expertise

Skill focus and expertise become highly honed when we gain mastery. We often need mentorship to help us focus on what's important and not. As we gain expertise, we become leaders when we teach others. Mastery is a state of unconscious competence where performance is fluid and appears effortless to an outside observer. Experts are found at the pinnacle. 

2. Make it Easy

Skill Plateaus highlight our learning journey. Each Plateau recognizes a new ease in performing a given skill. As we progress in our skill, we pass through a series of plateaus until we hit a point of diminishing growth - skill expertise becomes maximized, and performance becomes expert.

3. Build Teamwork

Leadership requires awareness of the zone you are in when acquiring or performing skills. Domains demand new technologies and skills, when you start something new you are in a ‘training zone’ as an individual or team. Well-Formed Teams collaborate seamlessly through the zones of training from mentoring, coaching, consulting, and back as skills are acquired. As the team gains expertise, new theories emerge, and domain practices deepen.

4. Seek Results

Scrum brings a new dynamic by emphasizing continual Inspect & Adapt behavior. The idea is to use the rhythms of Scrum to improve techniques and results. Learning is done by teams, pairs, and individuals. The cumulative result is a mature team behavior that becomes adept at traversing a complex problem space.

These Four Steps (Develop Expertise, Make it Easy, Build Teamwork, Seek Results) for growing skills with Scrum will bring benefits to you, your team, and your organization.

The post Benefits of Scrum appeared first on 3Back.

I spoke to some colleagues and noticed a few common assumptions. For example: “Anonymous feedback is more objective because egos aren’t involved.” On the other hand, someone else said, “Giving anonymous feedback is a cop-out! If your feedback is legitimate, you should be able to say it to the person’s face.” Yet another assumption I encountered is that “anonymous” feedback really IS anonymous! Meaning: nobody knows who made specific comments. 

As I will discuss, all of these assumptions are questionable.  I will propose that there isn’t a one size fits all answer to anonymity: sometimes concealing the source of feedback can be a plus, sometimes not. If we’re talking about a Team that is intended to be highly collaborative, the answer may hinge on what’s the maturity of the Team and what the circumstances in which feedback is being solicited? And equally importantly, who is going to have access to the feedback?

Is “anonymous” feedback anonymous?  

To start with, let’s talk about the phrase “anonymous feedback.” In terms of the ethics of asking people to give honest feedback anonymously, feedback is only truly anonymous if no one with power over the receiver, and the receiver themself, has access to the names of who gave what feedback.

It’s pretty common to hear stories from people who were asked to provide “anonymous feedback” and afterwords were called in by their boss to discuss the details of what they said. The temptation to break the promise of confidentiality is understandable—there might be some juicy stuff in those comments!—but doing so undermines trust in the process. It would naturally make anyone edit themselves next time, thereby undermining the whole exercise. So my first recommendation to leaders is: if you advertise the process as anonymous, be very careful to ensure that those boundaries are actually kept, don’t violate them! You’re trying to build trust.

That said, invariably, when I’ve facilitated feedback processes, the recipient of anonymous comments spent real energy trying to figure out who said what? For example, an Executive Vice President I worked with prided himself on always being able to identify the source of every line of feedback in his 360-degree survey. This sort of thing is typical: it’s only human to want to understand who’s talking about us. Moreover, the concrete comments often provide the greatest value because they’re closest to real life, the best mirror of what we’re doing effectively or ineffectively, and therefore most actionable. 

Useful anonymity?

And this points to one of the situations in which anonymous feedback can genuinely be useful: if the pool of respondents is large enough to ensure anonymity. A company-wide survey, for example. So particularly when seeking a broad range of feedback from across an organization and looking for constructive advice and observations, anonymity might be a useful strategy.

Knowing the authors of comments is a double-edged sword. As a colleague of mine in the medical field mentioned, you might be tempted to dismiss critiques if you’re able to figure out who said what. Whereas if the feedback is genuinely anonymous, it might be easier to let critical comments stand on their own and weigh them more objectively. Of course, the opposite might also be true: if I know or can guess the identity of who gave me a particular piece of feedback, I might take their constructive criticism or their kudos more to heart precisely because I know who it’s coming from. And that might be because I trust them, respect them, and value their thoughts, or it might be because they have influence in the business, power over my current job, or a say in my future advancement.

On the other hand, making feedback anonymous does not necessarily make it more objective! That’s an unwarranted assumption. The mask of anonymity might just as easily make it possible for people to make baseless or casual criticisms, relying on the fact that they’ll never be held accountable for the accuracy of their remarks. 

What if we limit feedback to answering multiple-choice questions? Likewise, that doesn’t ensure more objectivity; it just ensures less detail! Personally, I would always err on the side of more detail, as those examples are likely actionable or may provide a reflection on actual events for the recipient to digest.

Give it to me straight

Now we might make the opposite assumption: that if people have legitimate criticisms to make or suggestions to offer each other, they should be willing to stand up and say it directly—that is, with their name attached. This would be my usual assumption. As my colleague Brett Knowles said, if Team members can’t give direct feedback, “this means that every single daily standup is a waste of time!” 

So let’s think about a small Team. Not just any Team: a Team that is called upon to be highly collaborative due to its very mission. Does anonymous feedback defeat the purpose of that collaboration? Does it undermine the transparency we would want to encourage on a self-organizing Team? Shouldn’t people be expected to speak their minds on a Scrum Team?

Well, my answer is: that depends on the Scrum Team and its level of maturity. By “maturity,” I don’t mean the personal maturity of each Team member as an adult. I mean how far along the learning curve that group of people is in working through difficulties and learning how to “Team“ together. 

I can imagine a situation in which a new Scrum Team has been assembled with people who have not collaborated before or don’t have a track record of working through conflicts. In this scenario, the Scrum Master or Team Leader decides that the first rounds of feedback will be anonymous. 

On the other hand, I can also imagine a new Scrum Team in which the Scrum Master or Team Leader facilitating the feedback process has a good sense of each individual. In this scenario, the Scrum Master or Team Leader would rather bank on their ability to take the feedback personally than feel the need to use anonymity. Either case is an experiment, and whoever runs the feedback process should take a moment to retrospect afterward on the success or limits of the path they chose.

What I’m trying to point out overall here is that getting locked into a single, dogmatic way of doing feedback risks missing the Team’s present-day needs. Circumstances change, the purpose of asking for feedback changes, the work context, the interpersonal contacts, etc., are dynamic.

There’s no doubt that it’s important to build transparency and openness in communication on a collaborative Team. On a Scrum Team, it’s going to be next to impossible to truly maintain anonymity, in the sense that it’s going to be fairly easy over time to learn how to guess who said what. But even with those hunches, with a young Team, it might make sense to focus on the objectivity of feedback in a way that de-personalizes it.

Finally, let’s come back to the question of what is feedback for? Presumably, the purpose of feedback on a Team is to ultimately enable the Team as a whole to perform better. And this is going to be accomplished by helping every individual to do their part more effectively. Feedback aims to provide a constructive assessment of people‘s actions, not their personal essence. But it’s not so easy to divorce critiques of our actions from critiques of who we think we are.  Sometimes anonymity might be handy, even if we’re working toward a norm of face-to-face feedback as integral to our daily communication with each other on the Team, something that doesn’t require a “feedback” process to invite. 

Interested in Improving Your Scrum Team’s Collaboration, Communication, and Feedback? 

Explore our Upcoming Certified Scrum Training Courses

The post Is Anonymous Feedback Useful? appeared first on 3Back.

In the pandemic’s early days, a Team Leader told me, with an obvious sense of relief, that his people were doing really well despite the turmoil. Productivity had actually increased after the Team’s shift to working from home. They were working hard–it seemed like the transition had definitely improved the Team’s focus by eliminating workplace distractions.

This kind of positivity was widespread early on. Suddenly, Silicon Valley giants like Facebook celebrated the virtues of remote work as a new, improved business model. The appeal of remote work wasn’t new: over the last decade, research has supported the idea that most people value the ability to work remotely. As COVID-19 slammed into the American economy, Twitter’s HR Head promised employees that their day-to-day work wouldn’t change much, just the location would be different!

But was all this positivity justified?

“Every day is today”

I had doubts. For sure, people were doing their best to keep their Teams and businesses afloat during a chaotic time. But my psychology background led me to suspect that these productivity gains were largely a function of peoples’ attempts to channel their stress. We were falling back on one of the few areas of life still in our hands, putting in lots of hard, solitary work at home. We were reaching for some sense of control amid the pandemic’s massive disruption and uncertainty, burning the midnight oil.

As the economic downturn worsened, employees anxious about job security would be highly motivated to put in extra hours digging into their backlogs. Working longer hours was also fueled by peoples’ sense of time being warped, as yesterday blurred into today, which ran into tomorrow. As Tom Hanks joked on Saturday Night Live, “Every day is today.”

My training told me that this short-term coping strategy produced what looks like and, in a sense, is greater productivity. But there’s a cost. As Google’s former HR Chief told a reporter, “fear-driven productivity is not sustainable.” If unchecked, increased-work-as-coping will result in burnout. As the pandemic has dragged on, we see more and more evidence that the tensions and strains brought on by remote work won’t be sustainable unless we make smart adjustments and course correction.

Communication and other breakdowns

As Spring 2020 turned into summer, we began to hear business leaders concerned about the loss of so-called “intangibles” that make Teamwork effective, which rely on ongoing proximity to coworkers and unplanned conversations that bring the work forward.

Communication and collaboration have gotten harder, despite, or (heresy!) maybe even because of our use of electronic communication. We have a new expression, Zoom Fatigue, to describe the sense of being drained by an unending series of video calls.

Moreover, as the Wall Street Journal noted, businesses were discovering that “projects take longer. Training is tougher…employers say their workers appear less connected,” and “the early productivity gains companies witnessed as remote work took hold have peaked and leveled off.”

Attention, communication, alignment, an easygoing connection between Teammates–all of the ingredients for collaboration–have at least been disrupted for those of us who relied on face-to-face contact. Is the impact important significant enough to address? How do we get our hands around the challenge?

What’s changed?

Leaders are busier than ever. Learning how to assess whether you need to pay attention to the remote Team challenges is critical. Team Adaptability’s Remote Team Health Check offers a sophisticated, easy to take survey that gauges the impact of remote work on key areas of your Team’s daily practice. Your results are summarized in a detailed report accompanied by recommendations.

Here are some sample questions from Team Adaptability’s Remote Team Health Check:

Questions: Same, worse, better since the shift to remote work

1. My Teammates know when I need help
Worse           Same             Better

2. My time in meetings is productive
Worse           Same             Better

3. I have useful sidebar conversations with Teammates
Worse           Same             Better

4. Quality of my Team’s decision-making
Worse           Same             Better

5. My Team’s clarity about work queue priorities
Worse           Same             Better

6. Level of Stakeholder satisfaction with our Team (Product Owners, Business Owners)
Worse           Same             Better

What to do?

The interweb is full of lists of tips for every occasion, and there are scads of tips for “leading your new remote Team.” But what overall capabilities do you need as a leader? And how do you precisely diagnose your Team’s needs?

3Back’s Leading Remote Scrum Teams online workshop enables you to improve output by emphasizing Team dynamics, customized to the working from home environment.

Is your Remote Scrum Team Struggling?
Reserve a Private Course With Us!

The post What Happened to my Team? <br>COVID-19’s Impact on Team Health appeared first on 3Back.

The detailed definitions aren’t important to us right now; the only thing we need to know is that Chaos is very bad. Chaos makes things unpredictable and unmanageable. And we mean “unmanageable,” not simply “hard to manage.” In Chaos, the noise overwhelms the data, and we can’t trust anything we think we know. Many phrases describe this situation: from “Fog of War” to “uncertainty in situational awareness” to FUBAR and SNAFU – but we’ll simply call it Chaos. When we’re in Chaos, we might say that “we’re in Crazy Town,” because that’s what it feels like.

How To Prevent Your Team From Wandering Into Chaos

Now, the universe gives us enough Chaos, so we don’t want to create it ourselves. Scrum is designed to help us out here. To prevent a Team from wandering into Chaos under its own power, Scrum has set up three guardrails:

• The Scrum Team is Self-Contained, which means that we don’t have dependencies on others
• The Scrum Team uses a Standard of Care so that it won’t create Technical Debt it will have to deal with later; and
• There is Product Ownership that is protecting the Team and making good decisions about what to do.

Within these Guardrails, the Scrum Team Self-Organizes to manage complexity and do its job. Here, we see a simple diagram of this; the Self-Organized Team within its Guardrails, surrounded by Chaos.

What Happens Beyond the Guardrails?

“Why does the Chaos in our picture stop?” you may ask. Well, in the Organizational context we are in, we can’t survive in Chaos for too long. If we get into Chaos, and can’t somehow scratch and claw our way back into the safe zone within the Guardrails, we will eventually die. In other words, there is another step beyond Chaos; and that step is Death. Being in Chaos too long will kill us. Depending on what context we’re in, Chaos will kill our Projects, our Products, and our Organizations.

So, what am I saying here? Well, first of all, use Scrum to manage your work. Stay within Scrum’s guardrails and, when you break through them for some reason (either by accident or on purpose), use Scrum to get yourself back inside them as fast as you can. If you remain in Crazy Town too long, your Product or Organization will die.

Master Scrum and mitigate Chaos
Register today for 3Back’s online CSM and CSPO training

The post Your Ticket Out Of Crazy Town: <br>How Scrum’s ‘Guardrails’ Protect Teams From Chaos appeared first on 3Back.

By “Sacred Text,” we mean a document that is sacrosanct. In other words, a document that so completely embodies our core values and practices, and is so revered that it is unquestionable and untouchable. As a consequence, any effort to grab hold of and alter the way we understand any key ideas in the Scrum Guide would be viewed as a violation. Religious texts are often seen this way: as inspired and unalterable. So any attempt to revise them would be considered reprehensible!

Another way to pose this question is to ask: assuming–which the two of us do–that as a community of practitioners, we deeply respect the Guide, is the best expression of our respect to put it on a pedestal, or to view it as a historically foundational, critically important description of admirable shared values, aims, and language, but not an inviolable one?

To probe the issue, let’s consider: what can happen when we regard a text as quasi-sacred?

Benefits

• It’s shared. This counts for a lot because sharing the same text means we have a single common source of language about our work, a common reference, and therefore a shared way of orienting ourselves and comparing notes about our daily activities, discoveries, struggles, and questions. That’s invaluable because it makes conversation and shared learning possible.
• It’s remembered. When we keep returning to the same text, it helps us as a community to remember core principles. That’s priceless in an age of diminishing attention spans and “multitasking.” Remembering why we’re doing what we’re doing refreshes and restores our connection to our work. This encourages us to wake up if we start to fall asleep at the wheel in the daily grind.
• It gives us a shared perspective. Having a single text gives us a lens to look through at the world, together, and this enables us to evaluate novel circumstances, and compare notes.

Risks

• Language becomes overly formalized. When a text is regarded as sacred, words that a founding figure may have chosen as the best available description of a situation at that moment can become overly formalized and congealed in the minds of readers. In other words, we can start to shrink our vocabulary and imagination because we assume there’s already a “right way” to think about something.
• Words that were alive become formulaic. When the words in a text are regarded as sacred, we can start relating to words in a ceremonial way rather than as living expressions of what we see in front of us. Our speech can start losing meaning because we think we need to say things a certain way in order for our observations to be legitimate and to be validated by others. Our words may become ways of signaling our membership in the group, rather than describing, in a fresh way, what’s happening in front of us.
• Meaning drains from the principles. When a text is viewed as sacred, expressions that were based on the authors’ living observations and insights start to become equated with an orthodox set of practices and attitudes. We start to fit our experiences and observations into a predetermined mold, already anticipating the “right answer” to a new situation, instead of recognizing novel situations. We don’t live in dialogue with the text, viewing it as the written observations of gifted fellow practitioners. We start to see ourselves as practitioners of a static technique, rather than explorers and researchers.

Free your mind and your Scrum will follow

We argue that valuing the Scrum Guide doesn’t mean making it sacrosanct: on the contrary, valuing it means viewing it as an invitation to further exploration, to keeping our own practice alive and kicking.

To be good researchers, we don’t need a sacred text–instead, we need the insights of those who have explored the terrain before us to inform our own present-day practicing and learning. Scientific inquiry is open-ended! The more we hold the Guide this way, the more it’s a mirror for us to reflect in, not a doctrine for us to uphold.

From this perspective, the Scrum Guide is a great starting point as a description of Scrum. Use it as a first map to begin exploring the territory in your daily practice with teams. That way the Guide, like the Scrum Manifesto, is fuel for your exploration and learning.

Continue Fueling Your Scrum Exploration and Learning With 3Back, Online!

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The post Scrum Guide: A Sacred Text? appeared first on 3Back.

Individuals And Interactions Over Processes and Tools

Yes, you probably know this one. It’s the first core value of Agile, from the Agile Manifesto. It couldn’t be more relevant than right now. You show me the Scrum Team Member who frequently peeks over a cubicle wall and asks another Scrum Team Member a quick question, and I’ll show you a Scrum Team Member that really understands valuing individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Now, working remotely, those individuals are simply not there. And those interactions are infrequent and, well, clunky.

That’s why it’s more important than ever before to make sure your remote Scrum Team has the processes in place to be productive and the tools in place to foster collaboration and communication. That’s where technology comes in.

Make Technology Work For You

Here at 3Back, we’ve been working remotely for years. Along the way, we’ve learned a few things that keep our Scrum Team efficient, effective, and engaged. Here are our favorite 5 tips.

1. Project Management Software Is A Must

Workflow doesn’t flow without communication, transparency, and tracking. That’s why we use the intuitive, visual project management tool, Get To Done. Having the right people in the right conversations working on the right tasks at the right time – that’s what Get To Done does for us. No matter what zip code we’re currently officing.

2. Instant Messaging Keeps Everyone Connected

We use Slack in multiple ways. First, to create a virtual version of those “peek over the cubicle wall” workplace conversations. Second, in finding the backlog items we need to focus on and helping direct our attention in real-time. Lastly, we customize Slack channels for specific project teams, allowing us another quick avenue to get questions answered, pin frequently used documents, and keep connected.

3. Video Conference All The Time

All of our meetings are done through video conferencing on Zoom. We use Zoom, in combination with Get To Done, to focus and clarify our work within small groups. We’ve found Zoom’s breakout rooms essential to support our small Team swarm. The more we video conference, the more fluid it becomes. And, it’s paid off in our efficiency, not to mention our camaraderie.

4. Make Document Collaboration Easy

Every document we create, store, and share in G Suite is either a final deliverable or an intermediary working product on its way to Done. Our Backlog items in Get To Done become a central hub that helps us manage the spokes (documents) produced by our efforts. G Suite’s user-friendly commenting function also makes editing and brainstorming simple. Plus, we’ve realized that keeping a written record becomes even more essential when working remotely, to keep everyone aware of the latest information.

5. Stick With Scrum Ceremonies

So, our last tip isn’t technology-based, but it’s as critical, if not more so than the four above it. Your Scrum Team needs familiarity. In fact, when you first starting working remotely, your Scrum Team craves it. Familiarity is grounding and calming. That’s why it’s imperative to keep all of your Scrum Ceremonies intact. Don’t eliminate Daily Standups because you’re concerned it’s too hard for everyone to get together. It’s not too hard. The same goes for your Sprint Planning, Sprint Reviews, and Retrospectives. Your Team (and your workflow) needs that time together. Remember that with Scrum, we are inspecting and adapting all the time. The Scrum framework helps us detect opportunities to improve our focus. Without that framework, we would be scattered and confused.

Respond To Change Over Following A Plan

Yes, you probably know this one too. It’s the fourth core value of Agile. There will come a day when your Scrum Team is back together in one space. And, that will be amazing. But, in the meantime, you’ve got to respond to this change. Put technology in place, entrust your Team, and keep on Scrumming.

Speaking of change,
3Back’s Scrum Training is now available online.

The post 5 Tips to Help Your Scrum Team Work Remotely (And Be Happy And Productive Doing It) appeared first on 3Back.

Interactive Learning Without Needing To Be In A Classroom

3Back is known throughout the Scrum community for our hands-on training style. We recognize how important it is to learn experientially and benefit from the real-world expertise our 3Back trainers bring to the classroom. For this reason, our A-CSM Training is specifically designed to foster interactive learning from peers and experts in an easily accessible, virtual environment.

We’ve taken our classroom-based A-CSM Training and transformed it into a robust learning experience that builds upon your current CSM skills to facilitate your Scrum Team’s development, teamwork, and continuous improvement – with the flexibility and convenience of online training. Learn at your own pace, practice newly acquired knowledge in real-time, and earn your A-CSM credential from Scrum Alliance^®.

Reserve your spot now for 3Back’s online A-CSM Training

What Can You Expect From Self-Paced, Virtual A-CSM Training?

• 13 Self-Paced Modules
  A-CSM Training topics are broken down into 13 individual modules, each available for your viewing on-demand. On average, students complete the online A-CSM course in three months, but you are in control of the timeframe.
• 13 Hands-On, Remote Study Buddy Sessions
  Each module offers opportunities for interactive learning with Study Buddies, other A-CSM students learning the same content. Together, you and your Study Buddy meet virtually to reflect on your learning, collaborate on module-based projects, and maintain accountability with sign-offs on each other’s work. You may work remotely with the same Study Buddies throughout the course or partner with a different Study Buddies per self-paced module.
• 4 Weekly, 1- Hour, Live Q&A, Coaching, and/or Discussion Sessions with a 3Back Scrum Trainer
  Using video conferencing, 3Back will offer weekly hour-long Q&A, coaching, and/or discussion sessions with a 3Back trainer. We encourage you to use this time to ask questions, gather insights from experts and peers, as well as dialogue on Scrum topics.

Sign up now for virtual, interactive A-CSM Training

What Else Will You Learn in A-CSM?

Fine-Tune Your Facilitation

Online A-CSM Training sharpens your ScrumMaster skills, focusing on the day-to-day challenges of bringing people together to deliver value. By picking up where CSM Training leaves off, online A-CSM fine-tunes your facilitation skills to:

• Foster better dialogue between your Team, PO, Stakeholders, and customers
• Leverage the wisdom of your entire Team
• Navigate challenging conversations
• Confront and resolve conflicts
• Encourage collaboration without taking ownership

Expand Your Agility

In addition to improving your facilitation skills, online A-CSM Training continues to cultivate your role as an Agile expert, gaining recognition within your Team and your organization.

• Increase company-wide engagement, accountability, commitment, and buy-in
• Manage impediments to enable long-term adoption of Scrum
• Increase organizational productivity through scaling
• Demonstrate the value of Scrum to skeptics
• Support executives committed to Agile values and principles

Register today for online, self-paced A-CSM Training

Don’t Disrupt Your Scrum Learning

Now, more than ever, online A-CSM Training makes good sense. And, while we’ll miss seeing you face to face in class, we’re prepared to bring you the Advanced ScrumMaster Certification skills you need in a self-paced, interactive, online format.

3Back’s virtual, on-demand, interactive A-CSM Training is here.
Register now.

The post Virtual, Self-Paced, Interactive A-CSM Training Is Here appeared first on 3Back.

Like all of you, we at 3Back are contending with the overwhelming impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) on our daily lives. We also are sensitive to the reality the COVID-19 pandemic brings to classroom learning. We take our role as educators very seriously and believe we must prioritize the health and well-being of our Scrum learning community. That is why we moved all of our upcoming Scrum Training classes to a web-based format. Until further notice, our Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), courses will be available online.

What Can You Expect from Online CSM and CSPO Training?

3Back is known throughout the Scrum community for our robust, hands-on training. We also understand the unmatched benefits of experiential learning and group facilitated discovery and discussions. We’ve taken our CSM and CSPO Training and transformed them into remote, collaborative learning experiences. Each CSM or CSPO virtual training includes:

• 2-days of CSM or CSPO online training
  CSM or CSPO Training is 14 hours of total instruction by a 3Back Scrum Trainer. Each daily session offers 7 hours of remote classroom training. Each online course prepares participants to take the CSM or CSPO Scrum Alliance Certifications.
• 40-minute modules
  CSM and CSPO topics are broken down into multiple 40-minute modules to allow time to digest information and take breaks as needed.
• Virtual, interactive small group discussions
  Working in small groups, participants will engage in collaborative virtual activities with peers. It’s hands-on classroom-style learning without the classroom.

Register today for 3Back’s online CSM and CSPO Training

Online CSM Agenda Topics

Overview of Scrum and Agile Practices

• What are Scrum and Agile?
• The Scrum Framework
• Modern Scrum vs. Original Scrum
• Scrum-Appropriate Projects

Roles and Ceremonies

• Roles and Responsibilities
• ScrumMaster, Product Owner, and the Team
• Sprint Planning
• The Daily Standup
• Review and Retrospective

Building and Guiding the Team

• Producing a Well-Formed Team
• Cross-Functional Teams
• Colocated Teams vs. Distributed Teams
• Encouraging Ownership and Accountability
• Living and Encouraging the Scrum Values
• Establishing the Team’s Social Contract
• Maturing a Team
• Respecting the Product

Stories and the Backlog

• Writing Stories
• Definition of Done
• Backlog Grooming and Refinement
• Stakeholder Requests and Desires
• Prioritization Factors

Scrum in the Organization

• Quality and Value in the Product
• Tracking Progress to Inform Decision Making
• Burndown Graphs and Buildup Charts
• Agile Tooling, the Pros and Cons
• Scaling and Extending Scrum

The ScrumMaster Role

• ScrumMaster vs. Project Manager
• Training your Product Owner
• Understanding Flow
• Enhancing Communication
• Emergent Leadership vs. Command and Control
• Facilitation Techniques

Reserve your spot for online CSM and CSPO Training

Online CSPO AgendaTopics

Scrum Foundations

• Values and Principles
• The Scrum Framework
• Modern Scrum vs. Original Scrum
• Roles, Artifacts, and Ceremonies
• Scrum-Appropriate Projects

Stories and the Backlog

• Writing and Gathering Stories
• Understanding Context and Users
• Definition of Done and Acceptance Criteria
• Backlog Grooming and Refinement
• Stakeholder Requests and Desires
• Prioritization Factors

Planning and Metrics

• Team Velocity and Capacity
• Tracking Progress to Inform Decision Making
• Release Planning
• BuildUp & BurnDown Graphs
• Earned Value & Earned Business Value Metrics

Agile Visioning

• Dealing with Technical Debt
• Needs and Features
• Assumptions, Dependencies, and Constraints
• Releases, Milestones, and Roadmaps
• Other Requirements

Product Owner Responsibilities

• Product Owner vs. Project Manager
• ScrumMaster, Product Owner, and the Team
• Establishing a Standard of Care
• Working with your ScrumMaster
• Business Value and Prioritization
• Quality and Value in the Product

The ScrumMaster Role

• Creating a Positive Scrum Environment
• Tools for the Agile Project Manager
• Multiple Projects and Large Projects
• Scaling and Extending Scrum
• Scaling Product Ownership

Reserve your spot for online CSM and CSPO Training

Don’t Disrupt Your Scrum Learning

There’s a lot that is unknown about the Coronavirus outbreak, making for a disruptive learning environment. But, your CSM and CSPO Training doesn’t have to be disrupted too. Now, more than ever, online Scrum training makes good sense. And, while we’ll miss seeing you face to face in class, we’ve got your training covered.

Online CSM and CSPO Training is here. Register now.

The post Learn Online With 3Back appeared first on 3Back.

But does a team need a full-time Coach forever? If not, how do Scrum Team members recognize when it’s time to “graduate” from full-time coaching?

The Shift to a need for Facilitation

The answer is: when the Scrum team tips over from mostly needing coaching about what Scrum is and how to do it… to needing facilitation to make their use of Scrum smooth and easy. Don’t think in terms of the formal ceremonies, as much as the outcomes those activities aim at: planning, reviewing, identifying obstacles, et cetera. A full-time Coach is needed when a team’s still learning what the ceremonies mean, what they aim at, and how they can achieve those outcomes. The Coach models and provides leadership as the team internalizes these practices well enough to begin owning them. When the team starts to own their agile practice, then they need facilitation: a team member committed to help make these practices as easy and efficient as possible. Now, a full-time Coach isn’t necessary.

Signs a team is approaching graduation

• Team members are comfortable taking the initiative in activities the Coach previously had to jump-start. Example: developers call out impediments during Standup and ask for support in a timely way, without a Coach needing to detect the issue and prompt members to work together.
• The team and its Facilitator revisits and revises how it’s running ceremonies, without needing the Coach to prompt them. Example: developers recognize when Planning is getting flat or missing interdependencies, and work with the Facilitator’s help to improve the quality of Planning.
• When they detect impediments, team members strategize together on the fly to respond–without relying on a Coach to drive the solution or waiting for ceremonies to address the issue. Example: “Teamlets” of two or more developers come together to work through obstacles during Sprints.
• Team members are generally able to work through interpersonal conflicts that come up on the team, or between the team and others in the business, without needing intervention. Example: if disagreements about how to work through a Story come up, the developers can find a way through together, with some light support from the Facilitator if needed, without a need for a full-scale conflict mediation session run by the team’s Coach.
• The team is proactive in recognizing when it needs to reallocate where it’s putting attention, effort and energy. Example: Dev members, with the Facilitator’s help, regularly use Review and/or Retrospectives to recognize inefficiencies and reorganize their work together.
• Team members detect needs for SME’s (Subject Matter Experts) or other resources and pursue them proactively.
• Team members communicate with stakeholders and internal customers as needed, including soliciting feedback, rather than relying on you to do this for them

All of these are signs that a Coach is no longer on a full-time basis to spur the team to self-organize—instead, team members assume the responsibility is theirs.

What happens after graduation?

Your team’s graduation doesn’t mean they don’t need the Coach anymore, ever again. No–what it means is that they’ve graduated from relying on the Coach’s full-time presence.
Now the Coach becomes a resource for the team to pull in as needed. When this happens, the Coach has graduated to SME for the increasingly Well-Formed Team!

The post When A Team Graduates From Its Coach appeared first on 3Back.