Blog: Agile & Business

A song for the season

December 22, 2013

In the western world, this is the season of peace. One of my favorite hymns from this time of year is ‘O come, o come Emmanuel’.  Emmanuel means ‘God with us.’ Here is a version by Linda Ronstadt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fsqk9FOBtuo Below are two verses from the lyrics: O come, Thou Day spring from on high, and […]

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Impediments – Charlotte December Course

December 19, 2013

I am an advocate of a public impediment list.  The ScrumMaster must always be working on the top impediment until the Team is perfect (and it is never perfect). The value of that can be seen when the Team has doubled (or increased) their productivity or velocity. The Team must be creative and aggressive in […]

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Agile Contracts

December 9, 2013

Jeff Sutherland did a presentation at Agile 2013 that I think everyone should read and think about.  And read and think about again. Here is the slide deck: http://jeffsutherland.com/Agile2008MoneyforNothing.pdf

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Agile Contracts – Question 1

December 8, 2013

Adela asks this question: Imagine we have a brand new project. And we must bid on it, and we want to use the agile-scrum method.  How should that work? This is a good question.  I will answer it quickly here. Too quickly.  I have partly answered it in my book, Agile Release Planning. And partly […]

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What if Scrum is not working for you?

December 8, 2013

I was speaking to a smart guy who had taken (some while ago) my CSM course.  We were both waiting at the Cluj (Romania) airport. He made me think about this problem. The first thing to say is: Scrum is not a panacea.  It requires hard work.  Often people expect Scrum to magically make things […]

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Impediments – Charleston

December 7, 2013

We just completed a CSM course and Agile Release Planning workshop in Charleston.  Here are some of the impediments they identified. They have duplications and they are not in any particular order.  In my opinion, the list should also include automated testing, better continuous integration, and better automated integration/regression testing.  These were issues discussed later […]

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The CSP is in demand…

December 4, 2013

We have a problem in Scrum. First, we do well to call it an opportunity rather than a problem.  We have more opportunity sitting on the table that we have not yet grabbed.  Scrum, in general, can help us get a LOT more improvement than we have gotten. There are many root causes behind this […]

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ScrumButt Test (6): Estimates created by the Team

November 17, 2013

Another installment on the ScrumButt Test. So, the next item on the test says: “The Product Backlog has estimates created by the Team.” Why is this important and what does it mean?  Let’s consider the meaning first. So, normally in Scrum estimates mean estimates of relative size/complexity in Story Points. See Mike Cohn’s book: Each […]

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What does it mean to be ‘Ready’?

November 16, 2013

Jeffry Hesse wrote this blog post. [Link now broken.  Sorry!] It inspired me to write the post below. The new Scrum Guide says that PBIs (product backlog items) must be well-understood and granular enough for Sprint Planning. PB Refinement is the process we use to get them to Ready. Those are not quotes, but that […]

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Impediment List – Charlotte Class Nov 2013

November 13, 2013

Here are the impediments the Charlotte class identified.  Each impediment may be useful to you. Too little transparency No finalized requirements No communication SME Availability Missing Required Technology Resistance to a common goal Unrealistic expectations Outside pressures Vague requirements Lack of resources Lack of money Bad estimates Hiding problems Not crying wolf soon enough!! Conflict […]

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