Category Archives: Better Agile

Early Warning System

I was giving a course today, and we were discussing: should we do agile release planning at the beginning of the effort? (Reminder: release planning always also means release plan refactoring every sprint, to whatever degree it is needed.) My advice is: most teams I see need agile release planning for a day or two […]

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The ScrumButt Test

Bas Voode designed a test with 7 or 8 items.  Jeff Sutherland and others liked it.  Jeff modified it some.  Eventually it became known as the ScrumButt Test.  Bas developed the test originally to check whether a team was still really using Scrum or reverting back to waterfall.  Or, reverting to what I call Cowboy […]

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Kanban Ideas

We have been talking about Kanban a bit lately in other venues. Let’s talk about some key Kanban ideas in Scrum. 1. Do the most important thing first. In Scrum, we want the Product Owner to order the work (the PBIs or User Stories) mainly by Business Value.  (Yes, I talk about ‘ordered’, but this […]

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Waterfall meets Disciplined Agile

Friends and colleagues (Etienne Laverdiere and Richard McMullin) put together a presentation about their experiences with one project. They titled it: Waterfall meets Disciplined Agile. Note: It is the 3rd slide deck (presentation) on that page.  See the list to the right. It is very interesting. It would be even better if we could hear […]

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Leading Fearless Change

What is the hardest thing about Scrum?  (Maybe in life.) Probably, it is that we must lead change. Getting people to change is difficult. In Scrum, for example, we are trying to change people. The initial big change and then always continuous change. And removing impediments typically requires change. First, we change them to a fully […]

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Are there Project Managers in Scrum? No (but…)

Scrum has only 3 roles: Product Owner, ScrumMaster and Implementer. Who is responsible for ‘the project’?  Well, that would be the whole Team. What do we do with George, who was a Project Manager (PM)?  Well, we have to talk to George.  Maybe he would make a great ScrumMaster or a great Product Owner.  Or […]

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Our Favorite Scrum Mistakes

Ah, Valentine’s Day! A day for a simpler love than “love your enemies.” Even the simple love is quite complex.  Well, as long as one is not besotted like Romeo below the balcony. Or Juliet above. When one is besotted, then love is truly simple. Other days, it is not. Or so I am told. […]

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Agile – Penny Game Rules

As attendees of my courses know, I like to use the Penny Game.  So, I wanted to share more. Rules: 1. Say: “We are about to see who is the best penny processor in all of [city] today.  And the winner, with the best single round, will win $20.” 2. Select 4 players (these will […]

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Don’t Blame Scrum for Helping You See

Today I completed a CSM course & Workshop in Charlotte. I forgot to tell the attendees one thing. One of the major purposes of Scrum is to enable the Team to see its problems better.  Seeing problems (impediments) better, the Team and firm will take more action to fix the top impediment (well, over time, […]

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The spirit of Scrum

In the US, where I am, we speak of the spirit of Christmas. While some people are a bit cynical about it, I think I actually see it sometimes.  It is meaningful and people do know what you are talking about. In a roughly similar way, the spirit of Scrum is also real. Some people […]

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