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Category Archives: Key problems
Better distributed Scrum
I was asked today for my main suggestions for getting better at distributed Scrum. Suggestion 1. Make a fair comparison between distributed and collocated in your specific situation. a. Cost per hour, usually lower for offshore people. b. Hours of “distributed” members, usually more. c. Hours for “local” members, usually more. d. Net effect on […]
Scrum Team in Waterfall Land! What to do?
The real question sent to me was: What are some tips for integrating our SCRUM model with non-Scrum groups who will not be adopting the process? One can go many places with this question, and there could be other questions within this question. For now, let me answer two questions. 1. In general the culture […]
Getting higher velocity!
Higher velocity per se is not the end-all and be-all. But it sure does help. Having trouble getting to hyper-productivity? Try these things. Together. * Better retrospective meetings * Better impediment lists * Better business cases to management * More effective action (get approval and implement one ‘fix’ until you get results) * Better use […]
Scrum Hates Technical Debt!
This is my phrase: Scrum hates Technical Debt! Ken Schwaber talks about Flaccid Scrum. (Not my favorite metaphor.) Jeff Sutherland talks about ScrumButt and the Nokia Test. (I like this.) Uncle Bob Martin talks about “the land that Scrum forgot.” The problem is bigger than my phrase implies. What is the problem? People are doing […]
Getting Better
My guess, based on experience and many conversations, is that these are ‘our’ top 5 impediments. Need better Product Owners Not enough focus on removing impediments Need better automated testing Technical debt No trend of improving velocity Some time ago, Jeff Sutherland said the biggest impediment is team’s not getting to done-done inside the Sprint. […]
Business Value is a dream
There is a famous Taoist story about a person dreaming that he is a butterfly and awakens and can’t decide: Am I person who dreamt I was a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I am now a person? This is not the kind of dream I meant, when I used that word in […]
Planning Poker – 1
At Agile-Carolinas, Laurie Williams gave a great presentation last night on how she does Planning Poker. (Suggestion: Google her. She is a professor at NC State, but that is just the start. She is very good.) Some of the discussion made me realize that there are many issues out there. So, here is how I […]
Scrum & Control
One myth about Agile is, “Those Agile guys are out of control!” Of course, when one hears that, one must ask, what do you mean exactly? For example, Scrum does reveal that the team is involved in a creative process, a process of identifying what the customer wants and how it will be implemented and […]
Intermediate CSPO and Workshop
Thanks to Maria Diaconu and Dave Muldoon, and with the help of Catherine Louis and others, we have significantly revised our Certified Scrum Product Owner course. This has been in progress in a way for years. I have long thought that the CSPO course should be treated as a post-CSM course, a step beyond ‘beginner.’ […]
Lame Scrum Implementations
I was talking to a colleague about one problem, and then said, “but this is not our biggest problem — our biggest problem is lame scrum implementations.” So, I thought I would discuss that. First, truly, our biggest problem is not Scrum or anything to do with Scrum. Our biggest problem is to figure out […]