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Who should fix Impediments?

In the Certified ScrumMasters LinkedIn group, Michael asked: Who should fix impediments, the SM or the Team? His answer was: Both. And then he discussed.  This topic has drawn a fair number of comments.  Here is one of mine. *** 1. Michael is right. Who should fix the impediments and how much the Team should […]

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More on: The Product Owner and the Team

There has been some interesting discussion on this topic recently.  Two things I wanted to add to my prior post. 1. The business side cannot force the Doers to “do all that I say” in the Sprint. This is of course a well-known rule of Scrum. But this rule does not eject the PO from […]

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We must have working software at the end of the Sprint!

This is a common failing (we don’t have working product or working software at the end of the sprint).  Jeff Sutherland has said this is the biggest problem in the Scrum community — too many teams don’t have working software at the end of every Sprint. If we include cases where 1 or more PBIs […]

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Business Value Engineering framework

I am about to do another BV Engineering workshop. In Orlando, Feb 23-24.  Preceded (appropriately) by an Intermediate CSPO (Product Owner) course. Feb 21-22. In this post I wanted to explain the workshop from a different angle that I have done before. First, what is the BVE framework? Scrum is a framework.  Not a full […]

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Why an Intermediate CSPO (Product Owner) course?

I am about to do an Intermediate Certified Scrum Product Owner course in Orlando.  Feb 21-22.  Followed by a Business Value Engineering workshop. Feb 23-24. In this post I want to talk about why the Intermediate CSPO is important and how it is different. First, our finding is that the Team is important. Any focus […]

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An Intro to BV Engineering: the paper

I have written version 2.2 of a paper that introduces the concepts around Business Value Engineering. See: http://agileconsortium.pbworks.com/w/page/28278924/Intro%20to%20Business%20Value%20Engineering I would appreciate your feedback, either here or in an email. Thanks!

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Committing for the Sprint

This is, to me, still a New Year.  A friend suggested I discuss New Years’ resolutions.  Or something like them, Sprint commitments. Henry Ford said: Whether you think you can or you can’t, you are usually right.  So, let us work backwards. To me, in most business situations, the main thing is satisfying the customer. […]

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Are managers evil?

Managers, they say, are often bad in the US, and in the world. And there is some justification for this. And, of course, most managers are not evil.  Although, like many of us, many might be badly trained. Some background Peter Drucker worked on this problem of managing.  W. Edwards Deming had his ideas, and […]

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Product Owner & the Team

Is the product owner a member of the team?  Yes, fully and completely. What is the biggest problem that most teams face? At the high level (value) or the low level (details), they don’t understand what the customer wants well enough. Who is mainly responsible for managing the flow of this ‘business information’ into the […]

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Public Impediment List !!! – 2

There is a good Scrum trainer who thinks that a public impediment list is not important.  So, if he can misunderstand, then we all can. Here is a better explanation of why it is important, I hope. I find the lack of a public impediment list is a prime indicator of a lack of focus […]

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