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Minimum Definition of ‘Agile’: Scrum-Butt Test

First, let’s assume that we believe that our firm needs a good agile transformation to achieve important business goals. Perhaps these goals are: (a) faster time to market, (b) more creativity in the product, and (c) greater productivity.  (In any case, not ‘Agile’ for agile’s sake.) One method to achieve more success from the agile […]

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Why add a Workshop Day to the CSM course?

Apparently I am one of the few Scrum Alliance CSTs (Certified Scrum Trainers) who always adds a Workshop day (or 2) to the CSM (Certified ScrumMaster) course. Why do I add the workshop day? The simple reason is because the attendees demand it. Honestly, before they have taken the course the attendees don’t really know […]

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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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Latest Reading List – Books

We have a list of recommended books at LeanAgileTraining.com, here. In addition, we can recommend the following: A Sense of Urgency by John Kotter Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas by Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising. Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition) […]

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You’ve got to find what you love (says Steve Jobs)

There was an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal on August 24th (2011) about Steve Jobs. It gives the text of his commencement address at Stanford in 2005.  A quote from his talk is: “You’ve got to find what you love.”  This is maybe the key line of one of the three stories he […]

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Joe’s Approach to Agile Release Planning

Agile Release Planning is technically not part of Scrum.  But I think almost all Teams need it. As a coach, here are my thoughts on what Agile Release Planning should comprise. For 5-7 months of work, this could be done in about 1 day (maybe into a second day).  With good enough quality to then […]

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Joe’s Unofficial Scrum Checklist

Henrik Kniberg did a Scrum Checklist a while ago. Occasionally students at courses ask me for a similar thing. One always wonders: what are the most important questions to ask? What are the most important things to consider? Nothing that is somewhat short can address all the issues one finds in the real world, with […]

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Release Planning with Business Stakeholders

I just posted in the Yahoo group Agile Business the following: The past 3 (business) days I worked with a team in Atlanta to do release planning with the Business Stakeholders.  The business stakeholders were external customers. I was extremely impressed with the results. I strongly recommend it. Situation: * 15 people (6 pigs, 3 […]

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