Archives

For Quick Decisions, Depend on Deadlines

In Saturday’s (8/2/2013) Wall Street Journal, Dan Ariely suggests that to reach a decision, and often just to make progress, you need deadlines.  Deadlines ‘force’ people to take action. This is what we have known with Scrum for years.  So, we have time-boxes all over the place (and I recommend using them more than just […]

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The ScrumButt Test (2): Working Software

The second line in the ScrumButt Test says: Software must be tested and working by the end of each iteration. This is the second of three items that confirms the team (project) is “iterative”. There is a series of small tests (within the ScrumButt Test) for whether the team is really doing Scrum (in my […]

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Do we need an Impediment List? Yes!

Yes, we need a public impediment list. Every Team does. Why? One argument against is that all impediments should be eliminated immediately.  Yes, if this were possible, this should be done.  But I think that assumes an incorrect view of what impediments are. Yes, it is true some impediments only appear from time to time. […]

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Impediments (or symptoms of) – Montreal Class July 2013

Below is a list of ‘failure modes’ for projects, as identified via the experience (in waterfall, whatever, agile or scrum) by the people in the Montreal July 2013 class.  These are not in priority order.  They suggest certain impediments to add to the Public Impediment List for your team. Lack of communication Too many impediments […]

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Starting with Scaling

Question: “We are starting Scrum. We have the kind of projects that require scaling. But how do we start with Scrum and have some scaling?” Answer: The basic framework of Scrum does not attempt to answer this question.  It assumes you will use lean-agile-scrum principles and values, and devise your own specific solution to this […]

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The ScrumButt Test (1): Iterations must be timeboxed

I will be doing a series of posts that discuss each element in the ScrumButt Test (see earlier post). In this first post, I will focus on the first element in the ScrumButt Test: “Iterations must be time-boxed to less than six weeks.” Remember that the first section of the test is to determine whether […]

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Achieving the Goal of a Retrospective

Some teams seem to approach Retrospectives without a real drive to succeed.  Or so it seems.  They just use it to ‘talk.’  About the ‘good, the bad, the ugly’ as I sometimes tease. Now, talking can be helpful.  Still, we can usually do better than this. What is the goal of a Retrospective?  Well, I […]

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ROI for Scrum Training

Does Scrum Training give a good ROI? Well, of course, that depends. Mainly, whether the Team (the full Team) takes an aggressive attitude toward improvement.  So, as you could guess, we train the attendees that a key job is to get continuously better.  We set the expectation of doubling velocity in the first year. Let’s […]

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Public Impediment List: “We don’t want to see the bad news.”

The Scrum Guide does not mention it, but I strongly advocate a public impediment list. The simple idea is: visual management, and single piece flow off the ‘top’ of the list.  That is: Make the team’s impediments visible and visual.  Prioritize them. And then actively work them each day.  With at least one meaningful impediment […]

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Intermediate CSPO Course

Scrum is, in a way, simple. But I think that, for many reasons, doing Scrum well requires continuous study. For one thing, we need to do the practices in harmony with the values and principles behind lean-agile-scrum.  Also, we are always forgetting the values and principles. But there is more to it than that. You […]

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