Being a professional with a disability is like working two careers: The one I get compensation for - leading organizations to adapt continuous change.
The other career - managing an organization of personal support workers to allow me to have a full life.
Recently I worked with a new customer in Denver to help them move towards a greater degree of Scrum in their software development. The idea that Scrum is for everyone in your organisation is kind of new, but it reflects the modern understanding of the way people work, and the rejection of Taylorism and command and control.
There is nothing in the Scrum Guide that says that you can't have workflow across the Sprint boundary. I'm going to suggest that not only can you, but you should as long as you don't endanger the Sprint Goal.
Improve your Scrum events with the Liberating Structure “1-2-4-All”. Unfold open conversations and sift ideas and solutions in rapid fashion. Your Scrum events (and other meetings, events, workshops) will never be the same!
Stop the traditional introduction rounds and start using Impromptu Networking. A facilitating technique to rapidly share challenges and expectations and build new connections.
Back in the early days of Scrum, the Scrum Master role was exciting. The days of the pigs & chickens, the days when being a Scrum Master was considered dangerous. In those times there was the saying
a dead Scrum Master is a useless Scrum Master
And even today I still use that when selecting a Scrum Master to work with.
If you never got fired as a Scrum Master then you probably did not show enough courage to achieve breakthrough improvements.
The Sprint is one of the five Scrum events. In my Professional Scrum Courses, this is the event that people often forget about because it is a container event, not necessarily something you distinctly schedule on the calendar.
Specify only the absolute “must dos” and “must not dos” for achieving a purpose. Ideal for creating a Definition of Done, a Minimal Viable Product or a Team Manifest.
It’s been a year since I joined the Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainers Community. 2018 marks my fifth year in teaching Scrum. Allow me to reflect on this journey.
“I designed a defined framework for using many Scrum Teams on a single product or problem. The result is Nexus, an exoskeleton that rests on top of many Scrum Teams. Nexus provides information and management information for guiding their working together.” - Ken Schwaber
In August 2015, Ken Schwaber and Scrum.org introduced the Nexus framework to the public via the Nexus Guide, the definitive guide to scaling Scrum. Today, on January 17, 2018, we release the first update to the Nexus Guide.
According to Forrester Research, 90% of Agile teams use Scrum.[1] One reason for this popularity is that Scrum is a simple framework that promotes transparenc
During some Scrum training classes, I have been asked, can teams practice Continuous Delivery (CD) , using the Scrum Framework? The answer is a resounding yes! Let's explore why some believe that Scrum only allows you to release at the most, every Sprint against what the Scrum Guide says.
Diversity boosts innovation in companies in times, when the rate of outside change is high. Diversity of people across culture, gender, religion, physical ability, ethnicity and other individual differences have to offer value for the group. Diversity in teams can generate greater idea flow and help making faster and better decisions.
In this article we’ll bust the myth that in Scrum too much time is spend in meetings. We’ll not only describe how time-consuming the Scrum events factually are, but also clarify the purpose and importance. After explaining the origins of this myth, we’ll offer some practical tips to prevent or resolve the symptoms.
The intention of this blog post is to test the content of an upcoming book that I am writing on Leanpub called So You Want To Be A Hero: Soft skills at the core of Agile leadership. While I agree that Agile is eating the world, I believe we have to revisit our understanding of leadership to support Agile. To quote Denning in his article, "this kind of leadership is beyond the capabilities of the lumbering industrial giants of the 20th Century."
Everyone building software products today aspire to be able to seamlessly update the production software in a continuous manner. To be able to deploy code without the ‘normal’ friction of process controls, reviews, test departments and committee meetings.
Most Scrum Teams that I encounter don’t do refinement of their Product Backlog and try to work on things that they don’t understand correctly. However, if you get to the Sprint Planning Event and your backlog is not ready, then you are doing it wrong.
In my last post about Professional software teams creating working software David Corban made a good point. How do you determine what "Free from fault or defect" means?
Do you ever influence or coach people? How? Do you use a gut feel approach or do you have coaching patterns that you use? I have several coaching patterns that I step through when trying to influence people.
Many Scrum Teams use User Stories as a technique for creating their Product Backlog Items (PBIs). But when the teams bring big stories to the Sprint, this causes lots of problems.
Many organisations wrestle with the seeming incompatibility between agile and release management and they struggle with release planning and predictable delivery.
In this post, we’ll explain the Liberating Structure "Troika Consulting" and how we apply this facilitation technique within our Scrum training and coaching engagements.
Flashback to 1995, Jeff and Ken had presented their paper at OOPSLA on Scrum. People recognizes it as one of the new ways of working. Fast forward to Feb 2001, no ski resort gathering and no Agile manifesto.
Yes, you read it right, it was really challenging for me, and may be other PSTs have the same or different experience. A couple of times I thought about quitting it but because of some or the other reasons I continued.
In this post, we'll bust the myth that Scrum requires work to be estimated in Story Points. Although it is a useful technique, and used by many Scrum Teams, it is by no means the only technique. Above all, remember the quote by Esther Derby: “Estimating is often helpful, estimates are often not.”
In this blog post we’ll bust the myth that “The Scrum Master is a junior Agile Coach”. Effective change is driven from “the inside-out”. The Scrum Master - being part of the Scrum Team - is in a better position to facilitate this change than an (external) Agile Coach.
There is a better way than staggered iterations for delivery that will keep you on the path to agility. Staggered iterations lead to more technical debt and lower quality software.
Use "Shift & Share and Caravan" as facilitation pattern in Scrum for Sprint Reviews, brainstorms and involving stakeholders. Spread novel ideas across groups of any size with "Shift & Share" and rapidly receive feedback with "Caravan".
In this post I will review what's a Proxy Product Owner, why you can find so often this role in organizations embracing Scrum, and some proposals to avoid this role and achieve a true Product Owner.
As a Product Owner, you are responsible for Product Backlog management, stakeholder management and forecasting. Therefore, you will probably use a variety of tools and techniques to track progress, manage expectations and keep people informed.
And after reading Jeff Gothelf’s and Josh Seiden’s book “Sense and Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously”, I realized that the world is full of complex problems. This got me thinking about the relationship between Scrum and modern organizations as they pivot toward becoming able to ‘sense and respond’. So, I decided to ask Jeff Gothelf… Here is a condensed version of our conversation.