Scrum Archives - Agile2Success

20Jan 2020 by jerrye316@aol.com

Fixed Deadlines Make Us Work Efficiently

agile, best practices, Scrum, sprint, Uncategorized

The best way to get the most important tasks done within the shortest time is to have fixed deadlines, thus, framing our work within a time box. In our daily lives, we experience fixed deadlines. Some examples are: Catching an airplaneCelebrating a holiday (Christmas, birthday, etc)Participating in a wedding ceremonyCompleting weekend chores from our "to-do" list (weekend ends Sunday night)Winning a sports game against an opponent in the regulation time (game over when time clock reaches zero) In all of these, we have to be ready within the appointed time. Otherwise, we suffer potential and costly consequences such as missing your plane, or even worse, your wedding! Fix deadlines force us to be more efficient. Some reasons are: We prioritize. We identify the tasks that must be done and work…

09Jul 2018 by jerrye316@aol.com

Healthy Agility Requires Finding Your Sustainable Pace

agile, Agile Manifesto, Scrum, sprint

Agility involves delivering and adapting in short iterations. In Scrum the iterations are called "sprints." Sprints are generally scheduled right after each other without much or any recovery time. In races, sprints imply exhausting every bit of energy to be first at the finish line. This raises an often asked question "Why don't Scrum team members get burned out?" The answer to healthy agility is to value "Sustainable Pace Over Faster Sprinting." Think about the long distance competitive swimmer. The swimmer must swim as fast as possible each lap (the sprint). But the goal is to complete all laps. The swimmer must train to get better at swimming each lap quickly while still have enough energy to finish the race. The same is true of working in iterations to make it…

18Oct 2017 by jerrye316@aol.com

Cultivating Agile: WIP As A Mindset

agile, best practices, Kanban, Predictive Agility, Scrum

Limiting work in progress (WIP) is a mindset shift! Limiting WIP has many benefits. What is your WIP mindset? The blog Do A Few Things Insanely Great emphasizes that we can actually "do more with less". The idea is that we can increase our flow rates, decrease wait times, and eliminate bottlenecks when we limit WIP. This leads to increased productivity, improved team morale, more visibility into ongoing work, and better metrics on velocity and project progress. There is more personal satisfaction in seeing things actually completed rather than having a full plate of ongoing work. Limiting WIP also makes us identify and focus on those tasks which have the highest value since we can only work on a few things at a time. If we can only do a few things,…

06Sep 2017 by jerrye316@aol.com

Daily Stand-up Meetings: Valuable or Waste Of Time

agile, Daily Stand-up, Scrum

"Agile, is that where you have those daily stand around meetings?" Daily stand-up meetings are often misunderstood and misrepresented. In most cases, this is due to team members lacking an understanding of its real purpose. Let's explore ... What is a daily stand-up? The Scrum Guide proposes a 15-minute time boxed event called the Daily Scrum where the Development Team meets "to synchronize activities and create a plan for the next 24 hours." The guide states, "This is a key inspect and adapt meeting." Since the meeting is short in duration, it is often held in a convenient and nearby informal setting with members standing. A principle from the Agile Manifesto states that the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation. The daily stand-up brings…

24Jul 2017 by jerrye316@aol.com

Retrospective on Retrospectives: Start with “Thank you’s”

agile, Retrospective, Scrum

Retrospective meetings are an opportunity to improve how your teams work. Don't miss out on this opportunity. Retrospectives can be hard to facilitate with experienced teams. The perception is there is little left to improve, "we already know how to work together, so let's get back to doing the work". Think of the retrospective as if it is a "half time" during a basketball game. Even professional and experienced teams regroup to talk about how they can play the current game better. Scrum teams can likewise talk about how to improve from the past and future sprints. The beginning of the retrospective meeting is critical for setting the tone. There should always be the feeling of safety and constructive discussion. Everyone should feel comfortable and non-threatened to speak. The facilitator, whether…

22May 2017 by jerrye316@aol.com

Best Practice Is Not To Use The Word “Best”

agile, best practices, Scrum

How many times have we heard a software consultant or tool vendor say the phrase "best practice?" In this context, best practice is mostly marketing lingo to get us to use their services or tools. It is selling by guilt. After all, if it's the best, we would be a fool not to buy it! If it is the best, then it must be worth the high price the vendor is charging. Or is it? Let's analyze the word "best." First, I am reminded of a cartoon about Father's Day. The young son is looking for a gift and sees a rack of several T-shirts with the words "Best Dad Ever." The son looks up at the mom and says "If a dad is the best, shouldn't there only be one of these…

15May 2017 by jerrye316@aol.com

How Fixing Defects Is Like Finding Your Lost Car Keys

agile, Agile testing, Kanban, Scrum, sprint

The next time your manager asks for an estimate for fixing software defects, say "I'll get right on it, as soon as I can find my lost car keys." Estimating the time to find and fix a defect can be difficult. It can be a short time, a very long time, or maybe even never. So how do we respond when asked to forecast in a Scrum sprint planning meeting which defects we can fix in the upcoming sprint? One recommendation is to consider switching from Scrum to Kanban for later phases of software maintenance when defect fixing and creating estimates are difficult. Kanban provides transparency into the backlog and the work flow as defects are fixed without having to forecast the work for an upcoming time boxed sprint. It is always best not to create…

24Apr 2017 by jerrye316@aol.com

Do You Value Chef Over Recipe In Your Agile Restaurant?

agile, Agile Manifesto, Scrum

"Individuals and interactions over processes and tools." The first value stated in the Agile Manifesto is the one which most intrigued me about Agile. I have been part of large organizations where everything was driven by the process. As such, it commonly felt like the processes were getting in our way and slowing us down. For example, I submitted a design document for peer review. The majority of feedback was concerned with whether I followed the approved "style guide." The approval process contained formalized steps with the stated purpose to verify that we followed our standard documentation management system and storage process. Few of these steps had anything to do with whether the design was any good or not. So this first Agile value seemed like a good one to me. Later, a chat with a colleague…

03Apr 2017 by jerrye316@aol.com

Do A Few Things Insanely Great

agile, Agile testing, Scrum, sprint, Technical debt

Want to do more. Consider doing less. Limit your work in progress (WIP). Value completeness over an abundance of work in progress. Let's examine how this strategy can actually make your teams more productive. "Do a few things insanely great" reflects a quote from an executive at a previous company where I worked. What is interesting, the company developed software using traditional project management with long development cycles and large number of features planned upfront. Schedules were commonly delayed in order to ensure quality levels and handle complex code integrations from the large number of changes. The executive was suggesting a different approach for working. I use the quote in my Scrum and Kanban training to emphasize the importance of limiting WIP. In Kanban, the WIP constraints are part of…

19Mar 2017 by jerrye316@aol.com

March Madness: Would Your Scrum Teams Make The Tournament?

agile, Scrum, sprint

Scrum is a team sport. The team is accountable for delivering the product and value to the business within short iterations called sprints. Basketball teams are accountable for scoring more points than their opponents during games and over the season. Basketball and scrum teams are cross functional, empowered and must work together as a team to be successful. I want to further describe some concepts about successful teams using basketball as an analogy. The college basketball tournament is held during March of each year. A committee selects the top 64 (plus a few extras) teams and creates a playoff bracket. The tournament is single elimination so if a team wins, then it advances to the next game. If the team loses, the team is out and goes home to get…