Product Owners have a tough job. They’re required to take a swarm of opinions and coalesce those opinions into a single, unified vision. Undoubtedly, some stakeholders won’t agree with that vision, and they must invest time and energy in soothing the disgruntled. Further, if a Product Owner is thinking too far forward, the team gets restless […]
Product Owner Tips for an Effective Backlog Read More »
In my last blog post, I promised to offer up some tricks and tweaks to help facilitate the daily scrum. Today, I intend to deliver on that promise. Before reading on, I encourage you to read Mastering the Daily Scrum. As a reminder, we previously discussed how to improve and focus our stand up; however, something
Tools to Facilitate the Daily Scrum Read More »
5,000. That’s the number of daily scrums, or stand ups, I’ve been a part of in my career. There’s not a lot of things I’ve done 5,000 times so I wanted to share with you what I’ve learned. First, let’s remind ourselves why we’re there. Why have the meeting at all? Why every day? I like
Mastering the Daily Scrum Read More »
The job of the Scrum Master can be a challenging one. It can be made tougher when people describe the role as a “referee.” Making such a comparison implies that the Scrum Master isn’t a member of the team. Worse yet, some describe us as keepers of process, which conflicts with how we value individuals
Viewing the Scrum Master as a Team Member Read More »
Books like Mike Cohn’s Succeeding with Agile and Henrik Kniberg’s Scrum and XP from the Trenches were two of the first books I read as I began my agile journey. These books were useful to teach me about Scrum, but Scrum is simple to understand. People though? They’re a challenge. As Ronika Lewis eloquently put it: The
The Best Books About Scrum Aren’t About Scrum Read More »
Scrum is not agile. I think Scrum is a brilliant and simple framework, but again it’s certainly not agile. It was Allen Holub in his Death of Agile keynote that convinced me of this. Watch for yourself. He makes many excellent points, some I find more agreeable than others. For frequent readers, I’m sure you
Scrum Is Not Agile Read More »
I have a confession to make. I’m an introvert, and I feel this is at odds with my responsibilities as an agile coach. Or at least I used to feel that way. Over time, I’ve found more like me. In fact, I’ve learned that it’s not as uncommon as I had thought. Many educators, speakers,
The Introverted Agile Coach Read More »
I previously wrote Tips To Be a Successful Scrum Master. Over time, more Scrum Master tips have come to mind so today I’d like to extend my list of tips by ten. Each of these tips are borne out of my mistakes or experiences, and I hope at least one of these tips is something
Scrum Master Tips to Help Your Teams Succeed Read More »
We spend a lot of our days talking about epics, stories, and tasks, and in many cases, we assume others understand these concepts as expertly as we do. Sometimes they don’t, and today I intend to take Leonardo da Vinci’s advice: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Below you’ll find a table that boils epics, stories, and
Definitions: Epics, Stories, And Tasks Read More »
Scrum Masters tend to optimize for the team, and they’re right to do so. I know as a young Scrum Master I wanted to ensure teams were the center piece of the organization. Over time though and as I experienced the challenges of scaling agile, I began to realize optimizing for other dimensions had to
Optimize for the Team — Sometimes Read More »
