Scrum

You and your team are you like “Yeah! It’s Scrum time” or “Ah! this darn meeting… again”? For teams adopting Agility, the daily meeting used to review the status and list the day’s activities is sometimes a reflex that is not easy to acquire. Even worse, it is sometimes considered …

A couple of months ago, I was speaking with the CEO of a startup in a networking event who seemed a bit tense, frustrated, and puzzled that Scrum was not delivering on its promises in his organization. In other words, he was disappointed of not seeing tangible improvements and questioning …

To be a successful Scrum Master, you must develop your own approach, your own way of doing things. Here are the Scrum Masters’ responsibilities: Make sure that the team is completely functional and productive within the Scrum process Foster collaboration between all roles Protect the team from external interference Guide the …

The daily is a well-known Scrum ceremony. Its objective is to synchronize the team’s activities and plan the work until the next daily. Even though this meeting is very simple and routine, the basics are sometimes forgotten. A quick reminder of the rules of the game: The meeting is timeboxed …

Know and optimize your output of business value in several easy steps to get the most ROI out of the Scrum framework. Scrum is like a modern, sophisticated meat grinder. Compared to the traditional knife method or heavy manually handled cast iron meat grinder, it is designed to process your …

Even though Scrum Masters or facilitators must be versatile, don’t worry, they do not need any plumbing and heating skills. Though… Nowadays, despite sometimes mocking considerations regarding those who agitate the organization by “decorating” walls with a slew of post-its, the need for clear, relevant, yet accessible information is essential. …

Your Scrum team is made up of six individuals carrying out a critical project for the organization and each week you deliver an increment. The current sprint is the 10th one, and today is Wednesday. You have to deliver a major version before the weekend. You can feel the stress …

All developers received at some point bad bug reports. There reports that do not say anything (“It’s not working!”). Other reports make no sense or do not give sufficient information or even information that is false! Bugs may result from negligence of development teams (even though it is sometimes difficult …

The Agile Manifesto It is often read, recited, and learned by heart, but insufficiently implemented. As a foundation, the Manifesto supports Agility and practitioners. It is the reason why we call Agile practitioners “Agilists”. Why is it so difficult to implement? Isn’t it about human relations that are more real, …

In my previous post entitled “Velocity, a measure that is false!”, we’ve covered bad ways of using the notion of velocity. Here’s an excerpt: In Scrum, **velocity** is the number of story points “done” during a sprint (and “done” depends on the definition formulated by the team). It is an indicator …