Tag Archives: Agile
What tool should be used to track backlog items?
When a client asks me about what tool I would recommend for tracking backlog items, I return with a question of my own. How distributed is the team? I should also point out that my definition of distributed means outside of one open, shared work space area and includes working from home. If the answer approaches that they’re 1/2 way around the world, then I find out if the remote team can implement stories on their own. I also probe to see if there is any sort of remote proxy for the Scrum roles of Product Owner and Scrum Master. … Continue reading
Agile Reading List
It’s a rather long list. Top 100 Agile Books (Edition 2013) – by Jurgen Appelo This ranking of 100 best agile books is the average of five different rankings: the number of Amazon reviews, the number of GoodReads reviews, the average Amazon rating, the average GoodReads rating, and the number of days since first publication. That means this list shows you a mix of the most popular, best rated, and (relatively) newest books in this category.
How do you handle Sprint review and retrospective for multiple Scrum teams?
If there are multiple teams working off of one Product Backlog, how best to reflect and close the iteration? I see these choices: choice 1: one review per team one retrospective per team one consolidated review for everyone at end choice 2: one consolidated review one retrospective per team choice 3: one consolidated review one consolidated retrospective I have a bias to the last choice, if space is not a factor. What is yours? Do you prefer another way to coordinate these meetings? Here are my definitions for these Scrum ceremonies. Sprint Review: Story time. Only stories which are DONE … Continue reading
an experiment – don’t come to standup today
What does the Scrum Master do in the role, besides facilitate the daily standup? Have you ever thought perhaps a team was too dependent on the Scrum Master for this meeting? What have you done to address this issue? Right now, I’m with a group that I feel is in this predicament. This group went through training together and could rotate the position, as frequently as on a daily basis. After the training each team elected a developer to fulfill this role. Time was deducted in Sprint planning to handle the additional responsibilities of the role. Recently after standup I … Continue reading
Three Short Videos About Usability and Agile Development
One year ago, at an event titled the “7-Minute Soapbox on User Experience Design“, three presentations touched upon the integration of usability/UCD with agile development. A word of warning: the 7-minute duration was strictly enforced at this event, so these videos may feel more like previews than feature-length films. But it makes for easy watching! Here’s a brief summary of each: * User-Centered Design and Agile Development at NCR How a 2-person usability team at NCR is working to better support both design and testing activities across 30 agile projects. * Tips for Integrating User Experience and Agile Development Challenges, … Continue reading
What if the standup is ended on time, but not everyone spoke?
A question paraphrased from an email just received. It’s from the first team to anoint one of the new Scrum Masters for a group I coach. The reason not everyone on the team answered the 3 questions in standup …and as long as I’m just throwing in links it’s not just standing up, by the way… is because some really good discussions emerged that people were interested in. What part of the Scrum Master’s Role could help empower the team to stay focused? Before digging in to that, I’ve also expanded a little on this definition of the role. I … Continue reading
Deciding to be an Indie Wasn’t Exactly Easy
When I talk to someone about being an independent consultant and get around to shortening that to indie, it makes me feel like a man of action. Suddenly I am on a daring adventure to find the treasure, even though the abbreviation is from a state and isn’t even spelled the same. Or instead of some big block buster, I am now the little guy, with a great idea and not a lot of backing, trying to get my story out. This is how I feel when I say I’m “going indie”. Just because it gives me a rush of … Continue reading
Agile Team Members – Roles and Responsibilities
The following was written by myself and edited by my manager to help define roles in our group. Modifications have consisted of removing any reference to the specific group. This is largely influenced in the writing by David Anderson’s book Agile Management. Most of the wording for the roles of Product Owner and Scrum Master come from the Scrum Alliance, with specific cites on the role’s title. Influences in the editing have a decidedly more traditional feel to the statements, and leaves one feeling they are behind the steering wheel of some analogous car. Agile Team Members – Roles & … Continue reading
KFC Development – Finger Lickin’ Good
As Karl Scotland noted, we will be presenting a session on Kanban, Flow and Cadence (KFC) at the Agile Conference this year. This will be Thursday 7 August from 8-10 and then 10:30 to noon in the Essex Ballroom as part of the Breaking Acts Stage. This workshop explores three important Lean concepts – Kanban, Flow and Cadence (KFC) – which can be combined to generate a more pipeline-based approach to software development, as opposed to the more common timebox-based approaches of more traditional Agile methods. The presenters will describe their experiences implementing these ideas at Yahoo! and explain the … Continue reading
The Project Is Not the Team
I’ve always been under the impression that Scrum and Sprints can only go as well as the shape of the product backlog. Having Continuous Integration in place is essential to move effectively through this good backlog. Recently, I realize I’ve been making an assumption, that there are already well-formed teams in place. During a recent visit to one of our offices, I observed the following: Some people are segregated to a functional unit of a manger and a couple of directs. Collections of individuals are resourced to one or more projects. These groupings create many integration points and external dependencies … Continue reading