Tag Archives: Scrum
It’s MAD to Put All Work Through Discovery
I was sitting with a team when their manager came in and asked, “Hey. Are you guys finished with this feature?” The Scrum Master responded, “We haven’t even had time to even begin the discovery on it yet.” The manager looked surprised and said, “Oh, OK. Would you let me know when I can see it?” and walked out. It really surprised me as the feature seemed trivial and so I asked, “What do you need to learn about this? It seems really straight-forward.” “You’re right.” he said, “We could just build this. But we don’t want to.”
It’s MAD to Have a Separate Discovery Phase
Here we are with another Misadventure in Agile Discovery (MAD). This one pairs well with the first misadventure, the separate discovery team. Even when that mistake is corrected and a balanced team is working together through discovery and delivery, the team may decide to spend some time furiously creating a slew of new ideas.
Misadventures in Agile Discovery: Top Ten Common Mistakes
I’m going to admit something to you as an Agile coach. Clients that I work with make mistakes, and I can’t prevent them all. I don’t even try to.
How to start discovery on your Scrum team
How do you get started with discovery on your Scrum team? Participants learn how to improve practices like user research and interviews, persona sketching, design studio, prototyping and story mapping by actively using them in a class. At the end of the class, participants see a different way of working. Then the discussion turns to something like- While this is undoubtedly is a better way to work, it’s so different than what we do today. How can we do this stuff where we work? How do you get started?
dual track Scrum in brief
Coining the term “dual track” Desireé Sy‘s Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User-centered Design(pdf) (2007) might be one of the first examples drawing out and labeling a process knows as dual track Scrum and stating, Although the dual tracks depicted (…) seem separate, in reality, interaction designers need to communicate every day with developers. This is not only to ensure that designs are being implemented correctly, but also so that we have a thorough understanding of technical constraints that affect design decisions
My response for a Project Manager trying to improve the use of Agile
tl;dr A Project Manager asks me at the end of a class how best to show progress in Agile projects, since phases can’t be checked off complete. My questions for him are: can measures like lead time, throughput, and defect rates be measured across any type of project? What tools are used to track the work from larger goals and initiatives through to smaller stories and tasks? He decided to have the tool vendors used demonstrate full system capabilities, from portfolio management to daily task tracking.
Certified ScrumMaster Slides Now Available
Certified Scrum Master Course from Aaron Sanders The following is a little story of how I came up with flow to this deck. And what you won’t find in it.
Making changes to Project Management during an Agile transition
What can you change right now At the end of my Certified Scrum Master class I ask people to reflect on what resonated with them in the class and come up with something to try at work tomorrow to make a little positive change. This last time as people went through their notes, wrote ideas down for action and discussed with others, a couple of people came up to run things by me.
The Weather Channel Lean UX Case Study Now Available
On September 17, 2013 Jeff Hutkoff and I presented a case study on a travel feature made for the iPhone application. Special thanks to Jeff Gothelf from Neo and Lauren Cramer from UIE for organizing the event.
Allowing for Cross-Functional Teams
A home entertainment provider called me in to facilitate User Story writing followed by release planning. The business unit had not tried either activity before. Leadership had been replaced and the new General Manager and Vice President of Technology decided to invest in the group’s burgeoning Scrum effort. The organization followed a structured work breakdown approach with tasks functionally derived. People were willing to approach product definition in an Agile way and wanted to experiment with User Stories. We discussed the vertical nature of Stories and that teams were formed orthogonally, based on the architectural stack. A few people pointed … Continue reading