The Agile Daily Standup - AgileDad

A recent student in an Advanced ScrumMaster course asked if he should become a RTE and if that would advance his career. Join V. Lee Henson as we explore what the differences are and if this transition really makes sense. 

Here are some things you can try when you encounter a team that has stopped trying to improve. Hold Regular Retrospectives Encourage team members to reassert their commitment to holding a retrospective at the end of each iteration or at least once a month. Some teams forgo retrospectives with the attitude that whenever a team member notices an opportunity to improve, they’ll share it. This rarely works because there are always more pressing needs and the improvement idea gets put aside. A dedicated time to discuss improvements each iteration works far better than discussing ideas as they’re conceptualized. Focus the Team on Improvements They Can Make Don’t perpetually ask the team to fix the impossible or even the improbable. Team members will become frustrated (and understandably so!) when they raise an issue again and again in retrospectives but the situation remains unchanged. For example, if a new team member is needed but you’ve been told there’s no budget for one, don’t bring it up every retrospective. Instead, put a reminder in your calendar to ask about it again, perhaps in a few months. Attempt Only a Few Improvements at a Time Don’t try to improve too many things at once. Retrospectives can generate lots of improvement ideas. A team might be tempted to take on all of them simultaneously. Don’t. Instead, have team members agree on one to three things that they will make serious efforts to improve in the coming iteration. Choose Improvements People Are Ready to Make Encourage team members to select only those items they sincerely wish to fix. I once worked with a team that thought they should do code inspections. Every retrospective, they agreed they’d start. They never did. I encouraged them to admit it was not something they were really ready to change and to focus instead on changes they were deeply willing to make. The best teams are willing to try new things. Encourage this mindset by having the team reflect on their process. Experimenting with possible improvements every iteration is the way to succeed with agile,

How do you find the perfect soulmate? How do you discover what you like and dislike? Is it possible to have manifest destiny in relationships? Join V. Lee Henson as we explore personal and professional relationships and how to make the most out of goodness. 

What is the career path for the Scrum Master role? Do they always become an Agile Coach? Join V. Lee Henson. President and Founder of AgileDad as we explore this journey and what you can expect to find. 

As we continue to delve onto sustained continual improvement, today we will visit:  Measuring the cost savings of quality Won't heavy process slow us down?  Good vs bad processes

Could it be true? Are we reverting back to traditional project management? Or are we just discovering that poor agile leads to greater oversight and governance? Join V. Lee Henson for a lively discussion about not chasing Scrummerfalls. (Please thick to the Agile and the Scrum that you're used to)

Issue Driven Design... Anyone See The Problem?  LOL.. I do hope so! Yet many organizations still dwell on issues and problems and expect new work to just fall into place. Here is a short list of challenges we see as a result of having an issue driven mindset:  Harder to follow Scrum — When Product and Sprint Goals are an afterthought, following the Scrum Guide feels artificial and forced. When teams feel forced to define a Sprint Goal, or a PO feels pressed to define Product Goals, the door is open to casting further doubt about the process. Harder to keep the eye on the ball — deriving meaning from issues can make Product Owners and teams lose sight of their ultimate purpose. A Backlog dominated by user requests & feature ideas is short-term-minded and can distract you from pursuing your long-term vision, or may even repress the need to define a vision. Who needs a vision when the Backlog is full of planned features for years to come? Harder for teams to achieve a high degree of collaboration — a collection of loosely related issues is not conducive to collaboration.  Encourages a feature-factory mindset— when productivity is measured by how many issues are done you can create an illusion of progress while the vision remains as distant as ever. Instead of “how many issues did we finish” and “how many features did we add”, ask “how many goals were achieved?”, and “are we getting visibly closer to the vision?” Harder to collaborate with stakeholders — A Backlog full of short-term concerns leads to low-level discussion and understanding of the Product. Reviews feel ineffectual & less impactful as the Backlog doesn’t reflect the right level of concern and doesn’t offer meaningful choices. A review shouldn’t ask “what’s the next user request to implement?”, but rather “what’s the next goal to focus on?”.

I found a REALLY great tribute to September 11th on of all places National Geographic Kids!  https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/remembering-september-11 I hope that you can take a moment to reflect and show love to others. 

When will Scrum ever die? A recent student sent me a blog post to review that was published by a professional scrum trainer. After careful review my hope was that things would go down a path to call out the evolution of Agile to support Scrum, but sometimes things do NOT go as planned... 

Join us as we discuss more about the stable framework and dive deeper into sustained continual improvement.  Training quality programs Non-conforming product management The incident avoidance register