The Agile Daily Standup - AgileDad

This is a question that gets asked all of the time. How do I deal with inbound interruptions to my Sprint? Start by understanding the three categories and knowing what to do with each one. 

V. Lee Henson, President and Founder of AgileDad, shares strategies to avoid carrying over work between sprints, emphasizing workload-based estimation, realistic commitments, managing interruptions, fostering psychological safety, and promoting open communication in teams.

Do your sprint planning meetings drag on and on? Do you joke that the team must be trying to plan a marathon rather than a sprint? You are not alone. Some teams struggle with planning because they aren’t taking the time to refine. You can read about some ways to tackle that problem in this blog. But today let’s help the teams that struggle with planning because they are just trying too hard to get it perfect. There’s no need to be perfect. Going into too much detail with each product backlog item or trying to estimate too precisely wastes everyone’s time without adding value to the sprint. Perfect sprint planning does not mean the team has thought of every task. Perfect sprint planning means the team has perfectly figured out what set of product backlog items they can do during the sprint. Think about that for a moment and let it sink in. Being perfect is not thinking of every task. Being perfect is knowing the right set of product backlog items that can be delivered in a sprint. In my experience, a team doing a good job of sprint planning will identify only about two-thirds of all the tasks its members will do during the sprint. So the team leaves the meeting having failed to identify about one third of all the tasks they’ll do that sprint. And this is a good thing. The team could spend more time planning the sprint and identify more of the work, but it’s not worth the extra time. Teams typically don’t miss the big to-dos, just the little ones. That’s why there’s no need to try to think of every small task. Here’s something to try next sprint to see how you’re doing. Start by measuring the percentage of tasks your team identifies during sprint planning. This is an easy metric to collect. Simply count the number of tasks identified during sprint planning and then count the number of tasks that have been identified by the end of the sprint. Divide, and you’ve got the percentage your team is identifying during sprint planning. Did you find your team is identifying more than two-thirds during sprint planning? First, congratulate them on doing such a great job of identifying work that needs to be done. Then try shortening their sprint planning meetings. They can probably get by with spending a bit less time in sprint planning. But if you do the math and find your team identifies only half of the eventual tasks during sprint planning, your team will probably benefit from spending a little more time in the sprint planning meeting. The team is underestimating the effort required to complete the product backlog items, which means they are probably bringing in more work than they can deliver. By knowing the percentage of tasks your team identifies during sprint planning and by remaining focused on the true purpose of sprint planning—selecting the right set of product backlog items to bring into a sprint and discussing them just enough to successfully implement them—you can help your team succeed with agile,

What are the top three things that you can do to be a better listener?  Show Empathy Truly Understand the issue Avoid Instant Solutions

We all know that we don't talk about Bruno, but here is a short list of 6 other things that should not be discussed at work with leadership or ANYONE:  You hate someone in your department or team Anything Political Bad things about your last manager or job Your personal situation at home It's Not my fault That is not part of my job! 

In this episode we review a blog post from Meera Patel that discusses the top 5 tips to creating meaningful product roadmaps:  Identify & Involve the Correct Stakeholders Tie Every Piece to the Long-Term Strategy Design to Scale Logically Create a Clear, Concise Visual Communicate! Communicate! Communicate! https://productcoalition.com/5-tips-to-creating-a-meaningful-product-roadmap-a5d46d3505f9

Here is a list of the top 6 books every PO should read:  Essential Scrum by Ken Rubin User Stories Applied by Mike Cohn User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton Scrum - The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time - Jeff Patton The Stable Framework by Michael J Berry  Product Roadmaps by Bruce McCarthy BONUS Books: Agile Estimating & Planning by Mike Cohn & Getting Things Done by David Allen

What are the top 5 Leadership Attributes that help drive Agile success? Whether you are a leader of teams of companies, this list of five, (with a bonus number 6), will help you stay focused on the things that really make Agile happen in your organization.  Be Passionate about the Vision & Strategy for your organization and why you selected to do Agile! Be Excited!  Be prepared - Know that Agile is not a magic potion to make things faster and better instantly and make certain all leaders know this.  Understand - Learn how to best communicate the passion in your ideas.  Do NOT be a head nodder - Learn to engage in active listening and strive to understand and be empathetic.  Encourage Face to Face Interactions and get out of the way. Allow teams and groups to FOCUS.  (BONUS) - Lead with intent not specific instructions. 

Building & Sharing What You Have - Time, Talents, and Gifts - In this episode we focus on enablement vs empowerment and how we can share and benefit from each. 

What Comes After Agile? You will have to listen to find out... And then I am still not certain you will believe it!