A Scrum Master is not a Manager Often organisations new to Scrum and trying to implement it struggle with the Scrum Master role. I mean; its a person who the team does not report too, yet they are responsible for the process and getting things done. Its not just the organisation, people new or transitioning […]
Scrum Masters – Protect The Team!
Protect the Team A very important role of the Scrum Master is to protect the team. This can come in many forms such as uneducated stakeholders or over eager product owners. I have highlighted two things below which I think are important for the Scrum Master to protect the team from. Complacency Remind yourself why […]
Should We Stop Sprint Reviews?
How Important is the Sprint Review? Short answer, very. Sprint Reviews are a very important part of adopting Scrum. It’s there to allow for the collection of feedback from the team on what has been built and how to move forward. Have you ever felt though that the Sprint Review has started to lose some […]
Estimate Story Points in Ranges
Estimate Story Points in Ranges Someone once told me this great analogy for estimating story points. Image you have a well where you take water, and you need to transport 10 litres of water back to the village. You have a 8 litre bucket and a 13 litre bucket. Which do you use to transport […]
Quick Tip: Don’t Do Daily Stand Up on Sprint Planning Day
Missing Stand Up on Sprint Planning Day We all know everyone doesn’t like meetings. A good tip to save you some time is to not do the Sprint Planning on the day of Sprint Planning. What you should actually do is spend a few minutes at the end of the Sprint Planning meeting to discuss […]
What Happens if a User Story Gets Bigger?
When User Stories Get Bigger We have all been in the situation; you discuss a user story, you have a pretty good understanding of how it needs to be implemented in the system. Then when you start to work on it, you realise more work needs to be done. Its a common practice, when you […]
7 Signs you are Failing at Scrum
7 Signs that you are failing at Scrum See below some key indicators that you are not implementing scrum at its highest efficiency: 1 – You Have Abandoned the Sprint Retrospective Your scrum team are no longer performing the Sprint Retrospective. This means your team are no longer focusing on continuous improvement of have […]
Why Do Agile Companies Do Better?
Preaching Agile Whenever an agile practitioner is selling reasons to adopt an agile approach; in general or one of the the specific methodologies like Scrum, Kanban or XP, they always focus on the benefits (as they should). These usually include: Working at a sustainable pace Working in collaborative, self-organising and collaborative teams Working in a […]
Site Update: Newsletter
full-stack agile Newsletter I have introduced a newsletter to the website, in an attempt to improve communication with all you amazing readers of my blog. The newsletter will regularly send out updates on posts that are published, a weekly summary and also all up to date information about the site. I will also send you […]
Don’t Let the Scrum Team Burn Out
Don’t Let the Team Burn Out Working in an industry that is faced paced and has a strong business push can be both exciting and stressful. The ability to deliver quickly, to beat your competitors is always there, and Scrum teams work hard to optimise their processes, deliver quickly and to a high quality. As […]
