March 2009
33 posts
1 tag
Scrum at CNN
I found an article that documents the development change at News Network CNN from the waterfall method to Scrum.
The article documents the reasons on changing from Waterfall to Scrum, the challenges, the benefits and the outcomes.
Its surprising to me that CNN would use Scrum as I never really thought that they would have much development needs, but I suppose in the world of news where nothing...
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The Accidental Scrum.
I was flicking through the Scrum Alliance site when I found an article entitled “The Accidental Scrum”. It was written by Royal Navy Logistics officer who was posted to a Ship that had to leave port sooner than expected. He had to have the ship ready to leave port in 5 days time when origionally he had been given a few weeks to prepare.
He describes the common sense approach that he...
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Terminating a Sprint
I have been researching the theory of terminating a Sprint. I have never encountered an occasion where I have had to terminate a Sprint, but I thought it was always good to research why Sprints would be terminated, and how the Team would deal with a Sprint Termination.
The Product Owner is the only member of the Team who can terminate a Sprint. Sprints can be cancelled before the allotted Sprint...
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Retorspective Technique. Weather report
I have conducted a few retrospectives using the weather report as a sort of break in method to try and help the group engage with one another more and find out their mood.
I printed off some cards with some symbols printed on them to represent some weather patterns. Sun, Sun / Cloud, Thunder and Rain.
I then explained that these represented their mood for the past iteration.
Sun = Brilliant
...
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Scrum From Hell
One of the areas a Scrum Master needs to practice is facilitating meetings. I have found an exercise that can help train a Scrum Master in Facilitation. One of the problems that I had when facilitating a Scrum meeting was being able to move the meeting on when appropriate. I would let people ramble on and attempt to make their point, when it had no relevance to what we were talking about. When...
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The Agile Manifesto
The Agile Manifesto is a statement of the principles that underpin agile software development. The Manifesto was derived by representatives of various new methodologies such as Scrum and extreme programming where they saw the need for lightweight methodologies to replace the traditionally used heavy weight ones.
The 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto are:
Our highest priority is to satisfy the...
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The Scrum Sucks Blog
The Scrum sucks blog. A blog written by someone who thinks that Scrum doesnt work. For instance
Top Ten Words of Advice to a Manager, Director, or Vice President Deploying Scrum
June 14th, 2008
10. Your team will not care if Scrum fails for you 9. Your team will hate you but never tell you that 8. Scrum may appear to succeed but your team will leave before they tell you how bad it is 7. You...
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The Product Backlog
The Product Backlog is like a a wish list of requirements. The Backlog is like a living list that is always changing as stories are added, prioritized and deprioritized daily. It is the Product Owners job to keep the Product Backlog Items prioritized and constantly groomed to to allow maximum efficiency.
Not only is prioritization essential but story quality is essential too. Stories that are...
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Daily Scrum Mistakes.
After researching techniques that would improve my Daily Scrum. I thought I would highlight some mistakes that can occur within a Daily Scrum Meeting that you can further improve to make your Daily Scrum more appealing.
I read an article on “Scrum from the Trenches” Daily Scrum Mistakes that echo’s some of the sentiments felt by myself.
The first mistake that people often...
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Scrum Alliance
The Scrum Alliance site is a very good resource for Scrum Articles, Scrum Training and finding out where Scrum gatherings are happening around the world.
If you have not checked it out yet, have a look. It may be of use to you.
Scrum Alliance Website
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Google Tech Talk. Agile Testing
Google Tech Talks December 9, 2005 Elisabeth Hendrickson ABSTRACT As more teams are adopting Agile practices such as XP and Scrum, software testing teams are being asked to become “Agile” as well. But what does that mean? Is the Agile label yet another buzzword? Or could it be Agile practices are actually changing the way software is built? In this talk Elisabeth Hendrickson shares her...
Prioritizing :)
I have been on holiday from the world of Scrum for the past 3 days! It has been a welcome break from the hustle and Bustle from the Scrum Team! :)
Without knowing it, I basically used Scrum to plan out my holiday. As it was the first time I have been off this year, I had a list of things that I wanted to do with my time off. All of which wouldnt fit into 3 days. So therefore I put all of my...
4 tags
Handling Bugs in an Agile Context
Handling Bugs in an Agile Context
This is an interesting article that was passed to me by a friend, thanks Mel! The article is based around the handling of Bugs in Agile Development. This has made me think about the way that my own team handle our Bugs. As QA and Scrum Master for my Scrum Team i am always on the look out to improve my skills in QA. Ill be taking some of the points contained...
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How to fit QA into Scrum
I read an interesting article that addresses some of the problems that my own team has encountered with trying to fit QA into Scrum. We have found that on some occasions coding new functionality for our site can take up a large part of the sprint, which can have a knock on effect on the time that QA has in the sprint.
We know that this isnt exacly the scrum way of doing things as we should be...
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How Scrum has improved our QA
I have worked at a web based startup company for the past 3 years. Before we implemented Scrum just under two years ago now, the QA team, of which I was a part of was a separate unit from all other teams. We worked with the watrerfall method of development which meant we were involved in testing our functionality late on in the project.
One problem with this was that if the project was over...
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The Mythical Product Owner Role
I was forwarded this article by a colleague. It basically describes the product owner role and categorises the different types of product owner. As a Product Owner could interpret their role differently depending on their ‘Day Job’ role it means that there can be different types of Product Owner depending on their role.
Take for instance, a product owner who works as a release...
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Twelve emerging best practices for adding User... →
An interesting article on using agile to improve the users experience.
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What is Scrum?
Scrum is a framework or rules that allows you to tailor your own lightweight process to develop new products. Scrum is simple, it can be understood and implemented in a few days, but it takes a lifetime to master.
“Scrum is not a methodology - its a pathway” Ken Schwaber
Scrum will also help you fail in less than 30 days. Unlike the waterfall method where the product is fully...
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Effective Story Writing in Scrum.
A major part of the Scrum Process is Story writing. I decided to research the art of story writing so that I could improve my own story writing and hopefully improve the story writing capability of my team.
I discovered that all User Stories follow the same format.
As a <USER> I want <FUNCTION> so that <BUSINESS VALUE>
So as a Web based company, an example of a user story at...
Laura's Agile Dev Blog →
A blog created by my colleague and fellow Scrum Master
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The Ball Game
I attended my Certified Scrum Master training held by Tobias Mayer and Mike Sutton in September 2008. This was a brilliant course that had a practical element built in to help us learn. One of the practical elements was a game called ”The ball game”.
I have taken this from Mike Sutton’s Blog at Agile-Blogs. It is a great game and well worth trying with your team.
Timing: 20...
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The Sprint Planning Meeting.
Sprint Planning Meetings are held at the beginning of an iteration to plan the work that will be undertaken by the Team. The Scrum Master, Product Owner and the Team, along with any stakeholders who hold an interest in any of the products being considered will be in attendance.
The Product Owner by this point will have groomed the Product Backlog, by this I mean he / she will have reordered the...
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Scrum Development Wiki
A Link to the Scrum Wiki page that describes the basics of Scrum. Also has some links to video’s which may be of interest.
Scrum Wiki Page”
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5 Signs of trouble in an Iteration
An informative article on how to spot trouble using your Burndown Chart.
5 Signs of Trouble during an iteration
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Better Burndown Charts.
I read a good article on how to improve your burndown charts. It also has one of the best analogies used to describe the Burndown chart that I have read.
“As a pilot, I like to think of a burn down chart as being like the glide path of an airplane on final approach. An instrument in the cockpit tells you if are above or below the ideal glide path. If you are stabilized on the glide path...
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Basic Burndown Charts
The Burndown chart is a tool used to map the hours of work left to complete over time. It is a useful visual aid in tracking the team’s progress and is also useful for predicting when all of the work will be completed.
Each Iteration contains a list of prioritized stories from the Product Backlog. Each backlog item (story) contains a set of tasks. These tasks are all given a...
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Retrospectives
A retrospective is held at the end of an iteration. The Scrum Master will invite all members of the team (Product Owner, developers, QA etc) to a meeting to dicuss the successes and failures of the sprint.
Each member will discuss what went well and what did not go well in the Sprint that they have just undertaken. These are then discussed by the team and any measures to make improvements on...
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Scrum definitions explained
Scrum has a lot of terms used to describe specific parts or roles that are used from day to day. This sometimes confused people and daunts them when they hear a term that they don’t understand. Some are easy to relate to, but some are pretty obscure. So if you don’t know your Pigs from your Chickens… Read on :)
Average Velocity
The number of points completed in each of...
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The importance of the Sprint Review Meeting
The Sprint Review meeting is an important part of the Scrum process. Its not only a platform to showcase your work, but a place to place to invoke discussion with the stakeholders on the product that you are creating. It also helps keep the project on the right direction as it ensures that the customer can view the progress earlier in the process rather than at the end of the project where it is...
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Our Daily Scrum Meeting.
I thought I would make a first attempt at writing about the experience that I have with Daily Scrum Meetings. The company I work for has been practicing Scrum for over a year now. We see the Daily Scrum meeting as an important part of the Scrum process. The meeting, scheduled for all members of the team is time-boxed to 15 minutes. The 3 important questions that each team member must answer...
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A Scrum Masters checklist
A useful article on some questions that you should be asking of yourself and of your product owner.
After reading this I found that there were some things that I was overlooking or never thought to ask. I have stated attempting to put some questions to good use to try and uncover some information to help our iterations run more smoothly.
A Scrum Masters checklist