I am frequently asked to give a brief overview of Scrum to people who are unfamiliar with Agile concepts. In the course of giving those lessons, I almost always see a look of shock at the almost cavalier way that we agilists claim that Agile methods will give a better result than traditional methods. I like the look of shock. It shows that they’re paying attention. Continue reading “Agile vs. Waterfall – Improved Performance is NOT Guaranteed”
Category: Agile Coach
On ScrumMasters Serving a Dual Role
What do you think about companies that are trying to implement Scrum asking for a Technical ScrumMaster? Can one person perform more than two tasks?
Team Building: Five Dysfunctions and Four ‘Ormings
There are dozens of books out there on management and leadership styles. There are dozens of books about Agile methods and the application of Agile principles. There are probably hundreds of books on the psychology of groups. In my opinion, there are not enough books that combine these concepts. The interconnections and application are left as exercises of the reader. Continue reading “Team Building: Five Dysfunctions and Four ‘Ormings”
Reading the Wind
While vacationing this year, I took my ten-year-old daughter Julia sailing on SERENITY, our Catalina 14.2. Continue reading “Reading the Wind”
On Tweaking Estimates
As Product Owner for the project, I get to field a lot of interesting questions. I woke up this morning to the following question from one of my teams:
Hello Mike,
In our current sprint, we have planned 8.5 user story points. But after task breakdown we can see for a couple of user stories, actual story points differ from the estimated story points. What is the correct course of action in this case? Do we need to update product backlog for revised user story points? Then we can say the team is working towards achieving 11.5 user story points! Also, since our [project gate commitment] is nearing, should we reexamine the estimates in the product backlog, and revise them for the remaining user stories?
Navigating the Golden Circle
“Every single person on the planet knows what they do. Some know how they do it. Very, very few people know why they do what they do.” – Simon Sinek