Tag Archives: Scrum
A Manager’s Guide to Self Managing Teams
An agile team that finds its groove is a precious thing. A group of smart diverse people, passionate about their shared purpose, openly collaborating and continually experimenting can do amazing things. They don’t need managing in the traditional sense so what can leaders/managers who work with these teams do to help them? Don’t tell Ask? […]
From Agile Team to Lean Company
I keep meeting development teams frustrated by the hierarchical organisation around them. Some realise their predicament, others blame. There’s nothing they can do about it alone; generations of hierarchies have developed a strong sense of self preservation. But when there’s a will to change, that goes deep, wide and high enough, we have an opportunity. What can […]
10 questions wonderful PO’s ask (alternatives to WTF?)
Product Owners’s navigate a precarious tightrope between human and developer logic. Wonderful ones inspire, woeful ones frustrate. They’re invariably caught in a political maelstrom, making a tough job tougher, but it’s a job that makes all the difference to team and product. Good POs breath curiosity. When my reaction is WTF, I see others courageously putting themselves in […]
A Return To Scrum
After five years of Scrum, we decided to break free of it’s shackles. Abandoning fixed length sprints, work-life became one long un-estimated party. Diverse collaborations throughout the organisation enabled us to take on new challenges. The backlog was full of surprises: I had little idea where half the stories came from. For a while I […]
It’s not about the process
I’ve always felt a bit uncomfortable with “process”; even more with inflicting it on others. Process is a pre-defined way of doing something; I like to change my mind as I learn more. Our team started with nothing: we were just told what to do, we transformed with Scrum and improved with Kanban. With these […]
Openness
The purpose of a Silo is to protect the contents from being disturbed or damaged from external foreign bodies. Creating a Silo is reasonable if you are the farmer protecting your grain from insects but surely they are not necessary in an organisation where we should be supporting each other? Unfortunately working culture can be […]
Do you have a healthy relationship with your process?
Processes can be difficult mates, what type of relationship do you have with yours? Controlling No you don’t control your process it is controlling you. Devised by a power-hungry manager, designed to ensure you conform and waste your time with endless documentation, your process defines your work. The only thinking required is when you try […]
An evolutionary approach to implementing XP
I was rightly pulled up by David Anderson, author of the authoritative “KANBAN, Successful Evolutionary Change For Your Technology Business” for the following tweet #Scrum and #Kanban are just 2 of many seeds for self organisation and continuous improvement. If you feed them with #XP they'll flourish — Tom Howlett (@diaryofscrum) November 14, 2011 His point was […]
Technical Debt and Scrum
Scrum really was the tipping point in our attempt to become agile. Taking responsibility for what we deliver increased trust between the team and management. Trust gave us a significant amount of autonomy, and as we all now know it’s self direction that really motivates us. From my point of view as Scrummaster the most important thing […]
Behind closed doors
Before our days of Scrum decisions were made behind closed doors. Not knowing what went on in these meetings infuriated me. For anyone who cares about the work they do having decisions about that work made for them belittles the contribution they make and sends a clear message that your opinion isn’t valued. Perhaps it’s […]
Diary of a ScrumMaster 