All articles in Scrum

Agile Transitioning, Blog, Scrum

What Agile Processes and Diets Have in Common

By

I have spent a great deal of time lately reading blogs predicting the end of Agile. There are a lot of good people making a lot of good points but I think that there are some major problems the arguments predicting the end of Agile.

There is a very real tendency for people to confuse Agile (the philosophy) with Scrum (a process created to achieve the principles of Agile). Agile is only 16 statements – 4 values and 12 principles – nothing more. Of those 16 statements I am sure that there are some who would argue against them, but these would be a fringe element. Don’t believe me? Follow the links above and see which, if any, a rational software developer or business person would disagree with. You can disagree with them, but principles, in and of themselves, cannot fail.

Continue reading What Agile Processes and Diets Have in Common →

Blog, Scrum

Not Burning Down? Diagnosing and Fixing the Some of the Problems

By

Of course you would not expect every sprint to have a perfect burndown. You would not expect to complete every story in every sprint (my goal has always been 90% or greater stories complete), but if you are finding yourself with many “overhanging” stories each sprint there are a number of things that you can do to diagnose and fix the issue. In this particular post, I am going to discuss problems with time and hours.

There are three things that can go wrong with hours:

  1. The number of hours the individual estimates for capacity is too low.
  2. The number of tasks identified is incorrect (not enough tasks identified).
  3. The number of hours associated with each task is too low.

Continue reading Not Burning Down? Diagnosing and Fixing the Some of the Problems →

Blog, Scrum

Why I Don't Like Whiteboards, the Last Sacred Cow and Why I Will Burn in Scrum Hell

By

I doubt there are many people in this world who have the passion or spend more time researching about Agile than I do. Over the years I have seen many sacred Agile/Scrum cows questioned. Usually when one has the guts to do so there are scores of Agilistas ready to denounce anything that goes against their indoctrinated Agile/Scrum education. It seems that many fail to understand that in order to prove the value of something, it must always be questioned. Hell, the whole damn thing started because a few folks decided they would question orthodoxy and find better ways to do things.

And now I think I have found the very last sacred cow remaining. Over the past few weeks, whenever I have some spare moments, I have googled, binged and read blog after blog. My search – is there anyone else out there who really doesn’t care for Agile/Scrum whiteboards. I can say from experience that it appears unanimous. Every person talking about Agile or doing Agile absolutely, positively, without question loves Agile whiteboards to track iterations. All that is except me. Yet I cannot hold my tongue any longer. I know I will go to Scrum hell, but I have always had a strong distaste for Agile boards.

Continue reading Why I Don't Like Whiteboards, the Last Sacred Cow and Why I Will Burn in Scrum Hell →

Agile Development, Backlog, Blog, Scrum

What is Backlog Grooming and How Much Time Should I Invest?

By

What is Backlog Grooming? - Larry Apke
After my experience working with dozens of scrum teams in transitioning to Agile, I am thoroughly convinced that a great deal of Agile success is wrapped up in the two things that most lower functioning teams do not do well – Release Planning and Backlog Grooming.

So what is backlog grooming?

Personally, I do not like the words “backlog grooming.” To me it is merely an extension of sprint planning so forgive me when I refer to this as extended sprint planning. I think one of the things that early Scrum made a mistake on is that it expected sprint planning to happen the very first day of the sprint in what for many are LONG planning sessions. In fact, I would not be surprised if the term backlog grooming was coined so that early Agilites could save face!

In other words, let’s call this something other than sprint planning so we don’t have to admit we were not 100% right on what sprint planning should be. (Given the religious nature of Agile and Scrum I fully expect to be excommunicated and eviscerated so please feel free to comment).

Continue reading What is Backlog Grooming and How Much Time Should I Invest? →

Blog, Scrum

It's the Discipline Stupid

By

I spend a good deal of time trying to make myself a better Scrum Master (see blog). This means reading lots of books, a great deal of googling and reading many blogs. Recently I ran into one called Coding Horror by Jeff Atwood.

He had a great entry about Discipline in software development.

I had the same conversation with a colleague of mine years ago when I was first introduced to Agile development. My argument went something like this. Left to their own devices, software developers are a fairly undisciplined lot. Every methodology of the last 40 years or so are merely a response from management to attempt to bring some order and discipline to software developers (and by extension software development). I joked with him that I should come up with the next fad, called disciplined development, throw a few buzzwords and ceremonies into it and then I could make a killing as a consultant. I mean isn’t that what every methodology fad has been so far?

Continue reading It's the Discipline Stupid →

Blog, Scrum

Agile as Religion

By

For the sake of full disclosure I am not a big fan of organized religion. I truly believe that each and every individual has their own needs when it comes to “spiritual” matters and there are many ways to achieve the basic human need to feel connected to our fellow humans and the universe as a whole. Perhaps this is what has me cautious about the state of Agile today in that it taking the appearances of a religion or cult. Like many religions the actual meaning behind the religion are lost and all that remains is a slavish flowing of fundamentalist dogma (words taken as literal truth) and ceremony. Agile says that we need to do this so we had better do this before someone calls us out as heathens.

One of the really irritating thing for me is when Agilistas talk wistfully about their brush with greatness as in I was at the Agile conference and actually touched the cloak of (enter your favorite Agile deity here). Hey, I can respect these guys, but they are like all humans fallible. They may have put forth some great ideas, but quoting a source by authority alone is a weak argument. To be an effective argument one must not only quote a chosen one, but also give evidence as to why this particular bit of wisdom is applicable to whatever context one finds oneself.

Continue reading Agile as Religion →

Blog, Scrum

Attack of the Agilistas

By

As someone who has been operated as a day-to-day scrum master for over five years, I have had the pleasure of working with over a hundred people in a Scrum setting. Their prior knowledge about Agile and Scrum ran the gamut from those who had never heard of Agile or Scrum to those who have been a part of a team at an existing place of employment. If I had to pick which I would rather have on my team, I would choose the complete novice every time.

Reading in bed one night a wonderful book called The Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways Our Intuition Deceives Us. One of the interesting facts that was presented involved the fact that people who exhibit confidence in their knowledge are usually the least knowledgeable. In other words, true experts are more likely to not have a high degree of confidence in their assertions. I think that this is because the true expert realizes complexities that someone with just a little bit of knowledge would not even know they do not know. In my experience, nowhere is this more apparent than with people who have had some prior experience with Agile.

Continue reading Attack of the Agilistas →