The complete review of Kevin Kohl’s Addicted to Hopium – Throughput: Using the DVA Business Process to Break the Guesswork Habit by Jack Vinson can be found here: https://www.jackvinson.com/blog/2018/10/12/addicted-to-hopium-throughput.
The Agile response to “How much will it cost, and when will it be done?”
Reading time: 3 minutes
The right answer to the question about scope, budget, and deadline is not to go along with the line of thinking that’s behind it. Instead, offer management a better way to manage the risks of a project. Offer them a visible and transparent process like Scrum that allows for frequent change and makes the progress of teams visible on a transparent backlog. Scrum will not magically make your project succeed, nor will it prevent mistakes and failures, but it will make them less costly because you can detect them more frequently as part of the iterative nature.
Read the complete article here: https://medium.com/the-liberators/the-agile-response-to-how-much-will-it-cost-and-when-will-it-be-done-86d907573871
Don’t Be a Scrum Bully.
As a Scrum Master, you have a responsibility to your teams, the product owner, and also the organization. Do more than regurgitate what’s written in the Scrum Guide. Sure, know your sh*t, but don’t be a jerk about it.
Learn. Grow. Share. Don’t be stagnant. Don’t be a Scrum bully. Read the full article here: https://medium.com/serious-scrum/dont-be-a-scrum-bully-d61d0fef022e
Pac-Man and Priority: A Backlog Story
What does Pac-Man and prioritizing a backlog have in common? Read it in this great article: https://medium.com/serious-scrum/pac-man-and-priority-a-backlog-story-e31632eb3921
How to Improve Team Collaboration with Personal Maps
A great exercise for a better understanding of people is to capture what you know about them in personal maps.
Read all about them here: https://management30.com/practice/personal-maps/
The Liberators build their website
The Liberators build their new website with a Scrum Team within a week. In these posts and videos, they share what they’ve learned about flow and releasing more often – with examples that are as real-life as imaginable 🙂
Read the complete articles here:
https://medium.com/the-liberators/how-we-built-theliberators-com-incrementally-93d5095db4ab
The First Question To Ask When Building Teams – Is This Really A Team?
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Have you ever wondered why so many organizations fail at building effective and high performing teams despite offering so much support in different ways e.g. by managing people, by managing the environment, and by coaching teams? You’re not alone. This is often something that frustrates teams, coaches, and managers.
Read the complete article here: https://www.viktorcessan.com/2018/10/the-first-question-to-ask-when-building-teams-is-this-really-a-team/
Praktische tips voor Scrum Masters
“Reading” Time: 30 minutes
A great video series from Roland Flemm commenting (in Dutch) on a retrospective. With some practical tips on how to start a meeting, the importance of feeling safe, having respect for each other and ownership.
User Story / Task templates
USER STORY:
WHO:
Requester
- Add Requester here
WHAT:
Functional Requirements:
- Add Functional Requirements here
- Functional Impact Analysis on whole chain (this team is accountable that the impact analysis is done, but we can ask the requester to perform the impact analysis, if that is appropriate)
WHY:
Background and Introduction:
- Add background and introductory information here
HOW:
External Dependencies:
- What are the external dependencies that need to be addressed?
Test Strategy:
- List Test Goals
- Approach per Test Goal per Test Level (Sprint Test, iST, etc)
- Which team has to do what
Test Data Availability:
- Is the test data already available to test this user story? If not, who will be responsible for providing the test data? By when will the test data be available?
Solution Outline:
- A brief outline of what should be the solution
Dependencies With Other User Stories:
- Is this user story dependent on any other story?
Dependencies Within CCC:
- What are the dependencies within the Capital & Control Chain with regards to this story?
NFRs:
- Any non functional requirements that need to be addressed?
TASK:
Background and Introduction:
- Add background and introductory information here
Functional Requirements:
- Add Functional Requirements here
External Dependencies:
- What are the external dependencies that need to be addressed?
Test Data Availability:
- Is the test data already available to test this user story? If not, who will be responsible for providing the test data? By when will the test data be available?
Solution Outline:
- A brief outline of what should be the solution
Dependencies With Other User Stories:
- Is this user story dependent on any other story?
Dependencies Within CCC:
- What are the dependencies within the Capital & Control Chain with regards to this story?
NFRs:
- Any non functional requirements that need to be addressed?