A nice summary of the book Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There! can be found in the presentation Working with Teams from Karolina Ozadowicz that can be found here: https://prezi.com/w0jqbiy-f582/working-with-teams/
The Scrum Master Checklist
This site is dedicated to Michael James’ Example Scrum Master Checklist, an example list of things a Scrum Master should pay attention to in a typical organization. Check it out at http://scrummasterchecklist.org/
Kick-start three Scrum Teams with this awesome string of Liberating Structures
Christiaan Verwijs and Jasper Alblas facilitated a workshop to kick-start three scrum teams. How they did this, you can read in this article: https://medium.com/the-liberators/we-kick-started-three-scrum-teams-with-this-awesome-string-of-liberating-structures-19b4a409cb8d
TastyCupcakes.org
Are you looking for some inspiration or fun games to play with your team? Take a look at http://tastycupcakes.org/
My Reading Backlog
I saw some people sharing their reading backlog and thought it was a fun idea to write mine down as well. Looking back at 2018 I was quite surprised how much books I managed to read.
If you know some books I should add to my backlog, please let me know!
A small note: I have not prioritized my todo-list, whenever I finish a book I pick something from it I feel like reading at that moment and start.
Continue reading “My Reading Backlog”Differences Between Scrum &Kanban
As posted by Al Shalloway on LinkedIn
Looking at differences between Scrum & Kanban can help us see which will work better for us.
- Scrum requires planning the sprint. You can plan in Kanban but it’s normally isn’t done.
- Scrum requires cross-functional teams. Kanban doesn’t. While making it more flexible if also may miss the opportunity for team structure improvement.
- Scrum requires starting with its roles, practices, events & artifacts. Kanban allows you to start where you are & provides a transition model for improvement.
- Scrum improves by removing impediments. Kanban improves by focusing on shortening cycle time.
Teams that don’t like to be told what to do may resist Scrum. Kanban requires more discipline from the team than Scrum.
Factors to consider when deciding which to use:
- culture– including resistance to being told what to do &attachment to roles
- nature of work being done
- ability to create cross-functional teams
Note that executives can better relate to Kanban’s focus on flow. Combined with its insistence on visibility, executives can better understand the importance of managing workload.
In few cases is one clearly superior to the other. Taking a blend of the two often makes sense. Doing this is not difficult.
Christiaan Verwijs’ journey towards becoming a Professional Scrum Trainer
Becoming a Professional Scrum Trainer isn’t an easy task. You need to:
- Pass a preliminary interview with Scrum.org where you demonstrate that you have at least 4 years of demonstrable, intense experience as a Scrum Master;
- Pass the PSM-I, PSM-II and PSM-III with a 95% score;
- Pass the Train-the-Trainer event;
- Pass a ‘peer review’ by a group of Professional Scrum Trainers;
Read Christiaan’s full story here: https://medium.com/the-liberators/my-road-to-professional-scrum-trainer-a347f34fe65e
Why Agile Teams Should Estimate at Two Different Levels
It is very common for agile teams, especially Scrum teams, to estimate both their product backlog and sprint backlogs. In this article, Mike Cohn will address:
- Why estimating both the product backlog and sprint backlog can be useful even though it seems redundant
- Why teams should estimate the two backlogs in different units
- When teams should estimate
- Whether all teams should estimate
Although I think you should not try to use hours for estimation, I agree using different valuations for an estimation is best. I find using T-shirt sizes for PBIs and Story Points for SBIs work well.
Read the complete article here, and also take note of some excellent comments at the bottom: https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/why-agile-teams-should-estimate-at-two-different-levels
Scrum: not for you? Fine. But your article with criticism is dead wrong!
There are a lot of bad articles around bashing Scrum. Willem-Jan Ageling responded on one of them in this great article: https://medium.com/serious-scrum/scrum-not-for-you-fine-but-your-article-with-criticism-is-dead-wrong-cbef2b00466d
Kick-start 3 Scrum Teams with a string of Liberating Structures
Christiaan Verwijs wrote an excellent article about how he kick-started three Scrum Teams using a string of Liberating Structures. The complete article can be found here: https://medium.com/the-liberators/we-kick-started-three-scrum-teams-with-this-awesome-string-of-liberating-structures-19b4a409cb8d
Steps he took:
- Defined a clear goal (purpose) of the workshop
- Used Impromptu Networking to introduce a little fun which would make it easier to make a personal connection with each other.
- Used Appreciative Interviews to let them discover what they would need to become a successful team.
- Used Nine Whys to discover both their individual purpose and business reason for the team’s to exist.
- Used What I Need From You to express their needs from each other.
- Used Min Specs to identify team needs and created a team manifesto.
- Used 15% Solutions to identify what the first step would be for everybody to start working effectively with Scrum.
- Used Social Network Webbing to close the day in a positive vibe.
- Used a number of energizers and punctuations to take a break from the intense interaction of Liberating Structures.