Just a site where I archive interesting reads I've encountered online
This article is published in Agile NXT. This article describes some of the concepts Evelien Roos learned and how you can apply “brain science” to make your Scrum events more effective.
https://articles.xebia.com/using-brain-science-to-boost-your-scrum-events
David Fox created some interesting videos which can be found here: http://davidfoxit.com/media/
Scrum Tips for Scrum Masters with Virtual Meetings (1-2-4-all, W3)
Scrum Master Tips for spreading information (1-2-4-all, W3)
Easy but effective tips for better Sprint Planning (1-2-4-all, critical uncertainties, social network webbing)
Measure you own agility using whats important to you (shift & share, ecocycle planning & panarchy)
Tips and Tricks: The Daily Scrum (1-2-4-all)
For an upcoming meetup I’m preparing a session on how to use LS for Scrum Events and especially events where the participants are distributed and joining the event remotely.
Here’s a brief overview of some LS that can be used for the different Scrum events. I’ve marked all structures with an * that I’ve used myself in a distributed setting.
On the liberating Structures website you can find a design checklist for virtual meetings. Since the link is currently no longer working, you can find the document here:
You know, the Business Model Canvas, the Empathy Map, the Product Canvas: They all have one thing in common: Stacking up all the useful questions into one piece of paper, printable starting at A3 (or larger). Guiding the users through the nescesarry steps towards Awesomeness. (To be honest, if I would have had this brainwave before we started the meeting, it probably would have been a lot more easy to go through the process.)
So here it is, the current version of our Sprint Planning Canvas. As a team, we are still tweaking it to ask us all the right questions we need, so this is only the 0.3 version… But it’s good enough to give you an impression.
Find the complete post here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/build-your-own-sprint-planning-canvas-something-inspire-jaap-mintjes/
Sign up to receive weekly tips like the one below from Mike Cohn to Help You Succeed with Agile here: https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/email-tips
Do your stakeholders have a hard time accepting a “no” from the team? Or put another way, does your team have a hard time telling the stakeholders that what they want is impossible? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, you are not alone.
I’ve found two techniques useful in communicating a “no” so that stakeholders listen and understand.
First, the team should establish a track record of planning projects accurately and meeting most commitments.
You don’t need to be perfect, but if a team meets most of its commitments, the business is more likely to listen when the team says something is impossible.
Second, when telling a stakeholder that a proposed date cannot be achieved, offer alternatives. For example,
Stakeholders often want more than can be delivered by some date. This shouldn’t be the team’s problem alone.
Wanting more than can be delivered must be viewed as a shared problem. A solution can only be found by the business and team working together.
When stakeholders trust the team’s commitment and work together with team members to find solutions, they all succeed with agile.
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:
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