Why Use Cases Are Still Important…with User Stories
A while back, I made the claim in one of the Agile LinkedIn groups that writing use cases was one aspect of being a professional software developer. That naturally received a bunch of push back from people who felt use cases were too heavyweight. Many people claimed user stories are more than...
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Who Is Responsible for Quality in Scrum?
To build a quality product we need to let go of the outdated 20th century idea that quality can be achieved through inspection alone, i.e. testing. Instead, let us focus on constructing a framework that produces quality outcomes from the beginning and the two Lean concepts highlighted in this article...
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Introducing Scrum: Buy a Framework game
Today I am going to share with you a engaging , interactive and brief exercise I use to teach Scrum in the first twenty minutes of my Certified ScrumMaster or a basic one-day Intro to Scrum class. The game is called Buy a Framework and is based on the classic Innovation Game, Buy a Feature....
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How to Ask for Help at the Daily Scrum
Want to make your Daily Scrums a total waste of people's time? Take a look at the following conversation - which represents part of conversation within a Daily Scrum of a larger Scrum Team of eight people - that occurs week after week on an important project with real deadlines:...
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Scheer’s Law – An Observation Regarding Metrics
When I worked as an internal Scrum consultant for a San Diego biotech, I had the pleasure of working with one of the most talented and creative programmers I have ever met - Tim Scheer. Tim was part of our team Scrum transformation team and he was the person on...
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Avoid Sprint Zero – Try Liftoff
I have never been a big fan of the concept of Sprint Zero. Recently, I heard a story from a colleague that got me thinking about Sprint Zero and I wanted to share her story with you. She told me on the first day of working with a new client...
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