Onshore ScrumMaster Offshore Team Does NOT Work
A recent question in the Certified Scrum Professionals LinkedIn Group, described a common scenario that people have when dealing with distributed Scrum Teams. "ScrumMaster and Scrum coach are onshore (the client) while vendor teams are offshore. Is the client fooling itself?" The short answer to this question is, "Yes -...
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Why Is Commitment Important to Scrum
Commitment is essential to Scrum since it lies at the fundamental core of Scrum - personal accountability, the drive for personal excellence and genuine connection with your peers in the workplace and the work itself. In Scrum, participants are asked to make three commitments - commitment to deliver quality work...
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How to Improve Your User Stories
Why does writing user stories have to suck so much? I recently heard from a colleague that they were looking for some ideas, tricks, tips and techniques to make user story writing more innovative so they can build a delightful product. Definitely a good idea, but running a good meeting...
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One Thing Executives Need to Know About Agile
An agile consultant explained that the best way to get senior leadership on board with agile is for them to get Scrum certified. Huh? That’s like saying developers should attend sales methodology training. That’s like saying you can’t enjoy the meal if you didn’t cook it. And here’s the interesting...
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Done ain’t Launchable
I had the pleasure of seeing my colleague Barbara Nelson at Silicon Valley ProductCamp last Saturday. Her session on “Done ain’t Launchable” was great. She quoted me, Saeed Khan, and The Big Bang Theory. What’s not to like? You can download her slides from Slideshare. In particular, she took issue with...
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[DELETE] User Story
I have written on user stories before, so please understand that I love user stories. When used thoughtfully, I feel user stories can be a very powerful way to create a collaborative dynamic between the business and product developers. User stories have the innate ability to rebalance the conversation between technical...
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