In Scrum, the owner of the estimates is very clear. Only the people who do the work, i.e., the Team, have the right to offer estimates for the Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog items. However, like many things in Scrum, the framework leaves it up to each Team to decide ...
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One of the many important skills for any Agile leader to master is the ability to facilitate a group's discussion. When the issue before the group is familiar, an Agile leader does not need to take an overly active part facilitating the group. However, when the issue is unfamiliar, or requires participants ...
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At Agile Portugal, I heard Emily Bache (@emilybache) give an inspiring keynote address on the importance of coding dojos to advance the art of programmers and testers. Emily, much like myself, is a strong proponent of test-driven development (TDD), but recognizes that while TDD is easy to explain, it is very hard ...
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Ever show up to a meeting expecting your ideas and comments to be taken in consideration only to be cut short by the clock? Or perhaps you have had the experience of participating in a Q&A session only to see it morph into a sustained dialogue between two parties that ...
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Meetings are such a disaster! There are so many things wrong with meetings today from the frequency of meetings to number of participants to a complete lack of purpose to horrible facilitation, that I do not know where to begin. IMO, the biggest problem with most meetings is that people have forgotten ...
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A meeting is any conversation that results in a decision in order to get something done. Since the goal of the meeting is to arrive at a decision, the meeting participants stay in the meeting until they have arrived at the decision - not one second longer, not one second less. ...
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We’re currently supporting a startup client who plans to launch the first GA version of their product in 60 days. While everyone continues to work hard toward a successful release, they lack a comprehensive launch plan, which led to this post about the strategy and tactics of planning a launch. ...
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Thanks to everyone who attended last week's webinar. I appreciated all the great questions. The slides are now available as well as Excel templates below. Basic Template - Excel Expanded Template - Excel Advanced Template - Excel I will also post the questions and answers from the webinar. I plan ...
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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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I came across this question\comment on the LinkedIn ScrumMasters group the other day asking about Burndown Charts and management analysis. "I send out Burndown Charts daily and have been questioned by upper managent as to why we see fluctuations, up or down to the ideal trend line." For those that are ...
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