User Story Basics – What is a User Story?

What is a User Story? I’m glad you asked! First of all, it’s important to say that User Stories are not a part of Scrum as defined in the required practices in the Scrum Guide. User Stories are but one way to represent Product Backlog Items in Scrum, and while it is the most popular [...]

A Great Link for Patterns on How to Hold a Great Agile Standup Meeting

I never cease to be amazed by the great work that Martin Fowler has on his web site.  (In all fairness, though, this post seems to be mostly from Jason Yip). Anyway, GREAT LINK! “It’s Not Just Standing Up: Patterns for Daily Standup Meetings” http://martinfowler.com/articles/itsNotJustStandingUp.html Also, while you’re here, you might want to take a [...]

Story Testing Patterns – My Recent Presentation at Mile High Agile

You can now find my recent presentation(along with all the handouts, etc), “Story Testing Patterns” on my website here: http://www.scrumcrazy.com/Presentation+-+Story+Testing+Patterns Feel free to add any comments here on my blog. .

One Way to Handle Bugs and Production Support in Scrum

Dear ScrumCrazy readers, I need your help. I’m working on a Scrum strategy for handling bugs and production support on a Scrum team. This is the first draft of the chart below. I already have a couple of changes I would like to make, so I’d appreciate it if anyone could provide feedback on the [...]

Best Practice – Minimize Manager input in Retrospectives

One of Scrum’s main tenants is about self organization. Self organization is difficult enough to achieve on its own, especially with a new Scrum team or a team who has members who are new to each other on it. In the context of this article, when I say “Manager”, I mean someone who has a [...]

Scrum Pattern – Plus Delta Hash(PDH) Retrospective

Summary The PDH retrospective is a retrospective format that is very efficient and fairly simple. Teams quickly generate discussion topics(Transparency) by listing the things that went well(plusses) and the things that should change(deltas) to make the team better in the upcoming Sprint. The team then has a chance to quickly vote on the discussion topics [...]

I Mostly Hate Software for Managing Scrum Teams

Update February, 2012: I’m currently seeking my next engagement as a Scrum Coach or ScrumMaster, so please contact me (You can use the “About” tab above) if you know of an opportunity. I often get asked to evaluate a particular Scrum tool or to compare the relatively value of one to another. To be honest, [...]

Best Practice – Make Retrospective Action Items Highly Visible

Here is how I define a Best Practice: Best Practice -a practice that is good in almost all contexts and almost all team situations. more details… Many teams talk a good game on making changes to their development process, but fewer actually make those changes. Therefore, it is a Scrum Best Practice to make Retrospective [...]

Best Practice – Review the Action Items from the Previous Retro in the Current Retro

Here is how I define a Best Practice: Best Practice -a practice that is good in almost all contexts and almost all team situations. more details… Name of Pattern Retrospective Follow Up Pattern Context Many teams discuss and say they want to make changes to their development process in a Scrum Retrospective, but far fewer [...]

Best Practice – Change Up Your Retrospective Format

Here is how I define a Best Practice: Best Practice -a practice that is good in almost all contexts and almost all team situations. more details… Break through the B-O-R-E-D-O-M! Retrospectives can get boring, and when they get boring, the effectiveness of them falls off dramatically. To help prevent this boredom factor, change up your [...]