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 [...]

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, [...]

Tips for Effective Backlog Grooming – Part 2

Tips for Effective Backlog Grooming In my tips articles, I try to describe highly effective ways to fulfill the Scrum framework. The Scrum framework intentionally leaves holes that are opportunities for teams to fulfill the framework in the way that is best for a particular team’s circumstances. The Scrum Guide defines the Scrum framework, and [...]

Sprint Tasking Tips: Sticky Note Strategies

Tip: Defer task assignment Try not to ever assume who will be working on a task. Further, don’t assign tasks to people in the Sprint Planning meeting. Instead, let people sign up for tasks just in time during the sprint. This helps reduce bottlenecks and critical pathing issues. Tip: Strongly consider notating task signup on [...]

Sprint Tasking Tips: Team tasking strategies

Tip: Try to estimate tasks as a team. Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m *not* suggesting that you all sit around a table and estimate tasks like Planning Poker or anything. Besides, Planning Poker is for sizing Product Backlog Items, not Sprint tasks. What I am suggesting is that when your team does Sprint [...]

User Story Pattern: Micro Stories

Executive Summary In this article, I describe a User Story pattern that is useful for teams that are advanced in their User Story practices. In short, the pattern is to ensure that all User Stories can be completed in 2-3 days by one developer. This pattern requires fairly advanced story slicing skills, as well as [...]

Sprint Tasking Tip: Don’t Give Up!

Don’t give up! I’ve coached several teams into self organizing to create a Sprint Backlog and task out all of their Product Backlog Items. The first couple of times is always painful. Anecdote One team I coached took 16 hours(X 6 people) in their first Sprint Planning Meeting for a 2 week sprint! (The Scrum [...]

Best Practice: Look to the Scrum Guide *First*

Short Story: When teams struggle with Scrum, it is my strong opinion that they should look *first* to the Scrum Guide for guidance. (Or *look back* to the Scrum Guide, if they are an experienced team) Long story: A more complete way of saying this is: When teams struggle(whether they be beginner or experienced), it [...]

Sprint Tasking Tip: Strongly prefer more granular tasks

This tip is just one of the roughly 30 tips that comes from my Sprint Tasking Tips article. Two schools of thought: More updating or more granular There are generally two main schools of thought about how to task out a sprint in hours. One thought is to create tasks that are a bit larger [...]

Sprint Tasking Tip: Create an environment where estimate honesty and accuracy is valued

This tip is just one of the roughly 30 tips that comes from my Sprint Tasking Tips article. Make it clear that an estimate is not a commitment. no one is going to be tracking actuals for each task and comparing them to estimates. no one is going to be held professionally accountable for task [...]