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 [...]

How do I handle production support on a Scrum Team?

Question: How should I handle production support on a Scrum Team that gets pulled off of new development every now and then to research/solve production problems? Answer: In My Coaching Experiences… Here is what, IMO, the best solutions look like, based solely on my coaching experiences: If it is at all possible, add the item [...]

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 [...]

The Role of those Outside of the Scrum Team

Executive Summary In this article, I discuss the role of those outside of the Scrum Team. This includes managers, stakeholders, and any other member of the organization that the Scrum Team works for. I look to the Scrum Guide first, and then discuss some other ideas not specifically from the Scrum Guide. In short, the [...]

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 [...]