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Tag: Scrum Master

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Acceptance Criteria -vs- Definition of Done
Scrum

Do You Think You Are Done?

As a Professional Scrum Trainer for Scrum.org I get to think about the Definition of “Done” and its meaning a lot. In one of the Sprint Planning event the other week, a Product Owner asked an innocent question, “I need this small thing changed, how long that might take?” An answer followed almost immediately, “it’s just a couple of lines of code.” I heard that conversation many a time before and almost always it ended with, “of course we are going to get it done, no problem.”

To those kinds of exchanges, I always have a couple of questions. What exactly do you mean you will get it done? Do you know what getting done means? Quite often the responses are either an indignant, “of course we know what done means, we have been doing it for years, do you think us fools”. Sometimes I just get a blank stare, “what do you mean.”

Aigle Jeopardy
Agile

Agile Jeopardy Retrospective

(This post is by guest blogger, Kenny Barnes.)

For our latest retrospective, I created a jeopardy board using JeopardyLabs – Online Jeopardy Template.   I used a mix of Agile related categories (Scrum, Agile), items related to the team [Working Agreements, Sprint (more details below)] and something the team is really passionate about (Star Wars).  It took about an hour and a half to come up with the questions/answers and setup the board.

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Agile

Is More Really Better?

One of my favorite things about being and Agile coach is connecting with the Agile community through conferences, meet-ups, and other networks.  Because of these connections I get to interact with  Agilists all over the world.  Over the past few months I’ve noticed a concerning trend coming from the Scrum Master community.  They are telling me with excitement, “I’ve finally worked myself up to two teams!”  Some have said they are now working with three or four teams.  The thing that concerns me is that they seem to view spreading themselves across multiple teams as an accomplishment.  I am hearing pride in “being busy” and “being able to handle more” and that tells me that we still have work to do.  It tells me that there may still be an anti-pattern running rampant in our Agile organizations telling us lies.

A Fixer
Agile

A Fixer

While attending the Agile Coaching Institute’s Coaching Agile Teams class a while back the instructors read this poem to the class.  It served as a powerful reminder that as an agile coach, or a scrum master/team coach, we must see people and teams as naturally creative, resourceful, and whole if we want to empower them to grow and move forward.  As a coach I must be a servant to those I coach.  I’m not here to be better than them or to have all the answers.  I’m here to serve them in their quest for greatness.

Sticky Notes
Agile

Are Your Stories Ready?

This week I was particularly impressed with a method used by a Scrum Master to help his team understand which stories on the backlog were “ready” and which were not.  It’s amazing how such a simple technique can bring the transparency needed to help a team prepare for a successful sprint.  His technique is to use colored stickers as markers on the ordered product backlog hanging on the wall next to the team’s scrum board to indicate the state of the story.  If the story is not ready it gets a red sticker. 

Elephant & Monkey
Agile

An elephant and a monkey went for a walk last sprint …

This week I was walking past a conference room where a Scrum Master was preparing for the team’s retrospective.  I had to stop and take a picture because I really loved what I saw.  Here are a few of the things that really impressed me.

Agile Conference
Agile

Agile 2015 Learning and Highlights

Sunday, as I got on a flight and headed to Washington, DC for Agile Alliance’s Agile 2015 conference, I was looking forward to spending a week with other like-minded people who believe in living the agile values and principles and who are investing in themselves and in others to grow in their craft. I anticipate this conference all year because I love the full saturation of agile. I love the networking and new ideas. I love the opportunity to see what others in the industry are up to and to learn from them. And I love meeting new people who teach me great things!

Allison Pollard and I were given the opportunity to present a coaching topic called “Change Your Questions ~ Change Your World” this year. It was exciting to see Allison again and partner with her on this great topic and it was an honor to invest in the agile community at large.

Team
Agile

Scrum Mastering – It’s a hard job. But someone has to do it!

This is me.  I’m an agile coach and I love being a scrum master whenever my path allows me to step into that role for a few months in order to start up new teams and develop scrum masters.  I’ve been scrum mastering a few teams for the past couple of months and having the time of my life!  But now comes the real test – mentoring a few brand new scrum masters.

Deep Listening
Coaching

Coaching Skills for Scrum Masters – Deep Listening

The other day when working with a few scrum masters I recognized how important coaching skills are to this profession.  I know that coaching is important and I teach new scrum masters that they are the coach to the team.  But, when working with these new scrum masters it brought to light that coaching skills aren’t something that we just know – they are learned on purpose.

When I ask people about their coaching skills they often point to allowing the team to be self organized and make their own decisions.  They view coaching as asking questions that help people figure out the answers.  I agree.  Those are aspects of coaching that are very powerful for teams.  But there is an underlying skill that cripples the ability to ask powerful questions if it isn’t first mastered.  In order to ask powerful questions a scrum master must first learn to listen.

I am realizing that the most powerful coaching skill a scrum master can learn to master is listening.  It is foundational to everything else.