Hello, I’m Veronica
The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.
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Cataloging Scrum Problems to Avoid
At the risk of becoming overly link heavy in recent posts, I want to highlight two sources for trouble-shooting scrum implementations. The first is from Mike Griffiths’ Introducing Agile methods to Organizations: Mistakes to Avoid” (part 1, part 2, part 3). These meaty articles share plenty of wisdom.
The second is from the ScrumAlliance. They have a wiki to share scrum experience. In a recent addition, they have succinctly started to expand on a Toward A Catalog Of Scrum Smells by Mike Cohn:
Catalog of Scrum Smells
- Loss of Rhythm
- Talking Chickens
- Missing Pigs
- Status not clear from Daily Scrums
- Lack of Progress Part One: Failing in Backlog Management
- Persistent Signatures
- ScrumMaster Assigns Work
- The Daily Scrum is For the ScrumMaster
- Specialized Job Roles
- Testers will not integrate with Team
- Reluctance to estimate Backlog Items
- Is It Really Done
- Nothing Ever Changes Around Here
- No One Wants to Attend Retrospectives
- Executive Pressure
- Missing Sprint Commitment
- Technical Debt
- Not Acting Like a Team
- No Engineering Practices
- Gorilla in the Room
Let me know if you have any others to share.
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Cycle Time as a Primary Measure
Mishkin Berteig has a great post up at his blog titled Measuring Process Improvements – Cycle Time. In it, he eloquently details why development teams should care about and manage cycle time. It complements nicely my First Law of Development and I encourage giving it a deep read.
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Tips for Distributed Teams
Megan Sumrell has 10 nice tips up on working with remote teams. I like that these tips include a softer side to the remote challenge. To them, I add a few fundamentals:
- Keep an open IM channel. One to one is great, but a team chat room is even better. Create a room that the team logs into at the start of their work day. This creates virtual co-location and a place where everyone can come to work. It also creates an “across the desk” ability for collaboration.
- Don’t forget the phone. IM is great for simple communication. The phone is still the next best thing to being there when topics are more complex. If cost is an issue, get the team on a free Internet voice service like Skype.
- Set up systems for measuring outputs. It is one thing to say you focus on it. It is another to effectively tack and hold everyone, in-house or remote, accountable to actual measures. I recommend using tracking tools like Rally, VersionOne, etc for remote teams. They can organize and track agile development and keep everyone up to date easily. On the down side, they are not as visual as task boards.
- Remember that when you are remote, manners still matter. Even simple IM hellos at the start of a day lend virtual humanity. Tone does not come across well in text, so be sure to check for it before blasting emails and IMs. What’s in your head may not be what comes across on paper.
- It is not just about coordinating tasks. Take time for leadership and social interaction with remote members as well. They need to know what is happening in the broader company. They want personal touch when they have concerns and questions. Make virtual time for this interaction as well.
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Product Personality
There is a great post up yesterday from Rohit Bhargava, author of Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back. In it, he talks about Brand Personality. I mentioned in Tell Me a Story, that I think product managers and owners would do good to give their products personalities early in the visioning process. As I read through his post, I thought perhaps giving them a brand is an easier way to think about this concept. Are you creating a Cadillac or a Chevy? A Blackberry or an iPhone? Even though it’s once removed, it may be more relevant to many people.
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BA World Symposium Conference
I spent the last 2 days at the BusinessAnalystWorld Symposium Conference in Denver. My key takeaways were:
- Even as agile awareness and interest grows in organizations, there are still many cultural hurdles and misconceptions to overcome before it becomes widely adopted
- Grass roots on small projects is still the most common method of introducing agile (at least in larger organizations)
- Remarkable people accomplish heroic things everyday at their work, often without even recognizing how remarkable they are
For those that asked for slides to my presentation at the conference you can download them at this link: Agile Thoughts – Exploring the Philosophy and Mechanics that Make Agile Work. I appreciate the participation and feedback from everyone in attendance. Please leave me a comment if you have any additional feedback from the presentation, the panel, or if I can help clarify anything we discussed there or have thought of any new questions.
I also thank the great panelists we had that shared their thoughts and answered questions at The Role of the BA in an Agile Environment Panel. Their companies are lucky to have them at the helm of their agile transitions. I endorse each of them: Grace Goerdel, Product Manager from Graebel, Inc.; Greg Haynie, Vice President Application and Database Development, Health Grades, Inc.; Alicia Yanik, Project Manager and Advanced Scrum Master; and Von Rhea, Director, Corporate Express. Also, thanks to Pete Behrens for helping to fill a last minute need.
BA World put on a first class conference with a great agenda and great attendees. I look forward to their return next year. Congratulations to Adam Kahn and his team from BusinessAnalystWorld and for an outstanding performance.
About Me
The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.
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