Top 10 Blog Posts for 2013

February 5, 20142 min

I was reviewing the website traffic and wanted to share with all of you the most popular blog articles from 2013.  If you have not had a chance to take a look, I would encourage you to read a few of these articles.

  1. 14 Scrum Case Studies: a 2012 summary of case studies I found about Scrum while responding to a common refrain in my CSM classes, “share with us more case studies”.
  2. Scrum Roles Defined: a popular, older post from 2011 which gives an excellent overview of the Scrum roles and is a great refresher on some of the key interactions.
  3. LeSS – A Framework to Scale Scrum and Agile: this first entry to a two-part discussion on scaling Scrum was popular in 2013 because it offered some direction on how to use Scrum in multi-team, distributed environment.  The second article, Why Does Scrum Succeed in Some Place and Other Places Fail?, offers useful advice to consider when supporting organizational change with Scrum.
  4. Using a Sprint Burndown Chart: this classic entry from 2010 is a passage taken from my book on Scrum and offers some basic information on how to interpret a Sprint Burndown Chart.  If you are interested in this topic, I encourage you to read the 2013 entry, Purpose of a Sprint Backlog, since it offers greater depth on this topic.
  5. If You See A Problem Fix It: 2013 was the year I introduced the practitioner interview and my interview with Jeffrey Hesse, a Product Owner with National Geographic, received the most hits.  Maybe it was the picture with LeVar Burton?
  6. The Perfection Game: in 2012 I stumbled across the Core Protocols and was inspired by Jim and Michele McCarthy’s goal of Live in Greatness.  The Perfection Game is call to give feedback to others that is powerful and affirming.
  7. Reading a Release Burndown Chart: another classic 2010 entry that is also in my book on Scrum.  This short article discusses how to interpret a Release Burndown Chart.
  8. Offshore Team with Onshore ScrumMaster – Does it Work?: during 2013 I started posting responses to LinkedIn questions from participants in the many online Scrum communities there.  This provocative article examines a common way to staff Scrum Teams which work with an offshore component.
  9. What is the Purpose of the Sprint Backlog?: this entry started as a discussion about Sprint Backlogs, but morphed into an in-depth discussion about Burndown Charts and why they should NOT be shared with management.
  10. Why is Commitment Important to Scrum: early in 2013 there was a lot of conversation on Twitter about how commitment diminishes software professionals.  This entry was my counterpoint to the anti-commitment crowd on Twitter.