Wow!  I have read a LOT in the last six months!  I guess that is one of the advantages of being on the road for about six months.

1. Understanding A3 Thinking – excellent description of how to use and create an A3: a Lean tool for executing Plan-Do-Check-Act (the Deming cycle).  This is the definitive source on A3, Henrik Kniberg has an Agile example and template on his site.
2. Getting the Right Things Done – good description of the concept of True North, developing strategy from True North and the respectful nature of Lean, the rest is kinda dull.
3. Pedagogy of the Oppressed – unique perspective on the characteristics of oppression, the oppressed and the oppressors; liberation for both the oppressed and the oppressors originates when the oppressed become fully engaged in the human dialogue of being, not simply exchanging roles with the oppressors.  Interesting connections to corporate life in the 21st century.
4. Project Retrospectives – discussion on the importance of making a deep-dive examination of a software project when it finally is complete with detailed exercises and agenda.  This is great book if you want to know more about retrospectives.
5. More Secrets of Consulting – just brilliant!  If you liked the first book, this one has so many practical gems for the consultant.  The only tedious parts of this book are the references to his other books.  My favorite tool: the Wishing Wand.
6. The Future of Management – this book was a favorite of the CEO at my last client.  There are many Scrum concepts in the case studies provided.  Too bad that many of the principles of self-organization and empowerment supported by the executives never filtered down to the teams
7. Coaching Agile Teams – WOW!  This is an awesome book, deep and rich with many profound insights on the various roles of an Agile coach.  In addition, Lyssa provides practical tools to improve both the coach and the individual.  This is definitely a book to return to again and again.
8. Training From the Back of the Room – this is my favorite book from the last six months since it has had the most impact on my personal performance.  It has changed my perspective on how to train adults with its sound theory of education and myriad of exercises which bolster learning.  Share this book with anyone who trains adults (thanks to “Agile Bob” Hartman for tweeting this book title!)
9. Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development – comprehensive companion book to Scaling Lean & Agile Development (which is very good on Lean and Scrum).  This book is full of good stuff, but just too long.  Unless you are a guru (or wanna be), stick with the first book.
10. Succeeding with Agile – Mike Cohn has put out another great book based on his years of practical experience with Scrum.  This book is also pretty long, but not tedious.  A great read if you have some experience with Scrum, but want to improve the overall experience, apply targeted improvements or figure out how to expand the reach of Scrum in your organization – it covers it all.
11. The Back of the Napkin – provides a framework on how to apply visual thinking tools to explain and sell ideas.  Since most of the work I do is conceptual, being able to draw a powerful picture is a useful skill.  A nice addition to my consultant toolkit and I look forward to sharing it with others (I didn’t find the companion book that useful, so skip it).
12. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series (not pictured) – these books were consistently entertaining, surreal and light; most were less than 200 pages.  The pace slows down around book 3 (Life, the Universe and Everything), but delightful nonetheless.  I cannot believe I just discovered them in my mid-30′s!

Believe it or not, there are a few books I did not get a chance to read.  I guess these will have to wait until after vacation.

• Leading Out Loud – about finding your authentic voice in business.  I bought this to get some ideas about leadership and self-organizing teams.
• Hope is Not a Strategy – I need to understand the sales process better and improve my ability to sell.  This looked interesting.

Being a ScrumMaster is much more than just showing up for the Scrum meetings and lobbing in a few facilitation techniques to keep things moving along.  Yet I think many project managers who are new to being ScrumMasters misunderstand what is required of them.  I feel they read about Scrum in one of the many excellent books on the topic and think, “Facilitation…four meetings…lessons learned…planning…task tracking.  OK, that looks easy – I can do that in my sleep.”  All they can see are the transactional aspects of Scrum.  Since that is all what Scrum is to them, they bring the empty project management mindset to the work and the result is a functional Scrum without any purpose, rituals without any meaning.  And this is where I think many project managers turned ScrumMaster stumble with the role.

An excellent ScrumMaster has a real presence with the Team.  To become an excellent ScrumMaster one must go beyond the simple transactional elements of Scrum and focus on the transformative aspects of the work.  As ScrumMaster you need to focus, really focus, on the needs of both the Team and the individuals as you work to improve the environment they work in.  You need to be both physically and emotionally there for them in a profound way.

Scrum’s great promise is that it reconnects people to each other work through empowerment and true collaboration.  As ScrumMaster it is your responsibility to facilitate collaboration, to help people feel comfortable and willing to take both professional and personal risks.  This does not happen in a fifteen minute Daily Scrum, or a two-hour Sprint Planning meeting or during a Sprint Retrospective.  Those rituals have very specific goals and individual coaching is not one of them.  The moments where one-on-one coaching happens and trust is developed are the times when the people are doing the work.  It is those moments when one notices a Team member’s joy, disappointment, frustration, happiness and anxiety.  You catch them being real and experience the moment with them.  This only happens when you share physical proximity, observe and be present when these moments happen.

In Scrum, we strive to give the Team members slack and ask them to limit multitasking to preserve their focus.  We expect the same from the ScrumMaster and that is why I recommend new ScrumMasters only focus on one Team.  If as a ScrumMaster you are lurching from fire-to-fire, meeting-to-meeting, team-to-team you are still operating in the old project management paradigm and it needs to stop.  People on the Teams need your help.  Stop being so busy and focus on what the Team needs for a change.

Passing on some good summer reading.

1. Core of Agile and Scrum – essential principles of Agile and Scrum that transcend the software development.
2. Three Legs to an Agile Transition – George Dinwiddie looks at how teamwork, visible progress and continuous improvement are key to change organizational culture.
3. Why Multiple Product Owners is a Bad Idea – read the article to find out how having multiple people setting priorities short circuits the role.
4. Nobody Can Do Agile – Simon Bennett explains why Agile is about thinking, not doing.
5. Agile Requires Cross-Functional Teams – Johanna Rothman discusses why cross-functional teams are essential for Scrum and other Agile processes.
6. Sir, Please Step Away From the Team – common the changes in management style for managers when Agile teams start in your organization.
7. Story Time! The hidden Scrum meeting – ever wonder when the requirements and the analysis happens on a Scrum Team?
8. How Does a PM and SM Coexisit? – a reader asks Michelle Sliger how the role of the project manager changes with the introduction of ScrumMasters.
9. Truly Agile CMMI – a short blog and video about a company that gets both Agile and CMMI.
10. Millennials and Scrum, Made for Each Other – Lyssa Adkins talks about how the Scrum values and principles align with a new cohort entering  the workforce.

New stuff to read and learn before the holiday

1. The Zen of Scrum – Jurgen Appelo provides a 70-minute video overview of Scrum, roles and philosophy.
2. The Difference Between Waterfall, Iterative Waterfall, Scrum & Lean (in pictures) – Visual representations of these various processes.
3. Company Culture Affects Your Code – A short examination of influence of Conway’s Law and culture on your software projects.
4. Explosion of Agile Practices – A list of 50 or so common practices used on Agile teams.
5. My Progression Toward Kanban – Brian Doll provides a good overview of Lean software development techniques and his personal journey there.
6. Post Agile Companies – Cory Foy looks at three Agile organizations and explains why understanding the Agile principles and values is more important than doing the Agile practices.
7. How Great Leaders Inspire Action – Simon Sinek describes a simple model to inspire others in this 18-minute video from TED.
8. Iterative and Incremental Development – Explanation of the difference between incremental vs. iterative software development (IID) and the history of IID.
9. Why Estimate Twice? – Good overview on the common practice of estimating the size of features, while estimating the duration of tasks.

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Building high-performing teams is the result of a complex interplay of six essential skills: leadership, team building, motivation, communication, decision making and negotiation. In this one-day interactive seminar, you will learn how to develop, nurture and sustain high-performing teams by improving your skills in these area while participating in a fast-moving, rich simulation designed to mirror real-life challenges and situations. This thought-provoking, fun game has powerful insights on team dynamics and interpersonal interactions for any manager or senior leader in your organization.

If you are interested please read this review of the simulation and be sure to sign-up when you register for the 7th Annual PMI San Diego Conference. Hope to see you there!

Sign-up for the 7th Annual PMI San Diego Conference today.

I recently encountered what I call a Scrum microteam – just two Team members, a Product Owner and a ScrumMaster.  Out-of-the-book Scrum provides guidance that Teams should be 6±2 people, not including the ScrumMaster and Product Owner.  I have been intrigued by such a small Team (glad they are filling all the roles) and these are my thoughts why Scrum suggests 4 to 8 people after understanding the forces which created this Team.

• Overhead – Scrum impose a fair amount of overhead on Teams – planning meetings, reviews, retrospectives and daily stand-ups.  I like all the pieces of Scrum and consider them essential.  Yet, I am not convinced it is worth the effort for just two people.  Could a good project manager be sufficient?
• Work-In-Progress of one – This might seem like a benefit, but I believe it actually increases the risk the business will get nothing of value at the end of the Sprint.  When you have microteams, you can only effectively work one story at a time.  Any delay, change in scope or discovery of emergent tasks, puts the Sprint Goal at risk.  Further subdividing the story into smaller (technical) pieces just atomizes the work, not the risk.
• Missing cross-functional skill set – with a team of 2 to 3 people, you typically have only one functional area represented, usually programmers.  Since Scrum is framework for cross-functional teams, why use the process if you are not meeting one of the preconditions?
• Handoffs within the Sprint – suppose you are lucky enough in your microteam to avoid all programmers – your Team has a software developer and a graphic designer – now you have the problem that their skill sets do not overlap.  When skill sets do not overlap, that creates handoffs, handoffs are a form of waste and the whole point of cross-functional teams is to eliminate handoffs.
• Narrow Definition of Done -  when the Team is so small, they must reach out to the rest of the organization in order to get anything really done.  This is a problem on any team, but when the Team is so small, the Definition of Done only includes things within the skill set of the individual members.  The amount of undone work is significant on a microteam. Entire Sprints can be dedicated to making sure this work is done and not delivering additional value to the organization.
• Limited impact – if your microteam is a pilot effort of Scrum for a larger organization, then the impact of Scrum will be quite limited.  Small teams work on small problems that are not that important to the organization.  There will be strong inertia to adapt Scrum rather than fix the underlying obstacles and dysfunctions – why change your organization to make life better for just two people working on a pilot?

Excellent links for everyone to share.

1. Pollyanna Pixton on Agile Leadership – a 30-minute video talking about the factors corporate leaders can influence which support Agile teams.
2. How I Learned to Program Manage an Agile Team After 6 Years of Waterfall – Sara Ford describes in brutal candor her experience becoming an Agile PM while working on CodePlex at Microsoft.
3. Explaining Agile – Mike Cottmeyer neatly summarizes his understanding of Agile.
4. How to Compare Elephant Herds - Dave Nicolette finally (?) explains why comparing teams through velocity is meaningless.
5. What Does a ScrumMaster Do? – for those of  you who are curious and wanted to know.
6. Replacing the Iron Triangle of Project Management? – short discussion on reevaluating a well-accepted PM paradigm.
7. Adopting Agile Development – the Role of the CIO – how senior leaders in your organization can help promote Agile adoption.
8. Moving Beyond Scrum – a look at some reasons why one might want to take the next step.
9. Tragic Mistakes When Adopting Test-Driven Development (TDD) - Scott Ambler discussing some pitfalls & obstacles companies encounter when they begin the process of using TDD.
10. Comparison of Open Agile with Scrum – introduction of a domain-independent framework for delivering value while using Agile principles via a compare-and-contrast with Scrum

Here are some links to the best of the blogs since the beginning of the year.

1. The Role of Leaders on a Self-Organizing Team - Mike Cohn talks about the important role management continues to play on Scrum teams.
2. Agile Scales, Waterfall Doesn’t – or so claims Vasco Duarte during this 48-minute video from the Agile Eastern Europe 2009 Conference.
3. Scrum, But – in this 10-minute video Scrum co-founder, Ken Schwaber, explains the negative impact on your business of “We use Scrum, but…”
4. Management 3.0: The Era of Complexity - Jurgen Appelo describes the new role of social networks as management dives into the 21st century.
5. Faster, Better, Cheaper! TDD wins in a simple experiment – a side-by-side comparison of two software developers working on the same project – one using Test-Driven Development (TDD), the other not; the developer who used TDD increased his productivity by 50%!
6. Agile Game Interview: Simplicity is Hard - Clinton Keith interviews Chris Ulm, CEO of Appy Entertainment, about why Agile is an essential factor in their successful launch of high quality, iPhone games.
7. Embedded Collaboration - Dave Rooney kicks off this post with a classic quote from “The Princess Bride” to explain the real meaning of collaboration.
8. Agile Office Space – the Motley Fool shows off their cool Agile workspace and describes the principles they used to create this space.
9. Wives of Rockstar San Diego Employees Have Collected Themselves – apparently some people are fed-up with yet another death march in the gaming industry and interesting from commentary from Clinton Keith that Scrum is not the solution, but provides visibility and a reality check to wishful thinking.

New Year links, a little late, but ready for your review.

1. Defense Procurement Goes Agile – a summary from the Agile Process Leadership Network’s (APLN) October 2009  meeting describing how the DoD is moving away from waterfall to an iterative, incremental processes.
2. Mixing it up with Agile & PMI – Orange County PM, Donna Reed, makes the claim that to be a successful Agile PM one needs to “move away from ACTIVITY-BASED project management toward VALUE-BASED project management.”
3. Starting Scrum: What Would be the Logical Position of a Classic PM – SM or PO? – a Google groups discussion posed by a member with some excellent commentary.
4. Synchronize Rather than Overlap Sprints - Mike Cohn explains why aligning Sprint end dates within one or two days of each other is a much better way to coordinate multiple Scrum teams.
5. Agile Antipattern: Changing the Definition of Done – Bob Hartman discusses how the pressure to meet deadlines is simply “deficit spending” on your project with a bill that will get paid off sooner than you think.
6. Welfare CSM Day 3: Experimental Mobiles & Rainforest Birds – interesting experience report about a different type of Certified ScrumMaster trainer; be sure to read the comments for additional insights and reflections by the other participants.
7. UI Test Automation Tools are Snake Oil – an opinionated piece from Michael Feathers on the value of that expensive UI test tool gathering dust in your organization.