Some new links to share and idea to learn.

1. What Does an Agile Coach Do? – Considering an Agile\Scrum Pilot?  Don Gray talks about what you might expect from your new Agile Coach.
2. Should the ScrumMaster Also Be a Member of the Team? – Clinton Keith provides his perspective to a common question\scenario many Scrum teams face when starting out (with good dialogue in the comments).
3. Pathologies of the Daily Scrum – Experience report from a session at Agile Ottawa identifying ways daily standup meetings breakdown and some suggestions to improve your daily meetings.
4. Institutionalized Agility – Rob Myers discusses some of the common obstacles when your organization decides to “go Agile”.
5. Balancing Agile – Special guest poster, Alan Shalloway, talks about the role of management in an Agile process.
6. Do You Need Iteration Zero: A Case Study – Jim Shore examines a common practice when starting up new Agile teams and critically evaluates how necessary it is today.
7. Why Your Agile Project Cannot Be a Success – List of 32 items that increase the risk of failure for your Agile project and point to signs that you do not understand Agile.
8. The Dangers of Agile Development – Jeff Anderson takes a humorous look at some of the real risks posed by Agile projects.
9. Making Change Stick – Steve Denning looks at the ten practices\principles to understand when leading a change effort.
10. The Myth of Utilization – If your computer slows down at 100% utilization, then why do we ask our team members to do the same?

Here are links to the best of the blogs for the week of Dec 11th 2009.

1. Agile Project Management (Part 1 of 2) – short article from Agile Journal looking to bridge common Agile vocabulary with PMI practices and concepts.
2. “Ideal” Team Size and Ratios - Johanna Rothman explains the the optimum size for Agile teams.
3. The Benefits of Feature Teams – more on teams, this time from Mike Cohn, and why traditional component teams are risky.
4. The Daily 15 Minutes of Fun – description on how some Scrum teams have extended their Daily Scrum beyond 15 minutes.
5. Where has XP Gone…and can We Have it Back? – Open Space report from XP Days London asking what happened to one of the more popular Agile processes from early 2000′s.
6. The People’s Scrum – Tobias Mayer looks at how Scrum is really a framework for change, not a process or methodology.
7. Why Hasn’t Vista Sold – not directly related to Agile, but discusses how poor software quality has trained our consumers not to purchase upgrades.

Hope there is some good reading here.  Cya next week!

Lots of questions about the Daily Scrum today from the folks in Shanghai.

1. What message should we exchange in our Daily Scrum to improve our communication? Enough detail to explain what you are working on and any obstacles you are struggling with, i.e. just the headlines.  It is the responsibility of the Team members to bring up problems, issues and delays that might put the Sprint Goal at risk.
2. Why does the Daily Scrum start on time?  What if I cannot be there for when the meeting starts? A Daily Scrum is a short, timeboxed meeting for Team members to identify roadblocks.  If we spend time hunting down missing Team members, then we consume time reserved for Team members to realign.  It is not considered rude to begin the meeting without one or two Team members.  They are adults and know how to be on time for a meeting that happens the same time and same place everyday.  If you are going to be late, or miss the meeting to take care of your kids, please try to notify the ScrumMaster in advance.
3. Is it OK to change the rules or what we talk about at the Daily Scrum? Typically, a Daily Scrum is about three questions: what did I do yesterday? what I am going to do today? what obstacles are in my way?  However, the purpose of the meeting is for the Team members to get aligned with one another, identify obstacles, figure out how to get the work of the Sprint done and provide visibility on their progress.  If the Team can come up with other ways to do that, then they are empowered to modify the Daily Scrum.  However, they must meet face-to-face (email meetings don’t count) daily and should never exceed the timebox of 15 minutes.