Archive for the ‘Scrum’ Category

• Review of Scrum Training on Nov 10th

  Date: 2010.11.16 | Category: Scrum, Training | Response: 1

  Last week, I conducted a one-day Scrum training in Irvine with Conscires.  The class was completely sold out and a great deal of fun.  Catherine Augustin wrote up an awesome review of the class.  Don’t worry if you missed out on all the fun – we are holding another class in January.

• Reading a Release Burndown Chart

  Date: 2010.11.08 | Category: Agile, Communication, Planning, Product Owner, Scrum, ScrumMaster, Tools | Response: 1

  In Scrum, we use a lot of easy-to-understand tools to communicate status.  A very common tool is a burndown chart.  In this diagram, I am showing a sample Release Burndown chart for a Team with eight Sprints in their release and will talk about how this is commonly used on a Scrum Team.  At the start of the release, the Team estimated 130 units of work would be delivered in eight Sprints.  At the end of Sprint #1, they delivered twelve units of work (the green bar) and 118 units remained (the red bar).  As the release progressed, a little more of the Product Backlog was delivered by the Team in the next two Sprints.

  In Sprint #4, the scope of the release increased by thirteen units (the yellow bar) and the Team only completed three units of added functionality.  In the figure, one can see the velocity of the Team increased during Sprints #5 and #6, completing twenty and twenty-one units of work, respectively.

  At the end of Sprint #6, it was clear the scope of the release was too large for the Team to complete before the deadline.  The Team’s velocity of twenty-one units per Sprint and the concept of yesterday’s weather, indicated the Team would not burndown all the remaining work before the end of Sprint #8.  As a result of this data, twenty-five units of low business value Product Backlog items were dropped, or descoped, from the release by the Product Owner.  When Sprint #8 was completed, nine units of work remained, but it had marginal business value.

• Scrum Gathering Amsterdam – Nov 15th to Nov 17th

  Date: 2010.11.01 | Category: Conferences, Presentations, Scrum, Tools | Response: 0

  If you are looking for me in November, you can find me in Amsterdam!  I will be attending the Scrum Gathering and will be leading two really interesting sessions.

  1. Powerful Questions: picking the right question or reframing an issue can introduce a profound shift in the conversation. In this hands-on workshop, we will discuss how to create your own powerful questions and practice this skill. Leave with a practical tool you can use with your Teams today.
  2. Removing Impediments with Drawings: pictures convey ideas more clearly and have a greater impact than a simple conversation. In this hands-on workshop based on Dan Roam’s book, The Back of the Napkin, we will learn the six types of diagrams used in business and how select the right picture for your problem. Come ready to draw diagrams that will create a shift in how you visualize your impediments and help remove them from your organization.

• Using a Sprint Burndown Chart

  Date: 2010.10.30 | Category: Scrum, Tools | Response: 0

  

  A Sprint Burndown chart is a simple tool used by the Team to provide a measurement on how close they are to meeting the Sprint Goal by the end of the Sprint.  Burndown charts are common in Scrum and are simply the trend of work remaining across time in a Sprint, a release, or a product.  The source of raw data for a burndown is the Sprint Backlog, with work remaining tracked on the vertical axis and the time period (days of a Sprint) tracked on the horizontal axis.  The Sprint Backlog is just the collection of tasks which represent the Team’s current understanding of how they plan to achieve the Sprint Goal.

  Sprint Burndown charts are evolving and active artifacts on a Scrum Team.  When a Sprint Backlog item - a single task or deliverable defined and estimated by a Team member - moves from in progress to complete, it’s estimate is removed from the total estimated work remaining in the Sprint.  There is not a lot of value estimating how many hours are remaining – the work is either done or not.  However, as a Team further refines their understanding of what needs to be done, creating new Sprint Backlog and estimates are added to the total estimated work remaining.  It is important that the Sprint Backlog and Sprint Burndown chart stay in sync since the graph gives visibility on the Team’s understanding of the work.

  There are four common patterns in most Sprint Burndown charts.  The sample chart above, based on real Sprint data from a 2010 Scrum Team, displays all of these patterns.

  1. The Sprint Burndown goes flat, as seen on Days #4 and #5.
  2. The projected trend (or slope) has the Team completing the Sprint after the timebox expires, as shown between Days #6 and #7.
  3. New work is added late in the Sprint, as indicated on Day #6.
  4. A large delta between the actual progress of the Team and the predicted progress of the Team (as if they had burned down an equal amount of work each day), as seen between Days #5 to #9.

  In all these cases, these patterns provide an opportunity for the Team to discuss what is really going on and provide an explanation.  If the Team is confident they can still fulfill the Sprint Goal regardless of how the data is displayed in the Sprint Burndown chart, the Product Owner and the ScrumMaster should always respect the judgement of the Team.  Recall, the Team commits to delivering the Sprint Goal at the Sprint Review, not to deliver the Sprint Backlog items.

• Scrum Training – Nov 10th in Irvine, Orange County

  Date: 2010.10.28 | Category: Scrum, Training | Response: 0

  Bachan Anand and I will be partnering on Nov 10th to teach a one-day course on Scrum.  In this class we will teach the principles and practices that make Scrum effective at managing projects.  The following elements will be covered during the one day course:

  • Scrum in Practice: the course is designed to illustrate Scrum in action.
  • Understanding of the Agile Manifesto and what it means to them.
  • Essence of Scrum: values, foundations and a new way of thinking.
  • Understanding how Scrum values and foundations are related to the practices.
  • Get a sense of what self-organization is (and is not).
  • Can draw a diagram of mechanics of Scrum: framework, roles, artifacts & flow

  Together we will use the principles of Scrum to organize and deliver the course material.  Learning outcomes will be driven by the needs of the participants through a combination of expert instruction and self-directed learning.  Opportunities to reflect-and-adapt on the direction of the class will be offered at regular intervals and adjustments will be made.  At the end of the training, the participants will have the confidence and understanding to begin to socialize Scrum at their own organization and support teams in improving their processes.

  The cost is only $275.  Please sign-up today!

• Speaking @ USC Code Camp – Oct 23rd & Oct 24th

  Date: 2010.10.15 | Category: Agile, Coaching, Collaboration, Conferences, Presentations, Scrum, ScrumMaster | Response: 0

  It is that time of the year again, time for a trip to USC for SoCal Code Camp.  Here are the topics that I submitted for this year’s event:

  1. Introduction to Scrum – Scrum is a framework for developing high-performing, self-organizing teams to deliver value to customers and the business quickly.  In this hands-on session, Carlton will explain how Scrum works and describe the roles, artifacts and rituals of Scrum.
  2. ScrumMaster’s Toolkit – Are you just getting OK results with Scrum?  One common source of lackluster performance comes from following routine behaviors and ordinary patterns of teamwork associated with the “old way of doing things”.  In this hands-on workshop, you will learn tools that breaks these old patterns, unlocks the potential of Teams and gets them moving toward high-performance.
  3. Selling Your Ideas With a Drawing – Ever stand at a whiteboard & not know what to draw?  Ever watch a good idea got lost in a lot of talk?  Pictures convey ideas more clearly & have a greater impact than a simple conversation.  Come ready to draw diagrams in this hands-on workshop and create powerful diagrams which shift how you visualize your work & convince others.

  I’m pretty excited about these sessions since all of them are new for me.

• Speaking @ Agile San Diego on Oct 7th

  Date: 2010.09.29 | Category: Agile SD, Coaching, Collaboration, Communication, Games, Scrum, ScrumMaster, Team | Response: 0

  Next week I will be speaking at one of my favorite groups – Agile San Diego – on October 7th beginning at 6:30 PM.  The topic will be “Tools for ScrumMasters and Agile Team Leaders” and this is a quick description of the session.

  Are you just getting OK results with Scrum?  Has Agile not delivered on the much anticipated quantum leads in productivity everyone had been promised?  One common source of lackluster performance comes from following routine behaviors and ordinary patterns of teamwork associated with the “old way of doing things”.  In this hands-on workshop, Carlton Nettleton will share powerful techniques from his coaching toolbox that breaks these old patterns, unlocks the potential of Teams and gets them moving toward high-performance.

  This is going to be a fun evening and a bit experimental since I am going to leave the main learning objective up to the participants.  I will also be giving away a free copy of Lyssa Adkins’s excellent book, Coaching Agile Teams.  Come to The Linkery, have a few drinks and learn something new!

• Estimating & Planning for Agile Teams – Oct 2nd

  Date: 2010.09.12 | Category: Agile, Estimating & Planning, Extreme Programming, Planning, PMI, Scrum, Training | Response: 0

  Having trouble communicating deadlines to stakeholders?  Unable to get a commitment from the Team on when work will actually be delivered?  Having trouble managing dependencies?  Agile processes, like Scrum and Extreme Programming, rely on lightweight techniques to progressive guide and steer a project to completion.  In this hands-on workshop, Carlton Nettleton will review the common Agile tools used by successful Teams to produce project plans which have clear milestones and deliverables and raises risks and dependencies early.  The topics covered in this class will include:

  • Importance of creating a Definition of Done for the Team
  • The role of user stories to capture, develop and validate requirements.
  • Common estimating techniques employed by Teams.
  • How to develop and maintain a Release Plan to track progress.
  • How to use easy-to-understand Agile metrics to monitor status.
  • Link common Agile planning practices to the PMBOK.

  Participants that are PMP will earn 4 PDU.  Register today!

• Speaking @ Agile San Diego on Oct 7th

  Date: 2010.09.09 | Category: Agile, Agile SD, Coaching, Scrum, ScrumMaster, Team | Response: 1

  I will be running a short workshop at the next Agile San Diego meeting showing off a few of my favorite coaching tools.  If you are looking for a few new tricks, stop by and say hello.

  Are you just getting OK results with Scrum?  Has Agile not delivered on the much anticipated quantum leads in productivity everyone had been promised?  One common source of lackluster performance comes from following routine behaviors and ordinary patterns of teamwork associated with the “old way of doing things”.  In this hands-on workshop, Carlton Nettleton will share powerful techniques from his coaching toolbox that breaks these old patterns, unlocks the potential of Teams and gets them moving toward high-performance.

• New Offering – Innovation Games®

  Date: 2010.09.02 | Category: Agile, Collaboration, Design Excellence, Games, Innovation Games, Product Owner, Scrum, Tools, Voice of the Customer | Response: 1

  On May 6^th and 7^th, I attended an Innovations Games^® consultant’s class hosted by Luke Hohmann.  Innovations Games^® are collaborative games designed to help business people develop and prioritize new product ideas.  In the context of Scrum, these games are tools the Product Owner and product designers can use to engage the customers and different business stakeholders in defining the requirements for a product and thinking about product roadmap and multigenerational release plan.  Not a lot is written about the “fuzzy front-end” for Scrum teams and Innovations Games^® fill that significant gap in way that is consistent with the Scrum values and principles.

  It was quite instructive to hear about the games and how they work from Luke.  From the different case studies discussed, we really illuminated the dynamics involved with selecting the right game for problem.  In addition, a few of my misunderstandings about the purpose of the games and how they are played from reading the book were cleared up as well.  What I liked most about the class was in addition to talking about the games, we played a lot of them in the course of two days.

  1. Remember the Future (played)
  2. Prune the Product Tree (played)
  3. Speed Boat (played)
  4. Product Box (played)
  5. Buy a Feature (played)
  6. 20-20 Vision (played)
  7. Show and Tell (played)
  8. The Apprentice
  9. Start Your Day
  10. Spider Web
  11. Me and My Shadow
  12. Give Them a Hot Tub

  Below are pictures of the Product Box I created for Look Forward Consulting announcing the new service available.  I look forward to using these games more and helping Scrum teams with improving prioritization and collaboration with their customers.