Check out the video below of Rob Jolles presenting on "How to Change Minds: The Art of Influence Without Manipulation" at Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Rob explores why people are resistant to change. Why? Because people fundamentally fear change. In this fast paced, and spirited keynote participants are forced to focus away from the…
In the previous blog, we looked at how when we don’t actively manage our debt, it can lead to a vicious cycle we can’t get out of. We want to make prudent and deliberate decision on debt and have a plan to service the debt and make our payments. So to do that, we need a…
Check out the video below of Dan Davis presenting on "So You Want to Go Faster" at Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Dan explores how frequently does a good agile team deploy to production. Not every team is capable of deploying "on every commit". What does it take for a team to even start deploying…
In my previous post, we looked at the difference between good technical debt and bad technical debt and highlighted the importance of keeping our debt low. Unfortunately, the typical scenario that most teams face is that they eventually reach a point where their output is lower then what it used to be. Instead of stopping and…
Check out the video below of Mike McGarr presenting on "Productivity Engineering - Scaling a DevOps Culture" at Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Mike talks about how the software industry has seen an influx of technologies and techniques, including DevOps, cloud, Agile, microservices, machine learning, big data, containers and more. Organizations are becoming flatter and…
In my previous post, we defined technical debt and saw how not all technical debt is bad. Just like in the financial world, some type of debt is considered ok as long as it is paid back. Consider a house loan or a car loan for example. Those are generally considered acceptable types of debt in…
Check out the video below of Lisa Adkins presenting on "We are the Leaders we have been Waiting For" at Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Lisa asks if we Agilists value individuals and interactions over processes and tools, why do processes and tools so often run the show? In this talk, Lyssa offers two good…
In my previous posts we looked at symptoms of bad code and reasons we write bad code. And bad code leads to technical debt. Ward Cunningham introduced the Technical Debt metaphor by stating: “Shipping first time code is like going into debt. A little debt speeds development so long as it is paid back promptly with…
In my previous post, I discussed symptoms of bad code. Here I’m going to look into some of the reasons we end up writing bad code: Deadlines - You’ll hear excuses like we have a deadline to meet so we don’t have time to test or to make the necessary design change.Broken Window Theory - Another…
Check out the video below of Jeff Gallimore presenting on "Decoding Culture: Beyond the Fluff and Back to Business" at Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Jeff explores how culture connects to organizational performance, vocabulary for how to describe culture, research about the effects of culture, and tactics you can use to change your culture for…
Bad code tends to creep up on us over and over again. We’ve all been there. We kick off a project, things start a little slow, but then things quickly pick up and a lot of features are getting developed and delivered. We have an excited team and a happy customer. However, soon things start to…
Check out the video below of By Kent Hone and Mark Grove presenting on " Kanban in Action: Thoughtfully Observing Flow" at Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Kent and Mark provide a detailed look at how to interpret and thoughtfully observe Kanban Boards to better understand the work of your teams. They start with an…
Congrats on completing your Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) class! Now it's time to take the CSM exam as per the instructions sent to you by the Scrum Alliance. For the exam, I recommend you read the Scrum Guide, review your workbook and notes from the class and read the Scrum in a Nutshell Series. Remember, you have…
Scrum relies on transparency. Decisions to optimize value and control risk are made based on the perceived state of the artifacts. To the extent that transparency is complete, these decisions have a sound basis. To the extent that the artifacts are incompletely transparent, these decisions can be flawed, value may diminish and risk may increase. The…
At any point in time, the total work remaining to reach a goal can be summed. The Product Owner tracks this total work remaining at least every Sprint Review. The Product Owner compares this amount with work remaining at previous Sprint Reviews to assess progress toward completing projected work by the desired time for the goal.…