Check out the video below of Jeff Sutherland presenting on "Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time" at the Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Jeff shares how Scrum is reshaping how the Department of Defense does business and fights wars, how the FBI tracks criminals, and how Treasury finds deadbeat…
I presented on The Art of Storytelling - User Stories Smells and Anti-patterns at the Agile2016 conference held in Atlanta, GA. I'd previously presented variations of this talk at 2015 Global Scrum Gathering in Pargue, Czech Republic and the 2015 Agile Development Practices Conference in Las Vegas, NV. Below is the abstract, along with the slides…
1. Thinking that everything is a user story Many mistakenly believe that if you are Agile or using Scrum, then you must use user stories and no other format is acceptable. User stories are not required in Scrum. Product Backlog Items can take any format. User stories are a recommended technique due to some benefits over…
Looking at the user story template, which part of the user story is the most important? Is it the Who, What, Why, How, or Acceptance Criteria? The How Let’s first look at the How – It’s important to note that the user story does not contain details about the How. Generally, the how are technical tasks…
Check out the video below of Heather Phythyon presenting on "How to Maximize Positives and Minimize Negatives of Remote Agile Teams" at the Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Heather shares her experience working on different kinds of remote agile teams. https://youtu.be/dyArLtBzBos How to Maximize Positives and Minimize Negatives of Remote Agile Teams by Heather Phythyon
Check out the video below of Fabiola Eyholzer presenting on "Agile HR" at the Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Fabiola explores how transforming your organization into an agile enterprise is no small deed. And it does not matter where you are on your way towards embracing agility on all levels. There will be a time…
When splitting user stories, we should always split them vertically as if we are slicing a piece of cake. The whole cake is a cake and each vertical slice is a piece of cake with all it’s layers. A horizontal slice might just have the icing, or maybe just the filling, or just the crust and…
Check out the video below of JJ Sutherland presenting on "Agile Leadership" at the Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). JJ explores how Agile requires major changes in organization, management philosophy, and operations. In our modern moment Agile and Scrum are tossed around by leaders as the newest management fad. What leadership has to recognize is…
Product Increment and the Definition of Done An Increment, broadly defined, is an increase or addition, especially when that addition represents one of several steps in a sequence. In Scrum, the Development Team works to deliver a new Increment of the product every Sprint. Each Increment is a new, updated, usable version of the product, so…
Sprint Backlog Next: Product Increment and the Definition of Done During Sprint Planning, the Scrum Team creates two outputs: the Sprint Goal and the Sprint Backlog. The Sprint Goal is a high-level objective that provides guidance to the Development Team on why the work of that Sprint is important. It could be a customer outcome, a…
Product Backlog Refinement Next: Sprint Backlog In another section, we described the Product Backlog as a “constantly evolving artifact” that is never complete. Product Backlog refinement is the work that is "Done" to constantly evolve the Product Backlog. Most Product Backlogs were, at some point, an unsorted collection of ideas for features, enhancements, improvements, and capabilities…
Product Backlog Next: Product Backlog Refinement The Product Backlog is the Scrum Artifact that answers the question: “What is most important to build next?” The primary problem of economics, applied to product and service development, is that stakeholders have seemingly unlimited wants, but organizations have limited means. Given that problem, we need to decide what order…
Scrum Artifacts Next: Product Backlog In archaeology, the term “artifact” refers to an object that was made by a human. The Latin roots of the word artifact roughly translate to “Work of Art.” So, an artifact is something that we make, either a tool that solves a problem, or a work of art that inspires us.…
Sprint Retrospective Next: Scrum Artifacts In this section, we’ll learn about the Sprint Retrospective meeting. We will cover: the goal; who attends; the timebox; and the general approach to running the meeting. The Sprint Retrospective meeting is the final event of the Sprint, held after the Sprint Review meeting. The Sprint Retrospective is one of the…
Sprint Review Next: Sprint Retrospective In this section, we’ll learn all about the Sprint Review meeting. We will cover: the input to the meeting; the goal; who attends; the timebox; the general approach to running the meeting; and the output. The Sprint Review meeting is held at the end of the Sprint. The primary input is…