Tales of the Bizarro Scrum – The BAs are Holding Us Back!

Developer: “I don’t have much to do. I’m still waiting on the BAs to finish writing the user stories. They always hold us back!” A comment like this highlights siloed thinking among team members. There are only 3 accountabilities in Scrum. A Product Owner, a ScrumMaster, and Developers. Note that Scrum does not mention business analysts,…

Comments Off on Tales of the Bizarro Scrum – The BAs are Holding Us Back!

Tales of the Bizarro Scrum – Are You Sure It’s Going to Take this Long?

Scrum Master: “Are you sure it’s going to take this long? The product owner wants it done in the next Sprint and I already told her it won’t be a problem.” I have 3 issues with this kind of statement. First, it seems that the Scrum Master is acting as the intermediary between the Product Owner…

Comments Off on Tales of the Bizarro Scrum – Are You Sure It’s Going to Take this Long?

Tales of the Bizarro Scrum – Developers and Deliverables

Developer: “Last Sprint I delivered 18 story points all on my own!” This post will not be about story points. I will leave the story points are evil discussion for another time. Instead, I want to focus on the intent behind such a statement. And by intent, I am referring to the proud declaration and feeling…

Comments Off on Tales of the Bizarro Scrum – Developers and Deliverables

Tales of the Bizarro Scrum

Bizarro Scrum is like Bizarro world where everything appears to be the opposite of what it should be. It is about common day to day situations that a lot of Scrum teams experience when they transition to Scrum. In this Tales of the Bizarro Scrum blog series, I’ll highlight statements that team members make that on…

Comments Off on Tales of the Bizarro Scrum