Category: scrum blog

  • On Certifications

    Are certifications worth the time, effort, and money?

  • Scrum Bubbles Recommendation of the Week

    Have you checked out the Agile Uprising Coalition yet? If you haven’t, you should. According to their website, they are a “purpose-built network that focuses on the advancement of the agile mindset and global professional networking between and among practicing agilists.” I check out Agile Uprising regularly to see what my fellow agilists say about…

  • Your Reputation Precedes You

    How do scrum masters search for jobs?  Just like anyone else.  We check openings on places like Indeed, Dice, and LinkedIn.  We submit resumes.  We go to interviews.  We network as much as we can.  In fact, we network A LOT.  Most people in the tech industry get jobs based on recommendations from their peers. …

  • Don’t Take Daily Stand-ups for Granted

    For the uninitiated, gathering every day for 15 minutes to discuss the goings-on of current work might seem a little redundant and useless.  All the same people say many of the same things over and over again.  But to the experienced, there’s a lot more to it than that.

  • What is it like being married to an agile coach, anyway?

    On 03/11/14 7:31 AM, Robert Neil wrote: ——————–  Do you do private agile training? I think being agile is very important when participating in projects that require difficult positions.I would like you to show me how to properly scrum my wife. As a coach would you actually assist, or just give verbal advice during the “meeting”?…

  • Some Thoughts on Scope Creep

    According to wikipedia (and various other sources), scope creep is defined as follows: Scope creep (also called requirement creep and feature creep) in project management refers to uncontrolled changes or continuous growth in a project’s scope. This can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled. It is generally considered harmful.   In an agile project, however, sometimes uncontrolled…

  • Backlog Grooming

    I was going over some backlog grooming ideas with one of our Product Owners recently, so I thought I’d share these ideas with everyone.   When preparing for sprint planning sessions, please take a moment to make sure the top 20 stories in your project backlog are “shovel ready”.  What do I mean by this?  Shovel…

  • How many types of Agile Retrospectives are there, anyway?

    The other day I noticed that we were getting pretty stagnant with our sprint retrospectives.  I have been asking these questions: “What went well? What went less well? What areas improved from last sprint? What areas need improvement?”  Sometimes we get some good discussions going, but most of the time I have to prod my…

  • How to Give a GREAT Demo!

    One of the major tenets of Agile is the Product Demo.  As we all know, agile encourages us to demo at the end of our sprints.  This is done for several reasons.  Not only does this keep us accountable to our customers, but it helps us to focus on forward thinking.  At many companies, it…