Scrum Master Lessons from My 4 Year Old Son
@ryanripley
#Path15
Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand. --Norm Kerth, Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews
What is Scrum?
SCRUM IN ONE SLIDE ROLES: Scrum Master, Product Owner, Developer ARTIFACTS: Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Product Increment Sprint Retrospective Development Sprint Planning Sprint Review Sprint
What is a Scrum Master?
The Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring Scrum is understood and enacted. Scrum Masters do this by ensuring that the Scrum Team adheres to Scrum theory, practices, and rules. --The Scrum Guide
The Scrum Values: Commitment Respect Focus Openness Courage LINK: http://agileanswerman.com/scrum-values-canmake-or-break-your-agile-project/
What is an impediment?
Anything that prevents the scrum team from being productive.
Every scrum master can be more successful at serving their team by understanding these 10 lessons.
A dead scrum master is a useless scrum master. --Ken Schwaber
1 It s Important to Try New Things
At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly. --Agile Manifesto
Three pillars uphold every implementation of empirical process control: transparency, inspection, and adaptation. --The Scrum Guide
Experimentation is at the heart of Agile
Is it safe to fail?
Are experiments safe?
Your teams velocity is worse than the other scrums teams. Find a way to get your velocity up, or we may have to reassign resources.
I don t care if you want to use software to track user stories, we re going to start with 3x5 cards and masking tape!
O RLY???
2 Embrace Learning Opportunities (Failure)
DAD! Stop helping me! --My son, tired of me inflicting help
Happy Accidents Thomas Edison failed thousands of times until he found the correct filament for the light bulb. Post-It notes were invented to replace bookmarks. Kleenex tissues were originally made to remove make-up. WD40 is named after the number of attempts to get the water displacement formula correct. These ideas were at one point failures
Not every experiment is a winner and not every failure is a loser.
SCRUM IN ONE SLIDE ROLES: Scrum Master, Product Owner, Developer ARTIFACTS: Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Product Increment Sprint Retrospective Development Sprint Planning Sprint Review Sprint
Is it safe to fail?
That developer is slacking. When is the scrum master going to take care of the poor performer?
3 Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
What is the 5 Why s technique?
Often we push past the surface issues and find more complex system and relationship issues at the 5 th why
People do not fail, systems do
4 Learn Gradually
I don t think that design will work. You should code the story like this
THINGS TO LOOK FOR: Is design/architecture emergent? Are the developers disengaged? How does the team decide the best way to do their work? Is pair programming, #mobprogramming, or swarming happening?
ADJUSTMENTS: Leave the developers alone Step down as scrum master and resume a coding role Focus on guiding rather than directing Ask for permission to help
What does it matter how many times I reassign team members, isn t that what self-organization is for?
5 Words Matter
Your words are winning hearts and changing minds.
Be consistent.
Following through isn t optional.
Following through isn t optional.
Teams ship working software at the end of each sprint. That s why we implemented scrum. Work the weekends if you re behind. The team needs to deliver on their commitments.
What about the word Agile?
Communication is your greatest tool. How you frame discussions WILL make or break your agile transformations and projects.
6 Sustainable Pace Is Important
Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely. --Agile Manifesto
Sustainable pace is a quality play Burned out developers deliver bad code They also find better jobs
Sustainable pace is a productivity play Continuous integration, automated testing, skill building, and whole team understanding become important when long hours are not an option
Sustainable pace is predictable Over a period of time, the amount of work that a scrum team - working at a sustainable pace - can accomplish will become consistent
Sustainable pace is humane
Your team leaves at 5:00pm and refuse to work weekends. Why don t they have a sense of urgency?
Watch value, not the clock
7 Play Well With Others
How inclusive is your team?
That s not how it s done! Here, let me show you the right way to be agile at 2am.
ARE YOU A HERO?: Team seeks your approval before acting Team asks about the right way to do Agile Are you insisting on correct solutions?
THINGS TO CONSIDER: Resist the urge to solve the teams problems Get comfortable with awkward silence Focus on relationships
BEWARE LEARNED HELPLESSNESS Helplessness can lead to overlooking opportunities to improve
8 Time Box Events
A time box is a fixed period of time to perform an action or to achieve a goal.
SCRUM IN ONE SLIDE ROLES: Scrum Master, Product Owner, Developer ARTIFACTS: Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Product Increment Sprint Retrospective Development Sprint Planning Sprint Review Sprint
Prevents over-investment in activities
Promotes a focus on value
Minimizes cost and impact of errors
9 Be Kind
AGILE IMPACTS EVERYONE?????? Organizational Change Leadership Change Team Change Status Change Job Description Change Role Change Culture Change
WARNING SIGNS: Arguments What has to be true? Emotional outbursts Am I talking to the team or at the team? Your feelings Am I enjoying my role?
ARE YOU BEING KIND? Take time to reflect on difficult exchanges What is motivating you? Anxiety, fear, or frustration Address the friction in the retrospective Ask the team for feedback and support
10 It s hurts to grow literally
A project manager could maybe become a tester...maybe. --Ken Schwaber
The PMP to CSM pipeline 500 YARDS OF FOUL-SMELLING MUCK --Red The Shawshank Redemption
We are telling people to give up the tools, methods, processes, and behaviors that have made them successful.
INSPECT: How the team manages their work Focus of Daily Scrum meeting Unsolicited advice Interrupting progress to pontificate
ADAPT: Questions over statements (2:1 ratio) Make failure an option and then fail The team owns tasks and solutions Ask for permission to help
Learn to be introspective
http://agileanswerman.com ryan@agileanswerman.com @ryanripley Podcast available on itunes, Stitcher, and AgileAnswerMan.Com
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