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There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Since Scrum is an intentionally incomplete framework with a reasonable yet short "manual," this effect should not surprise anyone. For example, how do we communicate with members of the Scrum team that take the Scrum Guide literally? What about a dogmatic Scrum Master?
Join me and delve into the effects of Scrum dogmatism in less than 120 seconds.
In-sprint automation is a serious affair, an ambitious goal! It always surprises me how organizations and teams just start on it without proper readiness and planning. And then they fail! Miserably and the team, QA engineers, or some such entity is to blame. Frustrating to say the least. In-sprint automation is doable but not always possible in all teams. If not planned and executed correctly this goal can quickly become a distant dream.
As the name suggests, in-sprint automation is automating and developing the user story in the same sprint. Easier said than done. The team will need to overcome several challenges before getting to this state.
Every time I travel to Japan, something that strikes me is how process-driven the Japanese people and culture seem to be. Even something as simple as buying a train ticket is an intricately refined process. The ticket seller first makes sure they have heard and understood you correctly, repeating back your exact request before they print the tickets. And once they’re printed out, they will pick up a pen and check each detail of the ticket — before going through each check again with you. You will be given exact and clear instructions on how to locate the platform and when to expect the train. And you’ll notice that when the train arrives and stops at the platform, the driver also has a checklist they will diligently follow. It’s incredible to observe, but not arbitrary — they do this because they have found it reduces error rates by up to 85% and ensures everything runs smoothly.
You might be wondering what Japan has to do with successfully coaching teams, particularly within an Agile framework. And the answer is Shu Ha Ri. This Japanese concept, roughly translated to “first learn, then detach, and finally, transcend” (or more simply: walk, run, fly) is a way of thinking about the stages of learning from beginner to master — and a key philosophy used in the martial art Aikido. Working in an Agile way requires much learning of new rituals, processes, and different ways of thinking, so if you are a scrum master, this concept can be a very useful one for understanding and guiding you in how to be a better team coach and ensuring that each project runs just as smoothly (and to time) as a bullet train.
Often a scrum team decides to implement a feature in a sprint, codes it and sends it to testing. At this stage, the product owner, scrum master, and the team often get a false impression that the feature is almost done and what remains is just testing and releasing it to production. Right?Wrong! Experience has shown that this only the start. The battle is only half won and there are many hurdles to get that feature to the finish line.
Our scrum team went through several sprints where we thought we were ready to release a feature to production but “something” came up towards the end of the sprint and we failed to deliver. We slowly came up with this checklist to ensure that what we had was checked all boxes before we showed the green flag to our product manager.
In today’s turbulent and rapidly changing business environment, Lean-Agile working models have helped businesses become more adaptive and flexible. With a focus on creating highly engaged and empowered teams who act on fast feedback and pivot regularly to maximize business value, it’s easy to understand Agile’s present popularity.
Yet while the “Agile” concept is good in theory, it can become overly-idealistic. Many organizations commence their transformation journey with the best intentions only to find their workforces soon shift back into a production line driven by uniformity. This is the critical point where progress can begin to stall.
Developers who tried to build at least one product for an end-user know how many things are essential in a product: thoughtful UX, friendly UI, good performance and stability, security and data consistency, logging and maintenance, etc.
Multiply this to the number of platforms that you have to support. Add marketings and licensing, client support and bug reports, new feature requests, and competitive product pressure.
It’s hard to track everything in one head, and it is even harder to be perfect at every job. That’s why we work in teams. That’s why we use project management processes.
Scrum, as we know, is a very important part of Agile software development practices. But it has many other applications that a lot of aspiring project managers are not aware of. These scrum apps can be used in various production settings ranging from construction processes to marketing endeavors.
In the project management paradigm, all of the software facilitating the PM projects have a lot of functionality to follow a Scrum framework including sprint planning and backlogging features.
New and ongoing projects are the backbone of a business’s entire operation and a kickoff meeting constitutes a crucial element of such projects. They are the necessary progressions that cement the significance of a company in the market. So, when the stakes are this high, then you have to be vigilant when starting new projects and build a proper foundation.
This video is a presentation from Agile Week Riga titled, "Iterating Toward Professional Scrum". The "2019 Scrum Master Trends Report" by Scrum.org and the State of Agile 2018 shows numbers that provide insight into the maturity of Agile adoptions. More than 80% of the companies claim to be in or below a 'still maturing' level. With Scrum being the industry standard (at least in western Europe it is), these numbers are surprising. In this overview of iterations towards Scrum maturity, I describe the characteristics and main challenges to overcome in each maturity stage. This overview might help you as a Scrum Master or leader to assess your current situation and show you a direction in which you might find a solution for the problems you are facing implementing Scrum.
Scrum is one of the most-adopted methodologies in the technology industry today. So what do you know about this framework and how to implement it into your organization?
It is essential to mention that the philosophy of Agile is that all the tasks, whether big or small, must be completed by a small group of people. As a method developed from Agile, Scrum works the same way.
The 2019 Scrum Master Trends Report by Scrum.org and the State of Agile 2018 shows numbers that provide insight into the maturity of Agile adoptions. More than 80% of the Scrum Masters (respondents) claim their organization is in or below a "still maturing" level. With Scrum being the industry standard (at least in Western Europe), these numbers are surprising.
I have seen Agile transitions in many organizations and I have been through numerous learning experiences myself, deepening my understanding of Scrum and Agile. My observations can help others in their journey of maturing Scrum and make learning easier. I want to share my observations of each of these phases so that you can learn from what I did to overcome the challenges related to those situations.
Over the centuries, humans have managed to adapt to many situations and evolve to become what we are today. History shows that we have an innate ability to adapt and evolve.
This remains valid as part of a change in business, such as the adoption of Scrum.