Tag Archives: scrum

The Devil is in the Story Points

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I recently had a chat with a developer who has a very negative perspective on Agile and Scrum. This isn’t surprising; many people do. One thing he said inspired me to write this blog post.

We were talking about Scrum, and I mentioned that I hate the word “sprint.” It implies that the team must run at full speed. The principles of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development state “Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.” Even Olympic marathon runners can’t sprint indefinitely. I’d prefer a term that doesn’t bring to mind people collapsing on the ground gasping for air at the finish line.

He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, that one of the reasons that Agile is popular is that it’s used to get developers to work more and to work harder. He’s not wrong. The use, and abuse, of story points is part of the issue. Continue reading →

User Stories Revisited Part 3 – Sizing

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In the third part in my series on user stories (Part 1 here, Part 2 here) will briefly cover some points on estimating user stories.

“How big should a user story be?” “What’s the difference between an epic and a story?” “How do I estimate the size of a user story?” “How do I know when a story should be split?” “How do I split stories?” When I first started working with user stories, I had these questions and Continue reading →

Scrum Misconception – Speed to delivery versus ROI

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I recently read a brilliant article on the myth that Scrum is faster and cheaper than traditional development. I highly recommend reading it, and no, I’m not affiliated with the writer or Scrum.org!

The article articulated something I feel is poorly understood. Following the ceremonies, roles and artifacts of Scrum is not a faster way of developing software. In fact, I am fairly certain that if you had two similar teams, gave them the same large specification and had one team develop to that specification using two week increments and the other using a waterfall approach, the second team would finish earlier. Why? (I’ll explain the underlining below) Continue reading →

I have a GREAT idea!!!….

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I was recently asked what to do when a stakeholder or client asks for a feature or user story that either doesn’t make sense or is based on flawed logic or on a lack of technology or domain knowledge. Sometimes stakeholders’ pet projects, wacky ideas and whims and fancies can be the nemesis of a product owner and her team. They waste valuable time and resources and in some cases they can affect team morale, as the team feels that they are on a fruitless errand.

I have two solutions to this problem: Nip it in the bud or meet them halfway.

Continue reading →

Why leadership loves agile in theory but sometimes hates it in practice

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One of the most common myths about Agile and Scrum is that it’s something that only affects the developers. People, in particular executives and directors, believe that undertaking an Agile transformation means project teams change the way they work together and the rest of the organization just reaps the benefits. While this may be true in the short term, it’s often leadership and management that have to make the biggest changes for Scrum to be successful.

I was inspired to write this post after a chat with a friend who works in an organization that has been using Scrum for a few years. He told me that it didn’t take long for the weaker leaders to struggle as the organization adopted Scrum. He also said that the changes to how teams worked and were led created natural leaders who stepped forward and took the reins, sometimes even people no one expected.

I’m going to explain this with a rather facile example. Continue reading →

Agile and the Analyst

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I recently took the Scrum Master course and certification. If you work in software development in any capacity and you have the chance, I recommend you take this course, even if you aren’t a proponent of Scrum itself. Approach it with an open mind and you’ll come away thinking a little differently about managing people. I’m not saying you’ll be an Agile convert, but it will make you re-examine lot of the fundamental assumptions of traditional project management.

As a business requirement specialist, I was particularly interested to see how an experienced analyst might fit into Scrum. I had read a couple of books on Scrum, Kanban, and other Agile topics but I found them somewhat vague when it got to Continue reading →

Scrum, Agile, Complexity and Ants

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(Originally posted here December 2, 2011)

I started re-reading Agile Project Management with Scrum by Ken Schwaber a few days ago, after not having looked at it in far too long. I was struck by the similarities between Schwaber’s view on the complexities of software development and the concepts of Complex Systems Theory I recently read while helping someone do research for a paper. I have to think that Schwaber and the other founders of Scrum were at least partly inspired by it.

Complex Systems Theory is, not surprisingly, difficult to describe in a nutshell. Continue reading →