Illustrated Agile
If you have led, coached, or participated in an organizational transformation to Agile, it will be just a matter of time before someone asks “How do we know if we are truly Agile?” or “How do we know if our Agile teams are healthy and doing well?” Good questions often coming from leadership. I have […]
As a Scrum Master for an Agile team, you will need to bring new team members onto an existing team from time to time. Make them feel welcome, included, and productive by considering a couple of these ideas: Get the team involved. This often happens but if it doesn’t, ask the hiring manager to include […]
Every once in a while an Agile team will begin to struggle. High priority stories left unfinished in a sprint, consistent poor quality, and a bickering team has all led to low team morale, sporadic productivity, and an unhappy product owner. Ideally, the Scrum Master can observe and identify the core issues with the team […]
Hiring a Scrum Master? Interviewing a Scrum Master? Here are 28 interview questions or scenarios to consider: Phone Interview Questions I would use these questions to quickly determine if a candidate has a base understanding of Scrum and should be brought in for in-person interviews. In two minutes or so and at a high level, describe […]
One of the attributes of a healthy Agile organization are teams being in a state of flow. You can easily tell when a team is in flow. There is a sense of purpose and vision, there is very little stress, there is laughter and comraderie. They are committed to each other, and when a challenge […]
I believe retrospectives can be a powerful component to building an organization focused on agility and continuous improvement. But beyond asking what we can do better and what we should stop doing, the retrospective can also become a time of acknowledgment and an oasis in an otherwise stressful and demanding world. First, the retrospective can […]
One of my Scrum Masters used Retrospective Cookies from @weisbart this morning. These fortune cookies are made with thought-provoking questions inside and are delivered in a Chinese quart container. The dialog that ensued was vibrant and meaningful and having a little snack during the meeting doesn’t hurt either. Give them a try if your retrospectives […]
Your team has struggled for the past couple sprints with production deployments having not gone smoothly. Defects are being reported and perhaps some complaints are creeping in around a poor customer experience. Throw in a couple rollbacks or hot-fixes and a trend is clearly starting to emerge. Developing software is not easy…throw in a complex […]
Last year, I posted the original four questions that every good Scrum Master should be asking. With a few more months under our belt and having the opportunity to observe 12 product teams with 7 Scrum Masters every day, I have been able to glean four more questions for Scrum Masters to be asking themselves. […]
Since our Agile transformation began 9 months ago, I have been able to observe over 100 retrospectives spanning 10 dedicated Agile teams. It’s pretty fascinating to watch the evolution of a newly formed team turn into a well-functioning and dynamic group. Every team has their own language and interactions and it’s important to give the […]
This is the third in a series of posts walking through my approach to the performance review process for Scrum Masters. 10. Visually show the results based on the Scrum Master expectations diagram. To assist in keeping the performance review discussion focused, I take the expectations diagram created in step #1 and draw indicators next to each […]
I suppose it’s that time of year again…resolutions. With my own goals in mind, I’ve created three resolutions for Scrum Masters that are sure to get 2012 off on the right path: Get Personal. Resolve to invest more time in finding out some of the personal, but not intrusive, details about your team members. Birthdays, […]