Agile QuickTip: Use a Calendar to Make your Sprint Planning Meeting More Accurate
Using a calendar to drive your sprint planning meeting can make your sprint plan a lot more successful. Every sprint starts with sprint planning. Sprint planning is where team members and their product owner collaborate to define a plan to maximize the value of the upcoming sprint. This will sometimes include outlining the timeline for […]
Agile QuickTip: Publishing your Team’s Definition of Done
Publishing your Scrum team’s definition of done Taking the extra step of publishing your scrum team’s definition of ‘done’ could help your agile team to collaborate and focus on getting things finished. Every scrum team and every agile team is always looking for ways to deliver as much value as possible in each sprint. This […]
Agile QuickTip: Learning Focused Daily Scrum
Turn your traditional Scrum or stand-up agenda on its head with a learning focused Scrum. Typically, agile or scrum teams have a daily Scrum or stand up where the focus is on progress or activity. Looking at what you’ve accomplished since the previous Scrum, the questions addressed are typically; ‘What have you achieved?’; ‘What challenges […]
Agile QuickTip: Try an Audio Signal to Start or End your Daily Scrum
Try an Audio Signal to Start or End your Daily Scrum Using an audio signal at the beginning or the end of your daily Scrum could help define precisely when it starts and finishes, and make the Scrum a lot more focused. One thing that a lot of scrum or agile teams complain about is […]
Agile QuickTip: The Sprint Planning Mini Retro
The Sprint Planning Mini Retro You could be making Sprint Planning far more effective by including a mini retrospective at the end of it. Sprint planning is the opening ceremony for every team Sprint. This is where your entire team comes together with your product owner and facilitated by your ScrumMaster, to figure out the […]
Agile QuickTip: Limit Your Agile Teams Product Backlog
Limit Your Agile Teams Product Backlog Limiting the number of items on your product backlog might make your product owner, and in fact your entire Scrum team, more focused. Many Agile product owners that I work with complain about their product backlog being really long. They mention that it’s cluttered with stale ideas, old feedback, […]
Agile QuickTip: Avoid Starting Sprints on Mondays or Fridays
Avoid Starting Sprints on Mondays or Fridays Sometimes a small change can make a big difference. Starting sprints on days other than Mondays and Fridays can make your scrum more valuable, and solve some common scrum problems for your agile team. A lot teams will start their agile sprints on Mondays and end them on […]
Agile Quicktip: Budgeting Your Scrum Update Times
Have you ever considered that budgeting time for each team member to give their daily updates might make your daily Scrum more valuable? One thing that a lot of scrum or agile teams complain about, is getting value out of their daily Scrum. In some cases, team members might be providing too much information or […]
Agile QuickTip: A Minute of Fun
A Minute of Scrum Fun Set your Scrum apart with a minute of fun! Many scrum or agile teams find their daily Scrum or stand up can become a little boring or stale. When it’s not that interesting, you might find that people even start to dread going. Unengaged team members can lead to late […]
Agile QuickTip: Teach your Team to W.A.I.T
Teach your Team to W.A.I.T If you’re the scrum master of an agile scrum team and you find that those daily scrum meetings are taking longer than you want, or your team members are getting too into the details, and you aren’t getting enough value from the scrum, here’s a tool that might help your […]