I learned a few days ago that a simple information radiator such as a task board can be extremely threatening. Our PM/Scrum Master on a project announced a recent unilateral decision to switch meeting rooms simply to escape the dangerous distractions of a task board. Apparently the team found the task board a more useful [...]
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At the end of a recent Sprint planning meeting, I realized we had the services of four separate PMs. Considering that’s over 50% of our available PMs I’m not sure why one project needed that level of help. I do know this particular project seems to be gathering up new documentation that needs to be [...] When ideas become dogma: In Agile, the developers have to sit at the end of the row along the open hallway when everyone’s collocated. The business analysts have to be in the middle because they have to communicate with everyone. In other words there’s a seating chart for an Agile team area. Or, Sprints [...] Over the course of the past year I’ve successfully added developers to a number of Scrum projects. The key things to remember are: A new Sprint is a terrific opportunity to officially onboard someone on a project. Preferably at the Sprint Review meeting. Have the developer commit to something small for there first Sprint and [...] One of the most heartening things developers at our shop have done is start a sort of technical book club. About a year ago one developer got really into patterns and suggested running some sessions around a particular pattern. It branched out later to two developers and now every two or three weeks one of [...] The lack of multiple planning/coordination meetings in Scrum is a key appeal for developers. The message is very clear. Spend one day planning and then Sprint for the next 30 days. Check in every day for 15 minutes and then let the team decide if they need other meetings. Simple enough, unless you’re transitioning from [...] Funny story when I got back from vacation. In my stead the tech lead was holding the standup meetings. He went around the room one of the days and finished up with everyone reporting in under fifteen minutes. At that point there was just silence in the room for about two solid minutes. Turns out [...] A recent Sprint goal on an intranet project went something like this: To migrate most of the intranet content and train at least one content author from each division. On this Sprint there were probably 8 or 9 actual product backlog items, but the main theme was apparent–moving content. The word most was used because [...] I’m a tools guy. I love to try out new tools. I get excited by the most boring of build tools like ant, maven, or rake or even code review tools like Jupiter or Crucible. In the book Applied Software Project Management they introduce the concept of building support for change through tools: Another way [...] James Shore has a post on Informative Workspaces. He suggests using hand drawn charts and having everyone on the team update them where possible. Some of his ideas for charts include: A chart showing pairing time. A chart showing pairing combinations. A team calendar. A code coverage chart. A chart of tests executed per second. [...] |
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