Sometimes the ScrumMaster stops working with the team. To go learn some new things. While I was “gone” — i did send information as I learned it. Both the good and bad.
So, while, in reality I have spent last week in Kyiv and this week I will be in Hungary…. I want to take this week to introduce the first of a three part series.
This is something that has been eating at me (bugging the heck out of me) (keeping me up at night) (worrying about) (etc.)……..
Unbeknownst to the Scrum Team in this cartoon, our ScrumMaster has quietly faded from the team room in order to go get some help.
Along the way, the people he went to get more help kept telling him to go to other places.
Eventually, our intrepid ScrumMaster wound up at a very unusual place — both physically and in his own personal and professional life.
Knowing he had only one question to ask of the one who knows all, he started to feel a bit of pressure.
One question.
Only.
One.
Phew.
The pressure is on.
What question will he ask?
Got it.
And we will address it next week!
Gotta run….
Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.
You can also enter The Scrum Community to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!
June 25, 2007
As I sit down this evening to write this, I am now sitting in a hotel room overlooking the Danube in Budapest, Hungary, at close to 10:00 at night and daylight is almost over (almost time to call home!).
I left Kyiv this morning and have had a chance to look back and think about the almost four days I spent there, and what it means now (well, at least to me).First, the CSM Workshop was attended by about 20 people from Kyiv and other places in the world.
Most of the attendees worked for what I would consider “offshore” firms (you know, those great people that do work on an outsourced basis from the USA, Denmark, and other places?). It also included some direct customers of the offshore firms, which, when put together, created some awesome discussions and some new insights into the reality of working with Scrum.The course normally runs for two full days, and this was no exception.
When we got started, I took some pictures of the classroom setting. It was set-up lecture style and tables were spread really wide and used up most of the room (it was a good size for the attendees!). By the end of the two days, we took up about 1/2 the space and were sitting in “pods” — and people were mostly sitting with and working with people they were not sitting with the day before. I say this (it may seem obvious to some) because in fact this is a lot of what Scrum teams go through — or should — on a regular basis. I may have encouraged it a bit by making some suggestions, but did not force anyone to do this (hmmm… sound familiar as what we must do as a ScrumMaster?).
Day one went much as it normally does. I cover a lot of the “basics” of Scum, and the point of this is to make sure people understand — as a team or group — what the common vocabulary should be according to “the books.” In addition to this, I also inject my patented comments about reality-based Scrum…. “The book says this…. and you see bla bla bla a lot in reality.” I cover this more on the second day. One of the great exercises we do is called the “59 minute Scrum” — which is a simulation of a very non-technical based version of actually implementing Scrum. In other workshops, I usually allow participants to select which one to work on (there are three that I use, including things similar to “A Martian Tour of Earth”, “Doggy DayCare”, and “A Spam Brand Theme Park.”
While I presented this in English, I allowed each group or table to use each discussion time (for the simulations and break-out discussions) to be completed in whatever language they decided (there was a mix of Russian, Ukrainian, English, and more represented). This was helpful for each table but put me at a slight disadvantage (although I could tell when they were getting off-topic somehow [lol]). We debriefed all exercises in English.
And I had to remind myself to speak slowly. Sometimes I know I did not. Ug. I am passionate about this topic, and I can get to speaking quickly. I apologize (and apologizED during the workshop).
I decided to just assign the “Spam Brand” theme park to all the tables to make the discussions similar; also, when I asked about “Doggy DayCare” I got blank stares and heard crickets (for those that do not know this, in the US when people go on vacation/holiday they drop off their dogs at a place where other dogs get pampered better (usually) than they do at home OR people drop off their dogs to play at these places during the day while they are at work). For the “Martian Tour of Earth” — I joked that we may as well have called it “Mike Vizdos visiting Kyiv” (at least they laughed at that instead of the crickets and blank stares).
So we did Spam Brand Theme Parks (you know, like creating a Disney World like place based on that [insert whatever this really is made of] stuff called Spam (not e-mail spam — ug…. let’s see if email filters catch this one lol). It was great and there were some great discussions about this.
Lunch was great (some people did not like it). Liver. Yummy. If there is one thing I can say, i do still like to try the local food (burp… had a cup of Hungarian Goulosh tonight!).
We had a successful first day and I (like other evenings) went out with some of the local firms to discuss what “the real world” looked like for Scrum in their eyes (and of course eat some more great food (had rabbit lasagna).
Day 2 of the class went awesome and people asked engaging questions — especially when I take some time to shut up and pull people from the audience to become a “panel” (and a different voice) to ask questions from other people in the workshop who are currently implementing Scrum. Good stuff. All was going well until my last exercise of the day when I discuss how to deal with “middle management” (Chickens).
Looks of stares and the cricket sounding ensued.
Huh? I thought. And asked, “Are you serious?” Maybe it was my translation of the concept, I thought? Damn… every other trap I set during the class (to help learn!) worked. What the heck?? Why?
I asked, “You know… the guys Dilbert makes fun of?”
Ruh-oh. Same thing. Some people laughed.
Er. Um.
This topic usually takes a good hour and I need to cut people OFF.
Wow.
I am learning something. Live and on the fly.
Just like what I have been teaching!
Their general response was, “Mike, we are outsourcing companies. We do work. Nobody wastes time at [insert management bla bla practices here].”
Wow.
Then when pressed about Dilbert, i asked if they read Dilbert and just said to themselves, “Those silly [nice word] Americans.” The response was generally “Yes.”
OK.
New tact. No wind (I think that is the term lol).
I asked if they wanted me to review the practices that THEIR clients (since remember, we have flipped the perspective here from the view of someone who is “taking” work currently) go through at some of the large clients I work with. And I told them if it did not add value, I would immediately stop it. One hour later, the module was complete and I hope we all learned some new things from different perspectives.
We finished off the day with each of them (congratulations!) becoming a Certified ScrumMaster.
And we talked about the implications of what that actually could mean as the go back to their companies and start working with teams that may be implementing Scrum at their client sites (those who use off shoring).
This will be a topic of future discussion. I promise. I am learning a lot. And not from books, but by “being” here and talking to people face-to-face. Practicing what I talk about and teach.
We of course finished the day at a pub. More beer.
Then i left and had dinner with a host — Chicken Kiev.
Had to do it. When in Rome and all that…..
But.
NO vodka. I learned my lesson in a past life about trying to do that. Experience helped me there lol.
I do want to also take the opportunity to thank a few people who made the trip there a lot easier for me — including Alexey Krivitsky (organized the workshop for us), Tim Yevgrashyn (excellent host) and Marina (for managing the logistics of the apartment and transfers for me). Thank you tons. I look forward to coming back one day in the not too distant future.
I will leave the story of leaving the airport at Kyiv to another posting — or a beer sometime if you want to buy (smile). It’s a bit of a different process. And again, I learned more!
Wow. Fireworks are going off now. They must know I am here and are putting on a big party for me in my honor (I am totally KIDDING).
OK, I am going to go and try to call my family at home. Play some battleship online with my kid and see how life is going….
Gotta run….
Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.
You can also enter The Scrum Community to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!
June 23, 2007
One quick word on my posting from yesterday’s events…. it was no way intended to offend anyone.
I am completely thankful and humbled for the hospitality and professionalism all of the people that I have met with have shown me. I appreciate it and love this part of the world!
Also though, please remember that I write this blog entry in a way (or style) that suits me. I am writing it like I am trying to tell you a story person-to-person. Like sitting in a pub (smile).
THIS [blog] is not formal writing. I understand that. This blog is not set up for that purpose…. The purpose is for me to have a little fun (and poke some fun at myself).
Yes, I know I have readers of this blog from other countries (all around the world actually!).
Yes, I know my writing style sometimes is not easily translated and is sometimes loaded with Americanisms.
But I am trying to have fun with this, maybe put a smile on your face once in a while, and help people learn about Scrum the way I see it being implemented in the real world.
I am who I am. Love it or hate it. At least accept it please!
Enough said? Please I hope so!
So.
On to Kyiv Day #2.
This morning was MUCH colder than yesterday. And cloudy. I awoke early and read/responded to emails and then went for a walk (after locking my three doors behind me) without my camera; my accu-window forecast said it was going to rain. Unfortunately, I was correct.
I got wet.
O well.
I did not melt.
Here is another good lesson for people to remember when traveling to Kyiv.
“Yes, of course we have drivers licenses,” stated a friend here when I asked him about it.
“Why?” He asked.
As he was asking the question horns were blowing and cars were going in the wrong direction on a one-way street.
Come to find out that the political people here (big black ford expeditions or mercedes 500/600 class or the really nice audis) all well, do not care about following the rules of the road.
Even better, it seems they set the example for the rest of the yahoos in their driving style. The cost of a ticket if they get stopped? Something like $2.00. Seriously. And if it goes to court, well, the court does not go after $2.00. Sounds like a business opportunity for someone in Kyiv if you guys are listening (laughing).
Why did I ask the question in the first place?
O yeah.
Because pedestrians do not have the right of way. I learned this an important way today.
I am not talking about the right of way in like in New York City (where people drive nuts).
But.
In New York City, the cars stay on the road and the people stay on the sidewalk. A nice symbiotic relationship exists and people do not kill each other.
People = Sidewalk.
Cars = Road.
Right?
Seems like someone has forgotten this here. But I guess for $2.00 you can pretend to drive like you are in the video game, “Grand Theft Auto.”
What am i talking about?
They drive on the SIDEWALKS here. And park too. Actually, they will park anywhere. The last two facts did not surprise me or bug me too much (the cars were not MOVING at me)… the first one — actually not knowing about it — almost killed me. Well at least I would have been plowed down by some really nice black mercedes 600 series car :). And the guy driving it would have been fined two bucks. Nice.
So file that away for your next trip to Kyiv.
Back in the apartment in the morning after my walk, I did a bit more prep work for the CSM class — the first one ever to be held in Kyiv (or the entire Ukraine!) and was getting ready to go meet a client to work with their team while I was in town.
I had just opened the door from the shower (in my pink apartment with my bear rug and slippers next to the door) and the front door (the one inside the one from the outside) started to open.
“AH” i said.
“AH” she said (except in Ukrainian). But it actually sounded like “AH” to me, no matter how you actually write it (smile).
Immediately thoughts (from yesterday) went through my head that, holy shit, I was in somebody else’s apartment. I picked the wrong door or something.
And I was not fully clothed.
Eeek.
Turns out, through my thorough understanding of the Ukrainian language, that she was dropping off some things for the fridge, or “mini-bar.” Cool, I thought, while getting dressed.
Now, my language skills in Ukrainian are non-existant. So I used pointing gestures and said english words really loud (darn… they did it to me yesterday lol) about the satellite TV not working? Much hilarity ensued while I tried to explain it was not working.
I guess I got the point across.
Let me say a sincere “Thank you” to the people who read the blog yesterday and got it fixed by the time I got back to the pink apartment tonight. It scared the crap out of me because some Ukrainian lady was blaring on the TV (but as I was walking in, I did not understand it was the TV and… well… you get it by now). Wahoo… the power of the internet. Thanks again guys. Now I can watch the propaganda machine from the USA (CNN and others) along with being able to see how the rest of the world sees Americans.
One word on that.
I am sorry to the rest of the world for thinking we are all like what you see on TV.
Amazing what happens when you meet face-to-face (hmmm… is there a Scrum lesson here or anywhere in the rest of this posting Mike?)….
Now for the Scrum part (finally!).
Today I met with an outsourcing company (not to be named) and spent the afternoon working with them on talking about Scrum basics and working though a lot of questions they had for me. In addition to that, we did some exercises on Product Backlog Estimation and Planning (using Mike Cohn’s stuff for material).
It is extremely interesting to be working with teams that Americans (and other places) are outsourcing their work to.
Wow.
I think as I learn more about it over the next few weeks I will need to publish my thoughts publicly on this topic. Keep looking for it.
We wound up the day eating at a typical Ukrainian eating establishment. It was great food (and no, I could not convince myself that fried bull testicles would be a good idea to eat) — so we shared some different types of meat and some excellent potato pancakes (of sorts) from Georgia (not the Georgia in the USA)! We had some exquisite cranberry juice and, fortunately for me (as I am teaching tomorrow) no beer was put into my system tonight.
As I sit and write this with a Ukrainian channel going in the background (hey, I hear it is a great way to learn it), I notice an, “as seen on TV” infomercial // commercial about a breast enhancer.
It’s OK, this comment will be safe for work.
Wow. I thought, they MAKE those? Not only that, but, from the computerized pictures (no live hot Ukrainian models on this one) you can PROGRAM how um, enhanced, you want them! And guess where the switch (knob) is?
I am not joking.
Damn. It’s time to call it a night and go to sleep.
Just remember if you are reading this in America tomorrow morning and drinking your cup of coffee from Starbucks at 8:30, the first day of the Certified Scrum Training class will be in full swing and getting ready to wind down for the day. If you are reading this entry during my CSM class and I have not asked you to close your laptop yet, please do so and participate fully for the remainder of the class (thank you!).
Have an awesome day and I hope you enjoyed reading this entry. And thanks again to all my local hosts who are extremely helpful, generous, and kind to me.
Gotta run….
Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.
You can also enter The Scrum Community to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!
June 21, 2007
We went to the apartment and I huffed it up stairs (no elevator) in a building that well, has been around for a while. It is historic :).
After trying to get into the apartment, I found out the service that coordinated the apartment gave me the wrong apartment number. So, I met my neighbor.
Too bad it was not some hot Ukrainian woman in a towel, but at least it was an understanding big burly dude who just looked at me in amazement as I was trying to break into his apartment (he was in fact inside his own apartment and had a big bat with him). Oye. So he said (ok, yelled) something (intelligible to him, but ummm, somehow the f-bomb got dropped a few times I am pretty sure). The door slammed.
Hrumph. The piece of paper SAID 24. So I looked around and saw that there were three more apartments in this section. I moved to the one next door.
Still catching my breath from the haul up the stairs, I moved onto the apartment next door and tried one of the 25 keys on the holder. One worked. And, the bolted door lead to another door. So, finding yet another key, I opened the next door. At least there were only two doors (not like those Russian Dolls you can get that just keep getting smaller and smaller). And locked both behind me. Nice yellow slippers on the floor, but not mine. I hoped I had the right apartment.
The apartment is a beautiful pink. Lovely. Not really my choice of colors, but after meeting my neighbor and locking the doors behind me, I was happy to see I had a safe place to stay. “Shoot”, I thought, “The keys worked.” It has all the amenities of home, including satellite TV (which, I guess the bill was not paid because it just says something like “no service” (or wait… actually it says… o shoot… cannot type the words…. let’s leave it at “no service.” So I turned on the regular TV and listened to Ukrainian soap operas in the background. Looked around and saw that it had an empty fridge so it must be a rental (smile).
Time to leave for lunch already…. bags not even unpacked. Leaving my bags and sailing down the stairs, I looked back at the apartment and noticed a bright blue balcony over the entryway (this is a bit of foreshadowing!). Met my host downstairs.
Hope you are enjoying this, living vicariously through me — and really — the Scrum learning is coming too. I promise.
Kyiv is a great walking city I am learning. And the people are so friendly. Well, except if you are trying to break into their apartment.
I walked with my host to a metro station area for some local lunch (local, duh, I am here… but I told him we could skip McDonalds and TGIFridays!). We went to some local pub and I had coke and some chicken thing with a pickle. Yum. O… and the coke tastes like coke — real sugar I think (not the crap we get in the US with corn syrup). It does make a difference. But heck, it was still a coke that made me smile (I have a million of those lines). Oh, and you want to say “Coke-a-Cola” not coke. I guess there could be mistakes by the looks I was getting from people around me when I placed the order.
After lunch, we hopped into a cab to be zoomed across the city to an old soviet building that was used (I think “was” and not “is” anymore) to design aircraft for the Soviet military. They looked strikingly like the airplanes I see in other places in the world. After handing over my passport and going through a strip search by a hot Ukrainian woman in a towel — wait…. that did not happen…. I handed over my passport for examination to some lady that looked like she has been there since before the building was there and was allowed to pass through the turnstile into the lobby. There were two elevators. Here we go — and it is like a pushbutton type I have never seen before.
I turned on my phone (forgot I had it!) and it looks like it had service from the nice phone company in Kyiv.
Now… before you think I am some untraveled ethnocentric Americano… please remember I have done a bit of traveling in my past. And more than my sister, who thinks “Epcot” at Disney in Orlando is all you need to do to see the world. I love traveling. And I love learning things like I am learning now. I do hope you are enjoying this entry heh….
It was a hot day yesterday. About 33-34 degrees (close too 100, eh?). The room where I would start my first talk in the Ukraine — hosted by the awesome members of the local Agile Users Group — had no air conditioner. This was not a problem until AFTER I was done with my roundtable discussion.
Anyway, about 50 people were in attendance and I started with my usual warnings about, “Tell me if I am talking too fast or if I say some stupid Americanism that needs translation.” Then I jumped into my discussion.
Every time I lead this discussion, I get VERY nervous about audience participation. I should stop worrying.
I start this type of discussion on a white board drawing the skeleton of Scrum. I point out the steps, the artifacts, and the roles associated with Scrum. All of this is “by the book” kind of information. Then it gets interesting. When I first arrived, I asked people (on a scale from 1-5) about their experience with Scrum…. most in this audience were 1-2 with a few 5’s. I, by the way, do not consider myself a 5 on that scale.
I then start a product backlog — on the wall with a big piece of sticky white paper — for audience members to let me know what they want to talk about. Mostly it is about, “Scrum in the Real World” (wow… the title of my presentation!).
I usually have about 90 minutes to pull this off.
90 minutes flies by.
Great questions were asked, and I was finished. I will address some of them in upcoming writings.
Coffee break (I had water).
Then the group had two more presentations. One was from a company looking at the local Ukrainian market who wants to setup shop there and told some war stories of how a project got completed by using Scrum. Or sort of. Stuff like “death march” was used in there, so it must have been some variance of Scrum. Yeah. Good stuff.
Now, remember… I said it was a little hot.
And, after being up all night (since Monday morning eastern time at 4:30 AM), I had to stand up else I would have passed out and that would have looked bad for me. Coffee would have been a good idea in retrospect.
Another break (no coffee this time) and we went on to listen to another speaker who had much to say about off shore agile. I learned a lot from their perspective and will be writing more about this in the near future. He was the only “non-Enlish” speaker who apologized for his English language skills (about a zillion times) and said his Russian was much better. I thought I’d be funny from the back and say, “Thank you, and remember your English is wayyyyy better than my Russian!”
Expecting crickets sounding in the background, at least the crowd laughed (probably being polite, but much appreciated).
We wound up the meeting at about 7:00 PM local time (it is +7 hours from ET).
I was ready to go to sleep.
But then my ears perked.
“Pub” and “Beer” passed though my Ukrainian babble-fish like finely-tuned ears. Could it be?
All 50 of us descended upon a local pub for furthering our discussions on all things Scrum. Or not.
OK, we did not talk about Scrum (too much). But drink we did. Or they did. I stopped at one beer. I am thinking more will come as my stay progresses.
My host then asked if I wanted to go to dinner and we went to a local place for some Borsch, Beer, and Beef. Nothing like the three B’s for dinner :).
After some great conversation and excellent food, I flagged down a taxi (at least I though so, some mercedes stopped anyway) and my host negotiated my rate back to the apartment and gave the driver an address (at least I thought he did, he was speaking Ukrainian with his head popped in through the window of the car”. I hopped in hoping it was not the last I saw of humanity. OK… not really.
But.
The “cab driver” spoke no english and had no idea where the heck he was going. After much “bla bla bla” from him and me thinking (very loudly and using the f-bomb in my mind) I cannot believe this, I got out a map and showed him where my apartment was.
Um.
It was useless to him because it was in English.
Ug.
What should have been a five minute cab ride wound up taking about 40 minutes through the back streets of Kyiv.
Nice tour. Fast and furious. Worse than when my father used to get lost and not admit it. OK… I do the same thing back home.
Remember earlier how I remembered looking back at the blue balcony? Well, after much of the cab driver “talking” to (ok, yelling at) me in Ukrainian and me just staring at him with a look of astonishment like, “does he think I am freaking deaf or TRYING to ignore him???” we whizzed by the blue balcony. “STOP” I yelled.
Looking around, well, um, nothing looked familiar except for the damn blue balcony.
So I paid the guy for my 5 minute taxi ride (the negotiated rate only!) and, tires spinning, I was left standing in a puff of white smoke (ahhh… the smell of spinning tires) in the beginnings of darkness on some street in Kiev surrounded by barking dogs.
Gulp.
Ug. The front door to the apartment complex was locked. And it had a numbered keypad (not electronic, push button — like the elevator) on it.
Looking through the apartment information that was handed to me (it was in my pocket, phew), I found a three numbered code and… it did not work. Not really surprised. But hey…. maybe this was the wrong building I gulped.
I tried it again. And. It it did not work.
Remembering an episode of Scooby Doo (I watch the movies with my kids!), I looked harshly at the numbers on the keypad. Three were worn down. I kinda pushed all three at once and viola, whoosh, the door inched open.
No lights inside. And a haul up the stairs to the apartment. And outside of my block of apartments, there was yet another locked door. No lights either (not to self — bring my little flashlight when I leave).
One more guess (OK, 20) from my block of keys let me in (and I locked it behind me) and then two more doors in, and ahhhh…. home in my pink apartment I was.
And then I found a cable modem on the floor. Right next to a bear rug. Seriously. I think it is dead but it is staring at me right now. At least he is quiet.
And… well…. as you can see… I got it working.
I bought some Skype money and called the cell to let my wife know I arrived and things were well. Nothing much had happened with me today (smile).
And then went to sleep.
Got up Wednesday morning about 7:00 local time and wrote this entry after reading some email.
At this point I will head out and walk around until about 1:00 — where I will be picked up for my next adventure — some consulting at a local company implementing scrum here.
More later. I hope :).
Still looking around wondering if I am in someone else’s apartment. O well…. for now I am OK.
Gotta run….
Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.
You can also enter The Scrum Community to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!
June 20, 2007
Personally I find watching paint dry on my walls — or grass grow in my yard — more interesting than watching someone else win at poker, but hey, this proves there is something for everyone!
So what is my point with using Poker Players tonight in my comic strip?
Two words you should become familiar with:
Planning Poker.
There is a lot of great stuff written about this on the web and in books already today.
The first place I’d recommend stopping by is Mike Cohn’s sites (www.mountaingoatsoftware.com and www.planningpoker.com) and a gentleman named Henrik Kniberg posted something recently at www.crisp.se/planningpoker/
Now.
Regular readers may recall that I am not a big “tool user” or “proponent” of tools for implementing Scrum. This is one area where I take exception. There’s one in every crowd now, isn’t there (smile).
Why?
Please. First, go read the links that I have given you above. Come back.
Back?
Now… did you read the Divinci Code? One of the cool things brought out in that book was something called the Fibonacci Sequence. Check it out // google it if you do not understand it. Basically it takes the number before and adds it up to the next number, to look something like this:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 etc…. (or something pretty darn similar!). The key here is that the numbers go start going up pretty quickly.
You can use these numbers to help do something called “relative estimating” when coming up with your Product Backlog. Remember the difference between the Product Backlog (constantly changing) and the Sprint Backlog (the work the team has pulled off the Product Backlog to work on during this iteration!).
Use Planning Poker to help come up with relative estimates for the size of your Product Backlog.
It can tell you some sobering things about what it is you are working on.
Remember, with Scrum (in this blog entry at least), the goal is for a team to produce working software. And, it would be awesome if the team could do this in iterations that continually build upon the past iterations and bring money / customers into your business to help pay for even more development efforts.
The rules are out on the various links I have provided, and they are pretty straight forward.
Read them. More. Really. I can wait.
Now….
Here are some ideas I find useful when playing Planning Poker.
First. Make sure the Product Owner is there. If the Product Owner is not present, skip this exercise. Guess what… doing this exercise without the Product Owner can bring back memories of how some of us used to try and develop software… by making assumptions for the Product Owner or customer. This can be bad. So do not proceed without one present.
Really.
Next.
Time box this exercise. When it says one or two minutes per topic, stick to that timeframe. Really. Otherwise you get into analysis paralysis and start going down possible political mind fields or rat holes you have no interest in jumping into.
Next.
Finish it in one sitting. Trust me.
Next.
Do not. Do not. Do not hold one “user story” as the “gold standard” of cards. Remember this is relative estimating. And um…. estimating is used as the world for this because well, that is what it is (smile).
Next.
If some of the team votes a 5 on a story while others vote an 8, make a team norm that says go with the higher or lower number and just move on. Statistics has proven (thankfully) that in the grand scheme of this thing we call estimating…. guess what…. sometimes a 5 takes as long as an 8 and wow, sometimes an 8 takes as short as a 5. In the end, it evens out.
Next.
Do not panic when you add up your numbers and it looks like hell will freeze over before this project will ever get done.
Guess what.
It is what it is my friend. You are sharing data that was not there in the past.
Does this mean go out and try to screw with the iron triangle? NOPE.
Does this mean you’ve got to get better tracking your Burndown Chart? Possibly?
Does this mean you’ve gotta start having some tough conversations?
Most likely.
As strange as this “game” may look to outsiders, I have personally used this technique with multiple teams around the world with a ton of success.
Is it easy to do?
Who said it should be easy?
Remember as a ScrumMaster or even as a member of a Scrum Team, Scrum exposes though things sometimes. You have to deal with them and not hide from them.
Move on.
And develop working software.
By the way… when you do not follow some of the simple advice I give in this blog entry, feel free to contact me to come in and help with it; I am amazed that people actually pay me to come in and help “fix” some of these types of problems. Don’t get me wrong… I love what I do and enjoy the fact that I can make a living working with teams that truly are interested in what I can offer to help (thank you to all my current and future clients!).
Gotta run….
Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.
You can also enter The Scrum Community to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!
June 11, 2007
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