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The Guest Blogger this week is Michele Sliger, a fellow Certified Scrum Trainer and awesome person in general (smile).

A few weeks ago some of the Trainers got together in a super-secret-location-on-Earth for a couple of days.

We had a lot of fun, I learned a ton, and you can be sure I will write more about it in this blog in the future!

Michele posed the question to the Trainers, “What are the Scrum Values?”

And. Gulp. I could not name all of them.

Shame on me.

Or? Are they something I just *do* like a lot of people already?

Either way, I thought this would be a good platform for Michele to discuss the Scrum Values and give some great examples for you to use with your Scrum Teams.

Keep learning… I do daily….

Here is the write-up from Michele:

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Like Mike, I’m a Certified Scrum Trainer and I make my living teaching Scrum and coaching Scrum teams.

One of the things I teach is the Scrum values. Do you know what they are? Take a second and see if you can name them all.

I’ll give you a hint: there are five, they are one word in length, and one of them is not Honesty. Now stop reading for a moment and when you think you’ve got them all, come on back.

Ready?

Okay, let’s see how you did.

I’m sure none of you cheated by going to the first Scrum book, “Agile Software Development with Scrum,” and flipping to the last chapter.

(I can hear it now: “Heck, she said that Honesty wasn’t a value, so where’s the problem?”)

The five Scrum values are, in no particular order:

1. Commitment
2. Focus
3. Openness
4. Respect
5. Courage.

Now what do you suppose these mean?

Ask a roomful of people and you’ll get a roomful of answers.

“Openness means that we will tell the product owner ‘no’ when we can’t do any more work in the Sprint.”

“Openness means that we will tell management that we are doing Scrum even though we are afraid they will make us stop.”

“Openness means that when my colleague takes a three-hour lunch break instead of finishing her tasks that I will have a difficult conversation with her.”

“Openness means telling you that I did in fact cheat — I looked up the values in the back of the black book.”

(I once had an argument with a co-worker on what ‘being truthful’ meant. He said that it wasn’t lying if he went to a topless bar and didn’t tell his wife. I said it was a lie, one of omission. We went back and forth, each sure of our morality. So I’m pleased that Ken was careful in his naming with the value of Openness, instead of something like Honesty or Truthfulness, so I don’t have to have arguments over what truth means!)

Because we each interpret the values differently as individuals and as teams, we really need to take a look at each value and decide as a team what that value means to us.

Here are a couple of ways you can do that:

If your group does regular brown-bag lunches, open spaces, or Scrum cocktail hours, pass out copies of that last chapter and say, ‘This is what we’ll be talking about at our next get-together.’

Then have that informal conversation and see what the team thinks about the values.

Are there any that surprised them?

Are there any that weren’t in line with their personal values?

Can they say that the team has been adhering to all the values?

Are there any values that they think should be listed that are not?

And are there any values that they would like to make a bigger, more overt, part of their daily activities?

When working on the facilitation of team working agreements, try this exercise.

List the values, and this simple template that can be used to turn each value into an actionable working agreement:

We believe in [value] therefore we will [do something].

For example, your team might come back with:

“We believe in respect, therefore we will show up on time for all meetings.”

The point is to get those values on the wall somewhere, where they can serve as reminders to the team of the drivers behind the Scrum practices, and of how the team has chosen to work together.

Remember, Scrum is not only value-driven in how it provides the most important features first to the customer, it is also value-driven in how the people choose to work together to get the job done.

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Gotta run….Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.

You can also enter The Forum to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!

Hi all,

I am on a train right now writing this and my internet connection is somewhat spotty, and by the time I get to where I am headed… well… I will try to sleep (smile).

So, you will see the next cartoon tomorrow. With a new guest blogger!

It is a great one. Something that made me think.

And.

I hope it does that for you too!

Have a great day or evening.

- mike vizdos

PS –> Want to “follow me” on Twitter? I am trying it out to see if people really do read about the details of personal lives that people are willing to share. Let me know and see my stuff at twitter.com/mvizdos.

Interested in becoming a Certified Scrum Master?
Come to my next workshop!

So last week the post was a little long, and I put out some real life information that hit home hard for me. I received a ton of great feedback and people offering a lot of great advice. One thing I do want to make clear is that client was not my only client — something I have learned to not do in the past (depend on 1 client 100% of the time). As a consultant, this is a position you want to get yourself into. Really. Look at me as an example!

This week.

Um.

Where is our “old” ScrumMaster?

I kinda liked him. He was a little “off” at times; however, he started to grow on me and help with a lot of examples.

He seems to have disappeared last week.

Seems to have gotten himself whacked by some shady characters.

Oh no.

What has Tony done. What have I done?

At this point, there is now a [hot] ScrumMaster who has no problem saying, “Yes” to anything and everything asked of her.

Um.

Is this dangerous?

One word.

YES.

Notice the usage of capital letters above.

YES I AM YELLING THIS TO YOU THIS IS DANGEROUS.

I am trying to make a point (smile).

And, you may be asking yourself, “Mike… What point are you trying to make this week?”

Really?

You do not see it?

Look hard.

Read the comic strip above again, and again, and again.

Then, send me an e-mail (or write a comment on this blog entry) about what you think it means.

Really.

C’mon.

Take action and do it.

It will take you less than three minutes.

Please.

Gotta run….Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.

You can also enter The Forum to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!

Hi all,

As you saw last week, our fearless ScrumMaster seems to have disappeared.

And.

Been replaced by some hot ScrumMaster who knows how to say yes.

What will happen next???!?!?!?!?

More tonight.

- mike vizdos
[uh…. could not post last night… four words… NYC - St. Patricks Day. Sorry ’bout that!]

Hi,

[Sales voice on…. sorry gotta make a living! But keep reading as you may actually be able to meet me in person without paying a dime (maybe a beer or two!)]

I will be up on the upper east side of Manhattan on Monday and Tuesday this coming week (St. Patty’s day!) teaching a CSM Workshop.

If you are interested, please contact me or visit www.michaelvizdos.com/enroll to sign-up.

If you know anyone who is interested in a fun workshop (and you cannot go) — please pass along this information to them… Actually, either way, please pass this on to people who may be interested [thank you]!

Oh, and if you are reading this from someone who passed this along TO you (or if you have not done so already)…

Please Subscribe to Implementing Scrum by Email and receive any new comics or other announcements we publish on a regular basis.

Now for some inside information…

I am in the process of booking an ADDITIONAL nine or ten public CSM Workshops around North America right now (that’s in addition to those already listed at www.michaelvizdos.com/enroll) ) — so if you do not see one near you yet check back often or let me know if you’d like to book a private class in your organization!

You can also keep your eye on the left sidebar of www.implementingscrum.com for a list of my upcoming public appearances and workshops.

[Sales voice off, thank you for reading this!]

Eek. I really do hate sales talk. Sorry about that.

Now… for the FREE stuff… See… Aren’t you glad you read this far??

Also, as usual, I’ll make the offer to meet anyone reading this outside the class if we can make the timing work.

If you are interested, please let me know.

Thank you.

- mike vizdos
www.michaelvizdos.com
www.implementingscrum.com

Interested in becoming a Certified Scrum Master?
Come to my next workshop!

This is a hard story to tell.

You may want to grab some Kleenex.

OK.

It is not that bad.

But you may want to read this through a few times and pass it on to people in your organization.

There are some great lessons learned (for me anyway).

Names and places have been changed to protect the innocent.

But.

It is a story that must be told.

Since.

Well.

It involves me.

As the ScrumMaster.

And.

I wound up becoming a “Dead” ScrumMaster today.

How did that happen?

About three weeks ago I got called into meet with the CIO of a large private company somewhere on this planet (actually it was through someone who knew him and I and trusted us both).

The company is professing itself as “Doing Agile” and has a few small projects started up.

The CIO had a particular project in mind [for me] and we spent about a half an hour having a conversation about what he wanted me to do, and discussing some of the implications (including implosion of the project).

Basically at the end of the conversation my direction was set — in the next day and a half… figure out fast how to make the biggest impact.

Boy.

I guess I did. In retrospect.

You see, the project they were getting ready to kick off as “Agile” was still not an officially funded project.

Read that last sentence loud and clearly — they had no approved budget. This was all supposedly under the radar.

So, as with a lot of organizations, people spent months and many many many hours creating the “perfect” power point presentation for their senior leadership team to review. This was prior to me coming in.

It was not good enough yet, and the team had two weeks to clean up the presentation.

I boldly asked for a team that could produce some working software during those two weeks, while the parallel effort of the funding presentation went on.

We started gaining the needed resources (wow.. did I say resources [yes… PEOPLE and the other stuff to DO a project??!!) and ideas.

We were going to take their highest priority customer and run a [one] real transaction set through a real working architecture (not on power point).

It was approved by a VP on Friday afternoon, just before a holiday weekend. I went home excited.

I arrived back on Tuesday morning and the team starting getting wind of this, and we got together in the afternoon to talk about what would happen in the next 8 business days.

Lots of blank stares and smiles, but people started getting excited.

It was something the team could focus on.

Technical people working on technical stuff — not power point presentations.

We reviewed the basics of Scrum and that during the next two weeks we would get a course — by doing the work — on what it looks like to actually do it.

Once we delivered, we would have a Retrospective and see what we could improve once the project was funded and actually “officially” started.

We talked a little about User Stories — this is a Use Case shop — and we wound up writing very basic user stories that were tasked out. No owners, no estimates. This is “normal” [real world] from what I see on the first cut in situations [and timing] like this.

Should I have put a stop to the project (or un-project) then? I made a call not to do that.

We went home.

The next morning we had a temporary conference room and we had an effective stand-up meeting.

Kept it at 15 minutes.

People were off and doing real work.

It was cool to see. I stood back.

We had an impediment with getting some dev machines that was taken care of by the team and outside stakeholders in an incredibly quick manner. Kudos for getting that first impediment out of the way!

The parallel process of getting the project funded (via the power point presentation) was happening outside of the room.

We started talking about the “Cone of Uncertainty.”

I left town that evening and the team worked for two days focusing on the tasks and items on the wall.

All highly visible to the people walking into the room (or by it).

The team got moved around a bit each day, but we had our eye on one room for the “final week” of this part of the project (or is that pre-proect?).

Not all the team members were there all the time. Hmmm…

Stand-ups stayed focused and on track. No more three hour status meetings to schedule status meetings with the entire team.

People (including me) were calling in if they could not be physically located in the team room.

I arrived the next Monday morning to the new location for the team. It was “ours” for the week. The five business days remaining on this part of the project.

New building. But we could have all the players collocated in one room or on the phone. Things were humming along.

Impediments came up and were handled by the team. Awesome. We even got a temporary AC unit put in the room to cool us off — 12 people in a small room with lots of computers… you know how that can get.

The parallel process of getting the project funded was happening outside of the room. Still. Small concern, which, in retrospect, I should have dealt with better.

During the few days I was there that week, I did what I told the CIO and others I would be doing — a lot of observation on team interaction.

I did not want to jump in and be the answer man for coding [nor did I really feel like me getting into the code would help anyone — including the people that really needed to be in it (which was awesome to see how people recognized this and stood up and took ownership without being directed!)].

I did a little nudging along the way to fill out the task cards with owners and estimates (so we could start having what looked like a Burn Down to see what that represents); however, I mainly stayed out of the way and let the technical team dive in and watch them do what many thought to be impossible.

The goal now was to deliver working software, not a methodology (a tough balance in this situation).

Get to “Done.”

Before leaving, the Project Manager and I came up with a plan for the following week.

Assuming the project was funded, the Project Manager would start assembling the team and getting them lined up to start the “real work” the next week (people had to be lined up to work on this project).

I would not be on site this week, and meeting notices started coming into my inbox as expected and according to our plan.

Then, Thursday night I get a call telling me the client probably does not want me back. It came to fruition today.

Partly because I “sat in the corner” watching.

Partly because people heard me say things that did not tow the party line (and I did not do the Schwaber, “You Suck and that makes me Sad“).

Partly because I did not code.

Partly because I was not engaged with that team doing the request for outside funding.

I am sure there are a lot of reasons.

Go back and notice a key role missing. One that was unfortunately a key to this part of the success — or lack thereof — of this part of the project.

I did not do a good job of managing and communicating expectations with all of the stakeholders — known and unknown.

Funny thing happened though.

I hear the team delivered working software.

And.

I had a lot of great conversations with the people on the team and saw negative energy transform into a powerful focus of delivering working code in a very short period of time.

Is it perfect?

No.

Is it something they can show to outside stakeholders that has true business value for them today?

I think so.

So in part I have failed that team, and I am sorry. I am doing the failure bow now — hoping they understand.

And.

I have learned [again] that any ScrumMaster can be taken out and shot at any time.

Hopefully this is a lesson learned that does not happen to you.

It has happened to me before.

And.

Will again.

I do this at a lot of places around the world, and I know I cannot please everyone all the time.

Is it any wonder that most teams fail using Scrum?

Yet.

I try.

As do others.

Yet.

I will not blow smoke or be a “yes man” (or woman, as in the last panel of this cartoon).

And.

I am OK with that.

In some places people call this career suicide — so YOU be careful.

Read this lesson.

Read this real world situation.

And.

Talk about it with other another ScrumMaster or two or three in your organization.

Talk about it with your stakeholders.

Talk about it with your Scrum Team.

Talk about it with your Product Owner.

Talk.

Have the conversations.

BEFORE things implode on you.

Because remember.

A Dead ScrumMaster is a useless ScrumMaster.

I am going to go eat some humble pie and hope that someone learns something from this posting.

I apologize if it was a long one this week.

Lots for me to learn.

Still.

I may post more on this during the week.

And if you want to hire me (smile)….

Gotta run….Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.

You can also enter The Forum to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!

Hi,

Just wanted to let you know that the comic strip and blog entry this week is going to hit a nerve.

It did.

With me.

Be prepared for a reality check.

Sometimes life just throws them at you.

Thank you,

- Mike Vizdos

Contact Information

www.implementingscrum.com
www.michaelvizdos.com
AOL IM: MikeV Work
Skype: mvizdos

=========

For a complete list of my upcoming workshops and public appearances please visit www.michaelvizdos.com/enroll.

Need a Mentor? Take a look at www.michaelvizdos.com/telephone and please let me know your feedback and thoughts.

==========

Interested in becoming a Certified Scrum Master?
Come to my next workshop!

I am writing this blog entry from the beautiful city of Portland, Oregon. Nice place and I am having a great time teaching a CSM Class here earlier today and tomorrow.

Wednesday early early in the morning, I am “off” to Santa Clara for SD West. It is an awesome conference and one that I look forward to attending and speaking at each year.

Now, as most of you may know, I am a total introvert.

Or. This may come as a total surprise to you.

This makes it challenging for me to get up in front of people to speak (imagine that… and I am a Certified Scrum Trainer who does this regularly).

Does this mean it is impossible?

Nope.

I do it.

Why?

Because I really do love what I do for a living, and I hope it shows (from writings here and the public speaking that I do around the world).

Another “insider” tip — most of the times the speakers do not get paid or reimbursed in cash or expenses to speak at the conferences. Big names and Key Notes — probably different.

But folks like me, well, guess where this expense comes from?

My own pocket. Not some corporate expense report either.

Really.

And.

This is OK with me. I truly love what I do and am willing to spend my own money to talk about it.

Yeah, there are “perks” like a shirt and a pass to other speakers and working with an awesome professional conference staff… and what can really beat that (smile)?!?!?

I try to set an example for other introverts around the world to see that anything is possible if you are willing to try.

And learn.

And get over the feeling of wanting to barf in your shoes or die than rather talk to people.

So.

Today’s posting is about the topic of making the most of any “Conference” event.

You know, where there are a lot of similar people congregating in some city trying to learn some new things and and and….

Yes, even if you are an introvert, these things can be fun and actually help you in the future.

Here are my Seven Conference Survival Tips for Geeks

1) Network. Network. Network.

This means bringing along a good supply of current business cards to hand out to everyone you meet (people make fun of me for handing out cards… if that is the worst I can be known for, well….).

Keep an eye open for a “Networking Section” at conferences. This is where you may actually have to talk face-to-face with others.

Suck it up and do it. You may be amazed.

It is a small world.

Work on making contacts — there are people from all over the world here and it is amazing the contacts I have made over the years. Bring a current copy of your resume or be able to email it to someone if they ask — you never know who you may bump into (for me, I can just say “google me” and well, I am out there now…. something that did not happen overnight.

2) Attend Workshops.

And go to some of the night sessions or BoF’s (”Birds of a Feather” - usually an informal gathering with key people in the industry to chat about a specific topic — some like Star Trek (how much more geek can you get LOL?)) and keynote speakers you can grab a beer with. Or buy one for .

Figure out what courses / workshops / trainings / keynotes you want to see.

Conferences can be overwhelming. Listen to feedback from other attendees.

Be flexible and go with the flow when needed.

Maybe… and this may be a big leap for you… attend some workshop or talk on some technology or methodology or bla bla bla that you have never heard about.

Open your mind.

Make some connections to things out there in other parts of the world that may actually have something to do with what you are doing today.

Or…. something you may want to do tomorrow.

3) Spread out.

If you have multiple people from your organization attending - spread out and cover multiple sessions during the same time; when you return to reality (work) following this conference, the stuff you learn can be great input for brown bag lunches.

Or talk about via IM or blogging or even back to talking to yourself (smile).

A lot of what you hear may get you fired up and excited about making swift changes within your organization. Please remember do not make any career ending moves when your return to reality the following week.

4) Leave feedback.

Always.

Most conferences take the feedback of its customers (you and I) very seriously.

If some speaker is awesome — let them know about it.

If someone is absolutely terrible — let them know about it (and why).

Conferences are continually evolving and get better every year with feedback from you and me.

Even as introverts we have a say. Let it be heard! It only takes a few minutes…. and REALLY makes a difference.

5) Have fun.

Yeah, sometimes you are stuck hanging with fellow geeks.

So meet people and start talking to them. It is amazing to see that other people may have the same “problems” as you do in your development shop today — creative solutions flow freely here.

And if you are into male Dolly Parton Cover Bands… well…. I can tell you a story from a few years ago.

Expect the unexpected.

Really.

6) Learn.

Stretch yourself. There are plenty of topics here that you may not know about — now is the time to learn something about those topics.

7) Network. Network. Network.

Oh, I said that.

Hmmmm….. That is the most critical thing in my opinion (smile).

Here is a “final ask” before signing off tonight — if you are attending the SD West Conference — or any other one where I am attending or speaking around the world — PLEASE contact me to see if we can meet face-to-face.

And I promise as long as you are not some hot six foot four supermodel with some name I cannot pronounce, I will not barf on my shoes (I may barf on your hot shoes — shoot…. YOU are the six foot four supermodel).

Kidding.

Really.

Would love to meet fellow introverts.

Or.

Learn from friendly extroverts!
Got any other ideas? Share and leave copious comments. Consider it practice for real-world-networking!

Gotta run….Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.

You can also enter The Forum to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!

Hi all,

OK. So I am not as geeky as I used to be. Especially to some of you reading this blog. But. Um. Errrr…. Uh…. I still code for fun, does that count? And. I work with teams and actually can code when I need to do that?!?!?!?

This coming week will be a three-city-tour for me.

On Monday and Tuesday I am teaching a CSM Workshop in Portland, Oregon. I have a seat or two left if you are interested — see www.michaelvizdos.com/enroll to sign up if you are local or want to hop on a plane there . Or drop me an email and I can offer you a discount for responding to this notice. Discounts are always good. I hope.

On Monday evening I will be meeting with a small group of APLN and other agile people at about 7:30PM local time…. good time for networking and drinking beer or whatever and talking about Scrum or not. If you’d like to attend the “meeting” please contact me off this list.

Wednesday and Thursday I will speaking at a conference (www.sdexpo.com). I’ll send more info later this week about my topic (funs stuff) and if you are interested in meeting please contact me off this list.

I hope you all have a great remainder of the weekend, or — if you are reading this on Monday morning — well…. welcome to Monday! Tony and I have a great comic strip coming to you — as usual — on Monday evening (where ever I am in the world!).

Thank you.

- mike vizdos
www.michaelvizdos.com
www.implementingscrum.com