Good day.
This is another version of the “UnScripted” blog entry on the site implementingscrum.com.
Today I’d actually like to post a question from one of my readers that I’d like to get feedback from you — the community — via answers in the comments of this blog. I’ll plan on doing a follow-up to this but as usual, I want to show the community we can all learn from each other…
I have an opinion. Of course!
—————————–
Hello Mike,
I took your class last year and I am a CSM now. I have not had the chance to be Scrum Master on a project yet, but it is in the near future.
Currently I am on a project that has 2 week sprints and on a team of 8.
The question came up yesterday during our Retrospective that during out last sprint there were a lot of chickens on the scrum calls.
How do we handle this?
I know that if you don’t have any tasks to complete or you have completed your tasks you should be reporting yourself as “chicken”, but with stakeholders on the call everyday hearing 2 people report tasks and the rest of the team reporting “chicken” every day for almost 2 weeks…doesn’t that appear to the stakeholders that only 2 people are working?
IS there another way to still follow the Pig/Chicken rule without appearing to the stakeholders that there are a lot of people not working?
Please advise.
This was a discussion that was placed on the action item list due to too many conflicts between team members.
Have you seen this before?
How was it handled in other teams/projects?
Comments Please!
- mike vizdos
www.implementingscrum.com
www.michaelvizdos.com
Tomorrow night.
This may be my most favorit cartoon yet.
Hang on.
And get ready to turn up the volume!
- mike vizdos
This week Tony and I are finally reintroducing the weekly cartoon blogs after a bit of a hiatus. Sorry for the long wait; however, you should start seeing these on a weekly basis once again! I am going to try to take a different tact going forward — let’s see how it goes. I am going to present YOU with a scenario. And I want YOU to add comments as to how you would handle the scenario using Scrum. I will add comments to your comments to get a conversation going. Make sense?
If you have any ideas please contact me and we can talk about exploring them via a comic strip or even you writing a guest blog entry!
Here is the scenario:
You are running a Scrum Team in an organization that contains a large contingent of Waterfall Projects and surviving somehow in a command-and-control environment.
Maybe you even have multiple teams running at this point.
You are following the “Combo Approach” of rolling this out, and you have support of the team and a person at the highest level within the organization, so that when impediments are hit they can be cleared if you ask.
All of the sudden, there is a reorganization.
The Chickens have moved around.
Your Scrum Team inherits some very new Chickens with little experience using Scrum and are pretty tight when it comes to command-and-control management styles.
One of the new Chickens walks into the Scrum Team room and asks for status reports to start up again. In writing using the template this Chicken has always used to get control of projects.
Starting today.
You look at this Chicken in amazement.
You ask, “Why?”
This project seems to be out of control in the view of this Chicken.
“We also need to start having daily one hour status meetings from everyone in this group… Fifteen minutes is not enough. I (The Chicken) will run the meeting and set the agenda. It may have to be two times a day.”
The Chicken wants a “all hands” meeting at the end of the day today for a few hours.
The Chicken is thinking about instituting mandatory sixty hour work weeks.
The words “Microsoft Project” are thrown around.
The Chicken also wants to put the teams back into offices because their stature in the company is high — the team members have all been with the company for a long time and want their own offices back (according to the Chicken).
The Chicken wants to have an all day post moderm to determine the root cause of the problems with this team because the boss of the Chicken wants the Chicken to be in charge.
So,
What do YOU do?
- As a Team Member?
- As a ScrumMaster?
- As a Product Owner?
- As “The Chicken”?
Comment on your responses.
Let’s get the conversation going!
Welcome back to yet another week at www.implementingscrum.com.Or, for some people this weekend, welcome for the first time. Thank you Liz, you rock.I figured I’d spend tonight reminding myself where I have been since starting this blog, and where it will be going in the future.
Hopefully this will be of use for both new and regular readers.First, the story of the Chicken and Pig. Read more here. And here if you speak more than just English.
Even if you are not a techie, some of these stories and cartoons at the blog may help tell good stories.
One of the most popular on the site is here. I do not know why, but can imagine some. Whatever 
.
If you just like looking at cartoons, check out here. There is a thumbnail of all cartoons every created on this site. Just click and enjoy.
Rinse and repeat.
So that gives a good tour of what the site is today.
I’d recommend coming back in the next few weeks. Subscribe now.
Because things are about to change.
There will be a new look and feel to the site.
The site is moving to a dedicated server — faster cartoon loading for you.
You will get more for your money.
OK. Well. The site is still free.
And no advertisements (hopefully that will continue!).
Even if you are not a geek — tell your friends. Or just have fun reading about geeks (that would be me and people I work with).
And strange things that happen in our world.
And.
I promise Tony will be back to work on new comic strips soon. Really. I promise.
Like when my parents come to visit — I know they really just come to see my kids. Just like the cartoons are the lifeblood of this site. I appreciate knowing that and providing those and my blog entries as a bonus (smie).
Have a great weekend (or welcome to Monday) and happy surfing!
If you or your friends [or enemies] have not signed up for FREE updates to this blog, please Subscribe to Implementing Scrum via Email!
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!
July 25, 2008
Welcome back to yet another week at www.implementingscrum.com.
OK.
So what was I talking about a few nights ago with the cartoon posting above?
It really truly is not politically correct.
In no sense of any being.
But.
It is HIlarious to me.
Because it can help me make a point.
Actually tonight, eight points.
Eight Points.
Just for you.
How is that for a Thursday night or Friday morning?
Hmm.
Think about it this way.
You are arriving on “Fantasy Island” if you think…
1) You can stock the Product Backlog without a Product Owner present during Planning Poker
2) The definition of “Done” is not important to anyone
3) BurnDown Charts are useless, actually more useless of tracking tasks
4) The CSM Workshop is a waste of your time
5) You can pronounce the last name for
Ricardo
(c’mon Fantasy Island Buffs (or OK… is there even a “buff” reading this?))
6) Documentation is not needed on any agile projects
You can get a date with the “Hot” ScrumMaster replacement (smile) or Jessica Alba or with some hot babe with her Bottom Up.
9) This cartoon is about SCUBA Diving [strangely enough this is one of the most downloaded cartoon on this site)
…. OK.
Enough for now.
Man.
I can go on for a while.
But I think you get the picture.
What have I missed?
Now….
Do you see where you can spend a lot of time on Fantasy Island?
Do you want to leave it?
Really?
Why?
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!
May 29, 2008
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