Welcome back to yet another week at www.implementingscrum.com.
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:
====================
Like Mike, I am 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 will 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 have got them all, come on back.
Ready?
Okay, how did you do?
I am 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 Scrum Community to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!
March 25, 2008
This is the conclusion of a three part series for the week. It has been interesting for me to write and people have written me some great emails about their thoughts on this.
Thank you.
Two nights ago I posted the first of three comic strips by a guest artist (my son Dominic). You can view that here if you have not already seen it. Part two is here. Please remember that our awesome guest artist is turning eight very soon — and drawing is one of his passions.
So take a look back at the first two panels of the series for the week. I’ll wait.
The first is where the Chicken asks the age old question.
The second, well, the Chicken get attacked by what I will call “reality.”
And.
Reality happens all the time in each of our lives.
Really.
I guess that is why they call it reality.
This final panel shows that Pig (team member) has the back of the Chicken.
What does this mean?
Think about it.
Without the Chickens — or possibly outside stakeholders in your world — the project would probably never have been funded.
Or.
Continued to be funded.
Remember, in an agile world funding really should depend on a team delivering potentially shippable software each iteration.
This is tough to do.
And.
Chickens can help the Pigs remove the impediments.
So.
Why should Chickens and Pigs work together?
Hmmmm.
This panel of the cartoon shows that while the Chicken is being attacked by their monsters (outside the project room where the Pigs are working on the Sprint Backlog), the Pigs (team members) see that sometimes they need to step-up and actually help the Pigs “fight” the monsters.
Even if sometimes the Pigs are left for dead.
Huh?
Think about how this can be applied to what is happening on your team today.
It really and truly is a symbiotic relationship.
That must be fostered.
Who’s responsibility is this?
Think about that and talk to your team about it.
And remember both need the other to survive.
Hope this helps!
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!
February 27,2008
This week is a bit different than the usual…. whatever that may be (smile).
Last night I posted the first of three comic strips by a guest artist (my son Dominic). You can view that here if you have not already seen it. Please remember that our awesome guest artist is turning eight very soon — and drawing is one of his passions.
So.
In the first part of this series, the Chicken looked into the mirror and saw a monster.
Something that the Chicken may or may not have wanted to face.
But.
The question was asked. You know… “Mirror, Mirror, on the wall….”
And.
The mirror answered.
In this part of the cartoon (number 2 of 3), you will notice that the monster is out and attacking the Chicken with full force.
Huh?
What does this mean in the real world?
One interpretation may be that the monsters — let’s possibly call them stakeholders — sometimes are not on the same page as the other Chickens in expectations. And, when it is time to do a Sprint Review, the Chickens may have to face some very difficult questions.
Like, “Who is your Product Owner?”
Like, “What the heck do you think you are doing?”
Like, “Wow. This is the most awesome thing I have ever seen in my entire career since I coded in COBOL in 1963 [expecting emails LOL].”
That last one would be a good monster for those that are paying any attention.
This happens in reality.
At some point, Chickens (and the other roles including ScrumMaster and Product Owner) will have to face down some big monsters.
Possibly, this is because the team has asked them to clear some impediments.
And some impediments are really stinky.
And.
Finally.
Maybe.
Just Maybe.
Someone else on the the team can stand up and help defeat a bad monster for the team. Together.
As a team.
We will cover that topic tomorrow night.
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!
February 26,2008
Tony had the weekend off (his wife / Product Owner took off with some friends) and my son Dominic was very psyched about doing a drawing this week for all of you.
As usual, I gave him a topic and this is his rendition. This comic strip will be given to you over the next three days, in black and white, with no text.
Why?
A few reasons… first…. Dominic was horribly sick this weekend and his daddy (me) is on the road a bit right now. He did an awesome drawing of the series on paper and I was able to bring it with me on the trip for the week. Using the iPhone camera, I took separate pictures of each of the three parts of this comic strip.
Is it perfect? Well… the drawings are. Dominic rocks. The pictures quality (or lower than I expected) is from me; I accept responsibility for that part. They are not optimized for speed of loading, so I also apologize for any “slower” than normal load times.
Is it good enough?
I think so. And that is the reason I wanted to actually use what Dominic and I produced for the week.
I think and hope you will get the message over the next three postings.
Remember. Agile and Scrum concentrates on delivering potentially shippable software.
It is something you and your team can build on.
And.
You should have a place where you and the team can look back (maybe during a retrospective [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3]) in a safe environment.
And.
Not do the same mistakes again.
In this first segment, think back to when you were a kid. Yes, I know for some of us this may have been a loooong time ago. But think — and also start thinking of why I am trying to bring a child’s perspective into this series every once in a while.
The Chicken is looking into the mirror — the magic mirror — and asks that question which always gets asked in the story books.
Paraphrasing, it goes something like this: “Mirror Mirror on the wall…. Who is the fairest of them all?”
And.
Honestly.
The majority of times a Chicken never wants to hear the truth.
The “monsters” that get in the way are usually huge.
Really huge.
And ugly.
And, the Pigs and everyone else on the team knows that this is true.
Wow.
So part of the whole thing with Scrum is to talk about Transparency.
The Chicken tonight at the end of the first panel looks into the mirror.
And.
The Chicken does not like what it see’s in the mirror.
Do you?
Really?
More on this tomorrow.
Hang in there with me… and you may be shocked what we each learn.
Trust me.
I have looked long and hard into some of these mirrors.
Recently, in fact.
Sometimes it is easy to get lost in those mirrors. A fun and scary place to be all at once.
And sometimes.
You need to get out.
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!
February 25, 2008
Hi everyone,
I received some feedback today that the second picture that Mark included in his posting yesterday was not showing up in some browsers.
Guess I was a little distracted last night, as the pilot was landing my plane over the Potomac River last night had to take a sharp bank to the right and I watched as the wing (which I was sitting over) actually graze the water and make waves. Yikes. Guess it is better to make waves then crash and burn into another airplane on the runway. Hmmm… Almost as profound as the posting from Mark last night (smile).
Aneeeeway… I updated his original posting this evening with a JPG version of the file; please let me know if that has fixed the problem for you.
For me, I am in a place that is freezing and am seeing that there will be some really cold white stuff headed here this weekend. At least (I hope) I am on the first flight out on Thursday morning (and back here Sunday night) so I will hopefully miss the mess.
Thanks for continuing to read and respond to these blog entries. I hope you are receiving some real value from what you read here.
- mike vizdos
www.michaelvizdos.com
www.implementingscrum.com
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