Hi.
Sorry I went “dark” here for a week. Eeek… I am in India through the end of this month (and yeah.. I’ll blog about the experience so far WOW!).
Just wanted to let you know I am getting great comments about the latest Scrum Challenge #2 regarding “An Awesome Product Owner on a Scrum Team will…”
So.
Today.
Go and talk to your Product Owner or Scrum Team Members about this.
Start some conversations!
Please use twitter to complete this statement or contact me or comment here (or on the original blog entry). [heh... no excuse for you NOT to answer!]
Thank you!
- mike vizdos
Hi.
Wow, the responses last week from my first “Random Thought Scrum Challenge” were awesome.
Thank you for all who participated. Let’s try another one for the week.
Same rules: You’ll have just about 24 hours to respond, so please post this on twitter and anywhere else (your own blog?) where you think interest may be around this one.
I’ll then post a synopsis of the results like I did for the first Scrum Challenge — Scrum Is…
So… this weeks Random Thought Scrum Challenge #2 is:
“An awesome Product Owner on a Scrum Team will…”
OK… finish that statement via Twitter (@mvizdos) or below in the comments.
Thank you!
- mike vizdos
www.michaelvizdos.com
www.implementingscrum.com
Hi all,
Today is our first try at a new format (in addition to the cartoons) at www.implementingscrum.com.
It is called, “ImplementingScrum – UnScripted” and will feature audio and/or video in different formats along the way. By the time this goes out, it should be out on youtube and here is a link to the “.mov” format (uses quicktime and is just under 17MB — for some reason this is MUCH clearer — any recommendations???).
Using FeedBurner, it should also find it’s way out to iTunes as a podcast… let’s see together how it all works and continue to inspect and adapt.
Fair? (smile)
This first version of this is with a guy “Down Under” who had some spectacular patience with me this morning (in addition to the fifteen hour time difference!).
His name is James Brett and he maintains a site at www.scrummaster.com.au and recently (with a LOT of help with the people there!) published a survey, where you can see the results at www.scrummaster.com.au/Article.mvc/Detail/43 or download the PDF file from www.scrummaster.com.au/Content/download/ScrumSurveyResultsJan09.pdf.
The video of this is about eight minutes long and goes into the survey a bit and introduces the topic. It is not meant to be exhaustive — right now it is a test of the technology convergence(s) and as usual we want to keep these things short and to the point.
A few other references made in the video included a retrospective formats article and retrospective why.
You can also check out a few cartoons about retropectives on this site (there is a three part series here:
www.implementingscrum.com/2007/09/04/scary-team-retrospectives-part-one/
www.implementingscrum.com/2007/09/10/retrospectives-not-just-reading-a-book-part-two/
www.implementingscrum.com/2007/09/17/walk-into-the-light-retrospectives-part-3-of-3/
As usual, any errors anywhere on the video or my site — I accept that responsibility.
Take a look at the video and the links above for the survey and other stuff and PLEASE comment about it below.
Inspect and Adapt.
Let’s see where we go.
As usual!
Thank you.
www.implementingscrum.com
www.michaelvizdos.com
Welcome back to a new week and first cartoon of 2009 at www.implementingscrum.com.
Thank you for continuing to follow and spread the word about this blog and our cartoons.
Get ready for a blast this coming year.
The last cartoon of 2008 covered the topic of how to handle questions from outside stakeholders during a Scrum (or iteration).
Remember that even familiar chickens can be dangerous to derailing an iteration.
Eek.
Does that sound too dogmatic?
Hmmm.
Let’s think.
Who calls an iteration “Done?”
That would be the Product Owner (look back at this old comic strip from the early days for a refresher on that).
And, the “old way” of doing this — in a waterfall environment — was to bow to the pressure. That leads to very funny cult-movies; however, in reality it sucks for everyone involved.
Especially if you bow to it while using Scrum.
So.
If you are a Team Member on a Scrum team and you get asked to do something that is outside the Sprint Backlog, you’ve GOTTA turn it over to the Product Owner to deal with.
So, this comic strip shows that.
Our intrepid character Pig did the right thing.
And.
What is the Product Owner now supposed to do with this information?
This is not a blame game.
But.
Someone needs to be responsible for the decisions.
How does this sit with you?
And where does the ScrumMaster play in this situation?
Comments, as usual, are requested and will help guide where we take this in the future (smile).
Thank you,
- mike vizdos
www.michaelvizdos.com
www.implementingscrum.com
Welcome back to a new week and new cartoon at www.implementingscrum.com.
For new subscriber via email, facebook, and twitter — Welcome and thanks for the interest in the site.
Please feel free to pass this site on to your friends and talk about it on twitter and other social networking sites.
The problem depicted in this cartoon is something I see a LOT when working with teams around the world.
Even when Scrum is being implemented on teams within an organization.
Hmmm.
So what do we do about this situation?
When asked for a status from a Chicken within a Sprint, Scrum talks about the team members not saying, “No” and punting it to the Product Owner.
The same goes for a new feature request.
In the past… before Scrum… this type of request was a major cause of never getting to “Done.”
This is the main reason to have a strong demarcation point between the Product Backlog and the Sprint Backlog. The main reason is to help shield the team from the outside “Noise”.
Care to share some real life stories about this via comments below?
How do you do this without committing career suicide?
Who really is responsible for telling outside Chickens to speak with the Product Owner?
What does the Product Owner need to do with this next?
Is this really an important concept or what do you think about it?
Please share with us…
Thank you,
- mike vizdos
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