I sincerely apologize for not posting a lot of new information each week (like I used to do — with new comic strips and very useful write-ups).

Here are the top five impediments for me, and as I break through them the consistency of this site will pick up once again…..

1) Family.  My father passed away in April.  While I know it has been a long time, it is still an issue with me and I am working through it.  I’ve also got some other pressing family matters that are being taken care of as I write this.  You’ll learn more about that stuff in some upcoming posts.

2) FaceBook.  I have found that using facebook is a very powerful medium to “meet” old and new friends for connections.  I can be found there at http://www.facebook.com/ImplementingScrum.

3) Twitter.  Wow.  Talk about instant feedback.  This is the place I can get it — and share with others immediately.  If you are not connected to me there please take the time and do it here: http://twitter.com/mvizdos.

4) I have been traveling the world and one of the new things I am working on is another book.  I should be under contract soon, so that takes some priorities away from available time for me.

5) Clients.  And I want to say a sincere THANK YOU SO MUCH for connecting with me as either a potential client, current client, or new client.  And.  Thank you for paying me.  I have seen such tremendous change in the world (and I have been around the world a LOT lately!) and really do see that — when applied correctly — Scrum can truly transform the way we work.

So.

That’s my list and I am sticking to it.  As I slowly remove barriers in order to get out new comics — or use some of the almost 100 on the site with new write-ups and lessons learned — they will start coming again.

Thank you for being either an email subscriber or RSS reader.

Keep the comments coming.

Remember.

This site is for you — the Scrum Community!

Thank you.

- mike vizdos

www.michaelvizdos.com
www.implementingscrum.com

First, let me apologize for not getting the latest comic strip to you.

As I write this, I am reflecting on the past week (plus) where I traveled to London, did a free talk as soon as I landed, facilitated my first [awesome] CSM class in London, hopped back on a plane to the USA, spent the morning with my youngest kid, drove three hours south to Raleigh, NC, and have spent the past two days teaching one of the most advanced public class I have done in a while — and thank all the participants here for helping me up my own game.

And now.

I am cooked.

I am actually holding back driving to Richmond tonight so I do not wind up on the side of the road.  Or rather, in a ditch somewhere.

So.

Cartoon.

Coming soon.

I’ll probably be “off the grid” for the next few days (see my facebook and twitter status – link to me via the sidebar on the right of the site) for blogging.

On Sunday I am headed to Boise, Idaho for an incredible group on Monday and Tuesday, then am heading over to Phoenix on Wednesday, where I teach Thursday and Friday.  (www.michaelvizdos.com/enroll). It sounds like user group meetings will happen in each place I am.

So.

I am trying to keep the “balance” on in life (whatever that is), and accept responsibility for not “being there” for all you, constant readers.

I hope there is a lesson in it for all of us .

Keep pluggin’ along where you are.

You are making a difference!

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

Last week I spent a lot of time on improving my own skills… so we’ll see how that plays out in the future!

I have been talking about connecting people looking for Scrum Jobs with REAL people who have Scrum Job Openings in their Organization.

Over the past few weeks I have been silently getting names of people who are looking for Scrum Jobs.  I expect now that anyone who visits www.implementingscrum.com/scrum-jobs and is looking for a job WILL go out and do this.  NOW.

Also… and here is the challenge… if you are in an organization who is looking for a person with Scrum Jobs skills, please go to www.implementingscrum.com/scrum-jobs and see if I can help you make a connection.

What is the fee for this?

FREE.  Zero.  Zilch.   Nada.

Why am I doing this?

Mainly good Karma.

Pass it on!  Twitter this link.  Retwitter it if you see it.  Put it up on FaceBook.  E-mail it to your friends.  Start to create some buzzzzzz for this.  Please.

So… can you help me meet the challenge of actually making the ultimate hook-up of at least one person looking for a Scrum Job with a person in an organization who needs a qualified person here.

Transparency.

Trust.

Walking what I teach…

Let’s see how it works!

Good luck.

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

[warning -- a little bit long -- over 802.13453223 words -- sorry]

This week has been instrumental in helping me get some great clarity of where I am taking the site in the future.  Some people I know missed my original posting earlier this week — so if you did not read them go back a few posting to see what has lead to this posting tonight!

I am headed out this weekend (a camping trip with my two boys) and will return on Monday afternoon.

And.

I have no travel plans for next week.

So here is the Product Backlog for the site (prioritized, not estimated yet) — we’ll see what makes it to the Sprint Backlog for next week.

1) Cartoons – Publish one translated (of the original chicken and pig) along with a new one (this is actually on Sprints!).  We have three more comic strips in the pipeline for release on the blog in the future.

2) Job Board – The infrastructure is setup.  Now we need about 3-5 people to help bring it to fruition.  I need to schedule a call or start an email thread with those who are interested in helping me on this project.  If you are, please contact me and you’ll hear from me early next week.

3) Training Material – The infrastructure is setup.  I need to publish the rollout plan for making this happen and start implementing it next week by people signing up for a new list.  The goal will be to get people enough information on an on-going basis that they can then take it back to their locations and deliver it with ease. Options will include FREE, a subscription to talk to the trainers who are developing this (and recorded web-casts), and of course on-site paid consultation with me and other trainers to help you jump-start the tailoring process and we will work with you hand-in-hand to develop and even co-teach the class with you.  The free information will be just as good as the other available options… I promise that!  I’ll need you to keep me honest on that!

4) Remember that “Scrum on a Page” that I asked for comments on a few months ago.  Wow.  I had so much information to synthesize that I am now ready to meet with Tony and have him do a “Implementing Scrum” overhaul on it to match the site.  This will become the cornerstone of the site and will be used in multiple ways.  I am super-excited about this!  And.  It will not be perfect; however, just like the theme of our site, we need to have something to start those tough conversations.  I think this will hit that mark!

5) Build a small affiliate program.  As many of you know, I travel a LOT around the world.  One of the ways this is possible is by making sure I can sell seats into the workshops (or create billable consulting hours).  If you are interested in becoming an affiliate for selling seats into my classes — or even consulting engagements — this is the time for you to contact me and let me know your interest.  The model rocks, and will be rolled out soon too.

6) I am in need of a developer to help me take an XML file and run it through some sort of converter so that I do not have to manually create the page www.michaelvizdos.com/enroll.  I have access to the XML file and I’d like the output to look similar to what is out there today.  This is something that just irks me because the data is available and without automation we have dual work to do (bad thing!).

7) I need to port the site www.michaelvizdos.com to a wordpress site.  The infrastructure is setup.  Just time is needed to actually do it.  Fun stuff.  But… I need to keep driving revenue from that site and keeping the implementingscrum.com site as free from advertisers as possible (I hope you enjoy that it REALLY does not have any advertising except for some things about me.

I need a few people who can commit to checking the forum a few days per week and making sure that spam does not get interjected.  I have been really bad at checking this on a regular basis and know the forum is an important place for REAL people using Scrum to exchange information.  Interested?  Please let me know.  I’d appreciate it.

So, this is the PRODUCT backlog of what I have going on just for the site.  This is in addition to all the traveling I am currently doing and plan on doing in the future.

Have a great weekend!

If you have any input on the priority of things listed above, please comment about it here and I will listen to all my stakeholders (you) [smile].

Thank you, again, for everything you do. 

- mike vizdos

Well, the pressure is on. With four major publishing houses on my BEhind about writing a book for them, I have got a few dozen ideas on format and content running around my head.

I do not want to publish just another Scrum book (zzzzzz).

Something useful.

That’s where you can come in. I hope.

Please provide comments or feedback here or send me an email.

It’s coming out of me.

Soon.

Format is TBD.

Gotta be easier to do than my first book (smile).

I am listening.

This one is for you, dear reader….

Thank you!

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

p.s. And remember… If you or your friends [or enemies] have not signed up for FREE updates to this blog, please Subscribe to Implementing Scrum via Email!

I hope things are going well with you today.

Thanks so much for the input from the blog entry yesterday.

So what does David Letterman and Tony Clark (our artist for the cartoons here at www.implementingscrum.com have in common?

Letterman takes a hiatus once in a while.

And.

At this week Tony is on hiatus too.

Maybe it is not the same timing as Mr. Letterman; however, same concept.

Except that Tony is probably working hard on his business.

So what does this have to do with Scrum?

Part of it is to remind you about full transparency.

And this transparency thing can be hard in your organization.

Take a look at an “old” cartoon about transparency and read the blog entry at www.implementingscrum.com/blog/2006/10/16/transparency-and-jessica-alba-a-scrum-connection/ and learn more about who Tony really digs (not me… well… OK… I dig Ms. Alba too (smile)).

No matter if your organization is two people (like our huge shop here at implementingscrum.com!) or 5000 people, with Scrum you need to turn on full transparency before you can see the full true value of Scrum.

Is what you are doing “good enough” today?

Think about it.

Really?

What happens if you turn “up” the transparency factor?

Today.

Try it?

Just like this little blog of mine… I want to make sure as we continue this journey learning about Scrum you know that the comic strips will continue soon.

Don’t worry… I’ve actually got some “inventory” in stock with translations that I should debut.

Maybe some of those will take center stage the rest of the week.

I guess we’ll all see tomorrow.

Until then….

Peace out.

Thank you!

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

p.s. And remember… If you or your friends [or enemies] have not signed up for FREE updates to this blog, please Subscribe to Implementing Scrum via Email!

[This is a message from the heart / full transparency "on" / and not specific to Scrum --- more of the "State of the Site at www.implementingscrum.com and, "Where do we take it in the future...."]

Last week I asked a specific question that I have received a ton of feedback as of today (thank you to everyone who responded).

For people who have been regular readers of this blog for a while, I hope you can tell that I am constantly “creating” this site using feedback from you — inspecting and adapting — eating my own dog food as it were. For new readers, please expect this trend to continue.

If you have not noticed… I have removed all google advertising from the site; per feedback from you I thought this would be best (even though it was a car payment [plus] a month in revenue!).

And, the site as it stands today (and in the future) the blog entries and comics will continue to be “free” (just your time, which I appreciate) in the future.

Please continue to tell your friends and teams around the universe about this site (thank you). If you have not done so already, now is a great time (smile).

As you may not realize, I own a company (Vizdos Enterprises, LLC) and work around the world helping clients Implement Scrum at all levels in hundreds — at this point probably over a thousand — of locations.

I am also a Certified Scrum Trainer (one of less than 50 in this great Universe) and spend a lot of time on the road doing the CSM Workshops (although it is not my main revenue stream).

I will be in more than 30 cities in the USA between now and the end of the year.

And I have some plans to head overseas too.

Lots of travel. And that is what is just currently booked.

I need to update both the Scrum Alliance site with these new dates, along with my public google calendar.

Be sure if you are in the USA I should be arriving to a city near you!

I DO have a family and one of my personal goals is to start to cut back on travel again.

My five and eight year old boys are growing up. And… for anyone who travels extensively… you know how this works. If you are interested in doing what I do, we can talk about the pros and cons anytime!

This is where I need you (sorry for the long intro… but this is like having a one way conversation!).

The results of the “voting” for more blog entries were positive. Both as they stand today and in more video/audio formats.

And, starting next week you will start to see different flavors of them being produced more often (maybe more than Dominc (my oldest son) and I doing youtube videos.

There will be other avenues and distribution channels over time.

Again… inspect and adapt.

The comic strips and blog entires about those comic strips will continue to be free.

This next part is not a sales pitch — it is to gain serious interest (although you may consider it a pitch).

I am starting a “Premium Content” area of the site.

Ah.

That means dinero/cash/euros/whatever out of your pocket (or your company or organization).

I am looking for a limited number of people who would be interested in becoming “Charter Members” of the Premium Content area of implementingscrum.com.

I will request each of the limited Charter Members pay a fee, and, in return this fee will continue to remain the same forever for you (if the price goes up, you will pay the same subscription amount as long as you are a member).

I am looking for an initial three month commitment from you (and me) to actually “test” some new features as they are developed.

So, in addition to becoming “Charter Members” you will help guide the content and delivery mechanisms for the future subscribers of the site — both “free” and “Premium”.

Are you interested in doing something like this with me?

The journey will be fun.

And — as a Charter Member — you will have a safe place as part of a new community to help yourself — and others — learn even more about Scrum and other Agile Practices.

I only want serious people who have a positive attitude and a true spirit of adventure.

Is that you?

If so, please let me know.

Who knows?

Heck, when I started this site I could not believe the impact that one person (actually two — Tony (the artist) and I) could have on an industry.

Change happens one person at a time.

And good Karma is always a good thing to possess, even if only for a millisecond of time in your life.

If you are interested, stop by www.implementingscrum.com/premium for a bit more information and sign-up to become a Charter Member for the Premium Content.

Risk free.

This is an incredibly limited opportunity and I will cut it off on or before June 30, 2008 for new Charter Members (if there is too great of a response, a waiting list will begin).

Part of this limitation is to take it in small steps and inspect and adapt along the way.

Thank you for reading all of this.

If you are not ready to sign-up as a Charter Member today, please pass this information on to others who may be interested.

I do sincerely appreciate it.

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

PS: And remember… If you or your friends [or enemies] have not signed up for FREE updates to this blog, please Subscribe to Implementing Scrum via Email!

Hi.

[This is a message from the heart / full transparency "on" / and not specific to Scrum --- more of the "State of the Site at www.implementingscrum.com and, "Where do we take it in the future...."]

Last week I asked a specific question that I have received a ton of feedback as of today (thank you to everyone who responded).

For people who have been regular readers of this blog for a while, I hope you can tell that I am constantly “creating” this site using feedback from you — inspecting and adapting — eating my own dog food as it were. For new readers, please expect this trend to continue.

If you have not noticed… I have removed all google advertising from the site; per feedback from you I thought this would be best (even though it was a car payment [plus] a month in revenue!).

And, the site as it stands today (and in the future) the blog entries and comics will continue to be “free” (just your time, which I appreciate) in the future.

Please continue to tell your friends and teams around the universe about this site (thank you). If you have not done so already, now is a great time (smile).

As you may not realize, I own a company (Vizdos Enterprises, LLC) and work around the world helping clients Implement Scrum at all levels in hundreds — at this point probably over a thousand — of locations.

I am also a Certified Scrum Trainer (one of less than 50 in this great Universe) and spend a lot of time on the road doing the CSM Workshops (although it is not my main revenue stream).

I will be in more than 30 cities in the USA between now and the end of the year.

And I have some plans to head overseas too.

Lots of travel. And that is what is just currently booked.

I need to update both the Scrum Alliance site with these new dates, along with my public google calendar.

Be sure if you are in the USA I should be arriving to a city near you!

I DO have a family and one of my personal goals is to start to cut back on travel again.

My five and eight year old boys are growing up. And… for anyone who travels extensively… you know how this works. If you are interested in doing what I do, we can talk about the pros and cons anytime!

This is where I need you (sorry for the long intro… but this is like having a one way conversation!).

The results of the “voting” for more blog entries were positive. Both as they stand today and in more video/audio formats.

And, starting next week you will start to see different flavors of them being produced more often (maybe more than Dominc (my oldest son) and I doing youtube videos.

There will be other avenues and distribution channels over time.

Again… inspect and adapt.

The comic strips and blog entires about those comic strips will continue to be free.

This next part is not a sales pitch — it is to gain serious interest (although you may consider it a pitch).

I am starting a “Premium Content” area of the site.

Ah.

That means dinero/cash/euros/whatever out of your pocket (or your company or organization).

I am looking for a limited number of people who would be interested in becoming “Charter Members” of the Premium Content area of implementingscrum.com.

I will request each of the limited Charter Members pay a fee, and, in return this fee will continue to remain the same forever for you (if the price goes up, you will pay the same subscription amount as long as you are a member).

I am looking for an initial three month commitment from you (and me) to actually “test” some new features as they are developed.

So, in addition to becoming “Charter Members” you will help guide the content and delivery mechanisms for the future subscribers of the site — both “free” and “Premium”.

Are you interested in doing something like this with me?

The journey will be fun.

And — as a Charter Member — you will have a safe place as part of a new community to help yourself — and others — learn even more about Scrum and other Agile Practices.

I only want serious people who have a positive attitude and a true spirit of adventure.

Is that you?

If so, please let me know.

Who knows?

Heck, when I started this site I could not believe the impact that one person (actually two — Tony (the artist) and I) could have on an industry.

Change happens one person at a time.

And good Karma is always a good thing to possess, even if only for a millisecond of time in your life.

If you are interested, stop by www.implementingscrum.com/premium for a bit more information and sign-up to become a Charter Member for the Premium Content.

Risk free.

This is an incredibly limited opportunity and I will cut it off on or before June 30, 2008 for new Charter Members (if there is too great of a response, a waiting list will begin).

Part of this limitation is to take it in small steps and inspect and adapt along the way.

Thank you for reading all of this.

If you are not ready to sign-up as a Charter Member today, please pass this information on to others who may be interested.

I do sincerely appreciate it.

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

PS: And remember… If you or your friends [or enemies] have not signed up for FREE updates to this blog, please Subscribe to Implementing Scrum via Email!

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

7) Scrum is a Silver Bullet

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!

Welcome back to yet another week at www.implementingscrum.com.

Wow. I saw something at a client site a few weeks ago that inspired the cartoon for this week.

This is real life.

As it is every week and every posting with me.

And.

Unexpected to say the least.

I’ll let you in on the actual pictures of the inspiration tomorrow… but for now let’s continue with the point for this week.

Sometimes it feels like you are working on the same thing day after day.

At least sometimes it feels that way to me. Maybe it is just me (smile).

Kinda like a treadmill. This is something that you walk on forever and actually get nowhere.

Are you there in your [work] life?

What about your Team?

And your Organization?

What can help you get out of this — or “off the treadmill?”

Umm.

I could sugar coat it with a bunch of inspirational bla bla, and sometimes I do that.

Tonight… zero sugar coating. It is not going to happen, as sometimes you need to hear this and actually take a hard knock of reality (like sometimes people on the team need to be “voted” off the island!).

Here goes.

The only way off the treadmill is for you to make a change.

Take responsibility.

Be accountable.

To who?

You.

The rest of the Team and Organization will follow.

Or will they?

Does it really matter to you?

Worry about you first.

Really.

The rest will follow.

Or not.

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!

The topic this week is about keeping things simple.

And picking one thing at a time and doing it well.

Very well.

Tonight I am writing a little bit about it.

Let’s see if I can actually get the comic strip up tomorrow (when I make my drive over to Portland, Maine).

You’ll see.

Hmmm…

As complicated as this week seems to me and you.

There is always a simple solution.

Really.

- mike vizdos

Been a long day for me. The comic strip is ready.

Sometimes this seems like the simple thing.

Maybe that makes sense .

I’ll post it tomorrow.

- mike

Welcome back to yet another week at www.implementingscrum.com.

So.

A few weeks ago had someone in a class explain this. He was trained as an Antropologist — not a software developer.

Interesting dude. Really.

Let’s say your current organizational system is like a river flowing down stream.

How rough varies.

Introduce change.

Any change.

Just one.

Scrum for example (funny how that gets worked into this conversation, eh?).

Pretend that change is a boat (or canoe, as drawn!).

Insert a Chicken and Pig for some humor (smile).

Following along with me?

Now.

Paddle.

What happens when you stop paddling?

The river flushes you back down stream.

That’s the gist.

Easy brilliance.

Does this apply in your current situation?

If you are about to just embark on this journey, remember to always keep paddling!

Stop paddling and you have made a choice to give it up — and make room for something else to take its place.

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!

Welcome back to yet another week at www.implementingscrum.com.

Remember about a month ago our ScrumMaster got “whacked” and disappeared for a while. Last week he reappeared in the hospital.

Today, he is back at work.

And.

He did not die.

Assuming positive intent, he really wanted to just help the guy in the SUV with directions.

He never got there, as we can see. And is seems like the guy in the SUV made a run for it, not liking what he saw on the ground (what would you do if you saw a fashion forward guy wearing a blue thingee on the ground; wait…. hold that thought…. we also use talking pigs and chickens in this cartoon… never mind).

So what does this have to do with Scrum?

As a consultant, I am constantly working with both prospects (those who have not engaged me for any services yet) and current / past clients. I have a strong relationship with people in the industry, and consider myself a person who is not afraid to speak up and give the honest truth.

Not a lot of people like doing that.

Sometimes, as we saw, clients do not like to hear the truth. They want to keep doing waterfall, and make the conscious decision that in the end they will succumb to what is known as the, “Iterative and Incremental Death March.”

They will then go find someone who will say, “Yes” to anything they ask of them.

And this occurs with most organizations trying to use Scrum on more than one project in an organization.

It is a choice.

What about the small minority of organizations that succeed with implementing Scrum in their organization?

Wow.

Incredible things happen.

To the people as individuals, as team members, and the organization as a whole.

These are the organizations I enjoy working with; however, as you can see, they are a small minority in the world.

You know what I have started doing more and more lately (which uggg is hard for me!)?

Saying “No.”

And working only with organizations and teams and people who sincerely want this Scrum thing to work.

Sometimes I get conned into thinking an organization is truly interested, and get burned. Life happens.

We all learn and move on.

This is not the majority of time though, and yes, even I need to assume positive intent.

Why am I telling you all of this?

First and foremost… think about where you are today on your team and within your organization.

Are you constantly saying, “Yes” even when you know it makes no sense?

Do you need help saying, “No” sometimes?

Where can you go for that help?

And remember… a dead ScrumMaster is a useless one.

DO NOT commit career suicide.

But remember… you DO have a choice.

Always.

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!

Well, as I write this I am sitting in a hotel room in wonderment of the airline system in the USA. Guess I will get home tomorrow morning. I had a great class this week in Chicago and, as usual, I learned a lot. It was a great class with a lot of interesting and challenging questions.

And.

I think I received a really great complement.

“This is one of the only classes I have never fallen asleep in.”

Was this good?

Or was it a slam?

Personally, seeing the engagement of this person during the class over two days, I was impressed with his engagement and participation levels. This person has been in the industry for many more years than I have, and he added a lot of value to the class.

I am taking it as a complement (smile).

Assume positive intent.

Heh.

So…. Next week I will be presenting another CSM workshop in Oklahoma City on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you are interested, we have a few seats left and I am always open to having others attend. If you cannot attend and would be interested in meeting before or after the class, please contact me off this blog and we can see if something can be set up.

I am happy it is Friday.

I am happy tomorrow afternoon I will be home hanging with my kids and wife.

Spring is coming in Richmond, VA.

Sounds like a cookout at my house tomorrow night.

And there is some great stuff coming next week.

As usual.

Hope you have a great weekend — or, if you are reading this on Monday — welcome to Monday morning!

Thank you,

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

Welcome back to yet another week at www.implementingscrum.com.

About a month ago, our intrepid ScrumMaster seemed to have disappeared and replaced with someone who just agreed with everything everyone said (not really a yes man, especially in the cartoon!).

Well.

He is back.

Or. He never left.

So why is he now sitting in a hospital room with an IV unit, talking to himself?

At least he in conscious and alive.

But now he is saying “No.”

Is this a bad thing?

Remember the entire reason for him getting into this position — or at least why we think he did.

He was saying, “No” to a lot of people, and standing up to the Values of Scrum as he envisioned them.

So we have the Scrum Values.

And.

Each person in the world either knows nothing about them, has heard of them, or is choosing to ignore them.

Which person are You?

Where is your Team?

And your Organization?

Do you see a difference between the current “replacement ScrumMaster” and the one we originally started with?

What do we do next?

Yikes. This is a short posting tonight.

Think about it.

Really.

Think.

Sometimes this can be dangerous.

I call it living.

Something I am continuing to learn how to do.

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!

Well, we have done it again. The boys (Dominic – almost 8 and Kenton almost 5) spent this evening adding some audio comments to an older strip that was created last year.

If you’d like to see the original posting, please go to http://www.implementingscrum.com/blog/2007/09/04/scary-team-retrospectives-part-one/.

Remember, this is from the point of view of my children, who are awesome at talking about what daddy does in English that everyone understands.

To see the video, look below:

As usual, comments and emails are welcome.

Thank you.

- mike (and Dominic and Kenton) Vizdos
www.michaelvizdos.com
www.implementingscrum.com

Welcome back to yet another week at www.implementingscrum.com.

Wahoo. We made it another week and did not wind up six feet under or having our ashes spread in some remote location of the world. In other words… yipee… we all made it another week to see another great cartoon and continue learning.

OK… so the title of this one is a little twisted. OK. A lot twisted. I guess I should have named it “The ScrumMaster Guide to Picking Up Filing Cabinets” but then who would really want to read about that?

This week I am writing about something that all people playing the role of ScrumMaster must be aware of.

Actually, I’d consider it important for the ScrumMaster on a team to help show the Team Members and Product Owner — through example — what to do when you are in over your head and really need help.

How many times have you been in a situation where you felt like you had to “wing it” or “fake” an answer?

We have learned that as a Product Owner, that can have dire consequences for the team.

Instead of “faking it” or “winging it” or “making up an answer” the Product Owner should feel safe enough to say to the team, “I do not know, but I will find out and get back to you in the agreed upon time.”

And then do that.

Guess what following through on promises helps build?

Trust.

Really.

The agreed upon time should be something that is ummm…. agreed upon by the team — maybe as one of the team norms that are posted on the wall of your team room.

You have those, don’t you?

Right next to the Burndown Chart and team Definition of Done, right (smile)?

So what can the ScrumMaster do to help show the team that they do not know everything (really… we do not!) and sometimes we need to bring in outside help.

Think about Retrospectives.

And.

What if the ScrumMaster is part of the problem in the current system?

You know the answer.

Get help.

Really.

Ask someone else to facilitate the Retrospective.

I have written about this in the past, but have been recently reminded how important this is for all roles of the Scrum Team.

Wow.

Something as simple as asking for help.

That simple.

But.

It does not get performed enough.

As a ScrumMaster, how can you make some simple changes on a daily basis to show the team how to become the best they possibly can?

Remember that the implementation of Scrum should sometimes be taken in small baby steps.

Which small baby step can you take today?

Please share them with us in the comments or on the forum.

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!

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.

==========

Welcome back to a new week at www.implementingscrum.com.

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).

===========================================
WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
===========================================

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.

===========================================
WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
===========================================

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 Scrum Community to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!

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!

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!

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!

Some of you may be familiar with the term, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas….”

Well, tonight I am introducing a new guest writer to the blog, a guy I have worked with for almost the past three years on some major enterprise rollouts of Scrum and co-train with him on a pretty regular basis. His name is Mark Pushinsky and this “enlightenment” came to him a few years ago and we have been waiting on how to actually introduce this to the Scrum Community.

So… without further ado… here is his write-up on the topic (and thanks to Tony as usual for the cartoon!).

I may add something to it later this week (smile).

=================

I was on my way back from Vegas sitting on a plane, with a massive hangover…….and this thought occurred to me.

I know they say that, �What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas� but this occurred to me on the plane ride home and I am pretty sure we cleared Nevada airspace before it did so I feel compelled to share it.

Do you know about the �Cone of Uncertainty�? It is a phenomena that people in software use to describe the fact that when you start a project you have no idea when you�ll finish.

The longer the project goes and the closer you get to finishing the better/more accurate your estimate. Basically you are pretty sure your going to finish it the day before its done.

We have been trying to make it go away in software for many years. Fancy new estimation techniques, months and months of analysis, and brute force have not materially changed the fact that software projects are unpredictable!

Period!

Managers having been trying for decades to make it disappear/pretend it doesn�t exist/figure out how to make it turn from a cone into a cylinder.

Yet time and time again the uncertainty in projects remains.

The epiphany that occurred to me is that Agile or Scrum flips it around. This means that if you ask me what I can deliver in the next 2-4 weeks I am pretty accurate, if you ask me what I am going to deliver 3 months from now I have some uncertainty, but I can give you a reasonable guess, and if you ask me what I can deliver 6 months from now I have no idea…….

When we teach Estimation and Planning in class, we make a point of saying that Agile does not make the �Cone� disappear.

Nothing will!

We use light weight, proven techniques to make our best guess at long term plans.

We don�t pretend to know the end…….in fact we are pretty sure it will change……and we commit to be back in 2-4 weeks to tell you how its changed.

Then we focus on short term commitments, doing the right things, executing well, and delivering real business value.

I have found that after a couple of iterations of working that way we get customers focused more on prioritization, the next release, and getting impediments removed.

They begin to worry less about when the whole thing will be done.

I think the best way to end a project is to stop working on it before all of �The Requirements� have been implemented.

The 80/20 rule, right?

=================

So there goes.

Mark is an awesome person, trainer, and mentor by the way…. While our opinions do not match 100% I love the opportunity to provide an outlet for different opinions and thoughts (even if we are competitors and collaborators in the marketplace).

Let me know if you are interested in contributing in the future!

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!

Some of the most frequently commented posts I write here have to do with what I, as Michael Vizdos [consultant, author, and all around good guy most of the time], go through as a life of a consultant.

So tonight I am going to tell you how a totally crappy day turned into a great ending of the day.

Now.

People who do not travel for a living think people who travel for a living live high on the hog and can go anyplace in the world they want.

In a lot of cases, that is true.

Sometimes it take you to far-away lands like Kyiv and Moscow or Budapest.

And, as you may be able to tell, I enjoy flying to far away lands with different cultures, food, people, and things to do.

Today, my plan was much easier. Hop onto a plan from Richmond, Virginia (my home base) and fly to the north east to meet with a client. I’d be wheels-up by 6:30 AM and arrive at the client location by 9:45 AM for the day’s work.

Alas, this did not happen.

Too bad nobody can control the weather. At least the people working at the Richmond Airport; of course if someone could control weather they probably would not be working at the airport.

After closing the airport up until about noon because of fog (wow I have some awesome pics), planes were able to start coming in and flying out. A total mess does not describe the situation. And where I was headed TO had even worse weather than where I was stuck in Richmond.

Fun stuff, eh?

Now, I have near-Platinum status with Delta. This means I fly way too much with Delta. Period.

Today’s flight was on US Air, one where I have a ton of mileage but no real “clout” like the other airline clubs. Pretty much I am a regular joe. You know… like you and our friends. Nothing special.

So. After being really nice with the ground crew there in Richmond — with one women training two new agents in their first week of work — they took care of me and did the best they could. They rocked and did an awesome job in a totally non-fun situation; it was one of the worse days I can imagine to be working in that industry.

Big tip for people who do not travel a lot and want to blow someone’s brains off if they get mad at the customer experience: Don’t do it. Nice works. Almost 100% of the time.

You CAN go off on the agent if that agent treats you with total disrespect and tells you to take long walk off a short pier. See… then… you should and do get their badge numbers and write a letter to the airlines. People take that seriously.

Today I messed up (I was so happy to get out of Richmond!) and did not get the gate agents name; however, after this is posted I will send this blog entry to the folks at US Air to let them know they got it right today.

Kudos.

So instead of landing where I needed to be at 9:45 this morning, it was almost 6:30 this evening.

I got here.

And.

I am happy.

I was able to meet with a core team of people I will be working with on a possible project engagement. It was some great meet and greet time to see where we are all coming from (with perspectives, beer drinking ability (or lack there-of)) and learning a little more about our personal and professional backgrounds.

Tomorrow morning will start early with an executive at the client company.

Game face on.

Filters Off.

This is what I do.

Hope this little glimpse into the realities of the life of a consultant was educational and interesting to you.

I’d really not change what I do.

But.

It is not for everyone!

Have a great day.

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

Time for me to put even more transparency on than what I may have done in the past.

Please hang with me and help me make some decisions that will either move this community forward at the same pace (which is good) to something that can help make a profound change in our industry.

Really.

It is — or can be — that big.

OK.

So here it is.

As you may have noticed, there is a lot of advertising on this site from Google. It is paying me an income stream that cannot be laughed at (I get a direct deposit from them each month now — those that are using Google in this sense know that is a great thing!).

I’d like to know if you are OK with the advertising that is on the site — or want to see it go away?

If it goes away, would you be OK with me putting some direct links back to www.michaelvizdos.com for ways to engage with me in the future?

If I can drive enough business from the “commercial” side of the business, I will drop the Google ad stuff on this site.

Please leave me comments and suggestions to this posting here — or please contact me directly if you’d rather not publicly post.

I appreciate your feedback and continued and loyal readership since our inception.

Let’s see where we — as a community — can move this needle going forward.

Thanks again for all you do and I hope you continue to see value of what comes out of this little piece of the blog world.

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

PS –> If you get a second please click on the link below….

The posting from yesterday seems to have started some additional conversations today.

And people are taking a stand.

More tomorrow as I see where it leads… and will send you an update on the fun conversations happening around this topic.

Thank you!

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

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!

Welcome back to a new day at www.implementingscrum.com.

So this past week I have watched Scrum be called a lot of names and publicly flogged for some of it’s practices.

Um.

People.

Get over it.

Please.

Remember, Scrum helps people, teams, and organizations transform their business to be the best it can be.

Are there other things out there that can make that claim?

Absolutely.

However (you knew one was on the way!)….

Scrum works in a lot of different environments.

This is from personal experience. With teams working and using Scrum around the world.

Then I see this blog entry by a guy named Jason Gorman (a great chap from the UK); the title of the entry was, “How Scrum Spreads – The Scrum Viral Life Cycle.”

I thought, wow, that is an interesting way of looking at things, and sent him a note to let him know I liked the article (maybe not agree with everything there) and then asked him to come to my site to check it out.

Oye.

At it he came. The posting where he replied is currently down, because it seems like some people were offended by what he wrote. So, I will summarize (from my recollection) of what he said about this blog (www.implementingscrum.com) in his blog:

[This struck me, but wow.... the parallels he made were pretty good from my perspective -- I did not even realize I was doing this]

This is from my vantage point and memory…

He created a little cartoon with some religious overtones (this is what I think ticked off some of his readers). I thought it was kinda cute. Not our style in the least; however, any time I see someone attempting to create a cartoon on any agile topic I usually get a good laugh (as long as I am not drawing them). The blog entry talked about how I write my blog in a way a lot of preachers talk at the pulpit.

I do not see me as a preachy sort of person. Heck, I laugh when I see some of those late night Church Folks (anyone remember the Church Lady from Saturday Night Live??).

Annneeeway…. over the weekend Jason took down the postings because he did not want to offend anyone on his site.

Two words to his reader:

“Lighten Up.”

This blog is meant to poke fun at what a lot of us actually do for a living. It is pretty edgy sometimes — on purpose — and tries to get its readers into a mindset where maybe — and this is a big maybe — they will question the way they are working today and see if it makes sense to try something new.

So.

I will close this blog entry with an invitation to Jason to re-post his original entry over the weekend over on our site here. I will post it un-edited and may comment on it after that is posted here. I’ll take any “heat” from the community, and want to really find out if this really is a problem within the Agile Community.

And if it is…. why is that?

So.

This could be a total dud.

Or a great way to open up some discussions with the readers of this blog and many others in the Agile Software Development Space.

[Updated February 6, 2008 -- More Here!]

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!

Well, I was able to tell you a little about my first two days of this week. If you have not seen it, go here.

Upon arriving into Richmond (my home base) at about midnight, i got the opportunity to make the final preparations for the Certified ScrumMaster Workshop I would be delivering on Wednesday and Thursday.

It would be yet another great class where the attendees walked out of there with a new respect (as did I) for what Scrum can and cannot do.

I have done this course around the world and have trained on my own, with one other person, and with two other people.

Wow.

What a change this makes to both the overall presentation and the outcome to the attendees.

Is this bad?

The easy answer to this is, “No.”

Can every Certified Scrum Trainer co-teach with other people?

Nope.

When it works though….

It is like magic.

I have been lucky enough to work with multiple trainers around the would (and most are not CST’s).

Lucky?

Am I nuts?

Think about it.

If some initial ground rules are set between the two or three people training the class — it can be extremely more powerful at the end of the two days for the attendees.

The first sentence of this is important.

And.

This last one with another Certified Scrum Practitioner (who is looking to become a Certified Scrum Trainer) worked out very well. It was, to be 100% transparent, a surprise to me.

While I was initially looking for the art of the possible, I also knew our styles of coaching in the past has been wildly (sometimes) divergent in techniques.

I made a bad assumption.

Wow.

Like a lot of things in real life that we all live in.

The course got great feedback (sorry about the air conditioning versus the constant heater war going on with the HVAC system… we finally (at the end of day 2) were shown how to useeeeeee the system). Sigh.

So now there are about 11 new Certified ScrumMasters running around Virginia in one place or another.

I’d say it was one of my best classes (workshops) to date.

Why?

Well… let me know why you think this is so….

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.

Wow. I just did an informal count (and recount) of all the comic strips that have been posted on this site. This is comic strip #65 since we started with the initial comic series of the Chicken and Pig since September 11, 2006.

I was having a conversation with another “Scrum Person” last week over lunch and the topic of this site came up. He was surprised that this blog has been updated on such a consistent basis since we started the site. Turns out a lot of people in the industry thought this idea had no staying power. I met for dinner with an ex-CIO of a past client this evening (just got back and am writing this now!) who was surprised we only had 60-something cartoons up there… so…. information is taking off in all different directions about this site.

Back to my pundits…. [Still getting over the fact that I do have people out there that want me to fall flat on my face!]

“This is Scrum… how much can you really talk about this each week Mike?”

“Scrum is a simple framework. That’s it. Duh!”

And.

I agree.

It is.

A simple framework.

It is designed to be that way.

For a reason.

What makes this fun for me — and I hope for the people who read this on a regular basis — is the fact there is almost a never-ending product backlog of ideas for me to write about and Tony to illustrate new comic strips for us.

Huh?

Remember… Scrum deals with people. Not resources. People.

This is not a static topic that will go away. People will continually show me there is new material to write about in the context of Scrum.

And for that, I thank you sincerely.

In fact…. over the time we have been publishing this blog, it has grown in popularity (we consistently receive over a million hits per month) and some of the comic strips have been translated into over a dozen different languages.

What amazes me is that the comic strips (most of the times without the write-ups) are showing up in other Scrum Training presentations and being used selectively in team rooms and corporate presentations.

When I start seeing these posted in team rooms, seldom do people in the rooms realize I am the author of this site.

I ask, “Why do you post this (or these) comic strips?”

A consistent answer to me is, “They are great conversation starters with our outside stakeholders.”

“Oh, and they are funny and our team really relates to them.”

Wow.

Um.

When I started the vision for the site I originally thought I’d connect with an illustrator (it took me six months to find Tony) and start to see if we could push the envelope on some topics that a lot of people in the Scrum Community have been avoiding.

Or.

Should I say, “had” been avoiding.

Why do I say “had”?

I have seen that these comic strips and blog entries are now bringing out some very tough conversations about transparency or real-world issues between team members, product owners, ScrumMasters, and outside stakeholders.

Wow.

Bringing the fringe to the forefront.

In my case, one comic strip and/or blog entry at a time.

Do you see this happening in your team, organization, or enterprise today?

Has one — or more — of the comic strips help create some change that was really effective for your team?

What about thinking if one of the comic strips has been disruptive to your team?

I hope you do not agree with everything I write or Tony illustrates.

I do a lot of what I do to help people start thinking about the ordinary in an unordinary manner.

Is this happening for you?

If not… Why not?

Meanwhile, my plan is to keep cranking out new comic strips and blog entries no matter what my pundits are saying. I’ve never been one to follow the crowd. While it may not make me popular…. I stopped worrying about that sometime in high school and now think about how well I can sleep at night — and feel good about me. And not only about me (that sounds selfish in retrospective)…. but does this stuff add value to you (the person or group of people reading this blog and our comic strips)?

Is that a bad thing?

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!

I hope this posting challenges some of your current thinking. If it does, please share it with others in your organization. It can be a great conversation starter (like a lot of the postings on this site!). If it does not challenge your current thinking or beliefs… think about why that is so.

Ready?

There is a saying I’ve heard in the past that goes something like this:

“The farther away people get from the money, the less they live in reality.”

Think about this for a minute. I’ll wait (smile).

In most organizations I work with — no matter what the “size” — there always seems to be a divide (sometimes a chasm) between the “Business” versus the “IT” side of the house. This includes government clients and both for-profit and non-profit organizations.

Huh?

When people in the outside world hear about this “divide” in an organization, eyes glaze over when I try to explain this.

Really. They don’t care.

They are consumers.

They buy your product or service.

That’s all.

If you are a Developer (this includes all the various roles like architect, tester, coder, and other names like that) let me ask you a serious question:

“When was the last time you picked up an industry trade rag or read a “real” business magazine or newspaper?”

The trade rags exist for every business domain out there.

Really. I have worked in many industries and there is at least one specific to your business no matter what you do.

This is scary but true.

I am not talking about technical journals (well… keep reading those AND start looking at the business perspective).

I am also not talking about Playboy (although they do have great articles and cool gadget reviews).

Think about resources like The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune, Forbes, and others.

Why should Developers care about keeping in touch with what is happening in the business world?

Think about the statement I made above… About “Customers”…

“They don’t care. They are consumers. They buy your product or service.”

What does this mean?

Think.

Again.

Please.

Who are your Customers?

Most Developers I speak with about this answer, “The Business Side” of the organization (for example, Business Analysts or Sales or Support or some muckity-muck Vice President or other bigwig).

Uh.

No.

Your Customer in your organization is the person that pays for the ultimate product or service your organization sells.

What?

Think about something simple, like umm…. Sugar. As a product.

[Side note: I have actually worked with a major company that produces sugar and now know more than I need to know about what they actually do to make and deliver it!].

There is a ton of stuff (from an IT and Manufacturing perspective) that goes into getting that five pound bag of sweetness into your pantry at home.

The people (Customers) who use the sugar want it for something specific… to make things sweet.

Do they even care — or even think — about what went into getting that sugar there?

Here is an answer that is tough for IT and Business people to swallow, but I am going to say it.

Probably not.

I may even go as far to say, “They do not care.”

They paid for a five pound bag of sugar and moved on with their life.

When they need more, they will get it from a neighbor or go to the store and get more. They consume it.

And are willing to pay for it.

Wow.

This means your Customer is actually someone who has to part with their cash and put it into the organization bank account.

This is not…

… a budgetary or imaginary number.

… some mystical “divisional spend” you may receive.

… a VP or some higher up.

Think of it this way.

The customer could actually be YOU.

What if you looked at whatever you do to actually add value from the Customer perspective?

Would that change the way you work today (or tomorrow or the next day, week, or month)?

So.

Why am I harping on getting out there and doing some reading about what is happening in your industry — or the business world — in general?

Why do you think?

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!

Wow. This evening I spent time with my son who is 7 years old (soon to be 8 as he reminds me) watching the, “Naked Brothers Band” on TV. For those of you who do not have kids or have not had the pleasure of watching this, well… let me remind you….

Sometimes… OK…. Almost always… It is important to spend time with your kids doing (or seeing) what they love. So tonight was a special night (and my 7 (soon to be eight) year old really appreciated me hanging with him).

The next posting will be tomorrow.

Yes. I have the cartoon (smile) and it is a good one.

For now… remember…. as I have to remind myself…

It is important to have a life. My kid (and he has a little brother) is a great artist too; he has been a guest artist on the site in the past.

Really.

Thank you and also remember the comic strip tomorrow is brand new and really applicable to Scrum.

And.

Your Business.

You know…. The thing that generates revenue to do what you do on a daily basis??!?!?

Right now, I need to read a story to my oldest kid. As he tries to go to sleep for the night.

Hope you have a great day (or evening, depending on where in the world you read this!).

Thank you!

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

Wow.

Well…. reality has set it and Tony (the artist) delivered the cartoon on time (as usual). And, as usual, it is a great one (nothing but the best here!). Unfortunately for you, it will not be visible until my next posting.

I have been teaching a class today (and the rest of this week) and ugggg…. I am sorry to say the posting that I was going to deliver this evening (today) is going to have to wait until tomorrow. I am out of steam today and want to make sure what I deliver to you is of the best quality.

So…. tomorrow it is (smile).

Here is a preview….

Think about social networking.

And what it can mean for you personally.

And for your team.

And organization.

It can be pretty mind-blowing.

And.

I will cover it in my next posting!

Sorry for the delay. Thanks for understanding.

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

As I wrote about yesterday, this is probably the last comic strip of 2007. Tony and I hope you enjoy it and learn from it; this is a question that comes up pretty regularly from both the readers of this blog and at client sites I visit around the world.

[Full Disclosure ON]

I have been working with Scott in one capacity or another since September 11, 2001. Scott is one of my many mentors (he is also one of my most outspoken mentors) within the agile community. While everyone may not agree with him, he has (co)-written almost twenty books on various agile topics (one was with me!) and a lot of my learning style can be seen by his acts. For that I thank him sincerely — and often.

[Full Disclosure OFF]

This is what has been posted publicly by Scott Ambler:

My December 2007 print column entitled “Scaling On-Site Customer” is now online at http://www.ddj.com/architect/204801134. It examines the challenges surrounding having a stakeholder(s) actively involved with an agile project in the role of an on-site customer or product owner. This role is hard enough for simple projects, but at scale it becomes extremely difficult. The article provides
advice from Agile Modeling for how to augment this role and address the challenges associated with it.

I’ve also blogged about this topic at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/ambler?entry=agile_stakeholders_at_scale.

- Scott

Scott W. Ambler
Practice Leader Agile Development, IBM Methods Group

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/rational/bios/ambler.html

Agility at Scale: http://www.ibm.com/rational/agile/

To read the DDJ article, you will probably have to register as a user — and they seem pretty good about not spamming you. Scott will not spam you from his other sites mentioned.

Will you agree with everything he has written?

Probably not.

Is he OK with that?

Sure.

He totally understands that people will not always agree with him.

And.

This is something I have learned from him.

It has come in handy over the years.

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!

I had an interesting question posed on a forum I regularly monitor and respond; I thought it would be interesting to share the response here for the readers who sometimes do not see that I also write in other areas (smile). The entire thread can be found here.

=====

The thread began along the lines of, “How do you measure success from the Customer point of view.”

The first answer I gave did not go over well…

“How about asking the customer?”

A lot of people jumped in on this one. Many people came up with similar answers.

Then, I answered one of the replies along the lines of:

“>>I have a strong desire to make sure that whatever project I work on the customer defines success.

This is an interesting thought. Can you explain that with an example? Have you tried it before?”

This was my reply:

Hi,

Every once in a while I will throw out a statement like that just to see if people are reading my replies (smile).

Let me address your second question first, “Have you tried it before?”

Yes. I have. In fact, after doing this for a while now I will not go into a team or organization without that being defined up front and in clear English (or whatever the local language — as long as I understand it AND the customer understands it!). When I first started doing software development (even before “agile and Scrum”), I tended to not ask this question and just make a lot of assumptions about what the customer wanted. This usually got both me and the customer (if there was indeed a customer) feeling frustrated.

Example(s).

I have many, so here are a few that stick out in my mind (especially at close to three AM and I am up with insomnia)…

Example #1
—————-

The first one I just talked about on Friday with a colleague of mine where we worked on a project that is still talked about today as one of the “best” agile projects people have worked on at their organization. One of the reasons it was a success — from both the minds of the customer and the development team (which includes all the roles) was that we had an engaged Product Owner and we took the time at the beginning of each Sprint to define what “done” looked like for that individual Sprint.

Were we expected to deliver something into production each iteration (or Sprint)? No. Actually, our “first” definition of done could be considered pretty week from people “outside” the team; it was something like, “We will deliver a piece of working code.”

We did this the first Sprint. And wow. The customer was blown away. The development team got focused on delivering working software (instead of traditional waterfall artifacts — some of which have nothing to do with working code).

Did the definition of “done” evolve? Yes.

Example #2
—————–

I was asked to come into a uuber-architecture project that had been “drifting” for years. One of the reasons this was happening was there was a group (a large technical group, by the way) pushing through this large change throughout the enterprise. It seemed like everyone had a line item in their budgets to “donate” to this project (I am joking about the donation — it was a sunk cost almost every project was paying for). When I cam in, customer satisfaction was low.

I wondered why and started going out and asking the people that were paying for the projects. Ummm… I got some surprising answers. Many of them included, “Um, I am not going to use that thing” to, “Mike, it is something I inherited after the last round of reorganizations.” It was almost silly. It took me a while to find a “real” customer for this project. And oh, I found one, and asked them to be committed to the team. We (the team, the product owner, and me (playing the role of ScrumMaster on this team)) burned through three product owners in multiple iterations (or Sprints) to be able to get to the “right” one.

In the end, I think the project got killed. And, it was a good decision for the organization. Why?

And this is important to realize — if you are using Scrum and cannot identify an engaged Product Owner… do not do Scrum.

There. I said it (and have in the past).

If the customer (or Product Owner) cannot define success for the team (or to themselves)… do something different.

Hope these examples help!

More information about the topics above can be found at:

Transparency

http://www.implementingscrum.com/blog/2006/10/16/transparency-and-jessica-alba-a-scrum-connection/

http://www.implementingscrum.com/cartoons/cartoons_files/2006-11-30-Transparency.html

“Done”

http://www.implementingscrum.com/blog/2006/11/27/done-really/

Product Owner

http://www.implementingscrum.com/blog/2007/06/04/whos-your-product-owner/

http://www.implementingscrum.com/blog/2006/10/30/shock-treatment-for-your-product-owner/

Silver Bullet

http://www.implementingscrum.com/blog/2006/09/25/scrum-the-silver-bullet-not/

Thank you,

- Mike Vizdos
www.implementingscrum.com
www.michaelvizdos.com

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!

Originally Published:
December 16, 2007

]]> http://www.implementingscrum.com/2007/12/16/interesting-question-asked-outside/feed/ 1 http://www.implementingscrum.com/2007/11/13/wednesday-thursday-and-friday/ http://www.implementingscrum.com/2007/11/13/wednesday-thursday-and-friday/#comments Wed, 14 Nov 2007 02:32:24 +0000 mvizdos http://www.implementingscrum.com/blog/2007/11/13/wednesday-thursday-and-friday/ Hi all.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I am finishing up a class on Agile Requirements in Philadelphia. It has been a great experience for me (today) and expect that the class will be a success when I leave tomorrow.

I will be headed to Arizona late tomorrow night to teach a CSM Workshop on Thursday and Friday; it is sold out and there will be a great mix of people in attendance.

Throughout today, and into tomorrow and the rest of the week — I commit to making sure that I do not “dog” traditional Project Managers but instead try to point out why anyone would have a hard time (sometimes) making the transition from traditional waterfall projects to more agile techniques.

This is something I blogged about yesterday in my current posting for the week.

One day at a time my friends and readers.

I will continue to let you know how it goes this week.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I appreciate all of your feedback and opinions!

]]> http://www.implementingscrum.com/2007/11/13/wednesday-thursday-and-friday/feed/ 0 http://www.implementingscrum.com/2007/10/24/refactoring-one-down-seventeen-to-go/ http://www.implementingscrum.com/2007/10/24/refactoring-one-down-seventeen-to-go/#comments Wed, 24 Oct 2007 04:15:56 +0000 mvizdos http://www.implementingscrum.com/blog/2007/10/24/refactoring-one-down-seventeen-to-go/ Hi all,

Alas, my first refactoring of the “Original Chicken and Pig” story is completed. As a test for me, can you please click on this link and see how it works in your browser?

The end goal of this refactoring exercise is to integrate the original 18 postings into this new blogging system for a more cohesive look and feel in the future.

Comments are welcome. And thanks for helping make this site even better for you (and future people who may be reading this site!).

]]> http://www.implementingscrum.com/2007/10/24/refactoring-one-down-seventeen-to-go/feed/ 0 http://www.implementingscrum.com/2007/10/22/moscow-kyiv-october-15-20/ http://www.implementingscrum.com/2007/10/22/moscow-kyiv-october-15-20/#comments Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:25:09 +0000 mvizdos http://www.implementingscrum.com/blog/2007/10/22/moscow-kyiv-october-15-20/

October 15-20, 2007

[warning on: this is a long post -- I was without email access most of last week]

Hi all.

I am writing this on Saturday evening in my hotel room (it will not go out until Monday evening when I get back on the grid in Kyiv). A loud bang just went off outside my hotel room, and on the highway below two cars were in an accident and traffic is starting to snarl.

Wow.

What a week it has been for me. As usual, I have learned a lot and am not sorry for crossing so many miles to do learn it.

Last Monday morning, just after dropping off my family in Washington, DC, from a two week holiday in Spain (Madrid, Valencia, and a little fishing village on the beach) I boarded a plane up to New York City, camped out there most of the day (posted to my blog!), and hopped onto a flight to Kyiv, Ukraine. Seven time zones and almost 5,000 miles away.

Arriving in Kyiv on Tuesday morning (and clearing customs/immigration with an entry/exit card, stamped three times), I was met by a gentleman I met on my previous trip named Alexey. He was nice enough to pick me up at the airport and we spent the morning running a few errands and then picked up his wife and dog to head out to his parents house outside the city.

It would turn into a great day of rest, great food, and conversation (not all about agile and scrum lol). While he was planning on going with me in the morning to Moscow, unfortunately he was sick and decided not to go. He was gracious enough to drop me off early Wednesday morning to the airport in Kyiv, and is leaving for a holiday so I will not see him in Kyiv this week.

On the flight to Moscow, I noticed some white stuff on the ground. Snow. Already. Nice .

And.

I had a great seat on the airplane — I got a free massage from the two year old little Russian girl sitting behind me kicking the back of my chair. Ah. The little gifts in life. At least this flight was under two hours. I slipped my watch ahead one more hour (now +8 from home) and gathered my belongings to clear Russian customs and immigration.

Safety tip for those from the US going to Russia (and I am guessing some other countries too):

You cannot just hop on a plane with your passport and say, “Hi. I am here. I want to visit your country.”

That will not fly.

The good thing is I knew this before I left and had an official letter of invitation and all the legal visa paperwork completed (amazing what money can buy for you these days…. some people may consider it a “bribe” but I look at it more as a service to let me not have to deal with all the paperwork (and a trip to one of the Russian Embassies in the USA) — if you need a recommendation for a company that offers this service, let me know as they provided what they promised.

So.

Brrr.

Coldness for this ex-Florida-Boy hit me like a ton of bricks. When I packed the bag for this trip, I did not anticipate the weather would change from “Fall” to “Winter” while we were in Spain for two weeks.

Live and learn I guess.

After clearing customs (by the way, the female customs officers here all [OK... "most"] look like they came directly from a Robert Palmer video of the ’80’s — except they had on cool looking military uniforms heh) and getting an entry and exit card (stamped three times), I was met by a Russian speaking driver of the company who hosted my visit here to teach the CSM Class.

At least I hoped it was him. It sounds like he was a little miffed because he was expecting “two” people (remember the guy that got sick from Kyiv?) but I showed him the address of the hotel and he grunted something, took one of my bags, and started sprinting to his car. Guess the cold was motivating to him too (smile). So I sat in the front seat and smiled while he negotiated the Moscow traffic for about a half hour ride to the hotel near the training center.

Think Manhattan traffic — a total CF (or “mess”) sometimes but everyone follows the rules. Apparently there was a world cup football game happening, something I did not know (read: stupid clueless American). I would learn more about this later, of course.

The traffic was not as bad as Kyiv (or Bogota, Colombia, for that matter), where they drive on the SIDE WALKS and you seriously need to keep your eyes out for some car careening around a corner while you are walking (another safety tip from your world trotting friend Mike!).

The driver drops me off at the hotel and puts my bags on the ground, gets in the car, and leaves.

Guess I will see the bill for that later (smile).

Upon checkin at the hotel (and pre-paying on the Visa — no American Express here!), I was told (or at least this is what I think she said) to take the elevator to the 16th floor where a chamber maid would give me my key. And I got a few papers and heard a bunch of stamping sounds happening in the background.

Wahoo… I thought…. Chamber Maid. Wondering if she would be as totally hot as the Customs and Immigration officers…..

Sadly.

No.

That was not the case. Think grandma. Then think pissed-off grandma because apparently I got assigned a room she did not yet clean.

She yells something at me then takes me around the corner and points to a couch to wait.

I assume she means she is going to clean my room and I should wait.

No problemo.

I am good at waiting.

Two hours later, she comes back with my key. Sweating and breathing hard. Takes me to my room and I think she wants me to inspect the room. I do. It looks like a room.

I smile.

She goes away.

I get inside and start unpacking. At about this time, one of the guys that will be helping me through this trip (Askhat) I exchange some text messages agreeing that he will pick me up for my talk at the local “Russian Agile” Users group that evening. Oh (smile). No problemo.

I have about an hour to rest and as I am resting (on the bed that is about 3 inches to short for my relatively short body in the first place) someone starts pounding on the door.

“Oh no, I screwed up something and they are coming for me!” I thought.

Nope.

Just some guy humping in a TV to install in my room (did not even notice there was not one). After adjusting it to bring in all 10 stations (all in Russian, of course, with 4 of the ten being exactly the same!), he leaves. I know now there will be no TV for me on this trip — although some evenings it has been fun just seeing what is on there. It reminds me that a month away from the TV is not always a bad thing.

At 6:00 we meet down in the lobby and hop into a car to cross town to the Agile Users Group meeting. I am informed I am giving a talk on Agile Estimation and Planning (eh… I must have missed that email!) but no problem, this is something I can do with no problem. Also, apparently Russia is playing the Great British tonight in a football game (nobody thinks Russia will win) and it is contending with the time of my talk. O well. Whatever works.

About 28-30 people attended, and nobody was listening — or watching — the game as far as I could tell.

The talk went well (based on material from Mike Cohn, the guy that is THE go to person on that topic!) and people had many questions.

And.

During the meeting, the Russians won the game.

So the trip home (err… back to the hotel) was filled with a bunch of [possibly drunk.... lets say "loud"]] people driving cars in the [freezing] rain.

I arrive back at the hotel and nod to my Chamber Maid on the 16th floor. I think my goal will be to at least make her smile. She checks off a box and three stamping sounds are made.

Not having any internet access, I start reading a book. A real book. Not technical bla bla. It is called, “The Lemon Tree” by Sandy Tolan. It is about an Arab, a Jew, and the heart of the Middle East (OK so that is the sub-title). By the time I am writing this to you, I have completed the book and learned a lot about “history” that has been happening throughout my life without me even really being aware of what was going on (just hearing the American version of sound byte news propaganda is not really enough). I am making it a point going forward to read more books like this about other parts of the world. Anyway…. it was a good reminder to turn off the TV (could not understand it anyway) and READ and not spend time on the computer or read geeky books.

So.

Finally Wednesday morning comes and I walk to the training center (about a mile). Nice day for a stroll. Not. But, if you have ever seen the movie, “Office Space” with the beginning credits of the guy walking faster than the cars were moving — that was me here. So I smiled a lot while walking. Strange looks, but I am used to that!

At the training center, I dad to hand over my passport again, and three stamping sounds went off behind the desk and I was handed a visitor card for the day.

Humped it up the stairs to the training room and it was set up with all the chairs facing away from the projector screen. No big deal. We fixed the chairs. I knew it would change throughout the sessions anyway….

There would be 28 people in attendance for the next two days.

Suffice it to say the two days went great, and Moscow now has 28 new Certified ScrumMasters running around with their new credentials. I wonder how the marketing people will spin this in each of their companies. The people taking the workshop were great and all of them participated to their fullest extent. When working with a company or training session in another country (or language), I remind myself (and the attendees) that I need to speak s-l-o-w-l-y and allow them to do the exercises in whatever language their tables want to do them in (although debriefs are in English). It was not that hard here as everyone but me spoke Russian. In other places, I have taught classes with people in attendance (at one workshop) who spoke Russian, Ukrainian, Dutch, English, and others.

My good jokes and stories go over just as well — or as bad — as anywhere else. The one thing I did notice during this one is that this group of Russian students did not have a hard time at all with the “feedback” module of the workshop. Apparently, they are used to being very direct already but the exercise did help clarify some things for both them and me!

We concluded each day on time and people went away generally happy. With 28 people in the workshop, the dynamics are much different than with 16 or even 10 or less.

And.

I have come to realize that this is acceptable to me.

Applying some of the agile techniques, I will inspect and adapt as needed to make the next workshop (in Kyiv Tuesday and Wednesday) even better based on the feedback from this group. This is something I have learned is extremely valuable for everyone involved.

And.

I tell people if they have taken the CSM workshop from me (anytime), they are always welcome to request the latest and most up-to-date materials I am teaching. Not many people take me up on that offer; however, people are happy that I offer that.

So.

Still with me?

Thank you (smile).

Today… Saturday… I met with Askhat (and another person) for most of the afternoon and they took me via the subway system here down to Red Square and the Kremlin. The subway — wow — deep; I mean take the deepest subway entry in DC or Boston and multiply that by at least three or four; it would suck having to huff it out of there if an escalator stopped working (remembering days like that In Boston and DC). I have pics and cool memories from the afternoon. Also… finally got away from the hotel food and had authentic Russian food…. no vodka though (just beer).

Unfortunately all the souvenirs they were selling could be found at many shops in the USA, so I decided that I would keep my load of stuff going home lighter.

So tonight (Saturday) I am writing you this and, based on how the weather here looks tomorrow, I will be writing some blog entries for the coming week. I got an email from Tony, our artist for the site, and he is unable to draw a new comic this week. So… I am going back tomorrow to do some write-ups on some of the older material and seeing if anything needs to be added or changed.

As you know by now, I usually do not run out of things to say.

And maybe I will start finishing the outline of my new book and start writing some sample chapters. Wahoo.

Hope all is well with you and I do hope this entry provided some type of value for you.

It is real world stuff from me as I go around the world talking to people about Implementing Scrum.

Oh, and I just looked out the window…. it seems like 5 more cars are now involved in the accident below. Lots of honking. No police cars. Time to find my headphones to sleep….

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