The team was under pressure to deliver a rewrite of the flagship product after having been handed an agressive delivery date. In spite of the Scrum board and other information radiators in their area, the Scrum Master had to deliver progress reports to the CEO every day. The company president and vice presidents attended sprint … Continue reading Shadow Backlog
User Acceptance Test Cases
Who Should Write UATCs?
Experienced agile practitioners take for granted that detailed requirements are captured as user test cases. For organizations transitioning to agile, this is one of the more challenging practices for them to adopt. Some product owners or business analysts still view the traditional “requirements document” as the way to capture detailed requirements. Because of their attachment to … Continue reading Who Should Write UATCs?
Essential Agile Skills
As organizations adopt agile practices, there are several key skills that differentiate high-performing teams from mediocre teams: 1) Working in short timeboxes For a team that is accustomed to delivering working code every six or eight months, two or four week long iterations can be unfathomable. But doing this is essential to the success of … Continue reading Essential Agile Skills
Introducing Scrum to a Team
For a Scrum Master introducing agile to a team, there is a balance between implementing concepts and practices at a pace that does not overwhelm the team and demonstrating the benefits as early as possible to build momentum and support within the organization. Each situation is different, but let’s assume that an organization wants to use Scrum and there … Continue reading Introducing Scrum to a Team
Agile Reflections 