Month: January 2012

What Is Agile Documentation?

January 31, 2012 0

Does the term “documentation” have any place in an agile environment? The goal on agile projects is to keep documentation as simple as possible, relying on roadmaps, overviews and concepts rather than enterprise-focused details. But what happens when using an agile approach on more complex projects? For example, what if the team that writes the software is different from the team that must maintain it? Or what if auditors come calling? In these instances, basic agile documentation based on user stories alone may come up short. This article provides insights into how teams can take an agile approach to documentation in more complex environments.

Scrum Estimation Techniques For New Teams

January 30, 2012 0

This article discusses estimation techniques for teams that are adopting Scrum. The authors recommend to use story points during the release planning phase, but initially to switch to hours to estimate tasks during the sprint planning. Then the team will gradually move to using story points to estimate complete stories that members will commit for in next sprint.

From Hybrid to Scrum

January 23, 2012 0

Introducing Scrum in organizations is not always easy as there is always resistance to change. This article presents the implementation of an hybrid approach to make the transition to Scrum easier in a German context. After having identified the lack of requirements documentation as an obstacle to Scrum adoption, the author proposes different workarounds that allow to minimize this fear. Even if there is a risk that teams might stick with the hybrid approach, he considers that this is a valid alternative to the “total Scrum” adoption road and that this is the challenge of Scrum consultants to bring the teams to the next level.

Shock Therapy for Scrum

January 20, 2012 0

When properly implemented, the Scrum framework enforces simple constraints that lead a team to self-organize into a state that achieves 5 to 10 times performance improvement versus traditional approaches. However, the majority of Scrum teams is unable achieve this objective.

The Quest for Agility

January 18, 2012 0

Agile is no longer shiny and new. Many organizations claim that they’re Agile but what does that mean 10 years down the line of the Agile Manifesto? Sadly, what’s done in the name of Agile has strayed a long way from the original ideals. A bunch of simple practices that came from programmers have turned into tools for micro-management.

Daily Scrum Improvement

January 18, 2012 0

The Scrum Daily Stand-up meeting is certainly the most regular team activity in agile software development projects and there are therefore many material available on how to manage it and prevent it to become boring, useless or both. In this blog post, Anders Laestadius provides four ideas to improving the daily Scrum meeting.

ScrumMaster as a Servant Leader

January 17, 2012 0

The ScrumMaster is dealing daily to remove the issues that the team face. If he keeps in mind the role of the ScrumMaster as a servant leader, he will be better able to keep the team members motivated toward the goal, which will lead to better customer satisfaction in the end. On the other hand, if he follows the traditional role of a manager trying to ensure that he gets the work done, things may work out in the short term.

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