Large-Scale Scrum with Craig Larman returns in March!
We’re proud and excited to announce our next set of Certified LeSS Practitioner dates with Craig Larman.
Read MoreAn Interview with Agile In Audit co-director; Derek Davidson
Recently we had the chance for an interview with Derek Davidson, a PST and creator of the Agile in Audit Scrum Fundamentals course. This is a 2-day course that teaches Scrum for audit teams. Working in a series of Sprints, attendees collaboratively and interactively build an audit product. As well as learning the roles, events,…
Read MoreCSM – from a Psychology Graduate’s Perspective
To quickly introduce myself; Hi, I’m James! I began working with AWA at the beginning of September after graduating with a degree in Psychology this past Summer. Having no background in Agile or Scrum, I was given the opportunity to attend one of our Certified Scrum Master courses with Tobias Mayer last week. The aim was…
Read MoreApplying LeSS Thinking to Basic Scrum
In this article, Agile practice leader and systems thinker Gene explores how to apply LeSS Thinking to Basic Scrum. As per Scrum Guide, “…Scrum is a framework for developing and sustaining complex products… It [Scrum] is lightweight, easy to understand and difficult to master”. The guide talks about basic Scrum, or Scrum by one…
Read MoreWhat is the Agile Mindset?
What is the Agile Mindset? The agile mindset seems to be a mythical abstract quality that is hard to define and often glossed over in agile discussions. It is the outermost ring in the popular metaphor agile onion. The model tells us the mindset is the most powerful of the layers that make up agile….
Read MoreUnderstanding the Switch from Scrum to Kanban
This is a real-life story. It’s a story about addressing the concerns of senior managers who are wary of their delivery teams making their own independent decisions. It’s a common tale that many delivery teams face, and one where, as servant-leaders, scrum master and agile coaches need to support their teams in navigating. This story…
Read MoreCSM, 26-27 October
Certified Scrum Master Training —Collaborative ScrumMaster In partnership with Adventures With Agile, I’ll be facilitating my first public Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) workshop since 2010. Naturally, I’m curious as to how it will play out. This Certificate May Not Mean What You Think It Means This is not a training course, it is a workshop—an experience. You will…
Read MoreWhat is Agile?
What is Agile? Over the last few years, the word Agile (or agile with a small a) has taken on different meanings and been used in multiple contexts. This is a short post to give my perspective on what Agile is. I’m not going to bore you with the 2001 meeting, agile manifesto, or an intro…
Read MoreWhy is it so hard to do the right amount of refinement?
Teams don’t do enough product backlog refinement. Yes, it’s a sweeping statement and yes there are teams where this isn’t true but for the most part I feel it’s a common problem for new and existing teams. All the coaching for Scrum talks about a team using 10% of their time for refinement. If you…
Read MoreWhat do you do when a sprint is cancelled?
What do you do when a sprint is cancelled? All the standard Scrum certifications (CSM, CSD, CSPO) pay little attention to the fact a sprint can be cancelled. At best you will get a single slide and the trainer reinforcing the idea that the Product Owner is the only one who can make the call…
Read MoreWhat is value?
Scrum We now have a set of core values from the manifesto and from XP. Let’s see what values we can derive from Scrum. Scrum doesn’t list a set of values or principles. Scrum does have three pillars which form a cycle that is repeated throughout the process on small and larger cycles. These pillars…
Read MoreThe Self-Organising team is at the heart of Agile
From XP (1) and Scrum (2) we have the concept of self-organising teams. A self-organising team doesn’t need to be commanded or controlled to get its work done. This page is a discussion on self-organising teams and the opposite of the command and control top down approach. Self-organising means that the individuals within the team…
Read MoreThe Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) – An Overview
The term Scaled Agile has emerged because Agile has traditionally been implemented as a grass roots movement across the IT industry on a team by team basis and not on an organisational level. Very bright developers and their immediate managers came up with Agile and then development teams have brought in and implemented the methodology…
Read MoreThe Tester
Testing has become so important in software development that it is everyone’s responsibility. At every stage of the product development, tests are being created and run to ensure the code does what it is supposed to be doing. The old approach In the days of waterfall development, all the testing was done at the end…
Read MoreThe Developer
What does the developer do? The developer is the person who codes (builds) the software from the lowest level components. The term developer has been expanded to also mean tester and deployment manager as these skills often require coding expertise as well. For this discussion we will use the term developer to mean anyone who…
Read MoreThe Product Owner
The Product Owner’s role is defined as part of the Scrum methodology. It is one of the three roles defined in Scrum. The Product Owner is responsible for what features are in the product, what order the features get developed and it is the Product Owner’s responsibility to accept or reject the feature based on…
Read MoreThe Scrum Master
The Scrum Master The role of Scrum Master is perhaps the easiest to explain even though it can be hard to do. A Scrum Master’s responsibility is simply to ensure that the Scrum Process is followed by the team and that the people external to the team give the team the space required for them…
Read MoreScrum – An overview
Scrum – An Overview Scrum is an implementation of a development process based upon the concepts in the Agile manifesto and the Agile principles. Scrum’s purpose is to provide a framework within which it is possible to plan, design, build and deploy complex working software that is fit for purpose, in priority order first. The…
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