Thanks to Microsoft, Fullsix and Logical Software, who organized and sponsored the first Scrum Master Certification training ever delivered in Portugal, I am now a Certified Scrum Master. As recognized by Mitch Lacey, our Certified Scrum Trainer, the attendees were a very dynamic and focused group that made the training experience very pleasant.
For those of you who didn't had the chance of being there, I decided to compile and share some of my personal notes I wrote during the training. I usually only take note of things that really got my attention or that I want to check in more detail later. I'm doing this sort of a disclaimer because I know none of them will be a revelation to people who already know about Scrum:
- Scrum is one of various agile methodologies available worth checking: DSDM and Crystal Clear are also good examples of those.
- Focus on the on build state, not on the to build state, meaning that we should give more attention to what we are building in every sprint and less in what the final product will be.
- Accept the change always, communicate the impact always. The impact of change should be both communicated to the Team and the Product Owner. It is also Ok to change the Vision. Just always communicate it.
- Check the Team behavior frequently: forming-storming-norming-performing.
- Quality is the only asset which is not negotiable. In the picture below, the left triangle represents the classic Waterfall project management methodology and the right triangle stands for an Agile process. Using Waterfall, we achieve Cost and Schedule estimations through the Plan. With Agile, the project can adapt to business need and that means the Vision is driving Feature estimates.
- Have no more than 3 blocking issues at any time. For example, if a developer has more than three pending tasks waiting for someone or something to happen, then it will be very unlikely that he will be able to know where it was on each of those when it comes back from say, a seventh pending task. It is preferable to ensure one of those three tasks is unblocked before continuing to the next task.
- Yes, scattered teams are a problem. There is no magic solution. Accept facts like time zones. Use video-conference to do daily scrums. Be part of the solution, not the problem.
- Use spikes to do estimation. If the estimate given by the spike compromises the Sprint, then the features should go into the Backlog. Besides that, a spike is just a regular Sprint task.
- Team membership can only change between roles. We should not allow a Team member to change his team in the middle of a Sprint.
- There are 4 main Team Decision Making types: Autocratic, Consultative, Majority and Consensus.
- Skills, Availability and Competency are 3 important criteria when choosing a Team.
- It is worst to have Scrum Master and the Product Owner in the same person. It is Ok to have the Product Owner and the Customer in the same person.
- It is better to have the Team sign up than the Team assigned. That's why they commit to do the work and respect deadlines.
- The true measure of a project progress is: working software.
- Always define with the Team what done means. Will done include tested and deployed?