Dave Todaro’s Post

Hey Linkers! Here's Some Key Infos about Scrum Process And scrum Masters' The Scrum Master works closely with a product owner and the development team. Key roles include: Product Owner: The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value resulting from the increments or work resulting from each Sprint. They act as the voice of the customer,create and manage the Product Backlog, and ensure the backlog is transparent, visible, and understood. Scrum Master: Scrum Masters are Servant Leaders. They serve the team and the larger organization. They ensure everyone understands the Scrum process, apply servant leadership principles by eliminating blockers, shield the team from external distractions, and act as a motivational force. Development Team: Developers are committed to creating useable increments during each Sprint. They self-organize, complete the Sprint Backlog, adhere to the definition of “done,” adapt efforts to achieve the sprint goal. Scrum Master Skills and Competencies A Scrum Master requires a number of skills and competencies to be successful. Here is a brief review. Coach the team to be self-managed and adept at cross-functional collaboration. Facilitate key events or Scrum “ceremonies” to include Sprint Planning, the Daily Scrum Meeting, Sprint reviews, and Sprint Retrospectives. Ensure these events occur on time and maximize participation. Serve the Product Owner and team by ensuring all User Stories in the Product Backlog are clear and concise, assist in backlog “refinement,” and support stakeholder collaboration as required. Lead, train, and coach the organization on Scrum adoption. Understand and advocate “Empirical Process Control.” The Scrum Process : The Scrum Master is also a process manager. They work closely with all stakeholders to ensure the Scrum process is understood and adhered to Sprint Planning—User Story Selection: User Stories are the primary means of identifying requirements. Initial User Stories submitted by the Product Owner identify each requirement by role, need, and value. The Scrum Master ensures acceptance criteria is well-defined and understood before User Stories are placed and prioritized in the Product Backlog. Sprint Planning —Sprint Backlog Development: The Scrum Master ensures the team self-organizes and completes a Sprint Backlog. The Sprint Backlog breaks each User Story into tasks. The team self-manages and determines who will lead the completion of each task. The Sprint: The Scrum Master coaches the team, manages conflict, and facilitates the Daily Scrum Meeting. They ensure the Kanban board is updated, Burndown Charts are accurate, support the team if blockers are present, and ensure everyone stays on track to accomplish Increments as “done.” The Review: The Scrum Master sets up the meeting, ensures the team is ready to present, coaches the Product Owner to lead the review, and gathers customer feedback on all increments produced. #Projectmanagement #Scrum #CSM

Sprint Anti-Patterns of the Scrum Master Flow Disruption: The Scrum Master allows stakeholders to disrupt the Scrum Team’s flow during the Sprint. Several ways stakeholders can interrupt the team’s flow include: The Scrum Master adopts a laissez-faire policy regarding access to Developers, failing to educate stakeholders on the negative impacts of disruptions and how these may endanger achieving the Sprint Goal. Note: This does not mean Scrum Masters should restrict stakeholders’ access to team members altogether. The Scrum Master does not oppose line managers who take team members off the Scrum Team to assign them to other tasks. The Scrum Master does not object to line managers adding new members to the Scrum Team without consulting existing team members. Ideally, the Scrum Team should decide who joins the team. The Scrum Master permits stakeholders or managers to turn the Daily Scrum into a reporting session. This behavior undermines the Developers’ productivity by reintroducing command and control and diminishing their self-management. Lack of Support: The Scrum Master does not support team members who need help. Often, Developers create tasks they can complete within a day during planning sessions. However, if someone struggles with a task for more than two days without seeking help, the Scrum Master should address the issue and offer support. Making this issue visible is also why tasks on Sprint boards are marked with red dots each day if work items do not move to the next column, tracking the work item age. Micro-Management: The Scrum Master fails to prevent the Product Owner—or anyone else—from assigning tasks directly to Developers. Developers should organize themselves without external intervention, and the Scrum Master is their first line of defense in this respect. No Retrospective: The Scrum Master accepts the team’s belief that there is nothing to improve, leading to the absence of Retrospectives. There is no such thing as an agile Nirvana where everything is perfect. Becoming agile is a journey, not a destination, and there is always something to improve. Retrospectives are a critical part of Scrum’s principle of continuous improvement, as reflected in the Scrum Value of Commitment. A formalized event like the Retrospective allows the Scrum Team to focus on this challenge. Note: It is not the Scrum Master’s task to maintain a Sprint board, such as moving tickets. Developers should do this during the Daily Scrum if they find it helpful. Additionally, it is not the Scrum Master’s responsibility to update an online board to reflect the statuses of a corresponding physical board. If Developers find a burn-down chart useful, they should update it themselves. 😎

This kind of posts would I love to see more on LinkedIn The main reason why I am using LinkedIn is to exchange with other professionals. In this sense, this post brings together a lot of things I appreciate to foster such exchange: 1. Willem-Jan states it as his perspective and not as a pseudo-objective truth, which makes it easier to respond to where our viewpoints deviate 2. He closes his post with a request to exchange his viewpoint 3. He is not just repeating knowledge of other authorities, he shares his viewpoint 4. He reacts to comments invitingly so that it opens up a space for further discourse 5. He kept his points short enough so that they are consumable in a social media feed without making it too shallow What characterizes a good exchange-inviting LinkedIn posts for you? Looking forward to your perspective :-)

Bredec Group How the Scrum Values help with your Sprint Goal: Goals are a powerful tool. They provide purpose, direction and focus, allow for measuring of progress, facilitate prioritization and encourage commitment. From the Scrum Guide: The Sprint Goal is the single objective for the Sprint. Although the Sprint Goal is a commitment by the Developers, it provides flexibility in terms of the exact work needed to achieve it. The Sprint Goal also creates coherence and focus, encouraging the Scrum Team to work together rather than on separate initiatives. In Scrum a commitment is always towards a goal, never towards busy work. A goal describes an outcome and not output. Activities lead to output -- often called inventory. That output, when being released, essentially put into the hands of the user might create outcome. Outcome is solely in the realm of the user to decide. If we have positive outcome, it will create company impact, usually in the form of making money. Customer happiness always comes first, never shareholder value. In the Sprint Planning the Product Owner and Developers together will craft a Sprint Goal (facilitated by the Scrum Master) which is both valuable and viable. This common agreement leads to commitment. Since the Sprint Goal is fix, it provides focus and flexibility for the Developers in how to achieve it. The Sprint Goal is either achieved or abandoned by cancelling the Sprint, which no surprise, only the Product Owner can decide. What are the characteristics of a good Sprint Goal?     - It is short, one sentence seems about right     - It describes an outcome, often around a verb.      - It doesn't contain the word 'and' or 'or'     - It doesn’t contain bullet points Sprint Goal examples     - Automatically invoice customers for last month service      - During checkout customer can pay with Paypal     - Provide basic product configuration wizard      Easy, isn't it? Why do most Scrum Teams struggle with it? Is this a weakness of Scrum? Absolutely not! Remember, Scrum doesn't give you answers, it provides you with transparency.  If you struggle to do something as intended by Scrum, something else is not right.  This is the transparency Scrum provides you with. Now, it is up to you to identify the underlying cause. What could be the cause when you struggle to define a outcome based Sprint Goal? Which transparency do we get through the Scrum Values?     - Your Scrum Team works on several products in parallel and each product gets a slice of the developers availability. --> No Focus     - The Developers are not fully committed to the Scrum Team. Often only a subset of their availability, based on their expertise. --> No Focus Therefore     - People get often assigned to own a Product Backlog item. (which makes for interesting, rather useless Daily Scrums) --> Focus on their work, not on the team's  Sprint Goal. As an organization committing to… Inquiry@bredec.com

Here are 8 of the most problematic things for me in the Scrum Guide. 1. How realistic is it for the team and the stakeholders to uphold the Scrum Values? As soon as the Scrum Team needs to deal with (to name a few things) micro-management, silos, conflict avoidance, or politics: what is then left of the Scrum Values? 2. Scrum Teams should have no hierarchies. But how realistic is this? The Scrum Master is “a true leader” of the Scrum Team, accountable for the effectiveness of the team. The Product Owner decides upon the order of the Product Backlog. I can see how these accountabilities can conflict with the idea of “no hierarchies”. It may lead to issues in Scrum Teams. 3. A Product Owner is accountable for the Scrum Team-related work. At first glance, this makes sense. As were are talking about Scrum. But when a large part or even the majority of the work on a product is done by others than by the Scrum Team, what is left of the Product Owner? 4. Why should a Product Owner always be one person? What is the problem with having a Product Owner team or a Scrum Team that absorbed the accountabilities of the Product Owner and thus having no one who wears that hat? 5. The Scrum Guide also states there should be only one Scrum Master. I don’t see why this always should be the case. There’s so much to do for a Scrum Master and it requires so many skills, it is difficult and maybe even wishful thinking to find that in one person. 6. A Scrum Master can help the Developers to stay within the 15 minutes and ensure a positive and daily. A Product Owner can help to discuss and -if needed- adjust the scope of the Sprint Backlog. Why doesn’t the Scrum Guide express the potential role of the Product Owner and Scrum Master in the Daily Scrum? 7. Previous Scrum Guides stated that the Scrum Team and stakeholders would inspect the Increment at the Sprint Review. Now it is changed to “Sprint outcome” and “results of their work”. Scrum always was about inspecting the increment at the Sprint Review. I don’t understand this line is gone. I think this harms people’s understanding of what a Sprint Review should be. 8. The Developers own the Sprint Backlog. They select the Product Backlog Items that will bring them to the Sprint Goal. They also determine how the work will be done. This is a change from the previous Scrum Guide, where the Developers merely determined how many items they would select from the Sprint Backlog. So, why is it then that this is different during the Sprint? When Developers learn new things during the Sprint, which requires them to change the Sprint Backlog (to still reach the Sprint Goal), they need to negotiate with the Product Owner first. Do you agree? Do you think Scrum is good as it is? Do you have other issues? I’m certainly interested to learn from you! #scrum #agile #seriousscrum Serious Scrum

If you expect your Scrum Masters to be meeting organizers, minute takers and velocity pushers, take my warning: You might get what you ask for. Many organizations find it difficult to hire for the Scrum Master role. How do you write a job description, interview and compare candidates for a role which is supposed to influence and change your own mindset and culture? It starts with the job description! Attract better candidates by improving on these 5 common mistakes. Number 1 Mistake: Moderate Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective Improvement: Ensure the effectiveness of all Scrum events as opportunities for the team to inspect and adapt Explanation: The Scrum Master does not need to moderate Scrum events. Allowing others to moderate these events fosters understanding for the particular events and self-management as a whole. A great Scrum Master will make sure “Scrum events take place and are positive, productive, and kept within the timebox.” (Scrum Guide 2020) Number 2 Mistake: Remove impediments for the team Improvement: Enable the team to overcome impediments by facilitating self-management Explanation: Having a super hero Scrum Master who continuously works on removing impediments single-handedly is an antipattern which results in diminished self-management of the whole team. Good Scrum Masters help the team with identifying impediments and solving them rather than doing it themselves. Number 3 Mistake: Monitor and work towards improving team velocity Improvement: Help the Scrum Team focus on creating high-value increments Explanation: The velocity can be a tool for capacity estimation in a sprint planning event, but does not give any indication of team effectiveness. Scrum Masters are expected to work towards improving the outcomes of the Scrum Team, not the output. Increments of high value are more important than high output of individual PBIs. Number 4 Mistake: Help the Product Owner in the creation of user stories Improvement: Help the Product Owner in finding techniques for effective Product Backlog management Explanation: Scrum Masters should not focus on individual methods like user stories and rather support their team in finding out what works for the team, the product and the organization. Good Scrum Masters will advocate experiments, measure their effectiveness with the team, and implement the methods that work. Number 5 Mistake: Help the Product Owner and Scrum Team with story point estimation and release planning Improvement: Help the Product Owner establish empirical product planning for a complex environment Explanation: Again, Scrum Masters should focus on exploring different options of Product Planning with the Product Owner rather than following a single method. Backlog refinement is necessary, but any sort of estimation is imprecise and relying on them imposes risk. Finding out what works can be a long process, but is necessary for continuous improvement.

ICYMI: Bredec Group How the Scrum Values help with your Sprint Goal: Goals are a powerful tool. They provide purpose, direction and focus, allow for measuring of progress, facilitate prioritization and encourage commitment. From the Scrum Guide: The Sprint Goal is the single objective for the Sprint. Although the Sprint Goal is a commitment by the Developers, it provides flexibility in terms of the exact work needed to achieve it. The Sprint Goal also creates coherence and focus, encouraging the Scrum Team to work together rather than on separate initiatives. In Scrum a commitment is always towards a goal, never towards busy work. A goal describes an outcome and not output. Activities lead to output -- often called inventory. That output, when being released, essentially put into the hands of the user might create outcome. Outcome is solely in the realm of the user to decide. If we have positive outcome, it will create company impact, usually in the form of making money. Customer happiness always comes first, never shareholder value. In the Sprint Planning the Product Owner and Developers together will craft a Sprint Goal (facilitated by the Scrum Master) which is both valuable and viable. This common agreement leads to commitment. Since the Sprint Goal is fix, it provides focus and flexibility for the Developers in how to achieve it. The Sprint Goal is either achieved or abandoned by cancelling the Sprint, which no surprise, only the Product Owner can decide. What are the characteristics of a good Sprint Goal?     - It is short, one sentence seems about right     - It describes an outcome, often around a verb.      - It doesn't contain the word 'and' or 'or'     - It doesn’t contain bullet points Sprint Goal examples     - Automatically invoice customers for last month service      - During checkout customer can pay with Paypal     - Provide basic product configuration wizard      Easy, isn't it? Why do most Scrum Teams struggle with it? Is this a weakness of Scrum? Absolutely not! Remember, Scrum doesn't give you answers, it provides you with transparency.  If you struggle to do something as intended by Scrum, something else is not right.  This is the transparency Scrum provides you with. Now, it is up to you to identify the underlying cause. What could be the cause when you struggle to define a outcome based Sprint Goal? Which transparency do we get through the Scrum Values?     - Your Scrum Team works on several products in parallel and each product gets a slice of the developers availability. --> No Focus     - The Developers are not fully committed to the Scrum Team. Often only a subset of their availability, based on their expertise. --> No Focus Therefore     - People get often assigned to own a Product Backlog item. (which makes for interesting, rather useless Daily Scrums) --> Focus on their work, not on the team's  Sprint Goal. As an organization… Inquiry@bredec.com

5 Ways to Earn Trust as a Scrum Master A scrum master’s primary responsibility is to keep the development team organized and progressing on the projects they’ve agreed to, in order of priority. The Scrum Master, in other words, is there to help keep the team on track. For example, the scrum master might lead the team’s daily standup (if the team holds them). In these brief morning meetings, the team discusses what they’ve accomplished, what they’re planning to work on that day, and any obstacles they face completing their tasks. The scrum master will keep these meetings short and on point. Then they will act on any useful information derived from the meeting—such as finding a way to remove obstacles to the team’s progress. The scrum master will also help to facilitate other Scrum events. Including sprint planning sessions, where the product and development teams discuss the priority items to work on in the upcoming sprint. The scrum master’s role in these meetings will be to listen. To make sure the team has the right information. To allow participants to make decisions about projects and priorities. Their role is to capture these decisions to help the team proceed with the agreed-upon plan. 1. Act as a champion for your team’s success. You can do this by protecting them against distractions. By communicating their needs and concerns to product management and other stakeholders, or helping to clear roadblocks to the team’s progress. 2. Coach your team to work more effectively within the Scrum framework. Often a cross-functional team implements Scrum without knowing how to make the most of the framework. Your expertise and hands-on guidance can make your team feel more comfortable with this new approach. It can help bolster your credibility with them. 3. Stay accessible to your team for questions and requests. As a Scrum Master, one of the simplest ways to earn your team’s trust is to be there for them when they need you. This means promptly responding when they request your help, listening carefully to their concerns, and acting quickly to resolve their issues. 4. Communicate often with your team. You can do this via daily standup meetings, for example. Frequent communication with your team can help you catch potential problems early and demonstrate your ongoing commitment to ensuring the team has what it needs to succeed. 5. Be willing to take the blame. As scrum master, you are the facilitator of your team’s work. That means if the team runs out of time during a sprint before they’re able to complete one of the items, some of the blame rests with you. Taking responsibility within your company for these setbacks, and protecting your team, will help you quickly establish the trust and respect you’ll need to become a highly effective scrum master. Within organizations introducing agile methods to their practices, it is always better to be prepared #scrum #agile #scrummasterjobs

Sprint Anti-Patterns of the Scrum Team - Part 1 Not Having a Sprint Goal: The Product Owner suggests a direction that feels like a random assortment of tasks, leading to a lack of cohesion and a failure to create a Sprint Goal. If this approach becomes routine, it may indicate that Scrum is no longer effective for your product development. Depending on the product's maturity, Kanban might be a better fit. Alternatively, this randomness could signal a weak Product Owner who is overly influenced by stakeholders instead of properly prioritizing the Product Backlog. Not Delivering the Sprint Goal: The Scrum Team frequently misses the Sprint Goal. Scrum is meant to solve customer problems within given constraints and support a sustainable business. Delivering the Sprint Goal is the Scrum Team's most critical contribution. Occasional failures due to technical issues, skill gaps, or unforeseen complexities are normal, but consistently failing to deliver value questions the validity of Scrum. A Scrum Team gains autonomy and self-organization in exchange for reliable delivery. The Maverick & the Sprint Backlog: Someone adds an item to the Sprint Backlog without consulting the Developers. Developers need control over their Sprint Backlog to make accurate forecasts. They may add items if they discover critical bugs or new essential tasks after the Sprint begins. However, only Developers can decide to take on new work since they may need to reprioritize other tasks. This decision-making is their responsibility alone. Hardening Sprint: The Scrum Team decides to have a hardening or clean-up Sprint. In Scrum, there is no such thing as a hardening Sprint. The goal is to deliver a valuable, potentially shippable Product Increment, which requires a clear Definition of Done. Declaring incomplete tasks as "done" undermines this principle. Hardening Sprints often indicate poor adoption of agile principles, possibly due to non-cross-functional teams, siloed quality assurance, or pressure to meet arbitrary deadlines. The Scrum Master has a significant role in addressing these issues.

What Are Scrum Artifacts and How Do I Use Them? A scrum artifact is a set of information used by a scrum team to describe the product or service being launched, the steps taken to create it, and the actions required during its production. Such a scrum artifact gives you some clues about the performance of a sprint. Scrum artifacts are integral to scrum teams because they allow for basic scrum characteristics such as transparency, inspection, and adaptation. Scrum artifacts can help you in: * Planning your product management goals and objectives * Making a list of tasks that can accomplish these objectives * Organizing tasks into sprints based on their importance and dependencies * Complete the tasks * Review and assess the findings to see to what extent they are aligned with your objectives These three are the main scrum artifacts: 1. Product backlog A product backlog is actually a list of new features, additions, bug repairs, tasks, or work requirements that have to be considered to achieve the goals you have set for your business. All these elements are necessary for the process of producing a product or running a service. 2.Sprint backlog We already mentioned that a scrum project is broken down into sprints. But how do you decide which things to work on in each scrum sprint? By checking the sprint backlog. The sprint backlog is another list that contains every task that the scrum team has to achieve in every sprint. Unlike the product backlog, a sprint backlog can only be changed by the development team. 3. Product increment The product increment is the most important scrum artifact. It’s the goal that the team strives for during each scrum sprint. The team must deliver a product increment at the end of each sprint if they meet the Definition of Done. The Definition of Done is the collection of all the product backlog’s acceptance criteria, such as quality criteria, restrictions, etc. How to Use Scrum Artifacts? * Make plans and preparations for a prospective sprint. * Effectively manage backlogs. * Keep track of how each sprint develops over time. * Communicate with scrum team members as well as with other stakeholders and keep remote employees engaged. Can Scrum Artifacts Help Your Business? Scrum artifacts can act as an excellent tool for any business looking to increase it structure, create scalable processes and have a rigid documentation regime.  Scrum artifacts in an agile workforce can be the ultimate game changer for transforming companies to be more legitimate and structured as they continue to scale and require more formal systems to ensure that every team member and manager, has accountability for the work required from them. Conclusion Knowing what lies ahead is crucial when planning for a product or service development. Scrum artifacts can change what you may encounter on your way to success. #scrummasterjobs