When User Stories Get Bigger What should you do when user stories get bigger? We have all been in the situation. You discuss a user story; you have a pretty good understanding of how it needs to be implemented in the system. Then when you start to work on it, you realise more work needs […]
Scrum Isn’t A Silver Bullet

Scrum Won’t Solve all the Problems I get a lot of emails and messages whenever I publish a post, usually they connect with someone and they ask for more information in fixing problems and implementing them in their company. When I ask for more information, I am often responded to with things around problems with […]
What do you do if your Sprint is derailing?

Did your Sprint Derail? I am sure its happened to the best of us, you spend time refactoring your backlog; prioritising it to ensure everyone is on the same page. You complete your Sprint Planning and are ready for a successful sprint. What happens if you are a few days into your sprint; all of […]
Don’t Rename the Sprint Review

Its called the Sprint Review for a Reason In my previous post about the Sprint Planning Meeting: The Sprint Review: The Product Owners Meeting I went through in depth regarding this Scrum ceremony. The important thing regarding this meeting is that it is a Sprint Review, not just a demo. I have heard many teams rename it […]
Ask Questions, Don’t Solve Problem

This article is more aimed at Scrum Masters, but I think there are key take aways that can be applied to any leadership role. Facilitator first Remember as a scrum master you are a facilitator first. You are not there to solve problems for the team. You might know all the answers, but you can’t […]
Should a Product Owner Attend Retrospectives?

The short answer is YES. The Product Owner is part of the Team The Product Owner is part of the team, and should be involved in any discussions about improving things. A scrum team will never reach its maximum potential if only the developers discuss areas to improve. The first question I would ask is […]
Late For The For the Daily Stand Up? You’ll Be Sorry!

What happens if you are for the Scrum Daily Stand Up? The daily stand up is a very important meeting. It sets the tone for the day and ensures that everyone is in line. Have you noticed that people have started to turn up late? Are people starting to get lazy or too comfortable? Incentivise […]
Daily Scrum, do I have to?

The Daily Scrum This will be the first in a series of ‘mini-blog’ posts, small bite sized content with hopefully small nuggets of knowledge, inspiration or motivation. Its a question that gets asked a lot… “Do we have to do it today?”, “Can we skip today?”, “Why is it everyday?”, especially for teams new to […]
How to Scale Scrum Teams

Scaling scrum teams Growing I would say that there is a tipping point in every organisation; that point where your product or company starts to get some traction and demand rapidly starts to increase. There is a point where you need to seriously start to consider about scaling scrum teams structure. If you don’t, you […]
Sprint Planning: Remember it’s a Sprint, not a Marathon

What is Sprint Planning? Sprint planning is a time-boxed meeting that is conducted at the beginning of the sprint, where the team and the product owner discusses and decides on the work that will be completed in the sprint. Generally, the meeting is split into two: What & How. What? The product owner brings a […]