Yesterday evening, Alain Guilieri, Ralph Jocham & I had the privilege of speaking at the SwissICT Event 'Risks and Side Effects of Lean, Agile & Scrum.'
I talked about the challenges of changing an organization. Ralph focused on what can go wrong, in particular the important difference between an Certified ScrumMaster a Certified Scrum Practitioner (the latter in a meaningful certification) and the importance of top engineering practices. And Alain provided the Voice of the Customer: A department head in a Financial Institution who introduced Scrum two years ago and reported on his challenges, solutions and successes.
Some 60 people attended and many asked for the presentations. You can download them all here, Presentations from 'Risiken und Nebenwirkungen von Lean Agile und Scrum'.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
Scrum Breakfast in Zürich: Breaking Through Corporate Gridlock
Everyone who works in a large organization knows that such
organizations can become inflexible and unresponsive. Rules and
regulations dominate, office politics are more important than common
sense in making decisions, and sacred cows are not to be touched.
How do we break through this problem? In December, the Scrum Breakfast will address this challenge with the most interactive Scrum Breakfast ever. Structured as an Open Space, led by internationally known coach Deborah Hartmann Preuss, and driven by the questions and expertise of you, the participants, this event promises be a unique effective investigation into the challenge of making change happen where you work.
We particularly want to invite to Mid-Level Managers, Scrum Masters and anyone else who is trying to make their organizations more flexible and responsive.
When: December 2, 2009
Where: SwissICT, Vulkanstrasse 120 8048 Zürich
Registration: SwissICT
Time: Doors open at 8am for coffee and registration, we start at 8.35. As an open space event, the law of two feet applies, so you can stay as long as you feel appropriate. We'll finish by 11.00
How do we break through this problem? In December, the Scrum Breakfast will address this challenge with the most interactive Scrum Breakfast ever. Structured as an Open Space, led by internationally known coach Deborah Hartmann Preuss, and driven by the questions and expertise of you, the participants, this event promises be a unique effective investigation into the challenge of making change happen where you work.
We particularly want to invite to Mid-Level Managers, Scrum Masters and anyone else who is trying to make their organizations more flexible and responsive.
When: December 2, 2009
Where: SwissICT, Vulkanstrasse 120 8048 Zürich
Registration: SwissICT
Time: Doors open at 8am for coffee and registration, we start at 8.35. As an open space event, the law of two feet applies, so you can stay as long as you feel appropriate. We'll finish by 11.00
Labels:
change,
next,
next scrum breakfast,
open space,
zürich
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
I want it all! I want it now!
If only Santa Clause would deliver software. Life would be so much easier. Unfortunately he doesn't, and delivering working software which meets business needs is still a difficult challenge. According to a just published survey by OOSE, nearly 60% of all "classic" projects and even 1/3 of all agile projects do not succeed. How do you make sure, your project is not one of them?
Today I am giving a talk and the SAQ Software Tester Forum, From Wish List to Running System: How to Get What You Want. You can't get everything you want, but you can get what you really need. Here are the slides to my talk.
Today I am giving a talk and the SAQ Software Tester Forum, From Wish List to Running System: How to Get What You Want. You can't get everything you want, but you can get what you really need. Here are the slides to my talk.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Experience with Lean Software Development
Scrum Breakfast in November
The Challenge: Raise your release tempo from 2 to 4 releases per year, with out changing the quantity of functionality. The applications remain complex. Modifications and renovations must still be possible. This was the challenge faced by Swisscom Wholesale AG. The Solution: Introduce Lean Software Development.
What consequences did this decision have on the existing organization and their productivity? Which agile approaches were selected? Roland Grieder, former Department Manager for Software Development at Swisscom Wholesale will answer these and other questions.
The talk is in German.
There is still space available: Info, Registration
When: 04. November 2009
Where: SwissICT, Vulkanstrasse 120 in Zürich-Altstetten
P.S. I will be giving a talk on 'Getting What You Want: From Mandate to Acceptance' on the same day at the SAQ Agile Testing Day. Fredi Schmidli will moderate Wednesday's Scrum Breakfast.
The Challenge: Raise your release tempo from 2 to 4 releases per year, with out changing the quantity of functionality. The applications remain complex. Modifications and renovations must still be possible. This was the challenge faced by Swisscom Wholesale AG. The Solution: Introduce Lean Software Development.
What consequences did this decision have on the existing organization and their productivity? Which agile approaches were selected? Roland Grieder, former Department Manager for Software Development at Swisscom Wholesale will answer these and other questions.
The talk is in German.
There is still space available: Info, Registration
When: 04. November 2009
Where: SwissICT, Vulkanstrasse 120 in Zürich-Altstetten
P.S. I will be giving a talk on 'Getting What You Want: From Mandate to Acceptance' on the same day at the SAQ Agile Testing Day. Fredi Schmidli will moderate Wednesday's Scrum Breakfast.
Labels:
lean software development,
next,
next scrum breakfast,
swisscom,
zurich
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Managers, Impediments, Responsibility. Oh my!
Here's the situation: a department with 5 development teams, several of which are starting to do Scrum. The Scrum Masters have a problem. They couldn't fix impediments. Not being part of management, they weren't taken seriously by the rest of the organization. Escalating every second impediment to management wasn't working either. When impediments don't get fixed, Scrum doesn't work and everybody gets demotivated. Here's a shot at solving the problem...
One: Identify an Escalation Team (ET) who will be responsible for handling issues when the ScrumMasters get stuck. This consists of the Department Manager and his immediate reports. One of the ScrumMasters is also ScrumMaster for this group.
Two, following Karl Scotland's description of Kanban, embark on a four step process:
Four: Working with the board. Every significant impediment gets put on the central Impediments board. Every day that a ticket is on the board, tick mark goes on the card. When the ticket is done, it gets green dot if the team is happy with the result, and a red dot if not (i.e. management said, "sorry we cannot fix this problem.") The goal is to resolve impediments as quickly as possible and to have as high a percentage of green dots (= team happy) as possible.
My team hasn't looked at limiting WIP or establishing Cadence yet. It's tempting to put up a scoreboard, counting how many impediments got to done (with a red or green stamp) within one day, 2 days, 3 days, etc. A natural extension would be to set up a paralell board for improvements coming out of the retrospectives. This would give the ET a natural two week rhythm.
This approach creates a feedback loop between Management and operational staff. It gives immediate visibility to the problems and reminds people who might not want to cooperate with a lowly, powerless ScrumMaster that management is watching. It might even offer a metric for evaluating how effectively management is supporting its teams.
How do you get management integrated into the Scrum process? How do you make management responsible for making the process work?
One: Identify an Escalation Team (ET) who will be responsible for handling issues when the ScrumMasters get stuck. This consists of the Department Manager and his immediate reports. One of the ScrumMasters is also ScrumMaster for this group.
Two, following Karl Scotland's description of Kanban, embark on a four step process:
- Map the value stream
- Visualize the process with a Kanban board
- Limit WIP to achieve focus and flow
- Establish Cadence
- Step 1 ScrumMaster attempts to solve problem. S/he may succeed -> go directly to done
- Step 2 ET attempts to solve problem (and may fail)
- Done, with a successful or unsuccessful resolution
Four: Working with the board. Every significant impediment gets put on the central Impediments board. Every day that a ticket is on the board, tick mark goes on the card. When the ticket is done, it gets green dot if the team is happy with the result, and a red dot if not (i.e. management said, "sorry we cannot fix this problem.") The goal is to resolve impediments as quickly as possible and to have as high a percentage of green dots (= team happy) as possible.
My team hasn't looked at limiting WIP or establishing Cadence yet. It's tempting to put up a scoreboard, counting how many impediments got to done (with a red or green stamp) within one day, 2 days, 3 days, etc. A natural extension would be to set up a paralell board for improvements coming out of the retrospectives. This would give the ET a natural two week rhythm.
This approach creates a feedback loop between Management and operational staff. It gives immediate visibility to the problems and reminds people who might not want to cooperate with a lowly, powerless ScrumMaster that management is watching. It might even offer a metric for evaluating how effectively management is supporting its teams.
How do you get management integrated into the Scrum process? How do you make management responsible for making the process work?
Labels:
continuous improvement,
impediments,
kanban,
management,
scrum
Friday, October 30, 2009
Training / Improvements for 2010
At the Scrum Gathering, Andreas Schliep, Peter Beck and I joined together to form Das Scrum Team. Our goal is to provide the best Scrum training in Central Europe. We're still working on the details, so watch this space.
Next year, I will make a number of changes to my program:
- Public Jumpstart and PPO Courses will be upgraded to certification course (CSM / CSPO). I will be offering co-training with my Partners in Das Scrum Team.
- Andy, Peter & I will continue to offer a CSM for Advanced Users
- Due to the strong interest in Scrum in Bern, public courses will alternate between Zürich and Bern.
- Effective December 1, courses will start at 9.00 and continue to 17.00 (a shift of 1/2 hour) so that people traveling to the venue from afar can travel on the same day.
- I will offer a Scrum Jumpstart (non-CSM) in Geneva, in French. The first course will take place on January 14 & 15.
Labels:
2010,
bern,
csm,
cspo,
das scrum team,
geneva,
jumpstart,
ppo,
scrum training,
zurich
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Scrum Gathering and Scrum Breakfast Presentations
I am terribly behind publishing presentations and announcements on the blog, so here are various presentations that I have promised to publish:
From the Scrum Gathering in Munich:
From the Scrum Gathering in Munich:
- Making Change Happen - How to get the ball rolling in your company or community
- 10 Contracts for Your Next Agile Project - some thoughts about various contract forms and how they impact the execution of the project.
Labels:
munich,
scrum breakfast,
scrum gathering,
zurich
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