12. USER STORIES
“As much as part of me hates having templates for things,
the “As a type of user, I want some goal so that some
reason” template really helps.” Mike Cohn.
13. RETROSPECTIVES
• What went well during
the sprint?
• What could be
improved in the next
sprint?
16. PRINCIPLES VS. PRACTICES
• “If you are doing lots of the practices but
not living some of the principles, then you
should ask yourself if you still have at least
one foot in the land of traditional
management” (Stephen Denning)
18. THE GOLDEN CIRCLE
Simon Sinek:
• http://www.startwith
HIW
WHY why.com/
HOW
WHAT
19. SOFTWARE (STILL) SUCKS!
• 10-15 Years ago computer
users were all college
graduates
• The users have changed,
the industry was slow to
react.
• “Know thy user for thy user
is not thee!”
20. THE GOLDEN CIRCLE ( AND CHROME)
The WHY is
Customer Value
HIW
WHY
HOW
WHAT
Have you at some point been part of a group that functioned seamlessly and flawlessly in the absence of excessive rules, bureaucracy, procedures. And still delivered. Are you having that at the moment? Are youdoing Agile?
Is it really adoption?
..Or embracing? Does it always start as embracing, in a small group?
The truth is that Scrum or Kanban or whatever you choose are sometimes (most of the times) imposed at organizational level. That is not necessarily warm. This is a global problem at the moment when Scrum is pushed into the organization and a local, personal problem when new individuals join the organization
Why is it difficult sometimes? We’ve established it is not embraced, but pushed. So maybe that is it. But what is scrum?
Is this Scrum?
Is Scrum a sum of its practices and by applying those are you guaranteed to succeed? Apparently so because...
…you only have to follow the rules to get it right. Let’s explore SOME OF the elements, see what might go wrong.
Scrum Master is an important role. One of the issues faced is where to get them? Internal from the team, recruit external. The problems: team rejection or SM rejection of process.
Same issues here with finding the right people, there is confusion in the job ad. Here the issues are different - team might become loyal to PO and not SM as he is more involved. Also they are architects or project managers so they might get into TA Parent-to-Child mode with the team.
Having sprints does not guarantee success if you award just the public releases according to a roadmap. Having a prioritized backlog does not work if all priorities are top and the top priority items are unknowns… The tendencies to fall back into waterfall mode are due to the educational system.
What makes great user stories great? Some discuss best practices. Does using the as a, I want to… classic format guarantee success?
This is the most important ceremony. And they should just work. But they don’t always and it turns out they are the most difficult to setup. Complain vs. responsibility.
There are ways to manipulate people and sometimes it might not be what you are after. They might say what you want them to say. You will get the happy adoption feeling but…
There must be something missing if we have all this problems. Scrum is simple, so why is it so hard to do?
You might think that this is another talk about principles. You would be right, to some extent.
Present the principles of scrum and how they relate to the mechanics of Scrum. They are: Empiricism, Self-organization, Collaboration, Prioritization and Time Boxing. The values, short: Respect, Commitment, Focus, Courage, and Openness. But there are a lot more elements related to it. It is very hard to give up any of the things and they are so many. It is hard to present that to someone. What if there is a common denominator?
Simon Sinek idea of the golden circle. http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html
Software is badly designed, people got accustomed to it. However some software makers have figured it out.
Chrome changed the browser world, at a moment where it seemed there was no place for newcomers, by starting with the “why”. The WHY in the center is more generally CUSTOMER VALUE.
They are still working the what. IE is the browser that renders the highest amount of fish. Firefox does not care about the corporate customer, or developers of extensions. However all copy the look of Chrome.
It must be the customer value that wins. That is how software will stop sucking.
The principle must apply to the way we develop software as well. The “WHY” in the center is still the Customer Value. Then everything else makes sense. “Why” is fuzzy, can’t really express it, as it is related to the limbic brain. It is complex (sense-making). We can only try to approximate it, just like in mathematics iterative algorithms work. More than one person is needed to better approximate. That is why we need iterations, customer in the game, Scrum elements. We need to start with the WHY = CUSTOMER VALUE in order to succeed. Then the process framework will simply fall into place. That is how you that team you once were part of worked flawlessly. That is how you get great teams. That is how you separate from the tendencies to go back to old principles. Is it worth it? YES. Market shows it. Truly and not only declarative: we are happy and the customer is happy. Progress is achieved and the PAIN WILL BE OVER. Just like that. No Pain, No Pain...
Sometimes you have the best idea from day one. Most of the times you don’t. Through iterations Android phones got from 4 buttons and a trackball to 4 buttons then 3 buttons. They are trying to approximate customer value.
Maybe they will finally reach this interface. Or better.
