Is ScrumMaster Time Tracked in Sprints?
I recently was asked this question: "Typically, does the ScrumMaster have stories in any given sprint that track for iteration planning, backlog refinement, or any other sprint/Scrum tracking activities? Or does the ScrumMaster's time fall outside...
Risk Management in Agile
There is no definite consensus on the need for risk management within the Agile method. This has led many to believe that risk management is irrelevant in an iterative model. Some follow the approach of ignoring risks until they manifest into issu...
The Retrospective: Know Yourself and Adapt to the World
In Scrum: The Unity of Knowing and Doing, I discussed the two basic abilities of human beings: knowing and doing. In terms of Scrum, inspection is about knowing, adaption is about doing, and transparency unites knowing and doing. From a team persp...
Why Not Merge Roles in Scrum?
I would like to pose the question, "Why not merge roles in Scrum?" I'll begin not by talking about Scrum specifically, but by taking a different approach and using an example. The world of colors We recognize three primary colors: red, blue, and...
Six Recommendations for an Enterprise Scrum Transformation
Background
When I attended the February 2013 Agile SoCal group meeting in Orange County, California, the main event was a presentation by George Schlitz, founder of BigVisible Solutions. The title of this presentation was "Agile Beyond the Teams ...
What Does the Agile Manifesto Mean?
As we all know, the Agile Manifesto was authored at a ski lodge in Utah in 2001. These important guidelines and principles drive much of what we do. These simple, elegant words are very difficult to use in the real world and sometimes, in my opini...
Sit Down and Learn from the Master: The ScrumMaster's Responsibility to Educate
When I took my first Certified ScrumMaster course, I was taught that one of the responsibilities of the ScrumMaster is to educate. The role of educator is an increasingly important one, as we see more and more organizations adopting Scrum at the e...