Today was interesting… we did our first sprint planning meeting with a team of 5 people. After I’d sat with the designated Product Owner (a BA with a passion for the project) and created what I think is a sufficient product backlog, I explained the concepts of Scrum to the team (especially around estimation and effort) as I was taught and we actually managed to determine our first sprint backlog. I did have one question regarding the burndown chart though, and having researched it in “Agile Software Development with Scum” and I realized what I was taught is different (in implementation) to what they say in the book. Boris estimates using what I think are “weightings” for tasks (relative to one another), the book demonstrates the use of “hours” to measure effort, although the “hours” are not commitments but only estimations made “as a team”. This seems a little more logical to me as well. I’ll take it to the team and see what they think, afterall, in the end its only important that you have a decent burndown chart with decent tracking isn’t it?
Tag: scrum
The CSM Course
The Certified ScrumMaster course in itself was extremely interesting and I’d recommend it to anyone who can get to it. It was also extremely difficult to find in South Africa but I finally stumbled on a course given by Boris Gloger (hosted by Peter Hundermark) and managed to get into it. If you’re thinking of going Scrum, or any agile approach for that matter, this is a definite must have on your list, not so much for the “certification”, but for the sheer volume of knowledge you’ll take away from it. Be prepared to be overwhelmed, but in a nice way…
Certified ScrumMaster…
… ok now what? I guess that’s the biggest question I went away with from the CSM course I completed today. The course itself was extremely interesting and I think it served two purposes, the one was to reinforce my existing knowledge and the second to correct it, the latter being more prevelant. It was refreshing to discover that what I thought was being done incorrectly at my company was, in fact, being done incorrectly.
The course was also an eye-opener and sort of a wake up call. I have always liked the agile approach but have always been a fence sitter when it comes to implementation, trying a bit here, trying a bit there, never fully committing. I think what this course has given me is not a piece of paper to say I’m now somehow “qualified” to be a Scrum Master, but rather a direction, a sort of impetus to do something constructive with the knowledge I’ve gathered.
What am I going to do with it? I’m not sure, but I have a plan. I’m currently employed by a company that is attempting Scrum. I say attempting because I now know how horribly they’re failing. Yes, projects appear to be working and coming in with reasonable success, but not without monumentus effort at varing stages through the sprint(s). I think I’m now capable enough to fix this and that is my plan. I will draw up a draft proposal documenting what I believe to be the points in our process that need to be corrected. I’ll then present it to the IT manager and see what happens. Being a strong proponent of Scrum and the agile approach I’m hoping he likes it. From there, well, let’s learn to walk before we run…