Live Virtual Classroom's and the new normal
With the change in business model in the current crisis, many training organizations have had to do the unthinkable and move to Live Virtual training options. Existing wisdom was that training online, just as running teams virtually would be a disaster and reduce the student’s experience.
Live Site Culture & Site Reliability Engineering
As more and more organisations move towards a higher degree of agility, they inevitably also move towards DevOps practices like Continuous Delivery to facilitate shortening the feedback loops. Firms today experience a much higher velocity of business change. Market opportunities appear or dissolve in months or weeks instead of years.
The Tyranny of Taylorism and how to detect Agile BS
Something very close to my heart is helping folks understand the origin of the practices that are commonly used in management today. I feel that only with an understanding of history can we figure out how to change the future. I often talk about this in my classes and help folks see why things are the way that they are in many organisations.
Slaying the Dragons and How to Successfully Descale at Scale
Many organisations don’t really want to change how they do business and believe that they can continue in the way they always have while still getting better at delivering software.
Live Webcast: Q&A with Martin Hinshelwood on 27th March 2020
After my last webcast I received a question from a good friend of mine about how to incorporate UX into a Scrum Team. Since I have been teaching the Professional Scrum with UX class I thought I would share the gist of what might be a good place to start.
What is your perspective on collocation?
As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as those questions I did not get to.
Can the Definition of Done change per Sprint?
I was asked this question today and I think there is a clear answer, however it may change depending on the context of the question. “During each Sprint Retrospective, the Scrum Team plans ways to increase product quality by improving work processes or adapting the definition of “Done”, if appropriate and not in conflict with product or organizational standards.” -Scrum guide
How do you handle conflict in a Scrum Team?
As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as those questions I did not get to.
In Nexus with 5 Scrum teams, how can the Product Owner attend all Sprint Planning events?
As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as those questions I did not get to.
Should the Scrum Master always remove impediments?
As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as those questions I did not get to.
What's the best way to work around multiple PO?
As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as those questions I did not get to.
How do you make a good Forecast?
As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as those questions I did not get to.
Are technical skills required to be a Scrum Master?
As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as those questions I did not get to.
No Estimates and is it advisable for a Scrum Team to adopt it?
As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as those questions I did not get to.
How do you incorporate a Design Sprint in Scrum?
As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as those questions I did not get to.
DOD has made it illegal to do waterfall
Did you know that the DOD has made it illegal to do waterfall? Well, kind of… For the first time in many years, the Department of Defence (DOD) in the United States had made a major update to its procurement rules. They can no longer be held accountable for holding up our industry, and being culpable for its inability to move towards agility. The last vestiges of the old ways are gone.
Introducing Kanban for Professional Scrum Teams
A few weeks ago I was in Boston to visit the Scrum.org offices and learn to teach the Professional Scrum with Kanban (PSK) training class co-taught by Steve Porter and Daniel Vacanti . This is a new Professional Scrum training course created by Ken Schwaber, Scrum.org, the Professional Scrum Trainer Community and Daniel Vacanti who helped to develop the Kanban Method for knowledge work. The new class was just announced by Ken & Scrum.org and includes a Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams that describes Kanban within the context of the Scrum Framework .
Work can flow across the Sprint boundary
There is nothing in the Scrum Guide that says that you can’t have workflow across the Sprint boundary. I’m going to suggest that not only can you, but you should as long as you don’t endanger the Sprint Goal.
Professional Scrum is for everyone in your organisation
Recently I worked with a new customer in Denver to help them move towards a greater degree of Scrum in their software development. The idea that Scrum is for everyone in your organisation is kind of new, but it reflects the modern understanding of the way people work, and the rejection of Taylorism and command and control. You cant use someone else approaches to get to agility , but you can learn from it.
Create your own path to Organisational Agility
Other scaled agile frameworks employ a cookie-cutter approach to organisational agility. While I accept that they may have worked somewhere once, the likelihood that the same approach will work in your organisation is small. They were created to get a unique company from their existing state to their personal vision of where they wanted to be. To increase the likelihood of success you need a framework that guides you to change your organisation in an incremental and custom fashion towards your own vision. Cookie-cutter approaches will not work for you.
Round up for 2017 and beyond: Agility, DevOps, and Everything In-between
This year has been relatively busy for conferences. Which is unusual since I usually forget until after the call for papers and wonder what’s going on. Well, this time I got some submissions in on time. It does, however, baffle me which papers are selected. I always submit around 6 papers for workshops and talks, and always the one I would least like to present is picked.
Getting started with a modern source control system and DevOps
There are a number of things that you have to think about when selecting a modern source control system. Some of that is purely about code, but modern source control systems are about way more than code. They are about your entire application lifecycle and supporting DevOps practices, they are about the metadata that you use to understand and manage your development processes and deliver great software. The tools you choose should compliment the professional people and practices that you use.
Professional Scrum Training for the Ghana Police Service
Last time I talked about the Ghana Police Service (GPS) I was talking about Professional Organisational Change and the approach the Inspector General of Police (IGP) is taking; using Scrum to incrementally make changes to the organisation. While Nana Abban and the IGP have been focusing on the big picture, I have been in Ghana to start the grass roots adoption of Scrum with two Professional Scrum Foundations (PSF) classes, the first ever run in Ghana.
Professional Organisational Change at the Ghana Police Service
The Ghana Police Service is in trouble. Over the last few last few decades each new Police organisation and government has tried in various ways to carry out some change but most changes have been ad-hoc, temporary, not robust enough or strategic. The old problems return to haunt new administrations and many police officers and the Public have lost hope.
Scrum Tapas: Scrum and Continuous Delivery
I get asked a lot at conferences and at customers how Scrum and Continuous Delivery can work together. The reality is that they complement each other and at the last Scrum.org F2F I sat down to make a little video on the way I think that it works.
VSTS Sync Migration Tool Update and Bugfix
The VSTS Sync Migration tools have been updated with new features and bug fixes for common issues reported by users.
Scrum Tapas: The Importance of Professionalism
I believe that to create great software you need to have Professional Teams and not just amateur Teams. However most software teams are amateurs that don’t follow the rules, don’t subscribe to engineering excellence, and don’t follow the values and principals
I do continuous deliver, why should I Sprint?
Many folks believe that a Sprint is an arbitrary length of time in which you create and release software. They look at their continuous delivery pipeline and say to themselves; “Why would I limit myself to shipping only once every two weeks?”
Choosing a Process Template for your Team Project
Over the years I have had many discussions about Agile vs Scrum process templates with both TFS and VSTS and migrated many Team Projects from Agile or CMMI templates to the Scrum Template.
Government Cloud First policy
Why is it that while there is a Government Cloud First policy there are so much fear of cloud in the public sector? I have been working with a number of government and local council agencies in the UK and I found that they are still trying to decide if cloud is a good idea.
