The Daily Scrum

How To: Sizing and Estimation Game

The Zoo Game When starting out with teams I like to facilitate an exercise called “The Zoo Game” to bring relative sizing and estimation to life. It is a practical exercise that is run with the whole team together. Getting started If the team are located in the same office, then you will need the followingContinue reading “How To: Sizing and Estimation Game”

How To: Backlog Refinement

The Scrum Guide states that, ” Product Backlog Items that can be Done by the Scrum Team within one Sprint are deemed ready for selection in a Sprint Planning event. They usually acquire this degree of transparency after refining activities. Product Backlog Refinement is the act of breaking down and further defining Product Backlog ItemsContinue reading “How To: Backlog Refinement”

How To: Sprint Review

As always I have tried to break things down into PO / SM / Team responsibilities so that you know how closely these roles need to work together to get great outcomes. Sprint Review. The Sprint review is held at the end of the Sprint to “inspect the Increment and adapt the Product Backlog ifContinue reading “How To: Sprint Review”

How To: Sprint Retrospectives

Sprint Retrospectives are an important part of our inspect and adapt process. It helps our teams to continually improve by looking back at the last Sprint, identifying areas of improvement and creating an action plan to to implement improvements for the next Sprint. The Format The format of a retrospective can be as simple asContinue reading “How To: Sprint Retrospectives”

How To: Sprint Planning

Sprint Planning is an event in Scrum where the team come together to align and determine which User Stories they will work on during their Sprint. The Product Owner will come to the event with a Sprint Goal in mind that aligns to their product vision. The team will discuss the Sprint Goal, identify UserContinue reading “How To: Sprint Planning”

Path to CTC

I have been toying with the idea of sitting my Certified Team Coach for a while. I had begun the process a few years back when it was known as the Certified Scrum Coach but with a new baby and a new job my priorities quickly changed. Now the CTC seems to be the nextContinue reading “Path to CTC”

Scrum from Hell revisited.

Today was a flashback kind of day. I was part of a Scrum Master training day and one of the games the group played was “Scrum from Hell”. It took me back to 2009 when I wrote one of my first Blog Posts about a game I played with one of my teams. The blog post remainsContinue reading “Scrum from Hell revisited.”

Distributed Scrum Teams

I was looking for inspiration for my next blog post when I found a notification telling me that I had an article sitting in my drafts section. Distributed Scrum Teams was the title and it took me back to 4 years previous when this topic came into my head. I was going to tell you aboutContinue reading “Distributed Scrum Teams”

Blogging and I.

I have been maintaining my blog for a while, quite loosely as you will see. I often found myself having great ideas to post but when I sit down to actually write a blog post, they never seem to fit together well and ultimately they don’t get written. I really need to practice what IContinue reading “Blogging and I.”

Sign up to save a life.

A bit of a different topic for my first blog post in a long while! As I sit chilling out I am reminded of the significance of today’s date. Exactly this time last month I was being wheeled up to a hospital ward having just donated bone marrow to potentially help save the life ofContinue reading “Sign up to save a life.”