My blog has moved!!!

As my website has now been revamped and relaunched, my blog will now be hosted on that website. The new blog can be found at here.

More Certified Scrum training in Bristol!!

Due to the success of my last public course in Bristol, I have set up two more dates in August. Feel free to get in touch if you are interested.

http://www.scrumalliance.org/courses/20094979-certified-scrummaster

http://www.scrumalliance.org/courses/20095243-certified-scrum-product-owner

Certified ScrumMaster Training in Bristol!

I'm running a public Certified ScrumMaster training class in Bristol on 14th & 15th June 2010. Early bird discounts are available until 14th May 2010. More details can be found on the Scrum Alliance website:

http://www.scrumalliance.org/courses/20094666-certified-scrummaster

Please contact me directly if you are interested in attending.

My Top 5 ScrumMaster Bloopers

I've observed a number of different ScrumMasters facilitating a number of scrum teams and I thought I would summarise the most common pitfalls/bad habits I see most ScrumMasters fall into. By no means am I perfect either, as some of these I even notice myself doing!!!

1. The "Top and Tail" ScrumMaster. Someone who always speaks first or last (or both) at the daily scrum meetings.

2. The "Alarm Clock" ScrumMaster. Someone who calls the start of the daily scrum meetings every day without fail.

3. The "Secretary" ScrumMaster. Someone who always updates the scrum artifacts themself.

4. The "Iconic" ScrumMaster. Someone who calls the team to worship (around their desk) for a daily scrum.

5. The Step-ScrumMaster. Someone who is ScrumMaster-ing another team and likes to think they spend enough time with both, but really they don't.

A New Daily Scrum Smell

Smell: The ScrumMaster who always speaks first or last during the Daily Scrum.

Problem: Scrum Development Team need to be reminded about what their focus is or ScrumMaster feels the need to reinforce it. Lack of accountability and ownership from the team.

Scrum & UX @ Bath Scrum User Group

I presented "Scrum & UX" at the Bath Scrum User Group which generated a lot of good discussion and conversation. Thanks to all those who attended. My slides can be viewed here.

Ouija Board Estimation / Seance Sizing

During a training course I ran a few weeks ago, one of the delegates made a joke about the nature of agile estimation in scrum teams resembling a "seance" whereby the team gathers around the table and stares and a number of cards expecting something unnatural to happen.

How true!!

Which gave me an idea which I tried in practice today. I sat the team around a table and put the fibonacci sequences number 1,2,3,5,8,13 and ? around the table in a circle. The product owner then read out the story and the team clarified the acceptance criteria. then the story was placed in the middle of the table and each team member put one finger on the story. Without discussion or argument the story started to move towards the number which reflected it's size.

Not only did it encourage consenus practice for the team, but it was a much quieter, faster way to estimate. We kept the stories on the table grouped against their size for comparision. In an hours session the team estimated their backlog and had some great fun!!

I'll keep that one up my sleeve in future...