Random (s)crums

Some random “things” that I will take away from the CSM-course:

If you need a lot of system design you should still parallelize design and implementation (i.e. do it within the sprint) but it would be wise to add a Sprint Zero focusing on system design alone. This sprint will most probably be a little bit longer than normal sprints (depending on your system).

I will probably take a look at the book Software by numbers.

Ok I’ll cave; using modeling-terminology Scrum can be seen, roughly, as an instance of “Lean”. At least most of the basic principles, or values, are the same.

The Spec/Developer game that we played at the training should be played in every organization… the quick lessons learnt from that one are so easily neglected on an everyday basis.

When e.g. building cars or similar products there are a very strong focus on time, technology and cost, why is value repeatedly left out of that equation? Ok this one is not from the training itself but in Scrum the focus is on value and if anything you should, when prioritizing, look for at least MMF, Minimum Marketable Feature.

I should revisit the agile architecture work together with Peter and Peter. We are on the right track there and architecture is one of the difficult questions when talking Scrum. The answer at this course was that “architecture and infrastructure are highly prioritized non-functional requirements”.

Scrum in large organizations is difficult. Scrum in large organizations developing embedded products is even more difficult. But then again it is difficult using waterfall as well.

Tick tick

Just finalized the CSM-training by completing the online certification test and thankfully I passed... piuh. Ok, currently everyone pass since they are tuning the tests but you never know... anyhow I think my score would have been enough either or; not the most difficult of exams.

Quote of the day... yesterday...

Here’s one of the more memorable quotes from the CSM-training yesterday (as a reply to a lot of tedious questions).

"Just because we use Scrum it doesn't mean we should stop thinking"

I'll try to summarize said notebook tomorrow and see if I have anything insightful to say after a, I must say, quite good training course.

Kanban

Kanban in roughly 2,34 minutes can be found here -->

And yes... I still think it is a good idea to use Kanban to visualize the work-flow in for instance an architecture team.

CSM

Two days of backlogs, sprints and burn-down charts coming up, after that I'll probably be a little bit wiser and a certificate richer. I took a Scrum-course back in 2008 and it was really good, hopefully this one will be interesting too even though I guess I won't really learn anything new. However if there’s a good mix of people the discussions around the training-subject can sometimes be way more interesting than the actual material itself.

Wednesday evening we’ll know.

Early weekend

Slow week on the far side of the blog busy nevertheless. Modprod is closing in and the message in my talk is getting there…

Reviewed a presentation from a colleague earlier this week and found two topics extra interesting in his talk; the evolution of PD connected to the market-development and the “architecture” of agile.
Seen similar slides before but liked how these where packaged.
Maybe something I will get back to here after some further discussion.

Thinking/working/sweating a lot in the context of marketing during the start of this year, maybe I should just do what Jack does?




Well time to get packing for that Åre-trip, packing is best served together with Teddybears STHML.

Crank it up high cause "them drum machines ain't got no soul" (thanks for the tip Tomas).

/ Out.

Agile today

Here's a link for anyone interested in agile development.