Zombie Standups (And How to Bring them Back to Life)

Are you Trapped in a Zombie Standup? Do you find yourself tuning out during Standup (Daily Scrum)? Do you feel like everybody’s monotonously reciting laundry list answers to the Three Questions: what you worked on yesterday, what you’re working on today, and…maybe…what impediments you’ve run into? When it’s your turn, do you find yourself facing…

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6 Signals of Collective Conflict Avoidance

Conflict Avoidance in Scrum

The primary goal of Scrum Mastering[1] is to enable a Well-Formed Team™ (WFT). Ideally, a Well-Formed Team[2] would take on most of its own facilitation and coaching. However, some Teams get stuck in earlier stages of maturity that we describe as Collective Conflict Avoidance. Collective Avoidance is a norm that needs to be thoughtfully and…

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Agile Engineering: What the heck is that?

During the Agile Transformation Summit 2015 last week, hosted by the South Florida Agile Association, our very own Marcelo Lopez and Rick Regueira, Sr. Agile Coach with IPC Subway (and SFAA board President), gave a great presentation on Agile Engineering.

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Technical Debt: A Horror Story

This is an excerpt from Dan Rawsthorne’s upcoming book “Project Management with Scrum”. Dan is a Certified Scrum Trainer for 3Back, a world-leader in Scrum development, and co-author of “Exploring Scrum: The Fundamentals”. This excerpt will give you a basic understanding of technical debt as well as a glimpse into an real-world example of technical debt overwhelming a team.

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One Scrum Team. Four Languages.

Some of these languages are pleasant and palatable to us. Others repel us like vinegar. Our challenge as Product Owners, ScrumMasters and teammates is to peel the words and find value in the thought. Let’s revisit the statements and reveal what the intent truly is.

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Scrum Meetings: Painful or Successful?

Scrum meetings are a frequent and essential occurrence as we move through the Scrum framework. As a team member, a Product Owner, or a ScrumMaster, we have an obligation to facilitate meetings that are engaging. How to accomplish that?? It requires awareness and practice.

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I don’t like my teammates…

You don’t have to like your teammates. You don’t have to go to happy hour with your teammates or the office birthday parties with them. BUT this is what you do need.

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The Scrum Wheel and the Learning Wheel United

Scrum teams spin the wheel daily.  Every product, story, and task begs for the Scrum wheel to be in motion.  Another wheel is spinning every time the Scrum team gathers.  Whether it be for a daily stand-up, a product demo or a sprint retrospective, the learning wheel is also present. Learning wheels churn through ideas and…

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Teams: Meet Shannon.

“That’s great, but what if we try…?”  Is that your teammate’s favorite sentence?  I could guess that ‘risk taker’,’ people lover’, and ‘enthusiastic’ also describe Shannon.  Without a doubt, Shannon is the biggest cheerleader on your team, but some team members may see her having a lack of focus…jumping from one project to another without…

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Teams: Meet Keith.

I once chaired a small leadership team, just four people.  Keith, my operations lead, was highly tuned into telling us how our ideas could or could not be implemented.  Keith had a million ways to process, but he appeared to have a  lack of caring about the people we were serving.  Keith was bottom-line results…

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