His Scrum Master's Voice

One of the aspects of scrum that is often poorly executed despite its simple nature is the daily stand up meeting. The daily stand up meeting is a brief stand up meeting designed so   team   member s can provide progress updates to the team in a quick, efficient manner. Here is the basic format: Daily, 10-15 minute status meeting – keep it short and sweet Same place and time every day – encourages routine and rhythm Standing up – encourages people to keep it succinct The meeting is usually f acilitated  by Scrum Master, but in practice it can and should be facilitated by any team member It is not a meeting to report progress to the scrum master – people should report progress to the team. Chickens and pigs allowed (Guests are welcome to observe but if you’re not invested in the outcome, then please stay silent) Do's Focus on these three questions –       What did you do yesterday? –    ...

As a ... developer I want ...  well written requirements with clear acceptance criteria So that ...  I understand the functionality I am being asked to build, I understand the value of building it & I know when I am finished building it. When an organisation switches to using agile methodologies, one of the most often asked questions by analysts and developers is “ Why do we have to write user stories for everything? ”  I’m sure that nothing irks a business analyst more than having to convert their beautifully crafted requirements document into a backlog of user stories. Even when teams are in the flow of using stories as currency and have accepted that all functionality needs to be specified in user story format,  the tendency to disregard or misinterpret the INVEST principles is ubiquitous. Having a ‘bad’ user story can result in confusion, waste and inefficiency. In general you’ll find scrum masters espousing the I...