The Daily Standup

Are You Protecting Your Team Against the Right Thing? - Mike CohnA lot has been written and said about the responsibility of a Scrum Master to protect the team.
Examples of protecting the team typically involve running interference with well-meaning but overzealous product owners, stakeholders, and managers. Teams run into trouble all the time from people who want it all now or who keep adding more work in the middle or a sprint. Scrum Masters keep all that noise away so that the team can focus on delivery.
But if you are only focused on problems coming from squeaky wheels, you’re missing one of the biggest dangers out there: complacency.
Agile is about continually getting better. I don’t care how good a team is today; if they aren’t better a year from now, they’re not agile.
Complacency can creep in when a team sees some initial improvement from adopting an agile approach. Team members will notice how improved they are and think that’s enough.
But there’s almost always room for further improvement.
Some teams become complacent about their process and stop looking for ways to deliver more value each iteration. Still other teams become complacent in seeking out new engineering practices that could make the team even better.
Protect your team from complacency by setting high expectations and encouraging the team to set even higher expectations of their own performance.
Teams that refuse to settle for the status quo are teams that advance from good to great.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] https://www.agiledad.com/- [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/- [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/- [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

No, Product Management Isn’t Useless — You’re Just Doing It WrongIf you think PMs just write tickets and slow things down, you haven’t seen product management done right.I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard some version of this:
“Do we even need product managers anymore?”

Usually, it comes after a failed launch, a bloated backlog, or a roadmap that reads like a Frankenstein wishlist stitched together by six departments and zero users.
And sure — if that’s what you think product management is, I can’t blame you for questioning it.

The Scrum Master Role Is Disappearing - Or Is It? The layoffs of 2023 told a story that few in the tech industry wanted to acknowledge. Among the 120,000+ tech workers who lost their jobs, Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches were disproportionately represented. But this wasn’t just about economic belt-tightening it was the culmination of a quiet revolution that’s been brewing for years.
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Trick-or-treaters Leave Their Halloween Candy For Child Battling LeukemiaA search for hope at the end of this very anxious week led me to this humble bundle.  Zoe, 3, is the proud product of TJ and Courtney Thomas of Atlanta, Georgia.Back in February, Zoe was diagnosed with leukemia. And because her immune system is now compromised, she couldn't go trick-or-treating on Halloween with all the other kids. In fact, her parents even had to put up a sign to keep other kids away. The sign read: "Sorry, no candy. Child with cancer. See you next year!""The whole purpose was just so that we wouldn't have to keep telling kids 'sorry' and have disappointed kids," Zoe's mother Courtney Thomas said. "Never expected anything like this."
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Witch’s Brew of Metrics — Don’t Let Vanity Hex Your TeamMetric definition template

• Name:
• What it measures:
• Owner:
• Frequency:
• Thresholds / signals:
• Action when threshold met:How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] https://www.agiledad.com/- [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/- [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/- [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Poltergeist Meetings — When Meetings Throw Things At You... 5 micro-rituals (practical)

1. Purpose line on invite — one sentence: “Decision needed / Sync / Info.”
2. Time-boxed agenda — 3 bullets with owner & minutes.
3. No Rotating facilitator — prevent single-person theater.
4. Two-minute rule — speakers over two minutes get a “parking lot” nudge.
5. Outcome artifact — one sentence note added to the meeting invite that records decisions.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] https://www.agiledad.com/- [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/- [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/- [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

The Phantom Sprint — Invisible Work That Steals VelocityYour sprint looks healthy — until a phantom dependency eats your finish line. Here’s how to find the invisible work before the demo.Detection & prevention tactics

• Dependency board: visible KANBAN lane for external asks with owners and ETA.
• Capacity buffer: protect 10–20% of sprint for unplanned but likely work.
• Pre-planning checkpoint: 5-min readout with ops/support to surface recurring interrupts.
• Risk register: short public list of items that can block sprint goals.

The Haunted Backlog — When Old Stories Won’t Die

• Triage: Mark backlog items > 90 days old as “graveyard candidates.”
• Reframe: Turn vague epics into a one-sentence outcome + metric. If you can’t, bury it.
• Timebox an experiment: If still valuable, create a 1-week spike with a clear success metric.
• Assign ownership: No owner = forever ghost. Give it to someone accountable for outcome vs. activity.
• Retire ritual: Monthly “retire or revive” cadence — items not revived are archived with a short rationale.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] https://www.agiledad.com/- [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/- [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/- [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

A Chad Gymnast Scores Top Marks For DeterminationThe wall behind her is pockmarked and worn. She’s barefoot against a hard, cracked floor. And yet Achta Derib’s pose in this photograph by Antonio López Díaz, a finalist in the professional sports category at the Sony world photography awards, suggests reserves of determination that will carry her across continents to perform at the highest levels of her sport.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] https://www.agiledad.com/- [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/- [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/- [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Stop Worshipping Product RoadmapsA few years ago, I sat through a two-hour planning session where we debated every line of a shiny new roadmap. By the end, we had a color-coded masterpiece: features neatly slotted by quarter, dependencies tracked, and timelines locked...How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] https://www.agiledad.com/- [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/- [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/- [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/