The Daily Standup

How Much Should You Pay a ScrumMaster? OR Do You Even Need One? So how much does a Scrum Master cost? Let’s chat about it, I think the answer might just surprise you. Now I think this is an interesting question, we tend to think of this in terms of how much an organisation will have to pay to employ a Scrum Master or how much the Scrum Master thinks they’re worth, but there’s a different way of looking at this. The cost to the organization and the team by employing the wrong person. 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/

September 11th - Peace, Politics, and Remembrance - You Can Make a Difference! Join V. Lee Henson, President and Founder of AgileDad as we explore remembering 9/11 and how politics does not need to divide us as a people. 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/

Anti-Agile: The Agile Industrial Complex Daniel Mezick says: “It is that web of Agile institutions, Agile thought leaders and Agile consulting firms that implicitly collude to make normal the very harmful and disrespectful imposition of Agile practices on teams without consent. The Agile space is now a “no-innovation zone.” It tolerates and in fact perpetuates a highly weaponized version of Agile. Coercion, command-and-control, force, and the routine mandating of specific practices are how this game is played. The Agile Industrial Complex perpetuates and then monetizes a culture of coercion and force. The result is a worldwide pandemic of highly prescriptive, enterprise-wide Agile “trance formations.” Could this be true? 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 Importance of Using the Word No.. Prioritization Matters! “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.” — Steve Jobs 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/

What is Self-Management in Agile Teams? Self-managing teams are one of the foundational principles of Scrum. As Scrum Masters, we are trained to strive towards that idea. It embodies the first value in the Agile Manifesto: We put the individuals and the interactions first by giving the team autonomy on how to organise themselves to achieve the Sprint Goal. Only then do we give them tools and processes to support that specific way of organising themselves. Self-management is critical to succeeding as a Scrum Team because it leads to ownership and empowers the team. And it creates intrinsic motivation, which is such a powerful driver of team effectiveness. 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 Random Act of Kindness 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/

Is The ScrumMaster Role Obsolete? In the dynamic world of Agile methodologies, the role of the Scrum Master is often misunderstood and undervalued. Many organizations mistakenly view the Scrum Master as merely a facilitator, applicable only in the early stages of a team’s development. Many organizations divide the responsibility for a person, being a half-time Scrum Master and a half-time value developer. And many organizations believe the Scrum Master role is obsolete when the team has understood how agile works and how all ceremonies should be performed. 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/

I just had groceries delivered. One of the items I ordered was a four-pack of square tissues. The store must have been out of those because they substituted an eight-pack of small travel tissues.
You might say the store delivered less value than I expected.
And I’m only a bit disappointed, but imagine how disappointed stakeholders are when teams deliver less value than they should. That’s more frustrating because what our teams deliver is nothing to sneeze at.
One reason teams deliver less value than they could is that they don’t have a medium-term goal to guide their efforts.
A long-term goal is great. It can provide excitement to spur a team to greater creativity, novel solutions, and breakthrough products.
But it’s hard to feel progress against a long-term goal that won’t be achieved for maybe two, three, or more years.
And short-term goals, such as sprint goals, are great at gauging daily progress and keeping everyone focused.
It’s the medium-term goal, perhaps two or three months into the future, that I often find missing. And that I find the most compelling.
This is why I was excited in 2020 when the product goal became an official part of Scrum. The Scrum Guide is silent on how far out a product goal should be, simply calling it a “long-term objective.”
Two problems arise without a goal a few months into the future:
1) Each sprint is prioritized anew. The product owner considers whatever is urgent—that is, whatever stakeholders are yelling about at the moment—and sets the team to work on that.
The urgent is not always that important. My email has been dinging while I write this. I probably need to at least read my new messages today, so they’re urgent. But they’re not as important as writing this email is to me.
Without a medium-term goal to weigh against whatever stakeholders are asking for this red-hot moment, those urgent items will always win.
When a team works on what’s urgent rather than on what’s important, they don’t deliver as much value as they could.
2) Without a medium-term goal to guide it, a team will often bounce from one top priority to the next. Teams, and especially their product owners, can succumb to shiny-object syndrome.
An agile team should absolutely shift away from its current top priority capability once the next work on that item is of lower value than work on some other capability. A product goal achievable in a few months helps a team decide when that’s the case.
As the team begins each new iteration, everyone should be open to abandoning or altering the medium-term goal.
Using a medium-term goal to guide rather than dictate its priorities will help your team succeed with agile. 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/

Together with the rest of the team, the Product Owner is accountable for ensuring the product’s success, usually in a dynamic business environment. They link the customer’s needs and desires and the team’s work, aligning the product with market demands. For this, they need the ability to order the backlog based on priorities, risk, and value, to communicate effectively, and to keep the direction steady towards the product vision while taking care of all the details that may emerge. 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/

Observed the first Monday in September, Labor Day is an annual celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers. The holiday is rooted in the late nineteenth century, when labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity, and well-being. 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/