»Don't Panic Pivot: Managing Critical Issues to Prevent Crises with Shalabh Tandon and Shubhada Sahasrabudhe« http://drunkenpm.blogspot.com/2026/09/dont-panic-pivot-managing-critical.html #Agilist.in #Agile #Change #Lean #Kanban #Scrum

Definition of Ready is an agreement between the Product Owner and the team about what state Product Backlog Items need to be in before the Sprint. As long as it remains a lightweight check, it can be a tool for good.

The trouble starts when it gets rigid. A team with a Definition of Ready isn't optimizing for getting an idea from entering the Product Backlog to Deployed. Instead, they're optimizing for Sprint Backlog to Deployed. Items get held up at the gate for trivial reasons, like incomplete Acceptance Criteria or a missing mockup.

Imagine a Definition of Ready that holds up a feature for 6+ weeks while requirements are gathered. Once the work starts it proceeds at a normal pace, so the team can say they've reduced their cycle time, when all that really happened is the delay was pushed earlier in the system. The team feels good but the customer isn't any happier.

Consider measuring Lead Time and not Cycle Time. Any time spent waiting at the Ready gate is then accounted for, making it harder to sub-optimize.

#Scrum #Kanban

https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/definition-of-ready/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

@barryovereem thanks for sharing, i find it always very valuable to zoom in and talk about the small details as a facilitator.

@agile
#liberatingstructures #scrum #agile

»Stop narrowing the focus for Agile Coaching skill sets« https://bobgalen.substack.com/p/stop-narrowing-the-focus-for-agile #Agilist.in #Agile #Change #Lean #Kanban #Scrum

Long term Product Goals for creating superior products: How to create and use product goals, product vision, north stars and true norths to deliver winning products by Allan Kelly 🎓 on Leanpub!

What does your product want to be when it grows up? Every product needs a North Star, a True North or Product Goal to unify thinking, planning and decision making.

Link: https://leanpub.com/courses/leanpub/productgoals

#Books #eBooks #LeanPublishing #SelfPublishing #Scrum

I think the Scrum Guide is wrong about the Product Owner and the Daily Scrum.

The Guide says neither the ScrumMaster nor Product Owner are required to attend. But does that mean that they shouldn't attend? The key sentence is: "If the Product Owner or Scrum Master are actively working on items in the Sprint Backlog, they participate as Developers."

The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing the value of the product. So if their job is to help maximize value for the team, should they attend in their role as the PO? It seems simple. If they can help increase value, they should attend. When do they increase value? Most of the time.

When should they not attend? If they've not yet learned to balance their authority with the rules of the Scrum game. If they're acting as an order taker for stakeholders. When there's a risk of micro-management. When team members may not feel comfortable sharing information with them.

All of the cases where they shouldn't attend are cases where they're not playing their role well.

#Scrum #ProductOwner

https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/is-the-scrum-guide-wrong-about-the-product-owner/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

#scrum #scrumteam #dev #developer #qa #scrummaster #productowner #retrospective #retro #scrumhumor #Meme #memes #Humor #humour

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Image showS Tee Zeng from the animated series Kung Fu Sock looking tweaked out with bloodshot eyes while saying "I'm fine..." Caption: Meanwhile at retro...

please join and help fixing the hype ;)

@christiaanverwijs

@agile
#agile #scrum #liberatingstructures

#scrum #scrumteam #dev #developer #qa #scrummaster #productowner #sprint #sprintgoals #sprintplanning #failedsprint #overcapacity #StoryPoints #story_points #estimating #estimation #scrumhumor #Meme #memes #Humor #humour

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Woman trying to carry human size ear of corn onto an escalator, and it's not fitting. Caption: I think she's the embodiment of the average story in my sprint

A team can have:

2-week sprints.
Daily stand-ups.
Retrospectives.
A Scrum board.

…and still take six weeks to make a small change.

That's because process agility and technical agility aren't the same thing.

If the code fights every change, the organization eventually moves at the speed of the codebase.

#Agile #Scrum #SoftwareDevelopment #TechnicalDebt

Роль Agile Coach мертва… да здравствует агент изменений

Здесь и далее: скрам-мастер и аджайл коуч тождественны. TL;DR Роль Agile Coach должна умереть, чтобы переродиться в роль Change Agent (или Organizational Architect). И работать такие спецы должны не "вечно", а проектно - как спецназ внедрения изменений. Самое главное - у роли должна наконец-то появляться ответственность. В посте разберем 4 утверждения: какой должна быть система работы, какие вопросы задать чтобы понять что импакт от коуча есть, почему важно делать нужные бизнесу изменения и то, что софт скилы - это новые харды. Разобраться, почему стоит писать некролог

https://habr.com/ru/articles/1075680/

#agile #scrum #kanban #разработка #ai #изменения #управление_изменениями #эффективность #производительность

#scrum #scrumteam #dev #developer #qa #scrummaster #productowner #ScaledAgileFramework #safe #agilemethodology #agilemethodologies #ScaledAgileFrameworkIsntAgile #Meme #memes #Humor #humour

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Hank from "King of the Hill" is holding a box that reads "Scaled Agile Framework is not Agile handouts" and says to his wife "Peggy, the will of God has told me what my new hobby should be"

#scrum #scrumteam #dev #developer #coding #programming #programminghumor #codinghumor #programmer_humor #programmer #as400 #IBMSystem360 #system34 #system36 #os400 #ibm3180 #Meme #memes #Humor #humour

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Picture of an old man. Caption: Bow I feel when I explain to the Gen Z new hire that I started my professional career programming on IBM green screen terminals

⚠️ Self-organization fails for predictable reasons. Traditional hierarchy: leaders asserting a "right" to decide inside the team's boundary. Matrix management: members reporting to different managers with misaligned needs. And the human factor: decades of being told what to do, or a dominant personality crowding out quieter ones.

The best ScrumMasters don't solve their team's problems, they help the team see where the problems are, then get out of the way.

#Scrum

https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/self-organization/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

#scrum #scrumteam #dev #developer #qa #scrummaster #productowner #leadership #management #executives #agilemethodologies #domorewithless #priorities #unrealisticexpectations #Meme #memes #Humor #humour

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Grid displaying the hardest things in the world Diamond, obsidian, vibranium, and getting leadership to understand that scrum isn't about doing more with less

Как перестать имитировать Agile и начать получать результат

На Хабре немало статей о том, почему Agile не работает. И в большинстве из них авторы справедливо отмечают, что ритуалы превратились в формальности, Scrum выродился в бюрократию, команды имитируют активность. Всё так. Я хочу поговорить про другое - про глубинные причины неудач во внедрении Agile и конкретные способы наконец-то получить от методологии тот результат, который она способна дать. Предлагаю пошаговый алгоритм, построенный на принципах поведенческой психологии. Он работает не с ритуалами и артефактами, а с тем, что действительно движет изменениями, — с людьми, их привычками и поведением. Эта статья — не про то, что Agile плох. Она про то, как сделать его работающим.

https://habr.com/ru/companies/smartvalues/articles/1069860/

#изменения #scrum #change_management #поведение #agileтрансформация #поведенческая_психология #процессы #управление_проектами #agile

Почему Agile убивает стратегию, когда его масштабируют

Agile легко превращается в ловушку, когда спринты идут по плану, метрики растут, а стратегические задачи месяцами стоят на месте. Разбираемся, почему так происходит при масштабировании и где руководителю вернуть фокус на реальный результат.

https://habr.com/ru/companies/otus/articles/1068628/

#Agile #Scrum #масштабирование_Agile #стратегия #спринты #Velocity #Story_Points #управление_проектами #бизнесрезультат #стратегическое_управление

»The Courage to Be Different« https://bobgalen.substack.com/p/the-courage-to-be-different #Agilist.in #Agile #Change #Lean #Kanban #Scrum

#scrum #scrumteam #dev #developer #qa #scrummaster #productowner #microsoftteams #MicrosoftOutlook #jira #outlook #Meme #memes #Humor #humour

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A happy looking teen girl sitting at her computer in what appears to be an early 2000s photo. Caption: Remember when you could enjoy your computer without bullshit like Teams, Jira, and Outlook?

🚧 A Developer mentions the same work four days running and still says "no blockers." Usually the team just doesn't share a definition of what an impediment is.

Working definition: anything that slows progress toward the Sprint Goal. Bad connection, interruptions, waiting on another team, broken builds, slow decisions, a poorly understood PBI. All impediments.

A trick: swap "impediment" for "slowdown," easier to admit. Then check the board for items stuck in one state for days.

An impediment you can't name is one nobody can remove.

#Scrum #ScrumMaster

https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/impediments/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

»Special Places« https://bobgalen.substack.com/p/special-places #Agilist.in #Agile #Change #Lean #Kanban #Scrum

Ein PDF verlinkt man nicht. Man schickt es rum, und drei Wochen später hat jeder eine andere Version.

Deshalb steht mein Buch jetzt komplett als Seiten im Netz. 34 Kapitel, jedes mit eigener URL, durchsuchbar, kostenlos, kein Formular, keine Mail-Adresse.

Wenn im nächsten Refinement wieder die Frage kommt, wer eigentlich entscheidet: Kapitel 11 verlinken statt eine Datei anzuhängen.

PDF und EPUB gibt es weiter.

https://no-bullshit-agile.de/buch/?mtm_campaign=mastodon

#SoftwareDevelopment #Agile #Kanban #Scrum #Buch

🎯 Setting your Sprint Goal as "finish all seven stories" misses the point.

A Sprint Goal is a single shared objective describing the purpose of the Sprint. "Finish the stories" says nothing about why the work matters. And it isn't imposed by the PO: the PO explains the business objective, the team negotiates what's feasible, and because everyone sets it, everyone owns it.

Struggling to set one is often a sign the business strategy underneath is unclear. Worth chasing, not skipping.

#Scrum

https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/sprint-goal/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

🎭 Too many Sprint Reviews are a Show and Tell: someone demos every corner of a feature while the room says "good job" and nothing substantive. The point is to increase engagement with stakeholders and users, and talking at people does the opposite.

Two fixes. Get key stakeholders (Marketing, Support) into Product Backlog Refinement so concerns surface early, not as an ambush in the Review. And replace Show and Tell with Show and Play: pair each developer with a user and let them actually use the product.

Nothing beats watching someone else use your app to see where they get confused.

#Scrum

https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/dont-let-sprint-review-be-a-missed-opportunity/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

⏱️ Shortly after ChatGPT 4o, people talked about doing Backlog Refinement in minutes with GenAI. Most have realized that's a bad idea.

Sprint Planning isn't about a tidy Sprint Backlog. It's the team building a shared understanding of the Sprint Goal, capacity, and how they'll get there. A faster event doesn't build that understanding, it skips it.

So don't ask how GenAI makes the event quicker. Ask how it helps the team spot what gets missed and go deeper. Stress-test the plan: yes. Write your Sprint Goal for you: no.

GenAI amplifies what you're already doing, good and bad.

#AIinSoftwareDevelopment #Scrum

https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/gen-ai-wont-speed-up-your-scrum-events-and-shouldnt/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

@midzer schrieb, Scrum sei ein brutaler Scam, erfunden von Krawatten.

Ich halte den Satz für falsch. Die Wut dahinter für berechtigt.

Die meisten Devs, die agiles Arbeiten hassen, haben es nie erlebt. Sie kennen das Daily als Statusreport für den Chef und die Schätzung, aus der eine Deadline wird.

Ich hab fünf Jahre Scrum nach Lehrbuch gemacht und es sein lassen. Warum es trotzdem nicht an dir liegt:

https://no-bullshit-agile.de/es-liegt-nicht-an-dir-agiles-arbeiten-devs.html?mtm_campaign=mastodon

#Softwareentwicklung #SystemsThinking #Scrum #Kanban

🧱 I met a team where the client was the Product Owner. The backlog didn't make sense to them, they'd never seen a vision or strategy, and yet they wanted more features, faster, now.

The product looked like a Jenga tower about to topple.

Being a Product Owner is a craft: own the vision and strategy, order the backlog, understand users, security and usability, build a rhythm with the team. Clients usually just want to know it works.

So make your client a stakeholder, not the PO. A good PO solves the client's problem while holding the big picture, not just the next feature.

#ProductOwner #Scrum

https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/jenga-effect-why-clients-dont-make-good-product-owners/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

🛡️ Psychological safety is almost always misunderstood as something it isn't.

It isn't trust. We can trust each other and still not be safe. Edmondson's definition: "the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up." Safety is knowing a mistake won't be held against you.

It isn't the absence of conflict either. Higher safety usually means more open disagreement, not less.

And it isn't a licence to point out everyone else's mistakes. It's about owning your own, and what you learned, without repercussions.

Get those three straight and a lot of "we tried it and it didn't work" makes sense.

#TeamWork #Scrum

https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/psychological-safety/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

Ein sehr sehr guter Text über "Code Review", der in Scrum Teams oft eine eigene Spalte auf dem Scrum Board darstellt.
Oft ein Diskussionsthema in Retrospektiven. Oft fühlt es sich nervig an. Jetzt kommt AI ins Team. Wie kann es helfen? Und warum machen wir das eigentlich alles nochmal?

https://newsletter.getdx.com/p/what-are-code-reviews-even-for

#AgileAI #Scrum #Agile #ScrumMaster #AgileCoach #Retrospektive #CodeReview

»More Agency« https://bobgalen.substack.com/p/more-agency #Agilist.in #Agile #Change #Lean #Kanban #Scrum

🤖 Tools keep promising to automate the parts of Scrum that are entirely about human connection. It's worth naming why they miss.

One vendor replaces the Daily Scrum with scheduled text and video reports for admins. But the Daily Scrum exists to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal, surface impediments, and plan the day together. An automated tool serves none of that. It has nothing to do with Scrum, except that it stole the language.

Same story for Retrospectives on autopilot from survey submissions. Grouping exercises exist to start a conversation about how problems connect; hand that to AI and you've replaced the human insight that was the whole point.

Data collection and note-taking can help. Replacing the conversation doesn't.

#AIinSoftwareDevelopment #Scrum

https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/why-ai-doesn-t-replace-your-scrum-master/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

»Special Edition: Is there Ageism?« https://bobgalen.substack.com/p/special-edition-is-there-ageism #Agilist.in #Agile #Change #Lean #Kanban #Scrum

Just a feeling, but I think there might be a slight disconnect between the sales team and our delivery teams. Managing expectations is a vital skill

I'm always on Team Yellow! 👨‍💻

#EnterpriseIT #Outsourcing #Agile #Scrum #ScrumTeam #dev #developer #coding #IT

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Two-pane photo. On top, a generic stock photo of a smiling, energetic, young and sharply dressed business team in a white void. Text: "Our highly skilled and motivated team, as communicated by Sales." Below, in a similar void, a collection of minions looking proper confused. Two are seemingly discussing what to do about a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Text: "Our actual delivery team, rolling in on Day 1 of the multi-year contract."

🧭 Drowning in an oversized Product Backlog? A Story Map is a good life raft. When a backlog is hundreds of items in a flat list, nobody can see the product, only the pile.

Lay it out as a journey instead: major steps across the top, the stories that belong under each. Duplicates line up, whole regions turn out to be features nobody will build, and the gaps become obvious.

Jeff Patton built this because flat backlogs lose the Product Vision.

#Scrum #ProductOwner

https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/story-mapping/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

Kein Board hat eine Spalte "warten auf Entscheidung" obwohl das der längste Wartezustand im System ist.

Wir messen Cycle Time und Lead Time. Die Wochen zwischen "Signal gesehen" und "verbindlich entschieden" messen wir nie.

Ein Team, das alle 2 Wochen liefert, aber im Quartalsgremium auf Priorisierung wartet, ist nicht agil. Nur schnell im falschen Takt.

https://no-bullshit-agile.de/nbak12-decision-latency-unsichtbarer-engpass.html?mtm_campaign=mastodon

#Agile #Scrum #Kanban #SoftwareDevelopment

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NBAK12: Decision Latency. Der unsichtbare Engpass

🚧 Cross-functional teams are not departments. A department is organized by role: the dev group here, QA down the hall. A cross-functional team is organized around the work, from the moment a feature is considered until it's delivering value.

The difference shows up as waiting. Depend on an outside group and you wait for your work to reach the top of their list. Inside a cross-functional team, far less work has to happen elsewhere.

#Scrum

https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/cross-functional-teams/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

🧩 Going from 2 people to 4 doesn't double what a team gets done, and Amdahl's Law explains why: some work happens in parallel, but the serial part sets a ceiling no headcount can lift.

Speed doesn't come from throwing more people at the job. With teams of 9 or larger, I split into two: separate teams of 4 and 5 reliably get more done than the original.

Is your team sized for looking busy, or for reaching Done every Sprint?

#Scrum

https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/scrum-team-size/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

🗂️ Product Backlog Refinement has a quiet failure mode: everyone nods that they understand the item, yet each person holds a different picture. It looks like agreement, but the gap surfaces mid-Sprint.

When you're stuck on a feature, write an example: a pencil sketch of the interface, or a quick happy path. Just enough detail to get everyone on the same page.

The goal isn't a tidy backlog. It's a team holding the same picture.

#Scrum #ProductOwner

https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/how-many-of-these-backlog-refinement-anti-patterns-does-your-team-have/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=archive-reshare

Ich schreibe hier über agiles Arbeiten. Über manches kann ich nicht schreiben, weil ich es nicht erlebt habe.

SAFe von innen. Der Alltag als Scrum Master. Agiles Arbeiten als Tester. Agil außerhalb der Softwareentwicklung.

Schreib einen Gastbeitrag bei mir.

Kein Wortlimit, kein Konzept, kein SEO. Eine Erfahrung in eine Mail getippt reicht. Struktur und Formatierung mache ich. Autorenbox mit deinen Links gibt's dazu.

Boost, please!

https://no-bullshit-agile.de/ich-habe-luecken-du-hast-erfahrung.html

#Agile #Scrum #Kanban #Blog

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Ich schreibe hier über agiles Arbeiten. Über manches kann ich nicht schreiben, weil ich es nicht erlebt habe. SAFe von innen. Der Alltag als Scrum Master. Agiles Arbeiten als Tester. Agil außerhalb der Softwareentwicklung. Schreib einen Gastbeitrag bei mir.