Multiple increment delivery within a Sprint

Question: I recently had the following exchange that may be fill in some gaps in understanding how to use Scrum. “You have been quoted in PSM classes as saying: “A Scrum project is only one Sprint long. A release of software may be the sum of multiple increments (and previously developed software, if any), or there … Continue reading →

Scrum Development Kit

On Tuesday, Jeff Sutherland and I will be celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Scrum’s first public appearance. Those twenty years were my warm up for the next twenty, when I will focus on improving our professionalism. Specifically, I will be done when all Scrum teams deliver “done”, potentially shippable, in operations and usable, increments of … Continue reading →

Quality, Done Increment

Every Sprint in Scaled Professional Scrum requires a completed, ready to ship increment of functionality. The ubiquitous “definition of done” spells out the characteristics of such an increment. The end result should include software that has: Presence of valuable functionality for customers to use; Absence of low value functionality that must be maintained and sustained regardless; … Continue reading →

Do you know how to scale Scrum?

Find out with a short test? A single instance of Scrum has one Scrum Team that works from one Product Backlog. The team sprints against the selected Product Backlog items and creates an increment of potentially shippable, or usable, functionality by the end of the Sprint If you want to test your knowledge of scaling … Continue reading →

Cross functional teams

Scrum teams are cross functional. Every person on the team has skills and experience that they contribute, turning the requirements into the best possible increment possible for them. One never knows when an insight, a memory, a skill rarely used will come into play. That is the beauty of Scrum teams, the growing synergy of … Continue reading →

The Elephant In The Room

I’ve run into the following situations that make absolutely no sense to me. I suspect there must be an elephant in the room for them to occur, and I wonder if anyone has suggestions as to what this elephant might look like. Situation 1: A team selects 5 product backlog items for a monthly Sprint. … Continue reading →

Agility, Or A Pig On Roller Skates?

Who is responsible for optimizing value in Scrum? The Product Owner. Originally, I thought that the product managers and other business customers who play this role would love Scrum. After all, it lets them rapidly and flexibly create value-optimized releases. But many of the business customers who use Scrum aren’t taking advantage of Scrum’s ability … Continue reading →

At TechEd Presenting On Professional Scrum Developer .NET

I’m at Microsoft TechEd in New Orleans. I came to present about the .NET version of Scrum.org’s Professional Scrum Developer program at a breakout session. I’ll be co-presenting with Richard Hundhausen of Accentient, the program’s .NET partner. I also came to meet with the Microsoft Visual Studio and ALM marketing and product groups. They are … Continue reading →