This is a companion post to last year’s “I’m a Certified Scrum Coach (CSC) – so what?” post.  In that post I spoke about the advantage of using Certified Scrum Coaches over non-certified coaches for agile or Scrum training.  I also wrote a post called “Agile Ponderings: Certification – useful or not?” where I explored what were then the current certifications available from the Scrum Alliance.  In that one I wrote that I was probably going to pursue becoming a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) but I had some misgivings about it because of the cost and also the way the application process worked.  Apparently other people had problems with the process as well, AND the Scrum Alliance listened to the complaints.  A beta process was created and I was asked to be one of the first five applicants to use the new process.  I’m writing this blog entry to detail my experiences with the new process, but also to make people aware of how using a Certified Scrum Trainer could help their organization achieve better results.

I want to start with the process of becoming a Certified Scrum Trainer (and I’ll shorten this to CST from here on because I’m tired of typing all those words).  For the past couple of years the process required applicants to have achieved the Certified Scrum Practitioner (since renamed to Certified Scrum Professional) or CSP designation.  In fact they had to be a CSP for at least one year before applying.  Once you had that in hand you could apply by filling out an application form which asked a bunch of questions about your experience and your involvement in the Agile/Scrum community.  You also had to submit your training materials, at least 2 student references and at least one co-training reference (someone you taught a class with).  Once you did all of this and paid the $100 application fee your application basically went into a black hole.  That’s where the fun started

I’ve been told applications were reviewed by a few current CSTs and they gave a yes/no vote.  If they voted to accept you then you were accepted.  If they voted no, then sorry, try again next time.  This process ran approximately twice per year, so next time would be at least 6 months away in most cases.  In my case I applied in September of 2009 and was… drum roll please… turned down in October 2009.  I’ve heard that only 4 out of approximately 30 applications were accepted during that round.  I felt my experience and success level were appropriate to the certification and asked for clarification of why I was rejected.  I received a lot of correspondence, but the bottom line was I wasn’t accepted.

Then came the Orlando Scrum Gathering where I happened to run into Jim Cundiff who was restarting his role as Managing Director of the Scrum Alliance.  He spoke to a number of us prior to a board meeting where the topic of the CST application process was an agenda item.  The result of the board meeting was the creation of a group tasked with coming up with a new process for CST applications and a few individuals, including me, who were named as the initial beta testers for the process.

The new process was rolled out in April, 2010 and is a LOT better than the old process.  The new process actually requires a CST applicant to PROVE downstream success of their training through endorsements of at least 5 students, and more importantly, at least 3 different organizations!  Then it went a step further and requires at least 5 sponsors from within the CST/CSC community.  In other words you have to have student success, organizational success AND you have to convince at least 5 potential peers of your abilities.

It took me a few weeks to get all of the necessary documents in place, but on April 21 I submitted my CST application.  Two weeks later there were no objections so I was accepted as a CST (the normal 30 day period for objections was reduced to 2 weeks for the beta process).  I feel honored to have been accepted and also humbled by the great things people wrote about me for my application.  I hope to live up to it all!

Now, why is all of this background important?  Simple – just like a Certified Scrum Coach has obtained that status through experience which can help organizations, a CST has some proven abilities as well.  I’ve been asked by others how to know if a trainer is any good.  Net Objectives has a list of questions to ask someone when looking for CSM training.  I don’t like some of their questions because of some assumptions they have made (full disclosure: between September 2006 and April 2008 I worked for Net Objectives so I don’t dislike them, I simply don’t always agree with them).  I also prefer to ask questions about a trainer in general, not just a CSM course!  I’d ask the following questions:

1. Does the person have significant experience in training organizations of all sizes and types?
2. Does the person have references for successful training engagements (at lesat 3)?
3. Does the person have access to other trainers and coaches to help them get answers to difficult questions/problems?
4. Does the person have experience training the type of course you are trying to get? For example, do they do team based training, role based training, etc?
5. Does the person lecture or do they facilitate a meaningful training workshop?

You can ask all of those questions, or you can ask just one: Are you a Certified Scrum Trainer?

You can get away with this single question because a CST will have positive and acceptable answers to all 5 of those questions (and MANY more)!  Once you know you have a CST, then start digging deeper around any specific areas where you have concerns.  CSTs are excellent trainers, but not all have the same experiences.  Some will fit your situation better than others so be sure to ask questions.  On the other hand, as question 3 makes reference to, all CSTs have access to the entire CST/CSC community to help them out.  That is access to well over 100 of the brightest trainers and coaches in the world.  There is almost nothing which will stump that group!

Until next time I’ll be Making Agile a Reality^® by starting to set up some Certified ScrumMaster courses.  My first one is already listed and is a unique co-facilitation with Roger Brown in San Diego.  Sign up before May 26 and get the early bird discount!

Related posts:

1. I’m a Certified Scrum Coach (CSC) – so what? I’ve asked myself that question more than once in the 5 or...
2. Agile Ponderings: Certification – useful or not? I’ve had to do a lot of thinking about certification recently. Why?...
3. Orlando Scrum Gathering – I’m going to be a doctor soon! In about 5 minutes I’m going to play the role of being...

Is the bug to the left a large bug or a small bug?  It looks HUGE to me!  Well, in reality it is probably between .5 and .75 inches long.  Not really a very big bug at all.  Why do we care? Because trying to size the fixing of software “bugs” is at least as hard as figuring out how big this bug is!

When I teach an Agile or Scrum course someone will almost always ask a question like “How do you handle bug fixes in iterations or sprints?”  When I ask “How do you want to handle them?” we get into a pretty interesting discussion.  Most people say something similar to “We should prioritize them with the user stories, size them like we do user stories and then see what fits into each iteration.”  I usually smile and ask any developers if they know ahead of time how long it will take to fix a defect.  They ALWAYS say “Sometimes.”  And THAT is the problem!

How can you actually determine the size of fixing something which is broken in an unknown way?  I tell people in my classes I only know two sizes for defect fixes: 1) Trivial because I already know what’s broken and how to fix it, or 2) Infinite because I have no idea what’s broken or how to fix it!  If those are the only two sizes available to us how can we possibly put them into iterations effectively?

I have found one effective solution to be the use of Kanban techniques for defect fixing.  I don’t want to get into what Kanban is or isn’t and when it should or shouldn’t be used, so I’ll just lay out what I have seen be effective for a number of teams:

1. Prioritize the defect list.  This is NOT done in the context of user stories, but separately.  The list is prioritized however the Product Owner says it should be prioritized.
2. The team and Product Owner decide on how much effort (time) should be used each iteration to work on defects.  Hopefully this is not a large amount, but it might be for teams which have large numbers of defects in a legacy system.
3. The team determines when the defect fixing time occurs and how they do it. Most effective is to put a gate or two in place on the defects.  For example, gate 1 may say the developer needs to know within 2 hours if the defect is going to take more than a day to fix.  If so, then put it off until a discussion can take place with the Product Owner.  Gate 2 may be after a day if the defect is not fixed perhaps another discussion needs to take place.  However the gates are set up (if they are)  the defects are worked in priority order.
4. Limit the number of bug fixes being worked at one time to a very small number.  If you don’t do this you will have each developer working on at least one defect and run the serious risk of none of them getting fixed before the iteration or sprint ends!

This 3 step approach allows the team to work on defects in priority order while allowing a set amount of time to be spent on the defects.  The amount of time spent can be changed as needed to address the business needs of the organization at any point in time.

The downside of this is no one can tell a stakeholder something like “that bug will be fixed by date X” or “we’ll knock out X bugs this iteration.”  Saying anything like that is a lie anyway, so this shouldn’t be a big issue.  I say these statements are lies under the assumption the defects are non-trivial.

How else have you managed a defect backlog that has been effective?  I’d love to have more proven techniques for people to experiment with!

Until next time my clients will be Making Agile a Reality^® by using sizing only when appropriate!

Related posts:

1. Agile antipattern: Burndown “wall” Does your team have an iteration burndown chart (giving credit only for...
2. Testing to find defects is waste Have you ever heard someone say that testing to find defects is...
3. Agile antipattern: Code freezes during each iteration Over the past 18 months I’ve encountered a number of teams where...

What’s wrong with the user story on the card?  It seems to have everything we need: a) short title, b) a size (in this case 2), and c) a well-written story using the standard “As a … I want … so that …” format.  So what’s wrong? Nothing!  Well, almost nothing.  The user story card is a great STARTING POINT, but it is not sufficient by itself.

In coaching Agile and Scrum teams I see many of them starting out with the assumption that the user story card contains all the information they need in order to create a high quality piece of software.  Forgive me for being harsh, but how stupid is that?  Assuming a single sentence can fully describe something which might take a few days to analyze, design, code and test seems pretty ambitious.  No, let me take that back.  It’s more than pretty ambitious, it is just not possible. So I ask again, what’s wrong with this story card?

And again I’ll answer that there is nothing wrong with it, but it is a STARTING POINT.  Many people are familiar with the phrase “INVEST in good user stories” which is an easy way to remember to use the INVEST acronym for guidance when creating user stories.  I wrote a blog entry about that titled “New to agile? INVEST in good user stories“  Web searches lead people to that blog entry many times every day.  But it isn’t sufficient!  If you read agile literature for any period of time you will eventually see the phrase “A user story is an invitation to a conversation.”  This is vitally important to success!  A conversation allows more description than a single sentence.  It can clarify many aspects of the user story.  Taking this a step further we also need to be able to confirm the user story is completed.

Taking all of this together we end up with the 3 C’s of good user stories: Card, Conversation, Confirmation.  Ron Jeffries wrote about this all the way back in 2001 and his advice is still good today.  Agile and Scrum teams need to remember the card is the starting point.  It leads to a conversation where more specifics are given and negotiation (the N in INVEST) can occur.  All of that leads to confirmation in the form of tests (the T in INVEST).  A good story card will likely end up with a back side covered with results of the conversation(s) and confirmation tests.

Next time you see a user story card don’t ask yourself if you need to have a conversation about it.  Instead just assume you need to have a conversation and have it!  Go to the Product Owner or customer or customer proxy and ask to discuss the story.  Make notes for yourself.  In fact it is even better (vital in my mind) to have the conversation involve a developer, tester and product person.  I call them 3-headed conversations.  This allows everyone to be on the same page so later there is no disagreement about what was really meant by the story.  This avoids one of my least favorite conversations which happens when the tester and developer disagree about what the requirement means AFTER the code is written.

If you are using an agile lifecycle management tool rather than physical cards, record the decisions made during the conversation and any resulting confirmation tests in various fields in the tool.  You must make sure the information is captured in case someone else who was not part of the original 3-headed conversation ends up doing some work on the story.

Try using the 3 C’s and see if your results improve.  I’m sure they will.

Until next time I’ll be Making Agile a Reality^® for my clients by continuing to train and coach them to use the 3 C’s effectively.

Related posts:

1. New to agile? INVEST in good user stories As a <user> I want <function> so that<value>. Above is a very...
2. When in Doubt Ask “How Will I Know I’ve Done That?” Tired of not knowing exactly what to create or test? Get in...
3. New to agile? Remember one thing: Just enough, just in time If you lived through the past few decades you have undoubtedly heard...

Have you ever been in a class or training session which is so boring you felt like you might fall asleep?  Or maybe you are one of the people that DID fall asleep!  I know I’ve been there many times.  When I started facilitating sessions on agile and Scrum I knew I couldn’t do it if the sessions would put people to sleep.  I knew I had to have dynamic sessions that kept people involved and challenged them to exceed their own expectations.  I put together the best sessions I knew how and I was quite successful with it (see the bottom of the sidebar at www.agileforall.com for course results and quotes from evaluation forms).  Attendees were very happy with the results, but I knew I could do better.  Much better. I knew I could talk less and have the attendees do even more.  I knew I could better help the attendees if I could just figure out how to get information across in a different way.

Then something happened which changed my life and will help me change many lives going forward.

A few months ago while searching for some airplane reading material for my Kindle (which I love!) I decided to try and find some good books about training techniques.  There are hundreds of books on the topic of training and many of them sounded more boring than watching grass grow. Then I stumbled across the book “Training From the Back of the Room” and it intrigued me so I made the purchase.  As I read the book I knew I had found a source of information which was going to dramatically change the way I facilitate courses.  Having students teach each other instead of having the trainer teach them?  Having students do homework prior to class?  Not doing introductions until the class is well underway?  Not giving out a notebook with slide printouts?  This was all very challenging for me, but I knew in my heart I had to embrace it in order for me to learn and improve.

Now flash forward a few months…  I’ve now had a chance to facilitate several courses using the new techniques I learned from the book.  The results have exceeded my wildest expectations in a number of ways:

• Allowing attendees to work through an exercise prior to formal introductions means they get to start building relationships with each other and the course material right at the start of class.  The very beginning of the class is the time people remember most when they leave! Instead of wasting that valuable time on introductions my classes now spend it on a meaningful exercise.
• Giving out blank spiral notebooks, pens, lots of markers and other materials instead of a notebook of slides encourages people to take more meaningful notes. Helping them take notes in a particularly meaningful way for a particular topic helps deepen their understanding and retention of the information.
• Having attendees teach each other exposes the combined knowledge of the group and allows me to truly facilitate toward a meaningful result.
• I had always used a lot of collaborative discussion exercises, but having even more and adding twists to them so they aren’t all just discussion helps attendees build relationships and connections with the material in ways that are fascinating to watch.  More importantly, the end result is better knowledge retention.
• Breaking my speaking up into smaller chunks allows attendees to better absorb what I am saying.  I averaged speaking about 10 minutes per hour in the most recent course I facilitated and the results were outstanding in all areas.
• I now average fewer than 20 slides per day for a course.  I won’t embarrass myself by saying what that number used to be!  I could cut the slides down to zero, but I find having key slides helps drive discussion.  In almost all cases the slides have fewer than 5 words (in some cases no words) and a picture capturing something about the concept.  I try to keep the pictures entertaining which keeps attendees engaged.
• I have some handouts I use during certain portions of the course which attendees can save in the pockets of their supplied notebook.  Attendees love getting the essential information in a concise format rather than having to dig through a notebook of slides to find what they want.
• This may be the least important item or the most important depending on how you look at it – I have a LOT of fun facilitating these courses.  Instead of feeling a bit wiped out when I  leave a class, I leave feeling incredibly energized.  I usually have fun with my classes, but this is a new level which is much higher than I expected.

So what does all this have to do with you?  My hope is if you are looking for a course on agile or Scrum (or really any topic) you will take the time to find an instructor who won’t bore you to death.  Before registering you might want to ask a few simple questions (my new answers in parentheses):

• What materials will I leave the course with?  (a spiral notebook with your notes, a set of handouts for critical areas of the course and you will leave having had a lot of fun!  You also get follow-up support via email and in the near future you can join the Agile For All community message board for information exchange with peers at other companies)
• If you use PowerPoint, approximately how many slides are included in the course?  (in my courses I average fewer than 20 slides per day)
• What is the percentage of course time is spent on lecture vs. exercises?  (approximately 15%/85%)

The answers to these 3 questions can be very enlightening.  If you are the type of person that needs to walk away with a book full of slides and you don’t like to interact with others then maybe my new style isn’t for you.  In that case asking for answers to the 3 questions above can still help you choose a course provider!  However, if the last sentence describes you, you might want to reconsider and try a course which challenges your assumptions.  I was scared the first time I tried facilitating a course this way, but even the most reserved people in the room participated and had fun during the course.  That’s when I knew my life had changed and many more would be changed in the future because of it!

Until next time I’ll be Making Agile a Reality for more people by getting even better at training from the back of the room by being more of a facilitator and less of a teacher or trainer!

A special thanks to Roger Brown (CSC and CST) who emailed me today and part of the email was thanking me for recommending “Training From the Back of the Room” to him!

Related posts:

1. New to agile? Do the simplest thing that works – THEN STOP! As an agile trainer and coach I often see new teams struggle with...
2. Agile Architecture and Agile Testing – New Courses on the horizon Exciting news!  Some associates of mine are currently completing work on some...
3. If you had been me at the Orlando Scrum Gathering… you would have had an absolutely indescribably fantastic time!  And that’s just...

you would have had an absolutely indescribably fantastic time!  And that’s just for starters.  To be honest, the phrase “that was so much fun it must have been a sin” comes to mind.  I had fun every minute I was there.  Here’s a short VERY LONG recap of what I can recall now (a week after I arrived in Orlando):

Saturday, very late at night I was on a shuttle from Orlando International Airport to the Gaylord Palms Resort and Conference Center.  I was blown away when I saw the Gaylord Palms.  It was a sight to behold.  On the Mears shuttle were about 10 people and I didn’t know any of them.  I was tired and just looking forward to getting to bed.  While waiting for my luggage to be taken off the shuttle someone in the group said “You’re Bob, right?”  Freaky, right?  Well, I was at the hotel hosting the Scrum Gathering, but I was not expecting someone on my airport shuttle to know me!  Turns out it was Bent Myllerup and his wife Kirsten from Denmark.  He recognized me from various pictures.  By the way, Bent is a fellow Certified Scrum Coach.  I got to hear about how they had to fly through Detroit to get to Orlando and they were afraid the luggage was lost, but then it caught up with them.  I felt tired, but they looked pretty wiped out after a REALLY long day of flying.  Little did I know how many more surprises were in store for me!

The second surprise came when I went to check-in to the resort..  The person at the check-in desk ran my credit card for the room and then left to go to another room.  I was concerned about what had happened because the card had plenty of available credit, it was not stolen or lost, etc.  Maybe they lost my reservation?  No, none of the above.  They were out of normal rooms with king-sized beds so he upgraded me to a junior executive suite.  It sounded nice and they weren’t going to charge me extra, so what the heck.  Well, it turns out the room had a decent sized living room area with couch, large chair and coffee table.  It also had a dining area with a nice sized round table and 4 chairs.  I nice den area with an office desk and chair.  A very large bedroom area with a very big looking king-sized bed.  A bathroom with doors to both the entry hallway and the bedroom.  A large walk-in shower.  Let’s just say I was blown away.  The whole suite had to be 450 square feet or maybe even larger.  I felt like I wasn’t worthy, but I wasn’t going to say no.  It was great.  I actually was kind of pumped up when I saw it so I got settled in and did some work.  Next thing I knew it was 2:30am and I had to get up at 7:15!

On Sunday I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the Scrum Trainers and Coaches Retreat.  Wow, what a day!  The day was sponsored by the Scrum Alliance, which was extremely nice of them.  Mike Vizdos volunteered to run things for the day and Jean Tabaka got roped in to help him out at the last minute.  These are two people I really respect.  Mike in particular made it clear the entire day would be about positive energy.  I later learned that this particular event in the past had degraded into something very negative and left everyone with bad feelings.  I’m glad I didn’t attend those other retreats because this one was nothing like that at all.

I spent the day having conversations with amazing people.  Serge Beaumont, Peter Stevens, Jim Cundiff, Roger Brown, Jeff McKenna, Tobias Mayer, Howard Sublett, Lyssa Adkins, Peter Borsella, Alan Cyment and so many others that I can’t remember them all now!  I learned new techniques for using case studies as exercises in class.  I learned a lot about the inner workings of the Scrum Alliance and how things are being turned around.  I learned a lot about facilitation.  I saw various Certified Scrum Master course slide decks and the great ideas they contain.  I interacted with others on a Scrum Alliance Improvement Committee on how best to move our group forward.  I had an amazing lunch with Peter Stevens where we spoke about so many things I can’t remember them all, but he ended up creating a blog entry about part of our conversation involving a quote from Randy Pausch (of the Last Lecture fame).  I remember my head swimming when the day ended just after 4:30.  Then going to the reception later in the evening and having my head spin again as I spoke to even more people who I have long admired but never been able to meet in person.  The night (for me at least) ended around midnight when I left the bar after having spent several hours with Mike Vizdos, Howard Sublett and Andreas Schliep.  Very interesting conversation.  Very open and honest people.  I remember thinking for the first time in a couple of years I really had a good feeling about where the Scrum Alliance was headed.  I had a smile on my face all day and I’m pretty sure I fell asleep that way too!

It turned out I was too jazzed up on Sunday night to fall asleep, so once again I didn’t go to bed until about 2:30.  This time I slept through the alarm and missed the opening keynote sessions.  I normally don’t make it to those anyway, so this conference was no exception.  I did make sure I was at Luke Hohmann‘s “Innovation Games^® in Scrum” deep-dive session.  I have been interested in Innovation Games for quite a while and this was going to be my chance to see the master at work.  I am hosting an Advanced Product Owner course for some clients at the end of this month and I want to use some of these games so this session was important for me.  Luke did not disappoint.  I think we ended up playing 6 of the 12 Innovation Games including doing a couple of them online.  People kept filing out of this session, but I think it was because they didn’t know what they were getting into.  For me it was pure heaven.  I learned a LOT.  I also confirmed my understanding of some key points I intend to use later this month.

Monday night was a reception sponsored by VersionOne.  It too was great.  Again, meeting great people, making great new friends.  During the day I met Darian Rashid who is so close to me in lean/agile/Scrum beliefs that it is truly scary.  We spoke a bit more during the evening and both were going to try to make it to each other’s sessions on Tuesday (didn’t happen for either of us!).  As the bar was closing I remember them giving Howard Sublett a full glass of bourbon for the road.  Nice parting gift!  I don’t even remember where I ended up after the reception, but I’m sure it was a fun place.  I’m sure it had fun people.  I’m sure I had interesting conversations.  Right now I can’t recall any of them, and no, it isn’t because I was drunk.  It is simply because a week later all of those great conversations are starting to run together!

Tuesday was a big day.  My presentation “Doing Scrum Isn’t the Same as LIVING Scrum” was at 9:45.  I slept late (and missed Darian’s first session) so that I could be fresh for my session.  My session went very well.  I knew the material was great because I gave earlier versions of the same presentation to the XP NYC Meetup and the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group back in January.  I updated the material for Scrum rather than Agile and changed a few slides based on new ideas I had.  It was a total success.  Lots of good ideas, good questions, and a great group of people.  Some standing and some sitting on the floor since we ran out of chairs.  It was awesome.  I had so much fun giving the presentation.

After the presentation was over it was time to simply mingle.  I should have gone to other presentations, but I didn’t.  There were too many interesting conversations to have in the hallways!  I even ended up playing Doctor    Lunch was quite interesting as Harrison Owen spoke about the creation of the open space concept.  My favorite quote in regard to running an open space event was “Sit in a circle. Create a bulletin board. Open a marketplace. You all go do work while I take a nap.”  He was hilarious, yet always making the point that open space can be used to solve very serious problems.  Late in the afternoon the CSC’s met with Howard Sublett in my room (since I had so much space) and had great discussion around a bunch of topics.  Howard is an interesting character and the more I got to know him, the more I liked him.  After the CSC group broke up I spent time that evening getting dinner with a great group including Jean Tabaka, Bent Myllerup and his wife, and several others I can’t remember right now.  When I went to bed on Tuesday night I remember thinking “I don’t know if I have any more energy or brain cells to handle another day!”

Well, turns out I did.  I missed the opening remarks for open space on Wednesday, but I got there in time to go to some sessions.  I spent time with Roger Brown talking to a group of people interested in applying to become CSCs in the future.  That was fun because I got to see the process through their eyes.  It is rather intimidating and being able to help some people understand it was nice.  We can’t give them answers to everything, but we can give them some guidance, which we did.  I felt like I was repaying the guidance and support Richard Lawrence gave me when I applied.  I spent lunch talking more with Darian Rashid.  I still can’t get over how much he reminds me of me in the way he thinks about things.  We are supposed to get together later this month when I’m near Philadelphia.  I’m really looking forward to it.

Unfortunately, the Scrum Gathering did have to come to a close for me.  I left at around 3pm to head to the airport.  Once there I tweeted about sitting at Wendys and 5 minute later James Love who I met in my session at the Scrum Gathering was joining me.  Turns out he has some needs in his organization people I know may be able to help with.  Who knew???  A perfect end to a perfect few days.

Until next time I’ll be Making Agile a Reality^® by keeping up my relationship with the incredibly smart people I met at the Orlando Scrum Gathering.

Oh, and thanks to Derek Wade because I blatantly stole the idea and title of this blog post from his blog post!

Related posts:

1. Orlando Scrum Gathering – I’m going to be a doctor soon! In about 5 minutes I’m going to play the role of being...
2. I’m a Certified Scrum Coach (CSC) – so what? I’ve asked myself that question more than once in the 5 or...
3. Weekly PM Insights Newsletter Recently I’ve been asked to write an occasional article for the Weekly PM...

In about 5 minutes I’m going to play the role of being a “doctor” at the Scrum Clinic which is part of the Orlando Scrum Gathering.  It’s an interesting concept.  A doctor and a patient meet to discuss a topic important to the patient.  In my case the patient wants to talk about the Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Coach (CSC) program.  Since I am a CSC and all of my CSC brethren wimped out I’ll be the one acting as doctor.  I’m looking forward to it so I’m only kidding about the rest of them wimping out!

More on the Scrum Gathering later this week.  It’s bee great so far!

Related posts:

1. If you had been me at the Orlando Scrum Gathering… you would have had an absolutely indescribably fantastic time!  And that’s just...
2. I’m a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) – so what? This is a companion post to last year’s “I’m a Certified Scrum...
3. I’m a Certified Scrum Coach (CSC) – so what? I’ve asked myself that question more than once in the 5 or...

My friend, Arif Gangji, and I created this video to help his customers understand why his company uses Scrum as their software development framework. I decided I really liked the video, so I’m posting it here as well. It isn’t perfect, but it is plenty good enough to get across the basic ideas of Scrum. Over time it will probably show up in a few more places on the main website, but for now, enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’d love to make our next video even better so if you have suggestions please put them in the comments below.  Thanks!

Until next time I’ll be Making Agile a Reality^® by pointing people to this video for some introductory information about Scrum.

Related posts:

1. I’m a Certified Scrum Coach (CSC) – so what? I’ve asked myself that question more than once in the 5 or...
2. Orlando Scrum Gathering – I’m going to be a doctor soon! In about 5 minutes I’m going to play the role of being...
3. If you had been me at the Orlando Scrum Gathering… you would have had an absolutely indescribably fantastic time!  And that’s just...

Dear Diary,

I completed day 1 of my 2-day Certified ScrumMaster course today and I’m feeling a little bit overwhelmed.  I didn’t have any idea there was a prerequisite of reading a particular book.  Luckily not a lot of other people knew about that either so I didn’t look too stupid.  Nothing we covered today was particularly difficult, it was just new to me.  A whole lot of it seemed like common sense, but as was pointed out, common sense isn’t so common, especially in software development!

I thought it was interesting to cover the history of agile and scrum and then to compare/contrast different methodologies.  I wish we hadn’t spent an hour on it, but it was interesting.  I just don’t know how it will help solve the problem.  Maybe if I was still in the mode of “selling agile” to the company it would have helped.

On the other hand the parts about how the Scrum Master role differs from a traditional project manager role was VERY useful.  Changing from command and control to serving, leading and facilitating will be challenging for some people.  It won’t be hard for me since I never had any control anyway <ha>!

I also liked the estimating part a lot.  Again, it makes sense, but it is so different from what we normally do that I wonder how it will work.  I’m not so sure management will approve of playing poker, even if it is Planning Poker!

The last thing we did was a Scrum simulation.  That was a ton of fun, but I wish it did more to advance my learning.  I guess I got to see Scrum in action, but on such a small scale I’m not sure I learned as much as I would have liked.

Well, on to bed now.  Another full day of CSM training tomorrow!

- Nick

Dear Diary,

I am almost a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) although I’m not sure why.  It seems too easy to sit in a class for 2 days then take a test you can’t fail.  Oh well, 60,000+ CSMs can’t be wrong.  It must be useful.

Today we dug into the Scrum process including the meetings, artifacts and roles a bit more.  We also discussed scaling Scrum and how to start up new Scrum implementations.  I learned quite a bit – I think.  It still seems like too much common sense, but I have to admit I probably wouldn’t have thought of most of it on my own.

I am glad that we covered all of the Scrum process in detail.  I now have a much better idea what each role is supposed to do.  They don’t map so directly to traditional roles.  I’ll need to keep that in mind when I talk to the group as a whole.  It will also be interesting to see how QA reacts when I tell them about estimating as a whole team and things get completed EVERY sprint which means testing more than just at the end of a project!

Tomorrow I meet with the rest of the team to fill them in.  It should be an interesting meeting!

- Nick

Related posts:

1. The ScrumMaster Diaries: #2 – Making the Case to Become a CSM Dear Diary, Tomorrow I am going in to speak to Henry about...
2. The ScrumMaster Diaries: Chapter 1 – We stink Dear Diary,   This is Nick.  I’ve never been much of a writer...
3. The ScrumMaster Diaries: Introduction to the series Back on September 23, 2009, I posted a blog entry titled “New...

Dear Diary,

Tomorrow I am going in to speak to Henry about becoming a Certified Scrum Master.  I’ve done more reading about it and it appears there are more than 60,000 people in the world who have done it before me.  Those kinds of numbers have to help me with my argument.  I also know the popular abbreviation is CSM.  Apparently I just have to attend a specific course for 2 days then pass a test and I get certified.  Who knows, maybe I’ll be certifiable instead!  Ha, ha!  The good news is we can’t get a whole lot worse than we are right now, so I hope Henry is open to the idea.  We’ll see.

-Nick

Dear Diary,

Henry asked me a lot more questions about becoming a CSM than I anticipated.  Luckily I caught him first thing in the morning.  He told me to take a few hours and do some more research.  The whole group is going to meet at 3pm to discuss all of our dev department ideas before another all hands meeting at 4pm.  I decided to take lunch here at home and do the research here.  I doubt anyone will miss me.  I just couldn’t take being at the office any more.  It is a bit of a downer right now.  At least I’m still excited, I just have a lot of questions to get answers to in the next 3 hours!

-Nick

Dear Diary,

Wow!  That was interesting.  To say the least!  We had our department meeting and everyone got to give suggestions about how we could improve.  It seemed like a total blame game.  Someone even used the phrase “blamestorming” which I found hilarious.  Anyway, we went around the room and I ended up being last.  Developers ended up blaming QA and ME!  QA ended up blaming developers and ME!  Managers ended up blaming QA, developers, marketing and ME!  It was totally crazy.  I felt like I had been set up.  Then someone made the suggestion that we wouldn’t be in this mess if I were a better project manager and maybe I should become a PMP so I could do my job better.  Well, that was the last straw!

At that point I totally lost it.  I AM A PMP!!!  Grrr.  Fortunately I was somewhat ready for the abuse and the blame game.  I kept my cool and told everyone I already was a PMP.  I also told them we had done pretty much everything by the PMBOK and still failed.  The person who said I should become a PMP had the nerve to ask what the PMBOK was!  Again, I stayed calm and told him it was the set of practices you had to know in order to become a PMP.

For some reason, remaining calm was working because I had everyone’s attention.  I decided to go for it.  I told them I thought we had to consider completely re-doing the way we created products.  We needed to think about using agile, in particular Scrum.  I then told them of my 3 step plan for implementation:

1. Convince them this could work (at least convince them enough to go to step #2).
2. Have me attend a Certified ScrumMaster course and get certified.
3. Start using Scrum with me acting as “coach” for the team to make sure we did it right.

Lots of questions, but some others, particularly devs were onboard right away.  They had friends using agile and/or Scrum and all were pretty positive about the experience.

Only one problem remained – we had to convince Bob it was the right thing to do since the course would cost $1200.  Fortunately there is a course right here in town starting in 2 days, so we all hoped Bob would get on board quickly.

Well, we didn’t have to wait long.  We had our all hands meeting and spoke about what we did during our week of vacation.  Cindy won the $2500 prize – easily.  She said she decided to relax by seeing a different old friend each day and just catch up on life. She did it by driving 2-4 hours each day since they all lived in different cities, and during those 2-4 hours she listened to books on tape she had been building up for years.  It sounded like she had a lot of fun.

Then it was on to the good stuff.  How were we going to improve.  Marketing started and said their plan was to have development increase resources so software could be released faster in order to keep our customers happy more often.  Bob pointed out the obvious – our problem isn’t the release cycle time, it is in how our releases are perceived.  Marketing then got nasty and said they felt if we did four releases per year at least one of them would be “good enough” for us to keep our customers.  Bob started his career in development, so this argument just didn’t cut it for him.

Then it was our turn to present for a few minutes and the department decided I should be the one to speak since it was basically my plan.  No pressure, right?  Ha!  I decided to be short and brief.  As best I can remember, here is what I said:

In development we’ve decided we aren’t interested any more in playing the blame game.  We want to be able to do something different which will make a big difference.  This is fundamental change which will involve everyone, but which will start in engineering.  If we can’t do our part, the rest of you don’t have to worry because it won’t work anyway.  But if we are able to do something different and better, then we think the company as a whole can dramatically improve.

What I’m talking about is something called agile development.  In particular a product development framework known as Scrum.  I know the name sounds silly, but please get past that.  From what I have read and what people in our department have heard from friends who have made this switch, Scrum can make a company more productive, improve quality and increase stakeholder and customer satisfaction.  In many cases it does all of these things by dramatic amounts.

Bob, we’ve put together a simple plan for adoption.  It is probably way too simple, but it is based on what we know today.  We want the company to spend just $1200 to send me to a 2-day course later this week to learn how to do Scrum.  Next week I would take that knowledge and start leading our group down that path.  We would like 6 weeks to see if it works for us.  We consider this time well spent and we will do everything in our power to make sure after 6 weeks we are in a position to say “this is working, keep going” or “we’re no better, so stop.”  Furthermore, we’d try to ensure the “failure” mode would not only be “we’re no better” but also “we’re no worse.”  This is basically a $1200 investment and trusting us to do our best.

I know trust has been hard to come by in this company lately, but I personally think that may be part of our problem.  Bob, unfortunately in order to make this happen fast enough I need to put you on the spot and have you say “yes” or “no” right now.

Then I stopped and held my breath.  Bob stood up and asked, “Henry, are you on board with this plan?”  Henry said he was.  Bob then asked, “Nick you asked for trust, and I’m going to go out on a limb and give it to you.  I know I’m going to upset a lot of people in this room by saying this, but go do it.  I don’t know enough about Scrum to be able to say no.  This points to a decision I made while we were on break – if I don’t have enough personal experience to say no, I’m going to say yes.  I need to trust all of you to do your jobs well because that is what we hired you to do and I know we only hire the best.”

Phew.  I did it.  Now I have to do it.  What the heck did I just get myself into???

-Nick

Related posts:

1. The ScrumMaster Diaries: #3 – Becoming a CSM Dear Diary, I completed day 1 of my 2-day Certified ScrumMaster course...
2. The ScrumMaster Diaries: Chapter 1 – We stink Dear Diary,   This is Nick.  I’ve never been much of a writer...
3. The ScrumMaster Diaries: Introduction to the series Back on September 23, 2009, I posted a blog entry titled “New...

On October 20, the Agile Cooperative will be hosting a free one-day seminar designed to give attendees a lot of information about what is really required to be successful with an agile adoption.  If you are in the Denver area and your organization is giving any consideration to adopting agile you must attend this seminar!  We aren’t going to pull any punches.  We will be talking about real numbers, real needs and real chances for success.  Click HERE for more information and to register.

I certainly hope to see you on the 20th!

Related posts:

1. Agile Leadership is Overrated – Isn’t It? This is the topic of my next Mile Hi PMI Chapter Workshop...
2. New to agile? Remember a user story is more than a card! What’s wrong with the user story on the card?  It seems to...
3. Real World Agile Testing with Fit and FitNesse Another short blog entry.  This time it is to announce that we’ll...