An effective Product Owner must have a vision for the product and effectively communicate it.
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Play a collaborative game in the morning a couple of times a week. It will get the team going the right way.
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Teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success. – Anon #Scrum #Lean
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If you have external dependencies, look ahead a few iterations and plan for them
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The iteration is the heartbeat of your development. Choose the length wisely and keep it consistent
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“Good code is its own best documentation.” Steve McConnell
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A good manager knows his job is to serve the team, not the other way around
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Customer support is one of the best sources of insights on your customers’ issues. Have a conversation with them
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Create a transformation backlog for all the proactive and reactive things that need to be changed within your org
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"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." Leo Tolstoy
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How much of your day is spent doing work that your customer would care about? What can you do about improving?
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Transforming technical methods and practices is important, but assessing and transforming culture is key.
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What have you done today to build integrity into the product?
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“Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.” - Brian Kernigan
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Multitasking – the scourge of efficiency.
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ScrumMasters in an organization should attend each-other’s meetings. You’ll be amazed what you can learn and teach.
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Teams which have one or two-way dependencies should attend each-other’s planning and daily scrum meetings.
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ScrumMasters should NOT also be Product Owners.
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Work on committed backlog items in the iteration in priority order. The priority is there for a reason. Respect it.
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“When the best leader's work is done the people say, ‘'We did it ourselves.' ’” - Lao Tzu
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Test-driven development is a philosophy. Meditate under a Bodhi tree and be enlightened. Better yet, pick up a book.
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Use diagnostic metrics to improve, not to beat the team up.
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As your team if the Daily Scrum has any value. Ask them to be honest. Hearing “No” may be the first step to healing.
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The ScrumMaster’s power comes from influence, not authority.
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Yes, there is such a thing as Agile Release Planning. Just flying blind iteration-by-iteration doesn’t scale too well
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Try using a high-quality always-on video camera to bring split-teams together. You will need one on each site.
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If your company cannot get one team practicing Agile properly, scaling to multiple teams may not work out too well.
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Continuous Improvement does NOT mean lets bastardize proven Agile best-practices before we’ve even tried any.
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Don’t expect the benefits of Agile if you still insist on holding on to your legacy practices and org. structures.
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Think hard about how you know if your Agile deployment is working. ‘We feel good about it’ may not be enough.
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The ScrumMaster’s role is best executed as a full time role.
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“Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” -Gen. Patton
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Iteration timeboxes are the heartbeat of our product development. Keep them the same size through the release.
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Count the number of weeks that teams only worked 40 hours while meeting iteration goals. They should be on the rise
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Done is done! Cut out the done, done done, done-done done donnnne.
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Pilot projects are ways to learn. Just because your first pilot fails, doesn’t mean that Agile isn’t right for you
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You will be amazed on what you can accomplish as a team when you focus on shared success
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"We must all hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately." – Benjamin Franklin
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Being Agile Means it is OK to say “I don’t know…yet!”
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A manager’s job is to set up a structure and environment to make the team successful… then get out of the way!
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Product owners should escalate backlog conflicts and decisions upward, not to the team.
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Integrate early, integrate often.
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Re-evaluate your HR department’s resume filters. They many not be tuned for agile developers.
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The best subject matter experts are those who will teach and create clones, not keep the knowledge bottled-up
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“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down these cubes!”
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Thin, vertical slices; thin, vertical slices; thin, vertical slices…do you see a pattern?
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To all managers: Separate management from project management. The latter should be done by the team, not you.
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Always code as if [others who use your code] will be violent psychopaths who know where you live. Martin Golding
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Practice, practice, practice and then practice some more. Knowledge comes from books. Skills come by doing.
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There is no substitute for hard work.
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Great ScrumMasters stick up for the team when appropriate…and also stick up for the PO when appropriate.
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Everyone is so hung up on efficiency. Put quality first and let efficiency follow.
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Estimations should only be performed by those who implement the product .
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“What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” - Oscar Wilde
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Passive voice should not be used by the Product Owner.
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Scope creep and gold-plating. Two sides of the ugliest coin in the world.
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The most powerful part of a story is the conversation it generates.
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The only way to minimize uncertainty is through learning.
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No, an ‘extreme persona’ is not a sport involving jumping out of an airplane.
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Great change agents dig beyond symptoms to the root causes. Just be careful of rabbit holes.
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“I write perfect code” is only true in your own mind.
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NEVER let perfect get in the way of BETTER!
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Stop looking for silver bullets. If there was a magic productivity boost knob, someone would have found it by now.
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“It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.” - Howard Ruff
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No, the ‘Trump’ card is not usually in the planning poker deck.
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Three-year-olds are the best root cause analysts I have ever met. They simply ask, "Why?" "Why?" "Why?" "Why?" "Why?"
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The phrase “I write perfect code” is only true in your own mind.
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NEVER let perfect get in the way of BETTER!
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Stop looking for silver bullets. If there was a magic productivity boost knob, someone would have found it by now!
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In a bacon and egg breakfast, the chicken is only involved while the pig is committed. Oink, baby, oink!
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Oh yes, Scrum Masters CAN be voted off the island. Use only as a last resort.
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There is no ‘Royal flush’ in planning poker.
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Quality, scope, resources and release date. You only get n-1 degrees of freedom.
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A feature team contains everyone that is needed to deliver the feature. Pets are optional.
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A Scrum Master is NOT a Sprint Master. They own the process of Scrum, not the administration of the team.
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Yes, Mr. Product Owner, you do have to attend the iteration review. And yes, you actually have to participate.
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“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” - Albert Einstein
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The best requirements are those in the form of an objectively measurable test case.
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Being shielded from external intrusion is NOT an excuse to not acknowledge majors issues requiring your attention.
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A Product Owner is PART of the team, available as needed.
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No, a device driver isn’t considered a vertical slice.
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Inspection without adaptation toward maximizing value is like a peanut butter and cat sandwich – just plain WRONG!
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If product development is a car, the Product Owner is the driver.
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“Quality is never an accident; … it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.” W. Foster.
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An ethos is “the fundamental values peculiar to a people, culture, or movement”. What’s your company’s ethos?
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DONE isn’t a negotiation. It is a definition. Where’s yours?
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“Not invented here” - The nemesis of a good agile deployment
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The Product Owner is ONE person, not a committee.
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It ain’t done till the Product Owner sings – from joy.
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The worst thing you can ever expect from experimentation is success every time
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“The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.” – Oscar Wilde
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Pink Floyd said it best: “Tear down the Wall!” The metaphorical one between business and development, that is.
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Maximizing velocity means nothing without minimizing defects.
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Proper release planning is the key to any Agile project. It is a myth that Agile means no initial plan.
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Scrum Masters are change agents first and foremost
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A product backlog is not actionable without a priority
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