IIBA announced that Endorsed Education Providers (EEPs) will finally be allowed to provide CDUs for EEP-hosted web seminars. Considering every IIBA member I’ve met asks me whether ASPE web seminars provide a CDU for our one-hour educational sessions, and my response is, “We’re working on it,” it’s about time. However, there’s a lot involved, and a better process needs to be established. Click to continue »
Test Driven Development is key when it comes to having more testing integrated into development efforts, higher quality code delivered, and a decrease in amount of code rework later in your project cycle. On Tuesday, April 26th ASPE Instructor, Andy Painter, presented the free web seminar “Test Driven Development.” In this web seminar, Andy discussed what TDD actually is, why you should write tests first before you begin coding, success patterns and challenges, and the next steps in implementing TDD. Click to continue »
On Wednesday April 13, 2011, IT Executive Russ Fletcher held a web seminar about Agile. Software development has been taken over by Agile Methods, which is why it is so important for professionals to be knowledgeable about the subject. Agile is a collection of processes and practices that uphold the philosophy about software development. Through Agile, individuals, interactions, and customer collaboration has become more valued. Attendees learned the importance of Agile and what it involves to make their company more successful. Listen to the recording of this web seminar in its entirety by clicking View Event Recordings (at the top right).
The Agile Salary Survey was conducted in partnership with VersionOne and the Scrum Alliance. Between September 2010 and March 2011, over 1,600 surveys were collected—an incredible response with incredible results. On Thursday, March 31st ASPE President, David Mantica, presented the free web seminar “Agile Salary Survey.” In this web seminar, David went into an in-depth analysis of this year’s survey results in comparison with last year’s. Listen to the recording of this web seminar in its entirety by clicking View Event Recordings (at the top right) to learn how and why Agile professionals remain in high demand and if they are compensated equally as well for their wide variety of skills.
On April 13-14, 2011 I taught a private Certified ScrumMaster course in Shanghai, China. As part of my course I asked the students to write down the most important questions that they had about Scrum. Some of these questions were answered in the Scrum Café (a topic for a future post) and several more in the Q&A segments. In order to give you a feel for what’s on the mind of the Chinese; here is a rehash of the most popular questions that came up and my answers to them.
Question: How does the development team become cross-functional? Our personal identities are tied to our roles and we don’t want to give that up (e.g. being a senior developer caries high prestige, being seen as a “jack of all trades and master of none” is not appealing)
Answer: On a Scrum development team everyone works together to accomplish the Sprint goal; that means that we need to be willing to do work that “isn’t in our job description” from time-to-time. We still need specialists who can solve the complicated technical problems, but lending a hand in other areas is essential. During one of my Scrum implementations many people were complaining at first, they felt that they were losing touch with their functional roles. They were afraid of losing their identities and skills as a business analyst, as a developer, or as a tester. Within a few months these same people were singing the praises of Scrum, so much happier due to the increased transparency and high-bandwidth communication. In addition we established “centers of excellence” so that development team members could continue to learn more about their specialties on a regular basis.
Question: Most of the time our ScrumMasters are team leaders or program managers, they typically don’t protect the team. How can we improve this situation?
Answer: For Scrum to work properly it’s important for the ScrumMaster not to command-and-control the development team. Many managers are so used to handing out orders that they don’t even recognize that they are doing it. Sometimes simply pointing out the behavior is enough to subvert it; a great time to broach the subject would be during a Sprint Retrospective. If that doesn’t work then ask the current ScrumMaster if they are willing to resign and let one of the development team members play the role, encouraging the old ScrumMaster to serve in an Agile Manager capacity for the team.
Question: All our companies seem to care about is delivery and efficiency. They want us to constantly produce more and more, how do we get them to back off this pressure to constantly produce, especially while we are trying to learn Scrum?
Answer: It’s not uncommon for management to put pressure on the development to write more code. However, from time-to-time they cross a line and it becomes un-healthy for the team. Scrum is all about sustainable pace, delivering at a level that can be maintained over the long-run. One of the best ways to make a case for management is with hard facts. When you notice the ill-effects of their pressure, document the facts of the situation and the outcomes. Have the ScrumMaster take these facts to management and make a case for the team. Also, you can have the Product Owner and the ScrumMaster work hand-in-hand to shield the development team from management.
As you can see the Chinese are very curious about Scrum and they have some challenges to overcome, as we all do. Do you have a question about Scrum? I encourage you to write your question below in the comments and I promise to get back to you with an answer.
By: Brian M. Rabon, an ASPE-SDLC instructor who is a CST and a PMP. Brian is also the president of The Braintrust Consulting Group. You can read his blog, find him on Facebook, and connect with him on Linkedin or Twitter. Brian is a regular contributor to the ASPE-SDLC Blog and a thought leader in the fields of Agile and Traditional Project Management as it applies to Software Development.
Congratulations to Peggy O. of Minneapolis, MN! Peggy is the winner of our first iPad giveaway of 2011! Don’t give up yet, though. You still have two chances to win! Visit www.aspeinc.com/ipad to enter for you chance to win one of the remaining two iPads. Winners will be announced on May 10th and June 10th.
See Your Odds for Winning an iPad
I know that you are all asking yourselves, “What does a tropical fruit have to do with Scrum?” Well last year Lyssa Adkins and I proved that it has a lot to do with Scrum. We were teaching a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) course together and we conducted an exercise for the course participants to prepare a fruit salad. We provided the students with a supply of fresh fruits and they were challenged with creating a sanitary and attractive fruit salad. The pineapple came into play as we introduced a “scope change” mid-sprint (read more about our experience here). Now I utilize this exercise in all my CSPO courses and it always proves to be educational and eye-opening for the course participants.
In the fruit salad exercise the pineapple serves as a metaphor for a mid-sprint scope change. Scrum was designed to allow the development team to work uninterrupted (i.e. fixed scope) during the time box of the sprint. When the product owner introduces a scope change by requesting a new feature, changing an existing request, etc., it disrupts the natural flow of the sprint. Typically, this disruption is highly chaotic and has a negative impact on the team’s velocity for that sprint. In extreme cases the product owner and the team may even decide to terminate the current sprint and re-plan a new one; a traumatic and disruptive event for everyone.
Unfortunately, not all product owners recognize and appreciate the disruptive nature of dropping pineapples on their development teams mid-sprint. They need to be coached and shown the impact of their actions. One of the best ways to do this is to track every time the product owner introduces a scope change mid-sprint on paper and post the nature of the interruption and the impact in a publically visible space (perhaps even on bright red paper). This practice elevates the level of transparency of the product owner’s actions and helps them see in a tangible way what they are doing and its impact on the development team. Another suggestion is to send your product owner to a CSPO course; many times they simply don’t realize the impact of their actions and a CSPO course can help educate them on what they should and should not do to introduce change.
Product Owners need to realize the effects of “dropping pineapples” on their Scrum teams. Introducing a scope change mid-sprint is disruptive to the development team and often leads to a lowered velocity or even in extreme cases sprint termination. Sometimes this can’t be avoided, but when it becomes habitual, your development team will surely suffer more long term effects. Help your product owners recognize what they are doing by tracking their actions and making them visible or by sending them to a CSPO course. I often find that once a product owner understands what their actions are doing to the development team then simply saying “pineapple” is enough to get them to hold off on their scope change until the next sprint planning meeting.
By: Brian M. Rabon, an ASPE-SDLC instructor who is a CST and a PMP. Brian is also the president of The Briantrust Consulting Group. You can read his blog, find him on Facebook, and connect with him on Linkedin or Twitter. Brian is a regular contributor to the ASPE-SDLC Blog and a thought leader in the fields of Agile and Traditional Project Management as it applies to Software Development.
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