Your ‘Done’ Isn’t My ‘Done’
Last night I finished my taxes. I tweeted I was done. Not developer done, but done done. Lynn McKee pointed out that even my impression of ‘done’ was open to interpretation. Does ‘done’ mean finished with the calculations? Filed? Received refund? Being audited? Filed mine and my wifes?
That reminded me of a recent sprint planning session our team had. Our product owner considered customer value and done as being able to clearly show separation of presentation and data layers in a new service we’re developing. I considered customer value being showing the user of the new service a simple interpretation of the data being shown through the service. Very different perspectives. Read more
A Scrum Master Can’t Help You
I failed Scrum.org’s question about whether or not the Scrum Master is a management position. I still think it was a trick question, and I did manage a 77% so I guess I’m qualified enough to still talk about Scrum.
The textbook definition of a Scrum Master is someone who “removes impediments” and facilitates the process for the team. I suppose from a process perspective the Scrum Master does do management type of work but in general terms the Agile community doesn’t agree that the team’s manager makes a good Scrum Master. The general thinking is that a manager can circumvent team self-organization and creativity by directing the team and in theory this is fine but in practice it’s just not reality for medium to large sized organizations. Read more
3 Reasons Why Setting Expectations Matters
I was on vacation last week and was working on a blog post when my 5 year old barged into my office asking me to play dominos with him. I figured I needed about 10 minutes to finish up the post so I asked him to go look at his clock and tell me what time it was. He rushed out, came back and said, “daddy, it’s 9.25” so I said, “I will play dominos with you in 10 minutes.”
Expectation set. Read more
