Things to think about before and after a daily stand-up meeting
Daily stand-up meetings are at the core of the Scrum process. They help synchronize the team and quickly escalate impediments. Regardless if you have been participating in those meetings for years or you are just starting today, Mike Griffiths just published two useful posts to help us get more out of this critical activity:
Anchoring Effect
According to wikipedia:
Anchoring or focalism is a cognitive bias that describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily, or "anchor," on one trait or piece of information when making decisions.
This is a dangerous bias that can bite you when you are estimating tasks or stories in an Agile environment. I am even wondering if this plays a role when you are poker planning, and how much this influences your decisions from the get go.
Anyway, this article goes into detailing the anchoring effect and the "You are not so smart" blog is providing insights on common human behavior that plays an important role in software development.
While the phenomenon is well-known, I am wondering what a team can do about it. How can you overcome its nefarious effect and also how do you measure its effect in the long run.
[via You are not so smart]
Original photo by Plbmak
A Pattern for Using Scrum and Kanban
For a while now, I have wondered how you can combine Scrum and Kanban. Scrum is a good lightweight method that, if applied properly, can improve productivity, and more importantly, transparency for all stakeholders. On the other hand, Kanban seduced me for its simplicity and its ability to streamline your development. However, I never read anything about combining the two and most articles I have read so far seems to portray those two methodologies as oil and water.
This article take a different approach and shows how a well lubricated and performing Scrum team can benefit from Kanban.
This is food for thought.
[via AvailAgility]
Adapting Steven Covey’s concept to retrospectives
In Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey describes the concept of circles of control, influence, and concern. Succinctly, this concept states that you should only focus on the few things you can control and influence, and not on the many for which you are powerless.
This article describe an innovative retrospective process that one can use to help focus a Scrum team on the items they can control or influence.
This is a nice idea.
Agile Anti-Patterns
I believe that Agile is a great tool to help development teams achieve more, improve, and reach their next level in effectiveness, productivity, or creativity. However, like any tool, it can be misused or misapplied. You can shoot yourself in the foot if you are not applying a certain level of discipline or hygiene.
Mike Griffiths posted a short and sweet article on this subject that he entitled Agile anti-patterns. He classifies those anti-patterns as follow:
- Agile as a silver bullet
- Agile as an excuse for no discipline
- Agile without explanation
- Shallow Feedback