Recently I’ve participated in the Continental’s CDS department strategic workshop for 2016. The topic of Agile & Scrum development has been heavily discussed, and I am providing some of the points as a reminder of the good Scrum practices.
Formulate sprint goal
It is difficult to do so, when the sprint backlog is full of non-related stories. Nevertheless combining stories into epics and themes and committing to them into one sprint brings value. Not only the stakeholders have clear message what could be expected after the iteration, the team also feel focused and united under the same goal.
Prepare the review on the planning
During the sprint planning - acceptance criteria need to be present for all the user stories and it should be clearly communicated what would be demoed over the sprint review in the end. The topic is again - visibility and transparency – what could the stakeholders and the product owner expect in the end?
Grooming preparations
It is inevitable that some teammates are busy and do not have time to look at the product backlog before the grooming session. The situation has to be avoided. Everybody should come prepared and at least should have rough idea of the stories that are to be groomed.
Limit the task granularity to a maximum of 1-2 days
It is a good practice and the reminder came from the Romanian colleagues. Just putting a generic ‘development’ task and estimating it to 60 hours (10 days) doesn’t help with the transparency, right?
Write comments to the user story in JIRA regularly
Usually the comments in the tracking system come in the end when the story is completed. This practice does not really help the product owner during the sprint when information about the progress is needed.
Exchange teammates to share good practices
This one has been discussed for quite some time. It happens that team members of one team work together with team members of other team for some days but it’s not really a regular practice. And as there are different products, it is challenging to change teams understanding new expertise has to be acquired.
Do not skip the ceremonies
The Scrum ceremonies should not be skipped. And it is not because a guru, trainer or the scrummaster say so, but because they are valuable. Skipping ceremonies indicate teams do not see the value of them and is there should be a reminded session why/how the ceremonies help all of us.
Keep the physical board updated
I am a big fan of the physical Scrum board. Although JIRA/Trello/Asana/Rally/Orange are commonly used somehow the magic disappears online and the vibe is much different when there is a physical Scrum board. Both physical and online boards should be updated daily, either in the end of each day or during the daily standup in the morning.
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