49
Pretend the Waterfall team is an outside contractor
Since you're interfacing with the Waterfall team's code solely via an API, just pretend you're hiring an outside contractor to create that code for you.
The Scrum rules for how you write your code don't apply to them. You submit your requirements to them, they write up a formal Statement of Work for ...
40
Tom is an unguided projectile. Regardless of why he does what he does (whether he believes himself to be better or simply lacks proper guidance), the core issue here is that he not only second-guesses any information/objectives that you give him, but he will independently decide to follow his own instinct.
if the wireframe puts a blue color button, he ...
38
I would like them to understand why I want to do something. [...] Any advice?
Don't theorize, show them.
Their current state of mind is that they know what they do works. And you come over and tell them that theoretically this is bad. You will never win anyone over by telling they are doing a bad job, while you could do a much better one. Everybody can say ...
26
It's impossible to answer your question because "Scrum Master" and "Product Owner" are roles, not job titles. Their job positions may be different and depend on the company.
For example, a Product Owner could be:
A business analyst at your company.
A person from the customer side (i.e. outside your company).
Or even the СЕО of your company (it's not rare ...
21
Flater's answer is really good; let me add something that will also help: Acceptance Criteria (AC).
Acceptance Criteria
Every single story should have Acceptance Criteria, describing the functional effects of the story with a binary (true/false) answer.
If a story is incorrect or lacking details, then this is the fault of the team during grooming/planning. ...
19
First of all, make it known to your stakeholders that there is a project risk in your project. The waterfall team is asking for things (final, unchanging requirements) that you don't have at the start of your project.
To mitigate this risk, you can analyse your current backlog for items that may affect the data that you need to exchange with the system ...
18
Consumed Story Points: An Agile Anti-Pattern
"Consumed points" are a sort of burn-down metric that some practitioners use to track progress of a story against its original estimates. It's intended to show percentage of work completed, estimate overruns, or to reduce the need for collaborative communication about story status.
In my coaching practice the ...
16
Sprint
In the Scrum Framework all activities needed for the implementation of entries from the Scrum Product Backlog are performed within Sprints (also called 'Iterations'). Sprints are always short: normally about 2-4 weeks.
Each Sprint follows a defined process as shown below:
The heart of Scrum is a Sprint, a time-box of two weeks or one month during ...
15
TL;DR
Scope creep is a project risk, and must be controlled. However, in agile frameworks, scope is a variable constraint rather than a fixed one. To be an effective agilist, one needs to understand the differences between scope and change control, and how to properly apply a given agile framework to embrace change (which is a core value) without putting ...
14
There is nothing wrong with this type of scoring. This type of customer confidence score is the same general idea as NPS and a multitude of other score. Whether or not it is healthy is largely dependent on how it is used.
First, it is important to understand what this score is and is not. It is a satisfaction score. It tells you about the individual's ...
13
Do other companies do this? Is it considered Agile? Can it show real insight?
No. No. No.
Why not? Because it's completely pointless. You said you have sprints. I guess they have tickets or stories in them. So you already have an objective measurement how you did. 8 of 10 stories done? 95 of 98 story points finished? There you go. Objective measurement. ...
13
First, some clarification is important. Scrum does not expressly forbid any job. People in the Scrum Team can have any job titles as long as it respects the structure and rules of Scrum. Further, people can exist outside of the Scrum team that support the team as long as it does not violate the rules in Scrum. Now, I've worked in Scrum teams who are ...
12
It will mostly depend of the scope of what you call project management.
If this include mostly code, milestones, and issue tracking, then Gitlab can fit your need.
You may complete Gitlab with third party tools that integrate with it's API like Taiga
On the other hand if you need more flexibily, customizable reports, cross-project issue/milestones sharing,...
11
Scrum says nothing about hierachy.
Thr Scrum Master position is not a higher position than the PO or the DevTeam position.
The idea is to not think in hierachy levels! Think about a team of peoply wanting to deliver high quality products!
There is no reporting inside thr Scrum Team. It's just not needed to report, because of the high transparency ...
11
The "Agile delivery manager" seems to be an undefined/undocumented role, and from what I read in the job openings is mostly a combination of a Project Manager, a Product Owner and a Scrum Master. Sounds like utter bullshit to me. A made up title to map existing roles to a probably fake-Agile implementation, while using a lot of buzzwords.
According to Jeff ...
10
An epic is a large story. One that needs to be broken down into stories that fit comfortably within sprints. It isn't really meant to be used as a way of grouping stories together in a category.
Having said that, do what is best for your team. If you find grouping technical debt tasks under an epic helps you to track them, then that is fine.
My preferred ...
10
I will assume that the "push" approach is not only direct, but also immediate.
(Like when someone comes up to you and says "hey, Joe, can we roll this later today?").
The "pull", on the other hand, is not only indirect, providing the queue as the go-between, but also delayed. Tasks might accumulate in the queue, waiting to be ...
9
Agile/Scrum process can be used for projects with fixed unmovable deadlines
Is it valid and possible to cope fixed unmovable deadlines into Scrum?
Yes. We did a project related to the Olympics using Scrum. Naturally, the deadline is fixed unmovable. There is nothing wrong with this. We were able to adjust scope so that we fit in what could be ...
9
First, I must say that my experience does not match the statement nor am I aware of any study that shows that. When SAFe or "pure" Agile are adopted well, they both have great throughput and quality.
When looking at the differences, I'd first look at what makes them hard to adopt well. With SAFe, there are many positions to be filled and it feels a lot ...
9
Simply telling your subordinates to do something they can't see the benefit from is a recipe for disaster, which you already acknowledge, so make it fun for them. Gamification may not be easy for you to do, but can pan out to smooth out other, rougher, spots.
In a study conducted by Sharp et al. (2009), the researchers suggest the most influential factor on ...
8
PMI's studies have shown that projects that are managed complete more often and more successfully than projects that are not managed. (I can't find the citation right now).
A 4 person team could use a project manager, if the projects are large and complex enough.
Alarms go off in my mind when I read your statement,
Does a PM need to have some ...
8
SCRUM is not an acronym.
You do not need two teams. Try running textbook style Scrum.
It sounds like you're not properly respecting the velocity of the team. If the team does not deliver all of the stories for the sprint then you should attempt fewer stories next time.
You incorporate the distraction of maintaining releases in the velocity of your team. ...
8
What You're Doing Wrong
[T]he development team personnel eventually end up working on bugs, client requirements etc. This impacts sprint delivery and the development team is now missing the sprint deadlines.
By failing to protect the development team from unscheduled work, and not following the rules of Scrum by calling for an Early Termination and a ...
8
Many agile projects don't produce a software requirements specification in the sense of a document that lists a bunch of "shall" statements along with some assumptions and dependencies, like what is described in ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148 or DI-IPSC-81433A. That doesn't mean such a document can't be produced, though.
Often, agile projects will capture 'requirements'...
8
TL;DR
In Agile Methodology, is a Scrum Master position higher than a Product Owner, in terms of organizational hierarchy?
No.
The Scrum framework requires active collaboration between Scrum roles, and between the business (or customer) and the Scrum team. Hierarchical relationships within the Scrum team are antithetical to effective implementation of ...
8
Disclaimer: I have never worked in a digital agency and I am aware that the role of Project Manager in Digital Agencies can be somewhat different to that commonly accepted in other I.T. operations whether in-house or software development suppliers. Furthermore I am not clear on the exact differences.
Despite my disclaimer above, and taking the question and ...
8
I think questions like this need to be answered with great care. PMBoK is not necessarily incompatible with Scrum but it has to be said that PMBoK started out very much as a predictive planning approach to projects. You could argue that "initiate, plan, control etc." is being applied to each sprint but that was not how PMBoK evolved. The fact that PMI have ...
8
This is a problem most of the PMs face when there are really skilled Developers in their teams.
My answer will be a practical approach to handling this issue.
I hope you have been a PM for quite some time and have experience and have established yourself as a PM in the organization. Basically, you have a say in the organization.
Since Tom is an ...
8
Here's one source: https://project-management-knowledge.com/definitions/e/external-dependency/
Simply research "external dependencies in project scheduling." Your schedule will simply be incomplete if you do not have identified in your schedule the dependencies upon which your schedule is based. Your best argument is the word, "dependency.&...
8
In order to be cared about, standards must be understood.
You say that
a checklist[...]/checkboxes [are not] ideal
because
On previous teams, the coding standards were like an ethos that was upheld by the Application Development Manager, believed in by the team, and taught to new Devs when onboarded.
What I take from this is that your primary concern is ...
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