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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 ...
24
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 ...
18
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....
17
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 ...
12
Your accountability ends at programming. It is the PM's accountability on the success of the project within the constraints of the schedule and budget. You need to execute your tasks as assigned and use your best efforts to do the best job you can under the constraints that you have. Your responsibilities also include to escalate risks and issues in a non ...
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
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 ...
10
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 ...
9
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 ...
8
Project Responsibilities
There are successive layers of responsibility for any project. In general:
Senior management is responsible for the success (or failure) of a project. This often includes making strategic decisions about the project, making funding decisions about risk-mitigation controls, and accepting risks for the project that can't be mitigated ...
8
I recommend:
Demonstrate your application to the customer often, and get feedback early.
Break stuff down into small tasks that you are very confident about estimating time for. This is key.
Focus on minimal functionality first - login, logout, visit home page, etc. before the real features.
Use an Agile methodology.
Talk to your client daily.
Use software ...
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
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
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 ...
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
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 ...
8
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 ...
7
Conceptually, it's pretty simple. As Project Manager, you are responsible for the success of the project. It gets complicated by technology and people.
Upfront:
Make sure you have clearly defined goals for the project. There should be very clear requirements about what the final product should do.
Make sure the people assigned to the project clearly ...
7
You do have a project manager and technical lead on your project. For every project, every project role necessary is represented. In this case, there is only one person filling these roles: you.
You have been managing single person projects since you were six. You have more PM skills than you are giving yourself credit for. There are certainly ...
7
Both. Team maturity, process maturity, experience, risk, stakeholder support, and many other variables dictate the type of leadership and management approach you need to deploy. And you can expect to change your approach as things change.
Generally, avoid trying to find a single answer comparing two extremes. Our world is way more dynamic and random than ...
7
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 ...
7
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 picked during the day, or ...
7
I'm a manager of a software development team who was a designer. I started with almost no prior knowledge of writing code, other than simple html and CSS.
My initial view was that they are the experts in their field and I am an expert in mine. I am just using my PM expertise to help them become more efficient and better organised, so that their skills can ...
6
Our inability to be perfect does not constitute failure. There will always be defects in our testing / quality control processes in managing projects and operations. Always.
In fact, it would be a project management failure to stand up a testing capability that costs more than the benefit of the testing itself. At some point, the expected impact value ...
6
Lead by Example or hire a consultant
In my previous company, we in the the software development team switched over to the agile development process. Over a period of time the following benefits became visible to the larger organization:
Vertical slices of work were delivered to end users frequently. We were demoing completed features every two weeks and ...
6
Actually, the most effective leadership style is the one adapted to the level of competence that a group or individual has regarding a specific task.
Hersey and Blanchard have described this in their "Situational Leadership Theory".
Competence is a combination of having sufficient knowledge or expertise as well as the motivation to do the job. For instance,...
6
What are the key Agile points to be considered in a small startup company, with a team of 5-6 people
Getting started with Agile Project Management
What are the key points I have to consider in terms of Project Management and Agility.
Looks like you want to follow agile project management, but others
may not know what that means. Try to get at least a couple of people
trained. Scrum is the most popular agile process.
Assign the key roles of Scrum Master ...
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