23
votes
Accepted
How can I map stakeholders without offending anyone?
compare to other colleagues and feel insulted.
The other two answers are good - but this confuses me. When I've done stakeholder analysis, the process has been open and participatory. There shouldn'...
15
votes
How can I map stakeholders without offending anyone?
I personally don’t like tools you have to hide. This leads to mistrust and if it leaks (for whatever reason) you are in trouble.
So we started 20 years ago to use a technique which is called project ...
13
votes
Accepted
How do you convince a client that testing is a must?
If you are building a product for a client, your internal testing / QC work is not subject to negotiations. It is part of the work, part of the price, and there is no reduction in that area. If the ...
11
votes
Accepted
Aren't stakeholder expected to adopt an agile mindset when working in a Scrum framework?
shouldn't the adoption of agile values be present on both sides?
Yes, it should. But often isn't.
The problem is that Agile/Scrum is more of a mindset than a way of working. But people all ...
9
votes
Aren't stakeholder expected to adopt an agile mindset when working in a Scrum framework?
TL;DR
Yes. Stakeholders need to be active collaborators in a successful Scrum or agile process.
Roles and Objectives for Stakeholder Collaboration
While not spelled out prescriptively in the Scrum ...
8
votes
Accepted
Who pays when actuals exceed pessimistic estimates?
Management Owns Cost-Overruns
A Developer estimates between 70 to 100 hours for a task. Due to the urgency of the task and the developer's unavailability, a far less experienced developer is ...
8
votes
Accepted
Scrum Sprint Review without the stakeholders
I would ask myself a fundamental question: If I don't have stakeholders, who am I building this product for?
In your situation, it sounds like you're building it because the owner of the business, ...
8
votes
Should defect criticality change based on user needs?
I love defect management, it throws up some wonderful logic problems :)
What actually is Criticality? If you could define that then you would know the answer.
I believe it is the combination of ...
8
votes
Accepted
What is the term for an anti-user-story?
First, I love your scenario - very fun. I think I've heard Mike Cohn actually call them "anti-user stories" in a talk.
Frankly though, I don't think it matters what you call them because they're a ...
8
votes
What can lead to disappointed and angry stakeholders?
Choosing two answers, I would select A and D.
B can be eliminated since project plans and formal change request procedures aren't typically a part of agile delivery approaches. Agile Software ...
7
votes
Accepted
What can we do without a clear Product Owner or stakeholder on the client's side?
there are no stakeholders
If there were no stakeholders, the projects wouldn't have existed or had money in the first place. Chances are, they are not properly identified, and this is where you have ...
7
votes
Best way to deal with difficult stakeholders?
Stakeholder management 101: define the rules of engagement, define the two-way communication requirements, point out and resolve the inconsistencies in the stakeholder requirements--such as what you ...
7
votes
How should a Scrum Master deal with an angry stakeholder during a PO meeting?
I am drawing assumptions on your PO's agenda, based on my experience of other PO meetings, and discussing a stakeholder's objections on spend would not be consistent with that agenda. The PO, or you, ...
7
votes
How should a Scrum Master deal with an angry stakeholder during a PO meeting?
TL;DR
I was thinking at the back of my mind to either:
defend the PO and budget
defend the team, since they were kept busy delivering items from the backlog
Bring focus to the meeting ...
6
votes
Project Objectives vs Stakeholder Needs
Project Objectives are typically higher level than individual Stakeholder Requirements. They usually come first, created up-front in the Project Initiation phase before you've delved in to individual ...
5
votes
How shall developers clarify PBI during its implementation?
As a Scrum Master I encourage team members to talk with the stakeholders. But I suggest they either do it in the presence of the Product Owner or brief the Product Owner as soon as possible after the ...
5
votes
Accepted
How shall developers clarify PBI during its implementation?
Excellent question:
To answer the question directly, yes, the developers can and should talk with the customer when possible. As you've pointed out though, the logistics of this can be difficult.
...
5
votes
Accepted
Examples of design by committee?
Despite the fact that I agree with David that design by committee is sarcasm [and a real phenomenon, I agree with Michael Hogan too :-)], question is about examples (not about "design by committee" ...
5
votes
Who are the stakeholders in this project?
Stakeholders are anyone who has a stake, role, share, etc. in the project. I am not sure the schools are stakeholders at all because based on the limited description of the application, you are ...
5
votes
Custom software development, dealing with change requests?
From Agile Manifesto - "Responding to change" over sticking to a plan.
It is a good practice to respond to a change so that your product/project evolve in right direction. It will lead to client's ...
5
votes
Accepted
Can user stories be prioritized using labels applied by the customer?
TL; DR
Your underlying question appears to be whether the customer, rather than the Product Owner, should be allowed to prioritize the Product Backlog. You are also questioning whether label-based ...
4
votes
Who pays when actuals exceed pessimistic estimates?
There is a difference between an estimate and planning value. An estimate is a probabilistic range and should include variables such as less qualified resources doing the work plus about 1,000 other ...
4
votes
What is the term for an anti-user-story?
As an Information Security Architect, I am with you on the idea of anti-story, and I would counter Daniel and request that they do become permanent record.
In Archimate, you can model risk as events, ...
4
votes
How to deal with an impatient stakeholder?
Honestly, this sounds like the Product Owner is a typical type-A personality that has learned to get better results from relentlessly pushing his teams to always do more and better. (Think Elon Musk.) ...
4
votes
Best way to deal with difficult stakeholders?
Summary
You must leverage your framework more effectively. This includes pulling your stakeholders into Backlog Refinement and explaining the iterative/incremental nature of the project's delivery ...
4
votes
When to process feedback on the deliverable of the last iteration?
I'm a big fan of a continuous feedback loop rather than making it stick to a schedule.
My suggestion would be to:
Deploy frequently to your staging environment (whenever you have a stable build).
...
4
votes
When to process feedback on the deliverable of the last iteration?
It seems a little surprising that one of the answers hasn't covered this, but: do you hold a review meeting at the end of the iteration?
Scrum and XP both include this meeting to address the ...
4
votes
When to process feedback on the deliverable of the last iteration?
If you are following pure Scrum then Sprint Review can help you. Only sprint review is the event of Scrum when Increment (developed software/feature) is ready for stakeholder review and stakeholders ...
3
votes
Custom software development, dealing with change requests?
This is a common frustration especially on newer agile teams. There are two sides of it:
1) Backlog management. The idea of the backlog is that it is changeable, but because everything is listed in a ...
3
votes
Accepted
How to deal with unclear requirements?
So if I understand right, your company thinks you should build an application for your customer. The customer hasn't requested it and you have no validation that the problem being solved even exists?
...
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
Related Tags
stakeholders × 69scrum × 14
agile × 14
product-owner × 7
change-management × 6
prioritization × 6
communication × 5
requirements × 5
scrum-master × 4
planning × 3
estimation × 3
kanban × 3
product-management × 3
scope × 3
team-management × 2
user-stories × 2
sprint × 2
process × 2
risk-management × 2
roles × 2
testing × 2
meetings × 2
organizational-structure × 2
clients × 2
business-analyst × 2