Month: January 2016

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Worrying interpretations of Scrum

At an Agile event I attended recently the speaker surveyed the audience about the 9 elements that form Scrum. My suspicion was immediately raised with mentioning of “9”. It only got worse when the speaker came up with:

Definition of Scrum (9)

It got me wondering how many misconceptions of Scrum can be expressed in no more than two minutes:

Definition of Scrum (9?)

I was hoping that by now (2016), and certainly given the availability of the Scrum Guide (since 2010), the basic understanding of Scrum was better.

What worries me the most however is not the formality of the wrong and missing elements, but how this reflects an ineffective use of the Scrum framework, a limitation to how Scrum supports teams in creating great software products:

  • Accountability over the self-organized creation of Increments belongs to the Development Team as a whole. Synergy is key, not individualism.
  • Transparency is optimized when Product Backlog holds all types of work and requirements for the product. The format and syntax of Product Backlog items is open for the teams to decide over. User Stories are certainly not mandatory.
  • Burn-down charts were removed as mandatory from Scrum some years ago. It was replaced by the expectation that progress, regardless the format, is visualised on Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog.
  • If Scrum was to be reduced to one purpose, and one purpose only, that is the creation of a releasable Increment in a Sprint. It is the basis of empiricism, of business agility. Imagine my surprise that this was not even mentioned, THE core purpose of Scrum.
  • Scrum has no prescription that the Daily Scrum needs to happen standing up. Scrum’s interest is making sure that the team’s progress toward the Sprint Goal is inspected on a daily base, in order to allow the team to adapt.
  • The Sprint Review is a collaborative event at which the Scrum Team and the stakeholders work together, and identify what is most important to work on next. Adding input from the stakeholders to the inspected, current state of the software (via the Increment), improves that decision. It is so much richer than a demo.
  • All events in Scrum are contained within a Sprint. Sprints take no more than 30 days, and often less. Not mentioning the Sprint as such (container) event might allow to overlook that aspect.

Definition of Scrum (11)

 

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Most Appreciated Releases 2015

The albums released in 2015 that kept endlessly repeating in my head and my player the most often were:

Editors - In Dream
Killing Joke - PylonFaith No More - Sol Invictus

Florence + The Machine - How Big, How Blue, How BeautifulRaketkanon - Rktkn#2Dez Mona - Origin

 

  • With the In Dream album Editors have gone to a seemingly small-scale sound. Until one starts discovering the layers, the sounds, the interwoven patterns. They seemingly picked up where they left off with the slightly disturbing (and pretty electronic) In This Light and On This Evening. It seems they had to go through their identity and personnel crisis with The Weight Of Their Love. Which re-established them as a band. Allowing them to move towards In Dreams. In Dreams has a bonus disc, Phase 2. The bonus songs add depth to the regular album. It is indispensible.
  • Coleman, Jaz - Letters From CytheraWith the Pylon album Killing Joke produced another greatly balanced work in the original line-up. Maybe less indispensible, but the bonus disc widens the album’s horizon even more. What helped me personally in appreciating the album, but also the band’s complete back catalogue, was reading Jaz Coleman’s self-published book Letters From Cypher. It shows the unified life of the band, against its founding, its history, its coming and going of people, its relative stability, its philosophical foundations, the joker and the back jester.
  • After the return on stages around the world several years ago, Faith No More confirmed their musical status with the great album Sol Invictus. The album demonstrates their grand and fluent mix of pathos, lyricism, hard rock, funk, engagement.
  • If you didn’t like Florence + The Machine before the crisis that knocked out Florence for a while, but helped her look for exotic places to record How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, you won’t like her/them now. I guess. But if you did like her/them before, you will do even more now.
  • Many bands are into the Steve Albini (and Shellac) musical school of directness. Fewer get Steve Albini to produce their album, and release an album that is not a copy-paste, but shows identity, is powerful and totally true to the band’s proper musical identity. It’s what Raketkanon did with their second album Rktkn#2.
  • For too long, Dez Mona is being ignored by the masses, mistaken as they probably are because of the -agreed- somewhat cultish image that singer Gregory Frateur has. The Origin album shows a very diverse side to the band, but also a very sophisticated side, very rhythmic, very passionate, but never over the top. Time to get some recognition.
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2016. More or less.

There is much we can leave behind. There is much we need more of, by needing less. Artefacts in my home office remind me of essential ingredients.

Wisdom. Health (also: sanity). Poetry (broadly: words, music, writings). Love.
And coffee.

IMG_2689

Over time I have come to realise that the main inner purpose driving me is to make a difference. To people (not minding orgs and structures). Aspiring to inspire with integrity and dignity (not minding careers and demigods). Scrum.

It’s been my path so far. The human trail I left behind is my testimony. And Scrum, seriously. The journey into the unknown futures will continually define who I am, some identity. A path to be discovered.

Nothing of this would be possible without my family; without the love of my life (Atelier Ullizee) and our kids.

What is most essential in your life? What is your ‘why’? Remind yourself what is important to you. Live by it. Live toward it.