Certified Scrum Master Training from Innovel

I completed my Certified Scrum Master training Friday from Innovel. You can learn more about the training at http://www.scrumtraining.com.

My instructor was Chris Doss. He was a great instructor. It was a very good class and I met a lot of great people in the class as well. I think I was one of the younger folks in the class, so I was able to learn a lot from everyone there just through "osmosis".

Of course, the CSM course is not something that makes one really a well-practiced Scrum implementer. I think it's more of a way to get your feet wet. The progression for training in Scrum is diagrammed here: http://www.scrumalliance.org/training/

The course covers a lot of ground at a high level about Agile, Lean, and Scrum, with a touch of XP. I've been conducting independent study on these subjects and documenting the links and videos I've read and watched on the ATL ALT.NET wiki at http://atlalt.net/screwturn/High-Performance%20Teams.ashx.

Aside from watching those videos from Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, I read two Scrum books to prepare for the training:

Agile Software Development With Scrum:
http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Software-Development-SCRUM/dp/0130676349

Agile Project Management with Scrum:
http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Software-Development-SCRUM/dp/0130676349

I'm currently reading Scrum and XP From the Trenches from InfoQ Press by Henrik Kniberg:
http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/scrum-xp-from-the-trenches

Future Reading
I am now planning to read Head First Software Development from O'Reilly:
http://www.amazon.com/First-Software-Development-Brain-Friendly-Guides/dp/0596527357

This book is not overtly about Scrum, but the authors thank Henrik Kniberg's InfoQ book and it is heavily geared toward scrum from that I can tell so far.

I love the Head First concept and am currently reading Head First Design Patterns to freshen up on my understanding of design patterns, which is not as good as it should be.

Scrum Link List

As I've been talking about the Scrum software development process framework and its associated terms and phrases like agile, velocity, productivity, reduced defect rate, I have collected some great links.

Getting up to Speed on Scrum

After reading the definition on Wikipedia, I recommend watching Jeff Sutherland's presentation at: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/AgileEnterpriseRealWorldExperience

It presents real industry data and case studies that demonstrate how teams have transformed themselves by introducing agile practices using Scrum. It will definitely make you want to learn more.

Scrum Definition:
Concise definition and links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development)

Hirotaka Takeuchi, coined the term Scrum in 1986 after studying how Japanese companies increased their productivity and competitiveness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirotaka_Takeuchi

Hirotake Takeuchi's book on Knowledge Management:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470820748/

Presentations about Scrum:
"The Agile Enterprise: Real World Experience in Creating Agile Companies", by Jeff Sutherland:
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/AgileEnterpriseRealWorldExperience

"Scrum, et al", by Ken Scwaeber, co-inventor of the scrum method for software development, presented at Google:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7230144396191025011&hl=en

"Scrum Tuning: Lessons Learned from Scrum implementation at Google", by Jeff Sutherland, co-inventor of the scrum method for software development:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8795214308797356840

"The Roots of Scrum", by Jeff Sutherland. A presentation with lots of empirical data and examples. He discusses the roots of Scrum within Japanese businesses like Toyota, and about his own experience with medical companies using Scrum:
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/The-Roots-of-Scrum

Audio Lessons:

These three introductions to Scrum by Ken Schwaber are excellent. They give you very clean and clear definitions of what the major aspects of Scrum are. Listen while you jog, listen while you drive, but just listen:

Part 1: http://blogs.conchango.com/howardvanrooijen/archive/2005/10/25/2296.aspx
Part 2: http://blogs.conchango.com/howardvanrooijen/archive/2005/10/31/2323.aspx
Part 3: http://blogs.conchango.com/howardvanrooijen/archive/2005/11/05/2362.aspx

Books:
Agile Software Development with Scrum, by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle:
http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Software-Development-SCRUM/dp/0130676349

Scrum and XP from the Trenches, a 90 Page Experience Report, by Henrik Kniberg:
http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/scrum-xp-from-the-trenches

Previous Posts by Me:
I have written a few posts recently about scrum and agile. You can find all those by clicking here.

Enjoy the links!

Scrum at Google: Ken Schwaber Talk

Ken Schwaber addresses Google about Google's Scrum implementation:

In this video he discusses the history of scrum coming out of Japan when Japanese firms were stressed to compete at higher levels. He also talks about how Google's competitor Yahoo uses scrum.

Related Resources

Agile podcast and interviews about Scrum with Ken Schwaber

These three introductions to Scrum by Ken are excellent. They give you very clean and clear definitions of what the major aspects of Scrum are. Highly reocmmended.

Part 1: http://blogs.conchango.com/howardvanrooijen/archive/2005/10/25/2296.aspx
Part 2: http://blogs.conchango.com/howardvanrooijen/archive/2005/10/31/2323.aspx
Part 3: http://blogs.conchango.com/howardvanrooijen/archive/2005/11/05/2362.aspx

Ken Schwaber's book:

Agile Project Management with Scrum, by Microsoft Press: http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Project-Management-Microsoft-Professional/dp/073561993X

Scrum Masters 2: funny video

Review: Scrum and XP from the Trenches

I am reading the book Scrum and XP from the Trenches by Henrik Kniberg. It is about his personal experience successfully implementing a Scrum-based methodology in his development team of 40 people in Stockholm, Sweeden.

You can read the book as a PDF on InfoQ's web site here: http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/scrum-xp-from-the-trenches

Or, you can purchase the book at LuLu here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/899349

Review
Here are my comments on each section of the book:

Foreward by Jeff Sutherland

Jeff co-created Scrum. In his foreward he makes these points:

JSG paraphase:

• Scrum is becoming very important to venture capitalists (especially his own partners)
• Teams must know their project velocity -- This is how much of a backlog a team can accomplish in a given sprint. (See http://www.scrumalliance.org/articles/39-glossary-of-scrum-terms#1110 for details)
• Only teams that match all of the criteria below in the excerpts will be funded by his venture capitalist partners.
  

Direct excerpts:

• Iterations must have fixed time boxes and be less than six weeks
  long.
• Code at the end of the iteration must be tested by QA and be
  working properly.
• A Scrum team must have a Product Owner and know who that
  person is.
• The Product Owner must have a Product Backlog with estimates
  created by the team.
• The team must have a Burndown Chart and know their velocity.
• There must be no one outside a team interfering with the team
  during a Sprint.
  

Foreward by Mike Cohn

Mike is a founding member of the Scrum Alliance. He has written books, articles, and speaks regularly. Learn more at http://www.scrumalliance.org/profiles/8-mike-cohn.

Mike makes these points:

• Scrum and XP are both practical, results-oriented approaches. They are about Getting Things Done
  
• Prototype early and often rather than documenting requirements at an exhaustive level
  
• Avoid excess modeling, prefer prototyping instead
• Work on things that have potential to become part of the actual working solution
  
• Refer to other resources for the theory behind Scrum. It is out there, but this book focuses on implementing Scrum successfully

Preface

• He was skeptical going in, but was convinced shortly thereafter starting
• Scrum worked for the author's 40 person team
• Team's quality was way below acceptable, but implementing Scrum solved their problems
• He will use Scrum by default for new projects in the future unless there is a specific reason not to use it
  

1. Introduction

• Scrum is not a magic bullet
• You tailor it to your context
• His team was fighting fires all the time
  
• Quality was low
• Overtime was up
• Deadlines were missed
• "Scrum" was just a buzzword to most people
• Implemented across teams of 3 to 12 people
• Learned about different ways of managing backlog (Excel, Jira, index cards, etc)
  
• Experimented w/different sprint sizes (2 to 6 weeks)
• Used other XP practices like pair programming
• Used continuous integration
• Used TDD
• Took Ken's certification course
• Most useful info came from real "War Stories" and case studies of people actually solving problems with Scrum
  

2. How we do product backlogs

• Backlog is hear and soul of Scrum
• Backlog contains customer's desired features, prioritized by most critical
• Call the backlog items User Stories or just Stories
• ID, Name, Importance, Initial Estimate, How-To-Demo, Notes
• 6 fields were most often used
• Kept in Excel spreadsheet on shared drive with Multiple Editing allowed
• Additional: Track, Components, Requestor, Bug Tracking ID if needed
• Keep the product backlog at the Business Level not a technical level
• Let the team figure out the How-To Technical Level
• Ask Why as many teams as needed to get to the underlying intent if the Product Owner does state it in technical terms, and move technical language to Notes field.
  

3. How we prepare for Sprint planning

• Product Backlog MUST exist first in ship-shape form
• One Product Backlog and One Product Owner per Product
• All items should have a unique Importance level
• Leave large gaps. 100 does not mean 5 times more important than 20. Easier than making 20.5 if you did 20 and 21 instead when item C comes up in the middle
• Product Owner should understand the intent of each story
• Others can add stories, but only Product Owner can assign importance
• Only the team can add an estimate
• Tried using Jira for keeping the backlog, but too many clicks for Product Owner
• Have not yet tried VersionOne or other Scrum tools

4. How we do Sprint planning

TODO page 25

5. How we communicate Sprints

6. How we do Sprint backlogs

7. How we arrange the team room

8. How we do daily Scrum

9. How we do Spring demos

10.How we do Spring retrospectives

11.Slack time between Sprints

12.How we do release planning and fixed priced contracts

13.How we combine Scrum with XP

14.How we do testing

15.How we handle multiple Scrum teams

16.How we handle geographically distributed teams

17.Scrum master checklist

18.Parting words

Recommended reading