The Agile Daily Standup - AgileDad
By AgileDad ~ V. Lee Henson
The Agile Daily Standup - AgileDadMay 16, 2022
Scrum Has Transformed Itself
Scrum Has Transformed Itself
I’ve noticed that what we understand by Scrum is like the telephone game. Everyone interprets something, passes it on, and the next person picks up what they think is relevant. And to complicate matters further, it’s a changing game. Scrum is not static; its own creators realize its shortcomings and fix them over time. Moreover, after downloading the official guides, versions from 2010 to 2020, I’ve seen it has changed a lot. Things many of us take for granted as the foundation of Scrum no longer exist. And all for the better!
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It’s a Daily Scrum, Not a Daily Status Report - Mike Cohn
Whether or not you are a fan of Star Trek, you’ve likely heard of the Captain of the U.S.S Enterprise asking some form of this question: “Engineering, status report?” or “Spock, status report?” (It’s such a common trope that Season 2, episode 9 of Star Trek: Brave New Worlds, “Subspace Rhapsody,” features an iconic scene where the crew has encountered something that is making them all sing their status reports.)
On a ship, even a spaceship, status reports are a quick and efficient way to check that all systems are running as expected or to report problems. On waterfall software projects, status reports often were an effective but often tedious way for a manager to update their Gantt chart to reflect the progress (or lack thereof) for each plan element.
Unfortunately the idea of status reports is so embedded in our psyches that many people on agile teams treat a daily scrum as a time to give a status report to the Scrum Master.
The daily scrum is meant to be a synchronization meeting for the whole team, not a status report solely for the benefit of the Scrum Master. So how did we end up here?
I suspect some people missed the message that a daily scrum is an inspect and adapt activity for the team. And I wonder if the three traditional questions of the daily scrum are to blame as well. The template, “What did you do yesterday? What will you do today? Any blockers?” just sounds like a robotic status report Spock would give.
Two Ways to Bring Sync Back to Daily Scrums
Want to break your team out of the status report mindset? Try these two tips.
First, eliminate the three questions and experiment with structures that work for your team. At your next retrospective, tell the team you want to dispose of the three questions (and why). Remind them of the purpose of daily scrums: to inspect and adapt the team’s progress. And that the goal is to make each daily scrum about synching their work, rather than reporting status, while staying inside the 15-minute timebox.
Then invite the team to come up with experiments to try (like going PBI by PBI instead of person by person).
Second, for one sprint try to avoid eye contact with anyone giving an update during a daily scrum, especially doing them in person. Making eye contact is human nature. When we speak, we make eye contact with someone. Many teams, especially those new to Scrum, will naturally look at the ScrumMaster when speaking rather than one another.
By not making eye contact with someone giving an update, ScrumMasters can signal that the speaker should be talking to the rest of the team, rather than directly to the Scrum Master.
If your daily scrums are so dull that the team is silently begging to be beamed up, you aren’t alone. Bringing a collaborative spirit back to your daily scrums is one way to help your team succeed with agile.
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Generative AI is Revolutionizing Product Development!
Generative AI is Revolutionizing Product Development!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M09Nj1ETldo&list=PLoYxTrSg7WvRTz_2C1OAnHC2fkWTcQyxx&index=1&pp=gAQBiAQB
Imagine a world where your product ideas are not just yours but are informed by the collective intelligence of countless consumer interactions, market trends, and technological possibilities. Welcome to the realm of generative AI — a world where product managers can transcend traditional boundaries of innovation and efficiency. As a product manager, you are the maestro of this orchestra, wielding tools that can harmonize market data into symphonies of opportunity. This article invites you to explore the revolution generative AI is bringing to product development, offering you a lens into a future where the only limit is not your resources, but the breadth of your imagination.
Generative AI can fuel the ideation process by synthesizing market trends and customer feedback to suggest improvements and new product ideas.
Example: By analyzing social media data, AI can generate ideas for eco-friendly packaging that appeals to sustainability-conscious consumers.
Tip: Use AI to regularly scan customer reviews and forums to capture emerging needs and preferences for product updates or new developments.
AI tools can analyze large datasets to uncover market patterns, generate user interview guides, and synthesize feedback into actionable insights.
Example: AI can create detailed customer journey maps by integrating data from various touchpoints, providing a holistic view of the customer experience.
Tip: Employ AI to conduct competitive analysis, ensuring you’re aware of the market landscape and can strategically position your product.
In this phase, AI assists in creating design concepts, simulating user interactions, and generating personas for hypothesis testing.
Example: AI can simulate the user experience of a banking app for different personas, identifying potential usability issues before development.
Tip: Use generative AI to validate design concepts by generating visual prototypes and testing them with target user groups.
Generative AI can draft requirements, optimize code, and automate repetitive coding tasks, enhancing efficiency.
Example: AI can suggest optimizations for a food delivery app’s routing algorithm, reducing delivery times.
Tip: Incorporate AI-driven code reviews to maintain high-quality standards and identify potential efficiencies.
AI generates test cases and identifies edge cases, simulating user behavior to ensure robustness and quality.
Example: AI can generate synthetic data to test a new payment processing feature under various conditions.
Tip: Use AI to conduct pre-mortems, anticipating potential risks and addressing them proactively.
AI can create marketing materials, suggest A/B test scenarios, and help in crafting targeted outreach.
Example: AI can draft a press release for a new tech gadget, optimizing it for key SEO terms.
Tip: Leverage AI for real-time analysis of campaign performance, allowing for quick adjustments to improve outreach efforts.
Post-launch, AI analyzes customer feedback for product iteration and helps in setting OKRs for future development.
Example: AI can propose feature enhancements for a project management tool based on user suggestions and usage data.
AI models can help in exploring new strategic directions and simulating business scenarios.
Example: Use AI to model the impact of adding a subscription tier to a productivity app, forecasting revenue and user engagement changes.
Generative AI is not just a tool but a game-changer in product development. By integrating AI into each phase, product managers can ensure that their strategies are data-driven, customer-centric, and innovative.
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How To Stay Consistent - Mahika Joshi
How To Stay Consistent- Mahika Joshi
I am the most inconsistent person you will ever meet. And that is why you should listen when I say — I know what helps maintain consistency.
Other than immediate deadlines, what else pushes a person to complete their task? If you do complete that task today, how to make sure you do it long enough to see the desired results?
The steps are very basic and general. You must have heard of them here and there. But you don’t give any importance to those things, right? It’s not even your fault. Happened to me as well. We all like to think that we are better than others. Even though some of our habits are below average, we don’t admit that, do we?
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Is The Party Over For ScrumMasters and Agile Coaches?
Is The Party Over For ScrumMasters and Agile Coaches?
Join V. Lee Henson as we continue the conversation around the great transition of roles and titles in the Agile Community...
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Software Engineers Are DOOMED! - AI Has Come For Their Jobs..
Software Engineers Are DOOMED! - AI Has Come For Their Jobs..
“Devin,” an AI tool that generates production-ready code.
And it’s mind-blowing.
Unlike other coding AI copilots, Devin can actually write entire apps on its own and not just autocompleting tasks. Perhaps, its most striking feature is its ability to fix code issues autonomously.
In a demo by a Cognition Labs developer, an Upwork post prompted Devin to autonomously complete the entire project. What really impressed me is that Devin can fix issues in large repos and deploy in seconds.
Also, I love how software engineers at Cognition refer to themselves as “Human Software Engineers.”
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We Can't Fix Every Problem - Mike Cohn
We Can't Fix Every Problem - Mike Cohn
At almost every monthly Q&A session for my AMC members, someone asks me how to solve dysfunctional management challenges. I hear it all:
- An impossible, imposed deadline
- An incredibly junior team that needs to perform at an expert level to meet an impossible deadline
- Management who assigns work to the team
- Management who holds the team accountable for their sprint plan but then adds 50 percent more work during the sprint
- Product owners who won’t tell the team what to work on next, but then yell during the sprint review when it’s the wrong thing
And more. Yes, more.
I feel compelled to point this out: We cannot fix every problem.
We owe it to our employers to try. But our employers owe us a culture in which we can succeed.
When they don’t provide that culture, we have limited options.
- First, we should try to expose the problem (or the effects of the problem) to others who may be in a better position to address the issue.
- If that fails, we either need to accept the status quo or move on.
If you are excited to build a strong agile team but the organization assigns your team a product owner who insists on telling the team what to do and has no willingness to change or improve, you probably aren’t going to be successful.
Yes. Try to educate the person. Try to persuade the person. Expose the bad behavior to stakeholders with the hope of garnering support there.
But if none of that works, accept that you’re in a position you cannot change.
Focus your energy on things you can affect. And accept or move on from the unfortunate things in our work environments you cannot. You can be successful. But not every company culture will let you fully succeed with agile
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The 'F' in Feelings.. Should This Be Part of Agile?
The 'F' in Feelings.. Should This Be Part of Agile?
When I first hear a student John say the F'n Feelings I was floored by his disdain for effective communication until I realized that he said the F IN Feelings... Then it all made sense. Is it practical or even realistic to bring feelings into workplace conversations? Or should we check our feelings at the door?
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A Lesson On Gratitude
A Lesson On Gratitude
Each sunrise and sunset, each gust of wind or patter of rain, serves as a reminder of the interconnectedness of everything. It brings me back to the absolute core of being, and it reduces the noise around me. We are paying so much attention to things that don’t really matter and often fail to pay attention to things that matter most.
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The Top 3 Questions To Unlock Your Team's Potential
The Top 3 Questions To Unlock Your Team's Potential
3. What’s the real problem?
2. What have you tried so far?
1. How can I help spark new ideas?
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Wait Wait Don't Tell Me... - Mike Cohn
Wait Wait Don't Tell Me... - Mike Cohn
In the US, National Public Radio runs a popular weekly news quiz show called, “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” I was listening to the show the other day while driving back from the airport to my home, and it got me thinking (and laughing too. It’s a funny show.)
“Wait wait … don’t tell me,” might be a good mantra for Scrum teams to use with their product owners. Or perhaps better, “Wait wait . . . tell me later.” Agile teams need to be willing to start without having all the answers up front.
Some teams, though, expect the product owner to have every answer figured out before work can begin. This happens with new teams, and more frequently than you might think, also with teams that have been doing Scrum a while.
Teams that refuse to bring a backlog item into the sprint until they have all the details buttoned down are getting in the way of their own ability to be agile.
Most commonly, this shows up as the team demanding the product owner provide full acceptance criteria for each product backlog item before that item can be brought into a sprint.
This is a step back toward a waterfall or sequential approach. It essentially establishes a gate at the start of a sprint. No work is allowed through that gate until all open issues have been resolved.
To overcome this, team members need to become comfortable with uncertainty. And so do the product owner and business stakeholders. You don’t need to have all the answers to start. You only need all the answers to finish.
When open issues remain on backlog items are brought into a sprint, there will be times when those items are not finished in the sprint. That's okay. It’s OK (and expected) to not finish everything every single sprint. What’s not OK is slowing work down by trying to think of everything up front.
Just like in a quiz show, the answers will come eventually. And, just like in the show, sometimes those answers will fail to appear before the timer runs out [on the sprint]. As one of the contestants quipped, “I am prepared to fail spectacularly!”
But even if they sometimes fall short, teams will do a lot of learning while they search for those answers. They’ll learn about the product, yes, but they’ll also learn a lot about how to work together, how to communicate, and how to embrace uncertainty. And that learning is key to ultimately succeeding with agile.
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We Should NOT Fire All The ScrumMasters.. The Top 5 Things That A Scrum Master Does DAILY
We Should NOT Fire All The ScrumMasters.. The Top 5 Things That A Scrum Master Does DAILY
1. Team Coach and Mentor:
2. Promoting Great Facilitation:
3. Facilitating Impediment Removal:
4. Transparency and Trust:
5. Continuous Improvement Advocate:
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It's The End Of The Roles As We Know Them, And I Feel Fine...
It's The End Of The Roles As We Know Them, And I Feel Fine...
Are you still hung up on what to call people? Have you been a victim of a recent layoff because of your title? Is Agile broken or is your company broken? Have you read step 3 of The Agile 12 Step Program? Get with it and get this done today.
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Make Meetings Matter
Make Meetings Matter
Gatherings are sacred spaces where we have the opportunity to create, commune and transform, and yet so often we bluster into them haphazardly worrying about the future while they pass us by. We are constantly dragging our baggage in the door while bulleting a laundry list of future to-dos. As a result, we are lagging in the past or projecting into the future. As a result, we are never actually anywhere.
People think that being Mindful or doing body or breath work takes time, but it actually makes time.
I do not expect everyone to be an expert in body or breath work to start an event. Not everyone is going to dive down that rabbit hole. But what we are all experts on is being human. Because we all are. So let’s invite more humanity into our gatherings. It can be a simple as feeling your body in space, noticing your breath, recalling the reason for gathering.
Don’t make your soul rush behind you like a harried assistant. Give it time to arrive. Give yourself time to arrive.
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Team Disagree? Try a Lunch and Learn - Mike Cohn
Team Disagree? Try a Lunch and Learn - Mike Cohn
If you’re like many of the Scrum teams I work with, your team members might have learned about Scrum in very different ways and at very different times. Some people might be self taught, others might have taken a CSM course 15 years ago, still others might have taken their first Scrum class last week.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Diversity of thought is an excellent quality for teams to have.
But it can become problematic when everyone believes their approach to some agile principle or Scrum practice is the “one true way”. Meanwhile agile leaders, HR, and others outside the team are still trying to figure out what Scrum even is.
Sound familiar? I’m betting it does.
Here’s something you can do right away to help. Host a lunch and learn on whatever topic has your team at odds.
- Maybe it’s “What are story points?”
- Maybe it’s “How many items do we bring into a sprint?”
- Maybe it’s “Do we have to have a sprint goal?”
Need to add a little authority to your discussion? Share the linked videos above as part of the lunch and learn. I regularly cover those topics (and more) out on my YouTube channel in short videos (typically 3-8 minutes).
My next few email tips are going to cover a few of the common ways teams get twisted when they can’t agree on what “being agile” or “doing scrum” means. If you’ve got a specific issue, reply to this email and let me know. I’ll do my best to cover it. Getting your teams on the same page is a fundamental way to succeed with agile.
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6 Hard to Swallow Leadership Pills That, if Applied, Will Make You a Better Boss
6 Hard to Swallow Leadership Pills That, if Applied, Will Make You a Better Boss
1. You’re the architect of most of your pain
2. Few will have the same motivation as you
3. You’ll get more from giving credit than trying to take it
4. Excellence is the next five minutes, or nothing
5. Some people are great workers but terrible employees
6. You don’t need to be liked to get the work done
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10 Lessons I Learned In My Journey as a Product Manager
10 Lessons I Learned In My Journey as a Product Manager
- Understand your Product: Product managers, will lead the development of your product and not only that, you’ll be the one to define what success would look like for your product. Understanding your product’s goals, Business goals, Vision of the product, and extensively understanding what problem your product is solving is key. Understanding your WHY, WHAT and How of your product is essential.
- Build yourself like a Product: I started my product management journey with not so clear vision of what I wanted to become, but one of the things I took serious was building my brand and positioning myself in the PM and Tech Space; well not like I’ve gotten to where I want to yet. As time went by, my career vision, long term & short goals became clearer, I kept building on myself, actively learning and open to feedback. As Product Managers you have to build yourself like a Product.
- Have an innovative mindset: To become a better Product Manager, you have to have an innovative mindset and be a critical thinker. Products aren’t just built, it takes a lot ideation, critical thinking, research before it is being brought to life. As Tech evolves, you have to be actively thinking of ways to better improve your product and be innovative about your ideas.
- Product Management isn’t a Shortcut to Tech: A lot of people tend to believe that since they can’t code, the easiest Career path to delve into is Product Management. Product Management is hard, what other word can I use? It’s hard and it’s not easy. It takes a lot to be a Product Manager; Being a critical thinker, Decision Maker, Effective leader, People Manager, Empathetic Manager and many more. They seem easy but when you eventually have to start using these skills, you realize it’s more than that.
- Prioritize both your physical and mental health: Health is wealth like we all say. Sometimes people only focus on the physical health and neglecting the mental health, forgetting that a healthy mind results to a healthy productive lifestyle. Product management can be so demanding that sometimes, you struggle to care for your mental health. Having healthy routines or habits that can help you balance a healthy mental health is key.
- Learn everyday: When I say learn everyday you know I’m not saying every day, I meant be an ‘active Learner’. Product Management is a broad Career path, and even though you don’t have to be expert in all aspects, it’s important to be able to understand every other aspects of Product Management. Learning from experts, online learning, learning from experience are ways to learn. Learning is a continuous journey and Tech itself is a fast pace sector.
- Build rich connections: Building rich connections is key in Tech, and it has a lot of its advantages. Remember that; “Your Network is your net-worth”, this is really true. Having the right connections and people in your corner would help your journey a lot easier as a product Manager; From learning from their experience, guidance, to even opportunities.
- Product Managers wears many hats : So far in my career, I’ve realized that not only are we Product Managers but we’re superheroes. Product Managers are at the center of the Product, and we do more than managing the Product. Some Product Managers do responsibilities of Quality Assurance tester, Business analyst, marketing manager, Scrum Master, Project manager and many more. Kudos to all Product Managers!
- Documentation is a key aspect of Product Management: As product managers, ability to effectively document processes and tools, Product Documentations is key especially if you’re just starting in PM or in the junior level. Documentation plays a crucial role in Product Development and it serves as a guide for knowledge sharing.
- Product Managers embraces Feedback: Feedback could be positive or negative, what makes you a better Product Manager is your ability to embrace feedback both on your product and on your Career journey.
Announcing Agile For ALL Dads! (and Moms and Children...)
Announcing Agile For ALL Dads! (and Moms and Children...)
**** BREAKING NEWS ****
Bob Hartman from Agile For All and V. Lee Henson of AgileDad are Proud to announce the merger of our two companies! We will now be known as:
Announcing Agile For ALL Dads! (and Moms and Children...)
We will begin effective immediately offering the following world class certification offerings:
CSM - Certified Scrum Mom
CSD - Certified Scrum Dad
CSPO - Certified Scrum Pediatric Organizer
CSS - Certified Scrum Sibling
OR.. Our MOST Popular - CALM - Certified Agile love Machine
We also offer discounts for entire families looking to be certified:
CALF - Certified Agile Large Family
LAFS - Large Agile Family Scaled
(ALL Large Agile Family Courses come with a free LAFBOK)
Large Agile Family Book of Knowledge - 3741.3 Pages
We also offer LESS - Licensed Entertainment for Scaled Siblings
And of Course the MOST Popular: SAFe - Scaled Agile Family Edition (This one comes with a single overcrowded graphic picture courtesy of our friends from Ikea)
Act QUICKLY as these certificates are offered in PRIVATE workshops ONLY and are on a first come first serve basis!
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How to Know What You Want
How To Know What You Want
What do you want? This is a difficult question to answer because for most, what they want is only a matter of how they feel. Their feelings and emotions are an intuitive guide; beckoning them to desire and be attracted to some things while forsaking and being repulsed by other things.
The only problem with this is that most people don’t know what they want; rather, they know what other people seem to have.
According to the theory of Memetic desire, much of what we want is the result of what other people have. Our single friends all get into relationships and suddenly we want to be in a relationship. Our friends all get the new iPhone and suddenly we want to make an upgrade. Our social instinct to “fit in” means that we largely mimic what others model.
If you are basing what you want on how you feel then you are likely to be misled to pursue what it seems other people have.
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Leadership Is the Big Gaping Hole In the Agile Manifesto
Leadership Is the Big Gaping Hole In the Agile Manifesto
From time to time, people will declare Agile dead. On December 1st, Cliff Berg declared Agile dead in a viral post on LinkedIn. Personally, I think declaring a tool like Agile dead because it doesn’t work is like declaring a pencil dead because it doesn’t turn us all into Michelangelos. A tool enhances human capabilities. A tool is only as powerful as the people using it. But declaring things dead can be a good way to see what is wrong with it, maybe redesign it. In his post, Cliff stated that “Agile is dead … but companies still need agility.” Agile is dead, long live agility.
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Hey Scrum Master... Are you my manager? - Mike Cohn
Hey Scrum Master... Are you my manager? - Mike Cohn
Back when my girls were small, I used to read Dr. Seuss books to them. Together, we giggled over the antics in the Cat in the Hat and shed a few tears over the destruction in The Lorax.
But a question I got asked in a class recently brought me back to another childhood classic from the Dr. Seuss brand, “Are You My Mother?” It’s a simple story about a newly hatched baby bird that sets out on a quest to find their mother. (Don’t worry, the baby bird is eventually reunited with their actual mother.)
I think newly hatched Scrum teams (and sometimes the people forming those teams) can feel as lost as the baby bird in that story. Why? Because without fail, one of the first questions they ask of or about their Scrum Master is, “Are you my manager?”
In the words of the book, the correct answer is, “No. I am not your manager. I am a Scrum Master.”
The confusion is natural because good Scrum Masters do perform some of the same functions good managers do:
- They motivate and encourage people to do their best work.
- They look out for the team’s mental health by avoiding excessive deadline pressure.
- They remove impediments to progress.
- They improve a team's collaboration and teamwork and more.
- Scrum Masters don't assign tasks or allocate people to projects
- They don't pick due dates for tasks or projects
- And, most importantly, Scrum Masters do not assume responsibility for a team's work. The responsibility for the team’s work resides with the team members.
But Scrum Masters are unlike managers, too:
If you find your teammates acting as though the Scrum Master is their manager, discuss it immediately rather than waiting for a retrospective. Quickly getting on the same page about how Scrum roles compare to traditional roles will help you and your team succeed with agile,
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Should Stories Carry Over From One Spring To the Next? - NO
Should Stories Carry Over From One Spring To the Next? - NO
Common sense would advise us that we should attempt to only consume the number of stories that can reasonably fit inside of a sprint. I have seen in many cases where teams either do NOT honor WIP limits and take on too much work or they Under-Commit and Over Deliver.
Neither of these are what we are shooting for. We should attempt to commit and deliver. No under... No Over...
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How to Deliver Value Faster with Agile
How to Deliver Value Faster with Agile
Agile Methodologies are not set in stone, and certain ceremonies help with reflection and improvements. There are others that, in some situations, reduce the fast pace of delivery. We also need to understand how to identify what is working and what is not working. At this point, there is no reason to measure twice and cut once. Sometimes, what to measure or cut is not visible because the team or the company needs more direction toward what’s important. We need a purpose to move forward at the organizational level. Individual contributors usually only have little to say in this manner. By focusing on individuals, there will be team improvement and company improvement. We need to start with ourselves to promote similar behavior in others. It’s important to note that providing value doesn’t mean releasing a product or feature to the public. If something is valuable but has yet to be shared, it’s not benefiting anyone.
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25 Things You Can Do To Simplify Your Life!
25 Things You Can Do To Simplify Your Life!
- Do what you love to do.
- Determine what “enough” means for you and your family.
- Define what “success” means for you and your family.
- Reduce the clutter in your home.
- Work where you live or live where you work.
- Eat the same breakfast every day.
- Have a work uniform.
- Go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day.
- Get rid of all your toxic relationships.
- Let go of your past.
- Plan your week on Friday.
- End each day by writing your to-do list for the following day.
- Start every morning by reading your to-do list.
- Save everything in the cloud.
- Open no more than five tabs on your computer.
- Use a journal to declutter your mind.
- Learn how to say no.
- Simplify your workout routine.
- Slow Down.
- Get rid of most of your credit cards
- Stop Watching The News.
- Reread some old books.
- Take a day off every week.
- Set up automatic payments.
- Delete 90% of apps on your phone.
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Can Scrum Be Tweaked or Changed? - Yes
Can Scrum Be Tweaked or Changed? - Yes
BUT.. Should we really be changing things? Is what we are seeing a symptom or the real problem that we are trying to solve? Join V. Lee Henson as we more deeply explore how and when we should pivot or make adjustments.
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Top 3 Ways To Excel in Remote Leadership
Top 3 Ways To Excel in Remote Leadership
Remote work is not something new. It has been around since LONG BEFROE the pandemic was a thought. Many organizations have found success embracing a remote work culture, yet many have floundered. Here are the top three ways leaders can excel in a remote setting:
1. People have to want to do it
2. Leadership styles need to adapt
3. The secret of good bonding
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Active Listening - A Silent SuperPower!
Active Listening - A Silent SuperPower!
Have you ever zoned out mid-conversation, fingers itching for your phone, brain choreographing your next groundbreaking product feature? We all have. But in the whirlwind world of product management, where ideas zip around like bees in a garden, there’s a superpower often overlooked: active listening.
This episode delves into why active listening is an indispensable tool in your product management arsenal and how it can profoundly influence your approach to user engagement, team collaboration, and product development.
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Are You a Great Leader?
Are You a Great Leader?
Many Realities Exist at The Same Time
People who have trouble accepting and respecting this fact turn out to be poor leaders.
They tend to speak more than they listen.
But the greatest leaders know how to do this one thing.
They’re able to feel the discomfort of holding opposing realities at the same time in the mind.
Without reaction. Without fear.
This discomfort is cognitive dissonance.
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The BEST Skill to Learn Is Often to Forget
The BEST Skill to Learn Is Often to Forget
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What Are Words For?
What Are Words For?
NOTHING is more annoying than when people take words and twist them out of context and or take sound bites of entire documents to force others to believe their point of view.
While there is a time and a place to be selective of our word choices, dissecting the Agile Manifesto is NOT one of them.
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Yes, Agile Teams Can Create Accurate Plans - Mike Cohn
Yes, Agile Teams Can Create Accurate Plans - Mike Cohn
The term release plan made a lot more sense when Scrum first began in the 1990s. At that time, most teams would run a series of sprints and then release a product.
Today, most teams release more often than every few sprints. Some release every sprint and others release multiple times per sprint or even many times per day.
Release plan might be an outdated term, but it’s still essential for many teams to be able to accurately predict what will be delivered three, six, or perhaps more months into the future.
So whether you call it quarterly planning, release planning, PI planning, or milestone planning, you’ll be much more successful if you, and your leadership team, understand that accurate long-range plans typically lack the level of precision possible in short-term plans.
Plans Can Be Accurate without Being Precise
To put that another way: to ensure accuracy, the longer the planning period the less precise your prediction will be.
If I ask your team in January when you can finish a project, you could likely tell me, “by the end of Q3.” By June, you might be able to update your estimate to “sometime in October.” By early September, you will likely feel confident enough to tell me “the week of October 22” or perhaps, “We’ll definitely have the first ten backlog items done by October 18, but I’m not sure about the next five yet.”
All of those answers are equally accurate. But the level of precision varies depending on how far out in time I’m asking you to estimate.
So when you are communicating your quarterly plans, I recommend communicating your plans as a range, either of time or of scope (or potentially both). By the end of the quarter we’ll give you between 180 and 220 story points. To deliver the 300 points you’ve asked for will take between six and eight sprints.
Being accurate by giving up some precision will increase the trust other people have in your team and will help you succeed with agile.
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UX Research Methods Mapping
UX Research Methods Mapping
In research, we explore our questions with research methods. We might use qualitative methods, like in-depth interviews, or quantitative methods, like surveys. Preferably, we will use a few methods and layer the insights from them together, but it is very important to pick the right research method for the questions you’re exploring. Cue the UX Research Methods Map.
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Don't Get Stuck In the RACI Rabbit Hole...
Don't Get Stuck In the RACI Rabbit Hole...
Imagine you’d like to clarify who can make what decision. One of the most popular methods is to create a RACI-matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed). But it has several serious shortcomings.
If you’ve ever been in a conversation about a RACI, you’ve likely discussed the difference between Responsible and Accountable. And that is not surprising because even the English dictionary tells us that those words are synonyms — quite confusing.
Furthermore, what’s the point of separating Consulted and Informed? It assumes that there are people we don’t want to inform, even though we get information from them, and vice versa. And that every decision requires Consultation and Informing, which shouldn’t be the case. And what should happen if we don’t like the advice we get from the consulted?
Article Link: https://jurriaankamer.medium.com/dont-get-stuck-in-the-raci-rabbit-hole-f9d768176954
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Buddha Kept Repeating This When He Taught Mindfulness
Buddha Kept Repeating This When He Taught Mindfulness
This one line was what most powerfully imprinted itself into my mind.
Atapi sampajjano satima, a refrain of the Satipatthana Sutta is probably the most succinct definition and description of mindfulness in the Buddha’s own words.
In an age of commercialization of mindfulness, the original definition can often get obscured.
This is why elucidating the logic behind these three words helped me so profoundly; and I hope that it can do the same for you.
The root of this word comes from Sanskrit tap which means heat.
It’s the basis for the concept of tapasya or penance in yoga, which isn’t as scary as it sounds.
It’s merely an increase of the intensity level of our practice so that we are shifted out of our habitual mode, into a more growth-oriented and malleable state of plasticity.
To pursue mindfulness more intensely means to be ready for all the impurity that might come up as a result of it.
This is the entire process of purification; one where impurities arise and pass, just as they would when a piece of iron ore is being heated & refined to produce pure metal.
Without the heat, the practice falls short, and won’t help us reach the depths of profundity taught by the Buddha.
The root sam denotes completeness or orderliness. Pajjano refers to a contextual awareness or understanding.
What the Buddha is trying to describe is a mental state where you know exactly what you are supposed to be doing. Continusly.
This is (depending on the tradition) usually a focus on the phenomena that are arising and passing: impermanent, absent of selfhood, and unsatisfactory.
This examining erodes our clinging & identification with the causes of suffering!
It is with this context in mind that Buddha’s teachings act as a profound & potent medicine for long-term wellbeing.
The Pali word sati and Sanskrit word smrti translate quite literally into “remembrance.”
It’s not quite ‘mindfulness’ as we understand it today (being just in the present moment) but a more widely-encompassing state of awareness.
- Past events can be recalled skillfully, such as meditation instructions.
- Present events arising/passing are the conscious anchor for the mind.
- You can plan the future, but never get lost inside its conceptualization.
This calls for a serious expansion of our mode of conduct to be able to access the past, present, and future — rather than be unconsciously torn between the three!
Remembrance is all about bearing something in mind; of ensuring that this candle of knowing is maintained continuously, so the process of purification continues.
When I realized how my meditation practice was being watered down by my habits, weaknesses and laziness, I went back to the source.
And I found a wellspring of insistence and inspiration from the Buddha to re-vamp my practice for a long time to come.
It is my hope that continuing to learn and share insights such as these is of some benefit to others.
ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः
May all beings experience happiness.
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Signs That You Are a Good Manager...
Signs That You Are a Good Manager...
1) Have a passion for technology but care more about ensuring that their underlying team succeeds
2) Motivates his/her team on a regular basis
3) Passion to teach or help younger members learn
4) Ability for the lead to handle their big titles.
5) Openness to share their expertise & insight with team members
6) Ability to Humble oneself
7) Check often to see how team members are doing
8) Ability to communicate the requirements & expectations effectively to team members
9) Treat everyone as equals
10) Do not micromanage
11) If a subordinate is struggling, lift them up
12) Understand that there must be some time set aside for your developers to study/learn
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The Death of Scrum... NOT Again!
The Death of Scrum... NOT Again!
Scrum is dead... It will NEVER make it through 2024... Nobody will do Agile. Everyone will do something new.
I have heard it all and now I have had enough.
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Are User Stories & Story Points Required? No... - Mike Cohn
Are User Stories & Story Points Required? No... - Mike Cohn
I’m often asked if user stories are part of Scrum.
No, they’re not. You can have a phenomenally successful team and never work with user stories at all.
At its core Scrum is a very small set of rules. The Scrum rules are defined in the Scrum Guide, and they’re things like keeping sprints short, no longer than a month.
Outside this core of rules are the generally accepted Scrum practices. These are good ideas every Scrum Master should be aware of, but that a team doesn’t necessarily need to do. User stories fit here.
A great Scrum Master should know what user stories are. They may think stories are awful and not recommend using them for a team, but they should at least know what they are.
What about Story Points?
Story points are another generally accepted Scrum practice that isn’t officially part of Scrum.
Story points are a useful way for team members to agree on an estimate. Points get around a common problem: A senior team member thinks something will take one day, a junior team member thinks two days, and they’re both right depending on who does the task.
I think story points are great because they help you avoid pointless debates, they save time, and they increase the chances that your estimates will be accurate. They are my recommended unit for estimating product backlog items.
But not every team needs to estimate! And you certainly don’t have to use story points if you do estimate–you can use person days or some other unit if you prefer.
I do, however, think that you should give story points and user stories a try. For the majority of teams, they are both great practices that will help you succeed with agile,
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The Difference Between Definition of Ready, Definition of Done, and Acceptance Criteria
The Difference Between Definition of Ready, Definition of Done, and Acceptance Criteria
The DoD, DoR, and the acceptance criteria are fundamental concepts in product development. While DoD and DoR are part of Scrum, Acceptance Criteria is an additional very important practice.
10 Unhealthy Habits You Need to Quit Doing Right Now!
10 Unhealthy Habits You Need to Quit Doing Right Now!
- Gossiping
- Doom Scrolling
- Talking Over People
- Not Investing
- Spending Your Savings
- Poor Sleep Hygiene
- Procrastinating
- Being Late
- Smoking and Drinking
- Being Sedentary
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Agile Personal Leadership Supports a Strong Stable Work Culture
Agile Personal Leadership Supports a Strong Stable Work Culture
If you have not heard about Stable Framework yet, it is high time that we do something about that! I was knee-deep into reading The Stable Framework when I came across a section on Personal leadership application that I felt really makes Stable stand out above all other business agility frameworks. Have a listen and go grab a copy of the book!
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8 Ways Organizational Culture is KILLING Agility
8 Ways Organizational Culture is KILLING Agility:
- Hierarchical organization structure / Taylorism
- No learning culture
- Fragmented responsibilities or silos
- Individual appraisals
- The organization values output over outcome
- Efficiency over effectiveness
- HIPPO culture
- HR ignores agility
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The Top 4 Patterns for Product Teams to Achieve Successful Outcomes
The Top 4 Patterns for Product Teams to Achieve Successful Outcomes:
- Engage directly with users and stakeholders.
- Emerge and validate your product in thin, end-to-end slices.
- Finish one thing before starting another.
- Work as a team, not a collection of individuals.
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Do We Re-Estimate Split Stories? - Mike Cohn
Do We Re-Estimate Split Stories? - Mike Cohn
Someone asked this question at a recent webinar I hosted on user stories: Do we re-estimate the user stories after we split them? The short answer? Absolutely.
When you break stories down during product backlog refinement (or during sprint planning if you’re trying to make a story smaller to fit inside a sprint), the team will want to re-estimate them. And there is no guarantee the sum of the new estimates will equal the old estimate.
That’s OK and expected. Ideally, the estimate will even out over a bunch of stories and splits but it won’t be perfect. Just adjust the burndown to account for the rise or fall in estimated points, and keep moving.
The Product Burndown Is Like an Airplane Touchdown
For a longer explanation, I’ll use an analogy. I flew into Heathrow a few months back on one of my periodic trips to London. I was looking out the window, idly watching the mechanisms on the wing as we made our final descent. It was a windy day, so I was curious about how the pilot would handle the landing.
I know that the pilot follows a glide path towards the runway (shaped much like the ideal burndown line). But from my point of view, we didn’t hurtle down an imaginary diagonal line and magically land in the perfect spot. We descended a bit, then flew what seemed like level for a bit, then got a bit lower.
At one point, when we were close enough where I could see the runway, we were buffeted up by a strong gust. I didn’t panic, and thankfully neither did the pilots. They just made some sort of an adjustment (it felt like they added a bit of power) and resumed their steady progress towards our destination.
Every commercial runway in the world is painted to help give pilots visual cues about their safe landing zone. In vastly simplified terms, there’s a threshold (after that point it’s safe to land) and a touchdown zone (a range of safe touchdown points in 500 ft / 120 m increments). The safe range varies depending on the size and weight of the airplane.
I don’t know precisely where we landed in the touchdown zone, but the pilots greased the landing and got us to our gate 10 minutes early. So despite the literal ups and downs, and the visual estimates they had to make on their way down, they succeeded.
A product’s burndown chart is like that airplane’s approach into Heathrow. It rarely follows a straight line. Some sprints we approach the goal a bit faster than we expect and sometimes we reach it a bit slower than we expect. Occasionally, we might bump slightly upwards and have to descend again.
Predicting exactly when we will touchdown at our product goal is impossible. It’s always a bit of a guessing game. But predicting a date range where we will finish is both desirable and entirely doable. And as with landing a plane, it’s a skill that improves with practice.
The more you estimate and the better you track your progress, the more consistent and predictable your team’s estimates and plans will become. And creating accurate agile plans that others can rely on will definitely help you succeed with agile,
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Celebrating Episode 1000 - With Special Guest Bob Hartman
It's Lee here, your host from the Daily Standup Podcast, and I'm absolutely thrilled to share something extraordinary with you. We've just hit a milestone that's both humbling and exhilarating – our 1000th episode! 🎙️🎊 In this special edition, I sit down with the remarkable Bob Hartman, and together, we dive deep into our agile journey, the incredible community that's been our backbone, and the exciting plans we have for the future. Here's a sneak peek of what we've got in store for you: 🌟 A Heartfelt Thank You: Bob and I open up about the overwhelming gratitude we have for the agile community. Your support has been the wind beneath our wings, and we couldn't have soared this high without you. 🌟 Reflecting on Impactful Training: We reminisce about the profound influence of Ken Schwaber's training and how it's shaped our mission to certify and uplift thousands through Scrum Alliance certifications. 🌟 The Joy of Giving Back: Discover our commitment to offering free training opportunities to those in need and how we plan to extend our reach and make an even bigger difference. 🌟 A Vision for the Future: We're not just celebrating the past; we're looking ahead! Bob and I discuss our shared values and the potential impact of our partnership on the world. 🌟 A Message of Kindness: In a touching moment, my daughter reminds us of the power of simple acts of kindness. Imagine a world where each of us extends a hand to someone we don't know – every single day. 🌟 Laughter, Tears, and Hope: We share stories that will make you laugh, moments that may bring a tear to your eye, and our aspirations to bring joy and fairness to workplaces everywhere. As we wrap up this episode, I'm left with a sense of profound appreciation for the friendships forged, the lives touched, and the agile spirit that continues to drive us forward. I'm confident that together, we'll reach new heights and touch even more lives. So, are you ready to join us on this journey? Tune in to our 1000th episode for a celebration of community, collaboration, and the small acts that make a big difference. Let's continue to stay healthy, stay well, and stay agile! Until the next episode, take care and keep spreading positivity! Warm regards, Lee 🚀 P.S. Don't forget to hit play and immerse yourself in the heartfelt conversations that have shaped our 1000-episode journey. Here's to the next thousand! 🎧
Retrospectives - It's Good To Be Choosy - Mike Cohn
Retrospectives - It's Good To Be Choosy - Mike Cohn
I’ve learned not to go to the market when I’m hungry. If I do, I buy too much. When I’m hungry, everything looks too tasty, and I buy more than I can possibly eat.
Agile teams often behave similarly in retrospectives, especially when beginning their agile journey. During a retrospective, team members identify so many promising opportunities for improvement that they decide to tackle every one of them.
These teams would be far better off improving at one, two, or maybe three ways of working. If team members attempt to improve at more than that, their efforts will be too diffused.
Improvement Is Continual
My favorite way to facilitate a retrospective is to use a Stop, Start, Continue exercise. This puts improvement ideas into each of those categories.
To help teams keep to a three-improvement limit, I coach them to pick only one or two new improvements in each retrospective. That leaves them one or two items to select from their continue list.
A continue list contains behaviors at which the team has made improvements but which aren’t yet habits, like writing better unit tests or overlapping work. (Once a behavior has become ingrained, teams should remove it from their continue list so that the list remains a manageable size.)
However you choose to run your retrospective, be sure to take away just one to three concrete improvements that you can track as part of the next sprint. It’s one of the best ways I know to succeed with agile.
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Agile WILL be AI in The Next 5 Years!
Agile WILL be AI in The Next 5 Years!
Product and Project management jobs will be gone in less than 5 years! Yes, that’s the prediction.
The landscape of product management is on the cusp of a revolutionary transformation, driven by the relentless advancements in artificial intelligence (AI). As we project into the next five years, a profound question emerges: Will the traditional role of the product manager become a relic of the past, subsumed by the inexorable tide of AI and redistributed among other pivotal roles within organizations? This contemplation is not just speculative; it’s a realistic forecast of a rapidly approaching future.
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https://medium.com/the-simulacrum/product-management-will-be-taken-over-by-ai-in-5-years-780d1302fefc
How Teams Handle Unplanned Work & Interruptions
How Teams Handle Unplanned Work & Interruptions
Plenty has been written about how to prioritise roadmap items, but what about those disruptions or interruptions — the urgent requests from customers, the unscheduled maintenance, the technical questions from customer support, or the accumulating stream of bugs?
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https://medium.com/boldstart-ventures/how-engineering-teams-handle-unplanned-work-d90415ff0d81
Discovery & Delivery ARE Part of Kanban
Discovery & Delivery ARE Part of Kanban
Discovery work would be, for example, research to figure out whether this is the right thing to build for the customer. Maybe we are doing some experiments or some prototyping. It is very wise to do experiments when we have insufficient evidence so we can harvest the proposed value because at the end of the day, our work items are bets at best. They are ill-informed opinions at worst if you do not experiment. You could just fill your funnel with stuff to develop and maybe there is no evidence you should actually develop it. So discovery is about discovering value, it is about learning.
There are multiple patterns available for managing these four time horizons. The thing is that we are managing WHAT type of work it is as opposed to WHO is doing the work.
In a modern team that is trying to practice agility, I would hope that people are trying to learn other skills. The reality is that the people who do discovery have a lot of work to do and there are usually fewer people who have the skill to do that discovery. What I often find is the people who do discovery are often coaching, mentoring, teaching, and willing volunteers who want to learn how to do that discovery.
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Learn To Unlock Your Full Potential
Learn To Unlock Your Full Potential - There is simply TOO MUCH great information to write a description for this episode which is filled with practical tips and application. Be prepared to take LOTS of notes!
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Is The ScrumMaster Role Dying Out in 2024? No...
Is The ScrumMaster Role Dying Out in 2024? No...
Join V. Lee Henson as we explore the evolution of the ScrumMaster Role and the Accountabilities that are often associated or mis-associated with it.
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