Chapter 4: Sprint! Valuable, Collaborative, and Meaningful Work
Are your team members dedicated to the team sprint after sprint? If not, add an item to your impediments backlog (IBL).
Is the team made up of multiple disciplines so that they may deliver a set of fully tested features by the end of each sprint? If not, add an item to your IBL.
Is your Scrum team Scrummerfalling, or doing some other weird form of Scrum? If so, add this item to your IBL and think about the discussion you'd like to have with the team in the next retrospective. Specifically, are they doing a Scrum hybrid due to a true constraint or an organizational dysfunction? Is a broader discussion necessary with management? How will you prepare for that discussion?
Do you manage or direct the daily scrum meetings? What can you do to stop this? Are the team members getting into deep enough detail to truly synchronize? If not, how can you help? Are they going into too much detail? If so, how do you help them? Are they making obstacles known, or are they too shy? What can you do about this if you suspect they're not forthcoming with issues? Are team members willing to help each other solve their issues/impediments? If not, how can you encourage this behavior?
Let's say that your organization does not have a trusting culture. How might you utilize the Scrum meetings to build such a culture? Are there any action items that you can come up with after thinking about this?
Which of the four corporate culture adjectives— Collaborative, Creative, Competitive, Controlling—best describe your organization?
If the organization does not value openness, respect, commitment, focus, and courage, how might this impact your team? What will you do about this? How will you tangibly know that you've made an impact on the organization's values?
To what degree can you influence your peers, your team, your product owner, your manager, your VP, and your CEO? Which style might you choose to influence each type of co-worker (consider: demand, demonstrate, request, persuade, avoid).
Which of the four legs of Scrum—self-managing, dedicated teams; time-boxing (sprints); prioritized product backlog; or inspect/adapt—will be most difficult to implement in your organization? Why?
