Oh Master of Scrum, You make our team hum You take obstacles away So we can work all day With you we are greater than our Sum! - By Bilyana, Joel, Nicole & Kiran This poem was created by class participants, thanks for making this a great...
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Afternoon ScrumMaster
Context explains a lot of our behavior. This is a most intriguing case, that I feel I can now retell. For much time has passed by and my metaphorical obfuscation will protect the innocent. In the warm summer months of August, I was engaged to a...
White Elephant
Once upon a time in a land of many elephants. Shankar believed that there are white elephants too. Shankar travelled far and he travelled long. He met a pink elephant, a flying elephant, a yellow elephant. Until he came across a white elephant and then he exclaimed: I...
Virtual Parkbench
For large distributed retrospectives, where participants in the retrospective are in different cities, I have created a variation of popular group discussion technique called as “Park Bench”. Some Background: I was coaching within a large organization with different...
Walk the dog
This is a simple technique with a marketing twist to its name. This title came to me while coaching a team that was struggling to behave cross functionally and were paralyzed at delivering working software at the end of their sprint. It is a simple mental discipline...
Scrum Collage
One lazy sunday afternoon, I created this scrum collage as my desktop image
Coin toss exercise
This is a variation of "Value Flow" exercise that Sanjeev Augustine did at Scrumgathering 2009 in Orlando. I found this exercise very useful to demonstrate the benefits of prioritization and lower batch sizes. I have facilitated a variation on this exercise...
Product Owner takes Vacation?
The Product Owner with in Scrum teams or a Customer in XP teams is critical to the success of the product. What can you do, when they take a vacation? What are your options? Say your product owner is going on a planned vacation for a couple of weeks, effectively...
My favorite Coaching Experience
In the late 2000's, my good friend Subhayu was visiting me in Seattle. In India we would often hike together through remote hills in Western Ghats. So it seemed appropriate that I sign up myself, Subhayu and another friend, Ben, for a day of adventure. Whitewater...
Recognizing Bottleneck’s
The term "bottleneck" refers to a point whereafter the flow or velocity perceptively reduces. It is metaphorically derived from flow of water through a narrow mouthed bottle where the flow of water is constrained by its neck. For drinking purposes it is a good thing...