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Monthly Archives: May 2022

Definition of Ready is when the team says: ‘Ahh, we got it ‘

27 May

Each minute of our life is a lesson but most of us fail to read it. I thought I would just add my daily lessons & the lessons that I learned by seeing the people around here. So it may be useful for you and as memories for me.

By seeing the title Many Agile Practitioners will already starting bombarding with comments saying that the term “Definition of Ready” isn’t described in the Scrum Guide and same as user stories and the Acceptance Criteria embedded in it. Perhaps, you may consider the Definition of Ready is an integral part of the backlog refinement activity, instead of using the Definition of Ready as a sequential and phase-gate checklist. Backlog refinement is an ongoing process, therefore it’s not restricted to an event but considered an activity.

You would have witnessed multiple situations where despite the team’s best efforts, diligence and meeting quality goals (Definition of Done) the customer is disappointed with the results of your teams work. Do you know the Reason ? It is very likely that the refinement process din’t work as well as it should.

In this Agile world, from time to time, end users will have ideas or concepts for a new feature. The concept will be expressed as one or more feature items, and get added to a product backlog by the product owner. The team, working together, will figure out how to turn this concept, expressed as one or more epics and subsequently refined them into smaller and clearer user stories as a real product feature to be included in the next sprint for implementation.

The product owner could work together with the team to define an artifact called “Definition of Ready (DoR) ” for ensuring that items at the top of the backlog are ready to be moved into a sprint so that the development team can confidently commit and complete them by the end of a sprint.

As you know the quality of PBIs has a direct impact on the productivity of the development team – positively as well as negatively. The DoR is kind of the “DoD for the Product Owner”. It helps the PO to know what to do to a user story before he/she can hand it to the Development Team in the next sprint planning meeting.

“If the development team does not have a clear understanding of the Product Backlog Items (PBI), the development effort and time tend to increase significantly, which in turn causes the Sprint to miss its Sprint Goal or not deliver what stakeholders expect.

The Definition of Ready is an important part of the agreements that a Scrum Team develops at the beginning of the work. Different teams will have different Dentition of Ready, and some require less. i.e., some teams just describe the value to the user, prioritize, and write how to demo. Other estimates and communication are in the sprint planning meeting and etc.  

The concept of  Definition of Ready (DoR)  is not quite as common as the Definition of Done (DoD). The DoR defines when a product backlog item (e.g. user story) has been worked out to the extent that it “may” be included in the sprint. The DoR is intended to ensure that product backlog items are sufficiently prepared for the sprint and that the workflow does not have to be constantly interrupted during development because things are unclear that the team cannot clarify itself.

How is the Definition of Ready used? 

As part of the Product Backlog Refinements, the Scrum Team checks whether the next PBIs are ready. If not, it works out the details.

 The Definition of Ready helps the development team understand what to deliver as a result. Based on this understanding, the development team answers the question of whether they can deliver the result. A Product Backlog is “Ready” when it has enough Product Backlog Items at the top that meet these criteria.

What does a definition of ready look like? The Scrum Guide does not specify anything here. Bill Wake was one of the first to define criteria as a checklist. The INVEST matrix.

  • Independent and immediately actionably – Product backlog items are independent of each other in the sprint so that they can be reprioritized and better estimated. In addition, unnecessary planning effort for their implementation is avoided. All prerequisites are resolved before the start of the sprint. The implementers give the feedback that they can start.
  • Negotiable – PBIs are negotiable so that the details can be discussed and better or cheaper options can be identified.
  • Valuable – PBIs bring added value to the customer so that only requirements that add value are implemented and only what is needed is implemented. Backlog items that are not finished provide no value.
  • Estimable – PBIs are estimable. In this way, it is recognized whether the implementers understand the backlog item professionally and technically.
  • Small – PBIs are the right size to be implemented in one iteration.
  • Testable – PBIs are testable by the customer. You have acceptance criteria.

Definition of Ready for a user story:

A definition of ready deals with the user story, wherein the user story is ready to be taken into a sprint. It doesn’t need to be “100 % defined” covering all the acceptance criteria. However, it should be “ready enough” only when the team is confident that they can successfully deliver the user story. In other words, “if something is good to begin”.

  • Well-defined User story 
  • User story acceptance criteria defined
  • User story sized by the delivery team
  • Scrum team accepts user experience artifacts
  • Performance criteria identified
  • The Person who will accept the user story is identified
  • A Team is able to ‘demo’ the user story.

Definition of Ready for a sprint:

  • The Sprint Backlog is prioritized
  • The Spring Backlog contains all defects, User Stories and other work that the team is committing to
  • No hidden work
  • All team members have calculated their capacity for the Sprint
  • Fulltime on project = X hours per day
  • All User Stories meet Definition of Ready

Advantages of Definition of Ready:

  • Measure a backlog item’s “ready” state.
  • Help the team identify when the product owner or another team member becomes overwhelmed.
  • Keep the team accountable to each other.
  • Reduce pressure on the team to commit to estimates before stories are “Ready”.
  • Reduce “requirements churn” in development.
  • Definition of Ready helps in minimizing the Rework on a user story.

Sample Definition of Ready (DoR)

  • PO and Dev Team need to have talked about the story at least once.
  • User Story is clear.
  • User Story is testable.
  • User Story is feasible.
  • User Story defined.
  • User Story Acceptance Criteria defined.
  • User Story dependencies identified.
  • The story must be broken down enough to fit in a single sprint.
  • User Story sized by Development Team.
  • Scrum Team accepts User Experience artifacts.
  • Performance criteria identified, where appropriate.
  • Scalability criteria identified, where appropriate.
  • Security criteria identified, where appropriate.
  • A person who will accept the User Story is identified.
  • Team has a good idea of what it will mean to Demo the User Story.

The Product Owners can use Definition of Ready as a guide when preparing for user stories for upcoming sprints. For a team, it is used as a checklist to make sure that there is an increased chance of success in delivering the completed user story, and that there are enough thoughts involved in building the user story before they start to deliver it. So finally, Definition of Ready brings back the focus to backlog grooming meetings and lookahead planning activities. 

Definition of Ready helps in minimising the Rework on a user story.

References: Scrum Events de, Knowledgehut, It-AGile de, Visual-Paradigm, techagilist & AgileIze

Please feel free to share your story and any lessons you learned, experienced, you came across in your life in the comments below. If you enjoyed this or any other posts, I’d be honored if you’d share them with your family, friends, and followers!

If you wish to follow my journey outside of my writing, you can find me on LinkedIn and Facebook

 
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Posted by on May 27, 2022 in Technical

 

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Retrospective ideas to try with your team

15 May

Each minute of our life is a lesson but most of us fail to read it. I thought I would just add my daily lessons & the lessons that I learned by seeing the people around here. So it may be useful for you and as memories for me. 

Retrospectives are popular in the team-working world of the Lean & Agile community. The purpose of the sprint retrospective is to find areas for improvement. The meeting sets out to identify potential pitfalls and past mistakes while finding ways to avoid them in the future. It’s also an opportunity to reflect on what was successful and therefore should continue.

Retrospectives are used frequently to give teams the opportunity to pause and reflect on how things have been going and then, based on those reflections, identify the improvements they want to make. Conducting Retrospectives frequently and regularly supports a team to continuously improve their performance — but what’s the best way to go about it?

Whether you are an experienced scrum team or brand new to agile retrospectives, switching up your techniques is a great way to ensure your team never has to sit through another boring retrospective. However, with so many retrospective techniques out there to try, picking the one that best fits the unique needs of your team can be hard. 

Here are top retrospective ideas that you can add to your Scrum toolkit.

Liked, learned, lacked, longed for (4 L’s) If you are part of a team that thinks the only failure is not learning, then this is the technique for you. 4L´s is the perfect retro technique for teams at the end of a project or between projects. This technique has the team explore what happened in a current sprint or project but also what they hope will happen in future sprints. For organizations that want to remain agile and consistently evaluate processes and find a long-term solution to a systemic issue, 4Ls is an easy way to collaborate and strive for continuous improvement. 

Sailboat  sailboat retrospective will help any team struggling with staying aligned from sprint to sprint. A ship sailing to the island paradise sets the stage for valuable open discussions at the beginning or middle of a project. Sailboat discussions improve team alignment and provide valuable feedback on project goals, issues, and assets. Get everyone on board! 

Speedcar Speed Car is a simple activity for helping the team identify things that make them move faster, and things that slow them down. This is a common retrospective activity for data gathering. It is an alternative to keep the team engaged while slightly changing the format.

Starfish (small, large) This agile technique dives deeper into team habits by examining what to start doing, stop doing, keep doing, do more of, and do less of. Use this technique when your team is in need of a systems overhaul or needs more innovative ideas of workflow. Starfish works best for long-standing teams or projects in the process where teams are a bit more familiar with each other. 

Stop, start, continue Start, Stop, Continue is one of the most popular retrospective techniques, and for good reason. Whether you are using the traditional Scrum sprint model or just starting to implement retrospective Start Stop Continue is a great way to examine the systems and habits of the team, as well as reprioritize team goals. 

Mad, sad, glad When your team is feeling burnt out or emotionally drained, or even if something is just a little off with morale, a Mad, Sad, Glad retrospective can give you the insights you need. Particularly effective in the middle of larger projects this retrospective template gives managers insights into what team members need to remain happy in their workplace. A simple column-based retrospective, this agile technique will have teams focusing less on specific goals and on the emotions of the team. 

Token of appreciation This is a great activity for acknowledgement, increasing the team morale and putting the team on a good mood. A tasty advice is to use a box of chocolates as a token of appreciation. Participants pass the box around and give a chocolate as they appreciate their colleagues. It works both as an opening and as a closing activity for a meeting.

Drop-add-keep-improve  DAKI technique is a way for Scrum team members to think about what they should stop (or drop) doing, what they should start (or add) to their processes, what they should continue doing, and what they should keep.  Continue often refers to processes, and keep frequently refers to tools.  Remember to ask team members to consider  individuals, interactions, processes, tools, and their Definition of Done when participating in the Retrospective. 

One word retrospective The one-word retrospective technique is often considered as a checking exercise, to get the team members ready for the retrospective. But if the team has major problems, then this one-word exercise check-in and the discussion that follows is the retrospective! It is an effective way for the team to discuss what is hampering them, and agree on how to deal with it and get it out of the way. And that is what retrospectives are all about!

KALM (Keep, add, more, less) KALM is a retrospective activity that fosters the conversation about current activities and their perceived value. It helps team members understand each other’s perceived value off such practices. This is a common retrospective activity for data gathering. It is an alternative to keep the team engaged while slightly changing the format.

Team Happiness Radar Organizations around the world are beginning to recognize the importance of mental health and happiness on overall team productivity and lasting success. Running regular Team Happiness Radars can help you recognize the team’s morale and recognize points of improvement. When done in combination with a column technique, this retrospective can help your team create lasting culture changes. 

Lean coffee style Don’t have a specific goal or topic for the day’s retrospective? You need Lean Coffee, another agile favorite, is a basic template to use when you don’t know what to do, but still want an effective retrospective. The Lean Coffee agile retrospective has teams examining the status of the team’s assignments and looking into where issues are developing and what hold-ups are preventing the team’s momentum forward. By discussing common topics of concern the team can create relevant action items for improvement on a range of topics. You never know information can spill out in a Lean Coffee retrospective session.

Below are the list of references and also If you are interested to try more Retrospective ways, please find the below links.

54 Fresh Retrospective Ideas for Healthy Agile Teams in 2024
40 ideas to spice up your retrospective
13 Effective Sprint Retrospective Techniques
Retrospective Techniques

100+ Sprint Retrospectives Ideas

FunRetrospectives

Remote and Distributed Retrospective Meetings

14 Types of Ideas for Sprint Retrospective Formats

Fresh Retrospective Ideas for New Agile Teams

Conclusion

Regardless of whether you follow an agile framework for project management or not, a retrospective meeting acts as a fantastic opportunity to pause and reflect. Your team will gain a comprehensive view of every increment, and quickly identify areas for continuous improvement. The quality of work delivered to the business will be stronger, productivity will increase, and so will the happiness of your team.

The Sprint Retrospective is extremely useful when used correctly.  After every Sprint, the team identifies at least one improvement idea to focus on during the next Sprint.  Remember, even minor improvements can result in an astonishing amount of change over time – so don’t neglect this valuable process!

Need more retrospective ideas? Keep following my posts on Agile.

Please feel free to share your story and any lessons you learned, experienced, you came across in your life in the comments below. If you enjoyed this or any other posts, I’d be honored if you’d share them with your family, friends, and followers!

If you wish to follow my journey outside of my writing, you can find me on LinkedIn and Facebook

 
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Posted by on May 15, 2022 in Agile Concepts, Technical, Work Place

 

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Are the 3 daily standup questions actually effective? 

03 May

Each minute of our life is a lesson but most of us fail to read it. I thought I would just add my daily lessons & the lessons that I learned by seeing the people around here. So it may be useful for you and as memories for me.

I have been an Agile coach for more than nine years and have worked in various Indian, American & European companies that develop software locally and internationally using Scrum. The clients of these companies have adopted Scrum and participate in the Daily Scrum meeting, assuming the role of Product Owner.

The purpose of the Daily Scrum is to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog as necessary, adjusting the upcoming planned work. It’s not an opportunity to get a report on where the team is up to. It’s not an opportunity to ensure everyone is ‘busy’. Unfortunately, the three questions just tend to reinforce this perspective.

  1. What did you do yesterday?
  2. What will you do today?
  3. What (if anything) is blocking your progress?

The purpose of the 3 daily scrum questions is relatively simple and obvious. These questions are asked routinely first thing in the morning, which allows teams to assess: (1) how they performed in the last 24 hours and (2) what the next 24 hours look like.

This article tells the story of our experience implementing a shift in approach during the Daily Scrum meeting. We went from a typical approach centered on each individual to one centered on each story of the Sprint Backlog.

The 2020 version of the Scrum Guide dropped the classic “three questions” of the Daily Scrum. Yet many teams stick with the practice, even when it doesn’t produce the collaboration that is the hallmark of a valuable Daily Scrum. When a Scrum Team I worked with said that their Daily Scrum was lackluster and unproductive, I challenged them to design a better one. The new pattern we created shifted the focus from individual action to team collaboration toward the Sprint Goal.

Smarter questions for the Daily Scrum

Scrum isn’t prescriptive about the way Developers run their Daily Scrum. Importantly, going ‘around the room’ and ‘standing up’ isn’t required. Some useful questions to raise at the Daily Scrum include:

Questions about scope

  • Do we need to change some of the work we have in the Sprint so we achieve the Sprint Goal?
  • Do we need to change some of the tasks we decided need doing?
  • Do some of the backlog items we chose need to be put aside because we now know they don’t help us achieve the Sprint Goal?
  • Do we need to negotiate scope with the Product Owner to help us achieve the Sprint Goal?

Questions about collaboration

  • Does anyone need their work peer reviewed yet?
  • Does anyone need help today?
  • What pairing activities will we do today?
  • Whose turn is it to pair with the new team member?

Questions about transparency

  • Have we updated the board to show our actual progress?
  • Is the Sprint Backlog up to date?
  • Is the status of work up to date?

Questions about metrics

  • How are we tracking toward the Sprint Goal? Are we where we thought we’d be?
  • What do our burndown metrics say about our progress?
  • What does our cycle time metrics say about whether we’ll complete the work by the end of the Sprint?
  • Questions about Done
  • What work is in-progress that we can work on today and get to Done?

Questions about learning 

  • Did anyone learn anything yesterday that means our work for today needs to change?

If the traditional “three questions” Daily Scrum doesn’t provide value for your team, try something new. Create a collaborative discussion focused on making each day a valuable step toward the Sprint Goal.

If you came across similar situations , please share your experience in the comments section.

Please feel free to share your story and any lessons you learned, experienced, you came across in your life in the comments below. If you enjoyed this or any other posts, I’d be honored if you’d share them with your family, friends, and followers!

If you wish to follow my journey outside of my writing, you can find me on LinkedIn and Facebook

 
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Posted by on May 3, 2022 in Technical

 

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𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗮𝗻 𝗘𝗔𝗚𝗟𝗘

03 May

Each minute of our life is a lesson but most of us fail to read it. I thought I would just add my daily lessons & the lessons that I learned by seeing the people around here. So it may be useful for you and as memories for me

Eagles are my favourite birds ! For centuries, eagles have symbolised beauty, courage, bravery, honor, determination, pride, and grace. Their qualities have made them important and symbolic to humanity.

Undoubtedly, eagles rank among the largest birds of prey in the world. They are revered as living emblems of power, liberty, and transcendence. To me, they are graceful, proud, wise, powerful and focused.

Throughout history, eagles have captivated and inspired us with their remarkable leadership qualities. When one thinks of eagles, the image of a massive hunter soaring through expansive skies on outsized wings often comes to mind.

In Chinese culture, the eagle is regarded as a symbol of wisdom and strength. For the Huns, who traveled through central Asia, the eagle symbolized the ruler. Eagles were viewed as a link between terrestrial mankind and celestial deities in many cultures.

The eagle has a long-standing and rich history in cultures across the world, symbolising said power, protection, and wisdom. The reverence and respect for this majestic bird have endured for centuries, and its symbolism continues to inspire and captivate people of all backgrounds.

Eagles can teach us a few things about leadership. We take a look at the leadership lessons that our eagle friends would love to tell us about if they could.

𝟏. 𝐄𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐥𝐲 𝐀𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐀𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐬. : They don’t fly with sparrows, ravens, and other small birds.

MEANING; Stay away from narrow-minded people, those that bring you down. You are known by the Company you keep. Eagle flies with Eagles. Keep good company. But accept that you are always ALONE at the TOP.

𝟐. 𝐄𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 :

MEANING; Have a VISION and remain FOCUSED no matter what the obstacles and you will succeed.

𝟑. 𝐄𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐄𝐚𝐭 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 : They Feed only on FRESH PREY.

MEANING; Do not rely on your past success, keep looking for new frontiers to conquer. Leave your past where it belongs, in the past.

𝟒. 𝐄𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐦 : When clouds gather, the eagle gets excited & uses the storm’s wind to lift itself higher. Once it finds the wind of the storm, the eagle uses the raging storm to lift itself above the clouds. This gives the eagle an opportunity to glide and rest its wings. In the meantime, all the other birds hide in the branches and leaves of the tree.

MEANING; Face your challenges head on knowing that these will make you emerge stronger and better than you were. We can use the storms of life to rise to greater heights. Achievers are not afraid to rise to greater heights. Achievers are not afraid of challenges.

𝟓. 𝐀𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧:

MEANING; Whether in private life or business, one should test the commitment of the people intended for partnership.

𝟔. 𝐄𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠; They remove the feathers and soft grass in the nest so that the young ones get uncomfortable in preparation for flying and eventually flies when it becomes unbearable to stay in the nest.

MEANING; *One should always be prepared to leave the Comfort Zone. There is No Growth There.

𝟕. 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐎𝐥𝐝 : His feathers become weak and cannot take him as fast and as high as it should. This makes him weak and could make him die. So he retires to a place far away in the mountains. While there, he plucks out the weak feathers on his body and breaks its beaks and claws against the rocks until he is completely bare, a very bloody and painful process. Then he stays in this hiding place until he has grown new feathers, new beaks and claws and then he comes out flying higher than ever before.

MEANING; We occasionally need to shed off old habit no matter how difficult, things that burden us or add no value to our lives. These should be let go of.

 𝗕𝗘 𝗔𝗡 𝗘𝗔𝗚𝗟𝗘, :eagle: 𝗡𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥 𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥 𝗚𝗜𝗩𝗘 𝗨𝗣 

The key to success is to stay focused and work hard towards achieving your goals.
Good luck!

If you wanna share your experiences, you can find me online in all your favourite places  LinkedIn and Facebook. Shoot me a DM, a tweet, a comment, or whatever works best for you. I’ll be the one trying to figure out how to read books and get better at playing ping pong at the same time.

 
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Posted by on May 3, 2022 in Experiences of Life., Life & It's Importance

 

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