Australian Scrum Community

In case you missed it, Tobias Mayer recently posted a message on ScrumDevelopment about a presentation from the recent Scrum Gathering called “The Road from Project Manager to Agile Coach”, by Lyssa Adkins. It’s an excellent presentation and Lyssa has taken the time to put it on YouTube. I’d encourage you to watch it.

Here’s Tobias’ original message and here are links to the YouTube videos: Part 1 and Part 2

In mid-March, a Scrum Trainers’ Gathering was held in Boston. About 25 Certified Scrum Trainers (CSTs) from all over the world gathered for a great two-day event, discussing training exercises, different approaches to training, and other related issues.

There were a number of sessions that I found to be of particular interest. Pete Behrens had an excellent presentation call Enterprise Agile Organization patterns which discussed the implications of Conway’s Law on software architecture.

Several interesting team exercises and games were also presented. Boris presented his “Ball Point Game”, Jens lead us through his “Specification Exercise”, and Lowell introduced us to “Affinity Estimating”. I’ve written up each of these here , here and here

There is a great discussion going on at the ScrumDevelopment mailing list about whether tasks should be estimated. It was started off by Tobias Mayer when made this observation:

“I recently heard that some CSM trainers are recommending that teams use story points to estimate the size of tasks. This baffles me. I think they are called story points for a reason: they are used to measure the relative size of stories.” link

Jeff Sutherland then follows this up with a post that describes how a team he’s working with decided to only measure completed stories …

“They only burned down when a story was done and done meant fully tested at the functional level, not just unit tested as at many companies.” link

In his post, Jeff discusses why they decided to only measure completed stories, and the results of that decision. Interesting and thought provoking reading.

In the ongoing debate of metrics and “productivity”, Michael James posted an excellent article on the ScrumDevelopment email list. Using Schuberts unfinished symphony the backdrop, he plays out a thought experiment on what would happen if we treated an orchestra like a software team:

“All twelve violins were playing identical notes. This seems unnecessary duplication and the staff of this section should be drastically cut. If a large volume of sound is really required, this could be obtained through the use of an amplifier.” Link

Funny and educational stuff.

The ScrumAlliance has announced the venue for the fall Scrum Gathering in London, UK. The full programme has yet to be finalized [as far as I know] but they have provided their usual outline:

12 – 13 November: Two-day ScrumMaster certification course taught by Ken Schwaber & Mike Cohn
14 November: Keynote speaker, Gathering concurrent sessions
15 November: Keynote speaker, Gathering concurrent sessions
16 November: Open Space

Here’s a good summary of the event from the announcement notice:

“Held twice a year, the Scrum Gathering is an opportunity for Scrum users of all experience levels to gather together to learn and share about Scrum. You can choose from several introductory and advanced Scrum courses, including those leading to certification. The gathering also affords an open space session where you can discuss timely topics with experts and peers. For Certified Scrum Trainers, the gathering is a place to come together with your peers in a trainers-only environment. Whether you’re just starting out or are an old hand, the Scrum Gathering is the place to be.”

I’m planning on being there, so if you see someone looking particularly antipodean, please do say “Hello”! =)