Selecting appropriate Scrum Master(s) and identifying relevant Stakeholder(s) is crucial to the success of any project. In some projects, there may have been pre-conditions stipulating certain team members and their roles. When there is flexibility in choosing the Scrum Master(s), the following are important Selection Criteria: Problem-solving skills—This is one of the primary criteria to…
In Scrum, the risk management activities are divided among various roles with some responsibility resting with everyone in the Scrum Team and the Scrum Master facilitating the process. Risk management is integral to ensuring value creation; therefore, risk management activities are performed throughout the project lifecycle and not just during project initiation. Each risk could…
A Guide to the Scrum Body of Knowledge (SBOK™) suggests four tools for the Create Project Vision process: Project Vision Meeting, JAD sessions, SWOT Analysis and Gap Analysis. With some soft skills and reliance on the dozen or more inputs possible for this process, you can keep the statement focused and usable. The Project Vision Meeting This meeting…
Risk is defined as an uncertain event that can affect the objectives of a project and may contribute to its success or failure. Risks with a potential for positive impact on the project are called opportunities, whereas threats are risks that could negatively impact a project. In a Scrum environment, risks are generally minimized, largely due…
A Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD) is a useful tool for reporting and tracking project performance. It provides a simple, visual representation of project progress at a particular point in time. It is usually used to provide a higher level status of the overall project and not daily updates for individual Sprints. The image above is an…
The responsibility of prioritizing and delivering business value in an organization for projects lies primarily with the Product Owner. For programs and portfolios, the responsibility lies with the Program Product Owner and Portfolio Product Owner, respectively. Their role is to act as effective representatives of the customer and/or sponsor. The guidelines for evaluating and measuring…
The role of a Chief Scrum Master is necessary to ensure proper collaboration among the Scrum Teams. Coordination across various Scrum Teams working on a project is typically done through the Scrum of Scrums (SoS) Meeting. There is no hierarchy between the Scrum Masters: they are all peers. The Chief Scrum Master just works on…
A Scrum project involves a collaborative effort to create a new product, service, or other result as defined in the Project Vision Statement. Projects are impacted by constraints of time, cost, scope, quality, resources, organizational capabilities, and other limitations that make them difficult to plan, execute, manage, and ultimately succeed. However, successful implementation of the results…
How are decisions made in Scrum? In Scrum, decisions are made based on observation and experimentation rather than on detailed upfront planning. Empirical process control relies on the three main ideas of transparency, inspection, and adaptation. Transparency Transparency allows all facets of any Scrum process to be observed by anyone. This promotes an easy…
When we talk about any process control, we talk about three elements: Input Process (structured set of activities designed to accomplish a specific objective) Output If inputs and processes are in control and are reliable, we can get reliable outputs (which are generally the case with Waterfall model). The problem arises when inputs and…
