Blog Archives

Case Studies  ·  Product Management
Product Owner Case Studies

Product Manager or Product Owners have to wear different hats at different times. Here are some mindsets that connect well with the work they do.

Collaborative

Works 1/3rd time each working alone, 1/3rd time with stakeholders and 1/3rd time with developers.

Collaborative

LinkedIn Collaborative best practices

Problem: When teams rapidly grow (over 50 people), communication and collaboration between them fail.

Solution:

  • The Product Leader, Sachin Rekhi observed multiple teams’ practices and found that Growth team’s A/B Tests (a form of split comparison testing) were not being adequately shared with the other Product Teams.
  • He decided to share these findings through all-hands and community meetings, so all teams would be able to adopt the most efficient practices.

 

Reference: 
https://miro.com/blog/features/sachin-rekhi-collaboration-product-leaders/

Competitive

Conducts detailed competitive analysis and employs strategies to envision a premier product

Competitive

Apple’s competitive hold on product strategy.

Problem: Competing in an overcrowded market.

Solution:

  • Apple personalizes their product experience by differentiating itself from other brands in two ways
    • a proprietary operating system (iOS) vs. an open source operating system (Android). 
    • proprietary app store vs a 3rd party app store.
  • There are many brands that make Android phones and software, therefore it is difficult for Samsung to differentiate their Android phones from the competitors’.
  • Apple sells fewer smartphones and has less market share than Samsung; But Apple makes 90% of the profits in the market.


Reference:

https://www.thrv.com/blog/how-apples-product-strategy-satisfies-needs-better-than-samsungs

Business Focused

Focuses on market segementation and techniques to measure economic outcomes

Business Focused

Maggi Noodles relaunch business strategy

Problem:  Rebranding after negative backlash.

Solution:

  • After the banning of Maggi Noodles in India, the relaunch was aggressive with “#missyoumaggi” and “#healthyisenjoyable” awareness campaigns across multiple marketing channels. 
  • The packaging strategy highlighted safe and healthy on each pack.
  • The pricing strategy focused on reducing the inventory while maintaining the price level. 

 

Reference:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/regain-lost-trust-maggis-comeback-story-saurabh-pal/

https://iide.co/case-studies/marketing-strategy-of-maggi/

Empathetic

Shift perspective to customer’s pains to capture needs

Product owner case studies

Facebook’s Empathy Lab

Problem: Solving for accessibility.

Solution:

  • A Product Leader led the strategy efforts to build an empathy lab in which the designers could understand the users’ experience.
  • More diverse and accessible solutions. The empathy driven approach helped increase the user base exponentially while setting great examples for more accessible and diverse solutions.

Reference:

https://www.wired.com/2015/02/meet-team-makes-possible-blind-use-facebook/ 

Multi-level

Leads ideation, prototyping, customer validation at multiple levels to make effective decisions

Multi-Level

Airbnb, Etsy, and Uber two sided platforms.

Problem:  Acquiring their first thousand customers meant addressing challenges at multiple levels.

Solution:

  • Airbnb’s site is aesthetic and very accessible.
  • Airbnb’s integration with Craigslist gave them access to consumers who did not want hotel experience. 
  • Etsy’s team would single out influential artists, crafters, and vintage collectors in art and craft shows all across the US and Canada, and use their notoriety to draw customers to Etsy.
  • Uber’s Word of Mouth Marketing helped Uber grow.
  • Uber also made the taxi ride experience easier and more pleasant.

Reference:

https://startupnation.com/books/acquiring-first-thousand-customers/

Adaptive

Integrates aspects and constraints of market needs, technical feasibility and customer demands

Adaptive

Calloway Golf’s adaptive marketing strategy to woo their audience.

Problem: A drop in sales growth after great success. 

Solution:

  • Calloway achieved product differentiation by continuously updating their technology.
  • Calloway’s marketing focused on helping consumers understand the game better.
  • Calloway revamped the way retail sales people deliver effective sales pitches. 
  • To reach their target audience, Calloway used golf magazines, trade publications, content marketing, word of mouth, and pro tour endorsements.

Reference:

https://albatross.digital/how-callaway-golf-used-video-content-marketing-to-help-grow-their-business-from-1bn-1-7bn-in-2-years/ 

Visionary

Excellent at: big picture thinking, inventing what’s next and predicting direction

Visionary

Fledgling Nike shoots into the stratosphere with their vision.

Problem: Nike was known for their running shoes and apparel, but lacked the athletic prestige or cool factor of companies like Converse and Adidas.

Solution:  Rather than signing many players, they put all their resources towards signing Michael Jordan, banking on him becoming an NBA star. 

Reference:

https://time.com/6268621/air-true-story-behind-movie/

Prioritizer

Manages, refines and prioritizes the product backlog based on value and size

Priortizer

Oral B and Smalt prioritization woes.

Problem: Oral B and Smalt odd feature selection.

Solution: 

  • Oral B perfect 16 degree angle toothbrush, Pro Expert was a clear case of listening to customers for solutions instead of needs and solving the wrong problems. Most reviews were complaints from users about replacing the battery. 
  • Smalt – Listening to music with the meal, color changing mood lights are all good.  The internet of things for dispensing salt is not a problem most customers have. 

Reference:

https://www.mindtheproduct.com/20-years-product-management-25-minutes-dave-wascha/

Entrepreneur

Makes decisions and create things with limited resources, information and support

Product owner case studies

 Mom’s Bakery in Bandung, Indonesia.

Problem: Entrepreneurship in a crowded market.

Solution: 

  • The bakery wanted to launch healthy bread products in a crowded market, which was a risk.
  •  Leadership believed that establishing a healthy line of bread products would set the bakery’s sales apart for customers interested in their health. 
  • This made Mom’s Bakery to be the only culinary business that fulfilled consumer needs for healthy living.

Reference:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303013681_THE_INFLUENCE_OF_ENTREPRENEURIAL_MINDSET_TOWARDS_PRODUCT_INNOVATION_CASE_STUDY_ON_MOM%27S_BAKERY_IN_BANDUNG

Facilitator

Makes group decisions easy for stakeholders and developers for effective planning and execution

Product owner case studies

Facilitate to amplify the team’s capacity to solve hard problems and have a safe place for stakeholders to have healthy debates.

Problem: Sanctuary Computer builds web applications for early stage startups. They had too many open ended requests flowing in from freelancers.

Solution: 

  • Sanctuary hired a product strategist to facilitate those open ended requests into a concrete product backlog that could be prioritized and worked on in a seamless manner.

Reference:

https://theoverlap.substack.com/p/product-manager-as-facilitator

https://www.mindtheproduct.com/how-to-cultivate-adaptive-product-leadership-by-jenn-kim-sabin-sadeh/ 

Delighter

Delivers product solutions that delight customers and users

Product owner case studies

Chase Sapphire – Delighting millennials. 

Problem: American Express had all the affluent customers while Chase cards had credit cards with relationships like Marriott, Amazon, etc.  Chase was losing market share.

Solution: 

  • Millennials take an Uber to a hole in the wall restaurant in Chinatown, then take the subway to karaoke, then take a taxi home. As a reward, Chase offers accelerated travel points. 
  • Chase created a dark blue plastic card with a metal piece inside. An Amex card says you’re rich, but a chase sapphire card says you’re interesting.

Reference:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/16/amex-challenged-by-chase-is-losing-the-snob-war.html

Leader

Influences, inspires , support and empower people to set the conditions for the team to thrive.

Product owner case studies

Leaders taking the role of a coach.

Problem: Product owner prioritizing for velocity goals.

Solution:

  •  Sabin (product leader at Potato)  realized that the product owner was prioritizing lower priority items to help meet the team’s sprint deliverable and velocity goals so that the team’s performance is not questioned.
  • He took on the role of a coach, helping them realize it’s ok to slow down the sprint velocity and deliver higher product values.

 Reference:

 How to Cultivate Adaptive Product Leadership, by Jenn Kim & Sabin Sadeh 

Additional resources:

Distributed Scrum Project for Dutch Railways
How Agile helped Unilever deliver hand sanitizers faster during Covid-19
How Microprocessor giant, Intel used Scrum in their engineering development?
How Scrum and Kanban Helped Formula Student Team Design a Race Car?

by Anil Jaising

Elevator pitch for Scrum
Scrum Mastery
Elevator pitch to sell Scrum to Stakeholders and Executives

Would you like to explain Scrum to anyone in 2 minutes? Well, I have an elevator pitch for Scrum for you. I teach this in my certified scrum master workshops to equip my scrum masters defend and sell scrum in their organizations. I learnt this elevator pitch co-training with my mentors.

Scrum is a lightweight framework for delivering products. It’s a new way of working where teams keep the progress of the work transparent, the outcomes of the work are frequently inspected, and those frequent inspections lead to adapted feedback. As teams progress through the cycle of short iterations of transparency, inspection and adaptation, teams deliver quality products.

Teams get feedback from their stakeholders and adapting to the work. With time, the risk of failure decreases and the probability of success increases.

by Anil Jaising

Scrum Workflow
Virtual Training
Keep learners awake and engaged using interactive lecture

As a trainer you want your learners to have

  1. Collaborative interdependence: learners work together and they cannot accomplish the task without working together.
  2. Individual accountability: As a participant in a group activity, learners are accountable for maximizing their own learning.

Sharon Bowman’s Training from the BACK of the Room book first introduced me to the two ideas and so I wanted this level of interaction for my every presentation and training.

One way to deliver new content to learners without slides is interactive lecture.  Many of the trainers that I teach tend to use the interactive lecture because it helps them easily transition from a lecture with slides.

The writing is an explicit part of the lecture delivery while the content delivery is short usually between 5 to 8 minutes.

I use two techniques to deliver an interactive lecture

1. Interactive lecture using a graphic organizer

In the following YouTube video, I explain the Scrum workflow and encourage my learners to download and print the graphic organizer from https://bit.ly/3zeoexm.  While I deliver my interactive lecture, learners are completing the graphic organizer.

 

2. Interactive lecture using a blank sheet of paper

In the four attributes of the product backlog and product backlog item I ask my learners to use a blank sheet of paper. I engage them to use the blank sheet of paper to capture the attributes while I share them with an interactive lecture.

Key benefits of an interactive lecture

  • Keep learners awake and engaged.
  • Learner’s are focused on the information in the lecture because they are focused on writing down the material
  • Increase learner’s retention of the knowledge
  • Learner’s takeaway their learning that they wrote on the graphic organizer or the blank sheet of paper

Principles used to engage the brain

  • Shorter trumps longer
  • Writing trumps reading
  • Different trumps same

Additional resources:
https://conceptsandbeyond.com/how-to-build-consensus-as-a-facilitator-part-1-applying-inclusive-principles/
https://conceptsandbeyond.com/how-to-build-consensus-as-a-facilitator-part-2-creative-reframing/
https://conceptsandbeyond.com/how-to-build-consensus-as-a-facilitator-part-3-strengthening-good-ideas/

by Anil Jaising

Our stories  ·  Product Management  ·  Scrum Mastery
3 Books That Changed My 2023 Goal

In December 2022, I found three books by Austin Kleon. Each one took me about 30 minutes to read and they completely changed my goals for 2023.

Titles

🔥 Show your work: The essence of this book is to share what you do and how you do it intentionally sharing value with everyone. Generosity trumps genius.

🔥 Steal like an Artist:  Free yourself from the burden of originality and recognize that every good idea is already shared and has shaped us and fashioned us from what we learned. Share what you learned and add to it

🔥 Keep Going: As a creative person, Consistency is important. Creative life is not a linear journey but a loop. So find a daily routine to continue to keep going and finish what you start

These books have shaped what I am going to do in 2023.

💎 Goals
  •  Teach in NYU to share two decades of experience changing organizational behavior as a consultant, both internal and external.
  •  Bring back the learnings from the case studies to my Scrum Master and Product Owner classes Share things most people don’t know about Scrum, Product Management, DevOps, Instructional
  •  Design using Training from the BACK of the Room and NLP and Books that I recommend in Videos.

 

If you like to watch the book recommendations and about my 2023 goals, check my YouTube video below.

 

 

Anil Jaising is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified DevOps Institute Trainer and a Certified Training from the BACK of the Room – Virtual Edition Trainer.  Anil teaches Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Advanced Scrum Master (A-CSM), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP-SM) workshops from Scrum Alliance  He also teaches Training from the BACK of the Room  In Room and Virtual Edition). He is also the chief product owner of a telemetry plugin At A Glance on Atlassian Jira.

Anil Jaising

Scrum, Product Management, and DevOps: Simplifying the jargon

The internet and social media are full of Agile, Scrum, Product Management, and DevOps jargon, including incorrect and misunderstood concepts. This could be problematic for a learner seeking knowledge. Without a course with Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, or DevOps Institute, this knowledge is difficult to achieve.

The Concepts & Beyond blog is a free suite of articles and videos packaged in tiny chunks. You will learn or refine your knowledge and skills to help your team and organization be effective. When you want to take your knowledge further, we invite you to join us for our  Certified ScrumMaster(CSM),  Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Certified DevOps Engineering Foundations (DOEF) and Training from the Back of The Room courses across the USA and Canada.

by Anil Jaising

facilitate meetings
Books and Reference  ·  Our stories
Two books that taught me how to facilitate meetings.

Two books that completely changed how I facilitate meetings. Additionally, there is a connection between the methods and outcomes in both books. The theory and practical techniques in both books will make any meeting more engaging.

The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making

It focuses on facilitation. Most facilitation courses use methods from “The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making” by Sam Kaner.  Sam’s book is a comprehensive and practical guide. Anyone who wants to become an effective facilitator of group decision-making processes will benefit from this guide. From the theory of group decision-making to the practical skills required to lead groups through complex decision-making processes.

There are five main steps in a typical meeting  1. setting the stage, 2. divergent thinking, 3. the groan zone, 4. convergent thinking and 5. closing. These patterns lead to decision-making models, such as consensus-building.  It provides a step-by-step approach to implementing them in practice.

The book is also highly practical, with numerous examples, case studies, and exercises. It illustrates key concepts and skills. The author provides guidance on dealing with common challenges that arise during group decision-making processes. Some examples include managing conflict and dealing with difficult personalities.

I liked the emphasis on participatory decision-making. It involves all stakeholders in decision-making processes to ensure that all perspectives and interests are considered.

Agile Retrospectives – Making good teams great by Diana Larsen and Esther Derby

The second book is Agile Retrospectives.  It is a comprehensive guide to conducting effective retrospectives in an Agile team. The book completely changed how I facilitate retrospectives. The book shares practical techniques and tools to reflect on team work. It identified areas of improvement to take action to continuously improve team processes.

The book is divided into three main parts. Firstly, a brief overview of retrospectives is provided. Secondly, the five phases of an effective retrospective are covered, including setting the stage, gathering data, gathering insights, deciding what to do, and closing the retrospective. These five stages map directly to the 5 stages of Sam Kaner’s model for meetings. Finally, in the third part of the book, practical techniques are provided for each stage to run a wonderful retrospective that includes everyone.

 

by Anil Jaising

Our stories
Remembering a hero

It is said that what happens to you changes you.

Today is January 14th 2022. Our hero, Raunak Narang (Ronnie) was born on this day. He was my nephew who left us on January 30th 2018 due to cancer.

Remembering this day and remembering Ronnie today. Remembering my permanent transition started to becoming a teacher and a donor from the year he left us. Every year we focus on a cause. Last year was about donating to a school in Bangalore India and also furthering donations for CRPS awareness.

“Believe something and the Universe is on its way to being changed. Because you’ve changed, by believing. Once you’ve changed, other things start to follow. Isn’t that the way it works?” ~ Diane Duane

During this month, I will be sharing more of this story and our story of change

by Anil Jaising

Definition of Done
Scrum Mastery
5 things most people don’t know about the Definition of “Done”

In this blog I will share with you 5 things most people don’t know about the Definition of “Done”

Let’s say at the end of a dinner party at your home you and a friend are cleaning the dishes. What are the steps you will do to ensure that all dishes are clean? You might say what’s the big deal? I know when my dishes are clean. “Dishes put away”. For your friend who is helping you, they might need a list of steps so they ensure that they do all the steps to complete cleaning the dishes. So let’s say you have a list like the one below

“Collect dirty dishes from the party room”

“Throw out any remaining food still on the dish in the garbage”

“Wash”

“Dry”

“Ensure it’s clean”

“Arrange dishes in the kitchen drawer”

Now anytime you get some friends helping you with dishes, using the criteria they all have a shared understanding of what cleaning dishes means at your house. The checklist takes away all the assumptions from your friends. Furthermore, we follow a uniform cleaning procedure for all dishes in order to ensure quality.

 

The more specific the criteria become, the better the quality of the product.

The “Definition of Done” is a list of criteria that a product feature (Product Backlog Item) meets before it is complete. It is a commitment for the deliverable or product increment in Scrum

The Scrum Team is constantly refining our “Definition of Done” so that it is more specific and measurable

It covers all aspects of the feature, including design, development, testing, documentation, and deployment. It also includes any required approvals or sign-offs from stakeholders.

As a Scrum Trainer, I have been teaching the definition of done in my Certified Scrum Master (CSM®) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO®) workshops and I have learned several invaluable lessons from my students.

Here are 5 things that most people may not know about the "Definition of Done":

 

  1. The team refers to the Definition of “Done” to plan in Sprint Planning and the Daily Scrum
  2. Initially the Definition of “Done” might be weak with a small number of items. Over time, the team continuously refines the Definition of “Done” at the Sprint Retrospective to make it stronger.
  3. The Definition of “Done” is different from Acceptance Criteria because “Done” doesn’t change from one product backlog item (feature) to the next, while the Acceptance Criteria is written specifically and uniquely for each individual feature or User Story. It has a formal Scrum definition, whereas User Stories or Acceptance Criteria are not part of the Scrum Guide.
  4. Multiple Teams working on the same product share the same Definition of “Done”. Imagine this you visit a public bathroom. Your expectation is that it will be clean. In good establishments it is true. This is because there is a checklist that the cleaning crew maintains back of the door of the bathroom. Every morning a cleaning crew comes in and uses the checklist to clean the bathroom and then checks every item and adds their signature. In the evening a new cleaning crew comes in and uses the same checklist, notes down the time, cleans the bathroom and checks every item completed and adds their signature.
  5. The team shares the “Definition of Done” with all stakeholders, including the development team, the product owner, and any external customers or partners. Everyone has a clear understanding of expectations from the product.

 

Examples of Definition of "Done"

 

 

Definition of Done for Software development

  • Implemented according to the design specification.
  • Ran Unit Tests
  • Acceptance Tested and all known defects fixed
  • Performance Tested and all known defects fixed
  • Updated code documentation and user documentation
  • Reviewed and approved by the product owner.
  • Deployed to a staging environment and tested in that environment.
  • Demonstrated to and accepted by the customer.
  • Training materials created and shared with relevant parties.
  • Sign-offs or approvals obtained.

 

Definition of Done for Marketing

  • Grammar check
  • Spelling check
  • Style check
  • Graphic size check
  • Company colors used
  • SEO check
  • Proofread all text
  • Acceptance criteria met
  • Obtained Required sign-offs or approvals

 

 

Keep in mind that the “Definition of Done” will vary depending on the specific project and team. It is important to tailor the “Definition of Done” to the needs of the project and the stakeholders involved.

In summary, the “Definition of Done” is an important tool in Scrum to ensure a high level of quality.  It helps teams to stay focused and deliver value to their customers more efficiently.

Anil Jaising is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified DevOps Institute Trainer and a Certified Training from the BACK of the Room – Virtual Edition Trainer.  Anil teaches Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Advanced Scrum Master (A-CSM), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP-SM) workshops from Scrum Alliance  He also teaches Training from the BACK of the Room  In Room and Virtual Edition). He is also the chief product owner of a telemetry plugin At A Glance on Atlassian Jira. Anil teaches “Transforming Organizations” course in the master’s program in project management in New York University

Anil Jaising
Scrum, Product Management, and DevOps: Simplifying the jargon

The internet and social media are full of Agile, Scrum, Product Management, and DevOps jargon, including incorrect and misunderstood concepts. This could be problematic for a learner seeking knowledge. Without a course with Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, or DevOps Institute, this knowledge is difficult to achieve.

The Concepts & Beyond blog is a free suite of articles and videos packaged in tiny chunks. You will learn or refine your knowledge and skills to help your team and organization be effective. When you want to take your knowledge further, we invite you to join us for our  Certified ScrumMaster(CSM),  Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Certified DevOps Engineering Foundations (DOEF) and Training from the Back of The Room courses across the USA and Canada.

by Anil Jaising

5 values of scrum
Scrum Mastery
How to lead change with the 5 Values of Scrum

 

The scrum framework has accountabilities, Events, Artifacts and Commitments. They are important but by far the most important aspect are the 5 values of scrum.

Why are the values so important? Because we deal with humans all along the lifecycle of product development. Whether you are a product owner that works with stakeholders, customers and your team, or a scrum master working with your product owner, developers or stakeholders. You are leading how your team and organizations essentially work when you implement Scrum.

Meet TeamFAST

Meet TeamFAST, the team has 5 developers, Hank the product owner, and Bob the stakeholder, an executive, who fully bought into Scrum. TeamFast is a brand new team piloting scrum in the organization.

They were looking to hire a scrum master and in the meantime had started implementing the scrum framework and they were having some challenges

The developers would plan and start working for a sprint and would many times switch their forecasted sprint work to complete something else that their manager, Jag had given them. This work was not from the product backlog.

Hank, the product owner wants the product and the team to be a big success. He was a developer in the past and is very enthusiastic to bring his experience to the team and would regularly tell the developers how to solve an issue.

Bob, the stakeholder is all bought into implementing scrum. Someone told him that adopting scrum will help him improve the speed of product delivery.  Naturally, he is expecting the speed of delivery to increase. After all, he invested a lot in the team. Bob ensured everyone is trained, they have the right tools and technology to collaborate. Yet with every sprint review, the team is slowing down and not able to deliver on the sprint forecast.

The Scrum Master

Bob doubled down his search for a scrum master and was suddenly surprised to find that I was a Certified Scrum Master looking for a consultant role in his linked in. After a series of interviews with this team he hired me to be the scrummaster for TeamFast.

In the beginning, I quietly observed as the team, Hank and Bob separately complained about the same thing. The items forecasted in the sprint are never complete and they get rolled over to the next sprint. Many a times the manager would complain about the same issue.

I decided to take small steps to help the team. After the formal sprint review was over I asked everyone for an additional hour to review the 5 values of Scrum.

I asked everyone to give me a thumbs up if they are all committed to making this team successful in Scrum? He reminded them that initially in this quest, they might slow down in delivering on the current plan.

 

Commitment

They all gave a thumbs up. I asked them to pick a blank sheet of paper and draw what commitment looks for them. Some drew a heart, some a wedding ring, some others a handshake.

Commitment means “joined together.” It can literally transform the organization because it means backing each other up. Just like a commitment in marriage or commitment among players of a sports team. It involves sharing our sincere intent to act, and then accepting responsibility for following through on that intended action. In Scrum, everyone commits to achieving the shared goals of the Scrum Team.

 

Focus

 

Now I said, would you agree that to deliver on the work of the sprint the team needs to concentrate on what they have forecasted as per their past performance and capacity? They all agreed, Jag added that for that they need to focus.

Absolutely said Sam, they need to Focus, so on the same paper, draw an image that represents the word focus for you. Some drew a bullseye, some drew a goal post and some drew an eye. Sam further said that if the archer wants to shoot a bullseye they need complete concentration, and if that’s the case the team cannot be asked to do other tasks that might derail that focus. If those tasks are required to be done, then add them to the product backlog and order them the way everything else for the product is ordered and then forecasted in sprint planning.

In Scrum, the developers concentrate on the work of the sprint and the sprint goal without interruptions. The product owner focuses on maximizing value of the product, The stakeholders are focused on removing impediments to ensure the Scrum team succeeds and the scrum master everyone concentrates on the work of the Sprint and the goals of the Scrum Team

Everyone agreed and said they will personally guard against adding any work outside of the work of the sprint.

Respect

The third value is Respect. Draw an image that comes to mind that represents Respect for you.

How could we enhance respect in this team, Respect is to develop a sincere appreciation for the unique capabilities for each member in the Scrum Team and to respect each other to be capable, independent people. The developers are responsible for the how and the sprint backlog. Let them go about coming up with the right solutions. Empower them to make decisions. Their decisions might be right or wrong, its ok if they are wrong, they will fail and they will learn.

All of us need to respect the decisions of the developers, the scrum master and the product owner to do their best. You might agree or not but having the trust in their capabilities will go a long way in the team’s long term success.

.

Courage

Courage means “from the heart.” It involves acting in alignment with our beliefs, especially when it is hard. Scrum Team members have courage to do the right thing and work on tough problems. The stakeholders have the courage to uphold the needs of the scrum team to ensure they are successful. There might be many challenges with market conditions or budget, but despite that supporting the team is key for the teams to succeed.

Some drew a warrior, lion, and some a sky diver on the blank sheet of paper.

Openness

Upholding Openness means upholding transparency a pillar of empirical process control. The Scrum Team and its stakeholders agree to be open about the progress of the work and the challenges with performing the work. The stakeholders need to provide honest feedback to empower the scrum team to adapt. The scrum team needs to be transparent about the progress of the work as well as open with each other on how as a team they can improve.

Once a scrum master has taught the team the 5 values of scrum they should consider facilitating a meeting to create a working agreement between the team. Everyone should agree to add behaviors that the team should have when working with each other. The 5 values of scrum should inspire what behaviors the team adds to the working agreement. Read more about facilitating a working agreement with examples.

The elements of the framework are like the brain of Scrum. The 5 Scrum values: commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect, are the heart of Scrum.

If you are a scrum master, you are the change agent. Leading change begins with the 5 scrum values

Anil Jaising is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified DevOps Institute Trainer and a Certified Training from the BACK of the Room – Virtual Edition Trainer.  Anil teaches Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Advanced Scrum Master (A-CSM), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP-SM) workshops from Scrum Alliance  He also teaches Training from the BACK of the Room  In Room and Virtual Edition). He is also the chief product owner of a telemetry plugin At A Glance on Atlassian Jira. Anil teaches the Transforming Organizations course in the New York University Graduate Program in Project Management 

Anil Jaising
Scrum, Product Management, and DevOps: Simplifying the jargon

The internet and social media are full of Agile, Scrum, Product Management, and DevOps jargon, including incorrect and misunderstood concepts. This could be problematic for a learner seeking knowledge. Without a course with Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, or DevOps Institute, this knowledge is difficult to achieve.

The Concepts & Beyond blog is a free suite of articles and videos packaged in tiny chunks. You will learn or refine your knowledge and skills to help your team and organization be effective. When you want to take your knowledge further, we invite you to join us for our  Certified ScrumMaster(CSM),  Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Certified DevOps Engineering Foundations (DOEF) and Training from the Back of The Room courses across the USA and Canada.

by Anil Jaising

Sharing 5 things most people don’t know about the daily scrum
Scrum Mastery
5 things most people don’t know about the Daily Scrum

 

The Daily Scrum is a planning event very similar to a huddle in team sports. A daily scrum is a time-boxed event in which developers adjust the sprint backlog to meet the sprint goal. Sharing 5 things most people don’t know about the daily scrum.

Status Updates

The Daily Scrum is not a status update meeting. The purpose of the Daily Scrum is for developers to discuss their progress toward the Sprint Goal and identify any obstacles or challenges they are facing. Additionally, it is a time for team members to coordinate and plan their work for the next 24 hours, unlike a status meeting.

Time Box

The Daily Scrum is a time-boxed event, for up to 15 minutes. Can a sports team speak to the referee during a short timeout and extend it? If not, why do many teams have a daily scrum for 30 or 45 minutes? It does not make sense. In these teams, the scrum master teaches the daily scrum to be a way to adjust the plan to meet the sprint goal, rather than a status meeting.

Impediments

The Daily Scrum is not a problem-solving event. Developers use this time to coordinate and plan their work. Developers do not make major decisions or solve complex problems. After the daily scrum event is complete, developers discuss or resolve the impediments that affect them. Developers not involved with the impediments leave the meeting.

Format

The  three questions format is used to facilitate Daily Scrum by most teams are

What did I do yesterday?

My plan for today?

Any obstacles or impediments in carrying out the work I plan?

These questions are used to teach a new team how to facilitate the Daily Scrum. Over time developers find better ways to achieve the purpose of the daily scrum. The three questions are removed from the Scrum Guide 2020. Please see my blog on facilitation ideas for the Daily Scrum.

Participants

For this event, developers are mandatory, while scrum masters and product owners are optional. Yes, you read that right. It is mandatory for players on a sports team to be in the huddle. No one can add to the sprint backlog without speaking to the developers. Furthermore, the developers own and protect the Sprint Backlog consisting of the sprint goal and the plan for the sprint. Earlier in sprint planning, the sprint goal and the sprint backlog were created. Once 24 hours go by, the plan might change. The developers look at the sprint goal and adjust the sprint plan in the Daily Scrum.

The daily scrum is one of the misunderstood events in Scrum and the 5 things most people don’t know about the daily scrum sheds light on some common myths.

Anil Jaising is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified DevOps Institute Trainer and a Certified Training from the BACK of the Room – Virtual Edition Trainer.  Anil teaches Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Advanced Scrum Master (A-CSM), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP-SM) workshops from Scrum Alliance  He also teaches Training from the BACK of the Room  In Room and Virtual Edition). He is also the chief product owner of a telemetry plugin At A Glance on Atlassian Jira. Anil teaches “Transforming Organizations” course in the master’s program in project management in New York University

Anil Jaising

by Anil Jaising

Software Craftsmanship
DevOps  ·  Scrum Mastery
Software Craftsmanship and CUPID for humans

Software Craftsmanship

Software craftsmanship is an ideology, a mindset that building software is a craft just like building beautiful cars, furniture, art, etc.  Initially, craftspeople would need to rely on engineering practices from extreme programming.  Over time they would adapt to newer practices like object oriented design patterns, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA),  Software as a service, Cloud, Microservices, etc. These new practices and ideas came up because there were some brilliant people that thought of software as a craft.

CUPID

CUPID is an acronym and according to Dan North in his blog https://dannorth.net/2022/02/10/cupid-for-joyful-coding/

is a set of properties.  Properties should be easy to articulate, adopt and assess.

In this blog, I will share my understanding of CUPID and connect with it using something we already know. Connections make it easy to learn something abstract or foreign.

For learning CUPID I will use the example of assembling furniture (a bookshelf or a dining table) that you bought in a store.

(C) Composable 

You drive to a furniture store and buy a bookshelf or a dining table. It’s not assembled. A manual and all the parts are available for you to put it together step by step. Each part that you add is composable. The composable property means it will have a small surface area (each part on its own is small), reveals it’s intention (You know where it will fit and why), and with minimal dependencies.

If each part of the software can be constructed in such a way that it’s easy to use and use again and reuse again, that software is composable. Many open-source libraries are designed to be composable.

(U) Unix Philosophy 

 Each part of the furniture has a single purpose and a consistent design. Each command in the Unix operating system is designed so that it has a single purpose. Unix is used by every serious computer maker and it underpins MacOS and android. It also comes as an optional subsystem for Microsoft Windows. Software should be designed with the Unix philosophy.

(P) Predictable

Each part of the furniture behaves as expected. The holes for screws are only on a particular side. The holes line up to be assembled. Software should pass all tests all the time. Software should be deterministic (do the same thing all the time). Software should be monitored and instrumented, meaning it can be observed.  Another good example of being observable is when I was installing a Ring alarm system in my house.

Although each component was small and I had to use the manual to better understand how to set the alarm system, it was relatively simple. One reason for this was that each component would send a signal to the app on my mobile to tell me if I had installed it properly or if it had an issue that I needed to adjust. Of course, this enables the component to send alerts if a window or door is opened in my house to my mobile app.

(I) Idiomatic

Consider individual parts of the furniture had different conventions to indicate which way is up, down, left or right. This would put a high cognitive load on the person assembling the furniture. Similarly, if software code does not follow the language idioms and conventions it will put a high cognitive load on others who read that piece of code. The idea is you are writing code for others to read or maintain and hence the developer should spend the time to learn the language idiom and stick to it while coding in that language. 

(D) Domain

Domain is broken into three sub properties

  1. Domain-based language: the parts of the furniture should look similar to another bookshelf or dining table parts. The code in your software should be easy to read and understand and should mirror the domain it’s written for. For example, if you are writing code for data distribution, it should be easy to discern the source of the date, the transformation of data, and the destinations by reading the code.
  2. Domain-based structure: How code is structured between the different aspects (User interface, database scripts, business logic, etc.) is important so that it can be easily discovered, read, and understood by anyone
  3. Domain-based boundaries: When there is a clear boundary in your code between the different domains (User interface, database scripts, business logic, etc.) it becomes easy to understand, know the responsibilities of each, and easy to deploy separately as needed.

How would you define Software Craftsmanship and how can CUPID help you?

Blog adapted from my learning from Dan North’s CUPID article

Anil Jaising is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified DevOps Institute Trainer and a Certified Training from the BACK of the Room – Virtual Edition Trainer.  Anil teaches Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Advanced Scrum Master (A-CSM), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP-SM) workshops from Scrum Alliance  He also teaches Training from the BACK of the Room  In Room and Virtual Edition). He is also the chief product owner of a telemetry plugin At A Glance on Atlassian Jira.

Anil Jaising
Scrum, Product Management, and DevOps: Simplifying the jargon

The internet and social media are full of Agile, Scrum, Product Management, and DevOps jargon, including incorrect and misunderstood concepts. This could be problematic for a learner seeking knowledge. Without a course with Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, or DevOps Institute, this knowledge is difficult to achieve.

The Concepts & Beyond blog is a free suite of articles and videos packaged in tiny chunks. You will learn or refine your knowledge and skills to help your team and organization be effective. When you want to take your knowledge further, we invite you to join us for our  Certified ScrumMaster(CSM),  Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Certified DevOps Engineering Foundations (DOEF) and Training from the Back of The Room courses across the USA and Canada.

by Anil Jaising

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