Do it yourself daily scrum meeting.

The daily scrum meeting, as the name implies, is when the scrum team gathers once a day to review their progress compared to their commitments.

The meeting helps the team focus, and identify and eliminate impediments to their progress. The 15 minutes meeting takes place at the team task board.

Only team members can speak, to answer three critical questions:

·         What did I do yesterday?

·         What am I going to do today?

·         Is anything holding my progress?

The meeting structure and rules make things more efficient, and hold the team accountable for work done. At the bottom line, the daily scrum meeting gets things done.

The daily scrum meeting holds few characteristics that enables the above to happen in the most effective and efficient manner.

·         Why meet on a daily basis? As our objective is to have a self-managing Scrum team, we must provide the team with the proper tools. Keep in mind, that It isn’t just one person, rather many individuals that work together to achieve a common goal.  Gathering once a day makes sure all team members are all on the same page for today’s work. It also enables the team to detect problems early on (really early, usually a day old bug that is easily fixable), and deal with impediments.

·         The daily meeting is for the team. It isn’t for managers. Remember our objective is  to have a self-managed Scrum team? So they need a place and time to gather, and reflect over the sprint process. When we transfer the project micro management from the manager to the team, it means that the team is now responsible for managing, assigning, and delivering the tasks. So they need to have the proper tools to monitor the progress. The daily Scrum meeting is that time and place.

Meeting Settings:

·         The meeting has a 15 minute time limit, no matter how many people there are. This is a hard thing to achieve, and forces the team to conduct effective meetings to keep within this limit.

You don’t need more than 15 min to be effective. Short time frames have proven to be an effective tool to improve meetings efficiency and effectiveness.

·         The meeting is done standing up. Why? Because standing isn’t comfortable. Standing up means that that the meeting is kept short and scoped. When the team is mature enough and the meeting is effective, they usually switch to sitting down.

·         The team decides the time and place of the meeting. Not the managers

·         The meeting should be held at the same time and the same place every day. No changes. Of course, it is best to hold the meeting at the beginning of each day. The company HAS to respect the meeting time frame, and management should not force the team to change it.

·         The meeting must start on time.

·         The Scrum master facilitates the meeting.

·         Attendance is required. When a team member cannot attend, he is obligated to update his status to the team, either by updating another team member or by phoning through, email, instant message or Facebook update – there are enough ways to update your team today.

·         The team should gather around the task board, it’s where the action is.  

o   The task board represents the work (actual or future), and also acts as the team agenda. Don’t forget that the team should work according to the user story priority on the board.

o   The agenda is clear; business oriented and does not hold statements and irrelevant words that usually ruin meetings.

The meeting Flow:

·         Team members are expected to come prepared to the meeting. They shouldn’t start thinking and exploring their tasks during the daily meeting itself. It wastes everybody’s time.

·         Each team member answers 3 questions:

o   What did I do yesterday?

o   What am I going to do today? (according to user story priority)

o   Are there any impediments keeping me from progress?

·         Delays are also expected to be discussed and attended to. It is better to handle them when they are small.

·         The conversation is geared around the user stories on the board. Meaning, to the business.

o   For advanced teams, the scope of the daily meeting can be the same but instead of talking in a personal sense (‘what I did’ or ‘what am I going to do’), the team answer the questions as regards to a user story on the board. The scope shifts from a person to deliverable item, enhancing the probability of getting things done.

·         Team members are expected to listen and to share.

·         Speak in turn and don’t interrupt others while they talk.

·         Team members should keep their reporting effective, precise, business oriented and short (Didn’t say this was easy, did I? J)

·         Only one person talks at a time. Everyone else listens, and doesn’t hold any side conversations.

·         We do not go into great detail during the meeting. If the conversation starts getting into too much detail, the Scrum master should suggest that the team takes this issue offline. He is responsible for moving the meeting past the subject. Often a team member reports issues that need to be discussed further, or, since the team works together, tasks may be dependent on one another. In this case, the team should take the matter offline.

·         Action items are taken for after the meeting. They are clear and related to the business needs to be delivered.

A good daily meeting is one that is 15 minutes long, and creates discussions of various issues afterwards, to close open issues and remove impediments.

·         The communication flow goes through team members, not managers or the Scrum master.

·         Each team member should feel accountable for each other’s work. After all they need to deliver as a team. This means that when one team member is stuck or has an issue or problem, other team members needs to offer suggestions for assistance and decide who and how to remove the impediment.

·         The team is also expected to reflect over the quality of their work, as they are expected to deliver a quality outcome.

·         Towards the end of the meeting, the team should consider the entire sprint progress against their commitment. Identify common delays and suggest ways to deal with them.

·         Everyone is welcome to attend the daily meeting, but they should not speak until it ends.

o   They are chickens. People that have no tasks on the task board are not considered to be part of the team, and should be quiet. At the end of the meeting, ‘chickens‘ can ask questions and take things offline with team members.

o   Managers are ‘chickens’. They are not allowed to talk till the end of the meeting. The reason for this is, that the team is the one accountable for the delivery. Managers usually take the conversation to places familiar to them and to decision making as managers. The team needs to be able to make decisions by their own, therefore, to talk and communicate.

Do it yourself daily meeting:

o   Team members:  ____________ ____________ ____________ ____________

o   Scrum master (facilitator): ____________

o   Meeting schedule: ____________

o   Meeting flow:

o   For each team member :

o   What did I do yesterday (related to a user story on the board)

o   What am I going to do today? (related to a user story on the board according to the priority)

o   Is anything holding my progress ?

o   Entire team :

o   Review team progress.

o   Review team quality

o   What are our action items?

o   Deal immediately with Action items

References and further read:

http://www.crisp.se/bocker-och-produkter/scrum-and-xp-from-the-trenches

http://www.scrumforteamsystem.co.uk/ProcessGuidance/scrum/process/daily-scrum-meetings/daily-scrum-meeting-rules

http://scottdunn.blogspot.co.il/2007/08/meeting-rules-for-daily-stand-up-daily.html

Self made Kanban board by a 10 years old boy.

This 10 year old boy has been an agile@home practitioner for quite some time, and after a while, his family no longer needed the Kanban board. The communication flows and things are getting done around the house, and the boy is now used to thinking Agile.

So if he feels it's necessary to create his own Kanban task board to control his tasks better, HE decides to do it, and HE creates it.

One, day, he decided he needed that in order to manage his tasks better, he needs to create a board again. It was getting close to the start of a new school year, and the sheer amount of school-related tasks, in addition to his daily chores, made him realize he needs to manage them better, at least for a short period of time.

So he created a board. But the sticky notes kept falling off. And this 10 year old boy went off to look for a solution, all by himself. When he finished, he called me over, to show off his new creation.

Instead of sticky notes, he wrote down a list of chores.

The numbers on the list represented the tasks number which is written in the appropriate column of performance.

Task number 8 was defined as a permanent task. The task was 'Have fun!'. He even added incentives(!)

All I have to say, is 'Well done!'

Well done for coming up with an innovative solution. Well done for solving your own difficulties and thinking how to get things done in the best way for your needs.

Well done for building your own unique creative board. It's YOUR board. As long as you understand it, that's all that matters.

And having 'Fun' as a task is a really healthy approach to life.

I am so proud!

I am not lazy, I just don’t like doing it

Do something you don’t like every day.

Visualization, decisiveness, Kanban and consistent will help a lot.

We know that visualization is a powerful tool that helps us get things done. Adding Kanban makes the tool even better, as even difficult things, like doing homework, learning to take exams, going to the gym and so on, once they are on the board, you can’t escape them easily. Even getting your kids to take out the trash or tidy their rooms can be done with a Kanban board. Of course, we parents need to be there to encourage, follow and explain.

But what happens when we need to do something that we don’t like?

We procrastinate. We ‘don’t have the energy’, or ‘now isn’t the right time for this’. Take going to the gym. It’s too hard. I’m too tired. It makes me sweaty. It’s not that we don’t know the benefits – we DO, and we know that we need to do it at least 3 times a week. But we don’t.

Delaying these tasks more than necessary will not lead to a good result. In fact, things will get worse later on.

Dealing with those unpleasant tasks correctly will lead us toward getting them done.

 

It’s simple:  visualize and mark the tasks you don’t like and perform one each day.

How?

1.       Visualize all your tasks using a task board, even ones you don’t like.

2.       Prioritize your tasks. You don’t need to perform tasks that aren’t important, right?

Furthermore, you can prioritize the tasks you don’t like and divide them into smaller, practical tasks later on. It will make getting them done easier. For example: Not all the exam material needs to be studied, right? There are probably more and less important issues there to scope on. Make sure hard learning topics are divided to smaller practical items, so you can pick one topic at a time and get it done.

 

3.       Of course, looking at the positive aspects of the task, even if you don’t like it, also makes it easier. Once the task is higher up the priority list, it is easier to understand that it is important and has value for us…Find what is that you like and make sure to add it to your list as a task as part of the area of dislike. for example: Going to the gym I like  ________ And dislike______

 

4.       Think of creative ways that will help you address those tasks you don’t like, like studying for your next exam with a group of friends.

 

5.       Mark those you don’t like to do .

 

Use different colors to distinguish between regular tasks and those you don’t like.

 

6.       Every day :

a.       Pick up one task you don’t like. Only one, among all the other tasks.

b.      Schedule those that you don’t like into your routine and visualize them. Yes, plan to go to the gym; plan to study; visualize it; write it down if necessary and make sure you do it.

 

 

7.     Consider it as an obligation, a job.

 

8.     Be decisive. Just do it!

 

Further read on the subject in blog:

·         Achieving goals with agile

·         The Four Quadrants of the To Do list

·         How to decide what to do? – Another way to order the ‘To-Do’ column

·         The Power of Sticky Notes

·         Be like God - Kanban your way into the world

 

 

 

 

On our way (Burn) up! - Part #2 -A burn up chart process example:

Refer to par #1

Let’s go further into a  leads to opportunity example using a burn up chart: (you can read more about how to manage leads and opportunities using Kanban)

●      Understand your flow

We need to first review the progress behind the chart

For example:  a lead to opportunity process.

At the end of every week, we will track the amount of contracts signed.

We can track other process areas as we will scope over them if we want to improve in those areas as well.

●      Visualize your flow.

 

 

●      Visualize the burn up chart. The burn up chart visualizes the progress over signed contracts each week.

 

 

●      Analyzing the burn up chart allow us conclude and change.

For example: as a marketing team member or manager what flattened the chart? Was it a seasonal trend? Maybe we didn’t invest in the correct leads?

What made it go up again?

Visualizing the process behind the results will lead us towards better effectiveness and efficiency. We may ask, what do we need to change so the graph will go up again?

 

●      In fact, we can also compare our current status to our monthly goal (and we should!)

Obviously we should set our goals according to business needs. The ability to visualize this way is a great motivation tool for the team to reach toward the goal, to be scoped daily over the goal as long as they discuss the  ability to change towards the goal .

Goal missed-- >

 

●      Change & inspect

Remember, small frequent changes are better than an entire flow changes, try small process change - then change again if needed.

The change reflection may be immediate shown on the chart.

●      Daily meeting:

Meet every day as a team, reflect over your progress and change if needed.

●      Retrospect:

Once a week, a sprint or a period of time, retrospect over your performance.

What did we do well, and what can we improve.

The Agile framework enables us to build a continuous improvement mechanism. Obviously continuous improvement has a lot more than just a burn up chart and a flow visibility, but the burn up combining with those Agile methodologies is a one hell of an incentive towards improvement.

There are many more ways we can use burn charts in our day to day life , school , personal projects… but this is another blog story…

Ho … and as always, don’t forget to have fun…

 

For further read and references :

http://soft-tactics.com/2012/05/burn-up-chart/

http://tcagley.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/metrics-minute-burn-up-charts/

http://zenhabits.net/top-20-motivation-hacks-5/

On our way (Burn) up! - Part#1: It does not mean the burn down chart makes us go down.

A burn up chart (not to be confused with the burn down chart) is a true motivator for getting things done. It enables us to see our progress, it provides quick feedback that allows decision making, and you can quickly see if your decisions were efficient and effective. Behind the burn up chart lies a process, of course, and our performance is reflected in the chart. Using the burn up chart with Agile enables one person, or a team with a common goal, to continuously improve over things that needs to be done.

Burn up charts are widely used in software development Scrum teams to reflect the release status as compared to the changed release scope.

But the truth is that it is an awesome tool for personal improvement.

So what IS a burn up chart?

A burn up chart is a graphical representation that tracks progress over time by accumulating functionality as it is completed. The accumulated functionality can be compared to a goal, such as a budget or release plan to provide the team and others with feedback. 

The X axis:  Represents time (days, sprints, weeks )

The Y axis: Represents the accumulated functionality completed over that period of time (stories, value or cost).

Metrics Minute: Burn-up Charts

Every period of time (X axis) we track the progress work completed over our functionality (Y axis)

For example: For an orange factory, we ship orange crates. Every week, we add the amount accumulated to the chart at this week point in time. Now obviously, behind the ‘shipped orange crate’ item there is a process that needs to be followed.

What’s the process? in this case:

Pick the oranges → Sort → Clean → Pack → Transport to the warehouse → load the trucks Ship → Reach destination.

 

The way the factory performs this process effectively and efficiently will be reflected in the chart final outcome points. The chart is just a reflection of a process performance.

 

 http://soft-tactics.com/2012/05/burn-up-chart/

 

So what’s the difference between a burn DOWN chart and a burn UP chart?

 

And now in detail.

The burn down chart:

 

When we do have a fixed amount of tasks that need doing in a specific time frame, a good way to motivate the team can be to follow the amount of work left. Visualizing the progress from one day to another as a team has a good impact toward achieving the goal.

It provides feedback, and earl feedback at that!

Seeing your team’s progress means that it’s far more likely that the tasks will be carried out. We can deal with any impediments that may occur early on, and make decisions that will change our work flow as we approach our goal. We know where we stand at each and every step, we know how fast we are progressing, and the changes we need to do to complete it.

 For example: a teacher has committed to finish grading 20 exams by the end of the week. Counting down the work left is a good motivator; it’s like a countdown toward the spaceship or a missile launch.

 

 

The burn up chart:

When our goal is one of completion, even within a specified time frame, and we want to track the progress and the amount of work we can do, we may want to use a burn up chart.

For example - converting leads into opportunities as compared to the monthly goal for the sales department.

In this case, turning a lead into an opportunity is a long process involving many hands and operations. Visualizing the amount of contracts signed is a huge motivator for a team to keep driving towards the goal.

Knowing the rate of change enables us to use the early feedback coming from the chart to take action and project the lines forward in time.

 

So both burn up and a burn down charts encourage teams to get things done.

●      We can use each of them on the same project. Each reflecting a different scope or process and each is valuable for encouraging continues improvement.

●      They are both visibility tools – and as we know, visibility is a powerful tool in getting things done.

●      They both reflect reality as it changes. Reality = the process of work we set to get from point A to point Z.

●       They are both dynamic enough to reflect a decision or process change immediately.

 

For example : Yesterday we had a rank of 50. Due to market changes, we made a small change - and that is immediately reflected. Early feedback enables us to review our decisions.

●      All of the above acts as good motivators towards success – our ability to see and control the flow of events play a curtail rule here in getting things done.