Category: Agile Scrum

Who do you really work for?

If you work in our organization, this is the question I ask my team members:

The Answer,

Alasdair Says, “Yourself!”

I like that.

I ask again, “Who do you really work for?”

Boss, Customer …..

at last … he says, “could be a your Team members”

…..

that is what I was aiming for.

Why?

This is a fundamental shift in mindset:

Why do you work for the Team?

He says, “Because, the Team is working together to serve the customer”

Yes, that’s right, but, …. That’s not what I was aiming for!

Here’s a clue:

Because …. the Team decide who to put on the rota, …. the Team decides who goes on holiday, ….. the Team decides who can have a day off, …… the Team decide if a team member is eligable for a raise, …… the Team decides…… t’s a fair system for everyone and the Team decides the rules of being a Team member.

No manager or boss to please here!

Notes from a discussion between Riccardo Mariti and Alasdair McWilliam, 28th October 2022

The World’s First Scrum Restaurant: Riccardo’s “A Taste of Tuscany” in London

Executive Update “The World’s First Scrum Restaurant: Riccardo’s “A Taste of Tuscany” in London” Cutter Consortium’s Agile practice by Riccardo Mariti and Jeff Sutherland.

Here is a link to a special page where you can register to receive an immediate complimentary copy of the article in PDF format: Click Here to download

How to Launch a Scrum Team – The First Steps

Part one, the basics

Interviewing the Master of Scrum in Hardware Joe Justice –  a quick overview of how to get started (under 4 minutes!)

Step one: Run a four values retrospective (it’s actually 5! Here they are)  – the Agile four values – with the team saying, “what’s the gap?” and “what are we doing well already?”, so the context is typically our last week of work together and specific to the place we are scrumming.

We ask how we can increase the positives and close the gaps and the answers become the backlog for the work for the team and the Executive Action Team.

Step two: After Step one has been exhausted which is typically a big deal, then we have a more detailed approach, the Agile 12 Principles retrospective which is run the same way, and that generates the next part of the backlog.

Step three: take The Scrum Guide – the 3 roles, the 5 events, the 3 outputs (3-5-3) And ask, “How are we in each of these?” “Are we missing any?” Or, “are some not as good?” “Which are we doing well? How are we doing them well?” And then we list these out, the list comprising of ways to reinforce what we are doing well and ways to improve what we are not doing so well, and this becomes our organizational backlog, and at the end of that, we now have an agile scrum group. 

See the