Virtual Scrum Master Toolbox

Working from home is actually quite new for some people, including me! So far it’s been great and to be honest, I do not miss that traffic. I would love to work form home permanently one day!

Anyways here are some tools for a virtual scrum team!

Skype for Business – Chat, Video Calls etc.
WebEx Meet – to host larger conferences
JIRA – keep track of work, manage scrum boards, scrum metrics
Calendar for Jira – Keep track of everyone’s schedules, post important dates etc.
Confluence – to post important information, results from retrospectives, documentation
PlanITPoker – for estimation, sprint planning sessions
Parabol – facilitate a retrospective
Miro – virtual sprint planning board

Good luck!

Implementing Agile: First Things First

I looked online to find blogs, advice, and tips on how to implement Agile onto an existing technical project. I found a lot of comparisons, arguments on why Agile is great, and why it isn’t. However, the point of being Agile isn’t to memorize facts to win the next waterfall vs. agile debate. The point of being Agile is to practice it daily, and to get better at it everyday. Somewhere along the line, a leader in your organization agreed to making an Agile transformation and this is your chance to make a change.

The best advice I can give a program manager who wants an Agile transformation for their program, or to anyone tasked with implementing Agile is to live, breath and think Agile. Remember that you are setting the standards for software delivery. So, try not to take the title lightly. People will follow your lead. Next, find some books related to agile, organizational change, and leadership. Also, find a great podcast to listen to in the morning before heading to work. What helped me, was learning that there are people out there who are passionate about agile and it inspired me to learn more and do my best. Another tip is to find a group of people who are also passionate about Agile. This can be at your company, or find one on meetup. If you can’t find one, perhaps start your own.

So, if transforming your organization with Agile is now your task, then definitely be all about it and set the standard. Passion goes a long way and your efforts will be appreciated!

Podcasts to Try:

When you’ve been tasked to “do scrum”

Red flags were all over when she said,”do scrum” and “fit the schedule into sprints”. Being an IC Agile Professional, I know you don’t just “do scrum”. I was speechless but the speechless system design engineer in me, and now suddenly the new scrum master of the team, had bills to pay. So scrum master it is. So, I decided to start “doing Scrum”. Implementing Agile across a program has been my most challenging, stressful job I have had yet, and I can’t say it has been rewarding. Most people on my team have been doing things their way, doing the SAME thing they have always done for longer than I have been alive. So, being the chosen one to introduce a new way of doing this was not the best work-scenario.

My first scrum ceremony was a fail. No one showed up. Fast forward 6 months, it’s getting better but still the same resistors. I tried a user story writing session. I thought it was going to be a fun-filled session with sticky notes – ended in crickets. The engineers had no idea who the user was, or what a feature is, they only understood architecture. It was baffling to me. Something so easy (writing user stories) was so difficult.

Honestly, the role is undervalued. I feel like it is me against 30+ people, plus I am leading a major change without any authority. Conflicting requests from leadership has been my greatest difficulty. They want agile but also not displaying much support for it. However, I have some learning lessons.

Before going all crazy with the scrum ceremonies, come up with a plan of what you will introduce and when. Create a presentation of what scrum is and what scrum is not and present that to leadership. Leadership needs to be onboard and fully understand the roles before attempting to change anything. That way you have their authority early.
Start tracking success. Come up with some goals and how you will get there. It could be participation, stakeholder engagement, process improvement etc. This will take some research.
Lastly, JOIN SOME AGILE GROUPS. Seriously, you will feel alone sometimes because 9 times out of 10 you will be when someone asks you to do scrum. I found some great podcasts, blogs, and reached out to agile coaches within my organization. By doing so, I found out I wasn’t alone and most of the issues I was facing were normal. I also found out, that people LOVE it, they LOVE talking about SCRUM. Seeing the passion for it motivated me to try harder.

At the end of the day, I am doing this on top of my system design engineering duties and it is not fun. I’m not going to lie. I think if I was back in management consulting where we take a formal approach to change management and business process improvement, it would be much more rewarding. However, casually “doing scrum” is not the way to go.