Steve Neiderhauser

Scrum Master as Teacher

Barry Overeem writes that the ScrumMaster is also a teacher.

What should a ScrumMaster teach? Barry provides 12 examples.

Perhaps one of the most important is teaching the team to self-organize. Self-organizing teams are important because we live in a complex world and no one manager can deal with all the challenges of our new world.

You may want to teach the team how to lead their daily standup. If they can't self-organize their daily standup, it's unlikely they'll self-organize during the sprint.

Start Finishing

Excellent post and story board that shows why it's critical to stop starting and start finishing.

One Hour Master Class on Scrum

In this one hour presentation, Jeff Sutherland does what only he can do and delivers a Master Class on software development.

Watch it and absorb his wisdom.

Update: After watching Jeff's presentation for a second time, I identified these key patterns that will take your teams to greatness.

Stable teams

Small teams (5 to 6 people)

Self organizing teams

Complete work by end of sprint

Team happiness

One piece flow

Lean Principles

Teams interact with customer

Test-Driven Development - Evolving software

Continuous Integration

Continuous Delivery

Smash impediments; Create an executive action team for enterprise impediments

Stop Writing Code You Can't Test Yet

You may be working in an immature Agile environment if developers gin up a batch of code that can't be tested by sprint's end.

Developers should think in terms of systems and total system throughput.

Dennis Stevens writes an excellent article on what developers should be doing instead of creating a bunch of work in progress.

Near end of sprint, I coach my developers to perform a spike, if needed. Spikes are small experiments that help developers understand how to solve a design problem. James Shore provides a detailed description of spikes.

How to Make Your Team Hyperproductive

Check out Jeff Sutherland's suggestions for making your Scrum team crazy productive.

Here's three of Jeff's eleven rules to increase performance.

Backlog must be Ready before pulling into sprint

Team uses a physical scrum board

No multitasking

Creative Writing

I recently finished a class from Screenwriters University.

I recommend screenwriting classes to business people because this form of writing develops your creativity and makes you more entertaining. And in the creative economy entertaining ideas are important.

Here's some dialogue I wrote.

He can wake up from a bump on the head. Not so much from a bullet in the head.

Focused on parallel structure, I didn't realize the same word appears at the end of each sentence. My teacher, the talented Mr. Trottier gave me this note: Avoid the repetition of "head" by changing the last phrase to "bullet in the brain."

So I changed it:

He can wake up from a bump on the head. Not so much from a bullet in the brain.

You can hear how much more entertaining this sounds.

Metaphor - Agile Coaching Tool

In Co-Active Coaching, the authors describe the power of metaphor.

The skill of metaphor enables you to draw on imagery and experience to help the client comprehend faster and more easily. The question "Are you drifting in a fog?" creates a picture, an experience that engages the client at a very different level than "Are you confused?," which address the client's intellect.

I've taken several writing class and the concepts I learn in class often translate to Agile coaching. Consider this article by Roy Peter Clark where he tells us good writers move up and down the ladder of abstraction. For aging baseball players, there's this wonderful metaphor:

Age is the sweeper, injury his broom.

So when your Scrum team faces a problem like a chaotic work environment, construct an eye-opening metaphor.

Teal Organizations

Frederic Laloux provides a history of organizations and explains why we should want to work in a Teal company.

Simply read the article to discover the benefits of Teal.

There are two necessary conditions for creating a Teal organization.

1. Top leadership. The chief executive must have an integrated world view and psychological development consistent with the Teal paradigm. It's helpful if a few close colleagues share this perspective.

2. Ownership. Owners of the organization must also understand and embrace Teal world views...