Perfecting Scrum Basics

  One of the key influences that led to creation of the first Scrum was a paper on the Japanese way of new product development by Takeuchi and Nonaka [2]. This paper had a chart showing product development separated into silo’s (Type A), phases slightly...

Creation of the Agile Manifesto at Snowbird 2001 There was a dialogue in the scrumdevelopment group today on how customers should be involved with Scrum teams, prompting me to regurgitate a few of the examples I have been involved in since the first Scrum in 1993....

Now that I have given away Gmail accounts to anyone on the PatientKeeper development team who wants one, I have a few more to pass on to people in the Scrum community. If you have been looking for a Gmail account, send me a note. First come, first serve.

Primavera Looked for Something Better Bob Schatz came to Primavera a few years ago as the new Vice President of Development. He brought with him experiences from his career at General Electric and then a software start-up. Steeped in the principles of leadership,...

Larman, Craig. Agile and Iterative Development. Addison Wesley, 2003. I have received many requests for documentation of project failures caused by the waterfall method and the history of the many disasters introduced by accident when the Department of Defense...

Tonight, I am giving a presentation on SCRUM at the Boston Software Process Improvement Network monthly meeting at MITRE Corp. in Bedford, MA. It is a variant of the SCRUM Theory and Practice portion of the OTUG workshop I did in Minneapolis last year. Sutherland,...

In response to requests for presentations on Scrum, my lectures in Minneapolis in 2003 are the best material. I'm moving it back to the top of the page for those interested in checking out the slides and the first slide says it all: The Zen of SCRUM So simple, anyone...

For some years now, several authors of the Agile Manifesto have discussed Scrum as a process wrapper for XP processes. It's introduction to a new team can be quick and easy, and XP engineering processes can be adopted over time as the team can adapt. Also, Scrum has a...

At a meeting of the Microsoft Business Framework Advisory Council in Redmond last week, I was reminded once again that there is a lack of good component models in object design tools. The best one I have seen was created by the first software Scrum at Easel...

Pig Snouts at bullysticks.com Ken Schwaber started the pigs and chickens story in the early days of Scrum. The terminology is now under deep discussion in the newsgroups: A chicken and a pig were brainstorming... Chicken: Let's start a restaurant! Pig: What would we...

PHILADELPHIA---Teams of workers that labored together for several months in specially designed "war rooms" were twice as productive as their counterparts working in traditional office arrangements, a study by University of Michigan researchers has found. Results of...

Several people have asked me to republish historic information on Scrum. This was posted on my website in 1995 after Agile Manifesto signatory, Bob Martin, sounded off on project management. Group: comp.lang.smalltalk From: rmartin@rcmcon.com Robert Martin Org: R. C....

Naked Springboks tested at camp South Africans are agonising over their defeat by New Zealand. South African rugby players were subjected to naked toughening-up exercises at a gruelling boot camp before the World Cup in Australia. Some South Africans doubt the wisdom...

It is hard for people to realize how radical SCRUM is because it is such a simple process, anyone can do it. Here is an example to expand your thinking about SCRUM. Below is data from Jones, Capers. Applied Software Measurement, Second Edition. McGraw Hill, 1997 on...

Eric Raymond's analysis of the convergence of hacking, open source, and the agile movement is of interest. Eric is well known for writing two seminal open source articles that have strongly influenced the movement: "[Hacker] is a very complex term, but more than...

How do you optimize throughput in any systems process? Goldratt's book is extremely useful to any techncial expert, whether in software development, or a surgeon in the Operating Room of the Future. It is written as a novel, easy and fun to read, and based on...