Category Archives: Templates

Agile, Ceremonies, Templates

Iteration Review

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Although this material may be found in a variety of places on the web, clients have often asked me to provide them write-ups and explanations.  Enclosed is a brief summary of the Iteration Review.

Pre-Requisites

Product Owner, Team and ScrumMaster shouldn’t spend more than 1 hour prepping for an Iteration Review.  Ideally is should take about 30 minutes for them to agree on what they are presenting and demonstrating.

Duration

½ hour to 2 hours

Purpose

The Purpose of the Iteration Review is for the Product Owner, Team, and ScrumMaster to present the Iteration’s product increment to their stakeholders.  Often this is driven by the Product Owner and he/she drives communication with his/her constituents.  The Team supports the Product Owner by providing a demonstration or presentation of the work that was done.  Typically the Product Owner provides the color commentary as the Team presents the product increment.

It’s very important for the Product Owner, Team and ScrumMaster to have ample time for interaction with their Stakeholders and encourage them to provide feedback.

The ScrumMaster typically helps collect the data for the “Quadrant Page”.

The Quadrant Page consists of four areas:

  1. Iteration Goal,
  2. Named User Stories for the Committed for the Iteration,
  3. Targeted User Stories for the Upcoming Iteration,
  4. Iteration Metrics.

The Iteration Metrics that are typically of interest are:

  • # of Stories Committed,
  • # of Points Committed,
  • # of Stories Delivered,
  • # of Stories Not Delivered,
  • Iteration Velocity,
  • Average Velocity,
  • # of Test Cases Run,
  • # of Defects,
  • # of Defects Fixed,
  • # of Defects Rejected.

Attendees

Participants1

  • Product Owner
  • Team
  • ScrumMaster
  • Stakeholders

Observers2

  • Anyone

Concludes

When the team has finished presenting the product increment and the stakeholders have had their questions answered and/or feedback captured.

Standard Scrum Ceremonies / Meetings

  1. Participants in this document refer to individuals critical to the meeting and are allowed to talk during the meeting. ↩
  2. Observers in this document refer to individuals allowed to observe meetings, but aren’t allowed to talk during the meeting. ↩

Agile, Ceremonies, Templates

Iteration Retrospective

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Although this material may be found in a variety of places on the web, clients have often asked me to provide them write-ups and explanations.  Enclosed is a brief summary of the Iteration Retrospective.

Pre-Requisites

None (for the “basic” Retrospective)

Duration

1 to 1 ½ hours

Purpose

The purpose of Iteration Retrospective is for the Team, Product Owner and ScrumMaster to reflect on the Iteration and inspect and adapt.  There are a variety of ways to run a Iteration Retrospective, but the “basic” Retrospective poses three questions to the participants:

  1. “What worked well?”
  2. “What did not work well?”
  3. “What should we change, add, or remove?”

Unless otherwise agreed to by the participants, the findings and discussions of an Iteration Retrospective are considered private to the team.  The reason is this is considered a “safe” meeting for the team.  They should feel free to discuss whatever they like without repercussion or concerns.

Often the Iteration Retrospective is under-valued by those new to Agile, but this is a very important activity.  This is the only meeting dedicated to improving the team.

Attendees

Participants1

  • Team
  • ScrumMaster
  • Product Owner (optional, but we feel it’s very beneficial to teaming if they attend)

Observers2

  • None

Concludes

The Iteration Retrospective concludes when the team feels they’ve completed answering the 3 questions and when improvement actions are documented and assigned for the upcoming iteration.

Standard Scrum Ceremonies / Meetings

  1. Participants in this document refer to individuals critical to the meeting and are allowed to talk during the meeting. ↩
  2. Observers in this document refer to individuals allowed to observe meetings, but aren’t allowed to talk during the meeting. ↩

Agile, Ceremonies, Stand-Ups, Templates

Daily Stand-Up / Scrum Meeting

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Although this material may be found in a variety of places on the web, clients have often asked me to provide them write-ups and explanations.  Enclosed is a brief summary of the Daily Stand-Up / Scrum Meeting.

Pre-Requisites

Participants have updated their tasks to reflect new estimates for their work.

Duration

15 Minutes (maximum) + time for the “16th Minute”

Purpose

The purpose of this meeting is for the team to re-synchronize and re-evaluate their progress with each other on a daily basis.  Note: it’s not a status meeting for the ScrumMaster; it is a daily planning meeting for the team, as they are planning their work for the day.

The stand-up is for the team to make sure they still feel they are on-track, synchronize their work with their teammates, re-evaluate work remaining, and identify / raise impediments.

Each participant answers 3 questions:

  1. “What did I get done yesterday?”
  2. “What do I plan on accomplishing today?”
  3. “Do I have any impediments?”

Often because of time zone challenges I suggest changing the questions to:

  1. “What did I get done since the last stand-up?”
  2. “What do I plan on getting done before the next stand-up?”
  3. “Do I have any impediments that I wish to escalate that I require assistance with?”

Attendees

Participants1

  • Team
  • ScrumMaster
  • Product Owner (optional, but we feel it’s very helpful if they regularly attend)

Observers2

  • Anyone

Concludes

When each participant in attendance has provided their update to the team and the team has reviewed the burn-down chart.

The “16th Minute”

After the Stand-Up concludes, we encourage the participants to stay around and work things out as needed.  It’s also an opportunity for Observers to then ask questions of the team.  Team members that are impacted are identified prior to the beginning of the 16th minute.  Others are free to leave.

For scheduling purposes plan on another 15 minutes, but it is typically less than that.

Standard Scrum Ceremonies / Meetings

  1. Participants in this document refer to individuals critical to the meeting and are allowed to talk during the meeting. ↩
  2. Observers in this document refer to individuals allowed to observe meetings, but aren’t allowed to talk during the meeting. ↩

Agile, Ceremonies, Planning, Templates

Iteration Planning – Part 2

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Although this material may be found in a  variety of places on the web, clients have often asked me to provide them write-ups and explanations.  Enclosed is a brief summary of Iteration (Sprint) Planning Part 2 for Agile Teams.

Pre-Requisites

Iteration Planning – Part 1 has completed.

Duration

1 to 2 hours

Purpose

On Day 1 of the Iteration the Team takes the stories they’ve discussed with the Product Owner and decide what tasks they need to create to deliver that story and the estimates (in hours) associated with each one of those tasks.

The Product Owner is not required during Part 2 of Iteration Planning.  Often the Product Owner is “on call” if the Team has questions.  Usually as Teams mature, Part 2 of Iteration Planning is not facilitated by the ScrumMaster.  The ScrumMaster charges the team with what they need to accomplish and asks the team when we can get back together with the Product Owner to review.  That may often take 1 to 2 hours depending upon the number of stories pulled into the Iteration.

Note: if the entire team is not present during Iteration Planning – Part 2, it will take longer for the team to commit to their body of work.

Attendees

Participants1

  • Team
  • ScrumMaster (depends on team maturity, in the beginning the ScrumMaster is typically more involved)
  • Product Owner (on demand, as required)

Observers2

  • Not applicable, although anyone could observe, but as teams mature this activity is often done distributed and “heads-down” by the team members.

Concludes

The Team, Product Owner and ScrumMaster will re-convene and review the tasks identified to support the stories.  As a group they will conduct a “sanity check” to confirm that we have the right tasks.  Additionally, they will check to see if they have too much work or not enough work for the iteration.  If so, the Product Owner and the team will adjust accordingly.

After the team plans out the tasks, in ideal hours, the ScrumMaster will assist the team in comparing against their available capacity.

Part 2 of Iteration Planning concludes when the team commits to the work for the Iteration.

Standard Scrum Ceremonies / Meetings

  1. Participants in this document refer to individuals critical to the meeting and are allowed to talk during the meeting. ↩
  2. Observers in this document refer to individuals allowed to observe meetings, but aren’t allowed to talk during the meeting. ↩

Agile, Ceremonies, Planning, Templates

Iteration Planning – Part 1

2 Comments

Although this material may be found in a variety of places on the web, clients have often asked me to provide them write-ups and explanations.  Enclosed is a brief summary of Iteration (Sprint) Planning Part 1 for Agile Teams.

Pre-Requisites

The Iteration Goal or Theme has been identified by the Product Owner.   The Product Owner has a prioritized list (based on business value, risk and dependencies) of user stories (stories) that he/she wants the team to deliver by the end of the Iteration.

Note: the less prepared the Product Owner is the longer Iteration Planning – Part 1 will take (see Product Backlog Grooming to determine how to make Iteration Planning more effective).

Duration

1 to 2 hours

Purpose

On Day 1 of the Iteration the Product Owner and Team discuss the prioritized stories.  The Product Owner will present the story to the team, and together they will create and agree on the stories acceptance criteria.

Once the team feels they understand the story, they will then conduct Planning Poker.  Planning Poker is an activity the Team conducts to determine the relative size of a story compared to other stories in their product backlog.  There are a variety of ways to size stories, but the simplest and often most effective way is to size a story based on Extra Small (XS), Small (S), Medium (M), Large (L) and Extra-Large (XL).

The Scrum Master will assist the team by showing them their planned velocity vs. historical velocity, to make sure it is work the team can accept.  This will be further validated at the end of Iteration Planning – Part 2 when the team commits to their work.

Attendees

Participants1

  • Product Owner
  • Team
  • ScrumMaster

Observers2

  • Anyone

Concludes

This meeting concludes when the team feels they have enough work for the Iteration and are ready to task out each story in detail so they can determine the steps required to deliver the story for their Product Owner.  The team then moves on to Iteration Planning – Part 2.

Standard Scrum Ceremonies / Meetings

  1. Participants in this document refer to individuals critical to the meeting and are allowed to talk during the meeting. ↩
  2. Observers in this document refer to individuals allowed to observe meetings, but aren’t allowed to talk during the meeting. ↩