scrum

How many times do you verify a task in Scrum?

On our Scrum board, tasks start at 'To Do', go to 'In Progress', and when you're done with a task, they move to 'To Verify' before ending up in 'Done'. The 'To Verify' column is when you're done with a task and someone else can have a look at it, test it, and comment on it. This has proven helpful for errors, better code, etc. To peopl...

Do you find Scrum Nokia Test useful?

It seems Scrum and Agile tests/assertions are becoming popular this year. For example, Nokia test for Scrum. I don't think it is a good idea to have such tests at all. What do you think? ...

Where can I find a good Scrum Book in Spanish?

Has anybody any experience with a Spanish Scrum Book that they can recommend? ...

How best to do Agile Development with Trac?

We use Trac as our bug tracking / development / wiki system and I was wondering if anyone has experience and uses some of the Trac Agile/Scrum plugins or functionalities? Anything you'd recommend? Or would it be better to duplicate Trac tickets as dead-tree user story index cards and a hand-drawn burndown chart? Note that I found a s...

Maintaining releases/branches in an "agile" rhythm ?

We have a software product that evolves at the rhythm of clients' needs and of a more general roadmap. Because we are in a SCRUM project environment, it happens very regurlarly that a new feature makes its way to the product, and then we are confronted with the choice of: implementing this feature in an already released branch (not re...

How to blend CMMI and Scrum?

I work in a shop that is certified at CMMI level 5. This certification is important because it gives us access to certain customers and contracts. I'm looking at how to blend Scrum with CMMI. I've found some info on mixing Scrum with CMMI-3, but quite a bit of it is "hand wavy" and wouldn't hold up to intense scrutiny. Specifically, ...

Using Scrum in fix-length/fix-priced projects?

I'm a Scrum newbie and looking to implement Scrum in my company. Obtaining buy-in is not a problem, it is my company and the developers are more than happy to work like this. The problem is that 75% of our revenue is derived from fixed length/fixed price projects. Ken Schwaber in his book, Agile Project Management with Scrum, covers t...

Sprint Lengths - 2 week vs 30 days

I want to implement Scrum, but I can't decide on a Sprint length. Ken Schwaber seems to relate that 30 days it the defacto... but I can't imagine waiting 30 days without the possibility of changing direction or reprioritizing. Our projects usually only last 1-3 months using the waterfall method and moving to Scrum would probably mean l...

Velocity for small projects

I currently learning about scrum and want to learn from experienced professionals in the subject. Is velocity relevant for project that take 3 month (and usually have 2-3 intermediate deliveries to customer) ? I think it's not enough time to make a statistic relevant. Is it worth to record velocity per developer across the project to g...

Engineer accountability and code review processes

In your “enterprise” work environment, how are engineers held accountable for performing code inspections and unit testing? What processes do you follow (formal methodology or custom process) to ensure the quality of your software? Do you or have you tried implementing a developer "signoff" sheet for deliverables? Thanks in advance! ...

Have you had a bad experience with Scrum or Sprinting?

Has anybody had a bad or very bad experience or stories with Scrum or Sprinting, that you can share with a n00b so that he doesn't make the same mistake? If you had a problem, what were your lessons learned? What would you do differently or have done differently, to avoid the problem again? ...

Obtaining Management Buy-in on Process

The company I work for has historically had very little process as far as software development. Currently we don't really follow any specific method. The problem is of course it makes it difficult to plan, successfully have a decent release or even attract good software developers. I think I may be able to convince them to do some s...

How do you apply Scrum to maintenance and legacy code improvements?

As the title suggest... How can I apply a scrum process to anything that doesn't work on new code and can be estimated to some degree? How can I apply a scrum process to maintenance and emergency fixes (which can take from 5 minutes to 2 weeks to fix) type of environment when I still would like to plan to do things? Basically, how do I...

What is the best book on Scrum in German?

Can anyone recommend a good Scrum book in German? We are organizing some Scrum training but I would also like to get the team to read something as a primer. We have the classic "Agile Software Development with Scrum" book (Schwaber/Beedle) in English but it doesn't seem to be available in German. Can any German speakers recommend someth...

Scrum, but with no testing or documentation

What do you do when you join a team that says they use Scrum, but only use it as a time-management tool and not the whole process? How can I reinstate back testing and documentation? I was thinking to start off with adding user stories specifically for testing and documenting. Perhaps someone else has more experience with this then I do...

Is Agile Development Dead?

There's been lots of articles as of late declaring that Agile, Scrum or XP are "dead" or are "circling the drain". While I personally don't think agile development is dead, I wondered what others out there thought. Is agile dying, or are people just not following the practices and principles and thereby diluting what agile software devel...

How do you make 'scrum' work when participants are 12 time zones apart?

Is it even sensible to try forming a scrum when one of the participants is in India (+05:30), and others are in the US (-06:00 and -08:00)? There isn't a comfortable meeting time for everyone with that. ...

What do you like and what do you not like about the scrum process?

I'm on a team that uses scrum for our development process. We are currently trying to revamp certain aspects of our process to address some of the problems we've noticed lately. In doing so, we are exploring what it is that we like about the scrum process in general as well as what we don't like in order to help us identify what we as ...

How does a Scrum Master "manage" an out of control Product Owner?

I new to Scrum and while I understand the team concept behind the Sprints, I imagine there still needs to be a guardian for the team who minimizes the interference from Product Owners who are not conversant in software development. What are your successes, and what horror stories have you lived through? Update: I am looking for the ba...

Using Scrum on a "Personal Time" Project

Hi, I'm starting up a personal project to develop some open source software. I want to use Scrum as the PM process on this (as I like the Product Backlog, prioritisation, and if I can get them, the burndowns) but it seems to me that I won't get the full value because I can't at the outset guarantee the amount of time myself and my col...