scrum

XP vs Traditional good project management

Hi, I have been in the IT industry for 10 years now but have worked in "traditionally" managed project teams (both well managed and badly managed ones). I have heard of the "new" scrum or XP type of project management and yearned to be part of one (as s/w folks we always like anything new I guess) but have not got an opportunity. My q...

What are estimate points ,Story points and how to measure them in SCRUM?

Lets take an example suppose we got 5 stories A,B and C,D,E. Importance Name Estimate 90 B 70 A 50 C 35 E 10 D The stories are ordered based on their importance(priority) now how you do estimate them? Is it estimated based on size of the feature? If so what does that numeric Value so for exam...

Story estimates in Scrum

We started a project that will be managed with Scrum/XP. We wrote the whole product backlog upfront for evaluation purposes. We're making sure all stories are customer-centric and we're evaluating them by story business value: MoSCoW technique - Must, should, could, would/won't have this implemented story effort/complexity (= story poi...

Product backlog management using Excel (or Excel's XML Spreadsheet 2003 feature with SVN merging)

We have Product Backlog in an Excel Spreadsheet that we also commit to SVN, so everyone can open use it and update to latest version. The problem we have is: How do you enable Excel spreadsheet to be simultaneously used by many people and not override each other's data. Some kind of merging data? Is it at all possible? We would like to...

Agile, Waterfall, Scrum... how difficult is it to transition a team into iterative development?

What are the challenges of transition a team in a corporate atmosphere from a traditional non-iterative, spec list, gantt chart, phase dependent team to a more iterative approach? Moreover, what was a successful way to gain acceptance with other groups while using a newer development strategy? ...

Scrum - Are you a chicken or a pig?

As I am just learning about Scrum, it seems to me that for part of an iteration you may be a chicken but then become a pig when it comes time to do your part. Then go back to being a chicken. Is this correct thinking? That your stake in the iteration will change during an iteration? if not how does that work? because when software is bui...

Do you have offshore Development/QA team members (which work for a different corp.) as a part of onshore Scrum Team?

Considering the offshore Developers/Testers work for a different company, would you recommend for/against having them in the onshore Scrum (first ever) effort? i.e., Just have the internal developer working with them on a daily bases to represent them onshore or to have all of them (7~9 total developers/QA) become part of the onshore Scr...

Is Scrum effective on a team where all of its members are amateurs?

We have proposed to use Scrum in our IT Project and our Adviser asks us if it is appropriate to us because we are still amateurs. Is it appropriate to us Scrum even if we are amateurs? ...

Scrum certification?

Is saw that are out there Scrum certifications to become certified scrum master!?. I'm not a big fan of certifications in general, but getting a certification for a methodology, for a way of doing things doesn't make sense at all to me. Can you give me other perspectives please, maybe I am wrong. ...

Scrum on Google Docs ? Best implementation contest ;)

Hi Im looking for yours best practices for using Google Docs to scrum management. I found many entries on blogs about using Google Docs to serving sprint log, burndown chart etc. but is very difficult get value example of this "Docs". Please share Yours best Google Doc for Scrum. ...

with agile estimating, is it true some say to choose intervals like 1/2 to 1.5 days only?

with agile estimating, is it true some say to choose intervals like 1/2 to 1.5 days only? ...

Non-tested product in the end of Sprint in Scrum methodology.

Hi guys! Here's a problem. Developers have some kind of a task (develop certain feature), which takes about the length of a sprint. So, by the end of the sprint developers are happy since they just finalized their part. BUT. The product is not QAd, so it can't be distinguished as "potentially shippable" since it most likely will contai...

Scrum: Technical items in a backlog that is managed by a non technical PO?

Should technical items such as "Upgrade sever from v1 to v2" or "Increase startup performance" or "Refactor login module to reduce code complexity" go in to the product backlog and if so how should a non technical product owner be able to prioritize them v.s other more functional backlog items? Should there be a separate backlog for tec...

How effective is scrum for short-timespan projects?

For projects that should take between two and six weeks, is Scrum the right way? Having read up on Scrum a bit, I was left with the impression Scrum is an excellent choice for mid to large sized projects. ...

Can Agile/Scrum be used by 1 or 2 developers?

Everything I've been reading and researching up to this point describes how Agile/Scrum works great with teams of about 4 to 6 members, maybe even more. In my current shop, we have about 8 developers or so, but given the nature of the volume of projects and the number of departments we support, we never have more than 1 or 2 folks assig...

Celebrating a sprint retrospective for team in different locations

I'm part of a small development team (3-4 of us) that uses the Scrum methodology. One of the team is a developer out in India, (we're in the UK), which actually works really well for us, we have daily scrums through Skype calls. I'm going to do a sprint retrospective at the end of this week. This has been a pretty significant sprint for...

Scrum in a fixed cost project

I have read the agile manifesto and spend a nice day surfing the web in search for this elusive answer. But sadly I did not get an answer that would cover all the basis. If watching all the blog posts and news casts of agile preachers, you just hear about open scope or open "time" projects. How do you apply this to a fix cost project? ...

What's wrong with my Scrum TFS charts?

The Sprint Burndown Chart says I have about 150 hours outstanding. The Sprint Cumulative Flow Chart suggests that I have about: 100 hrs 'Not Done' 150 hrs 'In Progress' 50 hrs 'Ready For Test' If I sum up the actual SBIs in the sprint I get the following numbers... 100 hrs 'Not Done' 50 hrs 'In Progress' 5 hrs 'Ready For Test' C...

Redmine and Scrum

What is the best support for Scrum in Redmine? Best practices? Plugin support? All plugins I've tried are either not that active anymore and/or not up to the task of managing a major project using Scrum. I've googled to no avail... ...

Who should fix bugs in a Scrum/Agile environment?

In your opinion, who should fix a bug? A programmer, right? OK but really, who... let me explain. I'm a Scrum Master across a number of Scrum projects. Scrum says 'ring-fence your resources where possible', a sentiment I whole-heartedly agree with. Generally we integrate a certain %age of each sprint to be bug-fixing from the pre...