Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Scrum tales - part 1

Developers, Support and Analysis teams have now had their first experience working with new TFS Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 template and I'm seeing Product backlogs forming, Sprint planning meetings underway

I'm still getting good number of questions, both systems (Scrum) and operational (TFS), i.e.:
1) How do I initiate a Sprint when I have 5 large Product backlog items and all are of the same priority?
You can't because you don't know which one to take first - make sure you have Product backlog items all with different priority approved by Product owner before you initiate Sprint planning meeting. No two goals should have the same priority

2) What do I do when one Product backlog item cannot be worked on in parallel, can I start the next one in the Sprint?
Yes - you can organize internally in the team in order to achieve goals you committed to the best way possible

3) Can I add tasks that include waiting on other people/teams to send me something?
No - why would you commit to a goal that you don't know you can finish? Identify impediments early and resolve them before the next sprint. If there are unforeseen obstacles that show up during a sprint, add an Impediment work item to your Sprint backlog and it is now up to the ScrumMaster to close it ASAP. Until an Impediment is closed proceed working on tasks next in line

There are more use cases and I'm sure we'll encounter even more in the upcoming weeks. I'll put them up as they appear. Everyone should feel free to post back thoughts and questions

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