Certified Scrum Master Day 2

Well day 2 of the Certified Scrum Master course is now completed and I am sat here in the Oslo executive Lounge and very nice it is indeed although the view is naff. Scandinavian chic at its best within the lounge. I was lucky enough to share a taxi to the airport with  a nice Lady from the North of Norway - just above the arctic circle whose English can only be described as superb.   The total price for the taxi was a ‘cheap’ £65 split two ways. I am told that it can often be £110 for a one way trip depending on Taxi Service. Access to Wi-Fi in the Airport costs an arm and a leg and Norway has had enough of my money so I am doing this offline J Before I tell you more about the course I will discuss the Indian restaurant I ate at last night.  Very good food indeed was to be had at the Jewel in the Crown in Oslo. However the prices – my gosh – about £27 for a main meal – and that’s before you start adding Nan Bread at £5 etc –Oslo must be one of the most expensive cities in the world and I am reliably told by the locals that it keeps getting more expensive. A pint of Cobra was £7 and then they add a suggested 25% gratuity to the bill that they hint should be spent. And you’ve guessed it – there were several other British guys in there away on business eating our favourite food! Enough!

Day 2 started with everyone changing seats to be in new groups. Today was again a period of lectures, anecdotes and exercises. “Scrum is full of holes” we were told by Ken. Ok, in the context of what he was talking about it made sense and I am not into quoting people out of context! SCRUM is a wrapper for engineering practices – and the ones you choose to implement are up to you. We created a product backlog, prioritised it, ordered it, worked out our capacity to do work, fitted it into a sprint within a release and generally agreed that recording historic estimates at a requirement level to come up with future estimates was so prone to error that it was pretty much pointless.  We lightly touched upon team psychology, implementing scrum within an organisation, the concerns about Scrum Masters also working as developers etc and the new roles for Project Managers. We also discussed Sprint retrospectives and so on.   Nothing was new to me as I had used or come across this stuff over and over again over the last 20 years but once again it was the perspectives from the participants that made you think hmmmm that’s a bit different! Many came from organisations that had implemented SCRUM in different ways, different flavours and so on – I wondered if anyone was actually using SCRUM as it is supposed to be (whatever that means!). “It’s all about common sense and we need to look to the Sprit of SCRUM for guidance”. Thanks Ken! That last bit might be a hard sell to hardnosed CEO’s so – note to self – do not mention spirit of SCRUM   to the CEO just mention the hard numbers that you know about, and fortunately there were some hard numbers I can use linked to from within the course material! I feel a much needed business case coming on to support the implementation of Agile!

Certified Scrum Master Course Day 1

Well, here I am in Norway and back in my hotel after spending the first day at the Felix Centre on a course with 60 other people interested n SCRUM, Yes I did say 60 other people. I was expecting a small class and my jaw probably dropped as I entered the room 5 minutes late - the Norwegians seem to be good on time-keeping - but my excuse is my taxi driver who could not understand my map after I got ‘lost’. Maybe. Yes I did pay the equivalent of £10 to go what could have been 100 yards - he did drive around for a bit…hmmmm - and it was only on walking back to my hotel I thought - hang on a minute! Anyway - I’m walking all the way tomorrow. And the cheapest fair from the Airport - 600 krona - which is over £65…crikey - the train would have been cheaper but I arrived late at nght. Anyway…the course…

The course

The course started with the warm up act - “what do you expect to get answered from this course” - and the questions got posted on the walls around the large room in the basement - with the intention of answering them over two days. My particular question was ‘where are the hard numbers and evidence on productivity gains to prove that SCRUM is worth doing’ - that could be fed into a business case to satisfy a demanding CEO - a fair enough question - and one I would be asking if I was the CEO if presented with a fuzzy - “this scrum stuff seems to work lets give it a shot” kind of argument!

The course is well structured and the hand out materials are fine. You can get most of the materials from within the two books written by Ken Schweiber - who was giving the course - dressed in a New Zealand All Blacks Shirt with Scrumalliance on the back! Being of Welsh Origin I thought - do not remind me! Ken is a very personable chap and very experienced in the industry - and this came through in his responses to the questions. I got the feeling that some of the participants thought SCRUM = Agile. Period. Whch it isn’t. The teams were arranged into groups of 6 - therefore 10 teams - I was number 61 - and was not even on the list - although I had received confirmation. Organisational hiccup.

The exercises were always time constrained - time-boxed I guess and were there to prove a point. There is never a right answer - and covered the usual suspects - keeping customers happy, prioriritised product backlogs, sprints, when does ‘done’ = done and so on and the importance of quality.  It was the questions from the participants that brought SCRUM to life. There were sometimes contradictions - for example - the Product Owner prioritises - optimally according to ROI - contrasted with - its up to the Product Owner what he wants even if it is not opimal - verses the need to be transparent to the business. Now if I had a Product Owner who kept picking non-optimal stuff with the Lowest ROI I would not be happy - and  would need to be pretty transparent with the business on what was happening…but that’s me - I like the numbers to make sense.  Could this happen - err…I think you will find that it can - its called pet projects.

The participants covered developers, testers, managing directors - you name it - they seemed to be there. When it comes to who owns the business case the answer was that the Product Owner prioritised against the business case and can cause the Project to Stop if necessary - because it costs more than originally planned, or because you are going to miss the date etc - i.e the ‘control/reporting’ job usually taken by the Project Manager. The Self-organising team concept ws stressed over and over again - so Project Managers might need to re-assess their roles in the future. This then leads to who leads the team  - the answer is the team is self-organising and the SCRUM Master is the facilitator. Well - yes I know that - but you could see the looks on some of the faces - contorted with a strange - hmmm - does that mean my job is ..er….hmm.. and so on. Its a paradigm shift.

The other burning question was one of emergent architectures. The need for up-front architecture verses one that unwinds as the project progresses. Ken gave an example that made sense for emerging architecture - but having been an architect in a former life I did not buy it - at least not fully - so this is something I will certainly write in the next few weeks. Interestingly he said that Motorola practised emerging architecture - but Motorola ia a big company - and I would be surprised if..and..if..and…get it!!

Day 1 over - I am off for a curry - yes I did see an Indian Restaurant in Oslo - good british food

SCRUM Master Course

Certified SCRUM XXXX courses! I have grappled with this one for ages. Should I attend, Should I not attend? For one thing they are very expensive and I am not sure that it would teach me any more than I already know! But the decision has been made and I am off to Norway for a 2 day course in a few weeks time. Crazy I know! I did hope to attend a course in Cardiff but it was cancelled a few weeks prior to the course! Anyhow, the course in Oslo is with Ken Schwaber etc.  I figured I would get to ask quite a few decent questions - Scalability, implementation within organisations (aka changing a culture is beep beep hard!),  and types of project it is suitable for.

I have my own views on what SCRUM is best for and no doubt there will be disagreement. I am a firm believer in horses for courses! That there are home bases on which different type of methodologies thrive based on environment, project type etc. I’ll let you know the outcome. In the meantime SCRUM courses can be booked here - www.scrumalliance.org/training . By the way I have no financial or other interest in it!

Or you could watch this