Another nice introduction to Scrum

One of the reasons I like Scrum so much its simplicity and the how easy it is to learn it to new comers and start working with it in a view minutes, of course mastering it need years. That’s why whenever I found a good short introduction to Scrum I always point to it and encourage everyone to read it.

Danube Technologies, the creators of ScrumWorks the bets Scrum project management software I ever found so far, just released a 5-page Illustrated Summary about scrum I consider one of the best documents you can use to introduce Scrum to your team in an easy way.

You can download it from here.

Scrum Gathering Orlando 2009 Sessions.

Update: for an up-to-date list of available presentations from the gathering check the ScrumAlliance website.

For those, like me, who weren't lucky to attend the scrum gathering, here is a list of the sessions:
Source [ScrumAlliance]

• The Scrum Alliance Moving Forward: Ken Schwaber
• Scrum Research at Carnegie Mellon: Dr. Mark Paulk
• Leading Self-Organizing Teams: Mike Cohn
• Not your Grandfather's Architecture: How MVC has evolved into the Agile world: Dr. Jeff Sutherland & Jim Coplien
• Show Me the Software!: Ron Jeffries & Chet Hendrickson
• View from PMI: Gregory Balestrero
• Leading Self-Organizing Teams: Mike Cohn
• You thought you knew Scrum? A Ken-and-Alistair Duet: Ken Schwaber & Dr. Alistair Cockburn
• Stories of a Very Large Scale Implementation of Scrum: James Schiel & Kiran Thakkar
• Helping Pigs Fly: Tom Mellor
• KeyCorp and Agile – An Interesting Relationship: Tom Seffernick & Lalit Talesara
• Scrum in the Waterfall: Dave Prior
• Legally Agile-A View from Lady Justice: Bob Schatz & Dan Schatz
• Adobe's Scrum Adoption Experience: Peter Green & Peter Smith
• Improved Team Dynamics as a Result of Scrum: Brian Diffin & Emad Georgy
• Relating PMI's PMBOK Practices to Scrum: Michele Sliger
• Implementing Scrum on a Large Scale: Dan LeFebvre
• Scrum Embedded Systems: Bent Myllerup
• Death by Scrum Meeting: Pete Behrens
• Becoming Agile-an experience report of Agile from small to large organizations: Gabrielle Benefield
• Product Owner Roles & Responsibilities: Danny Kovatch
• How I use the Burndown Chart: Arne Ahlander
• The Agile PMO: Scaling Scrum through Adaptive Governance: Sanjiv Augustine
• We can’t go to market, we haven’t built enough!  How product owners can change the nature of delivery: Robin Dymond & Jeff Patton
• Top Ten (or so) Things I Learned in Implementing Scrum at Double Click: Karen Delfau
• Keep NASA Flying with Scrum: Bob Schatz & John J. Hopkins
• What should we do next?: Philipe Kruchten
• Mapping the Change Battlefield: George Schlitzand Giora Morein
• Introducing Scrum within a Start-Up Games Company: Harvey Wheaton
• PMP? ScrumMaster? So what's the difference?: Jesse Fewell
• Scrum at UOL: Alexandre dos Santos & Andreas Schliep
• Grooming the Product Backlog: Roman Pichler
• Scaling Scrum to Large Teams-Experiences of Implementation from 20 countries Worldwide: Patric Palm, Hansoft
• Marriage of Prince 2 & Scrum: Martin Kearns
• Agile Creation of Multi-Product Solutions (SOA and Scrum): Thoralf Klatt
• Adopting Scrum at CNN-Transforming a Culture (Getting the Horse to Drink): Michael Wollin
• Inspect & Adapt: Cheryl Neeser & Rod Hunter
• Nourishing Agile Projects: Paul Ellarby
• ScrumBut Research: Gary Morgan

And for the Open Space sessions: Source [TMI]

• How to size the backlog with diverse product and team member skill sets - David Fox
• Backlogs aren't perfect! Use story maps - Andy
• Discuss issues in multiple distributed offshore teams with FTE - Anon
• Dual Managers vs. IPM and ICSM on teams. Does it work? - Deb C
• Empowered scrum teams - Lee Heuser
• Transformation (what does this mean to an organization and culture) - Anon
• Scrum metrics and myths - Pete Behrens
• Fixed Price! Is it me or Agile/IP is a different thing altogether? - Anon
• Scrum and large number of external dependencies - Jorge Hernandez
• How do you coordinate large projects? 1st steps in scaling scrum - Dan LeFebre
• PMI (a pre-set session)
• What is the best way to organize your backlog? - Grover Trunell
• Scrum Anonymous - Steve Fram
• Where is QA gone? Regression platform test - Philippe Huert
• Applying scrum framework  to solutions that aren't software exclusive - Anon
• Scrum Must Die! - Tobias Meyer
• How do you manage managers that are die-hard micromanagers? - Alfred Kauser
• Need feedback on design visions for releases - Raffi
• What are right sized user stories? - anon
• Beyond open space: what else can we do to innovate scrum gathering formats? - Krishan
• Virtual online scrum training and conferences - Dan Greening
• What is a certified scrum coach? - Roger Brown
• Creating executable specifications - Warren Elliott
• Interactive games for teams - Tobias Meyer & Chris Sims
• How I found Courage as an agile coach - Siraj
• How to incorporate front end/user interface design into scrum planning - Michelle J
• Anti-PMI - Anon
• Is the burden of technical debt dragging you down? - Philippe Kruchten
• How do you handle daily scrums when daily attendance isn't realistic? - Ram Bhat
• Effective approaches to sizing work across projects - Luis Morgas
• Sprint Artifacts - Denise Richards
• Secret Scrum (when the customers don't know) - Jody
• How can you capitalize software development costs with scrum? - Jason
• Sprint reviews: who are they really for? - Bob Schnitz
• Scrum and HR/Organizing for Scrum - Marites & Mikael Boman
• How to be a good scrum master? Boris Gloger
• SW Engineering in the 21st century - Alistair Cockburn
• Discuss and help improve small companies using scrum and CMNI - Anon
• Testing (traditional QA/QC) When does it happen? - Anon
• I want to learn how to tell if my product's enterpise quality within scrum - Ken
• Product owners: representing a diverse stakeholder community - Lowell
• Implementing scrum.com using comic strips to start tough conversations - Mike Vizdos
• How to write agile contracts? - Anon
• Becoming a certified scrum practitioner - Anon
• Scrum on the boundaries - Michael Madden
• Backlog granularity and business value - Anon
• Scrum tools - Jody
• Use cases vs stories - Luis Morgas
• Games creation session - Alan Cyment
• BV engineering - Joe Little
• Agile analysis (grooming backlogs) - Luis Morgas
• Meeting others: Let's play werewolf! - Anon

Top 100 Blogs for Developers

http://www.noop.nl/2009/03/top-100-blogs-for-developers-q1-2009.html

ScrumAlliance has a new website and services.

As part of the currently running scurm alliance gathering in Orlando Ken announced in his keynote some very interesting news. Unfortunately I’m not attending this gathering but following from the internet. The announcements that caught my interest are:

• New web site http://www.scrumalliance.org/
• Next gatherings in Sao Paulo, Brazil in May; Munich, Germany in October; and back to Orlando in 2010.
• ScrumAlliance has physical home.
  
• ScrumHub, operated from the physical home in Boston, domain experts of the various parts of the domain knowledge of Scum will help organizations who wants to implements scrum throw consultation, seminars and workshops.
• Video conferences and webinars. Beginners can start with watching the Scrum Fundamentals video.
• ScrumBut, where you can request a virtual event for your usergroup, team, or organization. Ken tells more about the idea in this video, jump to 3:15 if you are impatient.

Scrum alliance also published a very nice guide explaining what is scrum, you can download it here.

Stay tuned for more updates about the gathering.

What will happen if you break the build?

Critical Project Management Lessons from Wile E. Coyote - Part 2 and 3 | Daily Cup of Tech

Here they are part 2 and 3 are more funnier than the first one.

In part 2 Tim discussed:

• Know Your Limits
• Think Through All Possible Outcomes of Your Actions
• More Complicated Isn’t Always the Answer
• Don’t Get Trapped by Brand Loyalty
• Spend Your Funds Wisely

Critical Project Management Lessons fom Wile E. Coyote - Part 2 | Daily Cup of Tech

And in part 3:

• Know When You are Beat
• Some Things You Can’t Learn from a Book
• Always Test Before You Deploy
• Keep Your Emotions In Check
• Don’t Lose Focus

Critical Project Management Lessons fom Wile E. Coyote - Part 3 | Daily Cup of Tech

That prove you can find wisdom even in a simple animation clips.

A lesson for all UI designers out there.

Less is more.

Designing Interactions