AGILE TRAINING ~ CONSULTANCY ~ COACHING

One of the things I can't over emphasise enough when coaching agile techniques or working with a team is the importance of keeping everything 'real' and 'physical' I'm an enormous fan of the  'Information Radiator'  despite being accused numerous times of being a 'bit old school' and once told by a manager that a task board didn't reflect well on an IT department! A task board is a brilliant way of being visible and visibility helps to encourage collaboration and trust. Writing stories on index cards or post-it notes is the start to working collaboratively - you can touch and feel the story... pass it around sequence them on a board as a team and discuss each story - it's something that just doesn't happen when using a computer based system. If I'm being really honest - I secretly wonder if teams who don't use a physical task board are really all that agile or just scrum-buts! That might sound a bit far stret...

This is a brilliant little game I love playing with both new and experienced agile teams... Unfortunately I can't claim any credit as I never came up with it! Preferably it's best to play with a team who are already doing some level of agile practices and are already doing the daily stand-up. Ask for one volunteer in the group to play Scrum master and give the rest of them a card with one of the following 'secret' objectives on, It's important that team members don't discuss their hidden role before hand :- Arrive late. Hidden impediment: Mention an impediment/blocker but don’t be obvious about it Noisy chicken: start by saying, "I’m only an observer" and then report on things the group doesn’t care about. Silent chicken: as an observer, just say "pass" or "I’m just observing" when it’s your turn Ask a clarifying question on somebody else’s turn. Ramble on until you’re asked to move on. Try to side...