Steve and Andy discuss blog posts that have caught their attention on Scrum.org.
In this episode they talk about “How to Choose the Right Sprint Length in Scrum” By Staphanie Ockerman and “Agile Principles - Business People & Developers Must work together daily” by Simon Kneafsey.
Links and Sources:
Are you working with Scrum/Agile and have similar stories and tips to share? Or do you know someone that you want to voluntell to be a guest? Reach out! podcast@scrumfacilitators.com
Also check out our website, LinkedIn and Meetup
Steve and Andy discuss blog posts that have caught their attention on Scrum.org.
In this episode they talk about “How to Choose the Right Sprint Length in Scrum” By Staphanie Ockerman and “Agile Principles - Business People & Developers Must work together daily” by Simon Kneafsey.
Links and Sources:
Are you working with Scrum/Agile and have similar stories and tips to share? Or do you know someone that you want to voluntell to be a guest? Reach out! podcast@scrumfacilitators.com
Also check out our website, LinkedIn and Meetup
00:00:00 Steve Trapps
So back to Stephanie's blog well.
00:00:02 Andy Hiles
This is I mean I I.
00:00:04 Andy Hiles
Guess I haven't lost Stephanie blog, I mean.
00:00:05 Andy Hiles
It's all in there.
00:00:06 Andy Hiles
Yeah, I think it's.
00:00:07 Andy Hiles
It's kind of we've added some, we've added some Andy and Steve.
00:00:10 Andy Hiles
On top, but it's all in there.
00:00:13 Steve Trapps
Welcome to the scrum Facilitators Community podcast.
00:00:16 Steve Trapps
The place for real conversations around Scrum.
00:00:22 Steve Trapps
So welcome to Scrum Facilitators, blog reviews.
00:00:26 Steve Trapps
We're just coming up with a name.
00:00:27 Steve Trapps
This is the.
00:00:27 Steve Trapps
First time we're.
00:00:28 Steve Trapps
Doing this, hopefully we're gonna be doing a.
00:00:29 Steve Trapps
Lot more I'm saying we.
00:00:32 Andy Hiles
Let's let's see how this one goes.
00:00:35 Andy Hiles
Unless you have, it might regret this with us.
00:00:36 Steve Trapps
Guys, because Andy Highland is.
00:00:39 Steve Trapps
So, Andy, how are you today?
00:00:43 Andy Hiles
I am good.
00:00:44 Andy Hiles
I had a nice long walk back from dropping my car at the garage and then the garage phoned me up and said the bill I thought I was expecting isn't going to be as bad, which is always a good a good bit and you so.
00:00:56 Andy Hiles
So yes, I'm.
00:00:57 Steve Trapps
How are you?
00:00:58 Steve Trapps
Well, I went for.
00:00:59 Steve Trapps
A run this morning to to get.
00:01:01 Steve Trapps
Over the run that I went on.
00:01:03 Steve Trapps
On Wednesday night, yeah.
00:01:05 Steve Trapps
So I went down to the local athletics club and did the session with them.
00:01:10 Steve Trapps
And it Thursday just seemed to be awful.
00:01:15 Steve Trapps
So I thought I'm going to try and get my legs going.
00:01:17 Steve Trapps
And I was running like an old man this.
00:01:19 Steve Trapps
Morning, because I am an old man.
00:01:23 Steve Trapps
So the legs are failing me.
00:01:27 Steve Trapps
So thank you for listening.
00:01:29 Steve Trapps
The intention of this is.
00:01:30 Steve Trapps
That And and I.
00:01:32 Steve Trapps
We're going to look at blog posts.
00:01:34 Steve Trapps
Because you're busy and we also need to be looking at stuff as well, just to keep our knowledge going and also keep our appetites there.
00:01:41 Steve Trapps
So we're looking at blog posts on scrum.org. We're also looking at blog posts on proKanban as well.
00:01:48 Steve Trapps
Both Andy and I are scrum.org trainers and we're proKanban trainers as well, so best to both work.
00:01:54 Steve Trapps
So we are randomly picking really or looking at items that catch our eyes or catch our interest, which we think would be interesting to you.
00:02:03 Steve Trapps
OK, so these are our opinions. They're not scrum.org opinions. Here comes the the waiver, the disclaimer they are scrum, not scrum.org.
00:02:14 Steve Trapps
They're not proKanban opinions.
00:02:17 Steve Trapps
These are just random thoughts from Andy and Steve.
00:02:20 Andy Hiles
Even worse, they are opinions based upon other people's opinions from scrum.org.
00:02:29 Andy Hiles
What could be?
00:02:30 Andy Hiles
What could be better?
00:02:31 Andy Hiles
Than that, yeah, I think.
00:02:32 Andy Hiles
People have an opinion about something else that people have had an opinion about, yeah.
00:02:36 Andy Hiles
We roll with it.
00:02:37 Andy Hiles
We'll see.
00:02:38 Andy Hiles
That bit? We'll ignore that.
00:02:39
We we will link.
00:02:40 Steve Trapps
To we'll provide the links in the chat or whatever you know, we'll do that stuff that you get on blog.
00:02:46 Steve Trapps
Posts on on pod.
00:02:47 Steve Trapps
Yes, sorry of how you can find them.
00:02:49 Steve Trapps
So we're going to try and keep this as a regular thing as well.
00:02:52 Steve Trapps
So here's that's our invitation or our commitment to.
00:02:55 Andy Hiles
You we should we get into it?
00:02:58 Andy Hiles
Because we're waffling.
00:02:59 Andy Hiles
Let's get into it.
00:03:00 Andy Hiles
So the whole purpose of this was to have a look through these committee blogs and the one there are a few.
00:03:07 Andy Hiles
There were a few quite generally didn't catch my eye.
00:03:09 Andy Hiles
But the one that actually on that list that did was blog post by Stephanie Ackerman, which is called how to choose the right Sprint length in the.
00:03:18 Andy Hiles
Scrum, which I I found.
00:03:20 Andy Hiles
And immediately really interesting cause this is probably one of the internal debates that that Scrum masters will have.
00:03:28 Andy Hiles
One of the debates that organizations should have, and I think that that yeah, I think that's the emphasis.
00:03:34 Andy Hiles
Right is are you debating this within within your scrum teams within your organization?
00:03:40 Andy Hiles
What does the length of a Sprint mean to you?
00:03:43 Andy Hiles
This is that's the Andy Hills kind of thinking about this and where Stephanie kind of draws from which is, which is all around.
00:03:49 Andy Hiles
And what are the?
00:03:51 Andy Hiles
What are the factors that you could use in order to determine a Sprint length you know above other things, right?
00:03:58 Andy Hiles
And so Stephanie kind of talks around kind of the the most basic and 1st principle, which is looking at the feedback all the the.
00:04:10 Andy Hiles
Yeah, the the cadence and need for feedback from the business, right as a determining.
00:04:15 Andy Hiles
Now when we look at Scrum, Scrum says no more than a no more than a month, and that's quite obvious.
00:04:22 Andy Hiles
You know quite, you know, good and obvious.
00:04:24 Andy Hiles
And you know, why would you?
00:04:25 Andy Hiles
And it's kind of why would you ignore a sense of feedback?
00:04:29 Andy Hiles
What purpose does that that provide a business?
00:04:33 Andy Hiles
What purpose does that provide?
00:04:36 Andy Hiles
Value to the customer.
00:04:37 Andy Hiles
If you extend that right the other way of looking at that is if for whatever reason and whatever cadence that you pick, what are the risks associated with not doing it sooner, right?
00:04:50 Andy Hiles
So if you, it's like if you're going to wait a month, what are the risks of waiting long?
00:04:54 Andy Hiles
What are you in fact ignoring or purposely, there must be a better word for purposefully ignoring.
00:04:59 Andy Hiles
Maybe you can think of that in the background but but this idea of kind of like purposely ignoring feedback loops so.
00:05:06 Andy Hiles
One of the first one of the first points she draws upon is kind of looking at that kind of responsive change in the market, you know and and for those people who are working in scrum teams that are not, you know, direct market you know.
00:05:21 Andy Hiles
Business to customer markets, maybe your maybe you deliver internally right before a grand you know which is which is a majority of people building products within Scrum.
00:05:31 Andy Hiles
As we're facing internal really before some grand release happens.
00:05:36 Andy Hiles
But there's still.
00:05:38 Andy Hiles
A need for a feedback cadence there.
00:05:40 Andy Hiles
That shouldn't be ignored.
00:05:42 Steve Trapps
Stephanie actually puts in the blog post she quotes Ken Ken Schwaber, one of the signatures of the Scrum Guide.
00:05:48 Steve Trapps
Basically, a Sprint should be as short as possible and no shorter.
00:05:52 Steve Trapps
So you know.
00:05:53 Steve Trapps
And so I was thinking when you were talking to Andy about how, how often the length of the Sprint has already been dictated to the teams, yeah, by, you know, somebody else.
00:06:00
OK.
00:06:03 Steve Trapps
And it's like, oh, well, we we do monthly sprints here and it's like OK and we have to do monthly sprints because.
00:06:09 Andy Hiles
When have you ever met?
00:06:11 Andy Hiles
Well, apart from that one case we we did that bit of work with the team that wanted one.
00:06:15 Andy Hiles
Month sprints, but I mean.
00:06:17 Andy Hiles
You know the Sprint lengths just gets dictated to people, right?
00:06:20 Andy Hiles
It's kind of like, oh, we're doing two week sprints.
00:06:23 Andy Hiles
Because there was a there was an interesting there's an interesting case bit of work that I did where we looked at the Sprint length and they were doing 3 sprints.
00:06:38 Andy Hiles
Which is kind of a, you know, finally it's it suited them and then we kind of asked why and it turns out they wanted two weeks to develop and one week to test.
00:06:50 Andy Hiles
Yeah, that's what a Sprint is.
00:06:54 Andy Hiles
Yeah, mini waterfall.
00:06:55 Andy Hiles
So that was that was quickly educated.
00:06:56 Steve Trapps
I've experienced the three-week Sprint and it was really strange because obviously well not obviously we go through the classic month or the two weeks.
00:07:04 Steve Trapps
In fact, actually I've done a week Sprint.
00:07:06 Steve Trapps
But there I've only.
00:07:07 Steve Trapps
Come across the three-week Sprint once and it was it was. It felt a little bit strange. Just the fact that.
00:07:16 Steve Trapps
It was 3 weeks and it's like and I asked.
00:07:18 Steve Trapps
To take. Why?
00:07:19 Steve Trapps
It's well because it takes this time to get going and then we get going and then we.
00:07:23 Steve Trapps
Deliver some things like OK, but.
00:07:24 Andy Hiles
So one of the teams, one of the teams I worked with went from 2:00 to 3:00 purposefully on the basis they found the two week cadence of Scrum.
00:07:33 Andy Hiles
So we were working with the scrum and kanban system and.
00:07:38 Andy Hiles
They found the actually once they got into flow, they found the regularity of scrum events too much, so they went.
00:07:47 Andy Hiles
Do you know what we want to actually we're doing because they were releasing.
00:07:51 Andy Hiles
They were building, they were regularly, they were chatting every day they were fine and they were doing everything really, really good.
00:07:59 Andy Hiles
The scrum overhead, right?
00:08:01 Andy Hiles
Because Scrum does have an overhead and we can't ignore that the scrum overhead became too much for that team.
00:08:07 Andy Hiles
So they said.
00:08:08 Andy Hiles
OK, look, let's just park that a little bit away.
00:08:11 Andy Hiles
So that we don't lose the ability to inspect and adapt and provide transparency about where we are to stakeholders and formally identify that space.
00:08:20 Andy Hiles
But it doesn't feel like so much of an overhead when we're actually doing a whole load of really, really cool stuff with our product backlog, regularly review and refining, releasing, updating all that kind of really good stuff.
00:08:32 Andy Hiles
Uhm, you know, that's a that's a really good example of where extending a Sprint length could be highly beneficial on the basis that you are already providing value.
00:08:43 Andy Hiles
You're not, you're not extending it just to do some more testing, right?
00:08:47 Andy Hiles
And that isn't the point.
00:08:47 Steve Trapps
If you think the team are working on what?
00:08:49 Steve Trapps
Works for them well.
00:08:51 Andy Hiles
It's self management's kicking in and it's but it's.
00:08:54 Andy Hiles
I think it's, you know that's the trainer answer, but I think it's I think it's more than that.
00:08:57 Andy Hiles
It's about the team.
00:08:58 Andy Hiles
Team finding the best like you say, what works for them?
00:09:02 Andy Hiles
But something that still provides value and they can work within boundaries that they can dictate.
00:09:08 Andy Hiles
And I think the autonomy is the important thing.
00:09:11 Andy Hiles
So when you've got that dictation of you're going to do 2 weeks, right.
00:09:15 Andy Hiles
And and people are then forced into a box.
00:09:20 Andy Hiles
You know, in terms of they can't physically find a way out of that.
00:09:24 Andy Hiles
They have to deliver every two weeks or that's the kind of, you know, the the, the feeling and and the and they can't because of organizational constraints and then you get the whole load of.
00:09:32 Andy Hiles
Stresses, right? Yeah.
00:09:34 Steve Trapps
Very true. So.
00:09:35 Steve Trapps
Back to Stephanie's.
00:09:36 Andy Hiles
Blog Well, this is.
00:09:38 Andy Hiles
I mean I guess I haven't lost Stephanie blog.
00:09:40 Andy Hiles
I mean it's.
00:09:40 Andy Hiles
All in there, yeah.
00:09:41 Andy Hiles
I think it's kind of we've added some, we've added some Andy and Steve on top, but.
00:09:45 Andy Hiles
It's all in there.
00:09:48 Andy Hiles
The interesting one about that Sprint length consistency, right?
00:09:51 Andy Hiles
So Stephanie leads into kind of maintaining.
00:09:54 Andy Hiles
Sprint length it kind of provides a regular cadence and stability and predictability.
00:10:00 Andy Hiles
And you know, I've been saying more often, you know.
00:10:05 Andy Hiles
Well, Steve, you know my definition for Scrum was a conversation framework.
00:10:11 Andy Hiles
I've not changed it.
00:10:13 Andy Hiles
I've added a risk control framework as a definition.
00:10:17 Andy Hiles
And so the kind of desire to control risk through regular cadence could be incredibly useful when you have the regularity of feedback and conversation.
00:10:28 Andy Hiles
So that's kind of like we know that stuff.
00:10:31 Andy Hiles
The only thing that was kind of.
00:10:34 Andy Hiles
The only thing that's playing on my mind is there was one team and maybe it was just a complete anomaly, right?
00:10:40 Andy Hiles
And I think I think it was within, I think the control boundaries meant that actually scrum wasn't the right thing, but we were using Scrum events as a placeholder for a conversation.
00:10:51 Steve Trapps
OK.
00:10:53 Andy Hiles
And So what we were doing was we started looking at the features that needed to be delivered and we were going well.
00:10:58 Andy Hiles
That feature feels like it's going to take us about 3 weeks, so that's feature one, right?
00:11:03 Andy Hiles
The next feature looks like it's going to be two weeks.
00:11:05 Andy Hiles
So that's feature 2. The next 1-2 weeks the next.
00:11:08 Andy Hiles
1-3 weeks.
00:11:08 Andy Hiles
Or or a week or whatever, right?
00:11:11 Andy Hiles
And so we actually played with the cadence of feedback that suited the.
00:11:19 Andy Hiles
OK.
00:11:21 Andy Hiles
So we you know we didn't break, we didn't break the scrum rules so much that we kept all the scrum events, but that regularity was broken.
00:11:30 Andy Hiles
The only the the only thing that kind of.
00:11:32 Andy Hiles
Brings me to.
00:11:34 Andy Hiles
Why I think that worked as it did is.
00:11:37 Andy Hiles
We we know it was a short experiment.
00:11:40 Andy Hiles
Yeah, we we had a limited amount of work to do.
00:11:43 Andy Hiles
It wasn't like typical.
00:11:46 Andy Hiles
If we think about like you know, complexity uncertainty, there wasn't a typical a complexity and uncertainty problem as a total solution to go and provide value.
00:11:57 Andy Hiles
That was the the the the answer to the problem was kind of fairly well known.
00:12:02 Andy Hiles
So we're kind of, you know, in whatever can have in space, you want to be in and you know.
00:12:06 Andy Hiles
If you want to use the state matrix kind of like further down.
00:12:08 Andy Hiles
To the left.
00:12:09 Andy Hiles
Right.
00:12:10 Andy Hiles
We still have complexity and uncertainty, but we worked in a way that.
00:12:14 Andy Hiles
Actually meant that.
00:12:16 Andy Hiles
The out we were outcome we were outcome driven totally rather than led by Cadence, OK.
00:12:25 Steve Trapps
And this is going to take us off into a different tangent possibly.
00:12:28 Steve Trapps
How did you?
00:12:29 Steve Trapps
Deal with predictability.
00:12:32 Steve Trapps
If you've got the Sprint length because that is one of the things that people say is you know, consistent length helps with predictability about what the team is going to do and or what did.
00:12:40 Steve Trapps
Was that a problem or was that did that not even matter?
00:12:43 Andy Hiles
Well, here's the interesting thing, right?
00:12:44 Andy Hiles
What did we need to be predictable about?
00:12:48 Steve Trapps
I like you.
00:12:48 Andy Hiles
Actually, in Scrum I'm not challenging by the way, but.
00:12:51 Andy Hiles
Actually it might.
00:12:51 Andy Hiles
But you know what?
00:12:52 Andy Hiles
What do you need to be predictable about in in?
00:12:54 Andy Hiles
From a scrum context.
00:12:58 Andy Hiles
So, so delivering some.
00:12:59 Andy Hiles
Kind of outcome.
00:13:00 Andy Hiles
You know, so.
00:13:01 Andy Hiles
So the way we approach work is it's a highly we're highly functional.
00:13:07 Andy Hiles
Well, you know well, long lived team.
00:13:10 Andy Hiles
Everybody knew each other.
00:13:12 Andy Hiles
You know, way of working the the risk factor of.
00:13:17 Andy Hiles
Kind of any team functional relationship change was low, so we knew kind of everybody's skill set and stuff.
00:13:25 Andy Hiles
So the only the only risk factors going in were the uncertainty of kind of solving the technical problems which the team felt they could overcome without kind of any outside help.
00:13:36 Steve Trapps
But now when you the stakeholders, you didn't Sprint reviews, you know. Wasn't that annoying for them saying, ohh, this week's two weeks, this week's three weeks now you're doing a week or.
00:13:48 Andy Hiles
No, it was just like.
00:13:48 Steve Trapps
They more focused on actually what?
00:13:50 Steve Trapps
Was being delivered and just.
00:13:51 Andy Hiles
Yeah, they cared.
00:13:52 Andy Hiles
They didn't care about how regularly we met.
00:13:54 Andy Hiles
It was about.
00:13:55 Andy Hiles
Did you complete this lovely feature?
00:13:57 Steve Trapps
What if you spent my money kind of thing?
00:13:57 Andy Hiles
Yeah, we did.
00:13:59 Andy Hiles
Well, this morning here we have.
00:14:01 Andy Hiles
So, so, you know, I I can see cases where forced cadence could actually lead people down.
00:14:11 Andy Hiles
A path of.
00:14:12 Andy Hiles
Don't know stress building wrong thing.
00:14:14 Andy Hiles
I don't know.
00:14:15 Andy Hiles
I feel they have to deliver something.
00:14:19 Andy Hiles
For me that's just a.
00:14:22 Andy Hiles
I think there are probably edge cases, but also if you're actually sitting in those edge cases, do you need scrum?
00:14:28 Andy Hiles
Right.
00:14:28 Andy Hiles
Actually, could we have just kind of done away with lots of the scrum practices, you know, actually what we were doing with Kanban and yeah, realistically, that's what we were doing, but.
00:14:40 Andy Hiles
Yeah, it's kind of it's just.
00:14:41 Andy Hiles
Kind of an interesting, interesting.
00:14:41 Steve Trapps
It sounds like you have the discipline of keeping the events in place, and because that's where the conversations were happening and it.
00:14:48 Steve Trapps
Just where you were.
00:14:48 Andy Hiles
Yeah, well, yeah.
00:14:49 Steve Trapps
But you living value.
00:14:50 Andy Hiles
And I'm in danger of kind of talking about camera practice.
00:14:53 Andy Hiles
So I'm going to come back to the to the whole thing, but it.
00:14:54 Steve Trapps
Right.
00:14:56 Andy Hiles
But it's, I think again it it plays into that that world of when you start to think about flow, how does flow work with cadence in terms of regular cadence in order to understand predictability, we understand that.
00:15:08 Andy Hiles
Uhm, but do you need?
00:15:11 Andy Hiles
Do you need what people feel like Scrum gives you?
00:15:14 Andy Hiles
Is this kind of again, that's why I call scrum.
00:15:17 Andy Hiles
Make conversation frameworks just like these endpoints for conversation.
00:15:22 Andy Hiles
Actually, do they force not bad conversation, but do they force conversation that actually doesn't need to happen?
00:15:31 Andy Hiles
Maybe that's a different, you know, maybe that's a.
00:15:32 Andy Hiles
Different discussion for.
00:15:33 Andy Hiles
A different day.
00:15:34 Steve Trapps
The different blog post.
00:15:35 Andy Hiles
For a different purpose, but anyway.
00:15:37 Andy Hiles
So I guess all I'm saying is I don't know the answer.
00:15:40 Andy Hiles
To that question, you.
00:15:42 Andy Hiles
Know, but there probably edge cases.
00:15:44 Andy Hiles
But we know predictability and stability need a regular cadence.
00:15:47 Andy Hiles
You know, in order.
00:15:48 Andy Hiles
To understand maybe.
00:15:49 Andy Hiles
Maybe the team I was working with was hyper matured and we were just like, you know, top of our game.
00:15:53 Andy Hiles
But you know what I mean, it's.
00:15:54 Andy Hiles
Just like you know, maybe we transcended we're.
00:15:57 Steve Trapps
To a higher plane of.
00:15:59 Andy Hiles
We've transcended agile.
00:16:01 Steve Trapps
Yes, but now.
00:16:01 Andy Hiles
Yeah, it was a great.
00:16:03 Andy Hiles
Anyway, it was just a good example of kind of that consistency pushing the boundaries.
00:16:07 Andy Hiles
So OK, anyway, so that's.
00:16:10 Andy Hiles
That was my take away from stuff in his blog. Actually, it was kind of. It was really good to kind of see Stephanie articulate the choices and the risks and all those, those things.
00:16:23 Andy Hiles
And also it got me thinking about the the pushing past the what ifs.
00:16:28 Andy Hiles
What if you have too much?
00:16:29 Andy Hiles
If you don't have enough.
00:16:31 Andy Hiles
Actually does also might get people thinking, you know, are we should we do Scrum right?
00:16:37 Andy Hiles
Is it is it actually working for us and that's probably the challenge I always want people to think about is.
00:16:43 Andy Hiles
Do does Scrum work for you?
00:16:44 Andy Hiles
Do you need Scrum or is it the fact that you're not doing scrum in a in a way that could be benefiting you better, right?
00:16:52 Andy Hiles
So is there improvement in your scrum practice?
00:16:55 Andy Hiles
So there's again with all of these bugs, it's probably sitting in there, but I thought it was just.
00:16:58 Andy Hiles
Kind of an interesting topic to go and pick up on.
00:17:00 Steve Trapps
Yeah. No it is.
00:17:01 Steve Trapps
It is and again we'll put the link into the show notes if that's.
00:17:05 Steve Trapps
What you call them?
00:17:07 Steve Trapps
Know recording that so you can you can have a look and see which one we're talking about from from.
00:17:07 Andy Hiles
Recording the shapes, yeah.
00:17:14 Steve Trapps
Stephanie Hoffman, so.
00:17:15 Andy Hiles
Hey, Steve, what have you been reading?
00:17:18 Steve Trapps
You've got cheese.
00:17:20 Steve Trapps
So Andy, thank you for asking.
00:17:22 Steve Trapps
So I as well as looking.
00:17:24 Steve Trapps
Stephanie and I, you know I.
00:17:25 Steve Trapps
Didn't go into as much detail.
00:17:27 Steve Trapps
As you with that.
00:17:27 Steve Trapps
One but I.
00:17:28 Steve Trapps
I picked up a A blog post by Simon.
00:17:30 Steve Trapps
Niesi and this is part of his series of agile principles, and this one is business.
00:17:36 Steve Trapps
People and developers must work together daily.
00:17:42 Steve Trapps
I mean, how often have you been part of a team where you know, requirements come down from on high?
00:17:47 Steve Trapps
Or it's, you know, you you don't see the people actually needing the work or needing the fact that the, you know, you don't see the people actually asking for it.
00:17:57 Steve Trapps
It comes through from somebody else.
00:17:59 Steve Trapps
And Simon in in his.
00:18:01 Steve Trapps
Blog post talks about when he was a junior developer and he says that you.
00:18:04 Steve Trapps
Know often that would happen.
00:18:06 Steve Trapps
These requirements would come down from somebody almost, you know, given to them as a set of requirements, and Simon's got questions. Simon's got, you know, uncertainty around what's actually being asked.
00:18:18 Steve Trapps
So then he has to go ask somebody and that you know, the scrum could be the product owner.
00:18:22 Steve Trapps
If it's coming, you know doing the users into the product owner and the product owners and really understand the product.
00:18:29 Steve Trapps
I mean, we talk about this on the actual.
00:18:30 Steve Trapps
Product owner course the.
00:18:32 Steve Trapps
The the different types of product ownership and the benefits that you get. So what Simon's talking about here?
00:18:38 Steve Trapps
Is really having that scribe product owner so.
00:18:44 Steve Trapps
Not being able to answer the question so that right doesn't encourage delay, it just brings delay with it because otherwise what do you do?
00:18:53 Steve Trapps
What do you pick up so Simon's blog post talks about what we should be doing and he doesn't say that. Basically teams shouldn't have this connection is to having people.
00:19:05 Steve Trapps
With those skills, business analysts in there to be able to get that information and to help the team to understand.
00:19:13 Steve Trapps
What it is the user is actually wanting, and there's a a quote here, which is, yeah, a quote, a skilled business analyst can bring benefits.
00:19:22 Steve Trapps
And then ensured the detailed view was required.
00:19:25 Steve Trapps
Is created upfront and helping explore things that the end user may not consider that can save time because often a a user might ask for something.
00:19:35 Steve Trapps
Believing that they want something and it's only until we put it in front.
00:19:39 Steve Trapps
Of them, they go.
00:19:40 Steve Trapps
Now I see it.
00:19:41 Steve Trapps
I don't want that.
00:19:42 Steve Trapps
I want it X and this is where a good business analyst can actually help and work with that user to get those requirements and so do you.
00:19:50 Steve Trapps
Do you mean this do?
00:19:50 Steve Trapps
You want that?
00:19:51 Steve Trapps
Kind of thing.
00:19:51 Andy Hiles
So so is Simon advocating for business analysts to sit in between the developers and?
00:19:56 Steve Trapps
No, he's always talking about is wanting people.
00:20:01 Steve Trapps
Not just to take what's given to them.
00:20:04 Steve Trapps
Yep, and and to implement that.
00:20:07 Steve Trapps
And that's often something.
00:20:08 Steve Trapps
That we do see.
00:20:10 Steve Trapps
That it's not that questioning or when there is that questioning the the the delays happen.
00:20:15 Steve Trapps
So it's working in conjunction with the business and this always irks me when we say working with the business because hey, aren't we part of the business anyway you know?
00:20:26 Steve Trapps
We're part of a an IT team or a delivery team or whatever, but we've seen separately and because well, for whatever reason we're seeing separate and we get a list of requirements and we work through them and that kind of.
00:20:39 Steve Trapps
So it's not it's.
00:20:40 Steve Trapps
He's not saying that at all.
00:20:41 Steve Trapps
What he's saying.
00:20:42 Steve Trapps
Is that we should be working closer together.
00:20:45 Steve Trapps
With the business actually on a daily basis, talking to people or having people in those positions that actually have that business understanding and go, this is how we see the product being used.
00:21:00 Steve Trapps
So he's wanting to get that as close.
00:21:05 Steve Trapps
Actually linking into kind of what Stephanie was talking about.
00:21:08 Steve Trapps
You know, how often do you want that feedback?
00:21:10 Steve Trapps
Getting as close as possible.
00:21:12 Steve Trapps
So there isn't that delay, because if you bring in delay, you know you're going to.
00:21:20 Steve Trapps
Deliver something that maybe isn't as valuable.
00:21:22 Steve Trapps
You might miss the boat on getting that out there.
00:21:26 Steve Trapps
So what we're wanting is as close as possible so we can get the results as quickly as possible. Validate assumptions is what Simon's talking about here and I think, well, I know because this is what he's saying, you know from his.
00:21:40 Steve Trapps
Experience and definitely.
00:21:40 Steve Trapps
From ours, you know, I'm I was an ex software developer as well as well as Simon.
00:21:46 Steve Trapps
And you've built great things as well.
00:21:51 Steve Trapps
One time at band camp.
00:21:52 Steve Trapps
Bring them in close.
00:21:57 Steve Trapps
And it it kind of.
00:21:58 Andy Hiles
It's kind of obvious.
00:21:59 Steve Trapps
To us because we talk about this.
00:22:01 Steve Trapps
I I think when we're we're delivering train.
00:22:05 Andy Hiles
Just kind of curious, is the practical?
00:22:07 Andy Hiles
So does he provide anything like practical suggestions?
00:22:09 Andy Hiles
But you know, we know it's kind.
00:22:10 Andy Hiles
Of talk to each other.
00:22:14
There there isn't.
00:22:15 Steve Trapps
That it doesn't leap out as.
00:22:16 Steve Trapps
You know, do this do this.
00:22:17 Steve Trapps
But he's just talking about this is what this?
00:22:20 Steve Trapps
Is the position.
00:22:20 Steve Trapps
We should be in.
00:22:21 Steve Trapps
This is where we should be.
00:22:23 Steve Trapps
Not having helped us.
00:22:25 Andy Hiles
So I guess what what?
00:22:27 Andy Hiles
Would be the suggestion for a scrum master observing this.
00:22:30 Andy Hiles
As a anti pattern going on at the.
00:22:32 Andy Hiles
Moment for them because because.
00:22:34 Andy Hiles
It's one thing it's one thing to kind of go.
00:22:37 Andy Hiles
Yeah, just talk to.
00:22:40 Andy Hiles
You know, I I guess you know the last, the last thing you need to do is to put scribe in the way that's that's probably where you are right now, which is leading to the dysfunction.
00:22:51 Andy Hiles
So, yeah, what's the what would be the advice, you know?
00:22:53 Steve Trapps
As a scrum master, you know I'd be looking to where is this waste coming or wait time coming in?
00:22:53 Andy Hiles
What would be there for?
00:22:59 Steve Trapps
How is the team?
00:23:00 Steve Trapps
Can we reduce it?
00:23:02 Steve Trapps
How you know how efficient is our process?
00:23:04 Steve Trapps
You know, back onto flow again, how efficient is our process?
00:23:07 Steve Trapps
Where are the wait times and?
00:23:09 Andy Hiles
Is this an impediment for the scrum master?
00:23:13 Andy Hiles
Kind of asking like I'm going into like, you know, has come to org assessment, but it would be great.
00:23:18 Steve Trapps
And how long have you felt this way?
00:23:21 Andy Hiles
It'd be a great assessment question, right?
00:23:22 Andy Hiles
You know, you're you're some people finding, finding problems, you know, getting understanding the business requirements as a scrum master.
00:23:32 Andy Hiles
Is this an impediment?
00:23:33 Andy Hiles
You know, what would you do?
00:23:35 Steve Trapps
But what would you class as an impediment?
00:23:37 Steve Trapps
As you know, its definition of impediment is.
00:23:37
Well, if I.
00:23:39 Steve Trapps
Dot dot dot.
00:23:41 Andy Hiles
Well, an impediment is is is an issue that the scrum team cannot solve themselves.
00:23:45 Andy Hiles
Lie lies outside the scrum team, IE you know, access to business.
00:23:50 Andy Hiles
People probably is an impediment, right?
00:23:53 Andy Hiles
You know, would that would that be?
00:23:55 Andy Hiles
Obviously Scrum us to to go and help resolve.
00:23:58 Andy Hiles
But does it fall on the scrum master?
00:24:00 Andy Hiles
Or is this a scrum master product owner or is this something that actually the Scrum team collectively could challenge the business to go and say we can't deliver value to you?
00:24:12 Andy Hiles
Unless you give us more information, right?
00:24:14 Steve Trapps
Yeah, I'd say it's.
00:24:15 Steve Trapps
A scrum team issue.
00:24:17 Andy Hiles
You know with.
00:24:17 Andy Hiles
And and that's the and this is this is where it's kind of gets really highly nuanced into the kind.
00:24:22 Andy Hiles
Of where you.
00:24:23 Andy Hiles
Are organisationally and people's confidence or or willingness to go and challenge, you know, cause you get lots of lots of teams.
00:24:32 Andy Hiles
Where people will not want to for belief that they are contractually bound to just be servants.
00:24:40
Right.
00:24:41 Andy Hiles
You know we won't challenge the business cause they will stop paying us, right.
00:24:44 Andy Hiles
It's kind of like.
00:24:47 Steve Trapps
It's a bit scary.
00:24:48 Steve Trapps
It's a bit scary talking to these people if you're not used to it, you know that.
00:24:52 Steve Trapps
That's the senior.
00:24:53 Steve Trapps
Exec of yeah, but whatever.
00:24:55 Andy Hiles
And they they own my job, yeah.
00:24:58 Steve Trapps
And they live in that building over there that's got the nice coffee.
00:25:02 Steve Trapps
And I'm across here that's got, you know, just if we've got a light bulb, I don't know, going back to days.
00:25:08 Steve Trapps
And so we just don't mix.
00:25:09 Andy Hiles
But it's it's.
00:25:11 Andy Hiles
And this is, you know, yeah, it's one of the.
00:25:14 Andy Hiles
It's just an interesting space to be in that that we will have seen.
00:25:17 Andy Hiles
I've certainly been in lots of people would be feeling that they're in, you know, I think I think it's.
00:25:23 Andy Hiles
Yeah, I think the what you know what can you do or who should be tackling it?
00:25:27 Andy Hiles
Well, you know, for for me it's a.
00:25:31 Andy Hiles
Scrum Scrum team collectively to to surface right the developers to Surface Scrum team to to have a conversation in in the retrospective?
00:25:42 Andy Hiles
Then I kind of see kind of a bit of a joint alliance between the product owner and Scrum master basically going to drag, you know, whatever needs to be dragged from whoever is, you know, asking for the stuff.
00:25:54 Andy Hiles
Can we get you?
00:25:56 Andy Hiles
You know, in the.
00:26:00 Andy Hiles
I think that's where you would.
00:26:01 Steve Trapps
And if you've got a product owner that doesn't have those skills, you know the confident.
00:26:05 Steve Trapps
This is where Scrum master comes in, you know, and helps.
00:26:09 Steve Trapps
Make some friends, you know, because at.
00:26:11 Steve Trapps
The end of the.
00:26:11 Steve Trapps
Day we would.
00:26:13 Steve Trapps
Need to deliver something?
00:26:14 Steve Trapps
And you know it's let's go make some friends.
00:26:16 Steve Trapps
Let's go get some contact.
00:26:18 Steve Trapps
Let's bring them close.
00:26:19 Andy Hiles
But again, I I think the worst case, and I've seen this quite a lot is is it's this these kind of anything that lies with the business people kind of just go oh, it's a product and a problem you know and I think I think.
00:26:31 Andy Hiles
Yeah, all just going into Scrum master problem, but but when you've got something, actually this is highly contentious this could this.
00:26:38 Andy Hiles
This could actually be quite confrontational.
00:26:41 Andy Hiles
Potentially this could be quite a hard thing to solve.
00:26:44 Andy Hiles
You can't do it on your own.
00:26:45 Andy Hiles
Shoulders unless you.
00:26:46 Andy Hiles
Are super able just to kind of like buffer things off right?
00:26:50 Andy Hiles
Massive like I don't give a.
00:26:52 Andy Hiles
Monkey's shield, right?
00:26:54 Andy Hiles
I think you know you will need those allies in the business and that's that's your job as a product owners and Scrum master and developers to go and build those, somebody will know, right?
00:27:04 Andy Hiles
Somebody will be able to do it and if and again it's, you know, you could also look at it from this perspective and if the business don't.
00:27:10 Andy Hiles
Want to know it?
00:27:10 Steve Trapps
Tells you a lot more.
00:27:12 Steve Trapps
Are we building?
00:27:14 Steve Trapps
Not are we building right?
00:27:15 Steve Trapps
Are we focusing on the right thing for the business?
00:27:17 Steve Trapps
You know, why aren't you bothered?
00:27:19 Steve Trapps
You know often that question of like, oh, we can't get stakeholders to attend the Sprint review.
00:27:23 Steve Trapps
It's like, yeah, OK.
00:27:24 Steve Trapps
So in fact, I was having this conversation.
00:27:27 Andy Hiles
Just this week.
00:27:28 Steve Trapps
So it looks.
00:27:29 Steve Trapps
Make it visible how much it costs the.
00:27:30 Steve Trapps
Sprint, you know, and then.
00:27:33 Steve Trapps
That should get their attention if it.
00:27:35 Steve Trapps
Doesn't. Maybe it will.
00:27:36 Andy Hiles
But I only want to know when it's done.
00:27:39
Yes, but Andy.
00:27:40 Steve Trapps
It's cost you.
00:27:41 Steve Trapps
£100,000 to get to this point.
00:27:44 Steve Trapps
You know it's that's that's a serious wedge of money.
00:27:47 Steve Trapps
And if you.
00:27:49 Andy Hiles
I've already said £100,000 and it's not done, does.
00:27:51 Andy Hiles
That scare you?
00:27:56 Andy Hiles
So look so.
00:27:57 Steve Trapps
That was Simon Neese's blog post. Again, we'll put the the links into.
00:28:02 Steve Trapps
The the bits that goes.
00:28:04 Steve Trapps
With that this.
00:28:05 Steve Trapps
Like you know what I mean?
00:28:06 Steve Trapps
So so look.
00:28:09 Steve Trapps
If you found this useful, let us know, because we need your feedback linking back into actually what we've just.
00:28:15 Steve Trapps
Been talking about.
00:28:16 Steve Trapps
If you like listening to Andy.
00:28:17 Steve Trapps
And myself go through.
00:28:18 Steve Trapps
Blog post? Let us.
00:28:19 Steve Trapps
Know if there's some blog posts that.
00:28:21 Steve Trapps
You've read and you wanna share with us and you think maybe, hey, we get it on this.
00:28:26 Steve Trapps
I'm going to try we.
00:28:28 Steve Trapps
Are going to do this regularly and he's just going what we're gonna do this regular once a month, get into a rhythm of doing this cause you know you're busy.
00:28:37 Steve Trapps
You're busy folks.
00:28:38 Steve Trapps
And if we can just highlight some things that hey, have a look at this, this is a useful thing to have a read, have a help your knowledge.
00:28:47 Steve Trapps
That's why we're here. So.
00:28:50 Steve Trapps
Andy for me it's a good buy and.
00:28:52 Steve Trapps
From you, it's a.
00:28:56 Andy Hiles
That sounds terrible.
00:28:59 Andy Hiles
Good to see the back of you there.
00:29:00 Andy Hiles
We go have.
00:29:01 Steve Trapps
You got anything in a bristolian accent?
00:29:03 Steve Trapps
Can say it in.
00:29:05 Andy Hiles
Probably, but I don't think it's polite.
00:29:07 Steve Trapps
OK, so from Yorkshire it's Terra.
00:29:11 Andy Hiles
See you later, mucker.
00:29:16 Steve Trapps
OK, see you later Mocha and Tara until next time so.
00:29:23 Steve Trapps
Thank you for listening to the scrum Facilitators Community podcast. The place for real conversations around Scrum. Do you have a story to share in this podcast? Get in touch with us at podcast at scrumfacilitators.com.