Dr. Mitchell's Scrum Shack

Ian Mitchell, BSc Hons, PhD, FRGS
Agile Alliance Member
DZone Most Valuable Blogger
IBM Certified Enterprise Developer
SPS
PSM Level III
PST
Certified Scrum Master

Latest post: 11 October 2018


Does the “rolling-over” of work from one Sprint to the next always represent an antipattern, or can it form part of a Sprint Planning policy through which lean efficiencies are optimized?

Read More..."Flow Optimization at the Sprint Boundary"

Earlier posts

  1. Monte Carlo Forecasting in Scrum
  2. Projects and Products in Scrum
  3. Agile Patterns DZone Refcard (PDF)
  4. Scrum Events: Who sends out the meeting invitations?
  5. Scrubbing Sprint Zero
  6. Twenty Top Fails in Executive Agile Leadership
  7. Faking It: Estimates and Metrics in Scrum
  8. Agile Metrics: Lessons from your Headbone
  9. 20 Unagile Things to Avoid Saying and Some Better Alternatives
  10. Scrum Guide change: Planning Retrospective items into a Sprint Backlog
  11. What is a Product Backlog for, anyway?
  12. Zombie Stories: Conversations from Beyond the Grave
  13. Scrum Roles from a Lean Perspective
  14. Walking Through a Definition of Ready
  15. Three Sporting Fails for your Agile Interview
  16. Walking Through a Definition of Done
  17. Type III Scrumban: A Journey
  18. Managing Technical Debt
  19. The Empirical Product Owner: Innovation Accounting in Scrum
  20. The Product Backlog and Technical Debt
  21. Type II Scrumban: Going Straight
  22. Using a 'Technical Debt Register' in Scrum
  23. Gross Definitions: 144 Agile Terms You Simply Have To Know
  24. Why the Agile Enterprise must be an Innovation Network
  25. The Agile PMO
  26. Type I Scrumban: A Forensic Approach
  27. A Typical Sprint, Play-By-Play
  28. The Agile Crime Scene
  29. Risk Burn-up: Daring Deeds in DevOps
  30. Running Scrum Sprints in DevOps
  31. The DevOps Studio (PDF)
  32. Technical Spikes in DevOps
  33. Innovation Wars: Trump, Lean Startup, and Zero to One (PDF)
  34. By Bell, Book, and Candle
  35. Agile Scaling Frameworks: An Executive Summary
  36. DZone Scrum Refcard Update
  37. Sprint Goals in Practice
  38. Ordering a Product Backlog to Minimize Development Team Dependencies
  39. Counting Chickens: Undone Work in Scrum
  40. Is agile transformation at risk?
  41. Pull in Practice
  42. Choosing Metrics for Agile Practice
  43. Choosing Columns for Agile Team Boards
  44. Stabilizing Teams for Agile Practice
 Posts before 2014 are held in The Scrum Shack Archive

Agile Development in Practice
"Agile Development in Practice"


I was asked to pull the In Practice series together into a book, so I have. Here's the blurb:

The development of complex systems is fraught with difficulty. Many organizations have taken the vocabulary and outward form of agile practice, but without sponsoring the deep change that agile adoption genuinely requires. The benefits they hope for escape them...and their projects continue to fail. All too often, nothing really changes at all.

This book tells you what agile practice is really about, and how to achieve it. The essential components of an agile way of working are laid out chapter by chapter. The book concludes with a concise treatment of the agile transformation problem, and shows how to leverage agile patterns and practices in order to resolve it.

You can buy it at amazon.com. ISBN 978-1-908552-49-5, 260 pages.

Recent video

  1. Comparing the Nexus Framework and the "Spotify Model"
  2. Servant Leadership Defined (on Scrum.org)
  3. Scrum in an Hour (on scruminanhour.com)
  4. The Agile Transformation Pattern (on agilepatterns.org)

DZone Refcardz


In collaboration with DZone, I've put together an Agile Patterns Reference Card which is available for free download from their site. Use it to take an empirical, evidence-based approach to the agile transformation problem.

Read More..."Agile Patterns DZone Refcard" (PDF)

The Doctor Is In...
Ian in Dev Shed

Have a question about Scrum or agile practice in general? I hang out in the Scrum Forum and I'm a certified trainer. Post a query there and I'll help if I can:
scrum.org/Community/Forums

If you're after an overview of Scrum and what it's about, you can have a look at my presentation Scrum in an Hour. There is also a companion text, The Agile Buddy Guide.

For the low-down on many topical issues, you can see Agile Tom, the Scrum Shack's resident cat.

I teach the Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master course fairly regularly. I also teach the Professional Agile Leadership course. See Upcoming classes

A little information about me


I'm Chief Scientist at proAgile Ltd. Agile transformation is my bag. I tweet and blog quite actively about this. I'm also the curator at agilepatterns.org.

Too much information about me


 Hobbywise, I'm into Extreme Ironing. I've ironed underneath the ice-sheet of a frozen lake, and I've also gifted the world with the "fusion" sport of bog snorkelling + extreme ironing.

I do quite a bit of scuba diving in lakes and rivers, mainly in pursuit of antique bottles.

Cave diving is another interest, and I have traversed White Lady sump in the Dan-yr-Ogof system while training under the redoubtable Martyn Farr.

Of course, I have plumbed even murkier depths on public sector IT projects. This latter experience once lead to an outburst of Vogon Poetry; you can commiserate by reading it here.

Contact info


twitter: https://twitter.com/dr_ian_mitchell
linked in: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/docmitchell
mob: +44 (0) 7849694162

Gargoyle of the Month


Gargoyle on Bayeux Cathedral in Normandy
This month's gargoyle is on Bayeux Cathedral in Normandy, France. The seat of the Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux, the cathedral was built on an ancient ritual site which once featured Roman sanctuaries. The present building was consecrated in 1077 under the Duke, William of Normandy, who had invaded England in 1066 and seized the throne. The cathedral is in the Norman-Romanesque architectural tradition, and was the original home of the Bayeux Tapestry which famously illustrates the conquest.

For previously featured gargoyles, go down to The Vault.