Optimising Scrum Teams

#18. Neil recently presented a live session on YouTube for the Dynamics 365 Community Corner. He recorded this special version of his presentation for the podcast covering:His first Dynamics CRM project using Scrum at Premier Medical GroupHow and why he switched from Microsoft Dynamics SureStep to Scrum after publishing the functional requirements documentThe horrors of basing a project plan and statement of work on a requirements specificationThe definition of Scrum as a framework, not a prescriptive methodologyScrum is one of several agile frameworks borne from the Agile ManifestoHow to describe Scrum in five minutes covering the five events, three roles, three deliverables and its principals and valuesThe top 10 benefits of Scrum for Dynamics 365 customers and project teams 26 tips for successfully implementing Dynamics 365 using ScrumSupport the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

4 Huhti 201924min

#17. Dermot and Neil discuss what to measure in your Dynamics 365 projects when you're using Scrum.Tracking velocity is the basic measure of progress. Velocity is the total number of story points of 'done' stories in each sprint and should be averaged over several sprints (usually 3 to 5 sprints).Using velocity within the team to plan the capacity for the next sprint, and by the product owner for forecasting the release.There's no velocity credit for partially done stories at the end of the sprint.Velocity predictability is a measure of how close the actual velocity of each sprint is to the planned velocity to track the accuracy of estimating and capacity planning within the team.Neil discusses using a sprint burn down chart for highlighting an issue with testing stories, and a release burn down chart for highlighting changes in project scope. What to include in an iteration report for managers and stakeholders. (Except for Dermot who doesn't do status reporting!)Tracking effort spent on bug fixing and setting aside a buffer when planning your sprint capacity.Tracking percentage of stories blocked within a sprint to highlight issues impeding the scrum team's progress.Remember to surround your metrics with conversations to help your team improve their performance rather than report performance to stakeholders.Support the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

3 Huhti 201944min

#16. Dermot and Neil talk about the last two events in a sprint: the sprint review and the sprint retrospective, including:The format of sprint reviews and retrospectivesHow these events are structuredWho should attendHow to tailor them for Dynamics 365 projectsSupport the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

3 Huhti 201940min

#15. Dermot’s picked up his Professional Scrum Master II and Professional Scrum Product Owner certifications. Good timing, Dermot, because our first question was from Dick Clark at eBECS who has a client project who wants to get certified in Scrum.Neil has recorded the Scrum Guide as an audio stream on SoundCloud to help Dermot get to sleep at night, and they debate whether holding a Scrum certification or having experience is more important for scrum masters.Squads, Tribes, Chapters and Guilds. Dermot gives Neil a primer on the types of groups Scrum teams use to organise themselves as they scale. It might be called the Spotify Model, but not if you ask Spotify.Joel Lindstrom drops in to admit his Scrum teams have a problem right-sizing stories to fit within a sprint. The response involves splitting the epic user story into vertical slices that can still be demonstrated to the product owner at the end of each sprint even if the feature isn’t ready for release for several sprints.Dermot also provides Neil with some advice on helping his new Scrum squads define their definition of ready, definition of done and social contract at the beginning of a new Dynamics 365 project.Support the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

3 Huhti 201933min

#14. Neil provides a behind-the-scenes peek into ‘Orientation Week’ in his Dynamics 365 project kicking off this week, the Jupiter Programme.Orientation Week (O-Week) is designed to onboard two Scrum teams so that they can start delivering the Dynamics 365 workstream of an enterprise programme as quickly as possible. I talk through some of the planned O-Week activities and provide my assessment of some of the project’s risks and strengths.What are your experiences of launching new Dynamics 365 projects? Get involved in the discussion in the Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps group on LinkedIn.Support the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

3 Huhti 201919min

#13. Neil covers all aspects of sprint planning for Dynamics 365 projects:What is sprint planning and when does it take place?Who attends sprint planning, and what to do if the product owner can’t make it?How long is sprint planning?What happens during sprint planning? Sprint goals, sprint backlog forecasting, Dynamics 365 feature design.What’s needed for sprint planning?Support the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

3 Huhti 201911min

#12. Co-hosts, Neil and Dermot (yes, he's back!), discuss the sprint backlog.What is the sprint backlog and how does it relate to the product backlog? Who is responsible for the sprint backlog and who can change it?How the development team and the product owner negotiate the contents of the sprint backlog, with the help of the scrum master.The effect of swapping items out of the sprint backlog. How to handle capacity issues towards the end of the sprint when you’re ahead of or behind schedule.Using a ‘Definition of Ready’ to ensure that stories selected for the sprint backlog can be developed into working features within the sprint.Using velocity from recent sprints to forecast capacity for the upcoming sprint and how to adjust it for team members’ availability.The types of product backlog items that can go into your sprint backlog, and whether it’s useful to use tasks to track progress during a sprint.Should we separate out the business value delivered during the sprint from the velocity delivered during the sprint?Using a physical Scrum board or a digital Scrum board, such as Visual Studio Team Services, and benefits and drawbacks of each, and the challenge of keeping them in sync if you decide to use both.How to know when a product backlog item is complete at the end of the sprint, what to do if an item wasn’t finished, and why you should finish one item before starting another one.Support the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

3 Huhti 201936min

#11. Estimating product backlog items using planning poker is the topic for this episode.The benefits of planning poker: gain a shared understanding of the work, bring diverse perspectives to the estimation process and estimate the work as we learn about the Dynamics 365 system.Who plays planning poker: the role of Scrum team developers, the product owner and proxy product owners in estimation.When to play planning poker during each sprint: sprint planning and storytime. What to play planning poker with: planning poker cards, PlanningPoker.com, Planitpoker.com or Scrumpoker.online, or ScrumPoker4Devs from the Visual Studio Marketplace.How to play planning poker: describe the requirement, estimate independently, reveal estimations, discuss outliers and play again until a consensus is reached.Things to do before you play: agree your estimation units and scale, baseline user story and definition of done.Support the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

2 Huhti 201921min