Agile

Qualifying in Scrum

I have worked in largely non-Agile, non-Scrum organisations. With my Product ambitions, ensuring my next role is Agile is something of a challenge. I have stacks of experience of handling the sort of problems that always arise in any event – mostly due to change management. My feeling is that in a Scrum environment, through its three pillars of Transparency, Inspection and Adaptation change should be immediately easier to handle, not harder.

I decided to certify. Being self-funded, the Scrum Alliance route was going to be out of my reach, so PSM via Scrum.org is my way to go. The prospect of having to pay to to re-sit the test is extra motivation to put in the work to pass first time and there really is more to it than just reading the scrum guide a few times. My route:

On completion of the assessment, a score report is returned with percentage achievement by focus area (e.g. Product Value) with corresponding links to specific resources if improvement is needed in those areas.

So, for me Job Done now to learn by doing!

PSM I

Awarded: Dec 13, 2019

Professional Scrum Master™ I (PSM I)

Concluding, the study and practice assessments were all valuable experience and leave me more determined than ever to work in an Agile, preferably Scrum environment going forwards.

Posted by creacog in Agile, Product management, 0 comments

Agility before Agile

Having spent the last 6 years or so, mostly project managing things digital, web and mobile we selectively adopted some artefacts and ceremonies from Kanban and Scrum. However neither the organisation nor clients were ready to fully adopt Agile culture.

Meanwhile Agile has found its way beyond tech’ into traditionally conservative organisations including banking.

There was some agility before the Agile manifesto formally pulled it all together. As a Studio Manager in the late 1990s we had a few things right and which I feel map to Agile priorities:

  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

We certainly recognised and valued staff who could work in multi-function teams.  We sought designers with technical aptitude and developers with an creative flair to ensure some overlap in skill-sets (T-shaped capability). A core project team consisted of a designer, developer and account manager. Any of whom might be project lead, based on the nature of the project. i.e. a very creative project may well be lead by a designer, functionally complex projects lead by a developer and content driven projects typically by an account manager.

At that time,  laptops were rare and hot-desking impractical with each person’s workstation often highly customised, big and heavy.

We redesigned our studio and it’s furniture to facilitate quick and easy team flexibility. Instead of benches of workstations, we had specially designed furniture arranged in clusters of four. Within the cluster, the centre space was kept clear with computer screens were arranged to the outer edge ensuring team members can see each other, easily communicate and view each screen content with a slight turn. Workstations consisted of desktop computer and monitor both on top of a customised mobile pedestal. Changing teams was simply a matter of unplugging and wheeling the workstation to the next cluster.

Two clusters of 4, ready for workstations
Wine and beer for the opening of the new studio

I haven’t found an environment quite like it since. Of course, laptops and WIFI make the ‘wheelie-workstation’ less necessary. I remain proud of the work we did in that studio, my colleagues and the way we worked together.

Posted by creacog in Agile, Product management, Work, 0 comments

Summer 2018

A note to self, looking back on my last post to see what actually was achieved since.

Step 1 – “Get some tooling” – CHECK. Applied to ageing personal web stuff.

Step 2 – “Read up Jeff Patton’s User Story Mapping” – CHECK. The key catchphrases stand up no matter what: “Build the right product”, “Shared understanding” and adding my own twist “develop the greatest effect soonest”. Definitely worth a second read and reference.

Step 3 – “Play with Docker” – PARTIAL CHECK. Our lead developer has built an excellent Docker based infrastructure at work, bringing greater reliability and efficiency. My home kit isn’t compatible yet, so Vagrant will suffice until I update.

Steps 4 and 5 – We did set about using JIRA, Confluence and Bitbucket and bringing legacy projects to them

Sadly it is time to move on from my employer, my next steps are to ensure I dedicate more time to:

  • Family
  • Exploring new tech – AR and VR of particular interest as it gains momentum as Oculus Go continues the process of bringing it mainstream
  • Gaining more Product Management experience, and Agile
  • Photography – In camera, editing and restoration – creacog on Flickr
  • Tidy up this blog – so much has changed in the last 6 years

Then possibly freelance until finding the next permanent role.

Posted by creacog in Agile, Personal, Product management, 0 comments