scrum

Can Scrum be used in a Law Firm?

Hey guys, Anatoly from Define Agile. Here I’m answering your questions. These two questions came from Nacho Martinez.

He asks:

“What’s your opinion about applying Agile Project Management, Scrum, Kanban in legal firms?”

That’s a great question. Yes, you can definitely apply Scrum and Kanban to not only software development projects but such things as legal firms or any other projects, because it teaches you to respond to change. For example, in a Legal Firm you can have a Kanban board for different legal cases. You can move them from to-do to done. You can visualize your work. You can limit your work in progress so that you don’t take too many cases at the same time . This would be a quick example how Kanban can help you with your legal practice. Of course there is much more to it.

From Scrum, you can use planning. When you plan, what you’re going to work on with your team on this upcoming week or two weeks or a month.You can have retrospectives, where you talk about your current processes, and what can be improved. You can also have daily standup to catch, reviews to review your work – etc. Scrum is a good choice here.

So, yes, you can definitely apply those principles from Scrum and Kanban to legal firms. If you need my help, I’ll be happy to help you with that. We work with not only software teams but all other teams that you can think of. So if you need my help, go to DefineAgile.com. Let’s get you a free consultation and help you out.

The other question was:

“What exactly is the difference between Lean and those two methodologies from the perspective of a legal business?”

First of all, Lean is more mindset than a framework. Lean is about testing your assumptions, delivering Minimum Viable Product, improving, testing again, while Scrum and Kanban are frameworks how to implement Agile. This is the difference. These two can be combined together. You can definitely use Lean mindset to always change, to always improve, to always show progress, and you should.

Hope that helps!

School of Agile

Should Scrum Master Be Technical?

Hey guys, Anatoly from Define Agile here.

Today I am answering a question from Sabah Omer. Sabah said:

“Thank you so much for recording the video. I am looking for your advice on students or professionals without an IT/software backgrounds as myself, pursuing certification and then a career in Agile Consultant/Scrum Master. I want to learn and then pursue Agile/Scrum roles as a career. Do you need an IT background to be a Scrum Master? Can individual without an IT background be successful as Scrum Master? Thank you. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.”

First of all, thank you, Sabah, very much for posting this question. It’s a very important question. There are lots of people who are not in the IT field who want to move to Agile and Scrum, and I think it is very important for them to know how to do that.

My opinion is it is totally possible to start be a Scrum Master without an IT background. I know a couple of great Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches that I worked with who do not have an IT background and they are very successful. However, I also think that it also depends on which teams you’re working with.

Personally, I have an IT background , I work as a Developer and I understand software lifecycle. It helps me to work with technical teams.

So if I work with teams that are doing low level programming, there is no UI, for me it is easier to talk to them then for a person who does not have a technical background. I speak their language.

However, there are lots of teams that do not require that deep technical of knowledge. For example some teams I am working with are building marketing pages – they do not require my technical expertise at all.

Moreover, please remember that not only IT companies require Agile help – there are hospitals, there are restaurants, there are clubs. Everyone right now is moving to Agile, because it works better. So, it’s not just for IT.

So, please do not stop pursuing Agile career if you don’t have an IT background. Just start with getting a certificate, start with looking for companies and for job descriptions that do not require in-depth technical knowledge – there are many of those. I’m sure you’ll do great.

School of Agile

Tips on Efficient Daily Scrum Meetings: Agile Project Management

Hi guys, Anatoly from Define Agile here. I keep on answering your questions. The question of today is“What are the best tips for efficient daily stand-up meeting in a job project?”

Tip #1: Make sure that everyone in your Development Team is present on every stand-up.

Why is it important? It’s because a stand-up is all about finding dependencies. If somebody is not present, we might not state some dependencies, which might be detrimental for the team later on.

Note: If you find that the team is late for stand-up, maybe talk to them, and move stand-up to a later time. If you have remote workers, make sure you accommodate for their time zones.

Tip #2: A stand-up needs to be short.

Make sure that the stand-up is not longer than 15 minutes. Make sure that somebody in your team can track time.

Note: If you see the conversations are going for too long, make sure to let people know that they can talk about it after stand-up and they can just catch up later.

Tip #3: Talk about things that are related to other people work.

Make sure that everyone who talks during a stand-up, they talk about things that are related to other people’s work. Stand-up is all about making sure we’re finding dependencies, we need to unblock all those things that bother us.

Those would be some of the main tips for you to have a successful stand-up.

School of Agile

How to Get Started with Agile and Scrum

Hey guys, what’s going on? Anatoly from Define Agile here.

I keep answering your questions and this one is: “How do I get started with Agile and Scrum?”

It’s a very, very good question. A lot of people are just starting out, a lot of teams are just starting out, and they are not sure which way should they go. There are so many options and I’m going to navigate you through a couple of them so at least you have some idea where can you start.

Option 1 if you have lots of time: Be a Self Starter, try it with your team and lean from your mistakes

First of all, how did I start with Agile and Scrum?

In 2011, I was a software engineer, when I have realized that a lot of our projects have changing requirements. Very often client would change their mind, and we would have to re-plan everything. I have realized that, doing a typical traditional Waterfall method did not work very well for us. At this time, I was reading about Agile and Scrum and I decided to ask my team to try it.

We were trying it for about five months. At first we made lots of mistake, we did not follow Scrum the way it was written, then in about five months, we were able to finally get to a good version of Scrum and Agile. It was pretty cool. We tried it. I learned a lot.

Mind you, not everyone has that amount of time or able to fail that much. You might have stakeholders, you might have executives, who won’t be happy with that, but I had this option- so I took it.

Option 2 for individual, if you don’t have much time: Get Certified

The other option would be, if you want to learn about Agile and Scrum as an individual, you might consider getting certification.

To prepare for certification and to understand what you are getting yourself into: there are two things you need to read. First one is Agile Manifesto which states all of the principles of Agile, the other thing, if you have decided to do Scrum is Scrum Guide .

Certification will give you credentials, but mind you it is not necessary. You can learn it all yourself, and for the most part you can facilitate meetings without having a certifications.

If you are looking for certifications, the one I would recommend Certified Scrum Master (CSM) from Scrum Alliance. You will learn in a class the basics of agile and scrum and will get certification upon completion. The price varies per vendor, but on average it is about $1,500 + travel expenses.

The drawback of certification course is that you will be the only one who understands Scrum and Agile, and it might be tricky to explain it all to your team. From my experience, much better approach is to transform your whole team to agile, that way everyone can be a Scrum Master.

Option 3, for team, if you don’t have much time: Transform your whole team

The third option would be is to hire a company that would onboard your whole team to be Agile. And there are many different solutions. I cannot speak for other ones but I can speak for what Define Agile recommends.

We have our own two-day Agile Introduction Course led by our two Agile Coaches. They have about 20 years of experience moving many, many teams for Agile transformation. We cover things like:

What is traditional Waterfall method?
What is Agile?
What is Agile Manifesto?
What is Agile mindset?
What is Scrum? What are the ceremonies?
What is Kanban? How can you choose between those two?
When should you use certain frameworks ?
How to persuade your boss ?
How to implement Agile with tools like Jira ?

For the team of 11 it is cheaper per person than certification.We are doing it all over the world. We have lots of happy customers. If you’re interested in that, please go to here and schedule a FREE Consultation.

School of Agile

Difference Between Project Manager and Scrum Master

Hey guys, Anatoly from Define Agile here.

The question that I got asked yesterday was: “Most often job postings are written as a Scrum Master/Project Manager. What is the main difference between Scrum Master and a Project Manager? How can you apply those two skillsets to fulfill the needs of the organization?”

That’s a great question. I see those postings up and then people say, “I need to be a Scrum Master and a Project Manager.” I’m here to tell you these are two very different roles. It’s the same as to say “I want to have QA/Developer,” you might think it’s the same but it’s definitely not.

Scrum Master is here to help and support with the process. Scrum Master supports the Development Team while Project Manager is here to manage the project, making sure the project is on time, on budget, making sure the stakeholders are informed about how the process of creating projects or completing project. Scrum Master has nothing to do with that.

Usually when a person tries to fulfill both roles, I don’t find it successful. I find that Scrum Master and Project Managers are on a different sides. They have different accountability. A Project Manager is accountable to external stakeholders or to upper management, while Scrum Master is accountable to Development Team. If one person has too many people he or she is accountable to, there’s a conflict of interest. So, I don’t recommend having a Project Manager and a Scrum Master being the same person.

As an option, which I talked about in “What is the Difference between Product Owner and Scrum Master,” I recommend having a developer to be a Scrum Master if you can’t find a dedicated Scrum Master. Because the developer is a part of the Development Team, developers have an interest of having their Development Teams happy.They are interested in having good process, because it benefits themselves.

Hope that helps!

If you want me to help your teams with Agile, please click on FREE Consultation, and lets see how I can help your business!

School of Agile

We Don’t Document In Agile!

What is going on, guys? Anatoly, from Define Agile here. Let’s talk about today’s topic. This is a very important one and I think we should talk more about it. It’s about documentation.

Stephan asked me a really good question on LinkedIn.

Stephan asked, “I was wondering if you might have a video where you talk how to handle the documentation when we’re working according to some ISO certification. In Agile, especially in Scrum, we want to minimize the documentation. On the other side, working on some ISO certification is requiring quite some documents. I was wondering how both of those can be satisfied in the very same project.”

This is a very good question and to elaborate on that, a lot of teams when they see the Agile manifesto, which says value working software over a comprehensive documentation, we might think, “Okay, we should probably document as less as possible,” which is totally not true.

What it means is that if we can choose between the two – you’ll have a working software or really documented pieces of all the requirements – we’ll choose a working software. We don’t want to spend all our life writing requirements for something that’s going to change in a month or two and then all those requirements might be obsolete. In Agile, we’re trying to adopt to change as better as possible. However, there are often things that need to be done by the business and these things cannot be avoided.

So what I suggest you do, Stephan, and many others – think about what does “done” means to you? Try to define your definition of “done” for your team. And if ISO certification is part of the definition of done then you need to do it. I know it can be time consuming, but think how to include documentation in the process in such a way that everyone can contribute to.

If business requires something, you cannot avoid it because, otherwise, you might get audited and it can be detrimental for your business. So, I highly recommend just do what is right. If you need ISO certification, explain it to your team. If you need any other audit documents, you still should have it. Agile does not say, “Don’t document stuff.” If it’s required by your business, you should do it. Agile says, “Don’t document lots of requirements ahead.” Don’t document every line of your code because every thing of this is going to change. If you spend all your time doing that, it’s going to change anyway and you might just waste yourself lots of time.

Hope that make sense,

If you want me to help moving your team to Agile, click on FREE CONSULTATION and lets talk!

School of Agile

Should Scrum Master have One-on-Ones?

Hi guys, Anatoly from Define Agile here. Today we’re talking about one-on-ones. Should Scrum Master or Agile coach have one-on-ones with their peers?

First of all, I just want to make it clear, there is no word about one-on-ones in the Scrum guide. So if you’re strictly following the guide – there’s no one-on-ones there.

However, I have one-on-ones with every team that I work with. Right now I’m working with three teams. Those teams have in total about 25 people. I have one-on-ones with every single person in the team, whether it’s a product owner, QA, business analyst, content strategist, content writer, developer, designer, UX designer, visual designer, anyone. Technically, I am having one-on-ones with every single person there. Why do I do that?

First of all, why are we doing our work as an Agile practitioners? We try to remove impediments. Sometimes it’s very hard to gather the problem especially when you joined a new team or you’re a new person in the team and people sometimes are not ready to start speaking up everything on the retros. But you still need to figure out what the core problems are, so you talk to people one on one, you ask them questions, you are honest with them, you understand their problem, you help them solve their problems. This is how the trust begins to establish between you and people in the team.

It also allows you to realize what is not working on a much deeper level.It is important to help every individual on its own and make sure that all their personal things are addressed. Many, times I was able to uncover very big problems that nobody talked about in a team just by having one-on-ones with people.

I always have all my one-on-ones confidential. I never share anything that people don’t allow me to share, but I find this tool to be invaluable.

Are you having one-on-ones with your peers? Is it working or is it not working?

P.S. Do you need help moving your teams through Agile transformation ? Click on FREE CONSULTATION up top, and lets see how I can help your business!

School of Agile

Scrum Master Interview Questions: 3 Most Important Questions to Ask

Hi guys, Anatoly from Define Agile here again. Today we’re talking about three questions you can ask a Scrum Master to understand if he/she is a good fit.

Question #1: What was your worst day at work?

You will tell me, “Anatoly, how does it relates to a Scrum Master?” Okay, let me explain. First of all, Scrum Master is a person who brings Agile into an organization, usually helps organization to transform to Agile. When you work with a constant change and tasked with transformation you deal with lots of conflicts and stress. So if a person doesn’t have enough experience dealing with the high stress situation, it will be very hard for this person to be successful at the job.

I find that people who tell me that they had a really bad time at work and then they were able to overcome it and they still love this work, those are the people that I want to see next to me working as Scrum Masters. If people didn’t have any major stressful change-related experiences in their career yet, I might find that they don’t have enough experience for them to join my team.

Question #2: Tell me the difference between Kanban and Scrum, and when you should use one or the other.

You’ll tell me again, “Anatoly, why would a Scrum Master know about Kanban? Why should he/she care?” You care for the sole reason that the Scrum Master needs to be a well-rounded person who looks around and understands all the other frameworks that are there and makes sure that the Scrum Master can make an educated decision which one to choose. So if a Scrum Master always works in his/her small box of Scrum and not looking around what is happening in the industry, I don’t think he’s the right person.

Question #3: What was the change that you introduced to the team and how did you do that?

This is very important, because the Scrum Master comes to the team and often introduces lots of things that the Scrum Master thinks is right. If you don’t introduce them well, if you force something on people, it won’t work and then you won’t have any good relationship with your team. The Scrum Master is there to support the team, to advice things, and a good Scrum Master should be able to explain to you how he made sure that everyone understood that the change is good and how he rallied people around the change and made sure they implement in such a way that everyone is happy.

These are my three questions I usually ask every Scrum Master.

School of Agile

Differences between Kanban and Scrum

Hey! How are you guys?

This is Anatoly from Define Agile, and today we’re talking about Kanban vs. Scrum.

A lot of people ask me:

What’s the difference between those two and when should you use one over the other?

Today I want to take a couple of minutes to explain to you this. I hope it will bring you value.

Kanban and Scrum are both Agile frameworks. They’re under the Agile umbrella. They both help our teams to become more efficient, to promote Agile, to work in an iterative manner.

But what’s the difference between the two?

Let’s take two simple examples. I’m a software developer and I work in an IT company. How would my day look like if I would do Kanban or I would do Scrum?

Kanban example

I come to work in the morning and my team does Kanban. I will probably have a board which is called Kanban board. It can be a digital board or it can be a physical board. I have tickets in this board and my sole job will be to take just one of those tickets, to move it across the swimming lanes from “To do” to “Done.”

Do I have many meetings? Nope.

In Kanban there is not a lot of structure, or should I say – you work with what you have.

Scrum example

Now let’s talk about Scrum. Scrum is a little bit more involved. I come to work in the morning. I will probably have a stand-up meeting which will be 15-minutes. During standup I will meet with my team; We will talk about what we did yesterday, what we are going to do today, and if there are any blockers.

We’ll also work in the intervals.

Our intervals could be two weeks or three weeks or four weeks. Intervals are called Sprints in Scrum. At the start of the Sprint, we will have a planning meeting where we’ll estimate some work and see how many issues we can take in this interval. In the end, we’ll have a retrospective or we’ll see how we did.

We’ll talk about what we can improve, how we can grow the team. Also, we’ll have a demo where we’ll invite stakeholders, show them what we did and see if they have any feedback and if we need to change anything in the process.

So as you might see, Kanban and Scrum are different. Scrum requires more overhead while Kanban has less overhead. But the question people ask me is:

“Anatoly, when should I choose one over the other?”

That’s a great question.

First of all, I think how mature the team is. If the team is already mature, they work well together, they have a nice gel there, they do not require a lot of meetings, they are on time in every step of their work and they’re doing Kanban – let’s continue what works. I never ask people to change what works.

If it’s a brand new team and they don’t know what to do and they just ask me, “Anatoly, which framework should we choose?” I usually say, “Scrum”. I say Scrum because I want people to communicate more, I want people to be engaged, I want people to constantly give feedback to each other and understand how they can work together as one big, efficient team.

So, for more mature teams, Kanban. For new teams, less mature teams, for teams that have some inefficiencies, I would suggest Scrum. (Note: of course those are not the only criteria, I also look at how work gets sent to teams, how eager is team to move to new framework etc)

Also, mind you that lots of teams move from Scrum to Kanban when they become more mature because they don’t really need more of this overhead.

Thank you for watching/reading. I hope I was able to bring you value today. If you have any questions or comments, please ask them here or on Youtube, Linkedin. Subscribe to my newsletter to get latest blog posts and videos! We are releasing them every week!

This was Anatoly from Define Agile.

Bye-bye.

P.S. If you want me to help you to move your teams to Scrum or Kanban, or introduce Agile to your whole team, please go to DefineAgile and schedule a free consultation!