Top Ten Articles You Didn’t Read: Best of the Best
While I started with Scrum in 2005, I did not start writing about Scrum, Agile, Extreme Programming, Lean and Kanban until 2008. Not sure why I took so long to begin writing? I probably did not have anything to say which is quite unusual for me. I have an opinion on everything!
Rather than have you dig, sift and click through the archives on your own, I scoured the stacks to find some of the more interesting entries from the last ten years. While this is a top ten list, these entries are in no particular order. Enjoy!
- Agile in Thirty Seconds: short, sweet and to the point. (March 2009)
- Scrum in a 100 Words or Less: this challenge was from Peter Stevens on how to describe Scrum minus all the jargon. Here is Peter’s original post. (January 2010)
- Why Commitment is Important to Scrum: in 2011 Scrum moved away from the idea of making commitments to deliver to forecasting. I still think that was a mistake and I took the time in 2013 to explain why. (May 2013)
- Sprint Commitments Are Fixed, Except When They Are Not: people always seen to get agitated when you tell them once the Team commits to the Sprint Goal at Sprint Planning it cannot be altered. Here is some common sense advice on how to flex this rule when necessary. (January 2015)
- Nine Ways to Ensure You Succeed with Scrum – Part I and Part II: Certified Scrum Trainer and longtime coach, Michael James, shared his wisdom on how to create success with Scrum on a private email list, so I decided to amplify his original post with my observations. (March 2014)
- Pair Programming Might Not Work for You: I have got to have something from Extreme Programming on this list, so let’s talk about a topic that never fails to generate opinions – pair programming. (January 2009)
- Mistake Museum: in 2008 I attended Software Development East (I loved that conference, too bad its defunct) and wrote a summary from a session co-hosted by Nancy Van Schooenderwoert. Most of these mistakes she identified in 2008 are still valid seven years later! (October 2008)
- Focus on Adding Value, Not Features: in 2009 I had the opportunity to coach Scrum Teams in Shanghai. This entry was my explanation to the Chinese developers on why Teams should only start items they know they can complete within a Sprint. (June 2009)
- What is a ScrumMaster?: in early 2012 I worked with a respected colleague on developing continuing education for ScrumMasters. This post was the result of an insight conversation we had one afternoon. (April 2012)
- My Response to Delete [ScrumMaster]: while I was traveling in Spain, Tobias Mayer wrote a provocative post about doing away entirely with the role of the ScrumMaster. As you can see, I disagreed with him. (October 2012)
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10 years of Scrum articles
Just Be Honest: My First Ten Years of Scrum
That Happened in 2005? Retrospective of the Big Moments of 2005
Mastering the Agile Mindset: The Next Ten Years of Scrum
