Saturday, December 17, 2011

D-Day -1 and counting


I met the team last Thursday and we had a very quick introduction – the eight team members, the current scrum master and the line manager of the team were present. I got to see their team area, the backlog, my future place and where a few of the managers are sitting. Yesterday, I already participated in the sprint review and retro just to observe what is happening and to see what are the practices and unwritten rules. I also met the head of the program managers and the head of the R&D – both known colleagues for many years. Both said that they were happy to see me here and they look forward to here suggestions and comments from me. Even my cynical comment “are you sure?” could not shock them, so lets see what will happen. The doors are open. There was supposed to be an announcement that I am coming, partly because I know quite many managers in that organization and I hope to get them curious and willing to contact me – otherwise I will need to “hunt” them – well, might be also fun to see how that goes. Impressions and observations from those two days …. Oh boy …. WOW – I have not even started yet and I already filled my first A5 page with issues which would need some attention (I like to term issue – its maybe more positive then problem  – got that from Kanban material). Here are some examples: (a) the distance between team working area and team space (here is the e.g. backlog) is 75 steps (those high quality steps as teached by Bas & others in the CSM course!) or the shortcut is 35 steps through a door and through an office area which looks like a storage place (this space is reserved for consultants).  (b) The sprint review is basically only the demo and (c) the sprint retro lasts 30min (how can 30min be a enough for a team of eight to do a meaningful retro ???). (D) a so called “user-story” starts with “as a user”; so it’s not a user-story after all as the user is not determined. (E) Multiple stakeholders seemed to interrupt the team/individuals during the sprint. And more items which I do not fully understand yet what is the issue behind. I also did not see any Issue/Impediment backlog – and unless I find one next week, I will create one. So folks – stay tuned – on Monday is Sprint planning :)

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