Scrum Guide 2017: What changed?

The Scrum guide was revised in 2016 and got clarification concerning the core values. I was thrilled. Talking about values and mental models you must have to successfully introduce and be agile is awesome.

A new revision was published end of year 2017, just a year after the values addition.

What has changed? What have the community learnt and committed to the new version of the guide.

Six Levers for better Agile Product Development

How can you create better products and services?

How can you delight your customers, your collaborators, and your stakeholders?

We identified six levers to multiply the effectivity of your agile development teams and empower them to create great services and products.

Please add these tools to your toolbox and create great products.

Why is it so Cool to Develop with Java?

Why is it so cool to develop software using Java, a modern IDE and agile tools.  Because the environment empowers you and incredibly speed-up your development outcomes.  In seconds you know if the next code increment adds value to your product.

Liberated your team works adding functions and no more spend unaccounted hours in setting up infrastructure.

Below our current set of techniques and tools to multiply our results and bring earlier a product to your customers.

One Way to Improve Your Scrum Approach

You work using agile approaches. Your collaborators are trained how to use agile approaches. Techniques such as test driven development, continuous integration or clean code are regularly practiced.

Now you are looking for the next improvement. How can your team improve outcome and increase customers' value?

It is time for a fresh view. Perform an agile assessment with an external expert from another company or department.

Clean Your Desk and Define New Year Improvements

It is Christmas time. Clean your desk and the content of your workstation. Upgrade your tools and your development environment to the actual version.

It is time to add automated build pipelines, TDD, ATDD, and Docker to your toolbox. Embrace agile approaches.

Work focused and avoid overtime. Prioritize outcomes instead of outputs. Enjoy family life, practice sport, and pursue continuous training.

Why Use Current Software Components?

Often teams discuss if their product should upgrade to the current version of used components, development tools and programming languages.

I have a strong opinion about upgrades. You should always use the current version of all components included in your product. The only discussion is the timely when and never the if. Be realist, if your product is successful, you have to upgrade before the components are obsolete.  Otherwise your product will become a geriatric solution.

Below I show you arguments why you should always update all components in a timely fashion.

Impediment List is of Tremendous Importance

An impediment is any aspect hindering the team or a company to deliver value and higher quality to the customers. An agile organization continuously removes impediments, it is one of her major activities. This activity is ongoing and can never be completed.

Impediments resolution is Kaizen 改善, a key technique to lean, agile and Scrum approaches.  The translation is change for better. Often agile organizations forget to aggressively identify and resolve impediments. We provide hints to improve your Kaizen process.