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Serving the Team

Driving Better Conversations in Product Refinement

In team refinement sessions, conversation and collaboration are key. As a Scrum Master, I’ve witnessed hundreds of hours of refinement sessions. What I observe, across a wide range of teams, is often a member of the team (most likely a business analyst or product owner/manager) gathers requirements from a team on the fly, sharing their […]

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Agile Agile Methods & Frameworks

Kanban Deep Dive

kan = “visual” ban = “card” What is Kanban? Kanban has become known as an agile methodology, however, its origins stem from a time when the term ‘Agile’ hadn’t even been coined. It was first inspired in Japan in the 1940s. Taiichi Ohno, who is deemed the father of Kanban and Lean Manufacturing, saw that […]

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Agile Knowing Yourself Serving the Team

Environment & Conditions are Everything

A few months ago my husband decided to grow some Japanese Sakura trees. He went through both the stratification and germination steps and about 5 weeks ago the seedlings were ready to be planted. Maybe it is because I have been working from home and walking past the pots a good few times everyday, or […]

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Agile Serving the Organisation

Imagine a world full of abundance…

Having worked for my current employer now for almost 12 years it’s safe to say I’ve grown up with the organisation. I started my journey at Vertu Motors as their sole front end developer within the IT department, working on their website and internal systems such as the CRM/deal optimiser system. Overtime I focused more on […]

Categories
Knowing Yourself

Time to Think

In 2020 I decided that I wanted to practice the habit of reading more. I loved reading as a teenager – then it became something that I would only do at work or on holiday. Throughout the last couple of years, I have consumed a lot of books via Audible and decided to treat myself […]

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Agile Serving the Organisation

Shu ha ri

A Learning Model is a device designed to guide you through the process of acquiring and applying a specific set of information Learning models can provide insight into where your peers are in their own agile journeys Different individuals will acquire skills at different rates Shu ha ri Originated in ancient Japan Designed to describe […]

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Agile Serving the Team

Velocity

Velocity is a measurement of how much work a team can get done in a sprint. At the end of the sprint the team’s “Velocity” can be calculated by adding up the estimates (in our case story points) for those items that have reached ‘done’. We can track Velocity over time from one sprint to […]

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Agile Serving the Team

Story Points: Estimating Product Backlog Items

Story points are designed to give an indication of complexity. Their purpose is to help estimate a task. They also help to calculate velocity and aid release planning/forecasts. Scrum does not recommend any particular estimating approach but arguably the most common approach is story points (I believe its origins are linked to Xtreme Programming). The […]

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Agile Glossary

The 3M Model

Muda “waste” Mura “variation” Muri “overburden”

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Agile Serving the Product Owner

What is a Product Backlog?

A product backlog is an ordered list of all features, functions, requirements, enhancements and fixes that constitute the changes to be made to a product in future releases. Each item is called a product backlog item (PBI). All items should include a description, value, order and estimate. Items can also be defined as Epics and […]