Where is that checklist again?  I often find myself asking.  As a ScrumMaster, I have to facilitate and lead many important and key activities within a Scrum team, such as daily stand-ups, Sprint reviews, retrospectives, Sprint planning, etc.  Over the years, I built up a set of checklists. These lists including tools & methods,  are based on my personal experience and they were very effective for teams I’ve worked with, since those teams span over various companies, sizes and even countries, I think these tools also may very well apply to your team.  But feel free to substitute your favorite tools or methods once you’ve have gained some experience and determined what worked the best for you and your team.

So this is a series of checklist around stand-up, Sprint review, retrospective, and Sprint planning.  They are written specifically for a ScrumMaster (you), with tasks before, during and after these activities.  They may seem simplistic, because they are not trying to teach the principles of Agile or Scrum, and I also assume the readers already understood the values behind each of the activities.

For a new ScrumMaster, I found it beneficial to conduct these activities starting with the checklist.  Further down the road, no matter how much experience a team has with Scrum, the team usually feels like they are running through “the same old routine”, and starting to forget the important value behind these.  These lists often help a ScrumMaster to use as periodical litmus test, and then improve to be more effective and gain more value for the team.

Before:

• Use a physical task board to track stories & tasks in the Sprint backlog (most team I worked with were more effective using a physical task board, rather than purely rely on electronic tool)

• Dedicate a clock above the task board so everyone can synchronize

• Update the Sprint burn down chart

• Make the Sprint burn down chart visible around the task board, either with LARGE print out or display in a nearby large monitor

• Make sure you will be present to facilitate as needed

• Make sure the Product Owner will be present to answer questions

• Schedule the stand-ups as a reoccurring meeting for the whole team and Product Owner, and get it on their calendar

During:

• Make sure it starts on time, use a bell or gong (sometimes this is all that you need to do as a facilitator)

• Anyone arriving late pays a penalty according to the team’s working agreement (if you don’t have this in your working agreement already, you should help the team to add an item)

• If you notice more and more people are late and more frequently, then up the penalty

• Start without anyone being named.  e.g. try throwing a ball

• Make sure each team member sticks to the “Today, Yesterday, Impediments” (TYI) format

• Note Impediments on the task board, or on a impediment chart

• Make sure no one goes into too much in detail on any topic, e.g. (design, requirements, implementation, etc.).  The stand-up is NOT a discussion.  If anyone wants to talk about a topic in more detail, have the discussion once stand-up is completed

• Any problems or impediments should be raised, but any discussion of solutions should be handled after stand-up.

• Make sure there is no side conversations

• Each team member should  speak to the team, not to the ScrumMaster,  the managers, the task board, or to the wall …

• Make sure people are speaking at a voice level everyone can hear

• “Chickens” should not speak, but should be encouraged to deliver any news to the team after stand-up

• A stand-up should last about 15 minutes.  If it lasts over 30 minutes, something is seriously wrong, usually it’s due to people talking at a detail level

• Review impediment list, if impediment owner is present ask for status and ETA

After:

• Your job is definitely not done after stand-up, so make sure you don’t have scheduled meeting right after

• Encourage the topic discussion raised during stand-up to occur with the right individuals (i.e. those who need to participate should be included in the conversation)

• For those impediment with no owner, if there is a natural owner, communicate this to him/her, and make sure this person is willing to take on this responsibility. If all fails, you are the default impediment owner and you may need to go outside the team to remove those impediments

• Follow up with impediment owners and request for ETA

• The owner may be also blocked on something else and not able to move forward, then it’s the your responsibility in helping to resolve those roadblocks

• If you notice a consistent pattern with particular team member, such as voice level too low or go too much into details when give summary.  Find an opportunity to coach them.  (I often ask them to treat the stand-up as a 2-minute presentation)

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Agile, Scrum, coaching, how-to. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.