Scrum Mastery Mastering Empathy & Biases

1. Scrum Mastery
Mastering
Empathy & biases

2. Agile Consultant
Anuj M Ojha
A Certified Agile practitioner and transformation consultant who helps organizations deliver value to customers and businesses,
through team coaching and mentoring, effective collaboration, facilitation and continuous improvement practices
Certifications
Experience
13+ years of experience with relevant agile experience of
11+ years and have trained 12000+ participants &
coached 125+ teams on agile practices & implementation
techniques. Have been to various geographies to deliver
consulting services.
My special area of interest has been bringing in business
agility, appropriate mindset & enriching Culture. It all
starts from no process to some process which helps teams
& companies in being their own better version by healing
their broken processes and other aspects.
Educational Experience_
• Bachelor of Engineering - Computer Science
Areas of Expertise
Business Agility, Agile Coaching (Leadership,
Business Stakeholders, Product Owners, Scrum
Masters, Development Team members, Agile in
Distributed Teams & at Scale, Agile Engineering
Practices (Pair Programming, TDD, BDD, ATDD & CI)
Organisations I have worked with_
ServiceNow, McKinsey, Verifone, Honeywell, Fidelity,
SAP Labs, Sourcebits, Dell, Dell EMC, Nets Norway,
Maersk, NEC Technologies, Tesco, Reliance JIO,
Reliance ADA, Ericsson, Orange, L&T Infotech,
Gemalto and many more.

3. © Benzne. All rights reserved
3
About Us
Stability is a flux “Lotus is a an extension of that same concept
of equilibrium, of beauty amidst chaos, it is
self regenerating, self existent, continuously
reproduced from its own matrix, each petal
opening is progressive unfolding of our path to
end state, negotiating the murky, muddy
waters to realise ones own potential.”
“Benzne aims to enable organizations and
individuals in their journey to constantly
innovate and reinvent themself, to help them
be agile, open, looking forward to accept
change, continuously evolving and yet be in
equilibrium, to somehow be in a state of
constant flux and yet be stable, much like a
Benzene ring.”

4. Topics to cover Starting with.. Done!
What is Agile?
Scrum Key concepts
Scrum Framework - Roles,
events, artifacts, metric
Next steps
Learning board

5. Topics to cover Starting with.. Done!
What is Agile?
Scrum Key concepts
Scrum Framework - Roles,
events, artifacts, metric
Next steps
Learning board

6. Fundamentals
● Change Constant
● React Vs Respond
● Not all changes are good
● Agile is Responding to Change
● It’s inversely proportional to Inertia
● Fail or Succeed faster

7. 7
Traditional Approach
Sequential – series of steps
End Result Completed after months, if not years
CONCEPTION
INITATION
ANALYSIS
DESIGN
CONSTRUCTION
TESTING
DEPLOYMENT

8. 8
Courtesy: https://www.meddigital.com/about/
Traditional vs. Agile

9. 9
Traditional Approach

10. 10
An Umbrella of Approaches & its Practices
An approach
where typically
requirements &
solutions evolve
through
collaboration
of cross
functional teams.
Agile is NOT a
standard….
It’s collection of
practices which
are
• Upheld by Values
• Guided by
Principles
• People Centric
• Self Organizing
• Value Driven
• Collaborative
• Servant
Leadership
An umbrella term
for several
iterative and
incremental
software
development
methodologies.

11. Year Incidence Who’s Who?
80 years ago IIDD - Iterative and
Incremental Design and
Development
Developed by Dr. W. Edwards Deming
Early adopters : DoD, NASA, US Airforce
Late 1940s Lean & Kanban Founded by Toyota & Kanban is articulated in software development environment by
David J. Anderson in 2005 with other colleagues
Lean s/w development by Mary & Tom Poppendieck
1976 Time for movement in agile Tom Gilb argued evolutionary development of adaptive development iterations that
provided rapid results & more frequently visible benefits. Mentioned in his book
Software Metrics
1980s-90s • Spiral Model
• Rapid prototyping,
• RAD (Rapid App.
Development),
• RUP (Rational Unified
Process)
Developed in response to traditional methods like Structured Systems Analysis and
Design Method and other Waterfall models
Spiral Model developed by - Barry Boehm
RAD developed by – James Martin
RUP developed by – Rational S/w Corp.
1995 Scrum (formally introduced) Initial idea by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka
Formally introduced by – Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland & others
1996 XP – Extreme Programming Developed by Kent Beck at Chrysler corp.
1997 FDD – Feature Driven
Development
Developed by Jeff De Luca at United Overseas Bank, Singapore
2001 Agile Manifesto 17 developers met to develop 4 essential values & 12 principles

12. Topics to cover Starting with.. Done!
What is Agile?
Scrum Key concepts
Scrum Framework - Roles,
events, artifacts, metric
Next steps
Learning board

13. Feature I
Feature H
Feature G
Feature F
Feature C
Feature B
Project Progress in SCRUM
13
Project Start Project End
Sprint
Feature H
Feature G
Feature F
Feature E
Feature D
Feature C
Feature B
Feature A Feature A
Sprint
Feature E
Feature D
Feature C
Feature B
Feature A Feature A
Sprint Sprint
Feature E
Feature D
Feature C
Feature B
Feature A
Sprint Sprint
Feature I
Feature H
Feature G
Feature F
Feature E
Feature D
Feature C
Feature B
Feature A
“Definition of Done” is the key
Pre Release
Sprint

14. © Benzne. All rights reserved
Example: Online Shopping Experience
AUTHENTICAT
E
FIND &
SELECT
(MENU CARD)
SHOPPING
CART
PAY TRACK ORDER
RETURN OR
CANCEL
1st
bite of a burger
2nd
bite of a burger
3rd bite of a
burger
USER JOURNEY
z
z

15. Topics to cover Starting with.. Done!
What is Agile?
Scrum Key concepts
Scrum Framework - Roles,
events, artifacts, metric
Next steps
Learning board

16. PAM
Product
Owner
SAM
Scrum
Master
DAM
Development
Team
Form the Scrum Team first!

17. ● Sole responsible for What, Why & When aspect
● Defines & expresses the Product Backlog Items (PBI) & timely consult with
development team
● Prioritising the work in the order of priority
● Identify & optimise the value of the work
● Ensures backlog transparency, always, for all
● Ensures the understanding of the backlog items
● Only PO can make a change in the PBI’s priority
● No one should bypass the PO’s decision & ask Development team to do
different work
Product Owner

18. ● Responsible to deliver the potentially shippable increment (DONE items) at the
end of each sprint
● Self-organizing: structure & organise their work to create increment
themselves
● Cross-functional - has all skill as a team
● No titles & No sub-teams
● May individuals have specialised skill but accountability is with all
● 3-9 development team members
Development Team

19. ● Servant leader
● Problem solver
● Protects team from outside distractions
● Value-focused coaching
● Serves PO - in creating awareness, effective backlog mgmt, clarity of PBIs,
empiricism in product planning, prioritising backlog, facilitating events as
requested or needed
● Serves DT - in being self-organizing, create high value products, removes
blockers/ impediments, facilitating scrum events, coaching individuals
● Serves organization - in scrum implementation, productivity focused, partner with
other scrum-masters
Scrum Master

20. ● Time-boxed event
● At the start of it we do just enough planning & at the end we are supposed to deliver a
potentially shippable increment
● 1-4 weeks
● Has following - the sprint planning, daily scrums, the development work, backlog refinement,
the review & the retrospective
● No changes in sprint dynamics & if changed then it will hamper the sprint goals
● Quality goals are not compromised
● Scope may get re-negotiated between PO & Dev Team
● Each sprint may be considered as a project
● A sprint can be cancelled if it no longer makes sense
Sprint

21. Sprint Timeboxing - suggested
Events 1 Wk sprint 2 Wks Sprint 3 Wks Sprint 4 Wks Sprint
Sprint Planning 2 hours 4 hours 6 hours 8 hours
Daily Scrum 15 min 15 min 15 min 15 min
Review 1 hour 2 hours 3 hours 4 hours
Retrospective 45 min 1.5 hours 2.25 hours 3 hours

22. Sprint Timeline - ACTION PLAN (an instance of housekeeping as Inspiration)

23. This is how a Product Roadmap Plan looks like
& the way we execute
Sprint
0
Sprint
1
Sprint
2
Sprint
3
Sprint
4
Sprint
5
Sprint
6
Sprint
7
Sprint
8
Pre-
Release
Release
R
E
A
D
I
N
E
S
S
H
A
R
D
E
N
I
N
G
M
O
V
E
TO
P
R
O
D
FEATURE 1
FEATURE 2
Planned work
item
Defects/
Incidences
New Changes
23

24. ● 2 primary elements
○ What could be delivered as in increment by the sprint ends?
○ How are we going to achieve the work needed to deliver?
● 4 key inputs to sprint planning
○ The latest increment, team’s sprint capacity, velocity and PBIs
● Bring anyone who can help the development team to decompose the work
● 3 parts
○ Part 1 - ‘What?’
■ PO explains the sprint objectives
■ All discusses the PBIs needed to achieve them
■ Entire scrum team collaborates to understand ‘WHAT’
■ Velocity (past performance) guides development team to commit (& ONLY THEY CAN COMMIT)
Sprint Planning

25. ● Part 2 - How?
○ Development team decides how could they deliver the increment to meet
goals
○ Decomposes the work into smaller pieces of effort - one day or less
○ If capacity is full then it needs to trade-off or renegotiate on other work items
which are more important
● Part 3 - Explain
○ Finally, the Development team explains how could they work as a
self-organizing team to achieve the sprint goal & aspired increment
Sprint Planning

26. In Sprint Review, cleaning the board by removing DONE
stories
26

27. In Sprint planning, Check the UNDONE stories from
previous sprint & new stories from current sprint
27

28. Prioritise backlog, splitted down to tasks, finish estimation
28

29. Step 5 - And everything should have a meaning like...
Team name, Sprint#, Start date &
End date of sprint
Color codes like post-it color
signifies its a story or task or
kind of task and also
distinguishes different goals. Each
post it also has estimates like
stories have story points and
tasks have hours
We keep our primary focus towards
achieving the sprint goals over
finishing only specific tasks
Definition of Done helps us in knowing all the
necessities that confirms the quality and
shared understanding towards work
COMPLETION
29

30. ● For the development team
● Happens every day at the same time & place to reduce complexity
● Purpose is to inspect the progress towards sprint goal & forecast the next work to achieve the
sprint goal
● Format is set by the development team & can be conducted in different ways - purpose is to
focus on progress towards the sprint goal..
● Usually 3 questions helps:
○ What did I do yesterday?
○ What will I do today?
○ Do I see any impediments & blockers from meeting the sprint goals?
● After scrum, team often meets for detailed discussion or replan sprint work..
Daily Scrum

31. ● Scrum Master teaches Development team effective ways
● Its an internal meeting for the development team
● Scrum Master avoids disrupts from others who are present
Daily Scrum

32. Happy Standup :)

33. ● Happens at the end of the sprint
● Scrum & stakeholders collaborates to check the sprint goals delivered, Increment
maturity and changes the backlog to create value in future increment
● SM ensures the purpose of the meeting is known to attendees
● PO explains what is DONE & NOT-DONE
● Dev Team explains their experience while achieving sprint goals
● PO discusses timeline, delivery date, state of Product backlog & maturity of
increment
● Review of marketplace experience & next valuable thing to deliver
● At offset, we have a revised backlog based on feedbacks
Sprint Review

34. ● Scrum team inspects itself & identifies action plan for improvement during the
next sprint
● Last meeting of the sprint
● It should be positive & productive
● Check the improvements that we were supposed to make during the sprint..
● Identify what went well & what needs to be improved & how can we make those
improvements
● Qualitative & DONE outcomes are always considered
Sprint Retrospective

35. ● Specific to scrum team
● Team must have a shared understanding
● It is used to assess when the work is complete
● It guides the development team in making the commitments
● The Sprint Increment should be potentially shippable hence DOD is important
● Means - qualitative, usable, no risk, thoroughly tested, just enough documentation
● It should be considered as STANDARD of any work
Definition of DONE

36. Topics to cover Starting with.. Done!
What is Agile?
Scrum Key concepts
Scrum Framework - Roles,
events, artifacts, metric
Next steps
Learning board

37. Agile Journey
APPRISE
Business Agility
Organization Goals & Market demand
Here all the functions have to run hand in hand and response continuously to
changing business demands and delivering on time so as to sustain and overcome
competition
ARISE
Scaling Agility to Program/ Portfolio/ Product
Coaching at Program/ Portfolio level
When you want to bring in the agility at a broader layer where the strategies are
decided and the success is based on outcomes by multiple teams, technologies and
process groups.
ASCEND
Create High Performing Teams
Coaching at Team level
When you need to know how to practice, bringing expertise in setting up the agile
culture and to harbour the agile mindset in few projects so as to create success
stories to cross pollinate.
Workshop & Agility Health Assessments
AWAKE
Awareness & Assessment When you know your problem, then we help you by delivering specific workshops to
overcome them. When you do not know your problem, then we can help you by
assessing your existing process and recommend the growth plan for your agile
transformation journey

38. THANK YOU
www.Benzne.com