Agile – Moss and Lichens

Lana, Daniel, Stefan and I kicked off Agile Speakers in 2024 at the Schlosswirtschaft Schwaige. The last session of Agile Speakers met for breakfast and we discussed Kural and Testing: Breakfast & Speak – Moss and Lichens. And the time before that we met for Wine & Speak and had Ineke, Mikaela and Vera present a wine and talk about different things Agile: How to fail like a Scrum Master? – Moss and Lichens

Stefan started off sharing ideas from his newsletter.

I liked his premise of using medical terms to explain and diagnose things in the testing world. The discussion around Incident (or Issue) to Defect and journey which takes us there. Is finding and fixing a bug enough? Should we be looking into why the bug happened in the first place? Is there a connection between the nature of the defects and and the nature of the product or service itself?

I liked the way Daniel noticed the Medical Metaphors!

For a more detailed reading of Stefan’s ideas you can read further here: Activity | Stefan Dirnstorfer | LinkedIn

I shared my learnings from the course on Resilience from the London Business School. We had representation from three different domains – Testing, Medical and Online marketplace and it was interesting to see how they reacted with stories from the Strategic, Operational and Behavioral resilience areas.

We talked about how Accenture had identified the trend towards successful outsourcing and how in the Testing domain AI supported test case automation is available. Will products and services survive if they do not keep an eye of the trends?

We talked about how Netflix had anticipated the disruption in online streaming and how in the Online marketplace domain Quoka did verticalisation (vertical specialisation) on pet products.

We talked about how the Covid vaccine was created by companies which had the right conditions for a strategic response based on years of research beforehand.

We talked about how chip manufacturers like Intel at some points need to take care of not just direct risks but also keep an eye on multi-chain risks.

Tech Stack Diagnosis and Resilience kept us busy for 2 hours in this Agile Speakers meetup! What will we discuss next time?

You can join us in the future here: Agile Speakers @ Moss and Lichens | Groups | LinkedIn

Mapping Scrum roles to Strategy and Execution

I like the way how Scrum can be mapped onto the Agility Loop and you see the value behind each role in the Scrum Team.

“Make sense – Develop a shared understanding of an ambiguous situation”

While the Scrum Master plays a facilitating role in promoting effective communication and removing impediments, and the Product Owner focuses on defining and prioritizing requirements, the actual sense-making process involves the collective intelligence and collaboration of the Developers. This ensures that the team benefits from the diverse skills, perspectives, and expertise of its members.

“Make choices – Choose what to do, not do and stop doing”

In Scrum, the responsibility of “making choices” and deciding what to do, not do, and stop doing is a collaborative effort led by the Product Owner. The Product Owner is responsible for prioritizing the backlog and making decisions about what features or items should be included in the product. They work closely with stakeholders to understand business needs and align the development efforts with organizational goals.

“Make it happen – Ensure people make good promises and deliver on their commitments”

In Scrum, the responsibility of “making it happen” and ensuring that people make good promises and deliver on their commitments primarily falls under the purview of the Scrum Master. The Scrum Master serves as a servant-leader, coaching and guiding the Scrum Team and the organization in adopting and implementing Scrum practices effectively.

“Make revisions – Compare initial assumptions with experience, explore gaps and correct mid-course”

In Scrum, the responsibility of “making revisions” by comparing initial assumptions with experience, exploring gaps, and correcting mid-course is a shared responsibility within the entire Scrum Team, with a focus on continuous improvement.

Links:

Closing the Gap Between Strategy and Execution (mit.edu)

Scrum Guide | Scrum Guides

The Scrum Framework Poster | Scrum.org