Skip to main content

What's in Your Play Book?

Thinking on Jay's suggestion at his presentation (DFW Scrum, AgileFest!) to create an Agile Playbook; I'm wondering why scrum masters don't do this more often.  Well, guess what?  It's very good advice.  The authors Chip and Dan Heath give this very advice in their new book Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work.

Why do teams continually over estimate the number of stories they can complete (potentially shippable tested working software) in a sprint?  There are many reasons.  But what play would you run next sprint if you were the team?

If your team already has an agile mindset, then the natural play will be to reduce the amount of work they are bringing into the sprint.  The result of this play is to return the team to a consistant delivery of value.  Resulting in a predictable velocity.  This predictable velocity will be used for projecting the release scope or date.

The problem for many teams is they do not posses an agile mindset.  Therefore this play appears counterintuitive to them.  So of all the plays they could run, which will move them toward an agile understanding and give them feedback?

Which play do you run in this situation?

Comments