Scrum Log Jeff Sutherland

Scrum is an Agile development framework that Jeff Sutherland invented at Easel Corporation in 1993. Jeff worked with Ken Schwaber to formalize Scrum at OOPSLA'95. Together, they extended and enhanced Scrum at many software companies and helped write the Agile Manifesto.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

ScrumMaster Certification in Los Angeles


25-26 Aug 2008, Beverly Hills, CA

Get certified by Jeff Sutherland, Co-Creator of Scrum and Scott Downey from MySpace. This course is filling up quickly and may be sold out soon. Sign up now if you want to attend.


SOLD OUT!

This course will be led by Jeff Sutherland, Co-Creator of Scrum in downtown Beverly Hills near Rodeo Drive at The Tower - Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverwil Drive. Beverly Hills, CA 90025. Jeff has been a consultant to MySpace and Scott Downey, MySpace Scrum Evanglist will assist him with this training.

The course will start promptly at 9am each day and run until 5pm. Please arrive at 8:30 the first day for a continental breakfast. Participants should read Ken Schwaber's book, Agile Project Management with Scrum, or Jeff Sutherland's draft of The Scrum Papers before the class as we will assume you know the basics of Scrum.

Jeff Sutherland started the first Scrum at Easel Corporation in 1993. He worked with Ken Schwaber to emerge Scrum as a formal process at OOPSLA ’95. Together, they extended and enhanced Scrum at many software companies and IT organizations and helped write the Agile Manifesto.

Jeff is the CEO of Scrum, Inc. powered by OpenView Venture Partners and is Agile coach to over 20 portfolio companies and to the OpenView venture group staff which runs all its operations with Scrum. As Senior Advisor to OpenView and CTO of PatientKeeper he focuses on using Scrum to transform companies as well as empower software developers. PatientKeeper quadrupled revenue in 2007 and the OpenView venture capital group is using it to create similar high performance portfolio companies. Jeff will share the secret sauce that helps development teams radically improve productivity and quality while providing a more rewarding and fun working environment for developers.

You can learn from Jeff's experience as a consultant to the world's leading software companies. Their experience can help make your Scrum implementation world class. There has been lot's of learning with Jeff at Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, MySpace, Adobe, GE, Siemens, BellSouth, GSI Commerce, Ulticom, Palm, St. Jude Medical, DigiChart, RosettaStone, Healthwise, Sony/Ericson, Accenture, Trifork, Systematic Software Engineering, Exigen Services, SirsiDynix, Softhouse, Philips Medical, Barclays Global Investors, Constant Contact, Wellogic, Inova Solutions, Medco, Saxo Bank, Xebia, Insight.com, SolutionsIQ, Crisp, Johns Hopkins Applie Physics Laboratory, Motley Fool, Planon, OpenView Venture Partners, Juske Bank, BEC, Camp Scrum, DotWay AB, Ultimate Software, Danube, Rally Development, Version One, and many other companies.

Jeff is an expert on distributed/outsourced Scrum (see Agile 2008) and on implementing Scrum in a CMMI Level 5 company. He has has scaled and distributed Scrum using his last five companies as laboratories. His entire current company at PatientKeeper is run by a MetaScrum, and is one of the most advance implementions of Scrum worldwide. Mary Poppendieck, in her latest book on Lean Software Development, comments: Five years ago a killer application emerged in the health care industry: Give doctors access to patient information on a PDA. Today there is no question which company won the race to dominate this exploding market; PatientKeeper has overwhelmed its competition with its capability to bring new products and features to market just about every week. The sixty or so technical people produce more software than many organizations several times larger, and they do not show any sign that the size of their code base is slowing them down.

A key strategy that has kept PatientKeeper at the front of the pack is an emphasis on unprecedented speed in delivering new features. It will not surprise anyone who understands Lean that PatientKeeper has to maintain superb quality in order to support its rapid delivery. CTO Jeff Sutherland explains it this way:

“Rapid cycle time:

* Increases learning tremendously
* Eliminates buggy software because you die if you don't fix this.
* Fixes the install process because you die if you have to install 45 releases this year and install is not easy.
* Improves the upgrade process because there is a constant flow of upgrades that are mandatory. Makes upgrades easy.
* Forces quick standardization of software via new features rather than customization and one off.
* Forces implementation of sustainable pace. You die a death of attrition without it.
* Allows waiting to build new functionality until there are 4-5 customers who pay for it. This is counterintuitive, and caused by the fact everything is ready within 90 days.”

"I find that the vast majority of organizations are still trying to do too much stuff, and thus find themselves thrashing. The only organization I know of which has really solved this is PatientKeeper." Mary Poppendieck

In this course, participants will learn how to stop thrashing and start executing along with everything necessary for getting started with Scrum. There are very few rules to Scrum so it is important to learn its fundamental principles by experiencing them directly from those who have implemented the best Scrums in the software industry. Participants gain hands-on practice with the release backlog, sprint backlog, the daily Scrum meeting, tracking progress with a burndown chart, and more. Participants experience the Scrum process through a “59-minute Scrum” and the "XP Game” which simulate Scrum projects through non-technical group exercises.

The course will run from 9am-5pm each day.

Following the course, each participant is enrolled as a Certified ScrumMaster, which includes a one-year membership in the Scrum Alliance, where additional Certified ScrumMaster-only material and information are available.

PMPs:
You can receive 16 Professional Development Units (PDUs) for this course.
Course Material:

Participants will receive course materials for review upon registration. Click here for course syllabus.

The CSM course was formulated to train and certify ScrumMasters and is used worldwide for ScrumMaster training. The book, Agile Project Management with Scrum, by Ken Schwaber is required reading for the course and the course is based on the primary Scrum book, Agile Development with Scrum.

Of course, there will be updated material and training exercises in the course which you cannot get from books. The entire syllabus will be made available upon registering for the course so you can look it over and bring it with you to the sessions.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Scrum and Fighter Aircraft



In 1993 at Easel Corporation when we started the first Scrum, I thought the ScrumMaster needed to see how to land a Sprint on a date, just like landing a fighter aircraft at the end of the runway. If you are high on the glidepath in a fighter you can easy land in the middle of the runway and if it is wet or icy can slide off the end of the runway. At the end of every runway there are trees, a deep hole, or water. It is always bad.

So the Burndown Chart along with the Scrum Emergency Procedure was developed. What do you do when bad things start to happen in a Sprint?

More specifically, what do you do when an Agile system becomes unstable?

But I digress. Jim Coplien just sent me a great video of an unstable Agile system, the latest Euro fighter. Here we see a race between a Bugatti and the fighter aircraft which reminds me of the time I flew F4 Phantoms in Europe in the air while I was driving a Porsche 911 on the ground. Here the Bugatti races the fighter to the end of the runway and back while the fighter takes off, flies straight up for a mile, then does a reverse loop in an attempt to beat the Bugatti back to the takeoff point.

Click here for an exciting ride!

Friday, July 04, 2008

HICSS Papers: Need Reviewers



HICSS paper submissions are in and we are seeking Agile experts to review these papers. All reviews must be complete by August 15. This is your chance for an earlybird view on some of the latest Agile thinking. Contact Jeff Sutherland if you want to review one or more of these papers. Please include paper numbers in your email.

179 - An analytical survey of “on-site customer” practice in Extreme Programming
189 - Scalable Dynamic Clustering
277 - Analyzing the Modes of Communication in Agile Practices
323 - Automated Acceptance Testing Using Fit
357 - A Model of Agile Evolution and Maintenance Process
433 - Understanding Shared Leadership in Scrum
553 - Measurements of Software Agility
462 - The impact of organizational culture on agile method use
794 - Service Development in the User-Oriented Software as a Service Era
941 - Bridge Methods: Using a Balanced Project Practice Portfolio to Integrate Agile and Formal Process Methodologies
1008 - Agile Deployment: Lean Service Management and Deployment Strategies for the SaaS Enterprise
901 - Proposing an agile approach to software ethics
1058 - Using Scrum in Distributed Agile Development: A Multiple Case Study
1087 - All-Out Organizational Scrum as an Innovation Value Chain
398 - XP Benefits to Software Development: A Case Study Analysis
575 - An analysis of Stand-up Meetings in Agile Methods

See HICSS42 for latest details on the conference.

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