I can see clearly now...

Only a few weeks into our current project we were all able to see it....

..with the the solutionstrategy we initially picked, we were not able to deliver the project on the specified duedate.

How could we see that?....The power of SCRUM:) and burndown charts!!

Burndown charts is an excellent way of making your progress (or lack of same) visible to EVERYONE. In my team we use 3 different burndowncharts:

• A burndown chart showing the remaining tasks in the current sprint
• A burndown chart showing the remaining storypoints planned in the sprint
• A burndown chart showing the remaining storypoints of all the planned backlog items from projectstart till projectend.

It was actually the last burndownchart, which made it VERY visible, that we needed to change something to get the job done.

So burndown charts are great:)

Dedicated Scrummaster

We now for the first time have a dedicated ScrumMaster - as in not a developer which has ScrumMaster duties, but really a person for whom the most important function is to maximize the performance of the scrumteam (me).

In the early days in our Scrum-adoption-process we have been placing this important role round-robyn-style on a teammember. This is a very bad idea. The teammember will always have a bigger focus on his current teamtasks, than on the big picture (the process as a whole). And in stressful situations up to a deadline, it is very easy to totally neglect this role. Believe me - been there done that!.

So have the team point out a person who can dedicate his time to being a Scrummaster.

A dash of sugar...

In my organization we have been trying to implement Scrum several times in the last couple of years. We are now in the middle of our 4th or 5th attempt and now it finally seems to work...:)

I can see now that one of the key mistakes we made in our earlier attempts, was to create our own processmodel by bending the rules and roles of Scrum.

If you want to adopt Scrum as your agile project management foundation it is crucial (especially in the beginning) to stick to the recipe.