Thursday, April 29, 2010

Burn, baby, burn (part 2/2 to having great standups)

Something a SM should do every morning right before standup: take a look at the burndown chart and try to find an easy 'win'. A win is a story that is almost done and could make the line on the burndown chart burn (go) down.

Then at the beginning of Standup, 'set the stage'[1]  by telling the team that they almost have a story finished which will show great progress during the sprint. Ask the team to figure out how to get THAT story (creating focus) finished so they can get an early win, burn down the chart, and show their PO that progress is being made.  

This also gives you, the scrum master, focus: solve any difficulties that get in the teams way around finishing that story. If you get a TEAM of people focused on a goal, great things always happen. But it requires finding the right thing to focus on. A story that is near finish is a good thing to focus on, until it meets our definition of done.

And for a bonus, you can run the story by your PO for Story Acceptance before the end of the Sprint. That will really get the PO and the team excited.