A Scrum team, per the Scrum Guide, includes three roles (called accountabilities), the Product Owner, the Scrum Master, and the Developer (we usually say Team Member around here so there is no confusion in nonprofits about Development as a fundraising function in the organization). You will usually hear that the “ideal” number of people on a Scrum Team is 3 to 9 individuals. As a…
One of the most common concerns of those who attend trainings with Agile in Nonprofits is about having a chance to practice their Agile values and framework skills like Scrum or Kanban before they put them into place in their team or organization. The reality is that the opportunity to practice living these values, embodying the principles, and even following a framework are all…
In our last Office Hours, an attendee brought up the struggles of the team understanding how to slice stories into pieces of work small enough so that it fits into a Sprint. We like to always refer back to the INVEST criteria when looking at each product backlog item and whether or not it meets a Definition of Ready (DoR). One of the things…
Work is better when you’re Agile. I’ve been credentialed as a Scrum Master for the better part of six months and an actual Scrum Master for… two weeks? Yeah, that sounds about right. After going through the training with Scrum Inc., I joined DH Leonard Consulting, a business that supports nonprofit organizations in their grant-seeking efforts and utilizes Scrum to run the business. I…
I had the privilege of chairing the preschool in my small rural town before our school district in the years before our school district was able to launch their pre-K program. Over the course of those years, I would occasionally be in the classroom during school hours and have the opportunity to hear Ms. Julie talking with the children. It was where I first remember…