Understanding finer issues of Scrumming

Out of experiences, we gather that using small control points we can move the earth. In scrum discussions, we come across such control areas listings that need to be monitored and attended to. These control points, if adhered to, help manage the project flow with ease. If not religiously followed, can be the starting points of damage.

One such area is the "Defend Meeting" that surprisingly does not figure high in these lists. Why so important? Because when it comes to planning, 50% of us are below average.

The Defend Meeting is a team session that is conducted after the initial planning is done by the inidividual members. Here the members "defend" their plans towards a team concensus. This session gives one more chance to rethink the plan and helps each member to see the COMPLETE picture, hence reach better team estimates. It is often seen that it brings out a lot of missing links that have not been thought during the planning. The Defend Meeting helps the team fight out their insecurities (especially the younger ones) and iron out the "coordination critical paths".

Another mantra that I learnt from an associate team, Mike Marcus and Don A Hampton, is "Expose inefficiency". The team starts to unearth flaws early in the game. In a truely fluid agile environment, rather than promoting wrong competition (as we would think), this team behaviour actually binds them together and works out better. If the team members are in seperate locations or multiple teams are coordinating or team size is big, this princicle is a must. (Ideal size is still 6 though). This principle could be promoted as one of the team policies and reminded as often needed. Do not shy away from marking the lapses or failures in the Sprint Review document.