Scrum and Agile Q&A with Christy Erbeck

Agile Coaches' Corner

Today on the podcast, Dan Neumann is joined by a return guest, Christy Erbeck! Christy is a Principal Transformation Consultant at AgileThought and Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator. She has over 25 years of experience in domestic and international consulting; training and coaching; and working in both software development and non-product-focused environments, including manufacturing (discrete and process), distribution, and sales and marketing.

In this episode, they’ll be taking a look at a couple of different areas on the theme of agile by reviewing some questions from Quora.com! They start off discussing sprint retrospectives and how to make them more creative and fun; later shifting to discussing frameworks and which are appropriate where; and then lastly, they take a look at agile vs. waterfall.

Key Takeaways

“How does a Scrum Master make the sprint retrospective more creative and fun?”

Allow room for creativity by creating a safe environment through structure

Slowly introduce new ways to run the retrospective so the team can look at their work and interactions differently

Get to know your team — the better you know them, the better you can adapt the retrospective to fit their needs

Use a method such as the Sailboat Retrospective to get the team outside of their regular 3-question retrospective

Try the ‘Genie Retrospective’ and ‘The Four Ls Retrospective’ (and don’t be afraid to customize them to make them your own, either!)

Read Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great, by Diana Larsen and Esther Derby for further insights on what makes a great retrospective

Seed the data for the retrospective

Check out TastyCupcakes.org, FunRetrospectives.com, and Retromat.org for further ideas for creative and fun retrospectives

“How do we convince clients to use agile methods?”

Share case studies and stories from your own experience that illustrate the benefits that come from it

Explain the “why”

Meet them where they’re at

You can’t convince them; you need to help them uncover their own reasons for why they would want to adopt it so they can sell themselves on it

Dig into what isn’t working for them right now that agile would solve

Do a lot of listening about what their problems are

“What is the advantage of waterfall over agile?”

There is a time and a place for waterfall, depending on the project

It can be a great approach to solving a problem and getting a product out the door for simple projects that have a clear checklist

Remember: you can still apply an agile mindset to a waterfall project and an organization can use both approaches successfully

Mentioned in this Episode:

Christy Erbeck

Quora

Sailboat Retrospective

Genie Retrospective

The Four Ls Retrospective

Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great, by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen

TastyCupcakes.org

Retromat

FunRetrospectives.com Stacey Complexity Model

Cynefin Framework

JordanRaynor.com

Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultramarathons, by Bryon Powell

Christy Erbeck’s Book Pick:

Master of One: Find and Focus on the Work You Were Created to Do, by Jordan Raynor

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