Monday, March 30, 2015

Scrum baby - #Microblogmondays

I took the most awesome course last week which was both a life changer for work but also has the potential to be a life changer in my personal life. It is called the Certified Scrum Master course (yes - scrum like rugby) and it is an applied methodology for living an agile life (ok - really it is applied to software development frameworks but seriously, it has the potential to apply to pretty much any situation). 

It is the anti-waterfall methodology for life. Instead of mapping out the details of everything you want to do at the beginning of any project, you set the high level vision of where you want to be. Then, during each sprint (1-4 week period), you prioritize your goals for the sprint, make sure each team member has to be successful and start the clock. The goal is to achieve fully working outputs in small bits, check with your stakeholders along the way, and deliver exactly what is needed. We tend to get stuck in the weeds very early in the project and spend way too much time on stuff that just doesn't matter & that we don't really need.

How much baggage do you have in your life (and job) that you do because you have always done it that way? What if you could cut that stuff out and focus on the real value?! It is so empowering.

At work, my job is the 'scrum master' which means I will be getting stuff out of people's way so they can be as successful as possible. I love it. I was born to solve problems. Woot woot.

At home, I will likely be alternating between the product owner and scrum master. And sometimes the team member. We could decompose tasks for the house into the product backlog and see if we work more efficiently this way. Maybe big tasks won't be so daunting. You know. So I never start. 

Check it out!  Http:://Scrumalliance.org

If you could be agile in your life, what would you do differently?




Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is?Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

2 comments:

  1. Scrum Master - now that's a title to covet! (Off to read the website.)

    Answer to your question: Yoga! Kidding. I'd stop procrastinating and find some work I actually want to do.

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  2. I love just saying scrum master aloud. Yes, there are a lot of things I do just because that's the way they've always been done (even if they're not the best way of doing things). But change is hard. We need a scrum master to shake us out of our routines.

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