Monday, 22 September 2014

Importance of Scrum Certification

We will attempt to do a quick overview of some of the Scrum certifications that are currently being offered.
Then, we will talk about figuring out the right trainer. It is beneficial to find a Scrum trainer with the background as yours however it is not an absolute requirement. The methodology and the style of the Scrum training can vary from trainer to trainer, so you should try to figure out which one suits your learning style.
The biggest positive of a formal Scrum training is that you learn everything in a controlled environment. You meet people who are also there to learn about Scrum and in case you have common background, it helps to understand the process and difficulties of implementation from outsider’s point of view. A formal training also helps you understand about the mistake which you may make due to the traditional project management concepts rooted in you.
The main purpose of any certification is to impart a common baseline of the knowledge. These Scrum certifications, compared to any other project management certifications have a very easy test. You should remember that getting a Scrum certificate is way easier than the implementing actual Scrum methodology.
Scrum/Agile methodology in general gives you a lot of freedom in how you implement it. However you should avoid changing the essence of the whole process. These project managers are commonly referred as Scrumbut. The common suggestion is that you start to implement Scrum as-is until you understand it properly and then decide for yourself what you might want to change. After a while you may find that you don’t need to change anything at all.
You need to understand that nothing is more valuable than experience. Scrum or Agile Certification may only add some credibility and marketability to the individual.

 To know more click on: http://www.scrumstudy.com/blog/

Thursday, 4 September 2014

How to use Planning Poker?

Planning poker is combination of analogy, expert opinion, and disaggregation in a fun way so that it will result quick and reliable estimates. All the team members are included in planning poker. On any agile project, you will have typically ten team members or less. If it does, the team can be split in twos. Then estimation is done independently by each team. The PO participates in planning poker but he or she doesn’t estimate.
At the beginning, each team member is handed deck of cards. All the cards are marked with a valid estimation number. Each member will be given a deck that reads a number series. The most popular of these estimation numbers are Fibonacci numbers. (1,2,3,5 ,8,13,2, 34,55 and so on). The cards are prepared before the planning poker meeting.
Then a moderator describes each of the user stories or theme that team is planning to estimate. Though generally the product owner acts as a Moderator, anyone can be a moderator. No special privilege or role is associated with the moderator. The product owner will answer all questions that the team members have.
The goal of estimation is to be somewhere on the left of the actual effort line. Important thing to remember is that this process is not about deriving an estimate that will resist all future inspection.
After all the queries are resolved, each team member selects a card that represents their estimation. Each estimator has to make a selection before Cards can be visible to everyone. Cards are kept private until everyone has estimated. Then the cards are turned over at the same time.
Then, all cards are instantaneously spun over and displayed so that all estimators can see each estimate. Chances are that these estimates will differ significantly. In that case, the high and low estimators will explain their estimates. The focus of this process is not to attack these estimators but to learn on what basis these estimations were assigned.
After this discussion, each team member will re-estimate by selecting a card. The earlier mentioned process will be followed again. Chances are that the estimates will meet by the subsequent round. Continue to repeat the process until all the estimators converge on a single estimate that can be used for the story. Very rarely it takes more than three rounds. Continue this process until estimates are moving closer together and they everyone converges on a single estimate.