If you have heard of XP, you probably think of Test-Driven Development and Pair Programming, two of the most challenging XP practices both in ideology and in execution. You may not know it, but even if you have never even attempted these two contentious practices, your software team is probably already doing several of the other practices. Here are the top three I suspect you are already doing.
Read MoreScrum is not your process, evidenced primarily by the fact that it is devoid of any business domain. Additionally, it contains timed events within which your team can execute and refine your process, but does not instruct you how to execute that process. For example, the Daily Scrum is a 15-minute time-boxed event with only a couple generic directives: The Development Team inspects progress toward the Sprint Goal, and makes a plan for the next 24 hours. Though it offers an example, the Scrum Guide does not say how you should conduct this daily event, only the constraints and objectives of the event focused on inspecting and adapting the team's work.
Read MoreI do have some anxiety about the largely differing nature of the two roles I'm attempting to fulfill and the risk of having both at the same time. The Scrum Guide says the Scrum Master can be on the Development Team if they are executing the work of the sprint, so I'm not playing outside the rules of the game. Nevertheless, a mentor of mine has suggested that being a Developer means you have a list of deliverables that are easy to check off one at a time, but being a Scrum Master is far less task-oriented and involves a people-oriented set of skills such as mentoring, coaching, facilitating, and educating. As a result, it's easy to focus on the Developer's deliverable list and forget to prioritize the Scrum Master's duties.
Read MoreThe spirit of the phrase, "Fail faster" is simple: In order to find success, you need to get through the necessary failures quickly. Getting stuck on a failure, or giving up after a failure means you've stopped actively failing, which means you can't ever hope to succeed.
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