Category Archives: Facilitation Techniques

GROW Coaching Model

Agile coaches often encounter clients that are stuck. They know what they are doing isn’t working, yet they can’t find their way out of the dysfunctional cycle. At least, not alone. The coach’s job is to help their client:

  • gain deeper understanding of their situation
  • create a vision for a better future
  • identify obstacles & options
  • create an action plan

 
Chris Sims with a plant. GROW is a framework that a coach uses to guide their client through this process. The client might be an individual, team, or even a whole organization. GROW is an acronym for the stages of the coaching process: goal, reality, obstacles (and options), and the way forward (will do). Let’s walk through the stages of the model, in the context of Scrum.

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How To Create Your Team’s Definition Of Done


Note: My thinking about the definition of done has evolved since writing this. You can find my updated thoughts and advice in the article How To Create A Definition Of Done.

Cheers,

Chris Sims


A scrum team’s definition of done is an important tool that helps the team add new functionality while keeping the product in a releasable state. Here is one way of facilitating the creation and evolution of your scrum team’s definition of done.

Identify The Work Needed To Release Something

Have the development team identify all of the work items (often called tasks) needed to release a high quality product backlog item (often called a user story) to production. Each piece of work goes on a sticky note. Be as specific as possible. If a team member says “testing” get specific about what that entails and write specific sticky notes:

  • Each acceptance criteria has an automated regression test
  • Unit test coverage is greater than 80%
  • Manual exploratory testing has been done
  • All the tests are passing

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A Scrum Master Is A Teacher, Mentor, Coach, And Facilitator

A scrum master wears many hats including teacher, mentor, coach, and facilitator. Each is a different stance the scrum master might take when interacting with the scrum team, or others in the organization. Part of the art of being an excellent scrum master is being able to select an appropriate stance for a given situation. We also need to be able to flow between them, inspecting and adapting based on the situation and the needs of the people involved.

Teacher

This is the act of showing or explaining something to someone so that they acquire new knowledge. The scrum master is an expert in scrum and related agile practices. The scrum master spreads this knowledge throughout the organization, enabling people to engage in their work more effectively.
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Dixit Sprint Retrospective Game

Dixit Game BoxI was inspired to create a retrospective game for agile teams, based on the game Dixit. Dixit is a game that makes use of picture cards. Each of these cards has an unusual drawing on it. The Agile Learning Labs team used it recently in one of our sprint retrospectives and it worked well. Give it a try with your team and leave a comment to let me know how it works for you.

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How to play the Team Estimation Game


Since this article was first published, The Team Estimation Game has evolved into something even better: Easy Estimation With Story Points. If you are looking for a fast and effective way to estimate, we recommend going straight to that article. If want to know where Easy Estimation With Story Points came from, keep reading.


The Team Estimation Game plays like a game, but it accomplishes valuable work: assigning story point estimates to user stories.

Teams using this technique are typically able to estimate 20 to 60 stories in an hour. The game was invented by our friend and colleague, Steve Bockman. Here is how one team plays the game:
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Active Listening Techniques

When people are talking to you, are you really listening? Or are you starting to think about what you are going to say next? Are you sure you understand their meaning when you hear their words? Language lends itself to misunderstanding as easily as understanding. This makes for great comedy, unless the joke is at the expense of you and your team.

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