Agile Masters: Ice Age to get work done!

One of our recent customers started Scrum from scratch and in the mean time they learned a lot and adjusted their Scrum board at the same speed. It is their Scrum board and accomplishments that inspired me for this article! You could call it a tribute if you want.

First of all I would like to ask you to spend about 2 minutes to watch this Ice Age Teaser video

Ok you got the Ice Age metaphor in your head now, that is good.
Now, let us have a thought about this teaser video in the context of an Agile team!

Ice Age	Agile Team
Squirrel his urge for survival is getting his nut.	Agile teams urge is to get work done: working software that delights its users.
No matter how hard it is to get the nut, he still pursuit his quest.	One of the main qualities of a good Agile team: Courage. It takes courage to keep going when its tough and not just go back to a more relaxing place.
There is a lot of wind pushing the squirrel back but he makes it to the nut.	As an Agile team you just know how to handle impediments and reach your goal. The persistence, flexibility and courage will at the end get you what you want to have.
When the squirrel finally get to the nut, something else happens that sets him back.	Agile teams know that what ever you pursuit today will change tomorrow. Each time we reach a goal, we learned so many things that our reality is not anymore what it was. We end in another world each time.
Finally the dinosaur is screaming at the squirrel.	There will always be this dinosaur running around screaming that you need plans, fixed budgets, detailed analysis… bla-bla-bla.

Getting back to the team that inspired me… have a look at their continuously changing Scrum board below and check out the following things:

* Squirrel and Nut from left to right: intrinsically motivated to get work done.
* Planned vs Unplanned work done image representation
* Definition of done
* Working Agreements
* Product Box – Team vision/goals