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
Looking forward to what you see behind the Ice Age Teaser related to your work environments. Let us know by commenting on this post!
