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    Category: ScrumMaster

    Advanced CSM (A-CSM) is coming to Ann Arbor, Michigan!

    This course rocks. And I’ll tell you why (read on!). Agile For All is returning the Advanced CSM course offering in Ann Arbor, Michigan on…

    Tricia Broderick 2020-02-07
    0 Comments

    Advanced CSM (A-CSM) is coming to Cedar Rapids, Iowa!

    Agile For All has a new course offering that is gaining momentum. I get to be the lucky one to share a little information!! On…

    Tricia Broderick 2020-02-05
    0 Comments

    How to Give Clear Instructions When Facilitating

    It’s a classic facilitation blunder: You start giving instructions for an activity, and as you’re talking, people begin the activity. You try to reel in…

    Richard Lawrence 2017-07-26
    0 Comments

    Ask A4A: Long-running Stories

    Hi Richard, My Scrum team has been working on a particular service for over a year. It’s been 20+ Sprints. I’m concerned about the deliverables…

    Richard Lawrence 2017-02-01
    4 Comments

    Making Info Visible for Better Decisions

    A key part of the ScrumMaster’s or Product Owner’s job is making information visible.* Whether that’s a product backlog, taskboard, cumulative flow diagram, or a…

    Richard Lawrence 2016-11-09
    2 Comments

    Ask A4A: When the Observation Part of Focused Conversation Gets Boring

    The Focused Conversation method asks us to start with observations before assigning labels – good, bad, effective, worthwhile, motivating, etc. In real-life facilitation, it can…

    Richard Lawrence 2016-09-01
    1 Comment

    Peter Drucker ’s view is integral to the values of Scrum

    Peter Drucker said, “Concentration is the key to economic results. No other principles of effectiveness is violated as constantly today as the basic principle of…

    Bob Hartman 2016-03-23
    6 Comments

    The Wheel of Change Retrospective

    Marshall Goldsmith is one of the world’s leading executive coaches. In his book Triggers, Goldsmith introduces a framework for change that he calls the “Wheel of…

    Peter Green 2015-07-20
    2 Comments

    Be an Expert in a Year – Growing the Agile Way

    The guys over at Expert Table Tennis had a great idea. What would it take to become an expert? Dedication? Heart? Perseverance?

    Peter 2015-02-23
    0 Comments

    As a ScrumMaster silence can be golden!

    I love it when someone who was in one of my workshops sends me a message saying something from the workshop worked well for them.…

    Bob Hartman 2011-12-19
    4 Comments

    The ScrumMaster Diaries: #3 – Becoming a CSM

    Dear Diary, I completed day 1 of my 2-day Certified ScrumMaster course today and I’m feeling a little bit overwhelmed.  I didn’t have any idea…

    Bob Hartman 2010-01-25
    4 Comments

    The ScrumMaster Diaries: #2 – Making the Case to Become a CSM

    Dear Diary, Tomorrow I am going in to speak to Henry about becoming a Certified Scrum Master.  I’ve done more reading about it and it…

    Bob Hartman 2010-01-18
    2 Comments

    New to agile? What does the ScrumMaster do anyway?

    I often have people ask me what a ScrumMaster does.  Interestingly, today it came up on a mailing list I read on a regular basis. …

    Bob Hartman 2009-09-23
    12 Comments

    New to agile? Work at a sustainable pace

    Question:  Which is better: a) Working nights and weekends to meet iteration commitments, or b) Admitting the commitment was too much and working normal hours…

    Bob Hartman 2009-07-24
    5 Comments

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    Forum Description

    Question:  Which is better: a) Working nights and weekends to meet iteration commitments, or b) Admitting the commitment was too much and working normal hours regardless of the commitment? Many people would say answer (a) is better.  I might even say that if it were a one-time anomaly, but too often it doesn't happen just once.  The team ends up setting an artificially high velocity and are then asked to keep a similar velocity in the future.  As a result there are more and more iterations with impossible deadlines and the agile team begins to feel they are on a death march.  I even had one person in a course tell me their management had them all sign a document saying they would work nights and weekends as necessary because the company really needed the product as soon as possible.  Seriously?!?!  On an agile team???  Ouch! 99 times out of 100 my answer to the original question would be (b).  Work at a sustainable pace (no sandbagging allowed), determine a realistic velocity, and go on from there.  During the iteration retrospective an obvious discussion question would be why such an unrealistic commitment was made in the first place.  Sometimes it is just an anomaly caused by uncertainty.  That can happen occasionally and is no cause for alarm.  However, more often than not it is caused by a team trying to meet an artificial deadline and convincing themselves they can do it.  Don't fall into this trap.  Death march projects are no fun and they may even be less fun when done in an agile way.  Seeing failure or ridiculous overload every two weeks can get to be horribly depressing! Remember, a sustainable pace is one at which the team can perform for very long periods of time - forever basically.  I like to add the team takes pride in how much gets accomplished each iteration.  This helps prevent sandbagging because you can't take pride in the amount completed if you sandbagged it.  Also remember sustainable doesn't mean no vacations!  It is necessary for downtime to recharge.  Sustainable could even mean occasional overtime if the team chooses to meet their commitment in order to help them feel proud of the iteration - however this should not happen very often - if ever! Project managers and Scrum Masters need to watch the mental and physical health of the team.  Be the conscience of the team when it comes to maintaining a sustainable pace.  Re-read that last sentence and ask yourself when the last time a project manager asked a team to reduce their hours because it wasn't healthy!  If the pace of the team is not sustainable several undesirable effects are likely to occur:
    1. Defects will increase.  Tired teams let more defects through.
    2. Work output will decrease.  Tired teams do less work in more time!
    3. Morale will drastically decrease.  This may lead to employee turnover at a most unfortunate time in the project.
    4. The blame game will become common.  (Not our fault you didn't say X.  I said X.  Did not.  Did so...)
    5. The team starts to abandon good practices for those that "seem" faster.  Sorry, but test-driven development (TDD) is actually faster than just writing the code and throwing it over the wall to QA!
    Do you have any funny stories about sustainable pace or a lack thereof?  If so, please post a comment.  I'd love to have examples to use in the future! Until next time I'll be monitoring teams I coach for use of a sustainable pace because there is no other way of Making Agile a Reality® for the long term!

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