Scrum Master Role with Product Backlog

I've had a couple of intense discussions the last couple of days regarding the Scrum Master's role in managing the Product Backlog. During a Sprint Planning session, it was discovered that the backlog did not contain enough work for the development team for a 2 week sprint. During the planning session with the development team, a discussion started on what role the Scrum Master should take in ensuring that the Product Backlog was always detailed enough to provide enough work to fill a sprint. My stance was that the backlog is owned by the Product Owner and the Scrum Master should not have to spend time reviewing the backlog prior to the Sprint Planning in order to ensure it was ready or could become ready during the session. The planning session is time for the team to discuss the backlog and ask questions in order to gain enough details to provide an estimate and potentially accept the work for a Sprint. If the backlog is not ready and/or the Product Owner doesn't have the information the team needs during the planning session, then the team should not proceed. Some view this as the responsibility of the Scrum Master to remove the "impediment" of an inadequate backlog prior to holding the planning session. I disagree and would appreciate your thoughts on the subject.

Staff Book Club

I have started a book club for myself and my staff. We are meeting through lunch twice a week and reviewing a chapter each day. We rotate the facilitation of the meeting and chapter review among the members. We chose The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork: Embrace Them and Empower Your Team in order to improve our teamwork as we have started utilizing Scrum for our projects. We just started this week, so I'll keep you posted as to the outcome.

2009 CIO Series Presented by Cincinnati IIBA

The Cincinnati Chapter of the IIBA has just announced the dates for their CIO series. This promises to be a great method to hear some local CIO's speak about the value of Business Analysis.

CIO Series: Jeff Wolverton, CIO (GAFRI)
Start: Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 6:30 PM EST
Ends: Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 8:00 PM EST
Where: UC College of Business - Carl H. Lindner Hall (Room 109)
2925 Campus Green Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221
Register for this event now at: http://www.eventsbot.com/events/eb071281014

CIO Series: George Menyhert, CIO (Lerner, Sampson & Rothfuss)
Start: Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 6:30 PM EST
Ends: Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 8:00 PM EST
Where: UC College of Business - Carl H. Lindner Hall (Room 109)
2925 Campus Green Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221
Register for this event now at: http://www.eventsbot.com/events/eb881297319

CIO Series: Diane Orndorff & Chris Boult (FirstGroup America)
Start: Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 6:30 PM EST
Ends: Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 8:00 PM EST
Where: UC College of Business - Carl H. Lindner Hall (Room 109)
2925 Campus Green Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221
Register for this event now at: http://www.eventsbot.com/events/eb041297459

#1 Characteristic of an Agile Organization - Culture

I thought this was an excellent read on Agile and definitely worth sharing.

#1 Characteristic of an Agile Organization - Culture & Metrics

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Cincinnati SPIN July Meeting

The July presentation will be on Wednesday July 8th from 4pm to 6pm at:
Northmark I
10101 Alliance Road
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242

The presentation topic is Enterprise Agility.

Scrum and XP have found a strong following in the development community. But most non-development groups inside the enterprise are far from agile, nor are they trying to move to be more agile. This session starts with a refresher on Scrum, and then uses real experiences to show how to cope and effectively work with those teams.

For more information visit the Cincinnati SPIN website.

Certified ScrumMaster Training

Agile University will be hosting a Certified ScrumMaster course in Dublin, OH on July 7th and 8th. If you're interested in Scrum or becoming certified, check out the course information and registration page.

Cincinnati SPIN Meeting

The presentation topic is 3 Tips to Improve Your Development Process.

It does not matter if you are doing Agile or if you are working in an environment like RUP or CMMI, there are several things you can do to improve your development process. This highly interactive session will show you three specific tips: improve your estimation, use a daily standup to keep a close focus on your progress, and work in retrospectives to empower your team's ability to drastically improve your entire software development process, regardless of what that process is, even if it's no process! You will leave this session with a handle on ways to smooth out your project's environment.

For directions or more information, check the Cincinnati SPIN website.