Benedikt Stemmildt 👨🏼‍💻

Who has not played the Ball Point game yet? Despite its omnipresence and its simplicity, I love how much learning this game packs into a short amount of time! Getting teams started on fundamental Scrum and general agile concepts is fun and easy that way. Within a few minutes they not only learn, but really grasp important Scrum and agile concepts: 🎾 Scrum sprints with plannings and retrospectives 🎾 Estimating 🎾 Continuous improvement 🎾 Time-boxing 🎾 Sustainable pace Let alone enjoying team work, failure culture and fun! When have you last played the Ball Point Game with a team? #scrum #agile #games

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"Story points are crap! Stakeholders want hours, days and dates!" Do you hear that sometimes when you propose estimating in story points or t-shirt sizes? Some managers misunderstand story point (SP) estimates as a simple kinda esoteric layer to disguise real person hour estimates. This often ends in them establishing a fixed "exchange rate" between SP and person hours. But that completely misses the point of story points and relative estimation! Yet, stakeholders are right to demand specific date ranges instead of abstract SP. They need something to plan with. And the bridge between abstract story points and specific date ranges is the concept of 👉 VELOCITY Understanding velocity lets agile teams make pretty precise predictions of when stakeholders can expect to get certain features. I explain the concept and quirks of velocity in this article in the Agile Compass: https://lnkd.in/ekzHibJQ #agile #velocity #productmanagement

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In search of Agile Management https://ow.ly/SVc750RhLfr #PersonalAgility #TimeManagement #Productivity #Agile #Scrum #Business #AgileManagement

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Are you doing Scrum? Did you ever check if you fulfill the preconditions to do so? Too often Scrum is applied in a way that sets it up for failure. I wrote about the most common preconditions teams miss in the Agile Compass: https://lnkd.in/edqhtd42 #scrum #agile #team

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🤯 + 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐝𝐈𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬! 🧠 ♻️ 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗻𝗲𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗣𝗥 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗺. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁? - If you are an #agile person, sooner or later you will encounter people or organizations that have pretty negative opinions of agile and/or Scrum. Why is that? 🔍 You can search online and find tons of news articles about orgs that experimented with agile, and then failed badly and visibly. They learned their lesson - agile sucks and they shall never do it again. Yeah right. 💥 𝗔𝗴𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 - Back in the day, we called it an 𝘼𝙜𝙞𝙡𝙚 𝘼𝙙𝙤𝙥𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣, not an 𝗔𝗴𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. I still remember being the tester on the first pilot Scrum team in my org at Microsoft. I was highly skeptical that this Scrum nonsense would work. But it did. And me and my team were happier and it forever changed my life. In contrast, I talk to people and teams now and they are very unhappy about being "transformed" versus how my team "adopted" agile. 😿 As far as I have been able to determine, the biggest symptom of "agile gone wrong" is suffering, angst, pain, and agony. When my team adopted Scrum we found 𝗷𝗼𝘆 in work again. Many teams now instead find 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘆. And that's why people hate agile. 💣 So where did it go wrong for them? When people are 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘥 to transform into doing agile, ꜰᴏʀ ᴡʜᴀᴛᴇᴠᴇʀ ʀᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ, they will end up being unhappy. That's it. 😹 The adoption of agile should be voluntary. And when it is done of free will, it can cause joy. 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙩'𝙨 what you should be striving for. #AIC #agile #agileadoption

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2 more days until my next online talk. Lern about how to get new inspiration for your agile journey or private challenges. Looking forward to it and see many of you in the session!

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🤯 + 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐝𝐈𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬! 🧠 🧑‍🎓 I recently had a discussion with some #agile friends and this topic came up – is it more important to have 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 or is it more important to have 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴? I think we were discussing this in the context of getting a job. 💬 This is a debate that happens pretty often when you get a bunch of #AgileNerds in the same room. When I hear this debate, I often ask myself  – is this is about experience versus education, and which is better? 📖 Sometimes people talk about the 70:20:10 model which I think is one way to think of it. That model basically says that people learn by 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 70%, 𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡 20%, and 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙡 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 10%. I have seen all kinds of stats that support that theory. The thing that puzzles me is when people kinda imply that the 70% 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 is more important than the 10% 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙡 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜. Like all you really need is the 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 and you don’t really need the 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙡 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜. 💸 So people and organizations sometimes use that as an excuse to dismiss the value of formal education and training and certifications. No need to invest time or money in those things! 🙊 This is one way I like to explain why that perspective doesn’t make any sense to me. I like to quote from W. Edwards Deming - 𝙀𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜. 𝙄𝙣 𝙛𝙖𝙘𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙤 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙤𝙧𝙮… 𝙒𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙤𝙧𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙤 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜… 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙣𝙛𝙖𝙡𝙡. 𝙋𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙥𝙮 𝙚𝙭𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙬𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙚. 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙖𝙩 𝙚𝙭𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜. 🏫 So yeah, people might learn by 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 70%. But then their 70% could be terrible. And that 70% is often totally wrong when they haven’t done the 10% 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙡 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜. In other words – you 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 to do the 10% 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙡 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 before you do the other 90%. Without that solid theoretical understanding, you will be a horrible practitioner. ➿ In an ideal world, having both experience and certifications is great. But would I rather have one if I could only have one? I would vote for certification/education and theory 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 experience. I would be interested in your comments below! Like I said, this debate often comes up in #agile circles… 🤣

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Did you hear them say: "Agile teams cannot keep deadlines"? It's a common misunderstanding of agile methods. In fact, agile methods are better at keeping deadlines than traditional methods! 👇 This article explains how to deliver on time with agile methods https://lnkd.in/ehnGycDU #agile #deadline

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🔍 𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙜𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙪𝙣𝙡𝙤𝙘𝙠 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙨? 🔍 Ever feel like your retrospectives are more like group therapy sessions - but without the breakthroughs? In Austria at least, these are often called "moaning meetings" as the Austrian soul is deeply into moaning about everything ... 🥲 🤔 As an Agile Coach, I've seen teams wrestle with this challenge time and again. Here are some tips to elevate your retrospective game and turn those sessions into catalysts for real change (as they should be!): 🤝 Foster an 𝗲𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 for team members to comfortably share theirs thoughts. Sounds easy and you read this everywhere, but seemingly is one of the hardest to do. 🎯 Set 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 to guide each retrospective effectively. 🛠️ Keep retrospectives 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 by trying different techniques and formats. 🛠️ Ensure discussions lead to c𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. 🛠️ Continuously 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀. Not sure how to do it? 🌟Book your team or your Scrum Masters into a retro workshop: https://lnkd.in/dGE_sVnu 🌟Level up your Scrum Mastery with targeted personalized mentoring: https://lnkd.in/db6cdeqF #stopbadagile #scrum #scrummaster #scrummastery #scrumteam #agile #agilecoach

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Do your daily stand-ups feel like a waste of time? You‘re not alone. So what can you do? One option would be to stop doing daily stand-ups 🤔, but that doesn‘t fix the real problem. The smarter move: Improve your daily stand-ups by: 👉 understanding what they are REALLY for 👉 actually getting value out of the daily stand-up 👉 have it reduce meetings overall (yes, reduce!) Daily stand-ups, especially the daily scrums in Scrum, are so often misunderstood and done poorly. I wrote how to make it better in the Agile Compass: https://lnkd.in/eSMuPECa #agile #scrum #dailystandup

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Oh, the often misunderstood story of velocity in agile 😫 👉 No, velocity of an agile team does not always go up! 👉 Yes, a drop in velocity can actually be a good sign! Read more about velocity in the Agile Compass: https://lnkd.in/ekzHibJQ #agile #extremeprogramming

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The gifted Markus Borg of CodeScene again offers us a fascinating piece of research. Have you ever been a Scrum Master or Agile Coach where organizational bias meant that all bugs were somehow always dumped on one or two developers, even in a cross-functional team? Have you thought about the downsides to this common anti-pattern, such as lack of knowledge-sharing & skill-building across the team? Or worse, have you ever been *that* developer? Altho' I'm still reading this paper, already I can see how Markus' new empirical study points us toward a better way. Even if it may not fit your context (now), it's useful to think about on the helpful automation front. https://lnkd.in/epkbFuEJ #engineeringexcellence #defects #bugreports #bugs #troublereports #bugassignment #developers #developerautomation #westrivetomakepeoplesworkeasier #continuousimprovement #automation #respectforpeople #developersupport #agile #agiledevelopment #tooling #engineeringmanagement

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+++ Day 1 of TestBustersDays 2024 Wrapped Up! What an amazing day filled with knowledge and lively discussions! We kicked off our Test Platforms Day with two insightful morning talks: Valentin Dallmeier started the day by giving us a deep dive into the webmate a11y testing platform at 9 am, showing us how it can be used for effective accessibility testing. At 11 am, Nicol Weghofer from RBI shared how they use the Yaku platform to automate compliance testing for DORA requirements. We had 82 participants engaged in the chat, and Nicole’s explanation about her nickname and the "Ananas story" was a hit! In the afternoon: At 2 pm, Marcel Veselka took us through Autonomous Testing, presenting his questionnaire results and sparking discussions about what autonomous testing truly means. This is a topic on everyone's mind! Finally, Björn Scherer wrapped up the day at 4 pm by sharing how his company is handling platform teams, explaining how Test Engineering as a Platform can function within a DevOps setup. There were lots of questions about cost distribution and the tools & frameworks they use. A massive thank you to our fantastic speakers for sharing their expertise, and another big thank you to our sponsor, webmate, the a11y platform, for supporting this wonderful Platform Day. We’re now gearing up for Test Data Day tomorrow, where we’ll dive into all things test data—an absolutely critical topic for modern testing. See you at TestBustersDays 2024 tomorrow for more great insights! #TestBustersDays #TestPlatforms #AutonomousTesting #DevOps #TestEngineering #ComplianceTesting #AccessibilityTesting #TestData #ThankYouSpeakers #webmate

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Writing articles for agile practitioners in the Biergarten 🍻 My Agile Compass has helped many agile practitioners to improve their daily work. I’m proud that my writing has an impact. Today I’m writing in a Biergarten in Munich. If you’re not receiving the Agile Compass yet, you can start here: https://lnkd.in/ePnQUGMv Prost! #agile #agilecoach #scrummaster

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Do you test at the end or at the start? There are four kinds of people in this world: 🤪 The ones who don't test at all – YOLO 😖 The ones with a big test phase at the end 😊 The ones testing their features immediately 🤩 The ones creating a test first before they even start building What type are you? And why should you consider shifting your testing left? I've written an article about product quality and agile testing in the Agile Compass: https://lnkd.in/gTgJ5hzE #agile #testing #quality #qa #tdd

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Are you still managing dependencies? Maybe it’s time to think about a different and more agile approach. I write about it in the Agile Compass: https://lnkd.in/gZBYnrSt #agile #projectmanagement #dependencies

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Agility Without the Hype: What Really Works  🚀 Leadership Inspo Countdown #20 von Michael Sarnitz Many people 'bash' agile methods like OKRs (Objectives & Key Results), SCRUM or Sprints. Comments such as "old wine in new bottles" or "we already do this" are not uncommon.  But in my experience, these methods offer unique elements that make them different and truly successful when implemented correctly.  Here are my success factors for agile methods like sprints and OKRs:  1️⃣ Clear time commitment: Each team member dedicates 5-10% of their working time to the sprint (2-4 hours per week). This commitment is key to making real progress.  2️⃣ Weekly stand-ups: A 15-minute stand-up meeting (virtual or in person) where each team member briefly (1 minute) shares their progress and tasks for the upcoming week—no discussions here! These can be rescheduled with not everyone present.  3️⃣ Weekly work meetings: These 1-4 hour sessions are essential for reviewing stand-up progress and diving into the details. Block the time in your calendar—it's worth it!  4️⃣ Motivating facilitator: A committed person who initiates and facilitates the sprint with energy and enthusiasm is crucial to keep the team engaged.  5️⃣ Voluntary participation: Each team member should choose to participate. Invitations are encouraged, but colleagues must decide for themselves whether to participate.  In this way, within a small group, we successfully developed five AI coaching chatbots using ChatGPT in just three months—an achievement we didn’t think was possible at the start.  When a team consistently invests time week after week, dives straight into implementation, experiments, and continuously iterates, great things can happen.  What about you? What has your experience with agile methods been?  Which of these success factors have you already implemented?  Let’s exchange ideas in the comments! 👇  ---- 19 daily inspos up to come 🔥 #YourPartnerInChange #leadership #LeadershipInspirationCountdown Michael Sarnitz, Monika Meirer, Kurt Mayer, Hannah Flachberger

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3 things agile / scrum are not - a uniform process which just can be implemented the same way in every company, team, person - a method which makes employess „behave“  - a framework only teams should learn about and employ Do you agree? ⬇ #agile #coach #consulting #agileorganisationsberatung #scrum #change

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