Scrum

CivicActions has been a virtual organization since it was founded, and we’ve adopted Agile

• Continue reading

A week or two ago at the 2012 Nonprofit Technology Conference I lead a Birds of a Feather about Using Agile Software Development Methodologies to Manage your Organization.

When I submitted the session proposal I thought it would be a small group of people over lunch, talking about how they are introducing and driving agility in their organizations. 

• Continue reading

As we've mentioned a number of times on this blog, CivicActions uses the Scrum framework.  To keep our skills up to date and to learn from the experiences of others we try to participate in the Scrum and Agile communities.

Last night at Agile Denver Charles Bradley (ScrumCrazy) talked about the major changes made to the 2011 Scrum Guide (PDF).

• Continue reading

The rules of Scrum are simple and complete, but it's easy to stray from the plan that Scrum has so clearly laid out. Part of the role of a ScrumMaster is to teach and coach on Scrum - and make sure that the framework is being followed.  It's simple but not easy. There is always the temptation to go back to old habits and make exceptions to the rules. 

• Continue reading

The Sprint Planning Meeting is the first meeting to kick off the sprint. It is attended by the ScrumMaster, Development Team and the Product Owner, along with interested and invited stakeholders. The meeting is time boxed to 8 hours, so it's important to gather first thing, usually on a Monday morning. The Product Owner comes prepared to the meeting with the Product Backlog organized and ordered. These can be in the form of user stories and tasks, or just a list of requirements.

• Continue reading

My first post in this series discussed the 3 Elements of Scrum and now I'd like to touch on why I chose Scrum.

• Continue reading

My last article provided an overview and explanation of the Product Owner role within the Scrum Framework.  In this article I will discuss the Product Backlog.

• Continue reading

In this next post in my series on using Scrum, I'll discuss some of the do's and don'ts of being a Product Owner (in the Scrum meaning of the words). Often the role of the Product Owner is new to the person who is taking it on. It does take some time and practice to get into the groove and to get used to the demands of being in this role, but ultimately it is a role that is both necessary and important to the success of a project. 

• Continue reading

Scrum is the framework that we use for the Agile process here at CivicActions. (Our experience transitioning to Scrum was interesting, and you can read about that in our Agile Applied blog series.)  In the spirit of following the roadmap that Scrum has laid out, this blog series will be focused on Scrum tips and quick reminders.

• Continue reading

CivicActions is very pleased to announce the release of The Agile NonProfit: A Quick Start Guide to Iterative Web Development today. The Guide is a concise and illustrated explanation of the Agile/Scrum web development framework that anyone can quickly read and "get" Agile.

• Continue reading