Agile, hmmm. Most team members think 3M post it notes, whiteboard diagrams constantly redrawn, heated 10 minute morning sessions, wacky excuses. Essentially open short bursts of chaos. And that is healthy, as long as there is an outcome that moves the project forward and solves problems. My experience though has been that Agile SCRUM sessions devolve into drawn out technical discussions or even functional redesigns. Why is that? Well it has to do mostly with running the SCRUM improperly. 

Here is how we do it at Esyngen. The SCRUM Master is always the Project Manager to avoid authority battles. At other places it's sometimes the Sr. Developer. We meet first thing with coffee in hand and start on time. There are no chairs in our SCRUM room. You are not supposed to get comfortable so don't. We're here for a short time, not a good time. There is a white board, it gets used to take notes. There are only three questions. Only the SCRUM Master gets to ask them. Everyone has to answer one at a time without interruption.

   1.) What have you done since yesterday?
   2.) What will you have done by end of today?
   3.) What challenges are you facing?

ONLY after everyone has answered do people pair off to help solve each others problems. The SCRUM Master reminds everyone we are on a team and we have a duty to help each other or risk failure. Dismissed!

At that point the whiteboard is photographed, uploaded to the project document repository and printed. The SRUM Master brings this to the next meeting. If responses the next day don't show measurable results, the PM takes action, assigns additional resources, asks the senior programmer to get involved. Whatever is needed. Bottlenecks are kept to a minimum, projects stay on track.

Timelines are always short. If they were longer we'd still say they were short. Projects only get delivered On Time, On Budget and In Scope because the PM is on point. We are disciplined, interdependent and focussed.  We keep it simple and share. No, we are not true Agile, nor are we Waterfall, we are what works. Cross functional teams that evolve organically and allow the creative process to flourish as we iterate through each phase solving challenges along the way. We all get a daily reality check, progress is mapped onto deliverable schedules by the PM and form the basis for client status reports. Responsibility and liability are shared.  The process is transparent. 

We work like this all the way through design, development, testing and deployment. 3 questions, a whiteboard, camera and document repository. Shared responsibility, shared knowledge, shared success. You have to have a thick skin but this is business and when we celebrate the wins, we all smile.