We recently did some transitioning and, since one of the roles I have been filling is project manager, I was asked to step in as the Scrum Master. Of course, I said I would love to. I love project management—how different could this actually be? Five minutes into my research, I knew that I had taken on something that was completely different. Bring it on.
While I had worked with our marketing team on the occasional project, I was most excited about getting to know the team better. Little did I know, I would be scheduling 8 meetings with them the following week. That seemed like overkill, until we really got into things.
One week in, and I am still recognizing that I am extremely new to this process. I feel like this system can be compared to parenting my three daughters. Break down tasks into bite size pieces, constant follow up and communication on status of tasks, and give recognition for all of the hard work accomplished each sprint.
Meeting One— Marketing Sprint Demo:
Good start. It was a blast for the marketing team to “show off” all of their hard work. And the rest of the team loved it as well.
Meeting Two—Backlog Presentation:
Smaller turnout….only those who had items to add to the marketing backlog attended. I suspect that more and more people will attend as time goes on. The Sprint Demo is definitely going to “inspire” people to use marketing to their advantage.
Meeting Three—Sprint Retrospective:
Since the previous week was spent finalizing meetings that marketing had been working on previously, we used this meeting to discuss the planning and tasking process.
Meeting Four—Sprint Planning:
We decided to keep this sprint light so we are able to focus on the Scrum process.
Meeting Five—Sprint Tasking Meeting:
This is where things started to get fun. Breaking the process into small bites went smoothly and everyone jumped in willingly to develop the system of adding items to Teamwork. The time estimation still concerns me. I think that it will be a balancing act to make sure that the team has enough work but is not overworked.
Meeting Six—Standup:
I am going to like these. Three questions: What did you work on yesterday? What are you working on today? Do you have any blockers? Done. Everyone stayed on task and the meeting was great.