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ScrumCenter founders Christoph Mathis and Simon Roberts will both be speaking at the Agile Day of the Karlsruhe Entwickertag organised by Andrena Objects AG on 24th June 2009.

Christoph Mathis will present a talk entitled "Making Scrum Stick - Transforming the Enterprise" starting at 12:15.

Simon Roberts will be taking part in a podium discussion entitled "Clash of Cultures – Agilität und hergebrachte Arbeitsmodelle – Beobachtungen aus USA, Europa, Naher Osten und Asien – Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten" starting at 17:15.

More information on the Karlsruhe Entwicklertag in general can be found here and on the Agile Day here.

ScrumCenter founders Simon Roberts and Christoph Mathis will be presenting two workshops at the Lean Agile Scrum Conference at the ETH in Zürich, Switzerland on 4th June 2009.

The conference has the motto "Agile - vom Hype zur Praxis" (Agile from Hype to Practice) and includes a diverse range of topics around the general theme of Lean, Agile and Scrum.

Starting at 10:30, we will be presenting a workshop entitled "Scrum 101". In 1.5 hours, this session will provide an introduction to Scrum as a framework for the management of the development and delivery of complex products.

Starting at 15:00, we will be presenting a 45 minute talk entitled "Making Scrum Stick - Transforming the Enterprise". During this talk we will describe our approach to sustainable Scrum enterprise transitions, based on our work introducing Scrum into small, medium and large sized companies.

I've recently been using Jeff Sutherland's extended version of Bas Vodde's "Nokia Test" to help Scrum teams identify room for improvement in their implementation of Scrum.

Here's Jeff's version: http://jeffsutherland.com/scrum/scrumbutttest.pdf

I've extended the test with 3 questions covering:

• Where the team members sit
• Team stability
• Generalization/specialization

In my experience these are additional important factors indicating the quality of a team’s Scrum implementation

Remember that the test is intended for helping teams to improve, not for comparing teams!

Slides describing the 11 questions and notes for facilitators are attached in Powerpoint and Keynote formats.

We've produced a simple flyer which describes the services offered by ScrumCenter and outlines our agile enablement approach.

The full version of the flyer is attached. Here's an extract:

Services

We offer a number of services to help you and your organization get started with agile methods and, once started, keep your teams performing well. These include:

Consulting. To help you identify the business case for agile within your organization and to help with the selection of a suitable pilot.

Training. To equip your team with the tools that it needs to identify the most appropriate approach for your organization.

Coaching. By working closely with your team on a
day-to-day basis we can provide assistance as they start to get to grips with agile methods and keep them fresh with new ideas once they become comfortable.

Mentoring. We can mentor your project and program managers and help them become effective leaders in the agile organization.

Training

During the initial consulting phase of an engagement we’ll work with you to create a training plan to suit the team, taking account of the experience level of the participants and their future roles. Our training material is modular in nature and can be delivered in English or German. The approach taken combines theory, discussion and copious exercises to reinforce the important learning points.

Standard combinations of training modules include:

Scrum for Teams. A two day course to prepare a team (including ScrumMaster, Product Owner and development team) for working together as a Scrum team.

Team Techniques for ScrumMasters. A two day advanced course for ScrumMasters. During this course, the participants learn how the ScrumMaster can support self-organization within the team and help the team achieve sustainable high-performance.

We've produced some ScrumCenter posters. There are three posters:

1. Lighting Beacons: Patterns for Introducing Scrum within the Enterprise
2. Scrum Transition Services. A summary of our services.
3. Starting with Scrum. A graphical summary of how we use consulting, training and coaching to introduce Scrum to a new team.

The posters are attached as a PDF file.

We are holding an open Certified ScrumMaster course in Unterföhring near to Munich on 9th and 10th March 2009. The trainers will be Sabine Canditt (Siemens) and Simon Roberts (ScrumCenter).

This is an exciting opportunity to attend a CSM course with trainers who have years of experience in successfully introducing Scrum in large, medium and small organisations and providing the thought leadership for one of the largest Scrum Enterprise Transitions in Europe.

The course will be presented in German.

More information can be found here:

http://www.gopas.com/index.php?id=45

and here:

http://www.gopas.com/static/flyer-csm-sc-sr-2009-03.pdf

In the December meeting of Agiletuesday, our Munich Scrum group, we talked about the Crystal methods and we agreed to discuss V-Modell as a prominent example of a high-ceremony method next time. Next time, this is January 19th, 2009 and I want to contribute a short text I wrote a few weeks ago.

Scrum and the German V-Modell
V-Model is one of the high-ceremony low-trust document-centric project management methods. Why should anybody want to bother viewing it from an agile perspective?

Today Christoph Mathis and I presented our ideas on introducing Scrum to traditional enterprises at the Zürich Scrum Breakfast. Thanks to Peter Stevens, the sponsors and the attendees for the opportunity and for the interesting questions and discussion.

PDF and Apple Keynote versions of the slides are attached.

In the last meeting of our Munich Scrum Group "Agiletuesday" the question of comparing Scrum with other methodologies came up and we put the topic on our backlog.