November 2010

When introducing the concept of Scrum to an organization for the first time, I try to give a reasonably unbiased view of what to expect. I warn the new Product Owner that at first he may feel overwhelmed and struggle to articulate requirements in a clear and actionable fashion. I tell the new ScrumMaster that the innocuous duty assignment “ensure everyone follows the Scrum process” may make her wildly unpopular for a while. I also like to be clear with everyone which problems Scrum can fix and which it cannot.

Agile values working software over comprehensive documentation – It is 1/4th of the original manifesto.  That doesn’t mean don’t document!  It means don’t document more than you need to document.  Documentation does have value, but the practice of documenting got excessive – that’s why a reaction to the bad stuff earned a spot as one of the pillars of agile.  This blog post discusses how do you avoid over-reacting when changing a culture of over-documentation?