The Elements of Scrum

Because the presence of rank and authority would actually hinder the scrum master in gaining the kind of intimacy and access needed to be a trusted advisor, arbitrator, and team advocate. The scrum master is available to “hold space” for the team, to use the woo-woo term. They do this by keeping an eye on processes and progress, advising the team t

It is likely that some stakeholders will fall back on old habits, and go directly to team members in an attempt to get their stuff done quickly. Team members can learn to redirect these requests with artfully diplomatic ripostes like: “This sounds important, you should bring it to our product owner!”

Agility is not about cutting corners to go faster. Anyone who has worked in a cluttered up, ill-maintained legacy code base will attest to the fact that progress comes slowly when those who went before us took shortcuts.

Being agile is about building a flexible process that anticipates and embraces change, allowing the team to adapt to new requirements and unexpected developments. It is a by-now-familiar refrain: inspect and adapt. Notice how that mantra surfaces in every discussion of every agile value?

In scrum, no-one but the product owner is authorized to ask the team to do work or to change the priority of backlog items.

This vision encompasses who the product is being built for, why they need it, and how they will use it. It informs all of the many decisions that must be made in order to make the product a reality.

Either way, it’s the product owner’s responsibility to make sure that requirements are available and understood by the team. This means the product owner must be available to the team, in order to field the many questions that will come up during the sprint.

Planning on a software project must be fluid, not fixed, for the good of the team, but mainly for the good of the product, and ultimately for the good of the customer. This is why you plan for change and change your plan—pretend that you can succeed by doing otherwise and you will eventually find yourself adrift in the middle of nowhere. Agilists

On an agile project, you build the important bits first, and the ones you never get to are the ones you needed the least. Features that reveal themselves to be superfluous or just plain silly can fall off the backlog naturally,