Question 1

Systems Thinking

Accepted Answer

Systems thinking is an approach to solving complex problems that seeks to understand the system as a whole, recognizing patterns and considering connections.

Systems thinking recognizes that complex systems are made up of not just parts, but also of interactions and rules. These rules are important decisions that guide the behavior of the system.

Systems thinking also recognizes relationships between parts and that relationships between parts influence each other.

A systems thinking approach focuses on a system’s properties, such as its relationship to other elements in the system, and the relationships among these elements and behavior of the system as a whole.

An excellent reference on Systems Thinking is the book 'The Fifth Discipline' by Peter Senge. In it, Peter describes 11 laws:

Today’s problems come from yesterday’s ‘solutions.’
The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back.
Behavior will grow worse before it grows better.
The easy way out usually leads back in.
The cure can be worse than the disease.
Faster is slower.
Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space.
Small changes can produce big results…but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious.
You can have your cake and eat it too—but not all at once.
Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants.
There is no blame.

Developing Systems Thinking improves the ability of leaders, coaches, Product Owners and Scrum Masters to holistically solve the problems at hand, rather than solving the symptoms.

Question 2

Task Board

Accepted Answer

Please see Scrum Board.

Question 3

Team Happiness Index

Accepted Answer

The Team Happiness Index is a measure of the overall satisfaction and well-being of the team members. It gauges their morale, engagement, and job satisfaction.

A high Team Happiness Index signifies that team members are satisfied with their roles, have a positive relationship with their colleagues, and feel supported by the organization.

A high Team Happiness Index can positively impact team's performance and creativity.

A low index might suggest potential issues that need attention to maintain team motivation and well-being.

Question 4

Technical Debt

Accepted Answer

Technical debt is the incomplete work that must be addressed to bring the product to the expected quality and functionality.

Technical Debt could be intentional as well as unintentional.

Intentional Tech Debt is a result of decisions made during product development that emphasize speed over the product quality.

When developers are rushed, they may cut corners and pay less attention to quality - the resulting product may have incomplete work / activities.

For example: lack of refactoring, not fixing known issues / defects, incomplete or ignored unit testing, etc.

Unintentional Tech Debt is a result of slopiness, lack of technical competence, bad design decisions, etc.

Having Technical Debt lowers the User Experience and also increase the cost of ownership.

Also see: Living Without Tech Debt

Question 5

Test Driven Development

Accepted Answer

Test-driven development (TDD) is a practice specific to software development that relies on automated tests to ensure high-quality code.

In TDD developers write a test for a feature or module prior to writing the actual code.

Programmers first write a test which ensures that the code they are writing does what they are supposed to, then they write the minimum amount of code that passes the test. The programmer may write another test to make sure the implementation is correct, then write the code to pass that test. After the programmer has written and tested each test, the tests are run against the program to ensure that the program does what it should.

Test Driven Development starts by focusing on a single feature in isolation, and mocking or stubbing out other code until it’s ready to become part of broader product.

Question 6

Timebox

Accepted Answer

Timebox is a maximum duration allocated for an activity / event. Scrum Events are Timeboxed to keep everyone focused on the agenda of the event. Timeboxing also reduced risk by limiting the time a team would spend on a particular activity.

Question 7

Tools

Accepted Answer

The purpose of using any tool in a Scrum implementation is to create transparency.

Which tool is used by a team / org does not matter, as long as it's simple and serves the team's purpose.

From surveys, the most teams (83%) use MS Excel or Google Sheets.

Here is a list of some of the tools used:

MS Excel / Google Sheets
Jira
Trello
Digital.ai
MS Azure DevOps
Rally
IBM Rational

there are about a million tools out there etc.

As long as one knows how to use Excel well, one should be able to use the tool used by their organization.

See also: Information Radiators

Question 8

Toyota Production System

Accepted Answer

Toyota Production System (TPS) is a management system developed by Toyota that comprises its management philosophy and practices.

Toyota identifies TPS as a framework for conserving resources by eliminating waste. People who participate in the system learn to identify uses of material, effort and time that do not generate value for customers. It aims towards lasting gains in productivity and quality with a commitment to positive change".

Two conceptual pillars:

Just-in-Time: Building only what is needed, only when it is needed, and only in the amount that is needed.

Principles:

Continuous improvement
Respect for people
Long-term philosophy
Develop the right process
Develop your people and partners
Continuously solve root problems

Many of the Lean ideas and Agile Frameworks including Scrum are based on or inspired by TPS.

Question 9

True Leader

Accepted Answer

Scrum Masters are true leaders who serve the Scrum Team and the larger organization. - Scrum Guide.

A True Leader may exhibit characteristics such as:

Leads by Example: Scrum Master not only invites the team members to regularly seek feedback and try to continuously improve, however, models exhibiting the same and seeks feedback about their own performance and strives to keep improving how they serve the team, the product owner and the organization.
Supports those having difficult times: The Scrum Master stands in support of those who are having difficult times. Team members having difficult times don't need to be treated as bad people. The Scrum Master emphatizes and stands in support of these people.
Leads by Serving: Not there to Manage, the Scrum Master serves to lead.

Also see: Scrum Master as a Servant-Leader

Question 10

User Story

Accepted Answer

A User Story is a story told by the user (of the product) of her/his challenges, or opportunities.

The original intent of the User Story has been that a User Story is to be told not written.

A User Story card is a promise for further communication. Communication that should happen between the Developers and the Customer or Stakeholders to create a shared understanding of the user's needs.

Further Reading:

Writing Effective User Stories Becoming User Centric with User Stories

Also see:

Product Backlog Item, Spike, Technical Debt, Splitting User Stories

Question 11

Value Stream Mapping

Accepted Answer

Value-stream mapping, is a powerful visual technique originating from Lean Management to determine the efficiency of a value stream.

The Value-stream map visualizes the flow of both materials and information as they progress through the process from Idea to Solution. It involves labelling and quantifing the activity time, and waiting (idle) time to calculate the effeciency of the value creation process.

Value flow efficiency of 5-10% is typical for a large number of manufacturing processes, product development in large organization, etc.

Mapping the time taken during the value creating activities and idle time between two activities, helps identify the process improvement areas in an organization.

Question 12

Velocity

Accepted Answer

Velocity is not a Scrum term, it is a term used in Extreme Programming.

Velocity is the rate at which value has been delivered.

It's calculated as an average of the value delivered by a team in the past few Sprints. [ Let's say average of last 4 or 5 Sprints ].

Let's say: The Team Acers delivered below number of Product Backlog Items:

Sprint Number of Product Backlog Items Delivered

At the end of Sprint 10, the velocity of team Acers is 6-7 Product Backlog Items per Sprint.

The velocity trending upward over a period may indicate that the team is delivering more output.

More velocity does not equal more value or more impact.

Also, velocity numbers can easily be gamed when velocity is used for micro-managing the team or pushing them to deliver more than what they could comfortably deliver.

Comparing Velocity of two teams is usually a waste of effort and futile. As two teams may have different set of work, complexity, skill set, collaboration, availability of Product Owner and many other variables would be different.

Question 13

WIP Limit

Accepted Answer

The maximum amount of Work-In-Process (WIP) that can be pulled in for processing / implementation within a workflow. This is a limit on the total amount of items that can be in process.

The purpose of having a WIP Limit is to increase the focus on the flow of value. Due to the limits on WIP, the remaining work items can be either Waiting to be Picked up or Completed (Done).

In a Scrum environment, to improve the flow of value delivery, it's recommended that the number of work items in progress may be lesser than the number of developers available to execute the work items.