Question 1

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 2

Psychological Safety

Accepted Answer

Psychological safety at work refers to an environment where employees feel secure and respected, enabling them to express ideas, ask questions, and voice concerns without fear of negative consequences. It fosters open communication, creativity, and learning, as team members feel comfortable taking risks and making mistakes.

This safety is crucial for innovation, collaboration, and overall workplace well-being. It hinges on mutual trust and respect among colleagues and is often cultivated by empathetic, supportive leadership.

In such an environment, individuals are more likely to contribute fully and authentically, enhancing team dynamics and organizational effectiveness.

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

Release Planning

Accepted Answer

Release Planning is the process of planning a product release, identifying the capabilities that need to be released, stakeholders and team members involved, budget and timelines.

In Scrum, every Sprint enables inspection and adaptation of progress toward a Product Goal. Every Sprint begins with Sprint Planning and results in at least one increment that is usable to customers.

Some teams release increments multiple times a sprint, other teams group features from more than a sprint before releasing to the customers.

Those releasing at least once a sprint, do not need seperate release planning besides the Sprint Planning that already exists.

Question 5

Product Roadmap

Accepted Answer

Product Roadmap visually represents the strategy and vision of the Product Owner. It may contain the high level requirements in order of customer value, and the direction of the product over time.

Question 6

Spotify Engineering Culture

Accepted Answer

How Spotify (a music streaming company) built their engineering culture based on agile values, principles and techniques:

Part I:

Part II:

This video reflects Spotify's journey in progress, not the journey completed. Many teams blindly try to follow Spotify model and miserably fail at it, as the underlying context for every organization / team is different.

Question 7

Self-Managing Team

Accepted Answer

A self-managing team is empowered to internally decide who does what, when, and how. It is responsible and accountable for all or most aspects / decisions of planning and producing a product or delivering a service.

Self-Management requires the team members must be empowered and kept shielded from hierarchy.

See also: Scrum as a Servant-Leader

Question 9

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 10

Done

Accepted Answer

When a Product Backlog Item meets the Definition of Done an Increment is recognized as Done.

See more: Definition of Done

Question 11

Stakeholders

Accepted Answer

Anyone with a stake / interest in the Scrum Team and it's outcomes could be a stakeholder to the Scrum Team. Stakeholders could be internal as well as external to the organization.

Internal stakeholders may be people from various functions / departments of the organization such as: finance, sales-marketing, infrastructure, customer support, release management, etc.

External stakeholders may include clients, paying customers, end users, consumers, prospects, etc.

Question 12

Story Mapping

Accepted Answer

User Story Mapping is a holistic visual representation of how all the user stories fit into the overall user experience.

A 2-Dimensional story map can help understand the sequence of activities of a system, identify gaps in the product backlog, and plan releases that deliver customer value.

The goal is not to create a raodmap, rather, change people’s mindset from gathering and writing detailed requirements to building shared understanding.

A sample User Story Map: (Source: Jeff Patton)

Question 13

Self-Management

Accepted Answer

When a team is empowered to decide who does what, when, and how - it can be termed as a Self-Managing Team. The self-managing team is responsible and accountable for all or most aspects / decisions of planning, producing and delivering value.

To enable people or teams in an organization to self-manage, the structure of the organization /and the team must be relatively flat. The team must be shielded from hierarchy. People must have the needed empowerement to make necessary decisions related to their work.

Some of the well known large-scale Organizations that are successfully operating and growing based on the principles of Self-Management:

Morning Star (Tomato Processor, USA)
Buurtzorg (Healthcare, The Netherlands, Worldwide)
Semco Group (Manufacturing, Brazil)
Patagonia (Outdoor Apparel, USA)
Haier Group (Consumer Durables, Appliances, China)

See also: Self-Managing Teams

Question 14

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 15

Swarming

Accepted Answer

Swarming is a simple way where as many team members as possible work simultaneously on one highest value item. All team members focus on completing this one item before picking the next highest value item.

Working on many items / initiatives at a time increases work in progress, that causes delays and eventually waste of time.

Question 16

Framework

Accepted Answer

A framework could be a collection of guidelines, rules and elements that provide a structure and boundary but not the prescription to achieve something.

For Example: The game of Chess (a framework) offers:

The chess board (8x8 squares)
The chess pieces (Material)
The rules about how each piece is placed, how each piece moves across the board

A chess player gets to decide their strategy, which piece they move and where, how they secure their king and how they use their queen. The game of the Chess doesn't prescribe any of this.

Question 17

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 18

Scrum of Scrums (SoS)

Accepted Answer

A techinque to coordinate work and dependencies across multiple Scrum teams. A member from each team joins a short daily sync up to discsus dependencies, impediments and opportunities to collaborate among various teams.