Improve your scrum Archives

Does your team have a common understanding of various Scrum Events? Are you looking for simple tools and techniques to help Improve your Scrum Ceremonies? Make them fun and Productive?

The Event Canvas

Look no further! Introducing Event Canvas!

Events canvas

[Download a PDF of this Event Canvas just put Zero on the Price]

As an Enterprise Transformation Coach, I do a lot of training. And, being an Agilist at heart, I am always looking for ways to improve the delivery of my training and the experience for the participants. I came up with this canvas to help me teach the basics of each of the events and ceremonies while keeping the participants engaged and interested.

How to use this Canvas…

I give out multiple copies of this canvas at each table during the training. Each table (team) also picks two to three events that they volunteer to discuss at the table and fill out this canvas. When the timebox is over, each team will debrief on the event they discuss; essentially walking the class through the canvas for the specific event.

As the debrief happens, you are using your facilitation skills to drive the conversation and explain the intricacies of the specific event. This is where you (as trainer, coach, and facilitator) make the magic happen 🙂

Try it with your team. I promise you, you won’t regret it!

More tools, please…

Want more tools to make your scrum events highly productive? I have a collection of simple tools that can help you as you coach and mentor your team. Your team will thank you for finding these gems. Check out Improve your Scrum as a first step towards uncovering these hidden gems.

Improve Your Scrum Ceremonies

Get it for only $20

Get it here and start improving your scrum ceremonies right away

Recently, I was training an entire division of a client in OH area. To begin their Agile Transformation journey, we wanted to stand up several Scrum teams. The first logical step was to take them into a formal training on Agile concepts. We also wanted to come out of the workshop so that teams can start their first sprint the very next week.

Gamify to help Scrum Teams

The challenge was to introduce them to agile concepts quickly while involving as well as challenging them. We also wanted them to ‘discover’ and validate the concepts through a series of activities. To achieve these objectives, we used several worksheets, templates, and tools to help them. We wanted to make these activities fun and interesting.

Keeping game theory in mind, we came up with an ‘Agile Bingo‘ – a set of activities that each team has to do, and the first one to finish the sheet wins the ‘Bingo’.

We also came up with Event Canvas to make bring everyone on the same page, regarding their understanding of various events in Scrum, and do this while keeping it fun, interesting, and engaging. As we say, in an Agile team, everyone should be rowing in the same direction. In other words, everyone should be driving towards the common goals. This simple worksheet helped eliminate the myths and bring everyone’s understanding on the same page!

Another wildly popular ideas was that of Scrum Calendar; to help them get to a consensus on a calendar with events, time, and location. This is especially useful when you have geographically dispersed teams involving multiple time zones.

Complete this bingo to jump start your Agile Journey

The toolbox for the workshop

As a trainer and facilitator, I also used several of my ‘home grown’ worksheets and templates; such as:

Agile Timeline
Yellow Card; and other ways to use Post It notes
Scrum Calendar
Event Canvas (to understand various dimensions of different events)
Agile Bingo
Two book ends of User Stories
Dependency Wheel
Start with Y (to understand various dimensions of different roles)
Companion Cards providing visual representation of different concepts

These workshops were a huge success! Everyone loved these activities and felt they got a lot of useful information out of these activities. Here are some pictures from these workshops.

Your team will thank you!

Help your Scrum Team help you! Check out Improve Your Scrum Ceremonies as a first step towards uncovering these hidden gems. Your Scrum Team will thank you for finding these gems!