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Stated below is How to Differentiate Epics and Labels
Epics are breaking down large chunks of work into smaller tasks or stories that can be completed in a matter of time.
Labels are ways of tagging or filtering issues so they can be found more easily. It does not have a time span.
Follow the steps below on How to Delete a Subtask
1. Click on “Backlog” and select one issue
2. Click on the Subtask (right side)
3. Click the three dots (upper right)
4. Click “Delete”
Follow the steps below on How to Find All Unassigned Issues
1. Click on “Search” and go to Advance Issue Search (at the top)
2. Click “Switch to Basics” link (upper right)
3. Click the Assignee Drop Down Button and select Unassigned
Follow the steps below on What to Do When You Can’t Complete Sprint
1. Go to “Active Sprint” (You can’t complete sprint if there are tasks in the wrong column, or statuses are not mapped – note they can be hidden)
2. Click on the three dots (upper right corner)
3. Click on “Board Settings” and go to “Columns”
4. Find if there are unmapped Statuses to Columns that have issues (for example Cancelled should be mapped to done)
5. Go back to “Active Sprint”
6. Click on “Complete Sprint”
Follow the steps below on How Two Projects Share Same Sprint
1. Have the Two Scrum Projects (Both have Active Sprints)
2. Create a New Sprint
3. Click on “Backlog”
4. Click on “Create Sprint”
5. Edit the Sprint (Preferred Sprint Name)
6. Go to Another Scrum Project and Create an Issue (Story)
7. Change the Sprint Link to the Other Project by Changing to the Shared Sprint (Created story should appear in both Scrum projects)
8. Click “Start” to Run Sprint (Sprint Running in Parallel on Different Projects)
Hey guys, Anatoly from Define Agile here. We have a pretty serious topic today. Brad asked me this question on Quora. Thank you. That is an amazing question.
Yes, of course, nothing is really easy. I’ve been able to implement Scrum multiple times in Fortune 500 Enterprises. However, there are definitely some issues. What are the most common ones?
I’ll start with the biggest one right away – stakeholders. In a Waterfall organization stakeholders often are very reluctant to accept the change. So whenever one department says they want to do Scrum, stakeholders usually say, “We don’t want anything to change in our process. So, how we communicate with you should stay the same”.
How to solve this ? What I find very useful is to get a “round table” with them, explain the new process, explain the benefits, make sure they understand Agile well – that helps a lot.
Second issue – people in a team who used to work in certain way for years. This might be challenging. To solve this you need to establish trust, and really explain the value of Agile.
The third challenging thing is that even though teams have direction to move to Agile, many people don’t understand what Agile actually is.
In order for you to move teams through the Agile transformation, all people in a team need to understand what Agile is and some people need to evangelize Agile, otherwise, it just does not work. We are not talking only about developers here – your manager, his manager need to understand it as well.
This third point is exactly why companies like Define Agile exist. Our main goal when transforming any team is to teach Agile to everyone, so that if you are doing Scrum, any team member can be a Scrum Masters, and others can pass the Agile knowledge forward.
So If you are planning to go through an Agile transformation , I would highly recommend you to hire a partner to do this. It is a very important step, and if done wrong, can demotivate everyone.
Hope that helps,
Anatoly
Hello, my friends. Today we’re talking about a very interesting topic, very controversial, and so a lot of Scrum Masters and Agile coaches might disagree, which I’m okay with but I’ll tell you my opinion.
What’s the difference between a great Scrum Master and an average one?
I have three criteria based on my ten years of experience, what defines a great Scrum Master.
First of all, a great Scrum Master needs to have a cross-functional experience. So, this person apart from being a Scrum Master should have had an experience in some different role (or roles) in the software development life cycle, whether it’s beings a developer, being a QA, being engineering manager, being a product owner, project manager, CTO, anything else apart from just being a Scrum Master because all those experiences will help you to better understand the situation from different angles. This is one of the most important things in our Scrum Master’s job.
A great Scrum Master should have great work ethics. You’re dealing with a lot of conflict, a lot confidential information, so you should always be able to know when to say certain things and when not to say certain things. Always have your team’s back. If something is happening, you should take responsibility and you should be able to act, you should be able to remove impediments. So, work ethics is very, very important.
Thing number three – and it is for almost any profession, but for Scrum Master, it’s crucially important – is dealing with the change and learning on a fly.
You will have to do a lot of things you’re not comfortable with, that you’ve never done before – how you deal with that, that’s important.
Great Scrum Masters, they embrace the change, they do whatever is needed to be done to remove impediments, they learn on the fly, they are polyglots, they know a lot of different things and are able to support their teams in any way needed.
Those three things will be something that I think defines a great Scrum Master apart from the average Scrum Master. Sorry, average Scrum Masters if you don’t have one of those three, probably you’re not great yet but keep on doing it and keep on getting there.
If your team needs a great Scrum Master, Agile practitioners, or your team needs to be moved to Agile, please go to DefineAgile.com, schedule a free consultation with me, and let’s see how me and my team can help your business.
Hey guys, Anatoly from Define Agile. Here I’m answering your questions. These two questions came from Nacho Martinez.
He asks:
That’s a great question. Yes, you can definitely apply Scrum and Kanban to not only software development projects but such things as legal firms or any other projects, because it teaches you to respond to change. For example, in a Legal Firm you can have a Kanban board for different legal cases. You can move them from to-do to done. You can visualize your work. You can limit your work in progress so that you don’t take too many cases at the same time . This would be a quick example how Kanban can help you with your legal practice. Of course there is much more to it.
From Scrum, you can use planning. When you plan, what you’re going to work on with your team on this upcoming week or two weeks or a month.You can have retrospectives, where you talk about your current processes, and what can be improved. You can also have daily standup to catch, reviews to review your work – etc. Scrum is a good choice here.
So, yes, you can definitely apply those principles from Scrum and Kanban to legal firms. If you need my help, I’ll be happy to help you with that. We work with not only software teams but all other teams that you can think of. So if you need my help, go to DefineAgile.com. Let’s get you a free consultation and help you out.
The other question was:
First of all, Lean is more mindset than a framework. Lean is about testing your assumptions, delivering Minimum Viable Product, improving, testing again, while Scrum and Kanban are frameworks how to implement Agile. This is the difference. These two can be combined together. You can definitely use Lean mindset to always change, to always improve, to always show progress, and you should.
Hope that helps!
Hi guys, Anatoly from Define Agile here. I keep on answering your questions. This one is from VJ. He asks, “Why do Waterfall projects fail compared to Agile projects?”
It is a great question. Before I start talking about Agile, I just want to tell you that this is not completely true.
First of all, some companies do Waterfall amazingly. It works for them and they don’t fail. They succeed and sometimes there are projects that Waterfall might be much better suited than doing Agile. For example, If you’re building a bridge, you know exactly how long the bridge is. You have all the requirements up front, Waterfall might be and ideal way to handle that.
However, where Waterfall fall short is when projects are complex, where there are a lot of unknowns and it’s hard to get all the requirements up front .
Time have changed significantly in the last 20 years. You can’t spend years gathering requirements anymore – you need to take action and deliver value as soon as possible.
Also, client mindset has changed. Clients want to see progress every week, they want to be part of the process.
Often clients just want you to prototype something and then see where it goes. They might not know what the next iteration will be. Waterfall does not accommodate dealing with change very well. It becomes very costly.
Hope that helps!
If you need my help to move your team through an Agile transformation, please click on FREE Consultation and lets talk!
Hey guys, Anatoly from Define Agile here.
Today I am answering a question from Sabah Omer. Sabah said:
“Thank you so much for recording the video. I am looking for your advice on students or professionals without an IT/software backgrounds as myself, pursuing certification and then a career in Agile Consultant/Scrum Master. I want to learn and then pursue Agile/Scrum roles as a career. Do you need an IT background to be a Scrum Master? Can individual without an IT background be successful as Scrum Master? Thank you. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.”
First of all, thank you, Sabah, very much for posting this question. It’s a very important question. There are lots of people who are not in the IT field who want to move to Agile and Scrum, and I think it is very important for them to know how to do that.
My opinion is it is totally possible to start be a Scrum Master without an IT background. I know a couple of great Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches that I worked with who do not have an IT background and they are very successful. However, I also think that it also depends on which teams you’re working with.
Personally, I have an IT background , I work as a Developer and I understand software lifecycle. It helps me to work with technical teams.
So if I work with teams that are doing low level programming, there is no UI, for me it is easier to talk to them then for a person who does not have a technical background. I speak their language.
However, there are lots of teams that do not require that deep technical of knowledge. For example some teams I am working with are building marketing pages – they do not require my technical expertise at all.
Moreover, please remember that not only IT companies require Agile help – there are hospitals, there are restaurants, there are clubs. Everyone right now is moving to Agile, because it works better. So, it’s not just for IT.
So, please do not stop pursuing Agile career if you don’t have an IT background. Just start with getting a certificate, start with looking for companies and for job descriptions that do not require in-depth technical knowledge – there are many of those. I’m sure you’ll do great.
