Agile: Getting it

Talking to one of my scrum team members the other day, I learned that one of their techniques was to split longer stories into pieces so that they would fit into a sprint. Not particularly a problem I thought - until I discovered that they literally split it into two. And decided that 'done' for the part of the story in sprint 1 was simply defined as 50% through the work, and 'done' in sprint 2 was when it had all been tested and was ready.

I also learned about a PM who, determined to deliver his project in the new 'agile' way, had shared his project plan with a wider audience:

sprint 1 - requirements gathering
sprint 2 - design
sprint 3 - build
sprint 4 - test

I wonder what sprint 5 would have looked like?

I also discovered a project manager claiming to be both PM, scrum-master and product owner. I'm quite surprised that he wasn't also planning to do some of the testing.

The problem is clear - when we say we're agile, how do we know? And when we say we're using scrum, are we really?

Some simple 'is this a scrum' tests:

Is the team between 4 and 9 in size?
I've seen one-man scrums claimed before, and teams > 10 trying to be a scrum. Clearly 7 +/- 2 is ideal, but i'd settle for between 3 and 10.

Who distributes the work?
If the answer is anything other than 'nobody' then you have a small group of people under the leadership of someone who is likely to be using scrum to avoid taking responsibility. And you need to fire your so-called scrum-master who doesn't have a clue.

Does everyone attend the stand-up?
The answer is clear, but a large offshore supplier quite recently suggested to me that their scrum team would consist of a core team in which some members would 'represent' other members who wouldn't attend the stand-up. I guess these guys would appear to have superhuman delivery characteristics - huge achievements, disproportionate impediments and planned activity far in excess of other 'puny' team members.

What tidy-up activity would be required if we fired you all after this sprint?
Again, if the answer is anything other than 'nothing' then there is something wrong - the basic premise of scrum is that you keep asking the question: what next? And you do it after every sprint, and you must be prepared to completely change direction. Everyone must understand that it is more valuable to have fully delivered 0.5% of a featureset than have partially delivered 80%.

Why are you doing this?
I expect each scrum team member to have an excellent grasp of the work they are doing, not only from a technical perspective, but also from a value perspective. They need to have bought in to the work they are doing, so that they can look for better ways of doing it, so that they question appropriately, and so that they become more than just a pair of hands building something for someone. This is the point of the product owner and the close engagement with the customer. Without it, you have an inefficient team.

I've missed the obvious stuff like - daily stand ups, show & tells, fixed time-boxed iterations, retrospectives, etc. only because these things are perhaps easier to achieve. They are important, though, and should be happening also.

I'll let you know when all my teams pass the tests ..