Posts by Shane Finkel
Scrum Alliance Certifications: Benefits and Career Paths
The Scrum Alliance offers a number of different certification paths to become certified in Scrum. According to the Scrum Alliance, Scrum training and certification allows individuals to fulfill the vision of the Agile Manifesto through the furthering of greater collaboration, productivity, and success among team members. Certifications can allow individuals to stay current with best…
Read MoreThree Pillars Of Scrum
The three pillars of Scrum that uphold every implementation of empirical process control are: Transparency Inspection Adaptation Let’s explore a bit more about these three pillars, and why they are so essential to the Scrum framework. Transparency allows all facets of any Scrum process to be observed by anyone. This promotes an easy and transparent…
Read MoreScrum: Empirical Process Control Vs. Defined Process Control
I talked a bit about empirical process control, upon which the Scrum framework is based, in one of my earlier posts last year (https://www.agileaces.net/importance-sprint-retrospective/). But I wanted to dive more into empirical process control, including what it is, the difference between empirical process control (evolutionary product planning) and defined process control (traditional fixed planning), and…
Read MoreSpring Fling 2016
Yesterday was our Delaware Valley Agile Sprint Fling 2016. We had a good turnout, and I gave a presentation on the “T Shaped Mindset”, a topic which I am really passionate about. This presentation showed the importance of a T shaped mind set for developers and stressed cross-functionality. The benefits include; Scrum team members strengthen…
Read MoreHearts on Fire 2016 Social
Last night, we had our Delaware Valley Agile Hearts On Fire 2016 Social. We had an ok turnout, great food, and I gave a presentation on Proactive Risk Management. My presentation showed the importance of proactive risk management as opposed to reactionary issue resolution. Details included creating and maintaining a risk register or RAID Log…
Read MoreFour Reasons Why The ScrumMaster and Product Owner Should Not Be The Same Person
Many times in my career, I have seen one person sharing multiple roles. When I first entered the workforce in the Information Technology industry, I noticed a lot of positions that were combining multiple roles into one person. “Programmer/analyst” was a common one. Even now, I still see a lot of hybrid “Project Manager/Business Analyst”…
Read MoreThe Importance of the Sprint Retrospective
As a project manager and a ScrumMaster, one of the most important meetings is the Sprint Retrospective, or the “Lessons Learned” meeting. It still surprises me how many people discount the importance of this meeting, but it is especially critical in the Scrum framework as a part of empirical process control upon which Scrum is…
Read MoreSelecting Salesforce
We finally selected Salesforce as the solutions that we’re going to implement to handle information around partnering and licensing activities. Now that we’re working with the vendor to implement the solution, we’re using agile to increase collaboration among team members as well as with client stakeholders. Some aspects of the project need to be implemented…
Read MoreWeighing Options
I’ve been working on an interesting and challenging (at this rate, what program ISN’T challenging?) program for the past three months. A big pharma company was looking to replace a ten year old system that created and maintained information (and documentation) about their partnering and licensing activities (including other pharma companies, universities, healthcare systems, etc).…
Read MoreI Concur
I am working on a Concur implementation project to convert all employees from PeopleSoft to Concur using Scrums through collaboration with Scrum development team and Product Owner. Also using Scrum with respect to Business Continuity Planning. Activities to support each department are being delivered via a sprint. The Product Owner is determining the priority of…
Read More