- You get past work experience. And calculate the amount of work the team can handle
- Get estimates from the team and double the number they give you to determine work load.
- Meet with each individual and see how much work they can take on. Build a sprint plan from that information. Then gather everyone, show the sprint plan and kickoff the team sprint.
- Use the PO/SM powers to challenge the team to take big bites. Get as much loaded in the sprint as possible. The PO/SM can form a powerful pincer to overcome resistance.
- This is sprint planning. You commit one story at a time. Make sure the team is committing to sharp definitions of done.
Comment: After a Story is committed to, the Team (with the PO in the lead) has the option to reprioritize the Story list, and the Team takes the next one to consider. Once again, the Team comes to the “doneness” Agreement and commits to adding the Story to the list of already-committed-to Stories. This process is repeated until the Sprint is “full” and the Sprint Plan is complete.
Yes, It’s their process why not?- No, explain to them and work through why the retrospective is so important.
- Maybe, if they are no longer a team then why continue with Scrum?
- Only do retrospectives once a quarter and build up a good list of things to change.
- Yes, the process will take care of itself we don’t need to watch it that closely. After all it’s common sense!
Comment: Of things to watch out for and not allow this is high on my list. It boils down to this rule: If the team is not doing a retrospective then they are not doing scrum. The retrospective is where the team takes formal ownership of their process. In these situations I crack shins, and kick knee caps and generally do what is necessary to ensure they continue doing a retrospective. Without that we often see teams fall into “it’s not my fault” because “x” told me to. In some cases “x” is the process that no-one owns, imagine the process that gets created by someone who decides to own it but, does not do it themselves!.
Retrospective is an external constraint that must be demanded of the team. There are many ways to run a good retrospective, ScrumMaster rise to the challenge and support your team.
