Dominique Stender A blog about my thoughts and experiences in Information Technology

Attempting Scrum in a SDLC environment, pt. 1

I was brainstorming a little about doing Scrum in a company and office environment that isn't tuned to Scrum and would like to share those thoughts. Let me know what you think in the comments!

The good thing about the standard Indian IT office is that it is built from cubicles. That way people can quickly shift from one cubicle to the other to form a team that sits next to each other.

The bad thing about the standard Indian IT office is that it is built from cubicles.

There simply is no space for big white boards or task boards to tack all the user stories on.

But no one prevents you to use pen and paper. If your software design doesn't fit on an A-4 paper it might be too complex to begin with or more detailed than required. Tasks are not bigger than a few days of work, right?

It may not be feasible to put all user stories on a task board, but every developer sure can put his tasks on a wall of his cubicle. Our new office luckily has a small section of each cubicle wall converted into a mini white board. Cool stuff for rough sketches also but frankly speaking I wouldn't count on the sketch being there the next morning after the cleaning staff went through (knock on wood though, so far it worked).

Conference rooms - that mystical land where the white boards are - are rare and frequently occupied, so spontaneous meetings in there are somewhat impractical. However, with the office shift I secured myself and the teams two windows. Who says we can't draw sketches on the window? Word of advice though: Verify that your white board markers are removable on glass first! Any corner usually hidden behind blinds should do. Oh and those sketches will definitely not survive the cleaning staff. Make sure one of you has a decent camera on his phone .

The burndown chart in my case is easily printable on A-4 paper so it will literally fit anywhere. Starting from tomorrow it will be tacked right next to the window in question.