Week in Review #4

I came down with a cold this week, and have been busy preparing for a week on half-time to cover for the spouse's trip. Things might be a bit sparse here. (Indeed, I forgot to post this until Monday.)
  • Team member contributed funds for the candy basket I keep on my desk. (Because Agile = food, as far as I can tell.) 
  • Backlog grooming! This has been a big subject in our retrospectives lately. Unfortunately due to being sick, my energy level wasn't what it could have been for this significant meeting. The stories are not challenging, the business value is frequently unclear (and the teams get tired of asking product owners to provide it), and people are too invested (IMO) in the estimation exercise while at the same time having an unclear sense of how to achieve agreement about those -- or what to do if we can't agree, so as to keep the meeting going.
  • Followed up on a few more items from last week's retrospective.  

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