Fast Track | Bare Essentials

These posts are at the core of learning how to do Home Scrum. If you only read a few posts, make it these ones! I’ve stripped out all the musing and kept it completely relevant and actionable.

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Diagram of how to do Home Scrum. First section: What you'll need 1) At least one other person (could be online) 2) An empty wall you see often 3) A board, post-it notes, and (for a whiteboard) blu-tack or (for a cork board) pins. Second section: Board layout Adapt this layout to you, or start simple with columns for To Do, Doing, and Done. Divide columns with ribbon, string, tape, or strips of newspaper. Use different colours for different life categories (e.g. Health, Home, Work, Hobbies). Each task should be on a single post-it note of the appropriate colour, with a specific, do-able next step written on it. In the top corner you can write a number in a circle, which gives the task points. Points represent effort, and we often use the following scale: 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, infinity. Suggested landscape board layout: 1) 'Backlog' first column, far left, groups tasks by life category 2) 'This Week' top half of second column; fill this with a realistic number of tasks from the backlog 3) 'Regulars' bottom half of second column; 'Regulars' are repeating tasks, e.g. housework. 4) 'Today' third column, potentially split further into columns for each person's tasks. Could add a 'Morning' heading at the top of the column and an 'Afternoon' one halfway down, to indicate when you'll get to a task. 4) 'Done today' top third fourth column. 5) 'Burn-up Chart' middle third fourth column, this can just be a simple graph to show how many tasks you've done, but can be adapted later into a fun game. 6) 'Done This Week', bottom third fourth column; read the tasks from here again before discarding them, to celebrate your achievements. Third section: The Scrum Events 1) The Daily Scrum: - maximum 15 minutes - stand up if possible - move tasks to 'done today' - count total points done - record points on burn-up chart - move tasks back to regulars or into 'done this week' - plan tasks for next day (move them to 'today') - do *every day* 2) Retrospective ('retro') - 5 to 30 minutes - Discuss improvements to your system - Pick an idea to try for the next week - Use little games to make it more fun - Air your feelings - Weekly or fortnightly 3) Planning - 15 to 45 minutes - Remove stale tasks from backlong - Break down larger tasks into smaller steps - Decide which tasks from the backlog to move into 'this week' - Pick fewer tasks than you think you can do - Weekly or fortnightly 4) Review - Clear out 'done this week' - Remind yourself of all your progress and celebrate

What Scrum is

Scrum is a way of organising a small group of people to work together. The whole system is defined fully in the Scrum Guide, which is only 12 pages long. It involves using a board with columns represe

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Start Home Scrum now using check-lists

How to get the most out of this blog This blog is written with the most possible emphasis on helping you to put the ideas into specific action immediately. In this post, there are check-lists of all t

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How to ask for help using Home Scrum (with scripts)

What you are actually asking for It is a good idea, and a sign of respect, to ask for specific help when approaching someone. So, what are you actually asking someone in your Home Scrum team to do? He

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Photo of an 8 foot by 4 foot board. On the left half, the columns are 'Backlog', 'Today', 'Done' and 'Regulars'. The rows across these are 'Sally', 'Francis' and 'Both.' In the right half there is a large calendar of the next fifteen weeks. In the bottom right corner there are 'Done Dones'.

Some Home Scrum board layouts, from simple to overly complex

At the heart of the Scrum framework is the Scrum board. It’s best to use a real, physical board, although it doesn’t matter whether it’s a cork-board or white-board, or even just a demarcated pi

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How to do the Home Scrum events

What are the Scrum events? In Scrum, we avoid the term ‘meeting’ because even inside the corporate world, it has too many negative connotations. They used to be called ‘ceremonies’ but now the

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Fast Track | Bare Essentials

What Scrum is

Start Home Scrum now using check-lists

How to ask for help using Home Scrum (with scripts)

Some Home Scrum board layouts, from simple to overly complex

How to do the Home Scrum events

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