Chris Sims > Quotes

“Because that's the thing about Scooby-Doo: the bad guys in every episode aren't monsters, they're liars... The very first rule of Scooby-Doo, the single premise that sits at the heart of their adventures, is that the world is full of grown-ups who lie to kids, and that it's up to those kids to figure out what those lies are and call them on it, even if there are other adults who believe those lies with every fiber of their being.”
― Chris Sims

“So, why do we do development work in these short cycles? To learn. Experience is the best teacher, and the scrum cycle is designed to provide you with multiple opportunities to receive feedback—from customers, from the team, from the market—and to learn from it.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”
― Chris Sims, The Elements of Scrum

“We have seen a few examples of teams trying to have one person serve as both scrum master and product owner. In all the cases we have seen, this has failed.”
― Chris Sims, The Elements of Scrum

“Another way that the product owner maximizes the value realized from the team’s efforts is to make sure the team fully understands the requirements. If the team fully understands the requirements, then they will build the right thing, and not waste time building the wrong thing.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“Another way that the product owner maximizes the value realized from the team’s efforts is to make sure the team fully understands the requirements. If the team fully understands the requirements,”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“What tasks I’ve completed since the last daily scrum. What tasks I expect to complete by the next daily scrum. What obstacles are slowing me down.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan”
― Chris Sims, The Elements of Scrum

“anyone who has worked on an enterprise-scale software project knows that the only thing you can count on is change.”
― Chris Sims, The Elements of Scrum

“describes the role of the product owner: “You must recognize that through your actions—writing user stories and acceptance tests, prioritizing user stories by business value, deciding which user stories are developed next, providing rapid feedback, etc—you”
― Chris Sims, The Elements of Scrum

“A scrum team typically consists of around seven people who work together in short, sustainable bursts of activity called sprints, with plenty of time for review and reflection built in.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“So, why do we do development work in these short cycles? To learn. Experience is the best teacher, and the scrum cycle is designed to provide you with multiple opportunities to receive feedback—from customers, from the team, from the market—and learn from it. What you learn while doing the work in one cycle informs your planning for the next cycle. In scrum, we call this “inspect and adapt”; you might call it “continuous improvement”; either way, it’s a beautiful thing.”
― Chris Sims, The Elements of Scrum

“Agile processes of all kinds share one thing: they embrace change, approaching it as an opportunity for growth, rather than an obstacle.”
― Chris Sims, The Elements of Scrum

“Scrum Master The scrum master acts as a coach, guiding the team to ever-higher levels of cohesiveness, self-organization, and performance. While a team’s deliverable is the product, a scrum master’s deliverable is a high-performing, self-organizing team. The scrum master is the team’s good shepherd, its champion, guardian, facilitator, and scrum expert.  The scrum master helps the team learn and apply scrum and related agile practices to the team’s best advantage. The scrum master is constantly available to the team to help them remove any impediments or road-blocks that are keeping them from doing their work. The scrum master is not—we repeat, not—the team’s boss. This is a peer position on the team, set apart by knowledge and responsibilities not rank.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“The theory is that the people who do the work are the highest authorities on how best to do it.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“Working software is the primary measure of progress.”
― Chris Sims, The Elements of Scrum

“Scrum is a lightweight framework designed to help small, close-knit teams of people develop complex products.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“While a team’s deliverable is the product, a scrum master’s deliverable is a high-performing, self-organizing team. The”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“The product owner is responsible for recording the requirements, often in the form of user stories”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“What we are describing is a mindset change from “doing my job” to “doing the job.” It is also a change in focus from “what we are doing” (work) to what is getting done (results).”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“While a team’s deliverable is the product, a scrum master’s deliverable is a high-performing, self-organizing team.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“The Standish Group’s 2002 “Chaos” study of software project success and failure rates states that in a typical software system, 45% of features are never used. Only 7% of features are always used, and another 13% are used often.”
― Chris Sims, The Elements of Scrum

“Scrum recognizes only three distinct roles: product owner, scrum master, and team member”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.”
― Chris Sims, The Elements of Scrum

“A development team represents a significant investment on the part of the business.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“One way that the product owner maximizes ROI is by directing the team toward the most valuable work, and away from less valuable work. That is, the product owner controls the order, sometimes called priority, of items in the team’s backlog. In scrum, no-one but the product owner is authorized to ask the team to do work or to change the order of backlog items.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

“The product backlog is the cumulative list of desired deliverables for the product.”
― Chris Sims, Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction