Head First Agile: Scrum? Tools?

Hey, thanks for stopping by! My team just moved over from Waterfall, and what a ride it's been!  We've been using the Scrum methodology, so I'm wondering if your book covers that sort of thing, or useful tools for working in Agile.

Thanks!

Congratulations on the agile adoption! Yes, Head First Agile covers Scrum. We start by talking about the core principles and practices of Scrum: Scrum roles, iteration using Sprints, how the Scrum values help you effectively self-organize, some common pitfalls that teams fall into. Then we move on to cover generally accepted Scrum practices (GASPs) including user stories, task boards, and planning poker. Our goal was to give you everything you need to put the basic practices in place, but also to help you learn about the ideas behind those practices so that you and your team can evolve into a more agile mindset.

I'm curious – how are things going with your Scrum team? What's your biggest challenge so far?

Sounds like a great book!

I'd say we have a few challenges so far that we're working though.  We like the process, generally, but still have a few stumbling points.

Tools are always an issue with anything I guess, but finding something that will work company/department wide has been a bit of an issue.  We went head first into Hansoft and are still trying to bend it to our will.  When you're trying to adapt both new processes and new software it gets to be a little complicated.
We're still trying to find the best task size for developers for our 2 weeks sprints.  I'm the Scrum master (which I'm loving) and also the QA resource on our team, so I'm usually pressuring devs into making their dev chunks small enough that I have stuff to do QA wise throughout the two weeks, inetead of all piled up on the end.
Our other big issue is defect management, which I think is also a tool issue.  We went from Microsoft Test Manager and TFS, which had some pretty strong bug recording features, but the version we had was weak on the reporting side. We're trying to get Hansoft to do the job for us as much as possible, but I haven't really been loving it yet.

To add to the fun, our QA department recently moved away from traditional test management into Session based test management.  Another curve ball which is, overally, a good shift, but another challenge to make it all work together.  If you're not familliar with SBTM, check out a guy named James Bach's work.  If you don't drink his Koolaid that's fine, but I think he make some good points about how testing should be done.

So, I recently stumbled upon this Scrum tool called Vabro, and let me tell you, it's been a game-changer for our team. It's got everything you need to manage Agile projects like a pro while making collaboration a breeze. The best part? It's super user-friendly and has all the features you'd expect, plus a few extras that really set it apart. Seriously, if you're in the market for a solid Scrum tool, Vabro is definitely worth checking out!