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oned Product Goal. Hence it is important that the Increment is an actual, done, working thing that can be experienced and inspected. So no… not a concept of that thing, like designs, wireframes, sketches, architecture drawings, database models, technical specification documents, and whatnot. These are not considered working increments. You can’t cheat your way back into Waterfall by considering the Increment to be one of those. Sure, some of these may be needed to come to a working Increment (but probably not as much as some might think).Overproduction and excessive by-production is the most harmful source of waste. Don’t fall into the trap of sharing Big Design’s Up Front (BDUF), requirement docs, and architecture specs. These instantly set expectations that are nearly always impossible to meet, let alone exceed. They say little or nothing about feasibility, level of quality, and speed of development, and need for maintenance of the actual product.Remember, with Scrum, this holistic picture emerges and changes throughout the product lifecycle.<figure id="f976"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*DmqQWmb4uXtjjwzZ0j7ywg.png"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>Sure a designer or architect may draft these artifacts as exercises to get a more holistic picture, yet should be careful about sharing these outside the team as they often set unrealistic expectations.The working product is the primary measure of progress.Great visual design only says something about the quality of the vision and the talent of the visual designer. You can’t tell how good and fast the team is at delivering that which is needed in the end: a working product. It doesn’t tell anything about the quality produced or the stability of the finished product. It tells little to nothing about the function or behavior. You get a whole lot of nothing that sets a whole lot of expectations.I know a great childhood story about just that…<h1 id="6237">The Emperor’s Clothes</h1>Perhaps such a complicated, confusing, and abstract term like empiricism can best be told through a childhood story; and maybe I can be cheeky in creating a connection to the word ‘Emperor’ too.Remember The Emperor’s Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen?Try to apply this narrative to your organization:This story is about a vain emperor who really likes to show his worth by displaying only the finest attire. The Emperor continues to demand even better quality until the weavers are at a loss on how to achieve this. Nothing can be produced that is good enough yet his demands only go up. This is until some devious men show up and explain they use only the finest fabric available — so fine even, that it is only presentable to those who are wise or pure and are fit to hold their title or position.<blockquote id="e067">“If I wore them, I would be able to discover which men in my empire are unfit for their posts. And I could tell the wise men from the fools,” the Emperor thought.</blockquote>Thus the Emperor gave the order…<blockquote id="7b88">“I’d like to know how those weavers are getting on with the cloth,” the Emperor thought, but he felt slightly uncomfortable when he remembered that those who were unfit for their position would not be able to see the fabric. It couldn’t have been that he doubted himself, yet he thought he’d rather send someone else to see how things were going.</blockquote>And so the Emperor sends in his best and most trusted minister.<blockquote id="e0bb">“Heaven help me,” he thought as his eyes flew wide open, “I can’t see anything at all”. But he did not say so. “Can it be that I’m a fool? […] Am I unfit to be the minister? It would never do to let on that I can’t see the cloth.”</blockquote>Just to be sure, the Emperor sent other emissaries. All were tremendously positive about the quality and the colors of the fabrics used in the production. The word soon spread through the town.When the Emperor receives his new attire, a charade is put up to dress him in this invisible attire.<figure id="d60c"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*YOpGmJnynhY8QJObunwQxw.jpeg"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><blockquote id="fdf9">“What’s this?” thought the Emperor. “I can’t see anything. This is terrible! Am I a fool? Am I unfit to be the Emperor? What a thing to happen to me of all people!” — “Oh! It’s very pretty,” he said. “It has my highest approval.”</blockquote>And so it came to be that the Emperor was spectacularly paraded naked through town, and the men and women in the audience, confused at first, looked around and heard the shouts, “Oh, how fine are the Emperor’s new clothes! Don’t they fit him to perfection?”And so the crowd cheered, and the Emperor thought,<blockquote id="1cfb">“What an amazing success!”</blockquote>But then an innocent little child said…“But he isn’t wearing anything at all!”The Emperor, ashamed though noble as he was, continued his walk even more resolved than before.<blockquote id="2754">“This procession has got to go on.” he thought.</blockquote>Now I love this story and find it bizarrely fitting to the modern corporate landscape. It also touches on both transparency and visibility. Everyone is so focussed on what should be, that everyone is ashamed and afraid to inspect and call out what actually is. Even the Emperor failed to inspect the progress being made, fearing what he’d see until confronted at the very last moment when expectations are set… and the show must go.Now consider the <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-ceos-new-clothes-24e657195

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4a5">Emperor to be the CEO</a>, the clothes to be the product, the minister as the Product Owner, and the weavers to be the Development team. The audience as stakeholders, and the little innocent boy is the end user.“But this Increment doesn’t do anything at all!”The little boy shouted out during the Sprint Review. Presenting a PowerPoint isn’t a demonstration of a working product.<h1 id="0939">Observe what is</h1>Thus transparency requires all aspects to be commonly observed and understood with open honesty.Decisions and expectations are (or should be) based on the perceived state of the Increment and related artifacts (that say something about the potential to-be state of the increment).When these observations aren’t complete or correct, or if there are different understandings about the perceived state, decisions will be flawed, progress will not be predictable, the risk is not controlled, conflict will occur and value goes down the drain.<figure id="98ff"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*5Q8Y2VLmTkyHYEZPzeO1fQ.png"><figcaption>boo!</figcaption></figure>When you are not looking at the boo’s, poor decisions will be made and they’ll come back to haunt the team.What if all the bad stuff is obvious but not called out? What if it is, but ignored? The military calls this S.N.A.F.U. or Situation Normal All Fucked Up.Now, having read all this, please think for a minute about the value of the Daily Scrum and the Sprint Review in relation to transparency. If someone is late, or absent during one of these sessions… or what if a team member isn’t completely open about progress made, or impediments encountered? how does this impact transparency? What if the team doesn’t collectively collaborate daily on the Product Backlog, or Sprint Backlog… what risk does this introduce?Another result of poor transparency is Technical Debt. Technical Debt is the result of those poor choices made. Technical Debt is scary stuff.The primary culprit I have witnessed/observed/experienced is that estimations set expectations and are thus treated like deadlines. This happens when developers are encouraged to make something appear done within a given timeframe, rather than taking the time actually to make it right. “We’ll fix/improve it later” is a mantra that kills products.Definitions of Done create transparency over the Product Increment. I’ll cover this more in the next episode on Inspection.<h1 id="aff5">The Scrum Master and Transparency</h1><blockquote id="7172">“The Scrum Master’s job is to work with the Scrum Team and the organization to increase the transparency […]. This work usually involves learning, convincing, and change.” — The Scrum Guide 2017</blockquote>So how can you, as Scrum master, best contribute to this fundamental pillar of Scrum?Well, for example, a Scrum Master can<ul><li>Coach the Product Owner in clearly communicating the Product Goal.</li><li>Coach the Scrum Team in living the Scrum Values.</li><li>Teach the Scrum Team and Stakeholders about the Scrum Framework.</li><li>Facilitate Scrum events which provide opportunities to create transparency about the current state of affairs, enabling inspections toward goals.</li><li>Make sure the events start on time, everyone is present, and that they are truly eventful and not ceremonial conclave.</li><li>Be open about mistakes.</li><li><a href="https://readmedium.com/untold-stories-what-are-they-not-telling-you-6e06905469f0">Provoke untold stories</a>.</li></ul>A Scrum Master can also listen actively and ask powerful questions such as:<ul><li>“Let’s take a look at this together?”</li><li>“Do you want to work on this together?”</li><li>“Is this right?”</li><li>“What do you think about this?”</li><li>“Do you think the same?”</li><li>“What’s the first next step?”</li><li>“What can you do now?”</li><li>“How would you go about this?”</li><li>“How can we make this even better?”</li><li>“Did we miss anything?”</li><li>“Is this how it should be?”</li><li>“How are you?”</li></ul>There is much more the Scrum Master can and should do and we’ll cover this later when we address the role of the Scrum Master in its very own episode.<blockquote id="0dfe">“ The Scrum Master helps those outside the Scrum Team understand which of their interactions with the Scrum Team are helpful and which aren’t.”</blockquote>Continuing this series, I will cover each accountability, event, and artifact to illustrate how those relate to transparency. But first, I will cover the next two pillars. Inspection and Adaptation.Continue to episode three:<div id="f2f8" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/empiricism-inspection-part-one-cc4cd8bf98a8"> <div> <div> <h2>Empiricism: Inspection, Part One</h2> <div><h3>Road to PSM III — Episode 3 Part 1</h3></div> <div>medium.com</div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*zvdBaFSNeaRQy_C2b3CCsA.png)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div>The Road to PSM III is being updated to the 2020 edition of the Scrum Guide and new standards for PSM III assessment.<h2 id="b529">Join the Road 2 Mastery</h2><figure id="a703"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*qsg-zjcnz5A8B1xmBbdIfw.png"><figcaption><a href="https://readmedium.com/your-invitation-to-the-serious-scrum-slack-workspace-f424aeea4093?sk=e8334e6ee505a85ae6b9d2a1ce37219c">Do you want to write for Serious Scrum or seriously discuss Scrum?</a></figcaption></figure></article></body>

How to Improve a Pessimistic Perspective — 3 Helpful Steps.

To change, you need to be aware and intentional about your thoughts.

Recently I wrote a blog about how having a pessimistic perspective gets in the way of moving your life forward. Here it is:

A Pessimistic Perspective is In the Way of Moving Your Life Forward

I’m learning what I choose to focus on will be what manifests in my life.

amieians.com

To follow up, I wanted to share with you some steps that helped shift my mindset and can help you prevent going down the rabbit hole of thinking the world is going to hell in a handbasket tomorrow.

Do not watch the news like it’s your religion.

This one drives me nuts.

Like any other corporation, news channels have a goal and agenda — to make more money. I’ve learned that the more outrageous the news, the better they perform.

Be warned. There’s a price to pay for watching the news consistently, especially when the content is mostly negative.

In the study When Words Hurt: Affective Word Use in Daily News Coverage Impacts Mental Health by Jolie B. Wormwood, Madeline Devlin, Yu-Run Lin, Lisa Feldman Barrett, and Karen S. Quigley, they recognized there’s ample evidence that proves the media influences people's mental and physical health and warned of the consequences.

They explained how watching distressing or negative footage has been associated with increased post-traumatic stress symptoms, psychological distress, functional impairments, and a higher rate of mental and physical illnesses.

Also noted is how you do not need to be directly impacted by the event that happened. Watching or hearing about it will leave you as distressed as someone who witnessed it.

Conclusion — DO NOT WATCH THE NEWS!

Do not participate in negative conversations.

Pay attention to what the people around you are talking about.

Is the conversation about the latest economic disaster? Is it about how the government is ruining everything? Is it about how corporations control the world, and we’re all doomed?

Try to avoid being a part of these conversations as much as possible.

I’m currently reading 3 Simple Steps by Trevor Blake, and one of the concepts he highlights in his book is how participating in negative conversations, focusing on the issues and not the solutions, invites those same issues into your life.

What you focus on is what you think about and what you think about, you use to create your reality.

Constantly having negative thoughts running rampant through your mind only distracts you from what you need to focus on. Moving your life forward, if that’s what you wish.

Blake dedicates a few pages of his book to how to deal with the influence of the media in your everyday life. One of his recommendations is the first one I wrote.

I highly recommend reading this book. It’s got some enlightening insights on what it truly takes to move your life to the next level.

Adopt an activity or hobby that helps you clear your mind.

I am an overthinker. I don’t like admitting it, but I must recognize this pattern to work on it and improve it.

I struggle to keep my mind clear and focused. What I have learned over the years is how physical tasks help me calm the storm that’s usually raging.

In addition, I’m also learning to be more intentional about physical tasks and when I do them to help set up my mind for a successful train of thought on a given day.

One of the activities that helps me the most is exercising.

It also helps me kill two birds with one stone. I get to clear my mind and get the health benefits of moving my body and breaking a sweat.

Think about the activities you enjoy that don’t require much brain power.

Aside from exercising, any physical task works for me. For example, washing the dishes or cleaning helps me clear my mind and quiet down unnecessary negative thoughts.

Focusing on a simple yet repetitive task may be able to help you too.

Take some time to brainstorm. Think about those moments when you felt your brain was the quietest. Then give those activities a try and see if they work.

Conclusion

Improving your perspective takes much more work than the three steps I outline.

However, starting is perhaps the hardest thing to do, just like the gym. But once you do and feel the benefits of separating your mind from constant negative input, you’ll never want to go back.

These simple steps of not watching the news, avoiding participating in negative conversations, and finding an activity that helps quiet down your mind will help jump-start your journey of changing a pessimistic perspective into a positive one.

References

Wormwood, J. B., Devlin, M., Lin, Y. R., Barrett, L. F., & Quigley, K. S. (2018). When words hurt: Affective word use in daily news coverage impacts mental health. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 1333.