Another timeout for a little self-promotion as I am proud to announce I am now a Certified Scrum Product Owner, or CSPO. A week ago I took a 2-day course and in the process gained certification through Scrum Alliance.

What is a CSPO?

A CSPO is a practitioner of the Scrum. With its origins in software development, Scrum is “framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.” A product owner is one of 3 roles on a Scrum team, along with the Scrum Master and Developers. The team delivers software, or whatever the work product is, in an iterative approach over periods of time called sprints, where a sprint can last a few weeks to a month. You can read more on Scrum in the Scrum Guide the “bible” on the framework.

The role of the Product Owner is an empowered representative of the stakeholders for the product the entire Scrum team is working on. Its mission is to maximize the value of the product for said stakeholders and its users. High-level responsibilities include defining the Product Goal, managing the Product Backlog (or what the team will be working on), communicating and ensuring transparency.

Why the Product Owner Course? And didn’t you take the Scrum Master course?

Last year I took the course and exam to become a Certified ScrumMaster through Scrum Alliance. Through this process, I was really intrigued by the Product Owner role. In my current job, in many regards I serve as a Product Owner more than I do a Scrum Master. Also, I found a lot more emphasis on the Scrum Master role on the Scrum team “out there” more than I did on the Product Owner. This led me to pursue this course of study and serve in this capacity. Even had I not had this strong interest in being a Product Owner, I feel it important to understand all of the Scrum team roles to better serve as one of them.

The Course Itself

Before the global lockdowns last year, Scrum courses were never taught remotely. You would take a course near you or travel to take one in person. The Scrum Master course I took last year was virtual, though I had signed up for it as an in-person course originally. I was pleased with the last-minute pivot, the instructor and learned a lot from it.

All Scrum trainers have since gone to a virtual model. Where some courses are now starting to be taught in person, the majority are still online. This opened wide the possibilities from where to take the course. As I chose to continue courses through Scrum Alliance, I took the CSPO course through Mike Cohn, a veteran Scrum practitioner, trainer and author.

Where I have only taken a few courses online over the years, this was by far the best offering I have experienced. The online “space” is integrated into Agile Mentors, a community and resource center whose membership is included for a year with the course. Before the live sessions, there was about 4 hours of “basics” videos going over the core of the Product Owner role, including quizzes throughout. It was structured this way to ensure to maximize the 2 days of live instruction, and it worked very well. I was equally impressed with the design of the overall experience – Cohn and his Mountain Goat Software spent a considerable amount of time in the branding and technology for this and all of their products.

No exam?

At the lunch break during the first day of the course it dawned on me there was no mention of an exam following the course to earn the certification. During the Q&A at the end of the day I asked this “meta” question. A good discussion followed and Cohn went into great detail on it from his own experience – he was a founder of the Scrum Alliance, and he said for this role it is a challenge to create questions for such an exam, as he has tried himself. Cohn’s upfront and no-nonsense approach was also a selling point for me on training with him. The non-binding quizzes throughout the pre-course videos did help in reinforcing the materials.

Without an exam and by actively participating in the course, this is the only qualification for the CSPO certification. Where I felt it was a little anticlimactic, I have decided it will be up to me to challenge myself as a Product Owner and always quiz myself. But what a better challenge for Scrum Alliance to develop an exam for this certification!

Next Steps and Kudos

I am looking forward to my continued journey with Scrum, the better way to do things – just ask Elon Musk! I have been asked my employer to help emphasize and further the Product Owner role, and I am up to the task. I also welcome your questions on Scrum in general. If you are thinking of studying for it as I did, I highly recommend the course from Mike Cohn. Thanks to him, Stacey Ackerman of the Agile Mentors community and the numerous classmates I had from around the area and the world who made the CSPO course a memorable experience.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Announcements • Business • Agile / Scrum • Thrive • (0) Comments • Permalink

It was a fast week, as is shown by the items not crossed off of my to-do list. Sharing this list of what stimulated whatever side of the brain that stimulates one intellectually is also an item to be crossed off the list.

Catch-up – After taking a training course last week (more on that to come) it seems like I am still catching up on a lot. Catch-up... ketchup... which reminds me of my new favorite ketchup from TrueMadeFoods which has no sugar and is surprisingly good.

Mute Maria at the Pump – This post came out about how to mute those annoying “entertainment” spots that are playing at a gas pump near you. Sorry not sorry to my fellow Patriots fan Maria Menounos who is the star of many of these segments.

The Act is still the Law – A friendly reminder to myself and all that despite a pandemic, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, is still alive and well, the law.

POPOV, not Popov – Since I have been in the world of the Scrum framework for working over the last year or so, I have heard a lot of dissing on the Product Owner role. The Product Owner or PO represents the product stakeholder and is a key member of a Scrum team. That being said, it’s an important role, and I think a lot of it is based on the fact that there’s more emphasis on the Scrum Master role, at least that’s how I see it. So when I discovered Roman Pichler's Product Owner Podcast this week, it shed a refreshing light on the PO role.

Back to the Deck – This week the 2 outdoor, 50-meter swim meets my swim team puts on were given the green light. The Fox Cities Summer Classic will be on Saturday and Sunday, June 19 and 20 and the 22nd Bird Bath Invitational will be Friday thru Sunday, July 9 thru 11, both at lovely Erb Park Pool in my home city. More information on these unique swim meets is available on this well-designed and highly-useful Web site.

Just Buy That New Technology Already – I’ve talked about planned obsolescence in the past, but after a while older technology just isn’t supported anymore. Let’s Encrypt is open source software that generates SSL certificates for free on your Web server. If that didn’t make any sense to you, SSL is the “S” in “HTTPS” and secures the information between your computer or device and a Web server. In September, Let’s Encrypt won’t support some older technology. The impact on the general population will be low, but could impact nonetheless.

Quiet Riot – The daily lineup for Riot Fest came out this week and it’s a great one. Unfortunately 3-day passes are sold out and only a couple of single day tickets are available. As I am not as young as I used to be, I like the VIP area, and all things considered, I will be missing this great lineup. Of course if anyone has an extra VIP 3-day pass, I’m more than glad to take it off your hands.

Saaaaaaaaaaaailing – The Yacht Rock channel is back on SiriusXM. If you don’t know what yacht rock is, put on an Izod polo shirt and time travel back to summers along the water in the 1970’s. It’s rock, but mellow. Thing Christopher Cross... if you know who that is. I was tuned in last summer while trying to maneuver a pontoon boat around a lake.

Zero Interest – Check out the label above for a beverage called Minute Maid ZeroSugar Lemonade. Modified Cornstarch? Glycerol ester of rosin? No thanks.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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This past week I spent a lot of time participating in and conducting training, and then it seemed like the rest of the time was making up for what I missed or didn’t do when I was in said training. Though the idea of calling in sick to get work done came to mind, my ethics gene kicked that idea away.

The Write Time – Who knew I lived so close to the Museum of Writing Instruments? Now that places are opening up, I’ll have to pencil in a visit there.

Just Don’t Write Your Passwords – Where it’s a great recommendation to have unique passwords for Web sites and services, should you change them often or be forced to do so? This article talks to the pros and cons of changing passwords regularly and a tech giant that is changing its stance on this.

Don’t Shoot, Shoot, Shoot That Thing At Me, Anywhere – Clearly not everything is obvious in life, like not having naked Nerf wars.

So You Don’t Get Into a Pickle at Work – New to me is the Gherkin syntax for defining business rules that are easily translated to code. I learned about it in a class I took this week. Curious – have you used it before?

Are You Fast Enough for Big Tech? Just when you thought it was enough to worry about your Web site’s content accuracy, SEO, SSL, hacking, yada-yada, add Web page speed to the list. Well Google wants you to at least. Page loading can make a difference if someone will wait to view your content and perhaps buy from you. The areas for improvement for this very blog are ones I will be working on. But at the end of the day, if it takes a few seconds longer to load, will you still read this blog?

Easier than Untangling? – I’ve mentioned JLab audio equipment before as the brand has worked well for me. I just learned they offer a recycling program where you can get a 30% discount on new products when you turn in old ones. This might be the solution for those headphones and items that I can’t part with because they just might be used again maybe possible someday.

Back on the Virtual Stage – I was invited again by my friend Eric to talk about “underperforming friendships” on the audio social media channel Clubhouse this coming week. The last time I was a last-minute addition to the discussion, so this time I have had some time to put some thoughts into this, and let me know after this Wednesday what you think.

Too Much Marketing – Where it’s easy to find alcohol-infused (also known as “hard”) seltzer at convenient stores, it’s still hard to find plain old seltzer that is not sweetened or infused with something other than CO2. At one stop last week I took a triple take at Liquid Death. After getting beyond what I was actually reading, some of which is pictured above, I found it being simply a can of carbonated Austrian mountain spring water. And as it is European, the carbonation is less than you would find in a US brand. It went well with my salad, but no thirsts were actually murdered in the process of drinking it.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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For years I’d often say, “I want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.” This came to be as I’d get into a situation where all I was doing was complaining about it. By removing myself from the chaos in the middle of things to think – perhaps taking a walk along a lake – hopefully I could come back with a way to make a situation better all around. If it takes me to be directly involved and it could to be beneficial to me as well, then I will commit to it.

Over time, however, I have revised that statement to the following, “I want to be part of the solution if I can.”

There’s a few differences from the initial statement above. First, I am removing the declaration there is a problem. Am I in denial here? Not necessarily. In that original statement I (emphasis: me) am saying there is a problem. The fact of the matter is that I (emphasis: me, again) may be the only person who thinks there is a problem!

This has come from experiences where I get involved in something, providing a fresh point-of-view on it and perceive an issue or problem. Note there may well be a problem, but if the consensus of the overall group or community that I have recently joined doesn’t see it that way, or simply thinks things are just fine, then trying to highlight an issue or trying to help solve one may be futile.

Learning the Best Way – The Hard Way

A recent example highlights this. I answered a call to volunteer for an organization I was already a member of to help in live-streaming their meetings. They have already been doing this for a while, but needed more people to help. The idea of this sounded fun and I signed up. The training on live-streaming was in real-time – I and another person observed someone who had set this process up execute on it, all the while following some brief instructions. It was a good thing I brought a notebook as I took several pages of notes above and beyond the instructions. Armed with what was provided and what I wrote, I was ready to take on this task by myself. Or so I thought.

When it came for my first solo live-stream, I followed the instructions to the letter, weaving in my own notes, and thought all was well. When I went to test to see if it was actually streaming (something from my own notes) I found it wasn’t. Panic washed over me as I am sitting here thinking all is working while people are trying to connect to a live-stream that isn’t there! I tried troubleshooting the process, challenging as I didn’t know all I didn’t know, and found that a required field wasn’t filled in, and when I filled it in, the stream started. Twenty minutes into the meeting, but started nonetheless.

Following this screw-up I sent an email to those involved and apologized, then offered to help improve the instructions. I got a response back saying this wasn’t necessary. However I felt it was – as someone who trains people regularly to manage their own Web sites, I felt this enhanced documentation, complete with photos and screenshots, was essential.

Despite the lack of response to my offer, when it was my next opportunity to volunteer, I was ready to further document this process. I started with a new document, bringing in the existing instructions and enhanced them with my notes. I then printed this and brought it with me so I could write in pen the remaining pieces. I also took pictures and captured screenshots along the way.

The only issue was the live-stream didn’t work again. It was a different problem from before, and I troubleshooted it the best I could, but I never got it working. I was furious, but needed to focus. As the video camera was recording the meeting, I knew that would be the Plan B and I would upload the video files later. I double-checked the camera to ensure it was still recording then went outside to get some fresh air, and perhaps to let out a scream or two. When I came back in I checked the camera and it had stopped recording. What? There was plenty of room to record, what could have happened? I resumed the recording, but a key piece of the meeting was never captured. I stewed in boiling water in my mind thru the rest of the meeting, then afterwards I resigned from this volunteer opportunity.

Why did I quit? I saw a need for more documentation, not to mention troubleshooting tips. But nobody else did. Plus I couldn’t put myself through another live-stream failure. Those in charge of this effort, however, felt things were fine. I even heard from the organization’s volunteer coordinator that live-stream issues happen all of the time, yet clearly nobody felt a need for improvement earlier. Where I wanted to be part of the solution, I felt it was a situation I didn’t want to be a part of, and as well I didn’t feel my participation was welcome either.

Unfortunately there have been other situations over the years where I have been in where there was a similar disconnect. I was not trying to impose “my way” rather wanted to make it better for myself, and what I later found out for others too. On the flip side, I have been involved in the past – and currently – in roles where I was able to be part of the solution. And with that I will end this as I need to work on one of those very volunteer roles.

Deconstructing Being Part of the Solution If You Can

Our time is precious, and if time spent contributes to a greater good then it is an overall ideal situation. However we are not mere robots doing a task – we have our ideas and past experiences, and many times we see a way to make a situation better, all the while making a win-win situation. However not everyone is open to that, and in those cases we need to determine if it’s the best use of our precious time, no matter how noble the cause is.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Business • Strategize • Thrive • (0) Comments • Permalink

This week I watched a lot of video, and you can to with the links below among the few things I actually read.

Networking Back Where I Left Off – The last in-person networking events I went to were in mid-March of 2020. There 2 in one day and the first of them was the grand re-opening of UrbanHub, a co-working space in nearby Green Bay. This week they announce their grand re-re-opening (?) in a few weeks with this throwback video and you can sign-up here for this free event in this cool space.

Product Owner Prep – Next week I am excited to take a course to prepare me to be a Certified Scrum Product Owner. What’s that you say? It’s a vital role as part of using the Scrum framework for getting things done. Last year I took a course to be a Certified ScrumMaster and was intrigued by the Product Owner role, as it sets what will be done. The course I am taking is remote, and will be taught by Scrum veteran Mike Cohn of Mountain Goat Software. For the course this week I watched prep videos which are not only informative but of high quality. I can’t link to them outside of the course Web site, but expect to hear more from me on what I learn this coming week.

Improved Accessibility Checker – This week Siteimprove released an updated Web site Accessibility Checker Chrome browser plug in. This can be used by anyone to check the Accessibility of a Web site, and ideally you would use it on your own. For many, it’s like drinking from the proverbial fire hose with the amount of detail given. For those of us who work in the Web, it’s also a reminder of what we really need to do on-going to achieve Web sites as Accessible as possible.

May The Fourth Be Cute – This past Tuesday was May the Fourth, also known as Star Wars Day. There was no shortage of memes and jokes about it, and by far my favorite is this video mashup of light sabers and oral health.

Elevated Throwing – Defenestrate is a fancy word for throwing something out the window, which was new to me.

Groundbreaking Throwing – I discovered Pitch, a 2016 1-season TV series about the fictional story of the first female pro baseball player. It says the show was produced with “cooperation” from Major League Baseball, however it’s more like it is a co-star. I liked the story line a lot, and was sad to see – now 5 years later – that it didn’t continue beyond 10 episodes.

Ciao Calibri – Microsoft is looking to replace Calibri, the default font used by its Office software suite, with a new one. This story features the designer of the font, which rumor has it was made to use less ink. There’s a link in the story that shows the possible replacement fonts, to give you a glance into what you could be looking at a lot in the future.

Get Right on the Mac – I forget that the default settings in MacOS, the operating for Apple computers, doesn’t recognize right-clicking with a trackpad, and you need to make a setting change to do so.

Crazy Drafting Memories – This past weekend was the NFL Draft, where college football players are selected by pro teams. For me, it’s the start of the football season as I don’t really follow college ball, and I start familiarizing myself with who was signed. As I got alerts to the signings and saw a picture of the first player drafted by my New England Patriots, Alabama quarterback Mac Jones, holding a #1 jersey, I had a flashback to someone else with a similar jersey about 15 years earlier, none other than Ozzy Osbourne as you can see in this video.

Why was he there? Since the Kraft family bought the team in the early 1990’s, for every home game the Pats would come on to the field to Ozzy’s song Crazy Train. Years later when Ozzy’s wife Sharon was at Boston’s Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the team reached out to him and told him of the tradition, to which he said he didn’t believe them. After the team created a video montage showing it, he was thrilled, and they later invited him to perform the song live for the season kickoff game in 2005. I was at that game and it was insane – the top of a helmet opened like a clam shell and there was Ozzy, all smiles and clearly having fun. I took a video of this but it’s so bad as I was as excited as he was.

Hopefully Not a New Trend – Now that it’s warmer for my kiddos to go to local playgrounds, I am there too. Walking around one of them I found what is pictured above, an upside down picnic table. Really? Why? How long was it there? Was I the first to see it? After snapping this photo I flipped it over to its more optimal position. I hope not to see more of these going forward.

Happy Mother’s Day to all who are Moms, Grandmoms, Godmoms, Auntmoms, Cousinmoms and any other similar roles!

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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