Ready: The Dynamic Model of Scrum

The Definition of Ready by Serge Beaumont

I give CSM trainings with Jeff Sutherland, and about half a year ago he had put something in his material called "the dynamic model of Scrum". The essential feature was the addition of a READY state opposite the DONE state. The idea here is that a team needs to be in a stable, known situation to be able to perform well. It immediately struck a chord with me: I had seen so many teams thrash because the Product Owner could not give them a clear objective, the READY state was exactly the goal to work to. But what was it really, and how do you get there? By now I think I've got some good answers to these questions.



Here's a picture from my Scrum course material to illustrate the concept...

What does the READY state do?

In a self-organizing team setting a clear destination it very important: self-organization does not exist if you have nothing to organize TO. The READY state prevents team thrashing by ensuring that the preconditions for a good Sprint execution have been met. More ...

For a description of how to systematically quadruple velocity of a Scrum team by focusing on ready  and done states see:

C. Jakobsen and J. Sutherland, "Scrum and CMMI – Going from Good to Great: are you ready-ready to be done-done?," in Agile 2009, Chicago, 2009.

Nokia Test: Online

The latest version of the Nokia test is now ready for online scoring in French and English thanks to Antoine Vernois. We are finding that for teams that can establish a baseline velocity, raising the score two points will typically double velocity and quality. Raising to over 9 out of 10 will triple velocity.