[Originally held at Topconf Düsseldorf October 2017] Your agile process has become boring or ineffective? Those discussions about user stories have become old? That burn down chart that once provided guidance has become dull? We could go on about things that might have taken a turn for worse in some agile projects and will do so in this short talk. We will not only shed some light on those practices and their place in Agile environments, but also – and more importantly – introduce some alternatives that are still absolutely in line with agile processes (e.g. Scrum) and the agile mindset. Why the title? Well, that is a hat-tip to Scrum. One of the things that changed in the 2016 edition of the Scrum Guide was that the term "ceremony" has been replaced with "event" – reflecting a significant mind-shift and subtly hinting at the issues with cargo-cult agile. https://www.topconf.com/conference//duesseldorf-2017/talk/from-ceremonies-to-events-reducing-cargo-cult-and-improving-efficiency/

1. From Ceremonies to Events
Reducing Cargo Cult and Improving Efficiency
Michael Mahlberg Thomas Epping @mmahlberg
Showrunner Organisational Management Consultant @thomasepping
TCG The Consulting Guild GmbH codecentric AG

2. Cargo Cult
[…] an attempt to recreate
successful outcomes by
replicating circumstances
associated with those
outcomes, although those
circumstances are either
unrelated to the causes of
outcomes or insufficient to
produce them by themselves.

3. We need
User Stories and Story Points
to conjure the spirit of agility!

5. Peter Hebgen / pixelio.de
Traditional Agile Kanbanized Agility

6. As returning visitor of the site, I
want the system to recognize me
unmaskingly, so that I actually can
order the articles in my basket even
weeks after my last visit.
User Stories

7. As returning visitor of the site, I
want the system to recognize me
unmaskingly, so that I actually can
order the articles in my basket even
weeks after my last visit.
User Stories Work Item Types

8. Daily Scrum
Photo by Olga Guryanova on Unsplash

9. Daily Scrum

10. Daily Scrum Boardwalk

11. Iterations

12. Iterations Flow

13. Estimation

14. Estimation Forecast

15. Retrospective

16. Retrospective Operations Review

18. include and merge User Stories Work Item Types
try and compare Daily Scrum Board Walk
try and compare Iterations Flow
include and merge Estimation Forecast
include and merge Retrospective Operations Review
You might want to consider to …

21. Michael Mahlberg http://www.michaelmahlberg.de
TCG The Consulting Guild GmbH topconf2017@michaelmahlberg.com
Thomas Epping https://www.codecentric.de
codecentric AG thomas.epping@codecentric.de