Ethann Castell - From a Certain Point of View

Now writing for The School Of Innovation

May 10, 2020January 15, 2020 by Ethann G. Castell

This blog is now all about me and my stuff. I will continue to write about Agile, Creativity and Innovation at The School Of Innovation.

Social Contracts for Agile Teams

May 10, 2020February 27, 2018 by Ethann G. Castell

Team member cohesion is an important factor in building a high-performing team, however achieving this cohesion is often easier said than done. Social Contracts are a tool I’ve used to build cohesion quickly and effectively within teams. If you have never heard of Social Contracts, don’t worry, you are not alone. Many people have not heard of them. In this post I’m going to share with you a complete guide to Social Contracts covering the how, what and why of building a Social Contract. After reading this post you should be well prepared to go and build Social Contracts with your own teams.

Five Agile Inconvenient Truths

May 10, 2020February 19, 2018 by Ethann G. Castell

Agile but has also been over-hyped and promoted as a “silver bullet” to way too many problems. Here are five of the most inconvenient truths about Agile.

Git and GitHub for Scrum Masters

May 10, 2020August 29, 2017 by Ethann G. Castell

Scrum Masters generally don’t need to have the same depth of technical skills as the software developers on their team. However if your team is using Git for source code version control, then you as the Scrum Master or Iteration Manager, may find yourself bamboozled by terms such as HEAD, Master, Squash and Pull Request. This …

Don’t be the first to miss out on LAST Canberra!

May 10, 2020August 23, 2017 by Ethann G. Castell

The LAST Conference is taking place in Canberra on September 14th, and if you’re in the vicinity then I highly recommend that you attend. Tickets are selling fast but they tell me that at the time of publishing this post, there are still some spaces available. LAST Sydney was great LAST is an acronym for …

Get my Agile book for free – 24 hours only!

July 22, 2020August 10, 2017 by Ethann G. Castell

The Kindle edition of my book The Agile Meeting Toolkit Ceremonies – 100+ ways for Scrum Masters to energise Agile meetings and engage Agile teams is free to download for the next 24 hours.

Five tips for passing the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) exam

May 10, 2020July 31, 2017 by Ethann G. Castell

I recently passed the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) exam and wanted to share some tips to help others with this exam. As with other PMI certifications, you’ll need in-depth knowledge of the subject matter to pass this exam. You should not underestimate the difficulty of the PMI-ACP exam. If you’ve passed your Certified Scrum …

Inaugural Scrum Coach Retreat Sydney

May 10, 2020April 3, 2017 by Ethann G. Castell

The Scrum Alliance is hosting the inaugural Sydney Scrum Coach Retreat from May 5 – 7 in Coogee. It’s 2 1/2 days of deep-dive learning combined with many opportunities to extend professional relationships within the community. Sounds like a bargain at just over $500. Register now and I’ll see you there.

Agile Team Energiser: Rock,Paper,Scissors,Lizard,Spock

May 10, 2020March 2, 2017 by Ethann G. Castell

Most people are familiar with the game Rock, Paper, Scissors – a simple game where two participants compete with hand gestures representing each of the aforementioned objects, and a simple set of rules for determining which object beats the other. Recently I came across an extended version of the game called Rock,Paper,Scissors,Lizard,Spock which appears to have first appeared …

Using graffiti to build high-performing teams.

May 10, 2020February 27, 2017 by Ethann G. Castell

There’s one thing that strikes me about close-knit, high-performing teams. They seem to have an internal language that people outside of the group have trouble understanding. So how can the use of grafitti encourage the development of this internal language?