More often that not, teams new to Scrum take on more than they can handle for their first sprint. From a communication standpoint, this causes major problems, which in turn leads to project problems.

Have you ever played telephone? Ok not recently, I mean when you were a kid. Did the message ever make it to the end of the chain without being garbled?

The same thing happens to teams, even when they’re colocated. So what do we do? We set up team portals, wikis, blogs, messaging systems. Then we all enter all important communications and documentation into these systems, don’t we?

If you’re already overloaded, chances are slim you’re going to use any of those tools. Then people don’t have timely information that they can work with, and the entire project comes to a grinding halt.

What’s the solution? Do new Scrum teams under-commit and risk management backlash? I think back to how one of my English professor’s referred to a first draft as a “shity first draft.” The same goes for the first few sprints. Teams will more than likely take on too much, and the first sprint will seem like a failure. It might happen a few more times too. But don’t become disheartened. Keep those expectations in line.

Like fine wine, Scrum teams improve their estimating capabilities with time, only faster. Communication will flow, and teams will succeed.

Since the announcement that Merb was being merged into Rails 3, Yehuda Katz, an Acts as Conference 2009 speaker, has been doing a superb job of communicating how he is working with the Rails core team to improve Rails. You can read all about it on his blog, Katz Got Your Tongue, and then come see him at Acts as Conference 2009.

I encountered this bathroom a few days ago. It’s located right by a pretty busy 7-11. I immediately had to wonder if someone miscommunicated the requirements for this bathroom. Those plants you see aren’t an addition to the inside of the bathroom, the stall area is wide open to the elements. Privacy anyone?

When you’re communicating with customers, colleagues, or anyone for that matter, be sure that what you are telling them is getting across accurately. Otherwise, you might end up with something missing.

I saw this little number on the CNN.com site the other day and thought it was pretty cool of Chrysler to thank us.

The above are two pics I took inside a small noodle shop in the Ginza District of Tokyo, Japan. When a customer to this noodle shop walks in, they are greeted by the above machine. They pick the menu item they want, pay for it, and receive a ticket that they then hand to the cooks behind the counter. Within minutes a steaming bowl of delicious noodles is sitting in front of them. Thirsty? There’s a water cooler looking machine that dispenses hot green tea and water, along with glasses.

Rather than providing a large menu that might cause questions of what the shop does or does not serve, the machine explains it all. And for we who cannot read Japanese, there are pictures. There is also one outside the shop, in case you want to look before stopping in.

We ate at this noodle shop three times within four days.

If you have a communication problem, figure out how to remove the barrier. To enable the flow, look to remove, not add.

In today’s high communication world of instant messaging, blogs, and Twitter, people expect a company to communicate. When they don’t, shame on them.

That’s what happened to me last week when I tried to log into prioritiz’d with my OpenID and couldn’t. It appeared that the providers service was completely unavailable. I checked the providers website for a status message – nothing. I checked to see if they had a Get Satisfaction site – nothing. I checked to see if they had a Twitter account – nothing. I finally got on their website and sent an email to support. I never heard back.

Perhaps I’m asking too much from a provider, especially one that is providing a free service.

But is that really true? Shouldn’t I expect communication from a service provider, regardless of the level of service I’m using, at least at some level?

I think so. What do you think?

Let me know here, or on Twitter. I’m in Japan at the moment so it might take me a little to respond, however I will.