Resources

In diesem Scrum-Pulse-Webcast erklärt Professional Scrum Trainer Simon Flossmann die Grundlagen effektiver Facilitation.

In dieser Folge von Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer beantworten Professional Scrum Trainer Martina Luenzmann und Simon Flossmann in einer Live-Sitzung deine dringendsten Fragen, wie Product Owner:innen noch erfolgreicher werden können.

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer moderated by Patricia Kong, PSTs Simon Flossmann and David Spinks answer your burning questions about Scrum and the challenges you or your teams may be facing when using Scrum, particularly within the Scrum events and other scenarios when it may be difficult to reach a decision on things, that could be resolved with good facilitation techniques and skills.

In this webinar, Patricia Kong and PST David Spinks discuss the group dynamics involved in decision making and how facilitation skills can help a Scrum Team navigate through periods of frustration, confusion or disengagement to reach true alignment on their collective decisions.

In this Scrum Pulse webcast, PST Mary Iqbal will explore the accountability of the Product Owner and walk the audience through characteristics of an effective Product Owner.

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer Yuval Yeret will answer your pressing Scrum questions focused around leadership, how leadership and Scrum Mastery are intertwined, and how leaders can engage with Scrum. Yuval is co-author of the Scrum Guide Companion for Leaders. We invite you to read this companion prior to this session and ask questions! Please come prepared with lots of great questions for Yuval.

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer, PSTs Daria Bagina, Shirley Santiago and Mary Iqbal answer your burning questions about Scrum and the challenges you or your teams may be facing when using Scrum in a setting that is not software-based, such as marketing, energy, insurance, finance and more.

A cross-functional team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How does this relate to the Product Owner? Check it out! - Back to the foundations of the Scrum framework (64)

Daily Scrum events are filled with 3 questions and meandering discussions about tickets that are in progress. Too many topics and not enough time is the typical opinion. So, how about that Sprint Goal? Likely it’s missing or it’s the token “get all the work done” goal. Stop dividing and conquering. Create a legitimate Sprint Goal and collectively measure progress. When you have a good Sprint Goal, 15 minutes is plenty of time to make a collective plan for the day.

Zertifiziert zu sein ist mittlerweile ein notwendiges Übel, um als Scrum Master eine gute Stelle zu erhalten. Neben einer relevanten Berufserfahrung sind Zertifizierungen das Kriterium, auf welches Recruiter achten. Kein Wunder also, dass mich in letzter Zeit immer mehr Anfragen mit der Frage erreichen: „Simon, wie kann ich mich am besten auf die PSU-Prüfung vorbereiten?“ Den Wunsch nach einer PSU-Zertifizierung kann ich gut nachvollziehen. Da es in Deutschland nur 2126 PSU-Zertifizierte, aber 483198 PSM-Zertifizierte gibt, stichst du mit einer solchen Zertifizierung aus der breiten Masse der Scrum Master heraus. Wie kannst du dich also auf die Prüfung vorbereiten? Bei meiner Antwort unterscheide ich zwischen zwei Personengruppen.

Many new Scrum Masters need help to gain facilitation skills to leverage the potential of diverse perspectives within their team. By improving facilitation, it should also help to improve the interactions within Scrum events and also improve participatory decision making. The purpose of this blog post is to dispel some myths around facilitation, namely what it is and who does it. It will also provide some top tips to immediately improve your facilitation skillset. 

Jeff Gothelf: “Roadmapping ist im Zeitalter der agilen Produktentwicklung ein fehlerhaftes Konzept. Roadmaps sind ihrer Definition nach linear und wir bauen keine linearen Produkte und Dienstleistungen mehr.”

The Sprint Review is an integral event in Scrum as it gives the platform to Scrum Team to showcase the product to stakeholders and invite feedback from them. But often find the seats with the shareholder’s name on them empty.

In this episode of the Women in Agile Podcast you get to meet Emily Lint, a new host joining the Women in Agile Podcast team. During the conversation Emily and our host, Leslie Morse, discuss the story of Emily’s career journey as she began embracing agile leadership after starting off as a ITIL process expert. (55:34 Minutes)

In this blog post, we describe the purpose of Generative Relationships STAR, how it works, and when you could use it with your Scrum Team.

Epics and features are complementary Scrum practices that some Product Owners use to organize their Product Backlog. Like a folder structure, they are a convenient way to group PBIs into meaningful groups.

Managers in organizations like to look at how their teams are performing. Traditional organizations often look at things like performance against plans to evaluate teams, but they need to ask themselves whether they are certain that the plans they develop will produce the results they desire. Most plans are merely guesses that assume that if a group of people do a series of things, the good results will follow. The problem is that plans can, and often are, wrong. So how can a team know whether they are performing effectively? This whitepaper by Kurt Bittner and Patricia Kong explores how to use measurement to improve the performance of a Scrum Team.

“Roadmapping is a flawed concept in the age of Agile. Maps, by their definition, are linear, and we don’t build linear products and services anymore. We build continuous systems.”

Scrum zu skalieren bedeutet für verschiedene Menschen verschiedene Dinge. Woran liegt das? Ich vermute, es liegt daran, dass immer noch so viele Halbwahrheiten kursieren. Diese Mythen sind so vorherrschend, dass ich sie auch in jedem meiner Scaled Professional Scrum Trainings und auf Vorträgen ansprechen und berichtigen muss. Hier die fünf weitverbreiteten Mythen im Überblick und wie du sie entkräften kannst.

Leider wird Scrum und auch insgesamt ein agiler Ansatz missverstanden als Werkzeug um zu liefern basierend auf den Erkenntnissen, die man vorher durch Design Thinking und Lean Startup gewonnen hat. Tatsächlich kann man Scrum von Anfang an gewinnbringend mit Design Thinking und Lean Startup kombinieren.

In this podcast we feature Professional Scrum Trainers and other Scrum Practitioners sharing their stories and experiences to help learn from the experience of others. In this episode, host Dave West interviews David Ingram, VP of Global R&D at Gillette about developing razors using Scrum and how they transitioned to Scrum to do so. (21:16 Minutes)

This post is the first in an ongoing series revisiting the principles behind the Agile Manifesto. This post is focused on the following important principle – “Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.”

A cross-functional team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How does this relate to the Increment? Check it out! - Back to the foundations of the Scrum framework (63)

Does it make sense for Project Managers to become Scrum Masters? It’s a very common practice that may have unintended consequences. Are Scrum Masters managing anything? Project management skills can be great to have on a team, but we have to learn how this works in Scrum Teams.

Wirkungsvolle Ziele zu setzen, zeichnet erfolgreiche Leader aus. Allerdings bin ich davon überzeugt, dass diese Fähigkeit jeder beherrschen sollte. Hier erhältst du 3 Einsichten, die ich in den letzten 8 Jahren bei meiner Arbeit mit Teams gesammelt habe und die auch dir helfen können, effektiv Ziele zu formulieren.

Agiles Mikromanagement: Eine Pseudo-Verpflichtung zu agilen Prinzipien, die immer dann außer Kraft gesetzt wird, wenn es aus der Sicht eines Stakeholders oder Managers vorteilhaft erscheint.

This episode is a re-release of a 2019 conversation the Women in Agile podcast host, Leslie Morse, had with Billie Schuttpelz about imposter syndrome and authenticity. This was the 11th episode of our series and it's fascinating how important many of these topics still are. (26:26 Minutes)

Why did the Scrum Guide 2020 add commitments? What is a commitment? Let's look into ths!

Many people using Scrum today have no formal training or are new to agile frameworks. It’s the perfect environment for myths and misconceptions to spread.

3 Do-it-yourself workshops to help your Scrum team improve (the lack of) task- and relationship conflict

How often have you been exposed to the conflict or different objectives between departments? If never, congratulations! You have probably seen and experienced healthy environments, meaningful shared goals, and true leaders. Keep on!

In this vlog, PST Joshua Partogi continues the first video on What the Scrum Master does all day and how the Scrum Master uses the 8 Scrum Master hats.

Why a good strategy is still needed with a good product.

As a minimalist framework, Scrum contains only what is needed. Every piece of the Scrum framework is there for a reason. When teams modify any part, they won’t get the full benefits of Scrum. In this article, we will discuss three of the worst Scrum “customizations.” Warning: don’t try these in your organization!

Agile micromanagement: A pseudo-commitment to agile principles only to be overridden whenever it seems beneficial from a stakeholder’s or manager’s perspective.

„Wie kann ich mich auf die PSM-3-Prüfung vorbereiten?“ Diese Frage erreicht mich in letzter Zeit häufig über LinkedIn. Die meisten erwarten nun eine einfache Antwort auf diese einfache Frage. Am liebsten noch in Form eines Kochrezepts. Bereite X vor, füge Y hinzu, dreimal umrühren und einmal aufkochen et voilà. Fertig ist das PSM-3-Zertifikat. Vor einigen Jahren habe ich die PSM-3-Prüfung mit mehr als 90 % bestanden. Ich kann dir versichern: So einfach ist das nicht. Ein Kochrezept, welches jeden befähigt, die Prüfung auf Anhieb zu bestehen, gibt es nicht. Schaue ich aber auf meine Lernreise zurück, so kann ich drei Säulen erkennen, die mir geholfen haben, erfolgreich zu sein. Diese Säulen möchte ich in diesem Artikel auch mit dir teilen:

autogestionados para entregar valor. No hay recetas para lograr una transformación ágil, se requiere un trabajo duro y continuo para promover una mentalidad que lleve a formas diferentes de gestionar el desarrollo de producto a través del aprendizaje de los clientes y las capacidades de respuesta a los cambios en el mercado.        Aunque no existen recetas, hemos aprendido algunos patrones que pueden ayudar como claves de una transformación Ágil exitosa:

A cross-functional team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How does this relate to the Sprint Backlog? Check it out! - Back to the foundations of the Scrum framework (62)

With burnout always lurking around the corner for Product Owners, how do we identify areas of growth for ourselves?

Keine Zeit für eine langwierige Facilitation-Ausbildung? 5 einfache Facilitation-Hacks, um alle Teilnehmer in deinen Onlineworkshops einzubeziehen:

Was passiert, wenn es kein Sprint-Ziel gibt – Sprint für Sprint? Wenn das Scrum-Team immer nur an einer zufälligen Auswahl von Aufgaben arbeitet, die zum Zeitpunkt der Sprintplanung am dringendsten zu sein scheinen?

This episode on the Women in Agile Podcast is a re-release of a 2020 conversation our host, Leslie Morse, had with Brandi Olson about burnout. We revived this episode because of its original popularity as well as because the content is incredibly relevant.  

Can Scrum be used outside software development? Absolutely.

I hear the word “commitment” used in problematic and misleading ways all the time. This is true when I am teaching Professional Scrum classes and even when I am coaching good Scrum Masters. It often sounds like one of these statements: How do we know how much work to commit to? How do we make sure we will finish all of the scope we committed to for this release? What happens if we don’t meet our commitment date? The problem is that the word commitment has been MISUNDERSTOOD in organizations to mean a guarantee or promise related to delivery. And that is NEVER what the word meant in the context of Scrum.

Want to pass the PSM I? Hint… You have to study. Memorizing the rules alone won’t cut it and you won’t be able to Google your way to a certificate. The key to passing is truly understanding Scrum. Licensed Professional Scrum.org trainers Robert Pieper and Gregory Crown give you some tips and resources that will help you prepare and get a passing score.

As a project manager, I have delivered many complex initiatives, from re-platforming a consumer products website to doubling the size of a line of business.  My most successful projects have one thing in common; I used an agile approach to deliver them.

There is a significant difference between “Mechanical Scrum” and "Professional Scrum". "Mechanical Scrum" consists of going through the motions of using Scrum. “Professional Scrum” goes beyond that, changing the way that you work, think and act. In this video learn about the ideas behind Professional Scrum and how it goes beyond the Scrum Guide.

What if the Scrum Team is always only working on a random assortment of work items that seem to be the most pressing at the moment of the Sprint Planning?

What science tells us about how work agreements create high-performing teams. And five practical areas to focus on.

Was haben folgende Aussagen gemeinsam? „In Scrum wird nicht geplant!“ „Das Product Backlog ist das wichtigste Element des Scrum Rahmenwerks.“ „In Scrum fungiert der Scrum Master als der Projektmanager.“ Für mich sind sie ein Anzeichen, dass das Scrum Rahmenwerk noch nicht verstanden wurde. Selbst auf Meet-ups oder Konferenzen, wo ich vermeintlich erfahrenen Agilisten begegnen sollte, höre ich leider häufig noch diese zweifelhaften Aussagen. In diesem Artikel will ich damit aufräumen.