A few years back I wrote 2 popular posts that talked about the best Scrum Masters I ever worked with. This time around I am going to share some stories about the best Product Owners I have encountered. This post is about Gerry, the proxy Product Owner who was successful!

This blog post discusses client expectations from coaches.

In this article Dave West discusses the importance of Kindness and the benefits agile teams get when people are thinking about kindness.

It's hard to be a good Scrum Master. It's even harder to be a great Scrum Master! So, what sort of things should you be doing to be great? Here are some Scrum Master tips to help you get started on day one in a new job.

OKRs are a great framework for setting goals. Setting high quality goals, goal clarity, and self-management, positively affect team performance [3].

According to the 15th annual State of Agile report, there has been a tremendous increase in the adoption of agile frameworks over the last year. Within software teams, agile adoption grew from 37% in 2020 to 86% in 2021.

Hey hey hey. How's it going awesome people? I hope you had a great week and keeping excited. I have noticed that several Scrum practitioners around me think that writing the Product Backlog items as a user story is mandatory.

A few years back I wrote 2 popular posts that talked about the best Scrum Masters I ever worked with. This time around I am going to share some stories about the best Product Owners I have encountered.

TL; DR: Should Managers Attend Retrospectives? There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. A classic discussion is whether it is appropriate that (line) managers attend the Retr...

What is an Agile Coach? Are Scrum Masters agile coaches? How do they coach teams, the Product Owner and the enterprise?

On June the 8th Scrum.org hosted a webinar on the subject of using Scrum in Biotech research. The blog addresses unanswered questions from the session

As you know, in Scrum Guide 2020 there is no more prescriptions on how to run the Daily Scrum.

Of late, I've been noticing an interpretation of the Scrum Master role - the Scrum Master as An FFFCDO for Developers - a Fierce, Ferocious, Fearsome Chief Defense Officer!

In diesem Blog untersuchen wir, woher diese Grundhaltung kommt, zeigen, wie wir damit umgehen können, leisten Überzeugungsarbeit und bieten Experimente an, d. h. wir

Heeeey. What's good this week awesome people? I hope you are well and keeping safe. During the recent lockdown in Brisbane I created a video about how Professional Scrum team plan their Sprints with Kanban.

With remote work increasing we look at how Scrum can enhance and accelerate you remote working practices

When using the Scrum framework, the Retrospective is the final event in a Sprint. In this article, we will discuss ideas to use when planning your next Sprint Retrospective.

When talking about applying Scrum and Agile, we are hardwired to think about America and Europe, not about Africa. I must confess I am totally ignorant about the status of Scrum and Agile in Africa. Needless to say, I was excited to be invited to Ivory Coast for a PSM-1 and PSPO-1 training in the ci...

Can a Scrum Team simply decide to abandon Scrum? After all, the Scrum team is self-managing, according to the Scrum manual, also known as the Scrum Guide. So, let’s explore this question at the very heart of team autonomy.

In the past few months I have heard several of my clients said that Scrum does not work and ask me to fix it.

TL; DR: Linking Strategy to Everyday Work w/ John Cutler — ACB21 In this highly engaging speaker session from the Agile Camp Berlin 2021, John Cutler delves into the advantages of linking strategy to everyday work: Motivation, inspiration, seeing the big picture despite working on a small iterati...

On today’s episode of YOUR DAILY SCRUM:  Is the Scrum Master Role an Entry Level Job?

I am often asked how to create better goals. This comes up at the team level, and it also comes up for the wider organization. When we are dealing with complexity, there is no one right way, no perfect template, and no best practice. And I find it helpful to look at the goals people are using today,...

Professional Agile Leadership – Evidence-Based Management (PAL-EBM) is the newest course in the Scrum.org portfolio. To prepare the launch and our trainer community for this one-day workshop, we ran several train-the-trainer events. I enjoyed participating in one of those, and I am glad to share my ...

When I’m describing the Key Value Areas (KVAs) of Evidence-Based Management, I find Time to Market is often misunderstood to mean “just go faster.” We need to scrub off the scent of “we know what we need to do, we just need to do it faster.” In complexity, goals and execution have a lot of unknowns,...

Today, Scrum.org launches the new Professional Agile Leadership - Evidence Based Management ™  (EBM) training course.

One personality trait we look for in managers is confidence. And rightfully so: It is needed to be able to make decisions and stand by them in adverse circumstances. The manager personalities I have met in my years of consulting, training and coaching management in transformation contexts have m...

We have now launched a new Scrum.org course – Professional Agile Leadership – Evidence-Based Management (EBM), and it is an exceptional occasion to share my experience with implementing the framework.

Sprint Planning is an important event that has a significant impact on the team’s effectiveness and productivity during the Sprint. The most critical aspects of successful sprint planning are the level of the team’s commitment to the goal of the sprint and handling the Sprint Backlog. To encourage...

Q: What is the relationship between EBM and OKRs? A: OKRs are a powerful technique for setting goals and measuring against goals. Some organizations use OKRs as a practice that helps them with EBM. What EBM adds to the OKR technique is an agile and iterative way for the organization to improve t...

TL; DR: Ignoring Self-Management — Undermining Scrum from the Start There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. One of Scrum’s first principles is self-management. It is based o...

Hey. What's happening awesome people? I hope you are having an awesome week. Ever since the Scrum Guide was updated in November 2020 and the Product Goal has been introduced, I have worked with several Scrum teams in early 2021 to connect their Objective Key Results with the Product Goal.

When scaling Scrum, we balance cost and effort with benefits and advantages. Costs and effort come from adding teams. Benefits and advantages come from delivering more value in the same amount of time. 

Scrum Master Interview: Demand Creates Supply and the Job Market for Agile Practitioners is No Exception

Reflections and findings triggered by the experience interview with Jimmy Janlén.

What has served me well over the years is a combination of observation and asking questions. Congratulations on your new Scrum Master position! Now what?

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is an awesome book. It is one of the biggest inspirations in my life! It is written by Steven Covey. The book describes... surprise, surprise, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People :) I will present them but in the context of Scrum Master's work.

There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone.

"We need to bring the IT resource managers along," I said.  "It's important that they understand their role in ensuring the success of the product". 

In this highly engaging speaker session from the Agile Camp Berlin 2021, Viktor Cessan shares lessons learned as an agile coach when working with systems, resulting in evidence-based interventions.

What scientific research on team cognition tells us about high-performing teams

Scrum is an agile project management framework that enables teams to deliver value in 30 days or less. The two most notable roles in Scrum are the Scrum Master and Product Owners. But for those new to Scrum, question we sometimes get asked is, can the Product Owner and Scrum Master be the same perso...

Scrum Star (parody of All Star by Smash Mouth)

There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. While it is common to first look outside our team for impediments, such as dysfunctional processes or other systemic issues,

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” ― Leon C. Megginson, author of Small Business Management Though these words are often misattributed to Charles Darwin, Megginson’s concept of “survival of the fittest” is most applicabl...

Arguably the most famous role in Scrum is the Scrum Master. But for those new to Scrum, it’s a bit of a mystery what a Scrum Master does day to day – here are five things that Scrum Masters do.

As a Scrum Master myself, I am excited to see the accountability of the Scrum Master clearly defined so that the company who hires me has a clear expectation about what I will do at their company.

TL; DR: Essential Agile Failure Patterns — When Noise Interferes with Signal There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. When Scrum becomes an element of an agile transformation...

Organizations need to move fast and receive ongoing feedback from customers to drive sustainable innovation through continuous discovery and value delivery. But there is a problem — dependencies.

A recent piece in the Harvard Business Review entitled ‘Have We Taken Agile Too Far?’ (penned by two former Amazon execs) claimed that “many organisations are taking [Agile] too far and using it to avoid careful planning and preparation.”