At first sight, Zombie Scrum seems to be normal Scrum. But it lacks a beating heart. The Scrum teams do all the Scrum events but a potential releasable increment is rarely the result of a Sprint. The team also don't have any intention to improve their situation. Actually nobody cares about this team...

This post is part of a series on debunking Scrum Myths. While my business cards say Professional Scrum Trainer, I may change that to Scrum Myth Buster. This post debunks the myth that the Daily Scrum is a status meeting. This myth undermines the effectiveness of Scrum in major ways. I will share...

People always as ask me if agile is just for software. Saying agile is just about software is like saying software is just about science. Initially, computer science was about replacing manual processes. Now, it’s about creating human experiences. Building human experiences needs to extend beyond sc...

When Scrum is introduced in a company, most of the time, the development team embraces it with lots of enthusiasm. Scrum embodies self-organizing, autonomous, multidisciplinary teams that acknowledge individual qualities and reinforces the strengths of the team as a whole. Who doesn't want to be par...

THE (MIXED) BLESSING OF NEXTGEN REWRITES About 10 years ago, I experienced the mixed blessing of being part of yet another nextgen rewrite project. I was guiding a team of about 25 really smart team members, part of a much larger team of about 150+ people. Our team was responsible for completely...

One of the recurring Scrum Myth discussions I have with colleagues, teams new to Scrum and those attending training when comparing Scrum & DevOps relate to a misinterpretation of the following paragraph from the Scrum Guide. At the end of a Sprint, the new Increment must be “Done,” which mean...

Clients and training attendees ask me "Can you use Scrum for something else than software?”. What they usually mean is building some other products or organizing team’s work. Let’s explore a more exotic idea. It’s beginning of a new year, the time when people make and try to achieve new year’s resol...

At Amsterdam Airport Schiphol we're using an Agile approach to realize a large digital program. This program includes 5 value streams with multiple teams. Due to the increasing scale of the program, some challenges arise. For example: How to organise a Sprint Review with an increasing amount of t...

IMAGINE Imagine you have just been asked to build an Agility Enablement Organization for your company. Sounds like fun, but there are some constraints you need to work within or around… There are 100+ teams with varying levels of interest in Agile You only have a small team of enablers ...

NEW YEAR RESOLUTION So it's a new year. New Year, new start, yadda yadda yadda... Maybe you are considering some New Year Resolutions so I wanted to invite you to take our 2017 waste-loss challenge by decreasing your Sabotagile Quotient. This challenge builds upon my previous blog - "Agile or S...

This year I was in the lucky circumstance to be part of some awesome (Scrum) teams. It certainly wasn't all "Scrum by the book" but I've learned a tremendous amount of lessons and generated lots of values insights. As always, some things turned out to be a success, other things failed miserably. Thi...

In a previous post describing challenges to creating a Done Increment, I identified a lack of team collaboration as one of those challenges. Collaboration is what enables the whole team to be greater than the sum of its parts. Collaboration allows a team to work together to complete a Product Ba...

In a previous post describing challenges to creating a Done Increment, I identified a lack of team ownership as one of those challenges. The Scrum Team is accountable as a whole to create a valuable, useful Increment by the end of the Sprint. There are 3 specific accountabilities within the Scrum T...

As a Product Owner and the CEO of Scrum.org, Dave West was invited to speak at ProductTank NYC earlier this year about the conflict between the roles Product Owner and Product Manager.

​ Table Manners There is a striking similarity between good table manners and good agile behaviours - "agile table manners". It is even more clear when viewed through the lens of the Scrum values: Focus, Respect, Openness, Courage and Commitment. The intent of manners is to help it be as safe ...

Because there's no easy way in telling you this, I'll just share it straight away... Next week I'll be setting up a Jira environment for the product teams I'm coaching... Yes... Jira! The issue & project tracking system for software teams created by Atlassian. It's pretty easy to find negativ...

Development Team was removed from the Scrum Guide in the 2020 release. However, the ideas expressed in this blog still provide value when understanding the dynamics of the Scrum Team. What are the characteristics of a good Development Team and how does a Development Team evolve when it is using S...

It is 1995 and Cyberdyne Systems are on the verge of launching their new automated military artificial intelligence software, CloudNet. “Come with me if you want to live!” cries Ant Schwarter, the enthusiastic Scrum Master, as he ushers the development team at Cyberdyne Systems into the conferenc...

Are we there yet? It’s becoming like nails-on-a-chalkboard to hear phrases like “We’re going Agile” or “We’re doing this because it’s agile.” People are putting everything they can under the Agile umbrella, right down to cleaning up your workspace at the end of the day. What does it mean to say you’...

Empiricism means working in a fact-based, experience-based, and evidence-based manner. Scrum implements an empirical process where progress is based on observations of reality, not fictitious plans. Scrum also places great emphasis on mind-set and cultural shift to achieve business and organizationa...

Here is a list of just some of the books that have been published by Scrum.org Founder Ken Schwaber

EMBARRASSING CONFESSION OK, so this will be awkward, and maybe cringe-inducing post. But we are approaching the new year. Plenty of people might be making new year resolutions. Many will be around fitness. So everyone needs to read this. I was once really impressed by 24 Hour Fitness. I used...

I am listing out some commonly observed Scrum Myths, Mysteries, and Misconceptions from my experience. Scrum Teams are assigned to several projects or features. This results in context switching (i.e., multitasking), and the outcome is increased cycle time and delayed value delivery to busines...

Since 2009 Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainers have helped over 60,000 people in their journey to Scrum mastery through training. They have worked with thousands of organizations delivering a consistent training experience and many of those organizations have made professional Scrum part of th...

I see four common reasons an agile implementation doesn't get the benefits hoped for. These reasons include a failure to limit risk, long end-to-end delivery lead times, consistent cost-overruns, and no one knows why you do what you do. Are you in this situation? Read on to see if these match up to ...

In the Professional Scrum Product Owner course, we teach that high performing Product Owners are entrepreneurial. They not only act with the business in mind, they have the authority to make important decisions. What should we do now versus later? What choices give us the best return on investment? ...

You hear a lot in Agile circles these days about the ‘declining need for managers.’ We may not need the managers of yesterday but, make no mistake, we certainly need the leaders of tomorrow. Leadership has become about creating a healthy environment for high-performing teams to thrive in – wh...

The Daily Scrum, or most of the time referred to as the "stand up." Probably the most well-known event when we talk about Scrum. An event that lasts no longer than 15 minutes and where the Development Team inspects the plan for the sprint and see whether this plan is still valid. That is it! Nothin...

What were you doing on Oct 19th 1995? According to the internet, not much with most of the news reminding us of Black Monday that had happened 9 years before. But for what is now over 11 million people who practice Scrum on a daily basis, it was a big day. That was the day that Scrum was offic...

I’m currently helping a small software shop within a government organization where multiple Scrum Teams are serving the same cause. They are building one product that has several sub-systems, which sometimes need to be integrated. Mostly, they have a low amount of dependencies between teams and syst...

ScrumButs are reasons why teams can’t take full advantage of Scrum to solve their problems and realize the full benefits of product development using Scrum. Every Scrum role, rule, and timebox is designed to provide the desired benefits and address predictable recurring problems.

This summer, during the Olympics, the Euro Soccer Championships and the Tour the France, while cheering in front of the tv, I noticed something in the way teams perform. And it worried me. Even more because I see the same thing happening in organizations. Why did the English soccer team fail agains...

Agile approaches, including Scrum, are empirical approaches to delivering software and business value. It is ironic, then, that the biggest impediment to adopting an Agile approach is the culture of the adopting organization. The Cambridge English Dictionary states that culture is "the way of life, ...

On July 7th the Scrum community gathered in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) for the 5th edition of Scrum Day Europe. This year's theme was 'the next iteration'. Therefore we looked back to see what Scrum brought us the last 20 years but also looked forward to the future of Scrum. Naturally, the evaluati...

In this Scrum Pulse session, our PST panel will share their experiences, challenges and insights from guiding the effective adoption of Scrum in multi-cultural Scrum.

More and more large companies in traditional industries are singing the Agile song. I have noticed, though, that there seems to be a general misconception that Agile is onlyabout creating happy teams. There’s more to an Agile mindset than happiness. It’s about learning, struggle, and growth. This is...

An overview of documents and books to help understand the role of the Product Owner organized by assessment categories.

An overview of documents and books to help understand the role of the Product Owner organized by assessment categories.

An overview of documents and books to help understand the accountabilities of Developers on a Scrum Team working in the Software Delivery domain organized by assessment categories.

An overview of documents and books to help understand Scrum, organized by assessment categories.

Suggested reading for anyone who is taking the Professional Scrum Master level I certification test or just looking to learn more about being a Scrum Master.

Today I changed my Twitter and LinkedIn profile. I removed Agile Coach and replaced it with Scrum Master. 100% Scrum Master. Although it seems a small change, it raised quite some concern when I suggested the idea a couple of weeks ago... "You should stick with Agile Coach. As a freelancer, th...

This is a recording of Scrum.org CEO Dave West's presentation from Scrum Day Europe 2016 on The Future of Scrum. 90% of Agile teams are using Scrum. With over ½ a million people trained and certified. Scrum has become, for many the de-facto standard in Agile team organization. But what is next fo...

If this post resonates with you, please consider spreading the message so we can educate and inspire others. I invite you to ‘Follow’ my professional journey through LinkedIn and Twitter. ~~~ I must confess that my Twitter knowledge and expertise is limited. I'm even skeptical of its va...

Glossary of Scrum Terms This glossary is meant to represent an overview of Scrum-related terms. Some of the mentioned terms are not mandatory in Scrum, but have been added because they are commonly used in Scrum. To learn more about the Scrum framework, to identify which of these terms are requir...

This glossary represents an overview of terms specific to software development teams using Scrum and agile software development techniques. To learn more about the Scrum framework, we highly recommend that you reference the Scrum Guide™ and the Scrum Glossary. A A/B Testing: extends the ide...

If this post resonates with you, please consider spreading the message so we can educate and inspire the entire professional world together. I invite you to ‘Follow’ my professional journey through LinkedIn and Twitter. ~~~ The colorful wall posters are ubiquitous in organizations small...

Scrum.org CEO and Product Owner Dave West has come a long way from being a RUP Product Manager to where he is today.

Scrum.org CEO and Product Owner Dave West has come a long way from being a RUP Product Manager to where he is today. After realizing RUP wasn't helping developers or enabling them to build great software, Dave took a Scrum class where a light bulb went off. He saw that if you gave a team enough safe...

What really makes a transformation of your organization successful? Which elements should be in place? Which complicated framework for scaling agile should I choose? I tend to feel disappointed when trying to think of the number of organizations which actually succeeded in such a transformation. We,...