At the heart of Scrum lies the Retrospective, a crucial event where teams reflect on their work and identify areas for improvement. One often overlooked opportunity at the Retrospective is measuring employee satisfaction. This article highlights the opportunity of incorporating employee satisfaction...

Coaching plays a pivotal role in guiding teams toward greater efficiency, collaboration, and overall success. It’s important to remember that you can't coach people out of every bad practice all at once. This article explores the wisdom behind focusing on the highest impact opportunities rather than...

Here are some study notes that I created whilst learning more about Evidence-Based Management from Scrum.org. These are shared as a revision resource intended to summarise the key elements from The Evidence-Based Management Guide.

What is release planning? When is it done? How do we manage stakeholder expectations and answer the infamous "when will it be done" question? How do we forecast? What numbers and methods can we use to forecast more accurately?

Unleash Scrum's Potential: Discover Where to Start for Efficient Value Delivery (Product) and Continuous Improvement via Value Stream Mapping

How to use your brain better when working on complex problems.

Don't write Product Backlog Items, have a conversation about them!

Organizations have been taking their efforts toward Agility for many years. Some of them seem to be successful in this field, and some of them are not. So, how to measure the results and benefits of this effort?

🔍 Discover the underpinnings of a transparent and promising future in Agile Product Management! My latest blog post explores the indispensable role of an ordered Product Backlog that is coherent, refined, and rightly sized.

To excel as an Agile facilitator, understanding the importance of facilitation skills and mastering the essential Scrum facilitation techniques are paramount. This blog post provides insights into these essentials while shedding light on how our Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills™ course can aid...

A personal experience and a tangible exercise to show why complexity requires ‘doing’ instead of ‘thinking’

If you are eager to drive change and improve your business agility, check out this video by PST Robert Pieper.

The concept of limiting work in progress revolves around the principle that focusing on fewer tasks at a time leads to better outcomes. In a Scrum context, this involves setting a cap on the number of user stories, features, or tasks that the development team is actively working on during a sprint. ...

In this recording of a live session of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer, PSTs Gregory Crown, Robb Pieper and Jason Malmstadt of Responsive Advisors, answered questions about the Scrum events, the accountabilities in Scrum, Scrum outside of software, metrics and more!

It's common practice to ask the Scrum Master to take on the role of facilitator in the 5 Scrum events. Let's go beyond this and move towards more learning strategies, for both the Scrum Master and the Scrum Team.

In this article, we will explore some tactics which I found valuable when I was in need to align Scrum with Project Management practices.

If you are not getting the value you hoped for from your Scrum transformation, try adding a couple of Kanban practices to your Scrum implementation.

For Product Backlog management to be effective, consider these following tips: Review, reorder and refine the Product Backlog frequently The Product Backlog is emergent; it evolves and changes. Feedback, learnings from experiments and changing market conditions are just a few factors that in...

How do you uphold Scrum without becoming a Scrum dictator? How do you lead the Scrum Team to ever greater adoption of Scrum within the organization… without direct authority? This article explores the challenges faced by Scrum Masters in their balancing act and how they navigate through it to ensu...

Explore the challenge of 'Escaping the Product Owner’s Trap' in this insightful blog post. Learn how Product Owners often find themselves entangled in component thinking, losing sight of broader objectives and value delivery. Uncover key principles such as Vision, Value, and Validation, and discover...

This case study analyzes the transformation journey using Org Topologies™ Scans and focuses on the Business Banking Hub. The article is valuable if you want to understand how Org Topologies™ can help improve organizational design.

In the post-COVID business landscape, companies must innovate, embrace experimentation, and eliminate silos for success. Clear leadership and Scrum methodology foster collaboration and value creation. A shared vision and self-managed teams maximize value and navigate challenges effectively.

How does your Sprint Backlog support adaptation in order to minimise deviations from agreed goals? Each of the Scrum Artifacts serve to adapt. So does the Sprint Backlog. Check it out!

Find a better balance between solving problems and enabling growth and autonomy

🚀💥#UsableWorkingProduct: Your Ultimate Weapon Against Risks in Agile💥🚀 ⚠️ Ever wondered why some Agile projects falter? Is your fortress of documentation crumbling against the relentless tides of market change? 🌊 Here’s the secret sauce - It’s all about Usable Working Products! 🎯🔧 Too many Agile tea...

In this article, we have crafted interview questions to help identify the best Product Owner for your Scrum team.

Scrum Werkzeuge, Teil 2: Von Design Thinking über Lean UX zu User Story Mapping

In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, Host Dave West is joined by Professional Scrum Trainers and authors of the book Creating Agile Organizations, A Systemic Approach, Cesario Ramos and Ilia Pavlichenko. (21:13 Minutes)

Scrum Tools, Part 2: From Design Thinking to Lean UX to User Story Mapping

Together with Comparative Agility, Scrum.org offers a self-assessment to help you grow as a Scrum Master. This tool helps you evaluate your Scrum Master skills and assess areas for improvement based on the Professional Scrum Competencies by Scrum.org.

Time off and vacations/holidays are a reality for all Scrum Teams. What does Scrum say about this and how do you deal with a missing Scrum Team member under these circumstances?

🎯#Agile Usable Products vs. Documentation in Traditional Project Management📝 💡Are you still torn between embracing Agile's nimble strides or holding onto the tried-and-true documentation-heavy Traditional Project Management? Let's crack the code! 🕵️‍♂️ In an ever-evolving software development landsc...

In our quest to improve the working place, we propose to view an organization as an ecosystem. #OrgTopologies is a framework agnostic thinking tool that will allow managers to purposefully design organizations for high performance. In this article, we describe an A-level ecosystem and how to improv...

Discover how asynchronous meetings are transforming collaboration in today's fast-paced business world. Explore the challenges faced by Scrum Teams, particularly with stakeholders missing Sprint Review events. Learn about two experiments we have been running for effective Sprint Reviews: Recorded Sp...

The Agile Leader's commitment goes beyond mere lip service to the Agile Manifesto. It's about creating a conducive environment for teams to innovate, collaborate, learn, and grow. It's about leading by example and embodying the principles and values that Agile upholds. But what exactly are these com...

From Spotify to The Liberators to Self-Made: Eight Self-Assessments to Get You Started.

How lead- and cycle time are incredibly helpful metrics to drive change where it matters

The purpose of the Scrum Master is to improve the effectiveness of the Scrum Team. And yet, so many people don’t know what to look for in a Scrum Master or how to evaluate the Scrum Master’s performance. A great Scrum Master possesses a unique blend of technical expertise, leadership skills, and int...

What does "ready" actually mean and maybe more importantly what does it not mean?

Uncover the secrets of outcome-driven roadmaps and learn how aligning product vision with a clear strategy can drive meaningful results for your business.

🚀 Urgent Call for Agile Transformation 🚀 Alpha organizations, relics of the Industrial Age, are hierarchical & slow, ill-suited for today's dynamic 'Red' markets. Enter Beta organisations: agile, decentralised & adaptable, bred for innovation. But sadly, agility is losing the battle. Quick fixes won...

According to the 2020 Scrum guide, “Scrum Teams are cross-functional, meaning the members have all the skills necessary to create value each Sprint.” But what does that mean, exactly?

Merely Implementing one of Several Frameworks for Scaling Agile Won’t Fix Agility Issues

In this episode of the Scrum.org Community podcast, we get to know Professional Scrum Trainer Andreanna Marshall! (25:38)

There are certain misconceptions and patterns that can hinder the effectiveness of the Product Owner and lead to conflicts within the Scrum team. In this article, we will explore three common anti-patterns related to the Product Owner's accountability in Scrum and discuss strategies to overcome them...

Back in 2012 when I was on the path to becoming a Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer, I travelled to Boston to attend a PSM course run by Ken Schwaber (the co-creator of Scrum and Chairman/Founder of Scrum.org). It was a large class and people had flown in from all over the world. Everyone was exc...

Product Owners have a variety of job titles ranging from Project Manager to Product Manager, From Business Analyst to Team Leader. Still, these job titles reflect the complexity of their work environment. In this blog, we discuss the messy reality of Product Ownership and provide a 2 by 2 grid focus...

A Comparison of Traditional, Guided, Immersive, and Flipped Learning Approaches to accelerate your knowledge retention.

Escape the Rinse and Repeat Cycle with 5 Sprint Retrospective Ideas

In this conversation on the Women in Agile podcast Renae Craven and Sharon Robson explore what the future may look like in our workplaces and how we prepare our schools today so they can be happy in those future workplaces.