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...

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.

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.

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.”

I had a leadership nightmare. It was as if most of the directors I have heard and met so far gathered and accompanied me….

If you are looking to fill a position for a Product Owner in your organization, you may find the following 71 interview questions useful to identify the right candidate.

Hey hey hey. What's good this week awesome people? I hope you had a great week folks. On the last video we discussed what is a "product" according to Scrum Guide 2020. Understanding product is fundamental to having effective Scrum. Because Scrum is a framework for developing complex products, when w...

We’ve already discussed the importance of decentralised command and decision-making in an earlier blog, outlining how managers need to be able to train, mentor and teach their teams.

In this talk for Product Management Today, Dave West, CEO of Scrum.org, discusses the interesting, messy connection between work and value. He outlines how changes to the Scrum Guide have shone a spotlight on the challenge that many teams face when delivering more value.

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 failure symptom of a botched agile transformation is the frustrated Scrum Master.

Complaining is like releasing gas. It’s a natural occurrence. Everyone does it. But no one wants someone else to do it next to them. How to complain less and do more by Sahin Guvenilir.

In an agile context, we use metrics to set performance goals, measure current conditions, define small improvement experiments and measure the effectiveness of the experiments in order to inspect and adapt goals and determine the next steps.

On today’s episode of YOUR DAILY SCRUM: Planned vs Actual is a TERRIBLE Metric for Scrum Teams!

TL; DR: The Developers Code Fallacy — They Should Talk to Customers, Too, Though There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum.

En este webinar con PST Guillem Hernandez Sola, vamos a definir qué es EBM, sus conceptos y su aplicación. Wednesday May 19, 2021 10:00 AM EDT (14:00 UTC)

People in organizations are often afraid of running experiments. I have observed that approximately 70% of people responsible and accountable for products are reluctant to validate their assumptions by experimenting. There are several reasons for this hesitancy. The most common is misunderstanding w...

On today’s episode of YOUR DAILY SCRUM: What is the Real Cost of Context Switching for a Scrum Team? Today's question explores the real cost of context switching for a Scrum Team.

Fake Scrum is around us everywhere we go. It's unavoidable. Just look on the internet lookup fake Scrum right now and you're going to find all kinds of interesting articles that describe Scrum in very weird ways. There are at least five ways you can tell if you've got fake Scrum going on.

We spend a big part of our workday either participating in or facilitating workshops. In this blog post we will dive into a practice you can use to kick off workshops. A practice to set the tone, to spark impulse, to invite for change and forward momentum: Using videos to kick-start a crucial conver...

Three Wide-Spread Stakeholder Failures There are plenty of Scrum stakeholder failures. Given that Scrum is a framework with a precise and concise yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone.

The term organizational agility is everywhere these days, but what does it really mean? Can we even define it at all? Deepen your understanding of the manifesto and why it is essential to implementing healthy agile that delivers meaningful value. Since its genesis, the agile manifesto has been subje...

On today’s episode of YOUR DAILY SCRUM: When does UAT happen in Scrum? Today's question is all about User Acceptance Testing (UAT). UAT is an anti-pattern in Scrum.

Join me and explore the reasons and the consequences of this Sprint anti-pattern in 109 seconds.

Want to be ready for that tough Scrum Master interview? Here are 52 questions from the team at www.FractalSystems.co.uk that will help you really ace the upcoming interview and give you confidence during your Scrum Master interview.

Contrary to popular belief, the Scrum Master success principles are tangible, when we guide the analysis with an outside perspective. Read on and discover four Scrum Master success principles: From when not to use Scrum to product quality to supporting the Product Owner to putting self-management...

So in this week's vlog we will continue our discussion from last week's vlog and also about a subtle change in Scrum Guide which I think is quite powerful when done right in our organisation.

Does an organization live in the present or in the past? The answer seems obvious: of course in the present! But what if organizations are living in the past? How that night be the case and what can bring the organization back to the present? Let's dive deeper into this questions.

This vlog with Robert Pieper talks about the importance of Sprint Goals.

Der 5. Mai 2021 ist der deutsche Erdüberlastungstag, an dem wir in unseren Anteil an ökologischen Ressourcen für dieses Jahr verbraucht haben. Für den Rest des Jahres nehmen wir beim Ökosystem Erde einen Kredit auf.

May 5, 2021 is German Overshoot Day, the day where we have used up our share of ecological resources that our planet can renew this year. We are now living and doing business on a deficit.

Agile frameworks such as Scrum have continued to gain traction because of their ability to vastly improve business outcomes and employee engagement. Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams, and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems.

The Scrum Master is probably one of the most famous Agile roles. And rightly so, because the Scrum Master pays a pivotal role in helping the team with the efficient and effective use of Scrum. Learn more from the team at www.FractalSystems.co.uk

The Professional Scrum Master I from Scrum.org is a challenging online assessment where you’ll answer 80 multiple choice questions within an hour.

On today’s episode of YOUR DAILY SCRUM: How Does a Scrum Team Handle Carryover Work? Today's question is all about carryover work. You know, the work that didn't quite get to DONE by the end of the Sprint.

On today’s episode of YOUR DAILY SCRUM: Our Scrum Team is late! Should we add more people? Today's question asks whether or not a team running behind should add more people to try to get things completed faster. The answer is an emphatic "NO!". Check out the video to learn how adding people is a gr...

Why the distinction between teacher and preacher matters, how you can recognize a Scrum preacher, and what we recommend instead

What's up awesome people? I hope you are enjoying your weekend. As some of you already know, in Scrum Guide 2020, one of the accountabilities in the Scrum Team is Developer. But have you asked yourself, where are the business analysts, or user experience designers, or system architects, or quality a...

On today’s episode of YOUR DAILY SCRUM: Can the Scrum Team skip their Sprint Retrospective?

On today’s episode of YOUR DAILY SCRUM: Can the Scrum Team skip their Sprint Retrospective?