It's been a while since I wrote a blog, here is some good news, this is part 1 of a 3 part blog series, inspired by the writings of John C. Maxwell, “The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential.”

While teaching and consulting, I’ve had many existing Scrum Masters pull me aside looking tired, frustrated, and worn out.

People always have questions and concerns about Risk management and Autonomy in the Scrum Team...

Teams often run through the motions of Scrum and get very hung up on story points, velocity, committed percentages and as a result struggle to deliver value. But what I’ll share today is what unlocks the value of Scrum;

A few years ago, I was part of a team that was starting to work together under very difficult circumstances: We had to finish a showcase in the Industry 4.0 area within just six weeks.

As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as tho...

I'd like to share another story with you... Thank you Paul and Charlie for sharing your story. It moved me and left me with huge smile on my face. 

Hello awesome people. I want to share with you my recent experience and discussion with a senior manager who needs advice on how to measure his organisation agility. His company already invested quite a lot of money to send people to trainings and get them certified, purchased tools and processes fr...

In the world of tech, many industry giants such as Google choose to use a management framework known as Objectives and Key Results (OKR).

As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as tho...

If you want your organization to become agile, adding more whiteboards to the workspace will not suffice. You have to abandon the idea that the workspace is an assembly line for white-collar workers. You need to let go Taylorism. We are now in the age of the creative worker.

As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as tho...

Does your firm exceed your customer's expectations regularly? Is just meeting expectations good enough in your market? Businesses pursuing an improved ability to deliver customer value using Scrum face numerous challenges.

Sprint Goals are one of the more elusive parts of the Scrum Framework. Most teams know they are important, but few use them - for a variety of reasons. In this post, Barry Overeem and I bust the myth that Sprint Goals are optional in Scrum. And we make an effort to show what makes them so vital in t...

Last year, I ran a (non-representative) survey on how Scrum Masters are allocating their time when working with a single Scrum Team. Much to the surprise of many readers, the direct Scrum Master engagement with a single Scrum Team of average size and a typical 2-week Sprint turned out to be about 12...

I have my own biases,  having seen co-located teams work very well and having struggled with “dislocated” teams, I often recommend my clients to reconsider “dislocated” teams. 

As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as tho...

Product Owners have a tough job. I was in a Sprint Review recently where the Scrum Team had some stakeholders talking about an idea they thought was excellent. So, like any studious Product Owner, they immediately typed up the idea and added it to their Product Backlog.

At a recent training class one of the delegates spoke about their present company, about how it was the most “Agile” place he had ever worked.

In this episode the the Management 3.0 podcast, the fabulous David Dame is back after his Ted Talk about what it takes to see the world through a different lens. Born with Cerebral Palsy David has used his every day challenges to learn how to be an effective and agile leader. (24:41 Minutes)

Every year I like to deliberately go somewhere far from the crowd to take a break and reflect. You can say that it's similar to a retrospectives. Often times I may not realised whether as a Scrum Master my service to the organisation is already effective or not.

Software developers are mostly guys, happy to work by themselves at night in dark rooms. And they turn coffee, cola and pizza into code. Right? My experience so far To be honest, the longer I have worked in software development the more wrong this stereotype feels to me. True, when I learned t...

TL;DR: Scrum Master Duties, Serving a Single Team Scrum Master Duties: supposedly, a great Scrum Master serves only one Scrum Team—that’s at least a popular narrative in the Scrum community. Nevertheless, there is also a loud voice that doubts that approach: what would you do the whole day—with a...

Defining Agile/Scrum for Marketing Scrum.org joined the discussion around Agile Marketing recently. This is an area close to my heart. I've been helping Marketing organizations leverage Scrum, Kanban and Lean Startup concepts to improve their agility since around 2016 or so and I find it a fascin...

The Liberating Structure "Wicked Questions" makes paradoxical realities transparent. By doing so, you can engage in deeper strategic thinking and explore new possibilities.

This blog gives a Lean perspective on the Agile Manifesto.

The core responsibility of the agile leader is creating the right context for the agile teams so they can thrive and self-manage. One of the characteristics of this context is all about ownership. In my book ‘Agile Leadership Toolkit’ I dedicate a whole part to this important topic.

If Scrum were to be reduced to one purpose and one only, it would be the creation of a "Done" increment. Although the DoD serves as a crucial part of Scrum, it is also often neglected by many Scrum teams. Try out the DoD EvoCycle, a simple technique to effectively manage your Definition of Done.

“We want to be more agile in our delivery.” “We need to build up our teams.” “How can we do Scrum well?” Companies are asking themselves these questions every day and looking in various places for the answers.

This article will give you a clear explanation of how to become a good leader in this competitive world, and the techniques and tools required to reach the height of success.

An example of how to use Liberating Structures to improve the Sprint Review.

Millennials in the workplace. Agile and Scrum can help virtually any organization, from small startup tech businesses with mostly young employees to well established Fortune 2,000 companies with a much more experienced staff.

This post covers four team building mental models — or concepts — that have proven useful in understanding the context of creating agile teams: from Taylorism to Tuckman to Lencioni to Dan Pink.

This is a common question in my Professional Scrum classes. It often comes up early when we are still learning the basics of the Scrum framework. And it comes up because people are already wearing two hats or are being told by their organizations that they will be.

In this article, I’ve described my personal journey in becoming a Scrum Master and included recommendations for new Scrum Masters.

Background I wrote a definition of agility 6 months ago. It was like a change story. I didn't want a pithy definition of agility that would : let executive leaders think they were off the hook, change is for the teams and I don't need to change let specialists think they were off t...

In this short Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Ravi Verma discusses how Scrum holds the team accountable for delivering value to stakeholders every 30 days or less and why. (4:41 Minutes)

Scrum.org is stating it: "The PSM III credential is very difficult to earn, as it is used to demonstrate the certificate holder’s ability solve advanced, complex problems in real-world applications of Scrum.

How a Scrum Master can use the “Strategy Knotworking” to help the Scrum Team turn their ideas and ambitions into reality.

How effectively are you maximizing value when dependencies tell you what to do first? Dependencies impact the core of the role of Product Owner.

In my role as an Agile coach and Scrum trainer, I get the chance to talk to a lot of Scrum Masters and teams.

In this blog post, Dave West, CEO and Product Owner at Scrum.org, will explore the benefits of using Scrum for Marketing, dealing with pressures from every side of the business and using Scrum to address complexity.

Scrum provides numerous opportunities for teams to inspect and adapt their progress, including on a daily basis.

Conflicts are fascinating. Now, this may be the organisational psychologist in me talking, or the facilitator who senses them in the groups I work with.

The Daily Scrum is an important Inspect and Adapt event for a Scrum team. Yet the purpose is often ignored and swept under the carpet by a multitude of teams.

The traditional approach of RFI – RFP – Review – LOI is neither lean or agile. The Lean Agile Procurement approach reduces the sourcing cycle time to days, with collaborative clarification of the product with prospective partners while reducing the risk of a poor partner and company evaluation.

Why run a Liberating Structures immersive workshop? Since the beginning of 2019, the Hands-on Agile meetup in Berlin has been exploring how to apply Liberating Structures to Scrum.

A while ago I was brushing the teeth of my 3 year old son when I thought of something.

I agree that forcing self-organizing teams to do something seems counterproductive.  However, even in that scenario, there are only a few hard and fast Scrum rules.

Who wouldn't want to achieve awesomeness at work? Great Scrum Masters help make this a reality. The world is changing more rapidly than ever, bringing with it more unknowns than known. And without strong leaders to guide our teams through this time of complexity and uncertainty, we won't fare ver...