This article aims at helping Scrum Masters to conduct the *MOST AWESOME* Sprint Review they ever witnessed. (This article could have been titled: 41 tips that will make your Sprint Review awesome!)

This is the last in a series of 3 blogs presenting the result of an interesting research study from Sam Walker.  Walker discovered that the most successful sports teams that ever existed all shared one single element: They all had a team captain with 7 overlapping traits that made them extremely suc...

Just a thought on architecture in a complex environment. What is the value of a perfect architecture? Is there something as a perfect architecture? Perhaps more importantly, when is the architecture perfect?

I remember being told, many years ago when I started university, that Information Technology is a numerate discipline.

I recently attend the Professional Scrum Master II (PSM II) course and I'd like to share my thoughts with you about it. 

What can a Scrum team learn from the World’s Greatest Sports Teams? This is the first in 3 blogs that will share a number of Leadership lessons that can be used to build high performing Scrum teams.

What is Agile HR? How HR could support this journey of transformation into an Agile company?

The Scrum Master profession spans wide variety of skills, knowledge and experience. Scrum Masters try to create high performing teams and drive organisational change. Although our primary responsibility is the process, it’s people we work with all the time.

How we used Liberating Structures, Learning 3.0 and Training from the Back of the Room to create a new learning experience with the PSM II class.

Anyone who has participated in a Professional Scrum Master (PSM) training knows how powerful the learning experience is. The course is challenging and helps people discover a deeper understanding of the Scrum framework to enable the benefits of business agility. With the launch of the Professional...

It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, and yet we engage in an unconscious fiction of predictability every day. We work in an uncertain world, and our main goal in pursuing agility is to confront the unknown, and in doing so, to mast...

It is not often that you hear about children in school using Scrum to help them with their school work. I’ve recently come across a student on social media, who has been using Scrum for school projects. I found this story very inspiring and I thought it would be fun to share with you on our blog.

Don’t say this too loudly around agile conferences, but when it comes to the day-to-day work, Scrum and Kanban teams are very similar.

Time went by so fast since my last Global Professional Scrum Trainers Face-to-Face Meeting at the Scrum.org Headquarters. My jetlag's now gone but the feelings from that awesome experience still lingers on. Allow me to share my takeaways from the last F2F: Mentorship. (This blog was co-...

A goal, a forecast of functionality, plus the plan to deliver it. the Why, the What and the How. Sprint Goal + Sprint Backlog. How do these relate, plus a practical example.

I often start my Scrum training classes with this quote: "Scrum Master is an enabler not a doer". This is the second in a series of posts exploring some of the myths about Scrum Mastery.

Read more about how the PSM-II class deepens and expands your understanding of Scrum and helps you in your professional journey as a Scrum Master.

This info is about Joel Gascoigne, CEO of Buffer, who facilitated social media management. Ok, how do I know? In fact you, like everyone else, can see the salaries of around 75 people, who are Buffer's employees including its CEO from the link (you can find at the references section) shared by Buffe...

Throughout my career I have helped many leaders adapt their style to one that better supports teams reach a high-performing state. Across a wide range of different industries the patterns of high-performing teams, and how leaders help shape them, have some striking consistencies.

This is the third in a series of posts exploring Scrum Mastery. In our first post, we introduced the 4 dimensions of Scrum Mastery. In the second post, we explored how to grow a strong team identity. Now we will explore the team process dimension.

Often I hear people say that Scrum does not take care of risk: there is no risk log, risk is not on the agenda of the Sprint Review or Retrospective as a standard agenda-item. The Developers need to be accountable for the quality of the product and how it's made. And ultimately each role in Scrum h...

This is the second in a series of posts exploring Scrum Mastery. In our first post, we introduced the 4 dimensions of Scrum Mastery. Scrum requires self-managing, cross-functional, collaborative teams. The success of Scrum hinges on the strength of a team. In this post, we will explore the Team Iden...

The University of Applied Sciences at Albstadt-Sigmaringen (HSAlbSig) is respected for its well-balanced curriculum. However, even the best curriculum can benefit from outside sources and experts.

Bottom line - Toyota Improvement and Coaching Kata is the perfect partner for flow-based retrospectives.

Agility is the ability of an organization to adapt to new conditions and to change its direction. The modern service-based format of the production-based economy of the previous century renders the competence of companies to change even stronger than before.

"An Agile Coach know more than just Scrum", said one consultant in a boardroom meeting, "he/she knows organisation dynamics, executive coaching and other Agile practices like Kanban and DevOps", he continued.

Bottom line - PSK improves the performance of Scrum teams, but WiP must be optimized for flow and work in progress should not relatively age compared with other in progress items

Last year I reached a very important goal I had set for myself: I became a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) on behalf of Scrum.org. But why was this so important to me, and how did I get on this path?

We all understand, every field has a skill quotient that you need to achieve to be able to qualify and deliver. It’s a Doctor of Medicine for someone who wants to practice medicine, be a Doctor, and save lives.

Imagine this, you are at the weekly company meeting in a room of 60 people. All of them are co-workers who you have been working with for several years. You feel engaged and committed to the goal set by your company. 

Bottom line - WiP limits must be applied to improve flow of the delivery of value. It's a key lever to improve the performance of Professional Scrum Teams, and it's required by the Kanban Guide for Scrum.

When I first embarked on my own journey towards Scrum Mastery, I was eager to learn.  I attended Scrum training courses.  I went to and eventually spoke at agile conferences and meet ups.

In this post, we bust a myth that is at the heart of why refinement feels like a chore to many Scrum Teams: the belief that ‘Product Backlog refinement’ should be done as one or more required ‘meetings’ that must be attended by everyone in the team. We also offer some alternative approaches that fit...

Over the centuries, humans have managed to adapt to many situations and evolve to become what we are today. History shows that we have an innate ability to adapt and evolve. This remains valid as part of a change in business, such as the adoption of Scrum.

What we avoid is still being processed and affecting our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.  Sometimes we are aware this is running in the background, and we catch ourselves thinking about it.  Then we try to distract ourselves.  Often we don’t even have awareness, and the effects still show up.

Based on the feedback that I have received from my blog about the most popular blog articles, I have decided to do the same for the Scrum.org video series.  Over the past few years, we have generated more than 160 videos to help people learn more about Scrum.

People who attend the PSM course or the Professional Scrum Foundations (PSF) course are given two attempts at passing the Professional Scrum Master I assessment.

In this blog article, we provide a quick overview of the most viewed blog articles over the past 18 months, giving readers insight into what they mind valuable to read.

Agile Metrics are meant to serve certain purpose(s) and can be very useful if leveraged appropriately. In this series, I want to share my experiences of how metrics may be used, abused and effectively become focal point of failure of Agile adoption in an organization.

One of the new concepts we introduce in the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams is the Service Level Expectation, defined as: An SLE forecasts how long it should take a given item to flow from start to finish within your workflow.

In the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams and the Professional Scrum with Kanban workshop, we introduce 4 key flow metrics that we believe Scrum teams can use to improve their flow.

As a servant-leader, the Scrum Master sometimes has to make very difficult decisions. This might even include removing someone from the Scrum Team. Obviously, this a difficult decision that should not be taken light-hearted. In this post, we'll share some perspectives on the kinds of situations wher...

It is beyond debate I'm afraid; business projects are prone to failure – particularly large and complex projects. There is some irony in that, no? The more you hope to achieve, the more likely you are to be unsuccessful. Learn how the tech industry uses the Scrum Framework to curb failure and delive...

I often use innovative games as a useful addition for Sprint Reviews. They help clients better understand and thus improve the product. One of my favourite games is the Speed Boat. The Speed Boat game explores user’s pains and jobs.

One of the reasons Scrum allows opportunistic discovery is due to its short and fast feedback loops. With the aim to build a high-performing Team and to get the best potential out of each individual and to help them be successful, Agile Coach needs to provide straight feedback to them. But giving st...

If you give a developer a verbal warning for surfing social media all day, you are crushing their autonomy. Insisting on core hours of 10am-4pm violates self-organisation. Personal development plans are so PRINCE II. Right? Well, maybe. On the other hand, having someone relatively experienced and...

Last year, Stefan Wolpers and Age of Product conducted a Scrum Master Salary Survey of the agile community. The effort resulted in the Scrum Master Salary Report 2017. This year Scrum.org will be joining this survey effort with Stefan Wolpers and Age of Product, with the goal of collecting data from...

Over the years, the tools we use to develop and deploy applications are significantly more robust, and most companies are working to become more efficient with their processes. But what is the next step toward improvement in software development? New expectations.

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Rich Visotcky gives viewers insight into a Scrum Team he was a part of at a bank from their beginning. Rich discusses the background as to why Scrum was adopted, how they built out their vision and honed in on value. You'll be amazed at the milli...

Hello great people of the world. Welcome back to Professional Software Delivery with Scrum (PSD) blog series with yours truly. This time we're going talk about how to use Scrum And DevOps. I am interested to discuss this topic because it's quite common I get a question from someone in the agile comm...