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Blog Post
In this article we'll bust one of the more radical myths in Scrum; the belief that plans and planning have no place in Scrum.
4.8 from 2 ratings
Blog Post
Many Scrum Teams use User Stories as a technique for creating their Product Backlog Items (PBIs). But when the teams bring big stories to the Sprint, this causes lots of problems. The common recommendation is to slice stories so that the team can take 6-10 of them to the Sprint. Let's discuss in det...
5 from 3 ratings
Video
As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer David Dame discusses how many modern practices and techniques have Scrum at their core and why the empiricism of Scrum continues to be so important today. (1:39 minutes)
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Blog Post
In this post, we’ll explain the Liberating Structure "Troika Consulting" and how we apply this facilitation technique within our Scrum training and coaching engagements.
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Blog Post
Flashback to 1995, Jeff and Ken had presented their paper at OOPSLA on Scrum. People recognizes it as one of the new ways of working. Fast forward to Feb 2001, no ski resort gathering and no Agile manifesto. People are trying different methods, frameworks and practices for improving the state of sof...
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Blog Post
Yes, you read it right, it was really challenging for me, and may be other PSTs have the same or different experience. A couple of times I thought about quitting it but because of some or the other reasons I continued. This article is an attempt of sharing my journey, may be useful to you before you...
5 from 1 rating
Blog Post
In this post, we'll bust the myth that Scrum requires work to be estimated in Story Points. Although it is a useful technique, and used by many Scrum Teams, it is by no means the only technique. Above all, remember the quote by Esther Derby: “Estimating is often helpful, estimates are often not.”
4.7 from 339 ratings
Blog Post
"That's the problem with so many organizations around entrepreneurship. They're driven by metrics that don't matter." - Brad Feld It's alright Madam, I'm a Doctor Have you ever had your bumps read? No no, don't be alarmed, it's your cranium I'm referring to. At one time it was thought poss...
4.4 from 7 ratings
Blog Post
People in the Agile community must have heard or have came across this white paper multiple times. We have been preaching about it in our training classes but I am not sure how many of Agile community members have actually read it thoroughly. The paper was published in Jan 1986 issue of HBR and is v...
4.5 from 1 rating
Podcast
In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods of InfoQ, spoke to Dave West, CEO and chief product owner at Scrum.org, about the state of Scrum in 2017 and the future of agile.
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Blog Post
In this blog post we’ll bust the myth that “The Scrum Master is a junior Agile Coach”. Effective change is driven from “the inside-out”. The Scrum Master - being part of the Scrum Team  - is in a better position to facilitate this change than an (external) Agile Coach.
4.5 from 225 ratings
Blog Post
As a Product Owner, you are responsible for Product Backlog management, stakeholder management and forecasting. Therefore, you will probably use a variety of tools and techniques to track progress, manage expectations and keep people informed. One of the tools that may come in handy for you is a pro...
4.8 from 228 ratings
Blog Post
Release Planning As a Product Owner, you are responsible for managing expectations of customers, users and other stakeholders. You are also responsible for Product Backlog Management, for deciding that to built when and what not to built. Also, you'll need to decide what to deliver (release) to cus...
4.5 from 170 ratings
Blog Post
Product Backlog Management As a Product Owner, you are responsible for Product Backlog Management, in order to maximize the value of the Product. The Product Backlog is the single source of truth which contains all the work to be done on the Product. As a Product Owner, you will have to make some c...
4.8 from 3 ratings
Blog Post
And after reading Jeff Gothelf’s and Josh Seiden’s book “Sense and Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously”, I realized that the world is full of complex problems. This got me thinking about the relationship between Scrum and modern organization...
4.7 from 11 ratings
Blog Post
Today we bust the myth that it is the responsibility of the Scrum Master to resolve all problems that are hindering the Development Team.
5 from 2 ratings
Blog Post
The Scrum Framework The Scrum Framework is a lightweight framework that defines three Roles, three Artifacts and five Events, which is used to develop and maintain complex Products in complex environments. Scrum doesn't prescribe a lot of things you must do, the Scrum Framework doesn't include exte...
5 from 1 rating
Blog Post
Appreciative Interviews (AI) is a Liberating Structure that helps identify enablers for success in less than one hour. By starting from what goes well - instead of what doesn’t. In this post we'll share examples of how we've applied this structures within our Scrum training and coaching engagements.
0 from 0 ratings
Blog Post
As a Product Owner, you are responsible for stakeholder management. It's important that you know your stakeholders, their interests, what they need from you and your Product and how they may be able to help you out as well!
4.5 from 190 ratings
Blog Post
Value comes in many different forms, value is context dependent and the definition of value in a certain context may change over time! What? Yes, that's right! What 'value' is, or what it means, is firstly context dependent.
5 from 6 ratings
Blog Post
I have created a little exercise that I like to use to help focus the on things we can change, or at least situations to seek out or avoid, to help focus change efforts. The essence of it is summarized in a picture. I call this the agile affinity model, and the dimensions the key drivers of empiric...
4.4 from 217 ratings
Blog Post
In this post, we'll bust the myth that the Product Owner is a proxy for stakeholders. The bottom-line is that Scrum Teams become significantly less Agile when only the Product Owner communicates with stakeholders. Instead of framing the Product Owner as a proxy, we instead prefer to explain the Prod...
5 from 3 ratings
Blog Post
Here I am sitting in my hotel room while looking at my half-empty wine glass and the stars outside while preparing for my last Professional Scrum Master (PSM) class for the year 2017 and pondering about all of the classes I have facilitated over this year. PSM has been a transformational course for ...
4.6 from 282 ratings
Blog Post
At a recent course, one of my students asked me to share what Scrum “looked like” for me at TheScrumMaster.co.uk. This post is my response to that question. This describes my current process which has evolved via inspection and adaptation over 5 years.
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Blog Post
In this post, we'll the myth that the Product Backlog is ‘prioritized’. Although a seemingly trivial change of wording, the Product Backlog is ‘an ordered list’ instead.
5 from 3 ratings
Blog Post
The latest release of the Scrum Guide is all about addressing common Scrum misunderstandings. In this blog post I will present the top 5 misconceptions that are set straight in this latest release of the Scrum Guide.
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Blog Post
‘25/10 Crowd Sourcing’ is a structure that allows you to rapidly generate and sift through a group’s boldest actionable ideas in less than 30 minutes. In this article we'll explain how to use this structure to spice up your Scrum Events.
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Blog Post
In this post, we’ll bust the myth that a Product Backlog has to consist entirely out of User Stories. By describing the purpose and characteristics of the Product Backlog, we'll also busted the related myth; that User Stories are an inherent, necessary part of Scrum.
5 from 2 ratings
Blog Post
The Intent of Scrum Scrum allows development organisations to invest a little time at regular intervals to allow teams with autonomy over their work to identify and enact frequent, small improvements to the process and the plan. Over time, like regular payments into a savings account, these impro...
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Blog Post
There are a number of things that you have to think about when selecting a modern source control system. Some of that is purely about code, but modern source control systems are about way more than code. They are about your entire application lifecycle and supporting DevOps practices, they are about...
4.5 from 2 ratings
Blog Post
Open Space is one of the methods that allows organizations to make inspirational meetings and events. I was lucky enough to use Open Space in various contexts, with Scrum Teams. The concept has always worked.
3.5 from 3 ratings
Blog Post
Today I facilitated the workshop "The Scrum Master as a Manager" at the conference "Agile Spain 2017" in Sevilla. In this blog post I'll share the outline of the workshop "The Scrum Master as a Manager". This gives you the opportunity to facilitate the workshop within your own organisation as well.
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Blog Post
Today (November 7th 2017) Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland released an update to the Scrum Guide.The Scrum Guide is the definitive definition of Scrum, authored by Ken and Jeff, the creators of Scrum.
3.5 from 1 rating
Blog Post
In this post we'll discuss the myth that Scrum Teams at best release working software at the end of a sprint, constraining teams that are capable of releasing faster.
4.5 from 313 ratings
Blog Post
Last time I talked about the Ghana Police Service (GPS) I was talking about Professional Organisational Change and the approach the Inspector General of Police (IGP) is taking; using Scrum to incrementally make changes to the organisation. While Nana Abban and the IGP have been focusing on the big p...
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Video
As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer Wilbert Seele discusses the importance of separating what you are building from why you are building it. He talks about how people make buying decisions and that at the end of the day, you need to build products to solve problems. ...
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Blog Post
Do you have time for an experiment? Then please ask me a coaching question! Welcome to the first of a two part blogpost full of curiosity filled questions on coaching! Coaching, as management practice, interests me greatly in my work life. In order to better understand my own thinking...
0 from 0 ratings
Blog Post
In this blog post I'll share my view on the Scrum Master as the Change Leader. I'll briefly describe the common misunderstandings and the preferred stances of the Scrum Master. The services a Scrum Master provides for the Development Team, Product Owner and organisation, and the 3 levels that can be...
4.9 from 12 ratings
Blog Post
We describe the myth that the Scrum Master should always be present during the Daily Scrum. We'll offer the perspective from the Scrum Guide, describe examples of problems in how Scrum is applied and share tips & tricks on how to make the Daily Scrum more effective.
4.7 from 8 ratings
Blog Post
The PSD training teaches the whole Scrum Team on how to do real Scrum. They work in Sprints, create Done software and use the appropriate tools and practices for it. It is a unique experience on how really good Scrum feels like.
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Blog Post
Courage however is more than just learning what it means and telling your teams to be courageous.
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Blog Post
An estimate is our best guess for what can be achieved and by when. There are some situations when estimates are very important: Coordinate dependencies. It can be very useful to know when the team can proceed working on new design if the key expert is temporarily out of office. Align prior...
4.3 from 3 ratings
Blog Post
When multiple Scrum Teams are working on one product, shared DoD becomes necessary. DoD helps to ensure that each increment is transparent by the end of every Sprint and creates a shared understanding of what “Done” means.
2.8 from 2 ratings
Blog Post
Although people with disabilities do have special needs, their purchase power isn’t special: it’s the same as everyone else’s. No longer can we think of accessibility as a compliance play. It’s simply good business. Let me frame this point with my story.
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Blog Post
Our real-time, globalized world thrives increasingly on information and technology. The balance of businesses and society has rapidly shifted from industrial (often physical) labor to digital (often virtual) activities. The world seems to be changing faster and less predictable than ever before. We ...
5 from 1 rating
Video
In this talk from Scrum Day Germany, Dave West CEO and Product Owner of Scrum.org describes how Scrum is being used at scale and how organizations are managing the friction between the needs of Agile and the traditional needs of the organization. 41:47 Minutes
5 from 1 rating
Blog Post
As the saying goes, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. The same could be said about DevOps and its implementation in an organization. Yes, the result is magic since it aims to deliver daily business value, but the journey is even more interesting. This journey is full of organiz...
5 from 6 ratings
Blog Post
"It's weird when you get roles that coincide with your life" - Lily James Introduction Impressive-sounding job titles are a recurring joke in large organizations. They often bear little relationship to the devil's brew of chaos and drudgery which is a daily reality for most. Cynics may hol...
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Blog Post
I want to address those of you who don't really want the feedback. I mean, as important as feedback is, and as many times as you've heard that the central point of a Sprint Review is feedback…you're tired of it. It's pesky. And it just gets in the way of you doing what you know is right anyway.
4.5 from 2 ratings
Blog Post
This blog post will be about the question "Should a Scrum Master be technical?". I'll describe my personal journey, share some opinions of other experiences and give you some examples of Technical Scrum Masters I've worked with.
4 from 1 rating