A Scrum Event is a meeting. So why don't we just call it that? Why create a new word? Given the poor reputation that meetings have, maybe it's not a surprise. Rather than replicate the name and pain of meetings, the Scrum Events are designed to replace them and be all that you need. The power of the Scrum Events is in the way they're time-boxed and in their purpose. Let's take a closer look.

How can the Scrum Master detect undesirable variances in progress towards agreed goals? Each of the Scrum accountabilities participates in one or more inspections. So does the Scrum Master. Check out our tips!

So many times, I’ve heard that round about 50–70 % of all software features are rarely or never used. In the Cloud we can now even measure it.

Customers seek solutions that improve their outcomes, and organizations don’t know what will achieve this until they deliver something to them, measure the results, and adapt accordingly. Doing so, repeatedly, frequently, and with the smallest investment to achieve the greatest amount of feedback, is the essence of organizational agility. Organizations who master this succeed in today’s complex world. Learn more in this InfoQ article by Kurt Bittner.

The Scrum Guide has a lot to say about the Product Backlog, and rightly so. It's pivotal to everything a Scrum Team does. But one thing the Scrum Guide doesn't tell you, is how you create a Product Backlog. So, here's one way you can do exactly that.

In June 2012, I wrote the world's first ever article that advised readers on how to pass the Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) assessment from Scrum.org.  It was hugely popular and I'm flattered that it's been copied so many times.

When you first start to use Scrum you will need to decide which day to start your first Sprint, and there will be implications to that decision. Here are some possibilities and their implications to help you make the best decision.

Scrum of Scrums describes one of the first approaches to scale Scrum and is often confused with Nexus Daily Scrum.  

In today's vlog, we will explore the ingredients to use Scrum with User Experience (UX).

TL; DR: The Obsession with Commitment Matching Velocity Despite decades-long efforts of the whole agile community—books, blogs, conferences, webinars, videos, meetups; you name it—we are still confronted in many supposedly agile organizations

Measurement is important, but it's not just about what we measure. It's about understanding why we measure and how we use those measures. In this post, I will share some common patterns I have noticed that lead to using measures poorly.

In this talk, Dave West, CEO of Scrum.org discusses the reality of agility and how it is the tip of a fundamentally different way of working required for the post-industrial age. He describes the elements of agility and how they weave together to provide the foundation for managing uncertainty, risk, and complexity.

Agile isn’t the right fit for every business problem–it’s simply a tool in the toolkit–one of many.

This latest update to the interview guide addresses Product Owner anti-patterns from Product Backlog management and refinement to the Sprint Review.

What drives you to achieve? Money? Promotion? Skill mastery? Whatever it is that motivates you, that’s okay — be thankful that you are motivated to move forwards. Without motivation in any form, you can personally and professionally stagnate to a point where you become a detractor in a team environment. This blog will explore how to avoid falling into that trap and some of the common dysfunctions it causes.

The past 18 months have been a whirlwind. Coronavirus, elections, inequality and conflict – a quagmire of micro and macro complexities that impact the feelings and behaviours of Scrum Teams. In my opinion, it would be fair to say that teams who consistently attempt to mitigate environmental and sociological complexities are ones that thrive. It is the purpose of this blog to explore how some Scrum Teams have successfully done this in an age of remote working by focusing on one thing – the Scrum Values.

When we are confident that we know everything, certain that our perspective is correct and our plan is good, we miss things. Sometimes these things are critical.

Learn from Johanna Rothman how to adapt your leadership style for agile success as a manager in an agile organization in this 54-minute long video from the Agile Camp Berlin 2021.

If you are looking to fill a position for a Scrum Master (or agile coach) in your organization, you may find the following 54 interview questions useful to identify the right candidate.

Each of the Scrum Artifacts is inspected in one or more Scrum Events to detect undesired variances. So is the Product Backlog. Go check it out!

In this webinar moderated by PST Ravi Verma with Anca Tanase, PST Magdalena Firlit and PST Nagesh Sharma, they propose one possible approach that evidence based Agile organizations can take to overcome these challenges. They will propose 10 steps that can be followed in 21 days or less to integrate EBM with Scrum to achieve these outcomes.

A few years back I wrote 2 popular posts that talked about the best Scrum Masters I ever worked with. This time around I am going to share some stories about the best Product Owners I have encountered. This post is about Gerry, the proxy Product Owner who was successful!

This blog post discusses client expectations from coaches.

In this article Dave West discusses the importance of Kindness and the benefits agile teams get when people are thinking about kindness.

It's hard to be a good Scrum Master. It's even harder to be a great Scrum Master! So, what sort of things should you be doing to be great? Here are some Scrum Master tips to help you get started on day one in a new job.

OKRs are a great framework for setting goals. Setting high quality goals, goal clarity, and self-management, positively affect team performance [3].

According to the 15th annual State of Agile report, there has been a tremendous increase in the adoption of agile frameworks over the last year. Within software teams, agile adoption grew from 37% in 2020 to 86% in 2021.

Hey hey hey. How's it going awesome people? I hope you had a great week and keeping excited. I have noticed that several Scrum practitioners around me think that writing the Product Backlog items as a user story is mandatory.

A few years back I wrote 2 popular posts that talked about the best Scrum Masters I ever worked with. This time around I am going to share some stories about the best Product Owners I have encountered.

TL; DR: Should Managers Attend Retrospectives? 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.

What is an Agile Coach? Are Scrum Masters agile coaches? How do they coach teams, the Product Owner and the enterprise?

Each Scrum Event serves Inspection, the second pillar of Empiricism. So does the Sprint Review. How? Find out ...

Scrum.org, The Home of Scrum, today launched a new digital badging program for its Professional Scrum certification holders through Credly, the digital credentialing leader. Beginning next week, upon earning Scrum.org certifications, certification holders will earn a digital credential from Credly and existing certification holders will also be invited to add their certifications, further amplifying their achievement.

On June the 8th Scrum.org hosted a webinar on the subject of using Scrum in Biotech research. The blog addresses unanswered questions from the session

As you know, in Scrum Guide 2020 there is no more prescriptions on how to run the Daily Scrum.

Of late, I've been noticing an interpretation of the Scrum Master role - the Scrum Master as An FFFCDO for Developers - a Fierce, Ferocious, Fearsome Chief Defense Officer!

In diesem Blog untersuchen wir, woher diese Grundhaltung kommt, zeigen, wie wir damit umgehen können, leisten Überzeugungsarbeit und bieten Experimente an, d. h. wir

Heeeey. What's good this week awesome people? I hope you are well and keeping safe. During the recent lockdown in Brisbane I created a video about how Professional Scrum team plan their Sprints with Kanban.

With remote work increasing we look at how Scrum can enhance and accelerate you remote working practices

When using the Scrum framework, the Retrospective is the final event in a Sprint. In this article, we will discuss ideas to use when planning your next Sprint Retrospective.

When talking about applying Scrum and Agile, we are hardwired to think about America and Europe, not about Africa. I must confess I am totally ignorant about the status of Scrum and Agile in Africa. Needless to say, I was excited to be invited to Ivory Coast for a PSM-1 and PSPO-1 training in the city of Abidjan.

Can a Scrum Team simply decide to abandon Scrum? After all, the Scrum team is self-managing, according to the Scrum manual, also known as the Scrum Guide. So, let’s explore this question at the very heart of team autonomy.

In the past few months I have heard several of my clients said that Scrum does not work and ask me to fix it.

TL; DR: Linking Strategy to Everyday Work w/ John Cutler — ACB21 In this highly engaging speaker session from the Agile Camp Berlin 2021, John Cutler delves into the advantages of linking strategy to everyday work: Motivation, inspiration, se

On today’s episode of YOUR DAILY SCRUM:  Is the Scrum Master Role an Entry Level Job?

I am often asked how to create better goals. This comes up at the team level, and it also comes up for the wider organization. When we are dealing with complexity, there is no one right way, no perfect template, and no best practice. And I find it helpful to look at the goals people are using today, explore the benefits those goals are giving them, and identify if there are unintended consequences of how they are using goals. In this post, I will share some common patterns I have noticed that lead to using goals poorly.

When I’m describing the Key Value Areas (KVAs) of Evidence-Based Management, I find Time to Market is often misunderstood to mean “just go faster.” We need to scrub off the scent of “we know what we need to do, we just need to do it faster.” In complexity, goals and execution have a lot of unknowns, and things emerge as we do the work. So, we will be unsuccessful if we choose to follow a plan, even if we do it faster.

Professional Agile Leadership – Evidence-Based Management (PAL-EBM) is the newest course in the Scrum.org portfolio. To prepare the launch and our trainer community for this one-day workshop, we ran several train-the-trainer events. I enjoyed participating in one of those, and I am glad to share my experience with you.

Today, Scrum.org launches the new Professional Agile Leadership - Evidence Based Management ™  (EBM) training course.

New PAL-EBM training course helps leaders learn how to measure value to enable improvement and agility