Resources

A market leading international manufacturer of HVAC equipment in Germany was challenged with redesigning their online presence. Their more than 80 websites needed to be consolidated, redesigned, and implemented on a new content management system.

I remember going on a PRINCE2 course a few years ago, and trying to determine how this celebrated stage-gated framework might be applied to an agile mode of delivery. I was employed in the UK public sector at the time, and I had come to know how instrumental "PRINCE2 compliance" can be to the striking of a defensive organizational posture. When all eventually fails you must be able to show that you followed appropriate procedure.

In this blog, PSTs Sjoerd Kranendonk and Wilbert Seele explain how to achieve more and risk less by being a less visible Product Owner. In the Scrum Guide the following is written about the role of the PO: "The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product and the work of the Development Team."

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 straight feedback is a daunting task especially since we are dealing with human emotions. In general, just the utterance of the statement, “I would like to give you feedback” sends the heart racing for a lot of people.

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 influential on your side, to help shape your career and keep you off the annual redundancies list might actually be quite useful.

Schoonover says Smash Dev Shop partnered with Improving — a Dallas-based software and IT services firm that contracts for training, consulting, recruiting, and project services, according to its website — to bring a scrum master training course to Wichita May 8-9.

In this blog post we've shared our ideas on "Your Scrum Master Journey" and the first steps we've made at a Dutch customer.This week Christiaan Verwijs and I facilitated a workshop at a Dutch customer in which Scrum Masters could provide a pitch for participating in "Your Scrum Master Journey".

Suggested reading for anyone who is taking the Professional Agile Leadership certification assessment or just looking to learn more about being an Agile Leader.

Special Spanish Edition presented by Professional Scrum Trainer, Joel Francia and Rodolfo Suarez, Agile Consultant, CeaSoft  En este webinar exploramos el Rol del Product Owner en Scrum. - Parte de las responsabilidades del Product Onwer es definir una visión y objetivos de negocio para el producto que se va a construir, y transmitir esa visión y objetivos al equipo de desarrollo de Scrum. - El Product Owner gestiona el Product Backlog priorizado y ordenado en todo momento.

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 more participants on a global scale to help increase participation and gather new insights.

Being a Scrum Master of a team with strong personalities can be challenging at times especially when two or more people believe that their approach is right.

Teams with high diversity are more innovative. They have more perspectives that create a higher rate of idea flow. More new ideas are generated that lead to new products and innovations than in homogeneous teams.  What is innovation?

In the "Scrum from the trenches" blog post series I like to address topics that I encounter in practicing Scrum in the real world, with real teams. Sharing where theory comes into practice, what challenges teams encounter along the way and ways to help Scrum practitioners use the power of empiricism to overcome these challenges.

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.

This short video provides a review of the Scrum Framework.  Scrum is defined by its creators in the Scrum Guide which is the body of knowledge of Scrum. 2:22 Minutes

In this session, we provide an overview of the Scrum framework, discuss how Scrum enables agility and ways that empiricism can empower the teams that use it.

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 millions of dollars in value that they were able to deliver after just a single one-week Sprint. 5:23 Minutes

As a Product Owner, there is nothing more frustrating than having to use valuable development time to deal with technical debt. Like death and taxes, it’s just never a good time when those lurking defects decide to unravel.

With great power comes great responsibility. As the details of the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal reveal, the IT industry is still grappling with the question of how to deal with ethical dilemmas.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone is talking to you and when they ask a question like, “What do you think?” you realize that you were zoned out?

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Don McGreal reviews how he runs a Sprint Planning session with his Scrum Teams. Don focuses on how the Development Team works with the Product Owner to understand what is in the Product Backlog and how they populate the Sprint Backlog. 5:20 Minutes

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer Ty Crockett provides an overview of the Sprint Review and guidance on ways to make them more effective. Ty addresses some of the issues that come up when he is working with Scrum Teams and ways he has overcome them. 8:00 Minutes

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 community, "Should I use Scrum or DevOps?".

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer Mark Noneman talks about ways to measure the impact of agile practices on an organization. He looks at this in 4 parts, Development, Outputs, Outcomes and Impacts. 3:31 Minutes

Ralph Covino Ph.D., Professor in the Information Systems Department at BU, wanted to reinvigorate the curriculum to be more Agile focused. He understood that having Agile knowledge was increasingly important to recruiters as they looked for jobs post-graduation, and those who had Agile experience during internships were getting a head start over those who didn’t.

In this blog post we’ll share the string of Liberating Structures we used at a Retrospective for a rapidly growing startup.

In this webinar, Professional Scrum Trainer Ravi Verma proposes a rigorous, framework independent approach that constructively channelizes the valid desire for governance. He frames governance in terms of value that helps us unify organizations without getting sucked into polarizing conversations about delivery frameworks. He also frames governance as a powerful way to enable sustainable competitive advantage and provide a short, memorable equation that might help entire organizations align towards a shared goal. 

One of the most common questions I am asked in my Professional Scrum Master (PSM) courses and in coaching engagements is: How do we build trust?

Agile For Humans' Ryan Ripley interviews Patricia Kong and Kurt Bittner from Scrum.org on the Nexus framework for scaling Scrum.

When coaching for organizations, I am often met at the doors of the cathedral by exasperated management.  Frustrated for how Scrum is transformed to meet personal agendas and bias. 

As an Agile Coach, you frequently encounter situations which demand quick thinking to get things moving in the right direction. Over time I have found few techniques which come out handy and always keep these in my playbook in case need arise. This is the fourth part in the series of tools that I have found useful in my role as Agile Coach – Effective Facilitation.

Originally Broadcast on the Passionate Team Podcast in this episode they talk with Dave West, CEO and Product Owner of Scrum.org about how Scrum enables passion among Scrum Team members.

“Most executives, many scientists, and almost all business school graduates believe that if you analyze data, this will give you new ideas. Unfortunately, this belief is totally wrong.

When your product gets really big and you need to work with teams at scale, what options do Product Owners have? In this episode, Scrum.org CEO, Dave West joins the show to discuss the Nexus framework and what PO’s need to know in order to work in this type of scaled environment. We cover some of the basics that are detailed in the new Nexus book and look at other keys to keeping multiple teams coordinated and delivering value together.

In February this year, Scrum.org published the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams and announced a new course - Scrum with Kanban Course, aimed at Scrum practitioners who wish to improve their processes by introducing certain Kanban concepts and elements. In this article, Vivify Scrum interviews Dave West about the new class and content.

As an Agile Coach, you frequently encounter situations which demand quick thinking to get things moving in the right direction. Over time I have found few techniques which come in handy and always keep these in my playbook in case needs arise. This is the third part in the series of tools that I have found useful in my role as Agile Coach – Asking Powerful Questions.

What can you do as a Leader to help your Scrum Teams to become mature? Discover a 5-level maturity pattern that you can use as a reference.

An organization with a diversity of gender, race, sexuality, and disability make fuller products and services.

In my Scrum Master training courses, I get a lot of questions about the workload of a Scrum Master. One question I hear frequently is this: Is the Scrum Master role a full-time job?

I would like to discuss Scrum and XP because I often get a question "When should I use Scrum or XP?" from people in the community.

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer Charles Bradley looks that the Scrum Value of Focus and ways to help improve and maintain it. He uses an excellent example about how the Sprint Goal helps individuals and the Scrum Team stay focused throughout the Sprint. 3:18 Minutes

This short video provides an overview of the Professional Scrum Foundations (PSF) course. Course stewards and Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainers (PSTs) Jill Graves and Rich Visotcky give you insight into the structure of the class and what you will learn. 1:59 Minutes

We regularly work with teams that see the Daily scrum as irrelevant, disruptive, and boring. They are often right. Here are three common anti-patterns and three potential solutions.

It’s been so exciting to hear so much positive feedback and interest in the new Scrum.org Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams and the accompa

Working as a Scrum Master I asked myself... "How do I know if my team are demonstrating the Scrum Values? What can I use to show their current state?"

In this series, I want to Introduce some helpful tips for Scrum Masters on “Systems Thinking” - a diagnostic Tool and a disciplined approach for examining problems more completely and accurately before acting.  Lights on! Camera !   

I’m lucky enough to work with different teams on a regular basis. In some cases, these teams have been doing scrum for years. These teams have become highly proficient when it comes to the events in Scrum.

This is second part in the series of tools that I have found useful in my role as Agile Coach – Timeboxing.