This episode on the Women in Agile Podcast is a re-release of a 2020 conversation our host, Leslie Morse, had with Brandi Olson about burnout. We revived this episode because of its original popularity as well as because the content is incredibly relevant.  

Can Scrum be used outside software development? Absolutely.

I hear the word “commitment” used in problematic and misleading ways all the time. This is true when I am teaching Professional Scrum classes and even when I am coaching good Scrum Masters. It often sounds like one of these statements: How do we know how much work to commit to? How do we make sure we will finish all of the scope we committed to for this release? What happens if we don’t meet our commitment date? The problem is that the word commitment has been MISUNDERSTOOD in organizations to mean a guarantee or promise related to delivery. And that is NEVER what the word meant in the context of Scrum.

Want to pass the PSM I? Hint… You have to study. Memorizing the rules alone won’t cut it and you won’t be able to Google your way to a certificate. The key to passing is truly understanding Scrum. Licensed Professional Scrum.org trainers Robert Pieper and Gregory Crown give you some tips and resources that will help you prepare and get a passing score.

As a project manager, I have delivered many complex initiatives, from re-platforming a consumer products website to doubling the size of a line of business.  My most successful projects have one thing in common; I used an agile approach to deliver them.

There is a significant difference between “Mechanical Scrum” and "Professional Scrum". "Mechanical Scrum" consists of going through the motions of using Scrum. “Professional Scrum” goes beyond that, changing the way that you work, think and act. In this video learn about the ideas behind Professional Scrum and how it goes beyond the Scrum Guide. (6:52 Minutes)

What if the Scrum Team is always only working on a random assortment of work items that seem to be the most pressing at the moment of the Sprint Planning?

What science tells us about how work agreements create high-performing teams. And five practical areas to focus on.

Was haben folgende Aussagen gemeinsam? „In Scrum wird nicht geplant!“ „Das Product Backlog ist das wichtigste Element des Scrum Rahmenwerks.“ „In Scrum fungiert der Scrum Master als der Projektmanager.“ Für mich sind sie ein Anzeichen, dass das Scrum Rahmenwerk noch nicht verstanden wurde. Selbst auf Meet-ups oder Konferenzen, wo ich vermeintlich erfahrenen Agilisten begegnen sollte, höre ich leider häufig noch diese zweifelhaften Aussagen. In diesem Artikel will ich damit aufräumen.

Im Oktober 2021 begann ich mit dem Schreiben auf LinkedIn. Meine ersten fünf Artikel wurden durchschnittlich von nur 100 Lesern gelesen. Heute wurde zum ersten Mal ein Artikel über 1000-mal gelesen. Dies entspricht einer Steigerung um das Zehnfache! In diesem Artikel lasse ich dich hinter die Kulissen blicken. In den vergangenen 8 Jahre habe ich bei meiner Arbeit mit Scrum Teams viel über Produktentwicklung gelernt. Welche dieser Einsichten mir beim Schreiben von „Scrum Impulse“ helfen, erfährst du in diesem Artikel:

A cross-functional team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How does this relate to the Product Backlog? Check it out! - Back to the foundations of the Scrum framework (61)

When will Scrum die? Some people would say it's already dying. There's so much inauthentic, Scrum being done, unprofessional, Scrum being done in the world. Whereas Scrum is part of what I call water Scrum fall, where it's put within a predictive deterministic system. We're predicting when work will be finished. When actually we’ve got so much work that where we don't know, what we don't know, that's really unauthentic. I see in those situations where the concept of done isn't even a concept there They think that done means we met the acceptance criteria when actually it's almost like the checklist for how we do things around here, the technical standards and the product quality standards, international standards, for example, that we might need to comply with.

Spark small and incremental change in your Scrum team, with our community-driven actionable quick tips

Ihr Scrum-Team trifft beim Sprint Review immer wieder auf unbeteiligte Stakeholder. Wie kann das Scrum-Team bei der Erreichung des Produktziels auf Kurs bleiben, wenn eine wichtige Feedback-Schleife fehlt?

In this 2021 conversation, our host Leslie Morse geeks out with friend and colleague Summer Lawrence as they dance through a variety of topics related to professional development, learning, experimentation and personal empiricism.

The Google Project Management Certificate helps people prepare for entry-level jobs in the high-growth field of project management. The certificate dives deep into project management software, tools and templates, with an emphasis on Scrum. Scrum.org collaborated with Google to bring Scrum and Agile expertise to the Google Project Management Certificate and prepare for the Professional Scrum Master I certification. In this podcast series hosted by Scrum.org CEO, Dave West, he interviews Google Career Certificate graduates to learn about their experiences before, during and after the program. In this episode, Dave interviews Nicole Christensen who has a background as a High School English teacher and is now a Product Owner at Readable English, a company focused on programs that help students read. (22:55 Minutes)

The diversity of a group of people offers a great opportunity to tap into a wider range of creativity and innovation, but it can also lead to misunderstandings and clashes. I have experienced how the journey from exploring a group’s different perspectives and ideas (divergent thinking) to a shared understanding and conclusion (convergent thinking) can be a rollercoaster with confusion, frustration, and misalignment. I have learned that this is not because the teams I have worked with are dysfunctional, but because this is a natural part of group dynamics.

Im Jahr 2019 bin ich als Scrum Master zu einem neuen Team gestoßen. Bis zu diesem Tag hatte dieses Team noch keine funktionierende Software ausgeliefert. Am Ende des Jahres stellten wir den Anwendern 25 neue Versionen des Produkts zur Verfügung. Im Artikel, erzähle ich dir die ganze Geschichte. Dann erfährst du mein bewährtes 3-schrittiges Vorgehen, mit dem du ein Team unterstützen kannst, wenn du als Scrum Master neu im Team bist.

Are you a leader in an organization that’s leveraging Scrum? In this webinar, Professional Scrum Trainer Yuval Yeret, co-author of the Scrum Guide Companion for Leaders, looks at the different elements of Scrum and reflects on an effective way for leaders to engage with them.

In this article, we discuss the concept of self-management Scrum and how it is more than a Scrum Team making its own decisions.

According to the Scrum Guide, Scrum teams are typically 10 or fewer, with a preference to the smaller size.  When Scrum Teams become too large, they should consider re-organizing into multiple Scrum teams supporting a single product.  When this happens, the Scrum Teams should share a single Product goal, Product Backlog, Product Owner and a common Definition of Done.  

For the globally recognised PSPO-I certification, you need to answer 80 questions in 60 minutes. Here are a few tips on how to prepare and execute the PSPO-I certification.

What if your Scrum team repeatedly faces unengaged stakeholders at the Sprint Review? How can the Scrum team stay on track in accomplishing the Product Goal when a vital feedback loop is missing?

Engagiert sich dein Scrum Team nicht in den Scrum Events? Fühlt sich jedes Event im Sprint gleich an, nur mit dem Unterschied, dass sich die Nummer des Sprints geändert hat? Ein Ratschlag, den ich in dieser Situation immer zu hören bekomme, lautet: Dein Team muss sich Ziele für den Sprint setzen. Selbst erfahrene Agile Coaches glauben, dass sich Sprint-Ziele magisch am Ende des Sprint Plannings von selbst ergeben. In meiner über 7-jährigen Arbeit mit Scrum Teams kann ich dir versichern, dass dem nicht so ist. Sprint-Ziele erfordern harte Arbeit und Hingabe von dir als Scrum Master! Hier 3 Tipps, wie du diese Reise starten kannst und deinem Team hilfst, auf ein Ziel im Sprint hinzuarbeiten.

En una iniciativa reciente en la que colaboré como Agile Coach, insistí en no plagar el Product Backlog solo con historias de usuario. ¿Por qué hice eso? Al final y al cabo, cada tarea que no era una historia de usuario tenía que reformularse. En otras palabras, que no tenía ningún valor. Creo que esto no tiene sentido, déjame explicarte por qué.

In den letzten Monaten habe ich viele Workshops durchgeführt, um Teams zu helfen, Scrum und UX zu vereinen. Das Lean-UX-Canvas ist dafür das beste Werkzeug, denn es liefert einen strukturierten Ansatz, wie UX-Arbeit gemeinschaftlich im Team erfolgen kann. In diesen Workshops sind dabei tiefergehende Fragen aufgetreten. Da ich glaube, dass von den Antworten jeder Scrum-Anwender profitieren kann, möchte ich sie hier mit dir teilen:

A cross-functional team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How does this relate to the Sprint itself? Check it out! - Back to the foundations of the Scrum framework (60)

During this 2021 conversation on the Women in Agile podcast, Georgina Donahue and Leslie Morse explore what community means, how community and Agile intersect, and the adjacency of Pragmatic Marketing, Product Management and agility.

Vertrauen ist der Anfang von allem: Erfahren Sie, wie sich Misstrauen manifestiert und was wir tun können, um Stakeholder-Vertrauen zu gewinnen.

What are things that Scrum Teams can actually commit to? What are things that Scrums Teams cannot and should not commit to?

Die Minimierung von Abhängigkeiten kostet viel Zeit. Wie effektiv Teams in der skalierten Produktentwicklung arbeiten können, hängt von ihrer Fähigkeit ab, Abhängigkeiten zu beseitigen. Im Folgenden gebe ich dir 8 Tipps, wie du das Cross-Team-Refinement facilitieren kannst, damit sich deine Teams auf das Wesentliche konzentrieren können: die Abhängigkeiten zu eliminieren!

Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills (PSFS) includes questions from the following Focus Area as defined in the Professional Scrum Competencies as well as several additional topics (listed below) which are not specifically named in the Scrum Competency Model. The resources listed on this page will help you prepare.

In this vlog, PST Joshua Partogi breaks down the metrics to measure the Scrum team's effectiveness and what effective means in Scrum.

What is the difference? By analyzing what should a Scrum Master be doing and what would a leader do, we can understand that there is not much difference. Why do I think leaders make great Scrum Masters? Read on.

Scrum and Kanban are two different frameworks.  But did you know that your Scrum Team can use some of Kanban’s crucial elements to optimize workflow and deliver value sooner?   Combining Kanban with your Scrum practice doesn’t involve replacing events, accountabilities or artifacts.  It’s about integrating Kanban’s complementary tools to achieve better outcomes with Scrum.

How do I measure value for a major IT infrastructure piece of work? How do I measure value? Before I even get into, how do I measure value? What is value? A lot of people struggle with this. I wrote an article about this here, what is value really? I think one of the reasons why the world is in the way it is, is because we over-indexed on a couple of meanings for that.

Why is our definition of done so long? I don’t like to call the definition of done the checklist for how we do things around here. I used to say that because you might be including every single little thing in your process when you do that, but does it have the essential elements of how do we know that this work is done? So why is our definition of done so long? In some cases, actually, it’s not long at all. My most common experience is that when I ask people what’s in their definition of done they say we met the acceptance criteria. There’s a lot more to done than just meeting the acceptance criteria. This typically happens when there’s a kind of a traditional approach to delivery and scrum has been wrapped inside that approach. I often call it water scrum fall and in waterfall, it’s very professional, it’s very good but it doesn’t have a thing called a definition of done. So this concept is alien to waterfall.

Have you ever heard of an interview being really bad? like REALLY bad? Come be a fly on the wall and watch a Scrum Master interview go really poorly. I wonder if he gets the job!

Trust is the Beginning of Agility. Learn how distrust manifests and what we can do to earn the trust of our stakeholders.

Kennst du den Scrum Guide wirklich? Halbwissen ist gefährlich. Es führt zu Fehlinterpretationen. Hier stelle ich 9 gängige Fehlinterpretationen vor, damit dir niemand vorwerfen kann, dass du den Guide nicht verstanden hättest:

En cada formación, consultoría o acción de acompañamiento que llevamos a cabo surge la misma pregunta, cuando usar Agile y cuando no. También por lo que vemos, hay mucha organización que le han vendido que se transformarán completamente en una organización agile. Cuando digo completamente digo la totalidad de sus departamentos y la totalidad de sus empleados. Además, se les vende Scrum a muchas organizaciones como el fin de sus males, cuando muchas veces, ese es el inicio de sus porqué intentan implementar Scrum con calzador en equipos que no deberían usarlo. Déjame mostrar cómo podemos dar un poco de luz a la decisión de usar Agile, de usar Scrum o de usar Kanban en una organización.

Are Scrum Masters here set up for success? Are they “leaders who serve”? Which of the Professional Scrum Master choices/stances can they choose from? Are they a core aspect of our organization's approach to leadership/management? Are they an afterthought to get a higher score on an agile maturity assessment or some RFP? Are they respected, and appreciated by the people they serve? Are they in high demand? Implementing the Scrum Master accountability effectively is hard. It ties straight into creating a servant leadership and self-managemement/empowering culture in which business agility thrives. These are some of the questions leaders should be asking and thinking about.

This is a short clip from "Fantastic Facts and How to Use Them" by PST Sahin Guvenilir & Nithin Bopanna @ Lean Agile London 2022 Conference organised by Actineo. In this talk they demonstrate that we all make assumptions, and they talk about the importance of focusing on facts. 

Was unterscheidet das Nexus Daily Scrum vom Scrum of Scrum?

A cross-functional team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How does this relate to the Sprint Retrospective? Check it out! - Back to the foundations of the Scrum framework (59)

Was, wenn nicht alle Mitglieder Ihres Scrum-Teams von der Retrospektive begeistert sind? Sollte man sie zur Teilnahme zwingen?

I confess that the first time someone told me that Scrum is based upon empiricism, I thought they were a little pretentious.  After all, it’s a five-syllable word for a framework with only five events.  Why make it so complicated?  But as I’ve coached more and more Scrum Teams over the years, I have learned that empiricism matters. It’s not just a fancy word; it’s the foundation of Scrum.

In several episodes of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, our host and Scrum.org CEO Dave West interviews Professional Scrum Trainers about their experiences that led to their becoming a PST and exploring what Professional Scrum means to them. In this episode, Dave interviews PST Fabio Panzavolta based in France about his experiences.

Mehr Projektleiter wollen Scrum Master werden. Das ist ein nachvollziehbarer Karrierewechsel, denn „Software frisst die Welt“. Allerdings ist der Wechsel nicht einfach! Hier 3 Mindset-Shifts, die du vollziehen solltest, wenn du dabei erfolgreich sein willst:

How many times have you heard statements such as, “This is not in my area of expertise”, “I don't know anything about it”, “That’s not my job”, “Ask another department” or “This is not what I studied for”? One might say that this is just their approach to gaining knowledge. It’s their style; to limit their scope of learning by concentrating on their specialism only, which doesn’t necessarily sound like a problem when speaking of experts in their fields, but what about organizations, products, and the services they provide? How does this previously mentioned approach to learning and self-development affect them?