Resources

As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as those questions I did not get to.

Does your firm exceed your customer's expectations regularly? Is just meeting expectations good enough in your market? Businesses pursuing an improved ability to deliver customer value using Scrum face numerous challenges.

Sprint Goals are one of the more elusive parts of the Scrum Framework. Most teams know they are important, but few use them - for a variety of reasons. In this post, Barry Overeem and I bust the myth that Sprint Goals are optional in Scrum. And we make an effort to show what makes them so vital in the face of complex work. And more importantly, what you can do to start working with Sprint Goals from now on.

The Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams aims to help Scrum Teams leverage the ideas and practices of Flow and Kanban in a way that is coherent with Scrum as defined by the Scrum Guide.

A Practitioner's Guide to Overcoming Challenges and Maximizing the Benefits of Agility: Mastering Professional Scrum is for anyone who wants to deliver increased value by using Scrum more effectively. Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainers and leading Scrum practitioners Stephanie Ockerman and Simon Reindl draw on years of Scrum training and coaching to help you return to first principles and apply Scrum with the professionalism required to achieve its transformative potential.

If you lead in organizations that have adopted agile methods, you know it’s crucial to create the right environment for your agile teams. Traditional tools such as Gantt charts, detailed plans, and internal KPIs aren’t adequate for complex and fast-changing markets, but merely trusting employees and teams to self-manage is insufficient as well.

Last year, I ran a (non-representative) survey on how Scrum Masters are allocating their time when working with a single Scrum Team. Much to the surprise of many readers, the direct Scrum Master engagement with a single Scrum Team of average size and a typical 2-week Sprint turned out to be about 12 hours per week.

This case study follows the journey LRN took with Scrum to deliver more value to its organization with its "Scrum Loaded" Initiative. Through educating their teams on Scrum and becoming consistent with the Scrum Guide they were able to drive success and cross-collaboration within their organization.

Many Scrum Teams are not very familiar with the Scrum Values as described in the Scrum Guide, and if, they have their own interpretation of it. We have also met many teams that were able to name the values, but not many live by them.

Listen to Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer and Professional Scrum with Kanban (PSK) course co-creator Yuval Yeret as he discuss the class, intended audience and things that you will learn when coming to the class. Yuval is joined by Scrum.org VP of Marketing and Operations Eric Naiburg. (7:55 Minutes)

Professional Scrum Trainer Chuck Suscheck is joined by Scrum.org Marketing Communications Manager Lindsay Velecina in this short Scrum Tapas video. Chuck discusses why it is important to have the Product Owner available throughout the Sprint and how that doesn't negate the need for and value of the Sprint Review. (3:21 Minutes)

When Professional Scrum Trainer Jim Sammons is working with new Scrum Masters, one of the things that he suggests is that they need to keep improving. Of course the next question that they ask is how. In this short Scrum Tapas video, Jim discusses some of what he suggests to these Scrum Masters and how they can go about improving their skills. (4:21 Minutes)

I have my own biases,  having seen co-located teams work very well and having struggled with “dislocated” teams, I often recommend my clients to reconsider “dislocated” teams. 

The software development organization at TRUMPF was practicing Scrum, but in an inconsistent way. They turned to Professional Scrum Trainer Thomas Schissler to help them practice Scrum correctly and they underwent the Professional Scrum Developer training class to help train their teams. This was a part of their agile transformation efforts in their software development organization. This case study explores the challenges they faced and how they overcame them using Scrum.

As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Martin Hinshelwood - Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as those questions I did not get to.

The Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams helps you add professional flow concepts to improve your value delivery.

Measuring Value to Enable Improvement and Agility

Product Owners have a tough job. I was in a Sprint Review recently where the Scrum Team had some stakeholders talking about an idea they thought was excellent. So, like any studious Product Owner, they immediately typed up the idea and added it to their Product Backlog.

At a recent training class one of the delegates spoke about their present company, about how it was the most “Agile” place he had ever worked.

I share my thoughts in this video about the practices and activities the Scrum Master should be doing to increase his/her awesomeness. Hopefully it will help you to find the gap towards awesomeness.

In this episode the the Management 3.0 podcast, the fabulous David Dame is back after his Ted Talk about what it takes to see the world through a different lens. Born with Cerebral Palsy David has used his every day challenges to learn how to be an effective and agile leader. (24:41 Minutes)

Every year I like to deliberately go somewhere far from the crowd to take a break and reflect. You can say that it's similar to a retrospectives. Often times I may not realised whether as a Scrum Master my service to the organisation is already effective or not.

A customer I was working with asked me to help out with the intake process for recruiting a new Scrum Master and a new Product Owner. I asked them what they had so far. They provided a clear job description describing what they wanted to see from the candidates.

Software developers are mostly guys, happy to work by themselves at night in dark rooms. And they turn coffee, cola and pizza into code. Right?

TL;DR: Scrum Master Duties, Serving a Single Team Scrum Master Duties: supposedly, a great Scrum Master serves only one Scrum Team—that’s at least a popular narrative in the Scrum community.

Defining Agile/Scrum for Marketing Scrum.org joined the discussion around Agile Marketing recently. This is an area close to my heart.

The Liberating Structure "Wicked Questions" makes paradoxical realities transparent. By doing so, you can engage in deeper strategic thinking and explore new possibilities.

Why is it that when the going gets tough, “agile” gets the blame? There is so much online bashing of [insert random agile framework or method] going on, that it made me wonder if there is a pattern behind it. I believe there is.

When Insight Enterprises (NASDAQ: NSIT) acquired Cardinal Solutions in 2018, the global integrator of Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions™ for organizations of all sizes gained Transformation Services to help clients achieve greater technological agility. In doing so, Insight applies the Scrum framework to improve product and service development, which is increasingly important as many organizations make digital transformation a business priority.

This blog gives a Lean perspective on the Agile Manifesto.

The unpredictability of the market and competitors are the main reasons of traditional management is not enough/fit to reach success.

Unclear language leads to incomplete transparency and ambiguity. The careful use of words like ‘bug’ will improve decision-making in your organization.

In this episode of the Agile Atelier podcast with Rahul Bhattacharya, Patricia Kong and Kurt Bittner join him to talk about Evidence-Based Management and agile measurement. (47:31 Minutes)

In this interactive Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer webinar PST Yuval Yeret answered the audience's Kanban/Flow/Scrum questions.(56:47 Minutes)

The core responsibility of the agile leader is creating the right context for the agile teams so they can thrive and self-manage. One of the characteristics of this context is all about ownership. In my book ‘Agile Leadership Toolkit’ I dedicate a whole part to this important topic.

How common misunderstandings about the Scrum Roles prevent Scrum Teams to become effective

In this blog post, I’ll explain how it’s possible for managers to work with Scrum Teams so no one has to worry about rebuilding their resume.

In this short Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Jeff Maleski looks at ways that development teams often measure their work. Jeff breaks these into 4 categories: Activity, Output, Outcome and Impact and discusses how these can be used and what to look for in each category. (3:10 Minutes)

If Scrum were to be reduced to one purpose and one only, it would be the creation of a "Done" increment. Although the DoD serves as a crucial part of Scrum, it is also often neglected by many Scrum teams. Try out the DoD EvoCycle, a simple technique to effectively manage your Definition of Done.

Want to know if your team or organisation is suffering from Zombie Scrum? Find out with our free symptom checker and get help. And join our worldwide research into how teams work with Scrum, and what works for them.

In this video, Professional Scrum Trainer Don McGreal boils down Scrum to 3 main advantages (1:22 Minutes).

In this episode of the Agile Wire Podcast with Professional Scrum Trainers Jeff Maleski and Jeff Bubolz, Steve Denning joins to talk about what a true Agile mindset entails. (52:01 Minutes)

“We want to be more agile in our delivery.” “We need to build up our teams.” “How can we do Scrum well?” Companies are asking themselves these questions every day and looking in various places for the answers.

Why are Scrum and Management 3.0 such a great fit? In this special Management 3.0 podcast episode Management 3.0, CEO Ralph van Roosmalen and Kurt Bittner, Vice President of Enterprise Solutions at Scrum.org, talk Scrum, Management, Agile and what makes them fuse together so well, especially when it comes to understanding the role of management within teams.(27:30 Minutes)

This article on Glasscubes blog compares Agile and Waterfall and features commentary from Kurt Bittner.

‘Autonomy without accountability equals anarchy’ summarizes an essential design element of any agile organization. Without these checks and balances in place any aspiration to transform an organization is likely to fail.

This article will give you a clear explanation of how to become a good leader in this competitive world, and the techniques and tools required to reach the height of success.

Tanto el desarrollo de software Agile como el diseño de experiencia de usuario (UX) tienen como objetivos comunes entregar antes sistemas más usados y valiosos para el cliente.

Este artículo es la segunda parte de otro donde hablaba de como integrar el trabajo de los especialistas de UX y los desarrolladores de software.

In this webinar Brandon Shangraw and Abel Rios from Stack Sports, along with Patricia Kong, Scrum.org talk about their journey using Scrum and Nexus. (61:00 Minutes)