This week we had a great Q&A on Forecasting and Release Planning. During the "Ask a PST" session, we answered many questions. We got so many questions, that we could not answer all of them. This blog post tries to remedy that and answers most of these from my (Dominik Maximini) perspective.

Scrum isn’t a detailed manual—it’s a simple game with a few clear rules. These rules don’t tell you how to win, but they create the boundaries for meaningful collaboration. This post explores what the rules are, why they matter, and what happens when we ignore them.

Ever get the feeling you’re the “agile person” in the room—brought in to run ceremonies, fix Jira boards, or play Scrum cop, but never actually invited to shape real strategy? If that hits close to home, you’ll want to listen in on my latest conversation with Michael Gerharz.

Most large organizations already have product teams, platform services, and customer-facing solutions, but they often work in isolation, creating delays, duplicated work, and poor customer outcomes. The real problem isn’t in the technology but how the organization is structured. This article breaks down a clear pattern for aligning these three layers: Platform provides shared, enabling services without becoming a bottleneck. Product groups own strategy, delivery, and performance of their products end-to-end. Customer solution teams take full responsibility for delivering integrated offerings that solve real customer problems. By separating concerns and assigning clear ownership, organizations can move faster, reduce friction, and deliver value without falling into silo traps.

Uncover hidden team dynamics, emotional burnout signals, and contradiction patterns that manual analysis misses—in real-time.

This blog explores how product definitions evolve in large companies, the debate around "sub-products," and the importance of empowering teams with a clear problem and the ability to release value. It suggests that "product-ness" might be a scale rather than binary, and that the key question is whether a product structure improves or reduces the team's ability to deliver value. The blog also acknowledges the impact of politics and the need for continuous product definition and adaptation.

There are a bunch of AI keywords that create your foundational knowledge of AI. You should know and understand them.

Explains how the Scrum Master is accountable for enabling effective product delivery, fostering team success, and ensuring each sprint produces a usable, valuable increment.

Scrum actually has very few rules. It’s a simple framework with just enough—but not too much—structure to help teams work together. It’s flexible. It’s lightweight. And it gives teams the space to learn, adapt, and improve continuously.

Not long ago, a product manager asked me, “What’s the one thing most PMs get wrong?” Now, there are plenty of easy answers—ignoring data, neglecting stakeholders, frameworks, . But let’s go deeper. Here’s the truth: Many product managers love their product too much.

En este artículo, el PST Alex Ballarín te explica qué son los autodiagnósticos para Product Owners y como pueden ayudarte a avanzar en el camino que necesitas para llegar a ser un product owner más estratégico.

Practical alignment tools empower Scrum Teams by strengthening stakeholder relationships, maintaining user focus, and building trust to deliver products that meet organizational goals.

In diesem Artikel beschreibt PST Simon Flossmann 3 Hebel für bessere Teamleistung.

Is the outcome of your meeting to schedule another meeting? In this short video, I identify three deeper challenges behind this frustrating dynamic and walk you through how to shift the pattern, starting with what’s in your control.

How often do you have to escalate? In this short video, I identify three common causes behind this frustrating dynamic and walk you through how to shift the pattern, starting with what’s in your control.

Maximizar la entrega de valor con Scrum sigue siendo una tarea difícil y compleja cuando no se considera el valor a entregar. Para mejorar este objetivo se necesita partir desde el entendimiento de las necesidades del cliente. Se pueden usar muchas herramientas o técnicas para este propósito. Algunas de las que mencionamos pueden ser: El Lienzo de propuesta de valor, El viaje del cliente que ayuda a identificar sus dolores, mapa de empatía, Persona o Protopersona, etc. En el siguiente post se describe algunos beneficios que mejoran el uso de Scrum.

Scrum depends on the intelligence of the people using it. That means learning, understanding, and making reasoned decisions. Is your team thinking—or just doing?

Agilität nach Vorschrift hat ausgedient, da KI reine Routinetätigkeiten automatisiert und Produktbetriebsmodelle ergebnisorientierte Teams erfordern.

In diesem Artikel teilt PST Simon Flossmann 3 Wahrheiten über Scrum, die er gerne am Anfang seiner Scrum-Master-Karriere gewusst hätte

A product without a vision is like a ship without a compass—it might move, but it won’t reach the right destination. Through a sample, see how we can leverage AI to create an inspiring Product Vision video.

According to the Scrum Guide, a Sprint can be cancelled—but only by the Product Owner, and only if the Sprint Goal becomes obsolete. But what does that even mean?

Across organizations of all sizes, I hear the same concerns. They are all expressed different but the common theme is: “Won’t embedded specialists be underutilized?” “Isn’t decentralization too costly or inconsistent?” “Shouldn’t we have one standard way of working?” These aren’t complaints, they’re tradeoffs. And tradeoffs only make sense when you’re clear on what you’re optimizing for.

Explains the difference between subjective goals and the objective Definition of Done in Scrum, highlighting how clear, measurable criteria ensure consistent product quality.

Velocity is one of the most misunderstood ideas in Agile teams. This post explains what it really is. A result, not a target. Something to notice, not something to hit. We break down how velocity often gets misused, share a travel analogy that makes it real, and show how teams can use it to have better conversations. This is not about speed or precision. It is about mindset. And it is a first step toward more honest, value focused planning.

Scrum, como marco ágil, promueve la autoorganización, la mejora continua y la entrega de valor incremental. Sin embargo, muchas organizaciones intentan escalarlo desde la jerarquía, obviando el poder real de su red informal. ¿Qué ocurre cuando reconocemos que el cambio cultural profundo —como adoptar Scrum genuinamente— no se decreta desde arriba, sino que se propaga entre pares?

If your teams are busy “doing Agile” or writing OKRs but the business results aren’t showing up, you’re probably stuck in Process Theater—lots of activity, not much real progress. This happens when people focus on following the process instead of connecting it to actual outcomes, missing the crucial middle step of changing behaviors and delivering impact. The fix? Use outcome mapping: clarify the real behaviors and results you want, then set objectives and key results around those—not just process compliance. Build trust by empowering teams to make decisions and measure progress by tangible change, not vanity metrics. That’s how you move from theater to real traction.

“Good Enough Agile” is ending as AI automates mere ceremonial tasks and Product Operating Models demand outcome-focused teams. Agile professionals must evolve from process facilitators to strategic product thinkers or risk obsolescence.

Scrum Events nerven Entwickler? In diesem Artikel erklärt PST Simon Flossmann, was Scrum Master dagegen unternehmen können.

In this blog, Ryan Brook examines why many Product Owners fail to fulfil their accountability, acting as requirement managers rather than value maximisers. He explores the impact of missing product strategy, emphasising that true Product Ownership requires strategic clarity and a focus on outcomes instead of output.

Most teams plan a Sprint with one question in mind: "What can we deliver this Sprint?" But here's a different take. What if, within every Sprint, we planned across all three horizons of innovation?

Scrum isn’t a finished product—it’s a starting point. What completes it? The collective intelligence of your team. This post explores what that really means, what gets in the way, and how you can unlock it in your day-to-day Scrum practice.

Sprint capacity planning is one of the most often used complementary practices by Scrum Teams. This article from PST Dr. Pawel Rola provides all the basic information and practical examples to help you plan your next Sprint capacity.

In diesem Artikel erklärt PST Simon Flossmann die 3 unsichtbare Hindernisse, die Scrum Teams langsam machen.

Ergebnisse einer Umfrage: Trotz 25 Jahren des „Manifest for Agile Software Development“, unzähliger Bücher, Konferenzen und zahlreicher Berater kämpfen wir alle gemeinsam darum, Agile zum Erfolg zu führen.

Agile estimation often feels broken. But maybe it is not the technique, it is the thinking behind it. This blog challenges common misconceptions like “you must use story points” and explores why estimation should support learning and decision-making. Through a simple card experiment and the Cone of Uncertainty, it reframes estimation as a conversation about value, not just effort.

In today's world when training budgets are shrinking then as a leader how are you motivating your team members. Money is not the only thing to build a culture of growth and learning. As a leader your small actions can make big impacts

In der Welt des agilen Arbeitens haben wir unsere eigene Sprache entwickelt. Wir sprechen von Sprints, Backlogs, Impediments und Velocity. Für viele neue Scrum Masteinnen und Product Owner*innen ist dies schnell zur Selbstverständlichkeit geworden – doch genau hier liegt eine der größten Herausforderungen: Wie kommunizieren wir effektiv mit denjenigen, die nicht in unserer agilen Blase leben?

The biggest competitive edge your team can get is learning as fast as possible. Not the biggest feature, expendable budget, or exposure, but learning. The Learning Loop helps to shorten your learning time.

The Scrum Framework is simple, yet many misconceptions exist about applying Professional Scrum. We often notice cheat sheets and Scrum frameworks that do not match the Professional Scrum Standards. That is why we have decided to change our Scrum Framework poster and align it to Professional Scrum and what we teach in our classes.

This article challenges the conventional view of Scrum as merely a delivery framework and reframes it as a powerful engine for product innovation and evolution. While many teams use Scrum to deliver work more predictably, the real opportunity lies in using it to discover what truly adds value for customers. This blog presents four practical strategies to make Scrum more innovation-focused: 1. Treat releases as experiments to validate assumptions. 2. Release based on value, not just Sprint boundaries. 3. Embrace strategic procrastination to keep backlog items flexible. 4. Refine frequently in small efforts to reduce rework and support adaptability. The conclusion emphasizes that Scrum, when used thoughtfully, enables teams not just to ship features, but to learn, adapt, and deliver meaningful outcomes in dynamic markets.

Excessive handoffs in software development create delays, reduce quality, and harm team morale. Learn how eliminating handoffs boosts agility, flow, and value delivery.

In diesem Artikel stellt PST Simon Flossmann die Product-Owner-Reifegrade vor.

In Scrum, “Done” means done. Not halfway done, not “almost there,” and certainly not “we’ll get to it next Sprint.” Yet, many teams find themselves with a growing burden of unfinished work. Over time, that burden starts to feel like a monkey on the team’s back—heavy, distracting, and hard to shake off.

In this blog, Ryan Brook asks, "Is your Product Owner actually owning anything?" He explores what real Product Ownership looks like; setting clear goals, making value-based decisions, owning the customer journey, and building strong user relationships. If they're just forwarding emails or waiting on approvals, it's time to ask why.

Despite 25 years of the Agile Manifesto, countless books, conferences, and armies of consultants, we’re still collectively struggling to make Agile work.

In this blog, author Ryan Brook shares a practical approach to launching new products by treating go-to-market as a learning process. He explains how using real customer insights, short Sprints, and Strategyzer’s Test and Learning Cards helps teams validate assumptions, reduce waste, and make smarter decisions with each step.

Scrum isn’t missing pieces—it’s purposefully lean. This post explains why the framework only includes what’s required to implement its theory, and how teams can avoid over-complicating it with extras that dilute focus and slow down learning.

In diesem Artikel beschreibt PST Simon Flossmann 5 Werkzeuge, die Product-Ownern helfen sichere Entscheidungen zu treffen.

Es gibt einen Weg, ethische KI und Agilität zu verbinden, indem vier pragmatische Grundsätze festgelegt werden: Datenschutz (Klassifizierung von Informationen), Wahrung menschlicher Werte (Definition der Rollen von KI und Mensch), Validierung der Ergebnisse (Verifizierungsprotokolle) und transparente Nachvollziehbarkeit (Erfassung von Beiträgen einer KI).

Case Study on the Power of Flow Metrics: How a struggling team slashed their Cycle Time by 89% and rocketed their Release Frequency by 1.200%.