The work of solving a complex problem (for example, a feature) with interdependent tasks rarely distributes evenly among the people in a cross-functional team. The solution is a team of multi-skilled specialists. A team of multi-talented people experience fewer bottlenecks as they can help overloaded team members, and therefore reduce the time to solve a complex problem end-to-end. The team develops multi-skilled members by working in three preferred modes: pairing, mob-programming, and swarming continuously. Some other techniques are: StarMap, visualizing the flow of work, and Slack Time.

7 Do-it-yourself workshops and experiments to discover new valuable features through experiments, field testing, and research.

There are five events in Scrum.  But just going through the motions and having each of the events on the calendar is not enough.  To get the most out of Scrum, your team needs to understand the purpose behind each of the five events.  

In my last article, I explained why we need to stop talking about "carryover" and how it's not actually a thing in Scrum. "Carryover" is really just partially done work at the end of a Sprint. Now I will take you deeper and share the 4 common misunderstandings often associated with this concept, and how we can make the shift to creating better conversations about what really matters.

Ich habe in den letzten 7 Jahren mit vielen Scrum Teams gearbeitet und bei keinem Team war das Refinement gleich. In jedem Team haben sich die Refinement-Praktiken, die funktioniert haben, mit der Zeit verändert. Hier, findest du meine 4 wichtigsten Lektionen.

La gestión de equipos es la capacidad de un individuo o de una organización para administrar y coordinar un grupo de individuos para realizar una tarea. La gestión de equipos implica el trabajo en equipo, la comunicación, la colaboración, el establecimiento de objetivos y la evaluación del rendimiento.

In this short video, PST Joshua Partogi explains why Scrum Master cannot be compared to Agile Coach

As the demand for Scrum continues to grow, more people are considering a switch to being a Scrum Master. Changing jobs and careers is a big step. How can you know if it will be the right move for you?

Scrum es marco basado en el empirismo. Un punto de partida para entender este concepto es que se refiere a la capacidad de adaptación a partir del aprendizaje de los clientes. Entregar valor a los clientes en el largo plazo es riesgoso debido a la incertidumbre de lo que puede suceder en el camino y no conoces. Scrum provee el Objetivo de Producto y el Objetivo del Sprint como formas de proveer dirección y propósito y a la vez que mejoran este empirismo a través de ciclos cortos de adaptación y entrega de valor desde el Sprint hacia el objetivo de producto.

Diese Frage kommt öfters von erfolgreichen Product Owner:innen, die sich fragen wie sie die Maximierung der Wertschöpfung für ihr erfolgreiches Produkt durch Personalwachstum positiv beeinflussen können.

Scrum Scale Away (parody of Come Sail Away by Styx)

In this vlog, PST Joshua Partogi visualises what the Scrum Master do all day using the 8 Scrum Master hats.

Erfahren Sie mehr über 15 gängige Sprint Review Anti-Muster, die sich negativ auf die Effektivität eines Scrum Teams auswirken - von PST Stefan Wolpers.

One of the first things that I usually hear after describing the Scrum framework and its five events to someone new to Scrum is, “that’s a lot of meetings!” I get it — at first glance, it seems like a lot. But it really isn't when I get the person to take a closer look. This article provides a description of each event and how you can reduce the need for other meetings by practicing them.

How can the Scrum Master become that True Agile Leader, helping the organization to become more Agile?

Working from a single product backlog creates an inevitable knowledge gap in single-skilled team members. Over time, team members develop secondary or even tertiary skills and become multi-skilled specialists. On an organizational level introduce cross-functional managers that focus on the whole team development. Also you need to create a system of human operations that supports multi-skilled specialists.

Are we still on track to accomplish the Product Goal? Moreover, how did the previous Sprint contribute to our Scrum team’s mission? Given the Sprint Review’s importance, it is worthwhile to tackle the most common Sprint Review anti-patterns.

En este artículo aprenderéis como el Agile Coaching Competency Framework puede ayudaros a entender vuestras competencias actuales como Agile Coach o Scrum Master, y daros un camino para mejorarlas.

Mehrere Product Owner führen zu verzögerten Entscheidungen. Nur ein Product Owner ist ein Garant dafür, dass Entscheidungen schnell getroffen werden und somit das Unternehmen agil bleibt. Wie deskaliert man die Product-Owner-Verantwortung zurück auf eine Person? Hier meine Schritt-für-Schritt-Anleitung.

One of the things I struggled with at the start of my Scrum Master journey was building consensus in the team. Wanting to stay objective, give everyone space and time whilst still craving for a decision was a challenge for me. My own indecisiveness with regards to how to handle this ultimately did not serve the teams I worked with well as discussions did not seem to go anywhere and decision making was slow. Over time I learned that there are actually many already existing useful techniques that help with consensus building, and when and how to use them depends on the context and the situation you are in. Here are a few that have served me well as a facilitator.

Scrum ist ein leichtgewichtiges Rahmenwerk um komplexe Probleme zu lösen. Die Regeln wie wir sie im Scrum Guide finden sind wichtig. Und dennoch wage ich zu behaupten, dass die unterliegenden Prinzipien noch wichtiger für einen nachhaltigen Produkterfolg sind. Erst dann kann das volle Potential von professionellem Scrum genutzt werden. 

Me he encontrado varias veces que la gente en general no sabe qué hace un agile coach para las personas, los equipos y las organizaciones. Ser agile coach requiere un desarrollo de serias competencias, que en muchas sitios no están del todo bien comprendidas. Vamos a ver porqué decimos agile coach cuando queremos decir project manager agilizado o gestor de personas.

In this blog post, I explain the difference between the attitude of a programmer and a product developer, why it matters, and some tips to make the shift.

One of the primary purposes of a retrospective is to create action items, but it’s not uncommon to come up with action items that aren’t actionable.  They’re aspirational.  This blog gives you some ways to ensure your retrospectives have actionable items.

​​​​​​​In my experience, it’s the Sprint Retrospective that teams are most likely to skip, berate, or otherwise bash.  When I hear teams talking about dropping it to “save time,” I want to pull a Darth Vader, shake my fist in the air, and say, “You don’t know the power of the Sprint Retrospective!” and then demand that the team meet anyway.  Alas, I am not Darth Vader.  But hear me out to consider these five reasons for never skipping a Retrospective.  

Erfahren Sie mehr über 21 gängige Sprint Retrospektive Anti-Patterns aus der Scrum Anti-Patterns-Serie — von PST Stefan Wolpers.

A critical, evidence-based reflection on a hunch that Scrum Masters may often be more concerned with the quality of the process than the value of its outcomes.

The fifth blog, in a blog series about the upcoming book: Creating Agile Organizations - A Systemic Approach, by Cesario Ramos & Ilia Pavlichenko.

What do you think about certifications? It's kind of a controversial topic. A lot of people out there are either certification haters or they pump up certifications, and they have the alphabet soup at the end of their name on LinkedIn.W

TL; DR: Sprint Retrospective Anti-Patterns What event could better embody Scrum’s principle of empiricism than the Sprint Retrospective?

In meinen Trainings werde ich immer wieder nach praktischen Tipps und Erklärungen zum Umgang mit den Scrum Artefakten gefragt.

In meinen Trainings werde ich immer wieder nach praktischen Tipps und Erklärungen zum Umgang mit den Scrum Artefakten gefragt.

Viele agile Teams sind in der Lage, regelmäßig Software zu liefern. Sie stoßen jedoch an Grenzen, wenn es um die Festlegung von Zielen, die Bestimmung von Prioritäten und die Messung von Fortschritten innerhalb der Organisation geht. 

Three simple retrospective formats based on the Liberating Structures "Conversation Cafe", "Troika Consulting", and "Discovery & Action Dialogue"

In meinen Trainings werde ich immer wieder nach praktischen Tipps und Erklärungen zum Umgang mit den Scrum Artefakten gefragt. In Scrum haben wir 3 Artefakte...

El refinamiento del Product Backlog es la actividad imprescindible en cualquier equipo Scrum de añadir detalles, descubrir, estimar y ordenar a los elementos del Product Backlog. 

El Scrum Master brinda servicios al Equipo Scrum, la organización y el Product Owner. El radio de acción del Scrum Master no es solamente el equipo, puede abarcar el involucramiento con diversas áreas y cruzar la organización cuando tiene que participar en remover impedimentos de la organización o promover la cultura ágil y Scrum. El Scrum Master es un verdadero líder que no actúa a través del control, imposición o cualquier otra forma que impida el crecimiento de la autogestión y el empirismo.

Im ersten Artikel dieser Miniserie wurde festgestellt, dass man kein Zertifikat braucht, um gut in dem zu werden, was man tut, zum Beispiel als Product Owner zu arbeiten. Wenn Sie von der Signalwirkung profitieren wollen, die Scrum-Zertifikate zu haben scheinen, stellt sich die Frage, wie Sie eine Product Owner Zertifizierung von Scrum.org bestehen können.

What’s the problem with working without purpose? Can you do it? Sure. You can do it, but I mean...

Some time ago, whilst discussing this topic with my fellow Professional Scrum.org Trainer Todd Miller, he shared his experience with using White Elephant principles to enable a participative facilitation environment (thanks Todd!). It inspired me to use it and write this blog. 

Fourth blog, in a blog series about the upcoming book: Creating Agile Organizations - A Systemic Approach, by Cesario Ramos & Ilia Pavlichenko.

In this blog series, we’ll share the gaps that many Scrum Masters face as they work to become better agile leaders and Scrum professionals. We’ll call out biases and misperceptions and also offer suggestions on how to overcome these challenges in order to influence change.

Powerful Product Owner. It sounds like a threat, isn’t it?  Anyone overpowering affects the whole team’s activity and outcome. No wonder this affects retrospectives as well. 

El intraemprendimiento es la aplicación de la mentalidad y prácticas de los emprendedores, que crean nuevas empresas o despliegan iniciativas sociales, dentro de las empresas consolidadas.

TL; DR: How to Pass the Product Owner Certification — Scrum.org’s PSPO I to III The 

In this blog post, Sander Dur explains technical debt vs undone work...

Viele angehende Scrum Master erzählen mir im Professional Scrum Master Training, dass sie es schwierig finden, diese vier Dinge zu vereinen. Hier 3 Tipps, wie ich diese Situation in der Vergangenheit gemeistert habe.

La agilidad de negocio es la capacidad de deleitar continuamente a los clientes con entregas de valor e inspirar a los empleados en medio de los desafíos emergentes. 

Live & online training, when done well can be as effective, or even more effective than in-person training.

Why many Scrum teams struggle with continuous improvement, and how you can do better