This post is an excerpt from the book that we’re writing, the ‘Zombie Scrum Survival Guide’. It’s our way of delivering small increments and involving our stakeholders: you, the reader. So we’d love to hear your feedback, encouragements and wild ideas.

A while ago, I received an interesting scientific article from Gunther Verheyen titled “Getting Things Done: The Science Behind Stress-Free Productivity” (Heylighen & Vidal, 2007). The article discusses possible scientific explanations for the success of a personal productivity approach called “Getting Things Done” (GTD; Allen, 2001).

Do you want to how to become a successful Scrum Master? Do you know what is the first thing a Scrum Master should be focused on doing? Is it managing requirements?

Product Backlog Refinement (PBR) is an ongoing process in Scrum. But in a scaled Scrum, complexity vastly increases, and Refinement becomes mandatory. In this article, I will explain how you can use Refinement to your advantage and enhance organizational agility.

One of the teams I worked with suggested dropping the Sprint Retrospective and the Sprint Review from the Sprint and only do them every other Sprint.  

In my previous 2 episodes of this series on Systems Thinking, I elaborated on what Systems Thinking is and on the Wicked Problems Systems Thinking is trying to solve. In this episode, I want to explore Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS).

How to use the Liberating Structure 'Mad Tea' with Scrum.

Tuesday morning. 5AM. Alarm clock goes off. Some clouds in the sky. Driving my son to the swimming pool so he can start his training at 5:45 sharp. Continuing the drive towards a client to facilitate a training. 6:45 Traffic jam. Drizzle. 7:45 arrived. 9:00 Training to be started. Not all participants arrived. Waiting for another 5 minutes. Kick-off...

I've learned and experienced that most symptoms can be traced back to not adhering to the Scrum Roles. Let's start with the Product Owner role.

Scrum uses the concept of a Sprint to mitigate the risks of complex product development and help deliver value faster to stakeholders.

Sprint Planning is a core event, defining how your customers’ lives will improve with the next Product Increment. Learn more on how to improve its effectiveness by avoiding 20 common Sprint Planning anti-patterns.

The Bytesize Agile Series is inspired by discussion tangents that arise during training. 3 Amigos the topic of today comes up during discussion regarding refinement of backlog items into a ready state.

This is quite a long read which you can download as the whitepaper "Systems Thinking in Organizational Coaching".

Hey awesome people. Over the past few years I have seen many misunderstandings about the Product Owner role and how many organisations mapped the Product Owner role using their cognitive bias.

Before and during the Sprint, effort needs to be put into coordination to ensure the Scrum Teams deliver a working integrated product. This situation can be improved with Multi-team Product Backlog Refinement sessions.

In my daily life as a Scrum Master, I witness many crazy situations. I want to share my experiences via this comic series featuring Koos Coach, the silly Scrum Master struggling to understand and master Scrum.

Whilst in a meeting I heard a colleague explaining to another colleague...

Scrum, in its more general definition, is a simple framework to help us address complex challenges. Product development is the subset of complex problem domains where Scrum took root first...

I call myself a Scrum Caretaker. I aspire inspiring people using Scrum. I prefer sharing positive experiences and cases that demonstrate how amazing working with Scrum can be, what problems can be tackled and how, the level of excellence we can build into our products, how Scrum can engage people.

When it comes to Product Ownership, there are a couple of things that are essential to get the job done right.

Students and clients ask us “Can Kanban and Scrum work together?” “Of course!” However, what do you mean by “Kanban”?

How do you change a system that is as complex as an organization? This is the quintessential question facing Scrum Masters, Product Owners and other drivers of change. In this post, we explore how the Liberating Structure ‘Panarchy’ offers a powerful perspective and allows you to put systems thinking into practice. And even though it is perhaps the most complicated of them all, Panarchy brings together all the promises of Liberating Structures: engage everyone and unleash change on every level. Its a great way to drive organizational change together in an organic way.

Often we work harder in Scrum teams, but not necessarily smarter. Therefore the way we work has to change. Five tips for more effective agile work.

How to make Scrum work? Read on to learn more about my top three objectives for Scrum Masters striving to achieve Scrum Mastery.

Often, when I facilitate a Professional Scrum Training, I'm asked about how a Scrum Team can work without someone telling them what to do.

I recently read the book The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. And I noticed strong correlations with what it takes to be an effective Scrum Master.

How many times a day are you walking into the conversation where people jump into discussing solutions that lead nowhere, lack a clear purpose for the people involved in the conversation, don’t make sense altogether without the additional “why” discussion? I know I am having those conversations day in and day out.

In this article, I want to clarify the need for agility in modern businesses and what agility in organisational design actually is.

Should the PO really balance the level of technical debt? I just had this conversation yesterday at Sweden's "big" agile conference, Agila Sverige.

The topic of my blog today is another one that is common on client’s sites. The use of the terms Showcase, Show & Tell or Sprint Review. In this situation, there is likely to be a broad mix of people fulfilling the Scrum Master roles.

A Sprint Goal is not often something people think about when using Scrum. Turns out it’s really important for teams to act as teams. Find out why in Robb Pieper's latest video blog from Responsive Advisors.

Hi awesome people. Courage is one of the Scrum values and as part of my New Year's resolution this year I would like to have more courage to point out elephant in the room at the risk people may dislike me for doing it.

In this 3rd article, I build on the previous two articles and give an example of how to use the two Pattern Languages to develop your pattern sequence.

An introduction of the 6 symptoms, with the symptom ‘No validation with stakeholders’ explained in detail.

The most important question to stakeholders is often “When can it be done?” There is a lot that goes into answering that seemingly simple question. What is involved in the work?

Collaboration is key to solve complex problems. I’ve always suffered from the evident lack of collaboration between people. It’s professionally frustrating when you’ve experienced effective teamwork.

In my daily life as a Scrum Master, I witness many crazy situations. I want to share my experiences via this comic series featuring Koos Coach, the silly Scrum Master struggling to understand and master Scrum.

There is one product, one Product Owner, one Product Backlog — a simple rule. How is that supposed to scale, you might ask, isn’t that approach turning...

In a series of blog posts, I want to share how you can use Systems Thinking to resolve complex problems.

When Scrum Teams discuss too many problems during the Retrospective they may lose focus.

The agile movement really has changed the way we lead our people. Giving them more freedom and autonomy to do their job often improves the quality, productivity and happiness of the people.

Although I am going to use the term technical debt in this discussion. I am actively forming the opinion that this is the wrong term to be used both in how various assessments assess understanding and by practitioners in the agile community.

A while ago we started working on a movie to illustrate the essence of agile leadership. What is it about? Are leaders still needed in an agile environment?

This is a series on how to create more engaging and interactive Scrum Events with Liberating Structures and recover from Zombie Scrum.

The Scrum Guide provides no reference or guidance on how to get started with Scrum. That's because Scrum is a lightweight, minimal framework to encourage self-organization. I have heard it stated that Scrum is intentionally incomplete.

Welcome to the Agile Movers & Shakers interview series. Today’s guest is Ben Linders.

In my earlier article, I explained what Scrum Patterns are and why they could be useful for you in your transformation. In this blog, I discuss how to select and use the Scrum Patterns from the Pattern Languages.

How to start an Agile transformation? What are the initial steps? In this article I explain how transformations could be planned using Scrum Patterns and systems thinking.

Within the Scrum process, there are eleven basic elements that make up the framework. 3 roles, 3 artifacts, and 5 events. Practitioners need to learn to apply and understand the principles behind these in order to obtain the full benefits of the Scrum process.

Hey awesome people. I hope you are starting the new year with excitement. One of the most popular questions I got in my Professional Scrum Master (PSM) class from the past years is: "What are the differences between Project Manager and Scrum Master?"