This is the last in a series of 3 blogs presenting the result of an interesting research study from Sam Walker.  Walker discovered that the most successful sports teams that ever existed all shared one single element: They all had a team captain with 7 overlapping traits that made them extremely successful.

Just a thought on architecture in a complex environment. What is the value of a perfect architecture? Is there something as a perfect architecture? Perhaps more importantly, when is the architecture perfect?

What can a Scrum team learn from the World’s Greatest Sports Teams? In this the second of 3 blogs I'm sharing the character traits of an Elite Team Captain.

I remember being told, many years ago when I started university, that Information Technology is a numerate discipline.

I recently attend the Professional Scrum Master II (PSM II) course and I'd like to share my thoughts with you about it. 

What can a Scrum team learn from the World’s Greatest Sports Teams? This is the first in 3 blogs that will share a number of Leadership lessons that can be used to build high performing Scrum teams.

What is Agile HR? How HR could support this journey of transformation into an Agile company?

The Scrum Master profession spans wide variety of skills, knowledge and experience. Scrum Masters try to create high performing teams and drive organisational change. Although our primary responsibility is the process, it’s people we work with all the time.

How we used Liberating Structures, Learning 3.0 and Training from the Back of the Room to create a new learning experience with the PSM II class.

Anyone who has participated in a Professional Scrum Master (PSM) training knows how powerful the learning experience is.

In this post, we’ll explain the Liberating Structure ‘15% Solutions‘ and how we've used it. It’s a wonderful structure that can ignite big change by starting with small, individual contributions.

In Scrum classes we often ask the attendees to draw a picture of the Scrum framework, in order learn what their current understanding of the framework is. In many cases people are close to remembering the three roles, three artifacts and five events.

In this post, we explain the Liberating Structure 'What, So What, Now What' and how we use this structure within the context of Scrum.

It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, and yet we engage in an unconscious fiction of predictability every day. We work in an uncertain world, and our main goal in pursuing agility is to confront the unknown, and in doing so, to master it.

It is not often that you hear about children in school using Scrum to help them with their school work. I’ve recently come across a student on social media, who has been using Scrum for school projects. I found this story very inspiring and I thought it would be fun to share with you on our blog.

Don’t say this too loudly around agile conferences, but when it comes to the day-to-day work, Scrum and Kanban teams are very similar.

Agile coaching is a journey into irony. One of the chief discoveries you can make on this voyage is that the more experienced you become, the worse at the job others often think you get.

Hello, great people of the world. In my previous article, we have discussed how Scrum Masters need to master many things. In this article, we are going to discuss one of the stances that the Scrum Master need to master, that is the facilitation stance.

A goal, a forecast of functionality, plus the plan to deliver it. the Why, the What and the How. Sprint Goal + Sprint Backlog. How do these relate, plus a practical example.

Big organizations use Scrum as a driver of agility. But often after launching, management start focusing on the speed of development instead of quality. DoD is often weak and the company's agility is reduced as a result.

I often start my Scrum training classes with this quote: "Scrum Master is an enabler not a doer". This is the second in a series of posts exploring some of the myths about Scrum Mastery.

This is the fifth in a series of posts exploring Scrum Mastery. In our first post, we introduced the 4 dimensions of Scrum Mastery:  Team Identity, Team Process, Product Value, and the Organization.  In this post, we will explore the Organization dimension.

Read more about how the PSM-II class deepens and expands your understanding of Scrum and helps you in your professional journey as a Scrum Master.

A story of two fairly naive Dutch guys and how they created an advanced class for Scrum Masters with Scrum.org.

With the launch of Professional Scrum Master II (PSM II) – An Advanced Scrum Master Class, Scrum.org has built a course that is aimed directly at enabling the Scrum Master.

Working with the Professional Scrum Trainer community, and particularly with Ken Schwaber as one of the Professional Scrum Master Stewards has been a very rewarding learning journey.

This is the fourth in a series of posts exploring Scrum Mastery. In our first post, we introduced the four dimensions of Scrum Mastery:  Team Identity, Team Process, Product Value, and the Organization.  In this post, we will explore the product value dimension.

Dear friends, I want to share an unusual view of Scrum with you. Perhaps you've never thought about such a point of view before. I hope it will be useful.

This info is about Joel Gascoigne, CEO of Buffer, who facilitated social media management. Ok, how do I know? In fact you, like everyone else, can see the salaries of around 75 people, who are Buffer's employees including its CEO from the link (you can find at the references section) shared by Buffer.

Does your Finance Department discourage Agile software development because it would all be charged to operational expense?

Getting your thoughts down on paper is a great way to reflect on and sort out the complicated aspects of our industry. The three Vs of Product Ownership is an example of this and is a major theme of our book — and the topic of this post.

Throughout my career I have helped many leaders adapt their style to one that better supports teams reach a high-performing state. Across a wide range of different industries the patterns of high-performing teams, and how leaders help shape them, have some striking consistencies.

When delivering a Professional Scrum Master training or helping clients creating awesome products with Scrum, some people ask me how to adapt (downgrade) Scrum to make it work in their organizations.

This is the third in a series of posts exploring Scrum Mastery. In our first post, we introduced the 4 dimensions of Scrum Mastery. In the second post, we explored how to grow a strong team identity. Now we will explore the team process dimension.

If you worked in large organizations you have probably heard about the term "dependencies". I am convinced that dependencies need to be eliminated, not managed.

Often I hear people say that Scrum does not take care of risk: there is no risk log, risk is not on the agenda of the Sprint Review or Retrospective as a standard agenda-item. The Developers need to be accountable for the quality of the product and how it's made. And ultimately each role in Scrum has accountabilities that effect risk. But ... if there is not one person accountable for quality, being on time, within budget, building the right thing... How is risk managed in Scrum?

The Times News were on a journey to re-platform their system. While working diligently behind feature flags, using elements of Scrum, it wasn’t clear to the stakeholders the value being delivered and how well the teams were progressing towards their end goal.

This is the second in a series of posts exploring Scrum Mastery. In our first post, we introduced the 4 dimensions of Scrum Mastery.

The University of Applied Sciences at Albstadt-Sigmaringen (HSAlbSig) is respected for its well-balanced curriculum. However, even the best curriculum can benefit from outside sources and experts.

Bottom line - Toyota Improvement and Coaching Kata is the perfect partner for flow-based retrospectives.

Agility is the ability of an organization to adapt to new conditions and to change its direction. The modern service-based format of the production-based economy of the previous century renders the competence of companies to change even stronger than before.

"An Agile Coach know more than just Scrum", said one consultant in a boardroom meeting, "he/she knows organisation dynamics, executive coaching and other Agile practices like Kanban and DevOps", he continued.

Bottom line - PSK improves the performance of Scrum teams, but WiP must be optimized for flow and work in progress should not relatively age compared with other in progress items

Last year I reached a very important goal I had set for myself: I became a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) on behalf of Scrum.org. But why was this so important to me, and how did I get on this path?

Behavior Driven Development (BDD) and Test Driven Development (TDD) are Agile Practices that are complementary to the Scrum framework. Both are focused on improving the quality of the software product under development. That said, they approach building valuable software from different perspectives.

We all understand, every field has a skill quotient that you need to achieve to be able to qualify and deliver. It’s a Doctor of Medicine for someone who wants to practice medicine, be a Doctor, and save lives.

Imagine this, you are at the weekly company meeting in a room of 60 people. All of them are co-workers who you have been working with for several years. You feel engaged and committed to the goal set by your company. 

The purpose of Scrum is to deliver Increments of releasable functionality. So at each Sprint Review, a “Done” Increment is required to make transparent the progress made by the team.