Community Blog

When people form a Scrum Team they have to figure out how to become a real team, rather than a collection of individuals. The Scrum Team Charter Canvas is a helpful tool to facilitate Scrum Team formation.

The pandemic has stimulated me to teach Scrum outside my home in the United States. I have been fortunate to collaborate with many diverse cultures worldwide.  I am also grateful to facilitate a team of very talented high-school students in my area. They implemented Scrum to build a real-world mobile application called "The Edge".

30 years ago Nirvana released "Nevermind" with a boy diving into a pool reaching for a dollar bill. I am sure you are also very familiar with the iconic song Smells like Teen Spirit from that album.

In the Peoples And Teams section of the Professional Scrum Master course, we discuss the impact of Task Switching. We discuss that task switching destroys efficiency and quality. 

A few years ago, I bumped into an ex-colleague of mine who was working with someone who I had also previously worked with - both of us were, or had been, a Scrum Master for this ex-colleague.

In my 100th episode of Agile.FM,  I had the opportunity to speak with Jim Benson, the co-creator of Lean Coffee.

Lean Coffee is a powerful meeting faciliation technique that can be used in coffee shops, conferences, open space, Scrum events or simply replace existing corporate meeting formats.

We recently introduced our latest retrospective technique called Scrum Value Pairs, which helps Scrum teams improve areas of their process in regards to the 5 Scrum Values.

I'd like to share another story with you... Thank you Paul and Charlie for sharing your story. It moved me and left me with huge smile on my face. 

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. 

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

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

Icebreakers: are they a complete waste of time or do they add value? Some people absolutely love them, other absolute dislike them because they didn’t add any value. I believe a well-designed icebreaker can kickstart your session, can be fun and get people warmed-up for the rest of the session. Learn about how you can design icebreakers that add value and that grow connection between the participants and the purpose of a session.

Have you ever been curious about what really motivates the people you work with? What are they looking for in their role and in their work? If you can find an hour with your team, I recommend you to try the Moving Motivators practice (Management 3.0). Let's unpack how to prepare and run the exercise and end with some learnings.

High performing teams are the cornerstone for good Scrum. Reaching a high performant state requires time. In many cases, this time is not given to a team because the team composition changes frequently.

In this post I'd like to discuss "Empathy - why it is important in teams and what you can do if you struggle with it". First, we all know what the role of the Scrum Master is, right?

Struggling to integrate UX Designers into Scrum? Use these actions to make Scrum teams more user-centric and UX Designers full-time members of the Scrum Team!

As a trainer, I often get asked for real world examples of Scrum implementations. You can't get any more real world than how Francis and Sally live their lives through Scrum, as they look for a way to help with ADHD.

I first met Sally,and then later Francis her husband, at a local user group - Agile in Leeds, where Sally delivered a fantastic 10 minute talk on how she implemented Scrum to help Francis with ADHD. 

This is a great exercise to learn more about your team; to find out more about each other’s concerns and dreams and, importantly, what you can do to support them. 

Bottom line - WiP limits must be applied to improve flow of the delivery of value. It's a key lever to improve the performance of Professional Scrum Teams, and it's required by the Kanban Guide for Scrum.

Working as a Scrum Master I asked myself... "How do I know if my team are demonstrating the Scrum Values? What can I use to show their current state?"

Development Team was removed from the Scrum Guide in the 2020 release. However, the ideas expressed in this blog still provide value when understanding the dynamics of the Scrum Team.

Agile approaches, including Scrum, are empirical approaches to delivering software and business value.

Where do you spend your days in the workplace? Are you living in the Scrum-oriented trenches of your organization, like the vast majority of us?

Are you part of a Team in the workplace? Odds are the answer is "yes". Do you observe other Teams in your organization doing inspiring work and wonder how they do it?

You know how when you see someone smile, you smile too? Or when you see someone crying, you feel their sadness. Well that’s because of an incredible phenomenon called mirror neurons.