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Blog Post
The Scrum Master Stances - 2nd Edition
May 14, 2017
The previous weeks I've taken some time to re-write the white paper "The 8 Stances of a Scrum Master". Given my sessions at Scrum Day London, Scrum Day Warsaw and Scrum Day Europe I wanted to offer the participants a paper with my latest insights and lessons learned. In this blog post I'll share the changes in this 2nd edition.
Blog Post
The future in our hands
May 12, 2017
Recently I had the opportunity to give a guest lecture about "Agile Essentials" at a University of Applied Science. These students, the lecturer told me beforehand, would only be partly interested and engaged.
Blog Post
Scrum and Kanban stronger together
May 10, 2017
Does this headline make you cringe or cheer? Scrum.org’s Steve Porter and ActionableAgile’s Daniel Vacanti weigh in on whether we should blend these two approaches.
Blog Post
Scrum Master! Are You a Connector?
May 4, 2017
In one of my previous blog articles, I wrote about the Scrum Master journey through the different levels of influence to achieve greatness. In this blog, we will explore the number one skill I believe is needed for a Scrum Master (servant leader) to be effective in order to create change and impact a Scrum team and organization.
Blog Post
Exploring Pitfalls of Product Ownership- PartI
May 3, 2017
Agility is important to an organization and the path to agility becomes more clear by understanding the purpose of pursuing agility. The product owner role is key in increasing the benefits an organization can gain in their path to agility.
Blog Post
Practical Coaching Tips for Scrum Masters to Drive Change and Engagement
May 2, 2017
Do you ever wonder what determines our actions?
Most people think that what we do is the outcome of our personality, however, the truth is more straightforward. It’s our mindset that controls our behavior.
Blog Post
Scrum as a Driver for Organizational Change
May 2, 2017
When talking about Scrum, people often imagine the picture above: framework and its roles, artifacts, and events. Scrum rules are fairly simple, and they are thoroughly described in the Scrum Guide.
Blog Post
Managing Technical Debt
May 1, 2017
“Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity” - Samuel Johnson
Blog Post
Emerging Practices to Cheerlead Your Distributed Teams From Good to Great
April 30, 2017
"As remote teams become more and more common, Scrum Masters must find a way to effectively do Scrum while working with far flung team members."
Blog Post
Scrum strives for deep organizational change
April 29, 2017
Most of the organizational change initiatives focus on the "hard" aspects such as organizational design, process or tools. Although those are critical, often other "soft" aspects such as values, principles or culture are overlooked. As the iceberg metaphor: consider them or they may sink yout Scrum adoption!
Blog Post
Software Inventory, Part 1
April 29, 2017
How Much Software Inventory Do You Have?
When I ask this question of people in IT departments, even among senior managers and finance people, I get a variety of responses.
Blog Post
Exploring Scrum Master's Influence: From Good to Great
April 28, 2017
Leadership is developed, not discovered (I have found inspiration in John C. Maxwell's various books). John defines leadership as influence, and a good Scrum Master has to climb the different levels of influence to achieve a good to great mindset.
Blog Post
Maximize Scrum with the Scrum Values: Respect (Part 5 of 5)
April 23, 2017
Respect is essential in solving complex problems and growing high performing teams. This likely seems obvious, so I am going to share some of the more subtle examples of the value of respect in Scrum.
Blog Post
Three Key tips to Scrum Masters for becoming Effective Listeners
April 21, 2017
I am sharing the learnings from my recently read books which helped me improve my listening skills. Inspired by one of the tools from the Book "People Tools" by Alan C Fox here is the first Tool/Tactic for Scrum Masters.
Blog Post
I'm Not Calling Your Baby Ugly - Two Ways and 25 Dimensions to Compare Agile Scaling Frameworks
April 20, 2017
Many times, clients ask Agile Coaches like me to come in and share our "expertise" with them. But sometimes they really don't want our "Expertise". What they really want is someone with lots of TLA's to come and tell them that there pre-existing opinions are correct.
Blog Post
Scrum Master as ” a little bit of oil” to ease friction in the scrum team
April 20, 2017
Sometime back I read a short SciFi story in a book named People Tools, Story was about a spaceship conducting man’s third ten year ex
Blog Post
The Empirical Product Owner: Innovation Accounting in Scrum
April 11, 2017
"Few ideas work on the first try. Iteration is key to innovation.” - Sebastian Thrun
Blog Post
Maximize Scrum with the Scrum Values: Commitment (Part 4 of 5)
April 11, 2017
Commitment is essential in solving complex problems and growing high performing teams. Commitment in Scrum is often misunderstood as a promise to deliver a set scope by a set date. That was never the intention of the word commitment in the Scrum Guide. I hope this post helps illuminate the value of commitment.
Blog Post
Technical Debt Pattern: Custom Off-The-Shelf
April 7, 2017
It was only about 30 minutes into the meeting when the senior developer uttered the dreaded words: “Rewrite”.
Blog Post
The Product Backlog and Technical Debt
April 5, 2017
"There are no shortcuts when it comes to getting out of debt" - Dave Ramsey
Blog Post
Building bridges not walls – Scrum and DevOps better together
April 4, 2017
Today Scrum.org announced a partnership with the DevOps Institute to provide a foundation to building stronger working relationships between the Scrum and DevOps communities
Blog Post
KPI's within a Scrum Team? That's no partnership!
April 3, 2017
When is a Scrum Team successful? Which criteria do you use to determine if a Scrum Team is doing a great job?
Blog Post
6 Coaching Tips for Scrum Masters
April 3, 2017
The Scrum Guide talks about coaching as a part of the Scrum Master role. First, let's define what coaching is. You can find many definitions, and here is how I describe coaching.
Blog Post
Business Analyst in Large Scale Scrum
April 2, 2017
Over the last weeks I've been working on a paper about the role of a Business Analysts within Large Scale Scrum, and I thought I'd write a little post on it too, here it goes.
Blog Post
Scrum Master Misunderstandings
March 29, 2017
The blog post covers 8 preferred stances of a Scrum Master and common misunderstandings.
Blog Post
Optimizing Product Backlog Refinement
March 28, 2017
I've recently been involved with several Scrum Teams that are struggling to have the right level of detail in their Product Backlog items. Some symptoms: difficulty during Sprint Planning sessions, a massive or very small Product Backlog, or a lack of understanding during a Sprint. All of the teams I spoke with had refinement activities in place.
Blog Post
Maximize Scrum with the Scrum Values: Courage (Part 3 of 5)
March 27, 2017
The Scrum Values are easy to remember, but it can be difficult to understand what they mean, how to apply them, and how to recognize them in teams and individuals. These values are essential to maximize the benefits of Scrum. In this article, we look at how courage is essential in solving complex problems and growing high performing teams.
Blog Post
Using a "Technical Debt Register" in Scrum
March 26, 2017
As I get older, I'm turning into one of those annoying nostalgic-types who reminisces too much. Things were better back in the day, son. We had standards see, and there was less of this "dumbing-down". Yip.
Blog Post
Change Leadership Will Long Outlast Agile
March 22, 2017
Having ‘agile expertise’ is in high demand these days – it seems everywhere I turn there are companies and recruiters looking for agile experts. Agile knowledge is important, but the expertise of being an effective change agent is even more important.
Blog Post
Maximize Scrum with the Scrum Values: Openness (Part 2 of 5)
March 19, 2017
The Scrum Values are easy to remember, but it can be difficult to understand what they mean, how to apply them, and how to recognize them in teams and individuals. These values are essential to maximize the benefits of Scrum. In this post, we see how openness is crucial when we are dealing with complexity and unpredictability.
Blog Post
Maximize Scrum with the Scrum Values: Focus (Part 1 of 5)
March 19, 2017
The Scrum Values are easy to remember, but it can be difficult to understand what they mean, how to apply them, and how to recognize them in teams and individuals. These values are essential to maximize the benefits of Scrum. In this post, we look at how focus is essential in order to get anything meaningful done.
Blog Post
Gross Definitions: 144 Agile Terms You Simply Have To Know
March 17, 2017
"Gross ignorance is 144 times worse than ordinary ignorance" - Bennett Cerf
Blog Post
A Product Owner Self-Assessment
March 16, 2017
In this article I'll describe two topics that I've used as a tailor made Product Owner self-assessment. One is about Roman Pichler's Product Management framework. The other concerns the acronym DRIVEN which is described in Geoff Watts new book "Product Mastery - From Good to Great Product Ownership".
Blog Post
Retrospective: Using the Team Radar
March 12, 2017
In this blog post I've shared my experiences using the Team Radar as a Retrospective format.
Blog Post
Why the agile enterprise must be an innovation network
March 9, 2017
As an agile coach, I find that organizations often have a narrow and constrained view of where agility ought to be practiced.
Blog Post
How to get into Flow
March 7, 2017
Do you want to work in an ecstatic state, losing track of time, doing meaningful work? Here’s how using Scrum helps!
Blog Post
The Agile PMO
March 5, 2017
If someone asked you “what is the role of the Project Management Office in an agile organization”, what would you say to them?
Blog Post
Scrum Myth: The Sprint Backlog is a Commitment
March 5, 2017
A review of the Scrum Guide section in the Sprint Backlog to consider and debunk the myth that the Sprint Backlog is a fixed Commitment by the Development Team.
Blog Post
Do not provide the answer before knowing the question
February 27, 2017
I was talking to a company that is implementing the Spotify model and needed some help.
Blog Post
Top 3 Scrum People Skills Myths
February 24, 2017
As part of the on-going Scrum Myths series at Scrum.org, here are three myths related to people skills. When I say people skills, I mean topics like emotional intelligence, emotional IQ, and person-to-person interactions.
Blog Post
A Typical Sprint, Play-By-Play
February 24, 2017
In this introductory-level article we look at the mechanics of a Sprint, and at how team members are expected to collaborate in order to produce a release-quality increment.
Blog Post
Scrum Myth: There is failure in not finishing all Sprint Backlog Items
February 21, 2017
A Scrum myth that I have encountered: Not finishing all Sprint Backlog Items in a Sprint is perceived as a failure. I have seen organizations go as far as implementing performance indicators around Sprint Backlog completion percentage (yikes!).
Blog Post
How Scrum Motivates People
February 21, 2017
The Scrum roles connect with the three drivers of motivation: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Discover how.
Blog Post
Scrum Myth: Scrum projects are faster and cheaper
February 14, 2017
This myth is my favorite. There are three challenges with this myth.
First, it misses the point of Scrum.
Second, it sets teams up for failure.
Third, it's impossible to prove.
Blog Post
So, you wanna be a Scrum Master?
February 13, 2017
Per a January 20th, 2017 article by Daniel Shapero, VP of Talent Solutions and Careers at LinkedIn, the role of Scrum Master is in high demand. It’s ranked number 10 on his list of most promising jobs of 2017.
Blog Post
Scrum Myths: Sprint Backlog fully built and assigned in Sprint Planning
February 13, 2017
Let’s start with a question. When is the Sprint Planning over? Usually, the first answer that comes to mind is “when the time-box expires”. It is a good answer. However, Sprint Planning is a maximal time-box.
Blog Post
"What's a good code coverage to have?"
February 10, 2017
“What is a good speed to drive?”. The answer depends on a lot of things like: where do you drive (in a residential area, on a highway), are there speed limits, what are the weather conditions, etc.
Blog Post
Small batch delivery & big batch finance how to speak the language of forecasting
February 9, 2017
Your team has been trained and coached to deliver new chunks of software in a short time frame. Those using Scrum will be able to deliver in a Sprint. Those using Kanban will deliver as soon as their small feature is done.
Blog Post
Can you find the 3 smells in "I added a Refactoring Story for the next Cleanup Sprint?"
February 7, 2017
“I added a Refactoring Story for the next Cleanup Sprint”