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Every Sprint starts with a Sprint Planning event. It is very crucial to ensure that the Scrum Team comes to a shared understanding of what and how are they going to deliver a “Done” increment that creates maximum business impact.

The premise of Lean Coffee is relatively straight forwarded. Like-minded people that want to create or discuss something they care about use this tool to organize their conversations.

A question that frequently comes up in my Scrum Training courses is how to define a product.

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.  

As a servant leader, a Scrum Master focuses on the needs of others, before her/his needs...

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.

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.

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.

Bob and Carl Ferro are the proud owners of Nick’s Bar and Grill in Hollywood Beach since 1980 and this place is an institution in this South Florida beach town to say the least.

You have a big heart and a lot of determination, and you want to create a better world. That may mean empowering and supporting your team.

Recently I ran into a beautiful piece of text, written by Rachel Naomi Remin. In this text I read the following phrase:"Perhaps the secret of living well is not in having all the answers, but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company"

Some people just happen to learn more from short movie clips. And they can be a great way to bring some humor in. Also available as a Youtube Playlist.

Scrum requires a self-organized team to deliver "done" increments at the end of each Sprint. This peculiarity sometimes raises criticisms and questions when it is discussed in trainings or when coaching the clients: how can a team work without a leader? How are we going to do our job, if no one tells us what or how to do it?

Hello awesome people. It's me again with new learnings from the trenches. In our Professional Scrum Master and Professional Scrum Master II classes, we talk about several stances that the Scrum Master uses to improve organisation agility to deliver valuable products. 

This is a common question in my Professional Scrum classes.  It often comes up early when we are still learning the basics of the Scrum Framework.  And it comes up because people are already splitting their time between multiple Scrum Teams or are being told by their organizations that they will be.

In my Professional Scrum classes, I always get asked about best practices.  It may be about facilitating events, Product Backlog refinement, defining value, forming Scrum Teams, or creating good Sprint Goals.

Warning - this post is not about Scrum. It is about Technical Debt in my home!!! Please do not judge me!!

Many Scrum Teams are not very familiar with the Scrum Values as described in the Scrum Guide, and if, they have their own interpretation of it. We have also met many teams that were able to name the values, but not many live by them.

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

This is a common question in my Professional Scrum classes. It often comes up early when we are still learning the basics of the Scrum framework. And it comes up because people are already wearing two hats or are being told by their organizations that they will be.

We have already reached the halfway point in our Scrummer Quiz. Today is the start of round 3 of 5. Summer + Scrum = Scrummer.

This is a common question in my Professional Scrum classes. The topic of combining Scrum roles often comes up early when we are still learning the basics of the Scrum framework.  It comes up because people are already wearing two hats or are being told that they will be.

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?

Changing the way we work is extremely difficult — we all know this. It requires us to find novel solutions to wicked challenges, to deal with cultural baggage (‘the way we do things here’) and to bring along the people needed to make a change successful.

Scrum Masters are often understood mostly as “team coaches”. Yet, their role is vastly more important. The Scrum Guide emphasizes that Scrum Masters are responsible for leading and coaching organizations in the adoption of Scrum and causing change that increases the productivity of the Scrum Team.

As a Professional Scrum Trainer for Scrum.org I get to think about the Definition of "Done" and its meaning a lot.

A few days ago, I was observing a Sprint Retrospective. The Scrum Team decided to work on the Definition of Done (DoD), identified as the most important topic to adapt for the next Sprint. The discussions were open and animated, when an unexpected discussion emerged during the session.

The 2019 Scrum Master Trends Report by Scrum.org and the State of Agile 2018 shows numbers that provide insight in the maturity of agile adoptions.

In 2016 the Scrum Values were added to the Scrum Guide. In this article I share a workshop I run several times, with excellent feedbacks, hoping that you'll see value in reusing it in your working environment.

As people become more empowered and capable of taking ownership of their process and executing on their decisions, the next area to focus is raisin

Now that we’ve covered the essentials of self-organization and intrinsic motivation, let’s dive into how you make decisions that enable and empower others.

Servant-leaders must create a strong foundation that helps people feel empowered to take action, enables them to move forward in a common direction despite uncertainty, and to feel inspired and resourceful during challenging times.  The 4 V’s can help you establish this strong foundation:  Vision, Values, Value, Validation.

As of November 2018, there are 181,000 certified Professional Scrum Masters (PSM I) around the globe, but only 2,400 individuals that went for the next level Scrum Master certificate, often referred to it as an advanced Professional Scrum Master or PSM II.

В 1970 году Роберт Гринлиф дал рождение парадоксальному термину “лидер-слуга”. Кажется, что слова “лидер” и “слуга” кажутся противоположностями друг другу. Но в этой парадоксальности заложен глубокий смысл.

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

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.

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.

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.

"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 - 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.

What we avoid is still being processed and affecting our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.  Sometimes we are aware this is running in the background, and we catch ourselves thinking about it.  Then we try to distract ourselves.  Often we don’t even have awareness, and the effects still show up.

People who attend the PSM course or the Professional Scrum Foundations (PSF) course are given two attempts at passing the Professional Scrum Master I assessment.

Vor kurzem haben die beiden Autoren des Artikels sich einmal mehr mit der Frage beschäftigt, wie sich erfolgreiche und weniger erfolgreiche Teams unterscheiden und was die Erfolgsfaktoren für erfolgreiche Teams sind.

One of the most common questions I am asked in my Professional Scrum Master (PSM) courses and in coaching engagements is: How do we build trust?

This is it.  The last in a five-part series about the Scrum Values.