Community Blog

Many Scrum teams have a regular meeting scheduled on everyone’s calendar, even though it is not an official Scrum event.

Over the last year Steve Trapps and I have been chatting to people in the Agile community, in case you haven't seen it yet here is the output from our opportunity to grab Dave West the CEO and Product Owner for Scrum.org.

Las organizaciones se enfrentan a clientes que piensan que pueden demandar lo que quieran, hay que darles lo que piden y todo se puede hacer con el nivel de presión adecuado.

For executives and for change agents who deal with executives in large contexts ...

Why not spend a part of your upcoming Sprint Retrospective to re-clarify the purpose of Scrum?

DevOps es un área de mi interés desde hace varios años. En Diciembre de 2014, en la CAS de Barcelona, di una charla en Inglés sobre la experiencia haciendo que DevOps fuera uno de los pilares de la agilidad en la DVLA -Una suerte de DGT británica-.

El Sprint Backlog suele generar bastantes dudas en cuanto a su gestión. En ocasiones se convierte en un arma arromadiza que los stakeholders, el Product Owner o incluso el Scrum Master utilizan para controlar el equipo. ¿Es esta su función?

TL; DR: Ideas on How to Improve Your Product Backlog Management Techniques Scrum is a simple, yet sufficient framework to build emerging products, provided you identify in advance what is worth building.

In this blog post, I’ll share examples of how I experienced a Developer Culture, being a Scrum Master working with Development Teams.

As CEO and Product Owner for Scrum.org I get the amazing opportunity to visit lots of different companies. Recently I spent a week in Brazil visiting some amazing companies and talking about agility.

En Nexus no se requiere una reunión “Scrum of Scrums” ya que se usa el Nexus Daily Scrum. El Nexus Integration Team tiene la responsabilidad de gestionar las dependencias de un Nexus y es un equipo dedicado a esta labor entre otras responsabilidades.

La aceptación de los PBIs en Scrum es algo que suscita dudas en los equipos. En realidad es muy fácil.

Scrum Masters, ask yourself - Are you a natural servant leader, or do you struggle to be the inspiring coach that creates high-performing teams? If you have a real desire to change and are ready for some tough self-reflection, this article may inspire you, and give you hope that you can influence major changes, by starting with things that are within your control.

Velocity, as a metric used by some Scrum teams, is rife with trouble. David's concise article highlights a common pitfall.

If technical debt is the plague of our industry, why isn’t the Scrum Guide addressing the question of who is responsibly dealing with it?

Writing code is like finding your path through a dark forest. Behind each tree can lurk a monster, a treasure or a pit. Or there is no path at all.

Scrum cumplió 21 años en 2016. Ya tiene edad legal para comprar alcohol en la mayoría de estados americanos. Y durante este tiempo ha crecido mucho. Con muchos cambios.

A few months ago we looked at how teams can optimize flow across the Sprint boundary, a technique which is founded on their ability to make limited and sustainable commitments.

Critical Uncertainties is a powerful Liberating Structure helping groups develop strategies for dealing with plausible yet unpredictable futures. Strategy-making is an essential part of successful software-/product delivery with Scrum. With Critical Uncertainties, teams have an interaction pattern at hand that can support them create resilient strategies.

We've all seen it. The Scrum Team that goes through the motions, implements all the mechanics of Scrum, and still when we look at what's going on it doesn't feel right.

During a recent meetup of The Liberators Network, we got together with 30 enthusiastic Scrum Masters.

"I am a project manager.  What is my role now that we are moving to Scrum?”

A personal story of what encouraged a Developer Culture at NowOnline. And why Scrum really doesn't work without it.

I keep hearing leaders say they’re struggling to manage their organizations through change. They’ve had trouble getting their organization to adopt agile. They’re finding it challenging to find the right talent. They’re struggling to establish the right level of transparency.

If you’re new to Scrum and want to get the most out of a team of under-performers, you should try Scrum!!

An organization’s ability to rapidly and deliberately respond to changing demand, while controlling risk helps ascertain its Agility.

The following 5 tips to increase the Emotional Intelligence of a Product Owner as inspired from Scott Watson’s work, an emotional intelligence speaker and trainer.

In the previous videos, I introduced the Creative reframing technique and discussed 2 Strategies for its practical use. In this final video, I will discuss several activities that agile coaches can use with their teams or clients to make use of the Creative reframing technique.

Your organization has been disturbed by late launches in its last few new products, and now management has charged you with “getting to the bottom of the problem.”

As a Scrum Master, I know that serving Development Team, Product Owner and Organization to adopt Scrum is not easy.

When a lot of organizations are transitioning from the way they used to work to a more cross-functional, agile squad way of working, they usually look for scaling frameworks to help them do it.

In the previous video, I spoke about the creative reframing technique, that coaches could use as a facilitation or professional coaching tool.

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?

Sanjay Saini, owner of Agile WOW("Agile Ways of Working"), kindly invited me, as an independent Scrum Caretaker, to open and close the event. I hope many Scrum practitioners register at scrumdayindia.org and join the event. In the end, only eager attendants can turn events into insightful experiences!

Creative reframing is an excellent facilitation and professional coaching technique that allows you to explore problems from various, sometimes unusual and unexpected angles.

Saying no is an integral part of any Product Owner's job. In this short video, I explore the reasons why we might be saying yes when no is a more appropriate answer (these reasons are from a great book by Dominica DeGrandis Make Work Visible) and how to say No when you need to.

My mother was the first person who showed me unconditional love. My mother gave me direction and supported me along whatever journey or passion I was chasing. She picked me up when I fell. Celebrated with me in all my accomplishments.

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.

It was 8:59 am on Monday. It was another week which I thought was going to be amazing. Last week our company just closed another round of investment. The company is currently strategizing to scale agility throughout the company.

Overcome common transformation mistakes and enhance your agility.

Companies who build hardware often ask if it’s possible to benefit from Scrum. In order to answer this question, I need to first introduce you to my friend Risk.

It is not against the rules of Scrum Framework for a person taking the Scrum Master role also be a member of the Development Team. I've been there. In this post I intend to highlight some of the challenges in form of conflicts of interests that prevents a Scrum Master to coach effectively while being a Development Team member.

When organizations begin their journey toward agility, they think the business outcomes will become instantaneous. They expect the initial decision to lead to immediate success.

The Scrum Master is often expected to facilitate and animate every Scrum events. But, according to the Scrum Guide, the role of the Scrum Master regarding the different events is to ensure that the event takes place and that attendants understand its purpose.

This article provides five examples of how Liberating Structures are valuable for Scrum Masters.

A Sprint Goal is an objective set for the Sprint that can be met through the implementation of Product Backlog (cit. Scrum Guide). Have you clearly defined a Sprint Goal at the end of your Sprint Planning? Is this Sprint Goal understandable and transparent to everyone? Is it defined in a way that provides guidance and flexibility to the Development Team? The aim of this article is to raise awareness on the importance of having a Sprint Goal defined and to provide some suggestions on how to create one.

A paradox is something that is seemlingly absurd but really true. When I experience complexity and uncertainty, I find comfort and power in paradox. It opens up creativity, possibility, and collaboration. Let's take a look at 4 paradoxes we need to navigate in the agile world and beyond.

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.

A couple of years ago I blogged on Innovation Accounting in Scrum, and the bringing of empiricism to Product Ownership. On Tuesday I gave a presentation on this topic to the Agile Northants UK meetup. There was a pretty good Q&A afterwards.

I collected lots of feedback from different students around Europe that attended my Professional Scrum Developer Training. Here some photos to give you an idea...