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Facilitation Exercise for Scrum Team Accountabilities

September 6, 2022
The Scrum Team consists of three accountabilities: Developers, Product Owner, and Scrum Master. Yet Scrum Team accountabilities and responsibilities can be confusing, misunderstood, and lack shared understanding between its members and the organization. This exercise makes transparent the accountabilities of each team member by driving conversations about what team members agree on and where there are gaps. Use this exercise when new teams are formed, or when you see misunderstandings and knowledge gaps around Scrum Team accountabilities and expectations.
Blog Post

Retrospective First Principles

September 6, 2022
What is your take on the Retrospective: A routine exercise at the end of a Sprint, supported by standard operating procedures? Or a critical part of a Scrum team’s journey of continuous improvement?
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What to do when your team is not living the Scrum values

September 5, 2022
The values set out in the Scrum framework are essential because they help us to navigate complex work environments as a team. At first glance, they appear straightforward but living the Scrum Values each day is challenging whether this is your first or fiftieth Sprint together. If you’re a Scrum Master struggling with this issue, you are definitely not alone. In this discussion, I’ll outline why the Scrum values matter, how to determine if they are at risk on your team, why this happens, and how to get things back on track.
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Scrum Master Pitfalls: Mistakes to Avoid

August 30, 2022
The Scrum Master is basically a Project Manager right? Nope. Think beyond running Scrum events and taking notes. There is a lot more to being a master of Scrum. Discover what a Scrum Master is AND isn’t and learn the importance of self-management.
Blog Post

Agile Leadership Myths and how to move past them

August 30, 2022
The best Scrum teams that I have worked with were supported by management leaders focused on removing impediments, providing resources, and promoting an agile mindset and culture that supports the Scrum values. It’s not an easy job. Making it more challenging are the agile leadership myths out there that can get in the way of being effective. In this article, we’ll look at three common agile leadership myths and how to move past them.

¿Cómo construyo un equipo multifuncional?

August 28, 2022
Muchas veces me preguntan lo siguiente: ¿Qué es un equipo multifuncional? ¿Qué es un equipo multidisciplinar? La respuesta es que un equipo multifuncional es un grupo de personas con una variedad de conocimientos que se unen para lograr un objetivo común. Por lo general, los empleados de todos los niveles de una organización hacen que esa organización sea multifuncional. ¿Tiene tu organización equipos multifuncionales? ¿Cómo de disfuncionales son?

Mito: El Product Owner toma decisiones sobre los cambios en el Sprint Backlog

August 25, 2022
El Product Owner no toma la decisión final sobre los cambios en el Sprint Backlog pero puede negociar con los Desarrolladores para lograr lo mejor para el producto y los clientes. Durante el Sprint el Sprint Backlog puede cambiar, los Desarrolladores pueden descubrir nuevo trabajo o el Product Owner puede darse cuenta de que un elemento urgente del Product Backlog se debe agregar. Si bien es cierto que pueden existir muchos escenarios que ameriten cambiar el Sprint Backlog está decisión del cambio corresponder a los Desarrolladores.
Blog Post

Too stressed to be creative?

August 25, 2022
Innovation and creativity are crushed by common organizational practices. Urgency, stress, multitasking, back-to-back meetings, all contribute to the issue. Break the rut by creating intentional space for innovation and unlock your creativity.

Facilitation Tips for Daily Scrum

August 24, 2022
So you recently started using Scrum and are struggling to get the most out of the Scrum events? Or, maybe your journey with Scrum has been going on for some time and you still feel that something is missing in your meetings. I hear you! It might be challenging to switch from well known and understood habits and practices, and introduce changes to your process of complex problem solving. In this blog post you will find some tips and tricks that will boost facilitation of your Daily Scrum. Perhaps some of the tools and techniques will help you when facilitating other events too.

El Scrum Master como facilitador

August 22, 2022
La facilitación se enfoca en ayudar a crear un entorno saludable y de seguridad donde las personas puedas generar ideas en forma creativa y de usar los diferentes puntos de vista para lograr soluciones definidas en un trabajo en equipo. Las técnicas de facilitación junto con los valores pueden potenciar la forma de llevar a cabo los eventos de Scrum, sus resultados y la autogestión durante el Sprint.
Blog Post

The balance of power in Scrum

August 22, 2022
I think of the three accountabilities in the Scrum framework as creating a balance of power.  But what happens when an individual fulfilling one (or more!) of the accountabilities in Scrum gets a bit — um — power hungry?  In this article, we will discuss a few examples of how people fulfilling each of the three accountabilities can overstep their bounds. 
Blog Post

Why is my Daily Scrum taking more than 15 minutes?

August 18, 2022
Daily Scrum events are filled with 3 questions and meandering discussions about tickets that are in progress. Too many topics and not enough time is the typical opinion. So, how about that Sprint Goal? Likely it’s missing or it’s the token “get all the work done” goal. Stop dividing and conquering. Create a legitimate Sprint Goal and collectively measure progress. When you have a good Sprint Goal, 15 minutes is plenty of time to make a collective plan for the day.
Blog Post

A Facilitator as an (Event) Value Maximiser 

August 18, 2022
Many new Scrum Masters need help to gain facilitation skills to leverage the potential of diverse perspectives within their team. By improving facilitation, it should also help to improve the interactions within Scrum events and also improve participatory decision making. The purpose of this blog post is to dispel some myths around facilitation, namely what it is and who does it. It will also provide some top tips to immediately improve your facilitation skillset. 
Blog Post

Wie du dich auf die PSU-Zertifizierung vorbereiten kannst

August 18, 2022
Zertifiziert zu sein ist mittlerweile ein notwendiges Übel, um als Scrum Master eine gute Stelle zu erhalten. Neben einer relevanten Berufserfahrung sind Zertifizierungen das Kriterium, auf welches Recruiter achten. Kein Wunder also, dass mich in letzter Zeit immer mehr Anfragen mit der Frage erreichen: „Simon, wie kann ich mich am besten auf die PSU-Prüfung vorbereiten?“ Den Wunsch nach einer PSU-Zertifizierung kann ich gut nachvollziehen. Da es in Deutschland nur 2126 PSU-Zertifizierte, aber 483198 PSM-Zertifizierte gibt, stichst du mit einer solchen Zertifizierung aus der breiten Masse der Scrum Master heraus. Wie kannst du dich also auf die Prüfung vorbereiten? Bei meiner Antwort unterscheide ich zwischen zwei Personengruppen.
Blog Post

Start by Doing It Badly

August 17, 2022
The empirical process—and its three pillars of transparency, inspection and adaptation—involves checking where you are at by doing something, seeing how you did compared to what you were trying to do, and devising and carrying out experiments (practicing, if you will) to try and get closer to your desired outcome. This is the process that Scrum is designed to take you through with its framework, and we’d be remiss if we did not apply this same process to our learning. Learning is after all a complex problem.
Blog Post

What are Epics and Features?

August 16, 2022
Epics and features are complementary Scrum practices that some Product Owners use to organize their Product Backlog. Like a folder structure, they are a convenient way to group PBIs into meaningful groups.
Blog Post

5 Mythen über die Skalierung von Scrum

August 15, 2022
Scrum zu skalieren bedeutet für verschiedene Menschen verschiedene Dinge. Woran liegt das? Ich vermute, es liegt daran, dass immer noch so viele Halbwahrheiten kursieren. Diese Mythen sind so vorherrschend, dass ich sie auch in jedem meiner Scaled Professional Scrum Trainings und auf Vorträgen ansprechen und berichtigen muss. Hier die fünf weitverbreiteten Mythen im Überblick und wie du sie entkräften kannst.
Blog Post

Agile Principles – Simplicity

August 12, 2022
This post is the first in an ongoing series revisiting the principles behind the Agile Manifesto. This post is focused on the following important principle – “Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.”