Resources

In this webinar, Professional Scrum Trainer Ravi Verma will share some common real-world challenges his clients and students have faced in their Sprint Reviews and ten adjustments that have helped them overcome these challenges. As a bonus, if you submit your most burning question about Sprint Review facilitation, we will try to customize our content to address your needs.

As a new Scrum Master what are some of the things you might want to consider to help you on the amazing journey ahead.

Would Wayne be a good Scrum Master? If you're familiar with the Hulu show "Letterkenny", then you most likely already have an opinion. You be the judge on if Wayne's catchphrases set him up for success in his interview for a Scrum Master role.

The latest chapter of the Scrum Master interview guide addresses the Sprint Review. So far, the interview guide has been downloaded more than 23,000 times.

While many people are practicing Scrum, practicing it effectively requires something more than just following the mechanics and fundamentals of the framework. Professional Scrum helps teams get out of that mechanical, going through the motions habit when it comes to Scrum. In this Scrum Pulse webinar, Eric Naiburg, COO, Scrum.org walks the audience through how Professional Scrum is different and how it requires the Scrum Values, mindset techniques for ways of working and thinking, focusing on outcomes and an environment that supports Professional Scrum including trust.

A self-managing team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How can your Scrum Master support this? Check it out!

When Scrum Teams constantly push back on changing priorities, stakeholders begin to blame Scrum for the rigidity. Teams with large investments of time and energy are resistant to change. Break up this rigidity by delivering the smallest possible value. Get feedback quicker. Start anticipating change and embrace it.

In this Ask a PST session moderated by Leslie Morse, you will get answers from Professional Scrum Trainers Stephanie Ockerman and Steve Trapps who frequently leverage the coaching stance when working with their clients. 

In this vlog, PST Joshua Partogi breaks down the 8 hats the Scrum Master wears as a true leader who serves. This topic is discussed in the Professional Scrum Master course with case studies.

Building a product sometimes feels like an endless race, head down, pedal to the metal, let's build it! We all run after something and as a team incrementing our product to be the best possible set of functionalities our users ever wanted, at some point we get out of breath Sprinting. As Scrum Master and Coach I often have to remind people that our goal is not to run but build a pace we can be confortable with for a long period of time, a sustainable pace.

Liberate your Sprint Review from being just a demo. There is much more to it than that! I'm sharing eight things you should do in the Sprint Review

7 Do-it-yourself workshops and experiments to discover new valuable features through experiments, field testing, and research.

In my last article, I explained why we need to stop talking about "carryover" and how it's not actually a thing in Scrum. "Carryover" is really just partially done work at the end of a Sprint. Now I will take you deeper and share the 4 common misunderstandings often associated with this concept, and how we can make the shift to creating better conversations about what really matters.

How effective are your Scrum Events if you can't even book a room? This is an issue that many teams in real life are struggling with. In this blog, I'll share an approach that one of my teams is currently experimenting with, and it seems to be working for them. This blog aims to utilize all the learnings that we had to do due to Covid-19 and use them in today's reality. Maybe it's useful, maybe it isn't.

In this short video, PST Joshua Partogi explains why Scrum Master cannot be compared to Agile Coach

As the demand for Scrum continues to grow, more people are considering a switch to being a Scrum Master. Changing jobs and careers is a big step. How can you know if it will be the right move for you?

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer, PSTs Alex Gbaguidi, Romuald Franck Kenmeugne Tchuinkam and Samuel Adesoga, all of whom primarily focus on work in Africa, answer your burning questions about Scrum and the challenges you or your teams may be facing. They also will be available to answer questions focused on the use of Agile and Scrum specifically in Africa.

In this vlog, PST Joshua Partogi visualises what the Scrum Master do all day using the 8 Scrum Master hats.

How can the Scrum Master become that True Agile Leader, helping the organization to become more Agile?

One of the things I struggled with at the start of my Scrum Master journey was building consensus in the team. Wanting to stay objective, give everyone space and time whilst still craving for a decision was a challenge for me. My own indecisiveness with regards to how to handle this ultimately did not serve the teams I worked with well as discussions did not seem to go anywhere and decision making was slow. Over time I learned that there are actually many already existing useful techniques that help with consensus building, and when and how to use them depends on the context and the situation you are in. Here are a few that have served me well as a facilitator.

One of the primary purposes of a retrospective is to create action items, but it’s not uncommon to come up with action items that aren’t actionable.  They’re aspirational.  This blog gives you some ways to ensure your retrospectives have actionable items.

A critical, evidence-based reflection on a hunch that Scrum Masters may often be more concerned with the quality of the process than the value of its outcomes.

In this Scrum Pulse Webinar, Professional Scrum Trainer Mary Iqbal outlines each Scrum Value and provide examples of how these can help your team practice Professional Scrum. In doing so she explores Professional Scrum and how it differs from mechanical Scrum.

What’s the problem with working without purpose? Can you do it? Sure. You can do it, but I mean...

Some time ago, whilst discussing this topic with my fellow Professional Scrum.org Trainer Todd Miller, he shared his experience with using White Elephant principles to enable a participative facilitation environment (thanks Todd!). It inspired me to use it and write this blog. 

In this blog series, we’ll share the gaps that many Scrum Masters face as they work to become better agile leaders and Scrum professionals. We’ll call out biases and misperceptions and also offer suggestions on how to overcome these challenges in order to influence change.

Powerful Product Owner. It sounds like a threat, isn’t it?  Anyone overpowering affects the whole team’s activity and outcome. No wonder this affects retrospectives as well. 

Once the team has selected a point system, they need to decide which types of items to classify as a 1, 2, and so on. In this article, we will provide an exercise that can help your team create a point system organically no matter what’s in the Product Backlog.

Scrum is by far the most popular framework these days. In fact, the 15th Annual State of Agile shows that 66% of respondees use this particular framework.

Practical ideas on how to improve Scrum, personally.

This e-Book contains 50 of the most frequently asked questions during Professional Scrum Master training courses conducted by Xebia Academy. This is a handy book for both novice and more experienced Scrum Masters. It is co-written by Professional Scrum Trainers Evelien Roos and Laurens Bonnema.

Scrum itself is a simple framework for effective team collaboration on complex products. While it is lightweight and simple to understand, it can be difficult to apply effectively. The Scrum.org Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer series, features Professional Scrum Trainers (PSTs) in a live session, answering your most pressing questions regarding the challenges and situations your Scrum Teams are facing.

Three simple retrospective formats based on the Liberating Structures "Conversation Cafe", "Troika Consulting", and "Discovery & Action Dialogue"

An exploration of the color theory of change, and how it illustrates a bias in our community that may explain our failure to enact meaningful change

In this post, I share a few questions you, as a manager - or any other stakeholder, can ask Product Owners and the rest of the Scrum Team to support them in doing the right thing.

In this podcast Professional Scrum Trainer Joshua Partogi shared how Scrum Masters can propel agility in the company by demonstrating behaviours that reflect the Scrum Values.

Why is the Scrum Master Role So Uncomfortable? Ryan and Todd discuss the hectic life of a Professional Scrum Master and their challenges when confronting complexity in an organization.

In this panel discussion moderated by Leslie Morse, Product Owner, Scrum.org, you will learn from Professional Scrum Trainers Olivier Ledru and Bogdan Doroslovac as well as ICF Master Certified Coach Cherie Silas as they discuss their personal journeys with professional coaching. They will reveal how they came to the idea of bringing  coaching skills to their lives, how they went about it and what changed in their lives as a result of that decision. This discussion will focus on how coaching helps them in working with individuals, teams and organizations. They will also give an insight into what they would have wanted to know before they stepped on their coaching journey.

If you are familiar with Scrum.org, you may associate the organization with Professional Scrum and/or Professional Scrum Training Courses and Certifications. Behind those hands-on training courses are highly qualified Professional Scrum Trainers (PSTs), who go through a rigorous process to take their real world Scrum experience and create value for Scrum.org students. In several episodes of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, our host and Scrum.org CEO Dave West interviews Professional Scrum Trainers about their experiences that led to their becoming a PST and exploring what Professional Scrum means to them. In this episode, Dave interviews PST Ryan Brook based in the UK about his experiences. (17:06 Minutes)

The reasons Scrum Masters violate the spirit of the Scrum Guide are multi-faceted. Typical Scrum Master anti-patterns run from ill-suited personal traits to complacency to pursuing individual agendas to frustration with the team itself.

A self-managing team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How can this happen during your Daily Scrum? Check it out!

Three simple retrospective formats based on the Liberating Structures "Conversation Cafe", "Troika Consulting", and "Discovery & Action Dialogue"

When you aspire to a Scrum Master role, some form of certification on your resume is a must. Scrum.org offers the acclaimed PSM learning journey to support Scrum Masters to professionalise their skills. I am a Professional Scrum Trainer for scrum.org and I have trained hundreds of Scrum Masters over the past few years.  Newcomers start their career with a PSM-I class to gain an understanding of Professional Scrum and the essence of the role of the Scrum Master. I observe that many experienced Scrum Masters hesitate to join a PSM-II class. Possibly that's because it is unclear to many what the PSM-II training has to offer.

If you are a Star Wars fan like me, then you know that Star Wars is more than a story; it’s an Epic which holds many important life lessons.  Below are the top five things I learned about Scrum from Star Wars.

In several episodes of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, our host and Scrum.org CEO Dave West interviews Professional Scrum Trainers about their experiences that led to their becoming a PST and exploring what Professional Scrum means to them. In this episode, Dave interviews PST Stefan Wolpers, based in Germany.

In this interactive session, Richard Kasperowski from With Great People, lays out the case for Continuous / Extreme Teaming. Session participants will join in a flight of fun learning activity-sets. These will give you a taste of team awesomeness and how to start when you go back to work.

How to support Scrum Teams to effectively bridge the gap between their current and desired state

Agile implementations shift culture, yet many organizations limit themselves to the bare minimal execution of a framework and call that Agile.

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainers Todd Miller and Ryan Ripley answer the audience's burning questions about Scrum and the challenges they are facing including questions around metrics, Scrum Team dynamics, the Scrum Values, Scrum Master tips and more.

The Professional Agile Leader is a realistic, practical guide, written by three Scrum pioneers who demonstrate proven ways to foster responsive and adaptive team cultures. They structure powerful lessons around a case study based on decades of experience helping agile leaders achieve and sustain transformations. Their strategic deep dives reveal how to rediscover the customer, shift from output to impact, convert predictable existential crises into opportunities, grow leaders everywhere, and much more. Best of all, they never settle for high-level hand-waving--they show you how it's really done.