Resources

There is a lot going on when it comes to delivering complex products in an uncertain and constantly changing world. In this webinar, Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer Stephanie Ockerman will break it down to 5 ways Scrum Teams can discover their opportunities to improve the many different aspects of their process.

If I were to summarize the purpose of a Sprint, I would say that it’s to deliver a Done, usable increment that meets the Sprint Goal.

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer, John Coleman answers the audience's burning questions about Scrum and the challenges their teams are facing. He answers questions about Product Goals, Sprint Goals, Refinement, Team Dynamics, Performance metrics, Scrum with Kanban and more!

If you are looking to fill a position for a Scrum Master (or agile coach) in your organization, you may find the following 54 interview questions useful to identify the right candidate.

One frequent question that I often get from candidates that I train is - Venkatesh, what is the career path of a Scrum Master? I am a Scrum Master now. How can I build my career to the next level?

Every Scrum Team is different. Even when two teams seem to have similar challenges, similar products, and similar environment, they would not be actually the same. So your approach will change depending on the situation. This blog post gives suggestions on how to assess your teams.

Do We Need Agile Coaches when Practicing Scrum? I do believe that this construct is flawed: When practicing Scrum correctly, Scrum Masters are all you ever need.

It is a common question that do we still need a Scrum Master for a mature Scrum Team. I would like to use the metaphor of a Soccer Referee to explain.

Each Scrum Event serves Inspection, the second pillar of Empiricism. So does the Sprint itself. How? Find out ...

It's hard to be a good Scrum Master. It's even harder to be a great Scrum Master! So, what sort of things should you be doing to be great? Here are some Scrum Master tips to help you get started on day one in a new job.

There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Since Scrum is an intentionally incomplete framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone.

According to the 15th annual State of Agile report, there has been a tremendous increase in the adoption of agile frameworks over the last year. Within software teams, agile adoption grew from 37% in 2020 to 86% in 2021.

This workshop was delivered on 19th August 2021 and focused on introducing the core concepts of Scrum & Empiricism. I used a combination of Liberating Structures, Microsoft Teams, and Mural to deliver an interactive session.

What is an Agile Coach? Are Scrum Masters agile coaches? How do they coach teams, the Product Owner and the enterprise?

Velocity has become a word specifically associated with measuring how well a Scrum Team is doing. This metric is often associated with negative feeling new Scrum Teams are feeling towards Agile in general.

On a recent episode of Your Daily Scrum, Professional Scrum Trainers Todd Miller and Ryan Ripley address a prevalent question in Scrum circles: What is the Best Scrum Master Certification Path?

In a recent blog post, I addressed whether a Can Scrum Master and a Product Owner be the same person? You can remember the answer from the blog; Even though it is not outright in the Scrum Guide but not a recommended option.

Of late, I've been noticing an interpretation of the Scrum Master role - the Scrum Master as An FFFCDO for Developers - a Fierce, Ferocious, Fearsome Chief Defense Officer!

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Chuck Suscheck uses a simple exercise to explore how silence can be valuable to those doing work and why it is important for a Scrum Master for example to sometimes remain quiet rather than over explaining. (4:35 Minutes)

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Ryan Brook describes the Daily Scrum, ways to facilitate it, examples of discussion and outcomes, and why it is such an important event in Scrum. (3:42 Minutes)

When using the Scrum framework, the Retrospective is the final event in a Sprint.

How effectively a Nexus works depends on its ability to eliminate dependencies. Eliminating dependencies simplifies integration. Scrum Masters who efficiently perform cross-team refinements save time. Saving time saves money. 

In March 2021, I was conversing with a CTO of a Product based company. He asked me a question that if it was worth employing a Scrum Master. We discussed the topic by exchanging opinions, and I explained my viewpoint.

I interviewed a Scrum Master candidate last week. This blog is inspired by him.

One of my favorite sayings is “Inspection without adaptation is waste”. For continuous improvement it is important not only to identify things that did not go so well but to also change something in the way you are working. If you change nothing, the inspection did not have an impact at all and is a waste of time and energy.

What transparency can the Scrum Master bring to the Scrum Team and the stakeholders of your product? Transparency, being one of the core underlying concepts of the Scrum framework, we can expect the Scrum Master to actively work on this.

Does the role of the Scrum Master go away with time? For addressing the doubt, first, understand the role of a Scrum Master clearly. 

Every company has customer focus in its vision or mission statement, but is it really? As an employee of a development team, how do I know if this is the case?

When we introduce Scrum to an organization, many people are skeptical of the monetary benefits and ROI of the Scrum Master position. The question I am often asked is - "How do you justify the salary of the Scrum Master?"

Can a Scrum Team simply decide to abandon Scrum? After all, the Scrum team is self-managing, according to the Scrum manual, also known as the Scrum Guide. So, let’s explore this question at the very heart of team autonomy.

A Scrum team consists of three clear accountabilities: one Scrum Master, one Product Owner, and Developers.  Often, when working with a Scrum team struggling with excessive conflict or a lack of trust, I find the cul

In this blog post, I share 10 success factors that emerged from a community meetup. These factors helped Scrum practitioners prevent or fix Zombie Scrum in their team and organization.

In 2020 and 2021, more than 1,153 participants from over 20 countries and organizations from less than 50 to more than 10,000 employees participated in a hands-on survey on agile metrics launched by Berlin-Product-People. The goal of this survey was to learn about who is using what agile metrics in which context to get a better understanding of how becoming agile is progressing at a team level or within an organization. Watch this webinar with Professional Scrum Trainer Stefan Wolpers and Dr. Alex Bergmann, Statistician to learn what they discovered!

Sprint Planning is an important event that has a significant impact on the team’s effectiveness and productivity during the Sprint.

This episode of the Xagility podcast with John Coleman brings you 5 years worth of research by the extremely knowledgeable Christiaan Verwijs and Dr Daniel Russo. Throughout the last half decade, these two have embarked on a journey to shed more light on what it is exactly that makes Scrum Teams effective whilst also debunking some of the common myths and thought patterns.

Although Scrum has been around for more than 25 years, it is still new to many. In this session, we provide an overview of the Scrum framework, discuss how Scrum enables agility and ways that empiricism can empower the teams that use it. Like with any form of process, there are myths that arise, during this session by Project Management Update with Eric Naiburg, COO, Scrum.org, many of these myths are dispelled using facts and real-world examples.

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are a powerful tool for setting and measuring goals, but like all power tools, they can come with great responsibility. Matt Hodgson, CEO and Executive Agile Coach of Zen Ex Machina and Patricia Kong, Product Owner of Enterprise Agility at Scrum.org will discuss how to use OKRs in informed ways, so that they can help organizations improve focus and lift outcomes. In this webinar, they will explore how to improve your use of OKRs by using Evidence-Based Management, an empirical framework developed by Scrum.org, including how to align OKRs with strategic goals, and why focusing objectives on activities and outputs leads to poorer results than focusing on outcomes.

Scrum Master Interview: Demand Creates Supply and the Job Market for Agile Practitioners is No Exception

Reflections and findings triggered by the experience interview with Jimmy Janlén.

Follow these six coaching tips and notice the change you can bring to your organisation.

How does the Increment supports Transparency? Transparency being one of the core underlying concepts of the Scrum framework. How can you use the Increment to raise transparency?

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer, Professional Scrum Trainer Punit Doshi answers audience questions about New Scrum Masters, metrics, Sprint Retrospectives, Sprint Planning and more!

What has served me well over the years is a combination of observation and asking questions. Congratulations on your new Scrum Master position! Now what?

If you’ve ever wondered whether Scrum can work for hard deadlines, the answer is – yes!  Not only can Scrum work in these situations, but in my experience, using this agile framework increases the probability of meeting challenging  deadlines.

Ever since Scrum Guide was updated last year in November 2020, throughout early 2021 I have been inspecting and adapting with several Scrum Teams on the most effective Product Goal.

A real-life example of how we facilitated an online Sprint Review.

Watching Euro2020, my daughter asked if a football coach could manage two teams at once.

This question comes up often: “I am a project manager and our company is moving to agile or Scrum, does that mean I will now become a Scrum Master?” In response, we hesitate and then give the unwelcomed answer of “It depends.” And it really does depend. The Scrum Master role is deep and wide. Scrum Masters need to support their teams while working with the rest of the people in their organizations to build awareness and enable greater agility. A Scrum Master’s job is not to manage a project or deliver status reports — duties that people associate with the role of a traditional project manager. As a matter of fact, Scrum Masters may not get involved in status reports at all. In this webinar, Eric Naiburg, COO, Scrum.org, will discuss the potential move to an agile way of working, the role of the Scrum Master, and what that means for people currently in the role of Project Manager.

Let me introduce you to an example sketch based on the Tuckman model of group dynamics I use in my Professional Scrum Master training classes to make the effort and cost of creating a Scrum Team easier understandable.

I was blessed with a partner who, on top of his skills as Agile coach, is a gifted graphic facilitator...