Appreciative Interviews (AI) is a Liberating Structure that helps identify enablers for success in less than one hour. By starting from what goes well - instead of what doesn’t. In this post we'll share examples of how we've applied this structures within our Scrum training and coaching engagements.

Here I am sitting in my hotel room while looking at my half-empty wine glass and the stars outside while preparing for my last Professional Scrum Master (PSM) class for the year 2017 and pondering about all of the classes I have facilitated over this year. PSM has been a transformational course for ...

Scrum is a framework that thrives on self-organizing teams. It gives you boundaries (e.g. time-box of a Sprint), clear accountabilities (e.g. Product Owner optimizes value), and goals (e.g. “Done” Increment). But it doesn’t tell you exactly how to do the work. Every Scrum Team needs to figure out...

System optimization: Upgrading Team Competencies When developing complex innovative products, the Development Team will have different a workload for each one of their members. The speed of the entire Development Team is often limited by the speed of the specialist with peak loads. To overcome th...

The latest release of the Scrum Guide is all about addressing common Scrum misunderstandings. In this blog post I will present the top 5 misconceptions that are set straight in this latest release of the Scrum Guide.

The Intent of Scrum Scrum allows development organisations to invest a little time at regular intervals to allow teams with autonomy over their work to identify and enact frequent, small improvements to the process and the plan. Over time, like regular payments into a savings account, these impro...

Today I facilitated the workshop "The Scrum Master as a Manager" at the conference "Agile Spain 2017" in Sevilla. In this blog post I'll share the outline of the workshop "The Scrum Master as a Manager". This gives you the opportunity to facilitate the workshop within your own organisation as well.

In this blog post I'll share my view on the Scrum Master as the Change Leader. I'll briefly describe the common misunderstandings and the preferred stances of the Scrum Master. The services a Scrum Master provides for the Development Team, Product Owner and organisation, and the 3 levels that can be...

We describe the myth that the Scrum Master should always be present during the Daily Scrum. We'll offer the perspective from the Scrum Guide, describe examples of problems in how Scrum is applied and share tips & tricks on how to make the Daily Scrum more effective.

Hay una secuencia lógica que aquellos alumnos que han asistido al curso de Professional Scrum Master experimentan: Darse cuenta que Scrum no es en muchas ocasiones lo que ellos pensaban. Preguntarse qué hace el Scrum Master todo el día. Y una tercera que revelaré más adelante.

In this article, I suggest that you take a look at the role of a Scrum Master with a help of causal loop diagrams. They help to see a bigger picture of what is happening over time. Quite often, we observe the cause-and-effect relationships on a short-time horizon period, and do not notice when the l...

En su reciente reporte anual, LinkedIn ha considerado el de Scrum Master como uno de los trabajos con más futuro del 2017. Con un salario medio anual de 100.000$, el número de puestos disponibles para Scrum Masters está previsto que se duplique este año.

This blog post will be about the question "Should a Scrum Master be technical?". I'll describe my personal journey, share some opinions of other experiences and give you some examples of Technical Scrum Masters I've worked with.

Most of the Agile transformations I have witnessed have started like this: First, a company raises a strategic initiative on so-called Agile implementation. A large budget is allocated and a tender is arranged to purchase Agile coaching services from companies on the market. Then employees are train...

I hear it all the time. Whether it is a consulting engagement or in a Professional Scrum Course, the desire to modify Scrum comes up frequently. 4 Questions to Ask 1. Where does the transparency hurt? Transparency usually brings pain, especially when you are early in your Scrum adoption....

People don't always think of Scrum Teams handling customer needs. But, for a Scrum Team to have success understanding the customer is key.

After experiencing my fair share of frustrating Sprint Review moments, I want to share some tips to improve the feedback you receive.

In this blog post I'll share my view on the question "What is a Scrum Master actually doing during the day?" I will use different sources and perspectives to answer this question and clarify the title and describe a day in the life of a Scrum Master.

This blog post will be about the question: can you rotate the Scrum Master role? With rotating the Scrum Master role I mean frequently changing the person fulfilling this role.

In this blog post I'll share my view on the question: Can you be a part-time Scrum Master?

Are you ready to escape the average and become awesome? Do you want to overcome your fears and follow your dreams? We all want to escape the average and the humdrum. The essential step in achieving any great goal is to "START." Inspired by author Jon Acuff's book, Start, I've come up with this ...

One of the most important things to understand in modern business (and quite possibly life in general) is the concept of complexity. While we use the words complicated and complex almost interchangeable in everyday language, they mean very different things. Let’s explore my favourite model on comple...

Exploring the accountabilities in a Scrum Team through a Longship metaphor.

What makes the software development work great? Obviously, technology, right... Wrong! In an interesting article in "Peopleware", authors Tom and Timothy describe how the most important aspect of software development is not technology, but people.

Have you ever sat on a bus or plane, and rather than offering the vacant seat next to you to others, you hope that no one takes it, so you might have more space.

Coaching conversations typically occur in a “zone of comfortable debate.”. However, to deal with issues at their core, it’s important to enter the ZOUD: the “Zone of Uncomfortable Debate.”

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer Krystian Kaczor talks about how a Scrum Master must take on many personalities when working with their Scrum Teams and a few examples of the types of personalities they may take on. Those personalities may also evolve over time wit...

"It's not always easy to be a good Scrum Master. Learn some common pitfalls of Scrum Masters, and to recover from them, or avoid them altogether." "Knowing my True North gives me the courage to focus my energy where I believe it should be, not according to what is popular or pleasing to others." ...

We talk about coaching a lot in the agile world. However, what we are actually expected to do is not usually about coaching. We do other things. We teach. We facilitate. We advise. We solution. We manage. Sometimes we even help do the work. None of those things are bad. Often, th...

"It's not our fault! The Product Owner is responsible for backlog management, the PBIs aren't well defined." "It's not my fault! The Development Team owns the Sprint Backlog, moreover, the PBIs went through refinement and they have the same level of detailing as the others." "I'm working on th...

Hi everyone! In this article, I'd like to share my list of top 30 books for Scrum Masters. I've read all of these books and used them in my practice. They actually work! :) The books cover all eight areas of the Scrum Master competency model developed by the Agile Coaching Institute: ...

The previous weeks I've taken some time to re-write the white paper "The 8 Stances of a Scrum Master". Given my sessions at Scrum Day London, Scrum Day Warsaw and Scrum Day Europe I wanted to offer the participants a paper with my latest insights and lessons learned. In this blog post I'll share the...

This white paper contains Professional Scrum Trainer Barry Overeem's personal experiences acting as a Scrum Master and the 8 stances he's documented with an in-depth perspective: The Scrum Master as a Servant Leader, Facilitator, Coach, Manager, Mentor, Teacher, Impediment Remover, and Change Agent.

In one of my previous blog articles, I wrote about the Scrum Master journey through the different levels of influence to achieve greatness. In this blog, we will explore the number one skill I believe is needed for a Scrum Master (servant leader) to be effective in order to create change and impact ...

Do you ever wonder what determines our actions? Most people think that what we do is the outcome of our personality, however, the truth is more straightforward. It’s our mindset that controls our behavior. In this blog, we will explore few practical coaching tactics that a Scrum Master can ap...

"As remote teams become more and more common, Scrum Masters must find a way to effectively do Scrum while working with far flung team members." "We are not a software development company, what you are talking works only for software development. We operate in a very different business. That stuff...

Leadership is developed, not discovered (I have found inspiration in John C. Maxwell's various books).  John defines leadership as influence, and a good Scrum Master has to climb the different levels of influence to achieve a good to great mindset.

I am sharing the learnings from my recently read books which helped me improve my listening skills. Inspired by one of the tools from the Book "People Tools" by Alan C Fox  here is the first Tool/Tactic for Scrum Masters.

Sometime back I read a short SciFi story in a book named People Tools, Story was about a spaceship conducting man’s third ten year expedition to the nearest star. The first two voyages didn’t succeed when the four member crew neared earth. Scientists were puzzled as there were no technical issues wi...

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer Ian Mitchell discusses what a servant leader is and some ideas on how to be a good one.

When is a Scrum Team successful? Which criteria do you use to determine if a Scrum Team is doing a great job? From my point of view a Scrum Team is doing a great job if they deliver an increment with the highest valued features, with the best possible quality and they continuously strive for improv...

The Scrum Guide talks about coaching as a part of the Scrum Master role.  First, let's define what coaching is.  You can find many definitions, and here is how I describe coaching.

The blog post covers 8 preferred stances of a Scrum Master and common misunderstandings.

As part of the on-going Scrum Myths series at Scrum.org, here are three myths related to people skills. When I say people skills, I mean topics like emotional intelligence, emotional IQ, and person-to-person interactions. Myth #1: Scrum must be "huggy / feely" Word on the street is that Scrum...

In this introductory-level article we look at the mechanics of a Sprint, and at how team members are expected to collaborate in order to produce a release-quality increment. The first day: Sprint Planning The whole team, including the Product Owner, meet on the first day of the Sprint and cond...

Download the slides from the ScrumPulse #22 Webcast, Management 3.0 & Scrum

The Scrum roles connect with the three drivers of motivation: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Discover how.

Per a January 20th, 2017 article by Daniel Shapero, VP of Talent Solutions and Careers at LinkedIn, the role of Scrum Master is in high demand. It’s ranked number 10 on his list of most promising jobs of 2017. #10. Scrum Master Median Base Salary: $100,000 Job Openings (YoY Growth): 400+ (...

“I added a Refactoring Story for the next Cleanup Sprint” This is an interesting statement. Let's see how often the alarm bell rang in your head. I mean how many smells you can find in that statement... Before you scroll down to read my answers, please count to 10 and try to find 3 issues. ...

This is a very common myth, frequent on people used to develop software only within the context of a closed scope (traditional project). The Scrum framework is agnostic when it comes to set the context of software development; it just talks about “complex product development”. In general, agile soft...