Learn how individual incentives and outdated organizational structures — fostering personal agendas and local optimization efforts — manifest themselves in Scrum stakeholder anti-patterns that easily impede any agile transformation to a product-led organization.

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 Maste...

Product Ownership is a complex and often confusing idea, but if done right those accountabilities can help the Scrum Team deliver valuable, amazing Products. In this blog, we discuss and address some common concerns about the idea of Product Ownership.

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...

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 ...

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...

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. 

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.

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, a...

The third blog, in a blog series about the upcoming book: Creating Agile Organizations - A Systemic Approach

In this vlog, PST Joshua Partogi demystifies Product Backlog Refinement ... what it is, where, when, how long and how often it happens also how refined should each Product Backlog item be.

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.

The Scrum Guide doesn't provide a complete list of the skills required for any of the accountabilities on a Scrum Team. For example, it doesn't specify that Developers must use Java or C# code. The Scrum Guide simply states that Developers need all of the skills to deliver a Done increment of produc...

In this episode, Dave interviews PST Ryan Brook based in the UK about his experiences. (17:06 Minutes)

Scrum is a tactical framework to build products, provided you identify what is worth making in advance. But even after a successful product discovery phase, you may struggle to create the right thing in the right way if your Product Backlog is not up to the job—garbage in, garbage out.

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 this episode, Dave West interviews PST Stefan Wolpers, based in Germany about his experiences. (20:13 Minutes)

In this energizing 38th Hands-on Agile session, Roman Pichler delved into your questions on the role of the Product Owner. The topics range from product manager vs. Product Owner vs. business analyst to the right size of a Product Backlog to linking product vision to Product Goal and Sprint Goal. ...

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 tra...

​​​​​​​The concept of iterative, incremental Product delivery is included in the Scrum Guide.  But did you know that the Agile Manifesto refers to incremental, iterative delivery in at least 3 of the principles?   

Recently I had an epiphany, realising that most of my writing has been for Product Owners and how to they should interact with the environment, but what about how to interact with Product Owners? What are some characteristics and traits you may encounter as a stakeholder, manager or leader of a Prod...

In this podcast episode, Host Dave West interviews Ferzeen Anis based in Australia about her experiences with Scrum that led her to become a PST. (18:26 Minutes)

In this blog post we will give examples of Increments and why it is important to have Done Increments

Scrum is simple, but that simplicity means that each of its elements is essential.  The values, accountabilities, artifacts and events are all part of the framework for a reason.  Teams that mess with the framework are messing with Scrum.  Teams that make changes to the elements limit Scrum's effect...

A well-refined Product Backlog is essential for high-performing Scrum Teams.  Without it, teams will likely struggle to deliver a Done increment each Sprint.  But like all things in Scrum, we must have a balance.  So, how far out should the Product Backlog go?  

The 2020 Scrum Guide provides only the necessary guidelines within which teams use Scrum to deliver value. Sometimes, myths about the guidelines of the Scrum framework can result in teams adopting practices which do not add value to the Scrum Team. By exposing these myths, you can help accelerate th...

One of my favorite exercises from my Professional Scrum Product Owner classes is how to best sabotage a Product Owner as a member of the middle management. The exercise rules are simple: You’re not allowed to use any form of illegal activity. So, outsourcing the task to a bunch of outlaws is out of ...

A case study highlighting the use of Scrum in a non-software organization: The Hong Kong medical branch of a large insurance company engaged with Ken Kwan, Professional Scrum Trainer to help them with their agile transformation with a focus on using the Scrum framework to improve their business proc...

In this video, Mark addresses the purpose of Sprint Goals and then explores the message that they are sending when it's hard to define a single Sprint Goal. This can help you ask better questions and steer your team toward higher value.

Scrum involves a radically different mindset that involves fully embracing Empiricism, or making decisions based upon what is known. Rather than creating project plans, teams rely upon Goals to measure success. The list of the most valuable things to do next is the Product Backlog, and it is the p...

Scrum uses an iterative, incremental approach to deliver value to the business through the medium of the Sprint. The purpose of each Sprint is to deliver a Done, usable increment. It sounds straightforward, but it can be tricky to achieve. Here are the three steps to Done in Scrum.

Over the years, I kept getting questions about the differences between Product Manager and Product Owner. In this video I explain why the product manager is not necessarily the Product Owner and how we should view the Product Owner instead.

Every Scrum Team, at some point, will struggle with how to facilitate the Daily Scrum. By using a Kanban Board and Flow Metrics, Scrum Teams can better collaborate on their work, visualize progress towards the Sprint Goal, and form the best plan possible for the day.

Words matter, especially when working in any team setting. Words that are spoken or written by one person can have different meanings when read or heard by another. Scrum Teams have multiple members, which means the interpretation of words used in the team setting increases with each member. The cha...

Scrum.org PST Chee-Hong Hsia is here to set the record straight. It’s actually a huge compliment when people say "You’re a Scrum purist".

Many well-meaning Scrum practitioners have misconceptions about Scrum, which sometimes leads to creating “rules” that do not exist in the framework. In today's article, we will discuss the five of the most common misconceptions about the Sprint.

So there is Scrum and there is 'an implementation of Scrum'. Why is it important to understand the difference? I hope that after reading this blog, you will realise that many Scrum conversations are actually not about Scrum, but "an implementation of Scrum" and you didn't even realise it.

A common question we get asked is how do we get started with creating a Definition of Done? Let's explore how we can obtain transparency of where you are, your destination should be, and what your possible first steps are to get there!

In this special episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer moderated by Patricia Kong, PSTs Magdalena Firlit, Simon Flossmann, Ravi Verma and Yuval Yeret, answer questions related to Scaling Scrum. They provide insights on scaling Scrum with Nexus and also answer questions related to comparing and ...

In this talk from Scrumday Barcelona 2021, Dave West, CEO of Scrum.org and recovering Product Owner talks about what makes the Product Owner often the most misunderstood person in Scrum.

A roadmap is a complementary practice that a Scrum Team might use to forecast upcoming deliveries or to translate Product Backlog items into a visual representation. This article includes a few Roadmap templates for Product Owners to use to communicate their forecast to customers and stakeholders. ...

Last week, we talked about common misconceptions related to the Daily Scrum.  This week we’ll focus more broadly on misconceptions impacting everything from the Product Backlog to the composition of the Scrum Team itself.  

Why it matters to have a shared understanding of the product your Scrum team is building.