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.

The Project Mindset approach, in which success is defined upfront based on Scope, Time and Budget, will (based on experiences) lead to less business involvement and more task management. The Product Mindset approach, in which success is continuously driven by business metrics like User adaption/ret...

Insights from 7 scientific studies into what it is that Product Owners do and what makes them successful

There’s been plenty of discussion over the years comparing and contrasting Scrum and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), which has set up a premise that you must choose one or the other. But in actuality, Scrum and SAFe can be friends and work well together. This whitepaper by Avanade and Scrum.org tackl...

TL; DR: Ignoring the Capacity Check during Sprint Planning 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. For example, the Developers are ignoring a capacity c...

Many self-managing teams struggle to reach a truly high-performing state. When an organisation moves to a self-management model, a key service centralised management traditionally played – giving feedback – is often ignored, leaving teams struggling to truly grow. In this article, we share how to g...

A culture of feedback is a critical element of an adaptive organisation. While people have talked about how to give effective feedback, little has been said on how to receive it, until now.

It might surprise you that even those with years of Scrum practice sometimes make statements about the framework that are, well, inaccurate. The Scrum Guide outlines how teams can learn to work together to deliver complex work. It’s not a how-to list of instructions, and perhaps that’s what leads to...

The Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO) course has evolved over the years and the PSPO I assessment has become even more difficult! I consider this assessment the most difficult of all the Scrum.org entry level assessments and it pays to be prepared. Here then, is my updated guide on how to pass...

Want fabulous teams that build great products? Great teams don’t happen by accident. And they don’t have to take a long time to build. Learn more from Richard Kasperowski on employing core protocols for psychological safety and emotional intelligence from this Hands-on Agile session.

In this Scrum Pulse webinar, Professional Scrum Trainer Mary Iqbal discusses the common signs of pretending to be agile and how you can use Empiricism to stop pretending.

​​​​​​​According to the 15th annual State of Agile Report, there has been a tremendous increase in the adoption of agile frameworks this year.  Within software teams, agile adoption grew from 37% in 2020 to 86% in 2021.  This rapid growth undoubtedly means many individuals working within agile frame...

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer, PSTs John Riley and Ben Thorp answer questions related to regulating workflow effectively and developing a test-first mindset. They provide insight on practices and techniques useful to kickstarting continuously delivering software and non-softwar...

Is your preferred approach to starting an Agile "Transformation" sending a bunch of worker-bees to Agile Training and then waiting for the magic to happen?

As long as the Scrum team has the drive to learn and to run experiments to figure out what works for them, Zombie Scrum (or fake Agile) won’t find futile ground and can’t take root!

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 breaks it down to 5 ways Scrum Teams can discover their opportunities to improve the many different aspects of ...

Iterative, incremental delivery is critical to a successful Agile team.  Without it, Agile is really just window dressing.  Here are five examples that attempt to illustrate the concept of iterative, incremental delivery in a single image.  No example is perfect.  Let me know what you think in the c...

​​​​​​​As a Professional Scrum Trainer, I love working from home, but engaging with others in a remote environment can be challenging. If you’re using Scrum remotely and need stakeholder feedback to order your Product Backlog, here are a few ideas for how to gather it virtually.

In a recent episode of Your Daily Scrum, Professional Scrum Trainers Todd Miller and Ryan Ripley address a general question in Scrum circles: What Does a Scrum Product Owner Do All Day?

In a recent episode of Your Daily Scrum, Professional Scrum Trainers Todd Miller and Ryan Ripley teach you the Scrum Framework in 7 minutes!

In today's vlog, PST Joshua Partogi will show you how your Scrum Team can save time and make a forecast during Sprint Planning with #NoEstimates & Kanban metrics.

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.

The future is unknown and although some people claim to be able to predict the future, most people can't. But to look a little ahead, into the future, to have a sense of when certain items on the Product Backlog are finished, predictability would be very useful. Although we can't be completely predi...

TL; DR: My Top Ten Worst Scrum Anti-Patterns I recently was invited to a Scrum.org Webinar, and I picked a topic close to my heart: the worst Scrum anti-patterns.

Let me share some of the controversial findings and discussions with you. As always, there are no simple answers in complex environments.

The Applying Professional Scrum class is frequently overlooked when it comes to public classes.  People tend to go for the Professional Scrum Master class or the Professional Scrum Product Owner class instead.  And those are really great classes.  That is… they’re great for those who already have an...

The Scrum Guide has a lot to say about the Product Backlog, and rightly so. It's pivotal to everything a Scrum Team does. But one thing the Scrum Guide doesn't tell you, is how you create a Product Backlog. So, here's one way you can do exactly that.

When you first start to use Scrum you will need to decide which day to start your first Sprint, and there will be implications to that decision. Here are some possibilities and their implications to help you make the best decision.