In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, Patricia Kong talks with Professional Scrum Trainer Joanna Plaskonka about why psychological safety is critical for effective Scrum Teams. (22:16 Minutes)

It isn't just individuals who can suffer from burnout. Sometimes, it's the whole Scrum Team. PST Mary Iqbal explores this serious problem in her latest blog post.

Case Study on Breaking the Tech Barrier: Implementing Scrum in Both Technical and Non-Technical Teams to Drive Measurable Business Outcomes.

Answer Leveling is a simple technique for coaxing AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude out of their shell to generate more exciting and in-depth responses. In this blog post, you'll learn how Scrum Masters can use this method to get more detailed and well-thought-out answers to team-related c...

Ever wondered what the "Professional" in Professional Scrum Master really means? It's not just a fancy prefix. In this article, I explore how true professionalism in Scrum goes far beyond certification—it's about unwavering integrity when stakes are high and shortcuts tempt. Through powerful comp...

Stop treating AI as a team member to “onboard.” It’s a tool.

People tend to highlight that Scrum is best suited as training wheels. However, what most people forget is Scrum is a means to an end; it's not a silver bullet. It is only as good as the members of the Scrum Team. If your team is not getting the desired results with Scrum, then it probably is not Sc...

What is an Empathy Map?The Empathy Map is a collaborative tool designed to help teams and stakeholders develop a deeper understanding of their users or customers. It was created by Dave Gray and included in his book “Gamestorming”. The map enables teams to visualize user behaviors, emotions and thou...

In this episode, Professional Scrum Trainer Simon Reindl joins Lindsay Velecina to answer community questions on scaling Scrum following his recent webinar - How do the Scrum Accountabilities Work at Scale - Practical Steps for Delivery. (39:36 Minutes)

Our Professional Scrum Trainers have worked to gather many of the questions that are asked by their students, the Scrum.org Forum and other places to provide answers to your Frequently Asked Questions about Scrum. How do we handle spill-over between Sprints?There is no spill-over (or carry-over) of ...

This is a quick-start guide that provides all the use cases for the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Developers who can benefit from the power of AI and recommends AI tools.

This article explores how AI interview analysis can be a powerful sense-making tool for agile practitioners who need to quickly synthesize unstructured, qualitative data, particularly when joining a team mid-crisis.

In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, guest host Lindsay Velecina is joined by Professional Scrum Trainer Joanna Plaskonka to answer lingering questions from her recent webinar on psychological safety in Scrum Teams. (52:34 Minutes)

It may be tempting to push the team to deliver more by overloading the Sprint with extra work. But don’t do it! One of Scrum’s core values is focus, and that value exists for a reason. A team that focuses on delivering a reasonable amount of work will accomplish more than one that tries to take on e...

You’ve adopted Scrum. You’ve trained your teams. But still, something’s off. Scaling is slow. Results are inconsistent. That’s because you’re scaling the wrong thing. It’s not just about growing Scrum—it’s about re-centering your organisation around it. In a world where enterprise agility often di...

In this experiment, OpenAI’s new stealthy LLM Optimus Alpha demonstrated exceptional performance in team data analysis. It quickly identified key patterns in complex agile metrics and synthesized insights about technical debt, value creation, and team dynamics.

Unlock effective Scrum! Learn the distinct roles of accountability, responsibility & authority. Discover why empowering Product Owners, Developers and Scrum Masters with real decision-making authority is fundamental to self-management & value delivery. While often used interchangeably, accountabilit...

The 15-Minute AI-Enabled Prep for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches to Build Trust

Ever felt like team conversations spin in circles? Mark cuts through the chaos, revealing the art of facilitation as a powerful tool for driving effective collaboration. Discover the four-phases—Context, Diverge, Converge, and Action—essential for guiding productive conversations and driving teams t...

Die Kosten für das Experimentieren sind gering, der potenzielle Karrierevorteil hingegen ist beträchtlich. Ein Grund, die generative KI in Agile zu verinnerlichen?

Implementing change in the workplace is one of the most crucial skills in your professional career. Regardless of your current position and industry, with high probability, your next big step in professional growth will be related to change. This article is worth reading if you want to be more effec...

The cost of experimentation is low; the potential career advantage, on the other hand, is substantial. A reason to embrace generative AI in Agile?

Over the years, I've noticed recurring challenges and red flags that can seriously limit Scrum's effectiveness. Spotting these symptoms early can mean the difference between Scrum thriving or turning into "mission impossible." In this blog post, I'll highlight the key pitfalls to watch out for.

Using velocity to measure the success of a Scrum team is like measuring a machine by a single cog in the wheel. The cog may be important, but it’s not the same as the value the machine produces.

Scrum Masters can sometimes fall into the trap of managing the process rather than coaching the team. While it might seem helpful to update tickets, close backlog items, or move tasks around, this kind of administrative work actually disempowers the team and takes the Scrum Master away from their re...

Should all of the tasks be assigned in sprint planning and by whom?

Learn why succeeding with vibe coding requires a balanced approach: use it for rapid prototyping while maintaining rigorous standards for production code, with developers evolving from code writers to architects and code auditors.

How "Strategy Knotworking" turns ideas and ambitions into reality, and why it's an excellent structure for your Sprint Retrospective.

Scrum is described as ‘simple,’ but many teams still struggle. Why? Because simple doesn’t mean easy. Mastering Scrum requires discipline, collaboration, and continuous learning. Explore what ‘simple’ really means in Scrum and how to make it work effectively.

Contrary to traditional management thinking, bigger teams do not necessarily equate to better productivity.

Case Study on Improved Workflow and Teamwork showing a 75% reduction in planning time and a productivity gain of 2 working weeks per year for each team member.

A structured approach to prompting AI models designed specifically for Agile practitioners who want to leverage this technology as a powerful ally in their journey.

This blog continues the earlier blog series on Empathetic Leadership. Empathy is a powerful leadership trait, but being an empathetic leader isn't always easy or appreciated. Here are some soft truths and hard facts that empathetic leaders often face.

Learn more about how to embrace the alignment-to-value pipeline and create your product operating model.

A Product Owner is an important accountability when it comes to creating Valuable products. However, a Scrum Team may not always have a Valuable Product Owner. What I mean is, if the person performing the accountability of Product Owner is not well versed or executes their responsibilities poorly th...

Product Backlog Management is challenging. Imagine you’re a Product Owner with a backlog of 300+ items. Stakeholders keep adding requests, developers feel lost in prioritisation, and every refinement session is a painful, drawn-out discussion. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. If you have e...

At Argus, the maintenance team in Edmonton faced a challenge: ensuring consistent, high-quality repairs while dealing with an unpredictable workload.

Every now and then some one talks about or highlights a practice which has nothing to do with Scrum. Yet, due to widespread usage of the practice, people think that the specific practice is part of Scrum and should be followed to do Scrum in the right way. Sometimes, the Scrum Masters for the lack o...

In this webinar, PST Joanna Plaskonka explores why psychological safety is essential for Scrum success, delving into how it fosters trust, transparency, and innovation within teams.

The core strength of Scrum is its ability to take advantage of self-managing teams who are capable of making faster decisions, taking ownership and creating value by helping the customers to respond to ever changing needs of their domain, market. The challenge however is, how many self-managing tea...

Psychological safety isn’t about fluffy “niceness”—it is the foundation of agile teams that innovate, adapt, and deliver.

Some teams struggle. They flounder in chaos, miss deadlines, and suffer from constant firefighting. Eventually, the pain becomes unbearable, and they take action—hiring an agile coach, changing their approach, or even replacing key team members. Other teams just get by. They hit their deadlines (so...

You can't force a team to improve; instead, create the conditions where they want to. Improvement must come from within, and your role as a Scrum Master, leader, or manager is to make that journey possible. In this article, I'll share questions to reflect on and offer tangible recommendations to get...

What is Design Thinking? Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.* Design Thinking does not have a single definition, it has evolved ...

Scrum has been around for almost 30 years now yet there are so many misconceptions about what needs to be done and how it can be done effectively. Even today, as I coach and consult many teams I often see that the purpose of events is mostly lost. And people simply go through the motions, probably t...

An online version of The Evidence-Based Management Guide

Ordering a Product Backlog ensures that every step taken, every backlog item worked, is a step towards delivering value, satisfying stakeholders, and making the best use of the team's capabilities.

Management by exception is the idea that we should manage the things that are off track, rather than giving focus to things that are going well. In the context of the Daily Scrum, this could be done by asking open ended questions intended to find out if there are any issues that need to be discusse...

An increment is a usable, completed piece of a product, built in an iteration or less, that adds potential value and moves the product closer to the goals, ensuring continuous progress and improvement.

What is the relationship between Scrum and Lean Thinking? Please explain how Scrum enables Lean Thinking or how Lean Thinking fosters Scrum? These are my two favorite questions when I typically want to gauge the knowledge of Scrum Masters. And over the many interviews in the past couple of years I h...