A self-managing team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How can your Scrum Master support this? Check it out!

Wird der Scrum Master von einem unverzichtbaren Praktiker zu einer Nischenposition dank KI?

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer, Arunvignesh Ramakrishnan based in Malaysia answered the audience's burning questions about Scrum and their challenges including the accountabilities of a Scrum Master, being new on a Scrum Team, how to handle a PO leaving an organization, Sprint R...

My thoughts on the recent ‘Agile is Death’ claims

For your team to effectively understand the benefits of Scrum, it's crucial to relate its principles to their daily work and overall product and organisation goals.

Fewer Jobs for Scrum Masters, and now we see the universal Scrum GPT entering the competition: Will Scrum Masters change from essential practitioners to a niche role?

A self-managing team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How can your Developers support this? Check it out!

Crafting valuable Sprint Goals drive the team towards meaningful progress in each iteration and contributes to the product's success if measurability, feasibility, and collaboration are considered.

Continuous Delivery allows Scrum Teams to deliver valuable product Increments to customers faster in a sustainable and reliable way.

Explore how Scrum transforms traditional project management functions into collaborative team efforts.

In this article, I uncover indicators that a Scrum Master’s or Agile Coach’s journey is coming to a close.

In this video, Martin Hinshelwood dives into the often misunderstood realm of say-do metrics in agile environments. 🌐📏 He exposes how these metrics, although intended to track progress and performance, can sometimes lead to a false sense of accuracy and reliability. Martin's insight sheds light on t...

An unusual article featured in the latest edition of the Harvard Business Review titled "Case Study: Should I Pitch a New Project-Management System?" raised several concerns and demonstrated misconceptions about Scrum. The piece created a false dilemma between "Scrum" and a hypothetical "Flow" proce...

A self-managing team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How can your Product Owner support this? Check it out!

They are deeply committed to delivering value to customers and stakeholders while fostering an adaptive, responsive organisational culture. They know that Scrum practices and values are key to that.

Some ideas stand the test of time, such as the value of cross-functional teams in new product development.

A Scrum Master should know the "why" behind Scrum and Agile principles, apply facilitation techniques, coaching, and mentorship, and exhibit solid leadership focusing on team empowerment and growth.

Some well-intentioned practices sound reasonable, but a closer examination reveals potential pitfalls that can compromise the Agile manifesto principles or the Scrum guide's underlying Empiricism. By understanding the rationale behind these practices and exploring their drawbacks, teams can foster a...

In Scrum, Sprint Goals stand as pivotal guiding stars, directing teams toward success. A Sprint Goal encapsulates the essence of a Sprint – a short, time-bound period during which a team commits to achieving a specific objective. This blog explores the significance of Sprint Goals, shedding light on...

While there are only 3 accountabilities in the Scrum Team, the entire team is accountable for creating a valuable, useful Increment every Sprint. Mastering this one accountability is key to success

Focus on improving your Scrum game in 2024 with one of these five resolutions to enhance collaboration within your team and deliver value sooner to your customers.

A self-managing team is a fundamental part of being effective. How can your Sprint Backlog support this? Check it out!

When Product Owners craft roadmaps in isolation - without consulting the Developers -  the result can be a 'pie in the sky' or unrealistic plan that jeopardizes the very essence of Scrum.

Beyond eliminating un-done work and reducing interruptions, teams can streamline their work to reduce the time it takes them to develop, deliver, and measure the customer impact of an idea they think will improve customer satisfaction, and reduce a customer satisfaction gap.The kinds of improvements...

People lose focus because of two different kinds of interruptions: Planned and Unplanned. Planned interruptions include things like:Attending scheduled meetings other than Scrum events. Every organization has a variety of general meetings, including company or divisional/departmental information sha...

Ideally, a Scrum Team has all the skills it needs to deliver a valuable product Increment. However, in practice, this happens rarely. Developing complex products for a complex world requires skills that even highly cross-skilled teams will lack at times. For instance, if they have questions about le...

🌍🤝 Across the globe, Scrum Events echo with a misleading mantra: "that's how agile works." 🚫🔄 This phrase often masks unprofessionalism and contradicts true agile principles. 🛑🗣️ It's time to challenge these behaviours!

A successful Scrum Master fosters a healthy and productive team culture, reflected by the team's ability to deliver quality products by upholding Scrum and advocating for the team's needs and growth.

A self-managing team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How can this happen during your entire Sprint? Check it out!

Should I Become a Scrum Master? Explore 10 Insightful Questions to Help Make Your Decision

Organizational change can often seem confusing and directionless. But there are methods you can use to make decisions based on evidence and reason. One of these methods is Evidence-Based Management (EBM), supported by Larman’s Laws. These tools can be very helpful for organizations looking for clea...

In this toolkit, you will learn how to lead agile teams at the large scale, and how team members fit into both the team and the wider organization.

They’re very similar. I think the key difference really would be: the leader leads the way in terms of direction and then creates the space where that might happen. A leader is understanding that it is not just about delivery, that two-thirds of things are rarely or never used and so maybe we should...

The Product Owner is responsible for creating all Product Backlog ItemsWhy is this a myth? The Product Owner is accountable for Product Backlog management, including the creation of the Product Backlog Items (PBIs). That means that the Product Owner owns the result or outcome of this work. However, ...

Developers on a Scrum Team are committed to working collaboratively with other Scrum Team members to reach the Scrum Team’s goals. Several characteristics embody a professional Scrum Developer, for example they:Are problem-solvers - Scrum is used to solve complex problems in which the solution is fo...

The Developers are the Scrum Team members that create the product. Often people associate the word “developer” with coder or programmer in software. But that is not the case, think of a developer as someone who helps to create (develop) a valuable product for a customer, no matter what kind of produ...

In this article, PST Stefan Wolpers unravels the secrets of what makes a Scrum Master not just good but amazingly outstanding. Also, he sheds light on the pitfalls to avoid if you want to keep the respect of your teammates.

Have you ever tried piecing together a jigsaw puzzle without knowing what the final picture should look like? Knowing what the outcome should be can guide you in reaching project success.

The Scrum framework is deliberately incomplete, so when teams start to fall for Scrum myths, frequently these myths are actually holding the team back from embracing the true flexibility of Scrum. Teams should find out what works best for them, not works best for other people.

Last week I was invited to give a lecture at the Free University of Amsterdam at the faculty for Digital Business Innovation. I consider it a real honor to teach the students of a University. The lecture triggered a lot of thoughts about the relevance of teaching Agile/Scrum.

The Developers are the Scrum Team members that create the product. They have specific accountabilities to the team. Learn about these accountabilities and debunk a few myths about being a Developer on a Scrum Team.

There are several reasons why Scrum Teams are left with un-done work at the end of the Sprint, including:They don’t understand the importance of time-boxes or Sprint Goals. If Sprints are just periodic check-ins on progress and if Sprint Planning merely involves updating an existing overall project...

There are reasons why Scrum Teams may have un-done work at the end of the Sprint, but these occurrences should be infrequent as they are detrimental to the team’s ability to deliver value. There are various techniques that they can try to minimize having un-done work, including:Ensuring that everyon...

An excellent Scrum Master ensures the team self-manages, improves continuously, and removes obstacles effectively, leading to better autonomy and reliable delivery of quality, valuable increments.

In this article, PST Stefan Wolpers shares the top ten most damaging Sprint Goal anti-patterns.

Navigating leadership in complex work environments demands a nuanced approach, blending various tactics, practices, frameworks, and strategies. The road to success is multifaceted, requiring leaders to navigate and adapt to evolving situations within complex domains adeptly.

This article explores the concept of context-switching in modern work environments. It covers the significance of measuring context switches through self-reporting and digital tracking, and introduces tactics like setting focused Sprint Goals in Scrum, analyzing context switch data during retrospect...

It is important for Scrum practitioners to understand that there are a lot of myths and misconceptions about Scrum that they should be wary of when they are applying Scrum to their unique environment. In this article, we will debunk four common Scrum myths.

Many teams who have adopted Scrum adopt practices which are intended to be ‘helpful’ but which actually hinder teams from delivering value.  These practices sound like a good idea, but they are actually ‘traps’ which may hold back organizations from getting the most out of the Scrum framework.

If you or your team are new to Scrum, you can use this as a starting point to answer, “what should we be doing and why?” for each Scrum Event. If your team is more experienced but you feel like you’re drifting away from healthy behaviors and patterns and you’re not sure how to course correct - you c...