Agility is important to an organization and the path to agility becomes more clear by understanding the purpose of pursuing agility. The product owner role is key in increasing the benefits an organization can gain in their path to agility.

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...

When talking about Scrum, people often imagine the picture above: framework and its roles, artifacts, and events. Scrum rules are fairly simple, and they are thoroughly described in the Scrum Guide.

“Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity” - Samuel Johnson A few weeks ago we looked at the problem of technical debt, and at the challenges a Development Team faces when managing it. Technical debt can be defined as the longer term cons...

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer Ralph Jocham discusses what the role of a Product Owner looks like, traits that they should have and those that may get in the way.

Respect is essential in solving complex problems and growing high performing teams.  This likely seems obvious, so I am going to share some of the more subtle examples of the value of respect in Scrum.

Many times, clients ask Agile Coaches like me to come in and share our "expertise" with them. But sometimes they really don't want our "Expertise". What they really want is someone with lots of TLA's to come and tell them that there pre-existing opinions are correct.

As Agile become mainstream increasingly organizations are looking to double down on the role of the Product Owner encouraging them to manage the intersection between technology and the business.

"Few ideas work on the first try. Iteration is key to innovation.” - Sebastian Thrun The Agony and the Ecstasy Have you ever seen the 1965 film The Agony and the Ecstasy, where Charlton Heston plays Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel? Each day the Pope looks up and asks him “When w...

Commitment is essential in solving complex problems and growing high performing teams.  Commitment in Scrum is often misunderstood as a promise to deliver a set scope by a set date.  That was never the intention of the word commitment in the Scrum Guide.  I hope this post helps illuminate the value ...

It was only about 30 minutes into the meeting when the senior developer uttered the dreaded words: “Rewrite”. That was the point where what should have been a simple 6-step upgrade turned into a 9 month nightmare upgrade/rewrite costing us millions with nothing new to show for it and left us with a ...

"There are no shortcuts when it comes to getting out of debt" - Dave Ramsey Technical debt can be defined as the longer term consequences of poor design decisions. In a sense it’s like any other debt - there ought to be a clear understanding of why it is incurred, and how and when to pay it b...

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...

Over the last weeks I've been working on a paper about the role of a Business Analysts within Large Scale Scrum, and I thought I'd write a little post on it too, here it goes. On the website of the IIBA you can find their definition of a Business Analyst. a liaison among stakeholders in order ...

I've recently been involved with several Scrum Teams that are struggling to have the right level of detail in their Product Backlog items. Some symptoms: difficulty during Sprint Planning sessions, a massive or very small Product Backlog, or a lack of understanding during a Sprint. All of the teams ...

The Scrum Values are easy to remember, but it can be difficult to understand what they mean, how to apply them, and how to recognize them in teams and individuals. These values are essential to maximize the benefits of Scrum. In this article, we look at how courage is essential in solving complex pr...

As I get older, I'm turning into one of those annoying nostalgic-types who reminisces too much. Things were better back in the day, son. We had standards see, and there was less of this "dumbing-down". Yip.

In this podcast, recorded at the Agile New Zealand conference in November 2016, Shane Hastie, InfoQ Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to David West, CEO and Product Owner of Scrum.org, about the history of Scrum, the importance of empiricism and improving the profession of software delivery.

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer, Charles Bradley discusses ways that a Product Owner can spread their knowledge across multiple Scrum Teams. He looks at a few techniques and refinement activities.

Dave West, Product Owner & CEO for scrum.org discusses his road towards becoming a Product Owner (which includes a well known three letter acronym), we go in to the three most important things a Product Owner should master.

"Gross ignorance is 144 times worse than ordinary ignorance" - Bennett Cerf Acceptance Criteria: The conditions under which a piece of work may be held to be complete and fit for potential release. Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD): A development approach in which acceptance crit...

In this article I'll describe two topics that I've used as a tailor made Product Owner self-assessment. One is about Roman Pichler's Product Management framework. The other concerns the acronym DRIVEN which is described in Geoff Watts new book "Product Mastery - From Good to Great Product Ownership"...

In this blog post I've shared my experiences using the Team Radar as a Retrospective format.

If someone asked you “what is the role of the Project Management Office in an agile organization”, what would you say to them?

A review of the Scrum Guide section in the Sprint Backlog to consider and debunk the myth that the Sprint Backlog is a fixed Commitment by the Development Team.

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...

A Scrum myth that I have encountered: Not finishing all Sprint Backlog Items in a Sprint is perceived as a failure. I have seen organizations go as far as implementing performance indicators around Sprint Backlog completion percentage (yikes!).

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

This myth is my favorite. There are three challenges with this myth. First, it misses the point of Scrum. Second, it sets teams up for failure. Third, it's impossible to prove.

Let’s start with a question. When is the Sprint Planning over? Usually, the first answer that comes to mind is “when the time-box expires”. It is a good answer. However, Sprint Planning is a maximal time-box. We can end the Sprint Planning earlier, can’t we? Yes, when we are done with planning, we c...

“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. ...

Let me quickly describe a potential situation how this came about. During the Sprint Planning, the team had agreed to deliver the top 5 Backlog items. They had some conversations about what the items are and where the problems could lie within those. The Product Owner had the feeling that just th...

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...

I was honored to participate in the Women in Agile panel discussion last week. If you missed it, you can watch the recording. I learned three things from this experience: 1) an hour goes by very fast, 2) I have a lot more to say on the topic, and 3) I want more opportunities to help women. We r...

At first sight, Zombie Scrum seems to be normal Scrum. But it lacks a beating heart. The Scrum teams do all the Scrum events but a potential releasable increment is rarely the result of a Sprint. The team also don't have any intention to improve their situation. Actually nobody cares about this team...

The Scrum Team consists of 3 distinct Scrum roles that promote self-organization: the Scrum Master, the Product Owner, and the Development Team. The accountability of each role complements the accountability of the other roles. Hence, collaboration between these roles is the key to success: Th...

One of the recurring Scrum Myth discussions I have with colleagues, teams new to Scrum and those attending training when comparing Scrum & DevOps relate to a misinterpretation of the following paragraph from the Scrum Guide. At the end of a Sprint, the new Increment must be “Done,” which mean...

Clients and training attendees ask me "Can you use Scrum for something else than software?”. What they usually mean is building some other products or organizing team’s work. Let’s explore a more exotic idea. It’s beginning of a new year, the time when people make and try to achieve new year’s resol...

One of the arguments used against Scrum and a common misconception at the same time is the idea that quality is traded for speed in Scrum. As a PST with years of experience in Quality Assurance I decided to challenge this myth. I believe and I have seen many times that proper way of implementing Scr...

At Amsterdam Airport Schiphol we're using an Agile approach to realize a large digital program. This program includes 5 value streams with multiple teams. Due to the increasing scale of the program, some challenges arise. For example: How to organise a Sprint Review with an increasing amount of t...

Scrum Teams will always face impediments because the work is complex and dynamic. The question is whether we tackle those impediments or live with them. In this post I share 5 challenges and actionable tips to overcome them.

In Scrum, delivery is a usable Increment by the end of a Sprint.  Because we are dealing with complex work, we do not know everything about what is needed and how to deliver it before we start working.  This is where the concept of emergence comes in.

This year I was in the lucky circumstance to be part of some awesome (Scrum) teams. It certainly wasn't all "Scrum by the book" but I've learned a tremendous amount of lessons and generated lots of values insights. As always, some things turned out to be a success, other things failed miserably. Thi...

I would like to kick off a series of posts in this blog trying to debunk some common myths about Scrum. Many of them arise sometimes from a poor understanding of the Scrum Guide, and even more often, from not having read it at all. What is velocity? According to the Scrum.org glossary, Velocit...

The Sprint Goal helps provide focus on an objective we want to achieve and allows the flexibility to negotiate the work to achieve that objective. Creating a clear Sprint Goal can be challenging for Scrum Teams.  Here are four common problems with Sprint Goals and a few tips for improving them.

In a previous post describing challenges to creating a Done Increment, I identified a lack of team ownership as one of those challenges. The Scrum Team is accountable as a whole to create a valuable, useful Increment by the end of the Sprint. There are 3 specific accountabilities within the Scrum T...

As a Product Owner and the CEO of Scrum.org, Dave West was invited to speak at ProductTank NYC earlier this year about the conflict between the roles Product Owner and Product Manager.

​ Table Manners There is a striking similarity between good table manners and good agile behaviours - "agile table manners". It is even more clear when viewed through the lens of the Scrum values: Focus, Respect, Openness, Courage and Commitment. The intent of manners is to help it be as safe ...

Development Team was removed from the Scrum Guide in the 2020 release. However, the ideas expressed in this blog still provide value when understanding the dynamics of the Scrum Team. What are the characteristics of a good Development Team and how does a Development Team evolve when it is using S...

EMBARRASSING CONFESSION OK, so this will be awkward, and maybe cringe-inducing post. But we are approaching the new year. Plenty of people might be making new year resolutions. Many will be around fitness. So everyone needs to read this. I was once really impressed by 24 Hour Fitness. I used...