Resources

A few years ago, I became a Product Owner. But not in the traditional ways most do.

The contradiction and tension between the empirical process of Scrum and the often-used efficiency mindset.

Lots of discussion about Taylorism. It's not as evil as people seem to think. When the work was simpler a process to optimize efficiency and find best practices make sense. However as the work got more complex and our management styles didn't keep up then dysfunction started. The transition from Trainer back to being boots on the ground back in an organization. Finding that over time he was losing the empathy of what it was like being a Scrum Master. Applying the models in the real world is where things get tough. Lots of good back and forth about the value of coaching and the time away from the role itself. Should you ask your trainer when the last time was that they did the role and maybe even walk out if its been over 3 years?? Get something valuable to a customer in 30 days or less and iterate on how you can do it better. Solved!

The Scrum Master tactics series are a series of articles in which I write about and explore contemporary techniques that will aid you in your journey as a Scrum Master. The tactics explained stem from my personal experience as a Scrum Master which I accumulated over the years in working with many different teams and contexts.

Last week, 30-plus participants in the 23rd Hands-on Agile meetup had a virtual strategy session where they explored Liberating Structures’ Critical Uncertainties microstructure. They identified robust and hedging strategies for Scrum Masters and agile coaches regarding the challenges of remote work and distributed agile teams.

Even though the global Scrum adoption is now at 75% (source: 14th State of Agile report 20

In my daily life as a Scrum Master, I witness many crazy situations. I want to share my discoveries via this comic series featuring Koos Coach, the silly Scrum Master struggling to understand and master Scrum.

I've learned and experienced that most symptoms can be traced back to not adhering to the Scrum Roles. Let's have a closer look at the Scrum Master role.

How do we run a virtual open space event or BarCamp with a large number of participants? Principally, we could use break-out rooms for organizing the sessions.

In our professional world of software development, it is very common someone asking “What is this Agile?”

I was once told that we have one mouth and two ears and that we should use them in those proportions. Now, those who know me will know that I struggle with that....

After many years of relative stability, the company found itself struggling with sudden and huge changes in their market. In no more than a few years, competition increased tremendously along with the emergence of new technologies. Having been a dominant player for several decades, the company felt ill-equipped for this new market situation.

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Piyush Rahate provides examples of why a Sprint may be canceled, ways to avoid canceling a Sprint and what might happen if the decision to cancel is made. (4:05 Minutes)

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Ravi Verma discusses several ways that Scrum Team members can transition to trusted advisors of the organization. Ravi describes places to get more information about the business, suggestion on how to communicate with stakeholders and how to leverage experiments as ways to prove value. (4:58 Minutes)

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainers Adam Michalczyk and Andrzej Zińczuk look at one of the stances that a Scrum Master plays, the teacher. They discuss types of teachers and ways that Scrum Masters can teach the Scrum Teams that they are working with. (3:44 Minutes)

A lot of people are trying to do agile without being agile. But what does that mean and why should you care?

Scrum is all about self-organizing. But what does that mean? And more specifically, how can Liberating Structures support that? In this post, we reflect on Liberating Structures from the perspective of self-organization.

The concept I describe below is tested, proven, and modeled after my virtual Professional Scrum training classes.

How this popular and empowering liberating structure can be used for retrospectives and increasing organizational agility. But can you Open Space be used in a virtual set-up?

Scrum Teams are always dealing with complex problems, unpredictability, and change.

The fact is, Scrum and DevOps works well together.

Many scrum teams use a metric called velocity as their primary metric. Velocity is commonly defined as the number of story points you finish over time, usually measured by sprints. Measured from sprint to sprint, it becomes a sort of gauge of success. If it stays the same or goes up, that’s great. If it goes down repeatedly, there’s a problem that needs to be investigated.

In this story, I describe and debrief a difficult moment I experienced as a coach. In addition to this writeup being my personal reflection, it might serve as a source of learning for you.

As the name "Test First" suggests, you write a test first before the actual code and keep them running all the time. Well maybe not the second part explicitly. Yet what if I said to you that it actual means more than that?

With the new normal, online training has exploded, but potential students are confused about what makes a great online training course and the results seem hit and miss.

Here is a list of 8 Questions for Scrum Masters to improve the effectiveness of Sprint Reviews

From the previous webinar in January 2020, ‘Answering those hard questions about coaching in Scrum’, we received powerful questions and feedback from to continue the dialogue on Scrum and coaching. In this follow up webinar, we will bring these questions back to the discussion table. In the first webinar we touched on the International Coach Federation's (ICF’s) definition of coaching, coaching competencies and code of ethics. In part two, Dave West, Leslie Morse and Maaike Klasen take you along further unpacking the topic: working with the ICF coaching agreement in Scrum.

Shu-Ha-Ri has been a frequent topic within Agile communities for years to capture the essence, the progress of the journey we embark on as we grow and learn better ways of working.

TL; DR: The Agile Movers & Shakers Interview w/ Christiaan Verwijs & Barry Overeem Today we welcome Christiaan Verwijs & Barry Overeem.

A physical build monitor - like a light that turns red when a build fails - is a great way to get fast feedback. Its also a fun & educational activity for Development Teams, as it gives them a product of their own they can apply their craft to. And it encourages a Developer Culture.

La realidad actual nos ha llevado a acelerar muchas decisiones. A veces esas decisiones no son las más deseadas. En estos 2 meses se han visto cosas que no lo asumíamos que eran posibles. Y aún mejor hay muchas más por llegar.

In my daily life as a Scrum Master, I witness many crazy situations. I want to share my discoveries via this comic series featuring Koos Coach, the silly Scrum Master struggling to understand and master Scrum.

User Story Mapping permite a los gerentes de producto, desarrolladores y dis

Evidence-Based Agility, based on Evidence-Based Medicine, uses empiricism to help organizations chart a course to high-value, ambitious, aspirational goals. If you want to change “business as usual,” the way forward is usually very murky. Using experimentation, measurement, and inspect-and-adapt practices to try to make measurable progress is the only practical approach. (59:17 Minutes)

Today, on Global Accessibility Awareness Day, I look back on how far we have come as a society in making things accessible for people with disabilities. Yet, how far behind we are in inclusive user and customer experience. Just because I ‘can’ use your product or service, it does not mean I ‘want’ too.

TL; DR: Quo Vadis, Scrum Master? — A Live Virtual Meetup on June 4, 2020 Freelancing Scrum Masters being let go, with no new projects on the horizon. Employed Scrum Masters being furloughed or fired.

The best Scrum Teams are diverse. Diverse teams are more fun to work on and deliver better products. A diverse team will provide diversity of thought because they  bring different experiences to the discussions and decisions. Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD).

How much have you scored this year? My parents asked this question twice a year throughout my schooling. I was well prepared to ask the same questions to my son, but school cheated me. Have you had a similar past? If yes, then you will understand why I call it a generation gap issue.

“Our problem is that we can’t plan Sprints accurately with velocity,” he said. “Some Sprints, our velocity is really high, in others, we barely achieve anything.”

As a Scrum practitioner you may have read the famous paper The New New Product Development Game.

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer, PST Stephanie Ockerman answers questions related to the role of the Scrum Master. She provides insight on practices and techniques useful to Scrum Masters and Scrum Team Members alike.

An introduction of the 4 symptoms, with the symptom ‘No desire for contact with the outside world’ explained in detail.

One of the most asked question that people ask me in my Professional Scrum classes is "Who should be in the development team" in Scrum?

In our work of building Agile capability in organisations and training, mentoring and coaching hundreds of teams, we saw that Scrum Teams that embraced and lived Scrums core values, exhibited the same characteristics that Google found in its quest for the secret of high performing teams.

This podcast tackles some of the question: Scrum vs. Kanban? How about Scrum and Kanban. Why would you want to use both? Scrum is based on Empiricism, Kanban is based on Flow, Flow enhances Empiricism and Empiricism enhances Flow. Take the best Scrum teams and the best Kanban teams and take an average person looking in on them they wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

The first insights are available from the Remote Agile Survey

The organizations must truly practice patience while applying Scrum. Scrum does not solve the problems, but it reveals all the problems that deter you from achieving your goals by making it radically transparent. Patiently work on the problems one at a time and very soon you will achieve the Business Agility you desire.

Executives: there are many reasons for agility. You already know this.

Many folks on LinkedIn these days, seems to have a renewed interest in firing the Scrum Master. I have been asked quiet a few times personally as to what will the scrum master do now that we are heading to a ‘New Normal’.