Resources

In the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams and the Professional Scrum with Kanban workshop, we introduce 4 key flow metrics that we believe Scrum teams can use to improve their flow.

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainers Ravi Verma and Ernst Perpignand discuss the importance of the Scrum Value of Respect, how teams can gain a common understanding of what Respect is and how they can work together in being respectful. 3:43 Minutes

By now, CIOs should be aware of the many benefits of the agile methodology. But there's a few persistent misconceptions that could be getting in the way of even greater outcomes. In this article in CIO, Dave West comments on the most common misconceptions he sees organizations falling prey to when it comes to agile practices.

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainers Stacy Martin and Ty Crockett take a detailed look at Communities of Practice from how they have started them, to funding them, getting greater participation and much more. 7:35 Minutes

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Victor Oliveira discusses the importance of the Scrum Value of Commitment, how it can be used and achieved. He provides some brief stories about commitment can be viewed. 2:10 Minutes

Nobody gets credit for solving problems that never happened is a paper that explores why the tools that are the reason for success in some companies are ineffective in other companies. And when that happens, people in those organizations have the tendency to work even harder. But is that enough?

As a servant-leader, the Scrum Master sometimes has to make very difficult decisions. This might even include removing someone from the Scrum Team. Obviously, this a difficult decision that should not be taken light-hearted. In this post, we'll share some perspectives on the kinds of situations where removal is a viable option and some tips to do help you do so in the best way possible.

In this article on TechGenYZ, Steve Porter talks about how to build a bridge between Scrum and Kanban.

In this article in SDTimes, Eric Naiburg talks about how security should not be overlooked when using the Scrum.

In this episode Professional Scrum Trainer Lucas Smith discusses a step-by-step approach that Lucas took to help him navigate change in an organization where he worked.

Getting a team to learn and practice Scrum is not enough. There’s a critical aspect to a team’s own success and further development: feeling ownership over the product they are developing.

It is beyond debate I'm afraid; business projects are prone to failure – particularly large and complex projects. There is some irony in that, no? The more you hope to achieve, the more likely you are to be unsuccessful. Learn how the tech industry uses the Scrum Framework to curb failure and deliver customer value.

Professional Scrum Trainer Lucas Smith has an extreme case of that message for us. Listen in to learn how being yelled at by users can totally change your perspective on what is value, and make you want to change the product development process.

I often use innovative games as a useful addition for Sprint Reviews. They help clients better understand and thus improve the product. One of my favourite games is the Speed Boat. The Speed Boat game explores user’s pains and jobs.

Do your team members have a tendency to pick up the next task to work on in case they get stuck with current task because they are measured for ‘utilization’? Such multitasking isn’t just bad, but also has harmful effects and causes stress on the person as proven by a study at Stanford University.

Over a wet weekend in the UK, my 12 year old daughter was looking for something to do and decided to draw a poster to while away some time. My daughter decided that she would help me by making a poster about Scrum ( honestly!, I am not making this up. I didn't realise how much I talk about a scrum at home.)

I recently wrote an article for Entrepreneur on why Tech Companies need a code of ethics which got me thinking more broadly about the role of ethics, values and professionalism and why the agile community have been thinking about it more than most.

In this talk, Dave West Product Owner and CEO of Scrum.org and Mik Kersten CEO of Tasktop discuss the challenges of introducing value streams to a Scrum world and how you can balance flexibility with the structure to enable better flow and deliver more value to customers. They discuss how to avoid Value-Waterfall-Stream to make sure your stream doesn't become a waterfall and provide a list of potential warning signs for when the process of value streams has become a way of re-introducing traditional waterfall thinking to your product delivery process.

Vor kurzem habe ich mit einem Team die interessante Frage aufgeworfen, ob Softwareentwickler Leidenschaft für das Produkt das sie entwickeln benötigen oder ob Leidenschaft für Technologie wichtiger ist.

In this interview on ProjectManagement.com's Scrumptious Blog, Dave West, talks about where Scrum is heading, how it applies to non-software domains, and how to overcome management resistance to the use of Scrum in the organization.

In this series, I have been  Introducing some helpful tips for Scrum Masters on “Systems Thinking” - a diagnostic Tool and a disciplined approach for examining problems more completely and accurately before acting.  Lights on! Camera! 

In this Entrepreneur article, Dave West, CEO and Product Owner, Scrum.org talk about how the Scrum Values can serve as a basis for developing a code of ethics for software development.

A market leading international manufacturer of HVAC equipment in Germany was challenged with redesigning their online presence. Their more than 80 websites needed to be consolidated, redesigned, and implemented on a new content management system.

I remember going on a PRINCE2 course a few years ago, and trying to determine how this celebrated stage-gated framework might be applied to an agile mode of delivery. I was employed in the UK public sector at the time, and I had come to know how instrumental "PRINCE2 compliance" can be to the striking of a defensive organizational posture. When all eventually fails you must be able to show that you followed appropriate procedure.

In this blog, PSTs Sjoerd Kranendonk and Wilbert Seele explain how to achieve more and risk less by being a less visible Product Owner. In the Scrum Guide the following is written about the role of the PO: "The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product and the work of the Development Team."

One of the reasons Scrum allows opportunistic discovery is due to its short and fast feedback loops. With the aim to build a high-performing Team and to get the best potential out of each individual and to help them be successful, Agile Coach needs to provide straight feedback to them. But giving straight feedback is a daunting task especially since we are dealing with human emotions. In general, just the utterance of the statement, “I would like to give you feedback” sends the heart racing for a lot of people.

If you give a developer a verbal warning for surfing social media all day, you are crushing their autonomy. Insisting on core hours of 10am-4pm violates self-organisation. Personal development plans are so PRINCE II. Right? Well, maybe. On the other hand, having someone relatively experienced and influential on your side, to help shape your career and keep you off the annual redundancies list might actually be quite useful.

Schoonover says Smash Dev Shop partnered with Improving — a Dallas-based software and IT services firm that contracts for training, consulting, recruiting, and project services, according to its website — to bring a scrum master training course to Wichita May 8-9.

In this blog post we've shared our ideas on "Your Scrum Master Journey" and the first steps we've made at a Dutch customer.This week Christiaan Verwijs and I facilitated a workshop at a Dutch customer in which Scrum Masters could provide a pitch for participating in "Your Scrum Master Journey".

Suggested reading for anyone who is taking the Professional Agile Leadership certification assessment or just looking to learn more about being an Agile Leader.

Special Spanish Edition presented by Professional Scrum Trainer, Joel Francia and Rodolfo Suarez, Agile Consultant, CeaSoft  En este webinar exploramos el Rol del Product Owner en Scrum. - Parte de las responsabilidades del Product Onwer es definir una visión y objetivos de negocio para el producto que se va a construir, y transmitir esa visión y objetivos al equipo de desarrollo de Scrum. - El Product Owner gestiona el Product Backlog priorizado y ordenado en todo momento.

Last year, Stefan Wolpers and Age of Product conducted a Scrum Master Salary Survey of the agile community. The effort resulted in the Scrum Master Salary Report 2017. This year Scrum.org will be joining this survey effort with Stefan Wolpers and Age of Product, with the goal of collecting data from more participants on a global scale to help increase participation and gather new insights.

Being a Scrum Master of a team with strong personalities can be challenging at times especially when two or more people believe that their approach is right.

Teams with high diversity are more innovative. They have more perspectives that create a higher rate of idea flow. More new ideas are generated that lead to new products and innovations than in homogeneous teams.  What is innovation?

In the "Scrum from the trenches" blog post series I like to address topics that I encounter in practicing Scrum in the real world, with real teams. Sharing where theory comes into practice, what challenges teams encounter along the way and ways to help Scrum practitioners use the power of empiricism to overcome these challenges.

Over the years, the tools we use to develop and deploy applications are significantly more robust, and most companies are working to become more efficient with their processes. But what is the next step toward improvement in software development? New expectations.

This short video provides a review of the Scrum Framework.  Scrum is defined by its creators in the Scrum Guide which is the body of knowledge of Scrum. 2:22 Minutes

In this session, we provide an overview of the Scrum framework, discuss how Scrum enables agility and ways that empiricism can empower the teams that use it.

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Rich Visotcky gives viewers insight into a Scrum Team he was a part of at a bank from their beginning. Rich discusses the background as to why Scrum was adopted, how they built out their vision and honed in on value. You'll be amazed at the millions of dollars in value that they were able to deliver after just a single one-week Sprint. 5:23 Minutes

As a Product Owner, there is nothing more frustrating than having to use valuable development time to deal with technical debt. Like death and taxes, it’s just never a good time when those lurking defects decide to unravel.

With great power comes great responsibility. As the details of the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal reveal, the IT industry is still grappling with the question of how to deal with ethical dilemmas.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone is talking to you and when they ask a question like, “What do you think?” you realize that you were zoned out?

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Don McGreal reviews how he runs a Sprint Planning session with his Scrum Teams. Don focuses on how the Development Team works with the Product Owner to understand what is in the Product Backlog and how they populate the Sprint Backlog. 5:20 Minutes

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer Ty Crockett provides an overview of the Sprint Review and guidance on ways to make them more effective. Ty addresses some of the issues that come up when he is working with Scrum Teams and ways he has overcome them. 8:00 Minutes

Hello great people of the world. Welcome back to Professional Software Delivery with Scrum (PSD) blog series with yours truly. This time we're going talk about how to use Scrum And DevOps. I am interested to discuss this topic because it's quite common I get a question from someone in the agile community, "Should I use Scrum or DevOps?".