Resources

Agile coaching is a journey into irony. One of the chief discoveries you can make on this voyage is that the more experienced you become, the worse at the job others often think you get.

Hello, great people of the world. In my previous article, we have discussed how Scrum Masters need to master many things. In this article, we are going to discuss one of the stances that the Scrum Master need to master, that is the facilitation stance.

By Chris Lukassen & Sjoerd Kranendonk By now, most organisations are using Scrum, however, many of them feel like the agility of their organisation has degraded, and they might be right! Often, using Scrum starts out as a way to improve development efforts coordinated within an IT division or department, but that is not the most effective organization structure to potentially get maximum benefit from Scrum. Inclusive Scrum is about looking at the full value chain and organizing your Product development effort around that. Whereas low agility Scrum might actually hurt your agility.

Big organizations use Scrum as a driver of agility. But often after launching, management start focusing on the speed of development instead of quality. DoD is often weak and the company's agility is reduced as a result.

I often start my Scrum training classes with this quote: "Scrum Master is an enabler not a doer". This is the second in a series of posts exploring some of the myths about Scrum Mastery.

Scrum.org has announced at Agile 2018, the addition of its new, advanced Scrum Master course, Professional Scrum Master II (PSM II).

This is the fifth in a series of posts exploring Scrum Mastery. In our first post, we introduced the 4 dimensions of Scrum Mastery:  Team Identity, Team Process, Product Value, and the Organization.  In this post, we will explore the Organization dimension.

Scrum.org announced the Professional Scrum Master II training course at the conference, its newest and more advanced Scrum Master Course. The 2-day course is designed for Scrum Master with at least a year of experience and the understanding how of to use Scrum for value, quality, productivity and user satisfaction.

Traditional companies are adopting agile practices and the Scrum framework. In this article Dave West talks about what this means for existing job titles and structures.

Read more about how the PSM-II class deepens and expands your understanding of Scrum and helps you in your professional journey as a Scrum Master.

In this episode of the Agile For Humans Podcast, Dave West joins Professional Scrum Trainer Ryan Ripley to discuss the new Scrum.org training course - PSM-II – An Advanced Scrum Master Course.

A story of two fairly naive Dutch guys and how they created an advanced class for Scrum Masters with Scrum.org.

With the launch of Professional Scrum Master II (PSM II) – An Advanced Scrum Master Class, Scrum.org has built a course that is aimed directly at enabling the Scrum Master.

Working with the Professional Scrum Trainer community, and particularly with Ken Schwaber as one of the Professional Scrum Master Stewards has been a very rewarding learning journey.

Boston/San Diego – August 6, 2018 – Scrum.org, the mission-based organization dedicated to improving the profession of software delivery through training, certification assessments and community, today announced at Agile 2018, the addition of its new, advanced Scrum Master course, Professional Scrum Master II (PSM II). PSM II is a 2-day course intended for Scrum Masters with at least one year of experience, during which time they have had the opportunity to learn how to use Scrum to increase value, quality, productivity and user satisfaction.

Download this datasheet to learn more about the Professional Scrum Master II (PSM II) training class.

Scrum.org, the leading provider of comprehensive training, assessments, and certifications to improve the profession of software delivery, announced today that they are offering a new, advanced Professional Scrum Master II Course.

This is the fourth in a series of posts exploring Scrum Mastery. In our first post, we introduced the four dimensions of Scrum Mastery:  Team Identity, Team Process, Product Value, and the Organization.  In this post, we will explore the product value dimension.

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Chris Lukassen is joined by Intergamma's Scrum Master Jochen Hendriks to discuss how misinterpreted requirements can provide the completely wrong solution for the users, yet sound as if it was exactly what they wanted.  They will use a real-world example of how users wanted one thing and the development team delivered what they interpreted, but not what was desired.  Their solution includes getting the Development Team closer to the customer.  

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Daniel Ziegler discusses the Sprint Review and how the Product Owner works with stakeholders and the Development Team on managing and reviewing requirements, Product Backlog Items and their completion. He describes how there is no official "sign off" and the importance of the Definition of "Done" in defining what it means to completed Product Backlog Items.

In Durham University's IMPACT Magazine there is a feature on the inclusion of Professional Scrum Master Training and Assessments in its MBA curriculum for its Technology Pathway.

Dear friends, I want to share an unusual view of Scrum with you. Perhaps you've never thought about such a point of view before. I hope it will be useful.

This info is about Joel Gascoigne, CEO of Buffer, who facilitated social media management. Ok, how do I know? In fact you, like everyone else, can see the salaries of around 75 people, who are Buffer's employees including its CEO from the link (you can find at the references section) shared by Buffer.

Does your Finance Department discourage Agile software development because it would all be charged to operational expense?

In this webinar, Professional Scrum Trainer, Rich Visotcky talks through real-life examples of how an engaged Product Owner can generate the most value. He also touches on examples of how a Product Owner can be overly present and cause more harm than good.

Waterfall has been the dominant development practice for as long as we have been building things. It is a process where work is divided into large sequential steps. The process typically flows in one direction, which is forward, thus the term Waterfall. This article talks about how Scrum and Agile can be a better approach to completing Software projects.

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Todd Miller discusses the concept of Technical Debt and ideas on how to work to remove it. He looks at different concepts and why removal over time is important to the long-term viability of a product.

Getting your thoughts down on paper is a great way to reflect on and sort out the complicated aspects of our industry. The three Vs of Product Ownership is an example of this and is a major theme of our book — and the topic of this post.

Throughout my career I have helped many leaders adapt their style to one that better supports teams reach a high-performing state. Across a wide range of different industries the patterns of high-performing teams, and how leaders help shape them, have some striking consistencies.

When delivering a Professional Scrum Master training or helping clients creating awesome products with Scrum, some people ask me how to adapt (downgrade) Scrum to make it work in their organizations.

This is the third in a series of posts exploring Scrum Mastery. In our first post, we introduced the 4 dimensions of Scrum Mastery. In the second post, we explored how to grow a strong team identity. Now we will explore the team process dimension.

If you worked in large organizations you have probably heard about the term "dependencies". I am convinced that dependencies need to be eliminated, not managed.

Often I hear people say that Scrum does not take care of risk: there is no risk log, risk is not on the agenda of the Sprint Review or Retrospective as a standard agenda-item. The Development Teams need to be accountable for the quality of the product and how it's made. That's a risk right there! If there is not one person accountable for quality, being on time, within budget, building the right thing... How is risk managed in Scrum?

The Times News were on a journey to re-platform their system. While working diligently behind feature flags, using elements of Scrum, it wasn’t clear to the stakeholders the value being delivered and how well the teams were progressing towards their end goal.

This presentation by Professional Scrum Trainer, Chuck Suscheck describes the discovery techniques of BDD and exemplifies an end-to-end automated business scenario so that you can see the direct tie between business needs and software execution possible with BDD.

This is the second in a series of posts exploring Scrum Mastery. In our first post, we introduced the 4 dimensions of Scrum Mastery.

In Durham University's IMPACT Magazine there is a feature on the inclusion of Professional Scrum Master Training and Assessments in its MBA curriculum for its Technology Pathway..

The University of Applied Sciences at Albstadt-Sigmaringen (HSAlbSig) is respected for its well-balanced curriculum. However, even the best curriculum can benefit from outside sources and experts.

Bottom line - Toyota Improvement and Coaching Kata is the perfect partner for flow-based retrospectives.

InfoQ interviewed Don McGreal and Ralph Jocham about the different layers of planning in agile product management, product delivery, how Nexus supports alignment between multiple teams, what it means to be a Professional Product Owner, and developing Product Owner skills.

Agility is the ability of an organization to adapt to new conditions and to change its direction. The modern service-based format of the production-based economy of the previous century renders the competence of companies to change even stronger than before.

"An Agile Coach know more than just Scrum", said one consultant in a boardroom meeting, "he/she knows organisation dynamics, executive coaching and other Agile practices like Kanban and DevOps", he continued.

Bottom line - PSK improves the performance of Scrum teams, but WiP must be optimized for flow and work in progress should not relatively age compared with other in progress items

In this session, we explore how to integrate Peter Senge's 5 Disciplines of Learning Organizations with the Nexus Framework to help organizations to scale their business agility with Scrum. Along the way, we find out what Michelangelo had to say many centuries ago that can guide and inspire them in their journey.

Last year I reached a very important goal I had set for myself: I became a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) on behalf of Scrum.org. But why was this so important to me, and how did I get on this path?

Behavior Driven Development (BDD) and Test Driven Development (TDD) are Agile Practices that are complementary to the Scrum framework. Both are focused on improving the quality of the software product under development. That said, they approach building valuable software from different perspectives.

Improving Consistency of Scrum Training, Apex Global Now Offers Premium Training from the Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) Community.

We all understand, every field has a skill quotient that you need to achieve to be able to qualify and deliver. It’s a Doctor of Medicine for someone who wants to practice medicine, be a Doctor, and save lives.

Imagine this, you are at the weekly company meeting in a room of 60 people. All of them are co-workers who you have been working with for several years. You feel engaged and committed to the goal set by your company. 

The purpose of Scrum is to deliver Increments of releasable functionality. So at each Sprint Review, a “Done” Increment is required to make transparent the progress made by the team.