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...

Sin importar donde estés en tu transición a Scrum, el rol del Scrum Master se puede malinterpretar muy fácilmente.

Sin importar donde estés en tu transición a Scrum, el rol del Scrum Master se puede malinterpretar muy fácilmente. En este webinar, Joel Francia -Professional Scum Trainer- nos guiará en la exploración de algunas preguntas comunes acerca del rol del Scrum Master y como puede afrontar las diferentes ...

Here are the slides for this webcast.

I am listing out some commonly observed Scrum Myths, Mysteries, and Misconceptions from my experience. Scrum Teams are assigned to several projects or features. This results in context switching (i.e., multitasking), and the outcome is increased cycle time and delayed value delivery to busines...

The Nexus Integration Team (NIT) is a new role that is essential within the Nexus™ framework. It is a role that is performed by a team of people. As described in the Nexus Guide, “the Nexus Integration Team exists to coordinate, coach, and supervise the application of Nexus and the operation of Scru...

I see four common reasons an agile implementation doesn't get the benefits hoped for. These reasons include a failure to limit risk, long end-to-end delivery lead times, consistent cost-overruns, and no one knows why you do what you do. Are you in this situation? Read on to see if these match up to ...

In the Professional Scrum Product Owner course, we teach that high performing Product Owners are entrepreneurial. They not only act with the business in mind, they have the authority to make important decisions. What should we do now versus later? What choices give us the best return on investment? ...

The Daily Scrum, or most of the time referred to as the "stand up." Probably the most well-known event when we talk about Scrum. An event that lasts no longer than 15 minutes and where the Development Team inspects the plan for the sprint and see whether this plan is still valid. That is it! Nothin...

Organizations who don’t understand why they want to become Agile also often take the wrong path to get there. Agility requires empowering teams and helping them make decisions on their own, learning from their experiences as they go. They must organize themselves, yet they often have Agile practices...

What were you doing on Oct 19th 1995? According to the internet, not much with most of the news reminding us of Black Monday that had happened 9 years before. But for what is now over 11 million people who practice Scrum on a daily basis, it was a big day. That was the day that Scrum was offic...

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at how organizations are using DevOps to improve their software delivery cycle time, their ability to innovate, and their ability to improve quality. I’ve heard some people go so far as to say that DevOps has replaced Agile, but I don’t think that’s true. If anything...

The Nexus Sprint Backlog is created during Nexus Sprint Planning. It is a visualization of the work across the Nexus that has dependencies. The purpose of Nexus Sprint Planning is to coordinate the activities of all Scrum Teams in a Nexus for a single Sprint. Read more to see what Professional Scru...

On July 7th the Scrum community gathered in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) for the 5th edition of Scrum Day Europe. This year's theme was 'the next iteration'. Therefore we looked back to see what Scrum brought us the last 20 years but also looked forward to the future of Scrum. Naturally, the evaluati...

Download this datasheet to learn more about the Professional Scrum Product Owner training.

Suggested reading for anyone who is taking the Professional Scrum with User Experience assessment or just looking to learn more about Professional Scrum with User Experience.

An overview of documents and books to help understand the role of the Product Owner organized by assessment categories.

An overview of documents and books to help understand the accountabilities of Developers on a Scrum Team working in the Software Delivery domain organized by assessment categories.

An overview of documents and books to help understand the role of the Product Owner organized by assessment categories.

Suggested reading for anyone who is taking the Professional Scrum Master level I certification test or just looking to learn more about being a Scrum Master.

Listen to five of the most respected Scrum.org PSPO Trainers – Ralph Jocham, Mark Noneman, Erik Weber, Hiren Doshi, and Simon Reindl in our Scrum Pulse Lean Café on Product Ownership as they guide an enquiry through the mysteries of product ownership.

Today I changed my Twitter and LinkedIn profile. I removed Agile Coach and replaced it with Scrum Master. 100% Scrum Master. Although it seems a small change, it raised quite some concern when I suggested the idea a couple of weeks ago... "You should stick with Agile Coach. As a freelancer, th...

This glossary represents an overview of terms specific to software development teams using Scrum and agile software development techniques. To learn more about the Scrum framework, we highly recommend that you reference the Scrum Guide™ and the Scrum Glossary. A A/B Testing: extends the ide...

Glossary of Scrum Terms This glossary is meant to represent an overview of Scrum-related terms. Some of the mentioned terms are not mandatory in Scrum, but have been added because they are commonly used in Scrum. To learn more about the Scrum framework, to identify which of these terms are requir...