Stephanie Ockerman

The values set out in the Scrum framework are essential because they help us to navigate complex work environments as a team. At first glance, they appear straightforward but living the Scrum Values each day is challenging whether this is your first or fiftieth Sprint together. If you’re a Scrum Master struggling with this issue, you are definitely not alone. In this discussion, I’ll outline why the Scrum values matter, how to determine if they are at risk on your team, why this happens, and how to get things back on track.

I hear the word “commitment” used in problematic and misleading ways all the time. This is true when I am teaching Professional Scrum classes and even when I am coaching good Scrum Masters. It often sounds like one of these statements: How do we know how much work to commit to? How do we make sure we will finish all of the scope we committed to for this release? What happens if we don’t meet our commitment date? The problem is that the word commitment has been MISUNDERSTOOD in organizations to mean a guarantee or promise related to delivery. And that is NEVER what the word meant in the context of Scrum.

In my last article, I explained why we need to stop talking about "carryover" and how it's not actually a thing in Scrum. "Carryover" is really just partially done work at the end of a Sprint. Now I will take you deeper and share the 4 common misunderstandings often associated with this concept, and how we can make the shift to creating better conversations about what really matters.

“Carryover” is not a thing in Scrum, and I think we need to stop using that terminology. Because by giving it a special name, it gets normalized. Plus the term itself is misleading. In this post, I will talk about “carryover” really means and how to handle it.

I am often asked what Scrum Teams and organizations should measure. And while measurement is important, it's not just about what we measure. It's about understanding why we measure and how we use those measures. And well, that's what actually helps you figure out what to measure. In this post, I will share some common patterns I have noticed that lead to using measures poorly. If you start to recognize some of these patterns in your team or organization, well, that's a good thing. Because seeing and understanding the problems (transparency) is the first step to improvement. And Evidence-Based Management (EBM) is a framework you can use to get back on track. 3 Ways Organizations Use Measures Poorly #1 - Measures are treated as a determination of success or failure. Yep, that's right. Measures should NOT be used as a way to determine if a team or a leader is succeeding or failing. Measures are a source of empirical information that helps guide decision-making. And the moment we make "achievement" of certain measures mean something about us in terms of our effort, our skills, or our worthiness, we risk losing the information we need to guide us in navigating complexity and unpredictability. And then making the measures "look good" becomes the goal. And if teams are chasing measures, well... you can imagine the misalignment and friction this causes across the organization. This leads us to the second common mistake. #2 - Losing focus on customer outcomes. Because we will want to measure only the things we can control, that likely means we are not measuring customer outcomes. And we are likely not creating goals that focus on customer outcomes. When teams and organizations are focused mostly on measuring activities and outputs, they are missing key information. The number of milestones achieved or budget burned (activities) does not tell you much about your ability to deliver value. And even measures like revenue or features delivered (output) does not tell you much about the customer experience. And this focus on measuring activities and outputs is likely to lead to "gaming" of the measures (whether conscious or unconscious). Essentially, we forget that we are working in complex, unpredictable environments. We cannot control customer outcomes. But we can leverage empiricism to navigate if we have transparency to what's really going on and frequently inspect and adapt our goals, our progress towards them, and our strategy. This leads us to the third common mistake. #3 - Not having a broad enough perspective of value measures. Measuring customer outcomes is a tricky business. How users respond to our products and services is influenced by many factors. We also have to consider both our short-term and long-term ability to deliver value, and quality and technical excellence come into play in this conversation. This is why EBM introduces 4 Key Value Areas (Unrealized Value, Current Value, Time to Market, and the Ability to Innovate) that enable a more robust set of perspectives to understand both market value and organizational capability. Having multiple lenses helps balance our progress towards longer-term goals and our responsiveness and effectiveness as an organization. How to Improve When I facilitate classes and coach my clients on using measures effectively, we start with understanding why we measure and identify customer outcome-based goals. And then we determine what measures (i.e. empirical information) will help us understand progress towards our goals and help us validate (or invalidate) our assumptions. We also discuss that measures can and should change over time, so this needs to be part of our inspect and adapt feedback loops. Do you want to learn how to leverage EBM to improve business agility? Scrum.org has launched an official 1-day training for EBM. It is called Professional Agile Leadership – Evidence-Based Management (PAL-EBM). In this class, you will learn how goals, measures, and experiments fit together in order to create better alignment, empower teams, and enable innovation. Join me for a public live virtual class November 1, 2021. You can also contact me to schedule a private training for your organization. What I love about having a formal training opportunity is that it brings the concepts to life in a meaningful way. It allows participants to use a case study to practice applying concepts in real-time. And when you are grounded in the foundational knowledge, you can then apply the framework more effectively in your context.

I am often asked how to create better goals. This comes up at the team level, and it also comes up for the wider organization. When we are dealing with complexity, there is no one right way, no perfect template, and no best practice. And I find it helpful to look at the goals people are using today, explore the benefits those goals are giving them, and identify if there are unintended consequences of how they are using goals. In this post, I will share some common patterns I have noticed that lead to using goals poorly. If you start to recognize some of these patterns in your team or organization, well, that’s a good thing. Because seeing and understanding the problems (transparency) is the first step to improvement. And Evidence-Based Management (EBM) is a framework you can use to get back on track. 4 Ways Organizations Use Goals Poorly #1 – Goals are not focused on customer outcomes. Instead of focusing on customer outcomes, goals may be too focused on activities and outputs. For example, a mobile app team may have a goal focused on delivering a certain subset of functionality to users (output). However, there is no guarantee that functionality will actually improve the customer’s experience. Another example is a recruiting team that has a goal focused on the number of interviews scheduled (activity). However, if they are not quality candidates, the experience is likely to be poor for everyone involved. That leads us to the next pattern. #2 – Not measuring what matters. Measures are essentially the transparent information that helps people make meaningful decisions about goals and how best to achieve them. What you measure will influence behavior. And focusing on one type of measure doesn’t give you enough understanding when working in complex environments. Often, I see organizations measuring activities and outputs but missing outcomes. The number of hours worked or budget burned (activities) does not tell you much about your ability to deliver value. And even measures like orders filled or profitability (output) do not tell you much about the customer experience. This is why EBM introduces 4 Key Value Areas (Unrealized Value, Current Value, Time-to-Market, and the Ability to Innovate) that enable a more robust set of perspectives to understand both market value and organizational capability. Having multiple lenses helps balance our progress towards longer-term goals and our responsiveness and effectiveness as an organization. #3 – Goals are not inspected and adapted frequently enough (or at all). Goals are based on assumptions. This means we should be validating our goals frequently. And of course, we need to inspect and adapt our goals as we learn more. In EBM, the concept of the Experiment Loop is introduced as a way to recognize that we make progress towards goals in a series of small experiments. And based on the results of those experiments, we must decide whether to keep going, stop, or pivot. And this includes possibly refining, updating, or even changing the goals. #4 – Focusing too much on practices for creating and aligning goals. Similar to what I teach with Scrum, there are no best practices when it comes to goals in a complex environment. And with any practice, you can use it well or use it poorly. Here are 2 insightful articles that offer an exploration of two popular practices related to goals: When Are SMART Goals Not-So-Smart? OKRs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly When I coach my clients on effective goals, I offer multiple ways to look at goals and encourage them not to just pick one approach or one template. You have to do what feels right in your context, and you do not want to be too rigid. Goal alignment happens through conversation and creating shared understanding – not just once a year, but frequently enough for your context. Do you want to learn how to leverage EBM to improve business agility? Scrum.org has launched an official 1-day training for EBM. It is called Professional Agile Leadership – Evidence-Based Management (PAL-EBM). In this class, you will learn how goals, measures, and experiments fit together in order to create better alignment, empower teams, and enable innovation. Join me for a public live virtual class November 1, 2021. (The first class sold out 3 weeks after registration opened, so get in early.) You can also contact me to schedule a private training for your organization. What I love about having a formal training opportunity is that it brings the concepts to life in a meaningful way. It allows participants to use a case study to practice applying concepts in real-time. And when you are grounded in the foundational knowledge, you can then apply the framework more effectively in your context.

In my live training, I often ask students why we estimate. The answer I usually hear is some version of...“So we know how big something is and how long it will take.”  

In my Professional Scrum Training and coaching sessions with teams, I am often asked about Product Backlog management tools. In this post, I'll share my thoughts on tools and 3 tips for using tools effectively in Scrum.

In this post, I will explain the difference between creative and reactive modes of operating, offer some examples of how this shows up in our teams and beyond, as well as some tips for cultivating your ability to stay creative.

Over the years of working in both traditional and agile environments, I have noticed a pattern. It is something I now call a culture of escalation.  In this post, I will share the common causes of a culture of escalation and some tips for breaking out of the pattern.