I was recently contacted by a senior executive of a mid-sized company that is evolving their product development to Scrum. He explained a situation he had been in and wanted my opinion. He accepted me to share his story here (with some abstractions, and calling him Jim) in an open-ended way, invitin...

Companies have two avenues for growth: acquisition, or organic growth. Regardless of how they are growing their increasing size increases the difficulty of the company successfully responding to change. Retaining as much as possible of advantage of that small company’s ability to rapidly piv...

Scaled Professional Scrum is based on unit of development called a Nexus. The Nexus consists of up to 10 Scrum teams, the number depending on how well the code and design are structured, the domains understood, and the people organized. The Nexus consists of practices, roles, events, and artifacts t...

Scrum brings agility to and creates Agile organizations through the implementation of empirical process control, the process of frequent inspection and adaptation. The empiricism of Scrum serves discovering and taking advantage of opportunities and options, at all levels; people, technology, market....

I’ve been witness to the start of hundreds of teams and projects. There’s a point at which, during the launch of a new team even before the first Sprint, I can tell with fair certainty whether the team will be successful or not. I’ve been thinking about what the root causes of this are, and here’s m...

n this session, we examine some common and not- so-common metrics before introducing how we can use them as a guide for continuously measuring business goals, aligning them with software development efforts, and then deciding what to do next.

One of the challenge working as a Professional Scrum Trainer is reading what is in people's mind when they are silent. In a classroom setup, silence can mean many things and it depends on the local culture. In some culture, silence can be a form of respect to the person who is talking. Silence c...

History In 2012 in one of my Professional Scrum Master classes I met a true gentleman. Much older than the average IT specialist in Poland, jeans and button-up shirt, amazing manners, spotless language and a perfectly kept medium-length black beard with shining strings of white. The kind of a per...

Making a purchase can feel great when you’ve developed a rapport with the salesperson. Regardless of the product; from a tasty treat at the farmer’s market to a major purchase like a new car; a sale is much more likely when the vendor not only cares deeply about their product but also takes time to ...

Do you want to pass a small test? It is very simple - please reproduce in the exact sequence literally four values of ​​Agile Manifesto. Well, how did it go? If you succeeded, then you get my congratulations. 3 years ago I failed the test, though I knew the Scrum Guide almost literally and was...

An analogy I can think of is... I want my dart to hit the dart board, and not necessarily the bull's eye.... as it calls for a lot of details which apparently is missing during estimation. However, if my dart doesn’t hit anywhere on the dart board... it's almost like shooting in the dark; a very dis...

In his book Good to Great, author Jim Collins asks the reader: Do you have a "to do" list? Do you also have a "stop doing" list? He goes on by saying: Those who built the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of "stop doing" lists as "to do" lists. They displayed a re...

In today's rapidly changing world of disruptive innovation organizations need to be nimble enough to support this. We are asking our workforce to do this by becoming 'agile'. We want the agility to quickly pivot and seize new opportunities. We want to deliver to market sooner. We want ou...

“To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.” - Doug Conant, CEO of Campbell’s Soup To create Organizational Agility you need to find the harmony between People, Process, and Tools. Agile speaks of putting people first, however from my experience, people are the poor step ch...

A program team of over 40 people decided to move to Agile from their traditional development practices. The program was old and had been in existence for over 6 years. In these 6 years they had released multiple versions of their software product to their customers. In the rush to satisfy the custom...

Do you hold the job title of Scrum Master in your organization? In most big companies today, this role is still misrepresented as a Project Manager, which is hindering the pursuit of organizational Agility and hurting the professionals who are genuinely attempting to make this challenging job change...

To imbibe Agility in an organization which is a state of high responsiveness, speed, and adaptiveness organizations should promote a new organizational culture of openness, transparency, respect for people, constant learning, improving, and constant adaptation. Even with so much of awareness, cultur...

When reading the role of the Scrum Master in the Scrum guide, one of the core competencies is to facilitate meetings. While in a meeting, a Scrum Master might want to visualize what the team is thinking or expressing. Or he might want to enhance the collaboration through an activity. Colored Post-It...

In this short video, I explain the challenges of scaling Scrum and how to create a Nexus™ to manage multiple Scrum teams to deliver an integrated increment every Sprint.

In this short video, Ken Schwaber explains the challenges of scaling Scrum and how to create a Nexus™ to manage multiple Scrum teams to deliver an integrated increment every Sprint.

EMBARRASSING DISCOVERY True Story from when I was Agile Coach for a Multi-Billion Dollar, Fortune 15 Giant… It was a large Agile program and we had new team members joining the program in waves. Not everyone was familiar with Agile and we did not have money for in-person training. So we had ...

Dear Scrum Master! Being a Professional Scrum Trainer, agile coach & consultant for a while I had a chance to work with around a thousand Scrum Masters across different organizations. I see recurring patterns of misunderstanding and misapplication of Scrum usually visible in how Scrum Masters...

“Eventbrite Order Notification” – This is probably one of the best mails I receive as a ScrumTrainer It usually means I have another student with whom I can share my passion for Scrum. Sometimes it doesn’t quite work that way. Last year, I got this notification for a student who wanted to attend...

Years ago I was complimented on “improving the group dynamic” by bringing in a cafetiere for the my agile team to use. We developed a bit of a ritual around this object. One person had made it clear that the kettle needed to be left to cool so the coffee was not burned, procedures were in place fo...

"Agile" (the label) is all over the place. Who would have guessed in early 2001? When the Manifesto for Agile Software Development was created and the English adjective ‘agile’ obtained its specific meaning in the context of software development. What is this manifesto, commonly known as the Agile M...

Have you ever been in a meeting where you felt afraid to share a difficult and truthful statement? Was "the obvious" in the room the whole time, but no one would speak up and talk about it? If so, then the time has come for your organization's leadership to embrace the role of a Courageous Communica...

I always spend time during training classes thoroughly covering the concept of Definition of Done, sometimes abbreviated “DoD.” As a concept it’s fairly easy to understand and people generally see the value right away. And in practice, for many teams, this concept is the single biggest game changer ...

Are you a Manager that believes in the power of Scrum? There is a difference between thinking, believing and knowing. Don't miss out on a huge opportunity to become the next market leader in your space. It's time to understand your role and how it needs to change in order to survive in a creative ec...

File this one under: “how do you do Sprint Reviews when you have lots of teams?” Indeed, the traditional presentation format gets long, boring, and ineffective when you have more than a handful of teams presenting at a Sprint Review. From the point of view of an executive, this is exponentially tr...

One of the favorite activities of HR departments seems to be herding people into teamwork trainings. In these trainings they will have endure learning about all sorts of ideas related to teamwork. Most of them with no scientific validity. Learning to give feedback to other team members has its sure ...

As people and organizations grow and mature their implementation of Scrum, they regularly check with us at Scrum.org about particular points of interest. Recently we have seen an increase in the need for help and inspiration in scaling Scrum and in ways to educate and assess Scrum practitioners.

This blog is part of my series on “Agile Trojan Horses – Covert Appetizers for Agile Discovery”. This series helps spark conversations that restore focus on Agile Fundamentals, whet the appetite to discover more about Agile and help apply Agile in day-to-day decision-making. I am writing this b...

The ability to create high-quality and attractive flip charts is one of the basic skills of any facilitator. If you are the Scrum Master, Agile Coach, business coach or just a person who used to capturing thoughts using paper and markers and prefers the old timeless classics - these simple rules wil...

In this video, hear from some of the Professional Scrum Developer trainers and their thoughts on what it means to be a Professional Scrum Developer.

In this webcast, Ravi Verma, Scrum expert, and founder of SmoothApps discusses self-managing teams, a fundamental element core to agile software delivery and any Scrum Team.

Young Jimmy is in 3rd grade. He's constructed an immaculate paper-mâché volcano. It took every spare minute of the last to weeks to make. His mom carefully loads it in the back of the minivan. The anticipation is too much for Jimmy, he can't even look. Arriving at school, Jimmy helps her carry ...

Starting a team new to agility on their first sprint is one of my favorite and most rewarding things to do. The enthusiasm, newness, sense of accomplishment, teamwork, and the communication displayed in just the first sprint is usually enough to leave most folks happily surprised. “Wow, I nev...

If I had a penny for every minute I sat in a meeting where teams argued about what was and was not “Agile” I would be a gazillionaire by now. Sometimes, the most vocal and dominant voices are the least aware of the fundamentals of Agile. To many, Agile is a buzz word and does not mean more than what...

A team that I work with decided one day to improve the general mood in the team. A member of the team (David) bought the Snakes & Ladders board game for the team. By playing the game, his goal was to counter pessimism that was generally flowing within the team. As negative remarks about the proj...

In the book Scaling Up Excellence by Sutton & Rao, they discuss two different ways to think about scaling: the “catholic or buddhist” approaches. I think this is a very interesting way to think about Scaling Scrum. The jist is: catholicism scales by having standardized practices and procedur...

Are you considered a leader in your organization? Do you spend your day at the top of the tower or in the trenches? Our best Agile leaders navigate an organization and fuel connections that lead to high performance across the workplace - here's how. In my travels, I am baffled by the number ...

[Author’s note: I will be a Scrum Day Dallas on 27 March 2015; a great opportunity to meet me and other master Scrum Masters. Find me there and let’s talk about your Scrum Master journey. Exciting travels –Mark Noneman] So you’re a Scrum Master now. Maybe you’ve volunteered to fulfill the role or...

Watch a video version of this blog or scroll down to read a text version… I used to be passionate about Agile Coaching and Scrum. I have spent many years and a lot of money to get here. So it is strange that I am now writing about how all the investment made me a gambling addict. Writing t...

Setting up an enterprise-scale agile department with 200 developers working towards the same vision will ensure you are invited to speak at all of the most prestigious conferences, but is there a simpler solution? Just get Sam to do it The simplest way to build software is to find one talented...

Are you part of a Team in the workplace? Odds are the answer is "yes". Do you observe other Teams in your organization doing inspiring work and wonder how they do it? We talk a lot about the characteristics of great Scrum Teams, but what does it *feel* like to be on a great Scrum Team? In my...

Recently I just got an email from a QA manager who wishes to send his team members to Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master course: I’m so interested in Professional Scrum Master course. I’m working as a QA Manager on Scrum projects. Therefore, I intend to join the Prof...

As a leader, your own behavior has a profound effect on the effectiveness of Scrum in the workplace. Want to embody great leadership to elevate your organization's performance? Consider adding an "apology" to your leadership toolkit. Once upon a time, there was a young and promising professi...

I was coaching a number of teams and their Sprint Reviews were boring status meetings and few stakeholders attended. I see this pattern often at companies and a reason for poor stakeholder attendance is that the discussion about added value happens in other meetings. In this post I want to share a l...

In 2015, Scrum.org will refine the Professional Scrum Master (PSM) assessments, PSM I and PSM II, in line with following objectives: PSM I tests practice-level insights and knowledge of Scrum required for anyone entering a Scrum Team to know how to participate. PSM II tests the ability to...

Is 2015 the year for you to expand into a leadership role? Are you focused on becoming a better leader this year? As you head back to the office, consider adding "Develop a sense of empathy" to your list of New Year's Resolutions. Do you travel for your job? Extensive travel is a must in my profe...