Today we announced a new class Professional Scrum With Kanban. This class helps teams practicing Scrum to apply the practices of Kanban without breaking Scrum. It shows how visualization and flow are great partners in delivering Done software and how Scrum with Kanban helps teams become more profess...

In this class, students will learn how their Scrum Teams can introduce complementary practices from Kanban while continuing the way they are already working with Scrum, all without changing Scrum.

Scaling is a popular strategy these days: scaling innovation, scaling agile, scaling whole organizations. But scaling can easily undermine agile principles like focus and minimal viable product, and the abilities to deliver, learn quickly, and pivot decisively when required.

The Scrum Master role is a new one and is often misunderstood by teams and organizations implementing Scrum. When I work with organizations, often I see Scrum Masters role is not taken very seriously, A frequent response is to make the “leftover people” the Scrum Masters. They might be nice peop...

This is the German audio version of the Nexus Guide.

This is the audio version of the Nexus Guide.

Net Health first adopted Scrum in 2014 to aid in the completion of two large software development projects and remove the burden of an exhaustive initial requirements phase, thanks to the iterative nature of Scrum.

I have recently been helping a new Scrum team get started with the framework and helping them to set themselves up with the best chance of being successful with Scrum. After a two week sprint in which they did deliver an increment and learned a lot about the product that they would be work on, it...

These slides accompany the webinar What is Nexus? An Introduction to the Framework for Scaling Scrum

In this webinar, Patricia Kong, Scrum.org Product Owner of Enterprise Solutions and co-creator of Nexus provides an overview to the Nexus Framework, its principles and the thinking behind it. She will discuss how Nexus, like Scrum, promotes bottom-up intelligence to discover and emerge what works be...

In this post, we address the myth that the Sprint Review is primarily an opportunity to ‘demo’ the increment to stakeholders. Although a demo certainly can be part of a Sprint Review, it fails to capture what the Sprint Review is actually about...

Steve Porter joined Agile for Humans host Ryan Ripley to discuss a wide variety of deep Scrum topics and approaches.

“Agile” has become a buzzword in the software development industry as well as the wider business landscape. And for good reason – several organizations have cited Agile principles as the influence behind results such as better financial performance, project success, customer satisfaction and employe...

Professional Scrum Trainer David Dame didn't speak until the age of 12. Born with Cerebral Palsy he has used his every day challenges to help companies and individuals become more adaptive, more understanding and more engaged with one another. A fabulously insightful interview with a truly inspirati...

Being a professional with a disability is like working two careers:  The one I get compensation for - leading organizations to adapt continuous change. The other career - managing an organization of personal support workers to allow me to have a full life. 

A friend sent me an e-mail, asking me to summarize Nexus and the Scaled Professional Scrum class. Here's the gist of what I sent in return. Why Nexus? If you know Scrum, you already know the basic principles and most important things needed to scale Scrum: inspect and adapt cycles, and the imp...

Recently I worked with a new customer in Denver to help them move towards a greater degree of Scrum in their software development. The idea that Scrum is for everyone in your organisation is kind of new, but it reflects the modern understanding of the way people work, and the rejection of Taylorism ...

A facilitation technique to make the purpose of your work as a Scrum Team clear.

There is nothing in the Scrum Guide that says that you can't have workflow across the Sprint boundary. I'm going to suggest that not only can you, but you should as long as you don't endanger the Sprint Goal. The definition of Done is an instrumental part of maintaining transparency of the past w...

Improve your Scrum events with the Liberating Structure “1-2-4-All”. Unfold open conversations and sift ideas and solutions in rapid fashion. Your Scrum events (and other meetings, events, workshops) will never be the same!

Wenn man Scrum auf einen einzigen Begriff reduzieren müsste, welcher wäre das?

In this episode Jochen Krebs speaks with Patricia Kong and Kurt Bittner of Scrum.org, about the changes made to the Nexus Guide release in January 2018 and their thoughts on Scaling Scrum.

Stop the traditional introduction rounds and start using Impromptu Networking. A facilitating technique to rapidly share challenges and expectations and build new connections.

Back in the early days of Scrum, the Scrum Master role was exciting. The days of the pigs & chickens, the days when being a Scrum Master was considered dangerous. In those times there was the saying a dead Scrum Master is a useless Scrum Master  And even today I still use that when selecting a...

The Sprint is one of the five Scrum events.  In my Professional Scrum Courses, this is the event that people often forget about because it is a container event, not necessarily something you distinctly schedule on the calendar.

Specify only the absolute “must dos” and “must not dos” for achieving a purpose. Ideal for creating a Definition of Done, a Minimal Viable Product or a Team Manifest.

It’s been a year since I joined the Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainers Community. 2018 marks my fifth year in teaching Scrum. Allow me to reflect on this journey. In the beginning, I would literally run to another building, which was at least a block away, to meet my colleagues very eager to ...

This document provides an overview of the changes made to the Nexus Guide over time.

According to Forrester Research, 90% of Agile teams use Scrum.[1] One reason for this popularity is that Scrum is a simple framework that promotes transparency and empiricism. It is based on a set of principles and values, and consists of three roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Development Tea...

In August 2015, Ken Schwaber and Scrum.org introduced the Nexus framework to the public via the Nexus Guide, the definitive guide to scaling Scrum. Today, on January 17, 2018, we release the first update to the Nexus Guide.

“I designed a defined framework for using many Scrum Teams on a single product or problem. The result is Nexus, an exoskeleton that rests on top of many Scrum Teams. Nexus provides information and management information for guiding their working together.” - Ken Schwaber

Nexus builds upon Scrum’s foundation and minimally extends the Scrum framework to enable multiple teams to work from a single Product Backlog to build an Integrated Increment that meets a goal.

An online version of The Definitive Guide to Nexus

During some Scrum training classes, I have been asked, can teams practice Continuous Delivery (CD) , using the Scrum Framework? The answer is a resounding yes!   Let's explore why some believe that Scrum only allows you to release at the most, every Sprint against what the Scrum Guide says.   

Diversity boosts innovation in companies in times, when the rate of outside change is high. Diversity of people across culture, gender, religion, physical ability, ethnicity and other individual differences have to offer value for the group. Diversity in teams can generate greater idea flow and help...

In this article we’ll bust the myth that in Scrum too much time is spend in meetings. We’ll not only describe how time-consuming the Scrum events factually are, but also clarify the purpose and importance. After explaining the origins of this myth, we’ll offer some practical tips to prevent or resol...

With Scrum, World Servants Product Owners are able to identify which of their requests are higher priority and should be completed first. In turn, they also use Scrum to help them collectively agree on which backlog items should be assigned to the IT department in the next Scrum Sprint - a time-box ...

Everyone building software products today aspire to be able to seamlessly update the production software in a continuous manner. To be able to deploy code without the ‘normal’ friction of process controls, reviews, test departments and committee meetings.

I often get this question when coaching or training organizations new to Scrum: “I’m a project manager. What do I do?” I’m happy when I get the question; it gives me the opportunity to talk it through. Too many times, people assume or jump to the conclusion that the role of project manager must b...

Every day I wake up and wonder, “Where am I”? Where am I going? I was not clear on where am I heading. I started as a Java developer in EDS- Electronic Data Systems and Progressed through the various assignment. But what my Institution gave me? Institutions are just cloning people, and every...

Do you ever influence or coach people? How? Do you use a gut feel approach or do you have coaching patterns that you use? I have several coaching patterns that I step through when trying to influence people. I also have a strategy for using these patterns. Let me share with you with an example ...

In this article we'll bust one of the more radical myths in Scrum; the belief that plans and planning have no place in Scrum.

Many Scrum Teams use User Stories as a technique for creating their Product Backlog Items (PBIs). But when the teams bring big stories to the Sprint, this causes lots of problems. The common recommendation is to slice stories so that the team can take 6-10 of them to the Sprint. Let's discuss in det...

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer David Dame talks about why diversity in Scrum Teams is so important.  Topics include diverse thinking, capabilities and knowledge. (2:27 minutes)

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer David Dame talks about his experiences over many years working in the Agile community and with Ken Schwaber, co-creator of Scrum, founder of Scrum.org and signatory of the Agile Manifesto. David looks at his history with Ken and Ke...

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer David Dame discusses how many modern practices and techniques have Scrum at their core and why the empiricism of Scrum continues to be so important today. (1:39 minutes)

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer David Dame discusses why you need to think and use common sense when working. With Scrum being empirical, you need to leverage common sense in making changes and decisions. Sometimes, you need to make assumptions and moves based on ...

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer David Dame talks about how using Scrum with practices from Design Thinking can come together to help deliver better solutions to customers. (3:08 minutes)

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer David Dame discusses how people can always be learning and why you don't have to be an expert to contribute to the Scrum Team. (2:14 minutes)

As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer Erwin van der Koogh takes you through the Cynefin model that he uses to determine the how to approach problems from simple to complex. (5:03 minutes)