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Blog Post
In this post, we’ll explain the Liberating Structure "Troika Consulting" and how we apply this facilitation technique within our Scrum training and coaching engagements.
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Blog Post
Flashback to 1995, Jeff and Ken had presented their paper at OOPSLA on Scrum. People recognizes it as one of the new ways of working. Fast forward to Feb 2001, no ski resort gathering and no Agile manifesto. People are trying different methods, frameworks and practices for improving the state of sof...
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Video
As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer Ralph Jocham describes the Backlog Refinement, provides tips for how to hold and improve refinement sessions. 5:25 Minutes
2.8 from 307 ratings
Blog Post
Yes, you read it right, it was really challenging for me, and may be other PSTs have the same or different experience. A couple of times I thought about quitting it but because of some or the other reasons I continued. This article is an attempt of sharing my journey, may be useful to you before you...
5 from 1 rating
Blog Post
In this post, we'll bust the myth that Scrum requires work to be estimated in Story Points. Although it is a useful technique, and used by many Scrum Teams, it is by no means the only technique. Above all, remember the quote by Esther Derby: “Estimating is often helpful, estimates are often not.”
4.7 from 344 ratings
Whitepaper
Scrum Studio creates an environment in which empiricism can thrive. It may exist as a physically separate organization, or it may simply be a protected part of an existing organization, especially when it is just getting started. Read this paper to learn more.
4.1 from 4 ratings
Blog Post
"That's the problem with so many organizations around entrepreneurship. They're driven by metrics that don't matter." - Brad Feld
It's alright Madam, I'm a Doctor
Have you ever had your bumps read? No no, don't be alarmed, it's your cranium I'm referring to. At one time it was thought poss...
4.4 from 7 ratings
Video
In this presentation by Professional Scrum Trainer Robert (Robb) Pieper he discusses Agile Transformations and common challenges/solutions to scaling Scrum, issues with individuals and teams, communication challenges and much more. 50:08 Minutes
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Blog Post
There is a frustrating misunderstanding of reality when one thinks that the Product Owner can reject a single story at the Sprint Review. This is the fallacy of the rejected backlog item and the misguided belief that this backlog item can just be left out of this delivery. That backlog item that was...
5 from 1 rating
Blog Post
People in the Agile community must have heard or have came across this white paper multiple times. We have been preaching about it in our training classes but I am not sure how many of Agile community members have actually read it thoroughly. The paper was published in Jan 1986 issue of HBR and is v...
4.5 from 1 rating
Blog Post
"See it all. See it fairly. Be truthful, be sensible and be careful with language" - Henry Grunwald
In Scrum we care about the precise and considered use of language, since any obfuscation reduces transparency. When we try to implement Scrum, we can sometimes find that the pressure is on to c...
4.5 from 213 ratings
Blog Post
Do you think people need to be forged into a T-shape? Think again. Focus on the aspects preventing people from employing their intrinsic T-potential.
I have never worked with a single person who mastered no more than a single skill. Every individual I worked with had the intrinsic capability to p...
4 from 4 ratings
Podcast
In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods of InfoQ, spoke to Dave West, CEO and chief product owner at Scrum.org, about the state of Scrum in 2017 and the future of agile.
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Blog Post
In this blog post we’ll bust the myth that “The Scrum Master is a junior Agile Coach”. Effective change is driven from “the inside-out”. The Scrum Master - being part of the Scrum Team - is in a better position to facilitate this change than an (external) Agile Coach.
4.5 from 225 ratings
Video
This short video provides a look into what happens during the Scrum.org Professional Scrum Developer (PSD) course. You can see the class in action as they break into Scrum Teams, deliver working software and go through the different Scrum Events. Course stewards and Scrum.org Professional Scrum Tr...
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Video
As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer Hiren Doshi discusses a model to assess and control unplanned work that may come up during a Sprint and reviewing its impact during the Sprint Review. 3:12 Minutes
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Blog Post
Use "Shift & Share and Caravan" as facilitation pattern in Scrum for Sprint Reviews, brainstorms and involving stakeholders. Spread novel ideas across groups of any size with "Shift & Share" and rapidly receive feedback with "Caravan".
4.5 from 1 rating
Blog Post
How to Teach a Scrum Team to Split Stories
Many Scrum Teams have difficulties with splitting user stories. Often I hear people saying: "It's absolutely impossible to split this product backlog item.” In order to solve this issue, I recommend organizing a workshop on story splitting for the ent...
3.7 from 10 ratings
Blog Post
In this post I will review what's a Proxy Product Owner, why you can find so often this role in organizations embracing Scrum, and some proposals to avoid this role and achieve a true Product Owner.
What is a Proxy Product Owner?
A Proxy Product Owner (Proxy PO) is a middleman role between the...
4.5 from 7 ratings
Blog Post
As a Product Owner, you are responsible for Product Backlog management, stakeholder management and forecasting. Therefore, you will probably use a variety of tools and techniques to track progress, manage expectations and keep people informed. One of the tools that may come in handy for you is a pro...
4.8 from 233 ratings
Blog Post
Release Planning
As a Product Owner, you are responsible for managing expectations of customers, users and other stakeholders. You are also responsible for Product Backlog Management, for deciding that to built when and what not to built. Also, you'll need to decide what to deliver (release) to cus...
4.5 from 170 ratings
Blog Post
Product Backlog Management
As a Product Owner, you are responsible for Product Backlog Management, in order to maximize the value of the Product. The Product Backlog is the single source of truth which contains all the work to be done on the Product. As a Product Owner, you will have to make some c...
4.8 from 3 ratings
Blog Post
And after reading Jeff Gothelf’s and Josh Seiden’s book “Sense and Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously”, I realized that the world is full of complex problems. This got me thinking about the relationship between Scrum and modern organization...
4.7 from 11 ratings
Podcast
In this Agile for Humans podcast, Dave West (@davidjwest) joined Ryan Ripley (@ryanripley) to discuss the latest updates to the Scrum Guide.
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Blog Post
Today we bust the myth that it is the responsibility of the Scrum Master to resolve all problems that are hindering the Development Team.
5 from 2 ratings
Blog Post
The Scrum Framework
The Scrum Framework is a lightweight framework that defines three Roles, three Artifacts and five Events, which is used to develop and maintain complex Products in complex environments. Scrum doesn't prescribe a lot of things you must do, the Scrum Framework doesn't include exte...
5 from 1 rating
Blog Post
Appreciative Interviews (AI) is a Liberating Structure that helps identify enablers for success in less than one hour. By starting from what goes well - instead of what doesn’t. In this post we'll share examples of how we've applied this structures within our Scrum training and coaching engagements.
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Blog Post
As a Product Owner, you are responsible for stakeholder management. It's important that you know your stakeholders, their interests, what they need from you and your Product and how they may be able to help you out as well!
4.5 from 191 ratings
Blog Post
Value comes in many different forms, value is context dependent and the definition of value in a certain context may change over time! What? Yes, that's right! What 'value' is, or what it means, is firstly context dependent.
5 from 6 ratings
Blog Post
The Product vision describes the purpose of a Product, the intention with which the Product is being created and what it aims to achieve for customers and users. The Product vision describes a future state of the Product and what problems it tries to resolve or what ambitions it tries to fulfill.
4.6 from 177 ratings
Blog Post
I have created a little exercise that I like to use to help focus the on things we can change, or at least situations to seek out or avoid, to help focus change efforts. The essence of it is summarized in a picture. I call this the agile affinity model, and the dimensions the key drivers of empiric...
4.5 from 219 ratings
Video
As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer John Gillespie discusses his experience working with a Scrum Team that was having morale issues. By helping them to learn and adopt the Scrum Values the team saw significant improvements in overall morale and their ability to deliv...
3.2 from 28 ratings
Blog Post
In this post, we'll bust the myth that the Product Owner is a proxy for stakeholders. The bottom-line is that Scrum Teams become significantly less Agile when only the Product Owner communicates with stakeholders. Instead of framing the Product Owner as a proxy, we instead prefer to explain the Prod...
5 from 3 ratings
Blog Post
The Product Owner role is totally different from traditional roles that are know in most organizations. Some people think that the Product Owner is a kind of 'Agile project manager' or that the Product Owner is sort of a 'business analyst'. This is not true!
5 from 5 ratings
Blog Post
There is no improvement without learning
According to Steven Spear, there is no improvement without learning. There is no learning without surprises. There are no surprises without setting expectations. Specifically challenging expectations that will be missed occasionally. See a quote from ...
3.8 from 3 ratings
Blog Post
In this blog, we'll cover some tips and tools for starting Product Owners, to help you in your new role. The Product Owner role is a brand new role in many organizations and it's a role which can't be compared to traditional roles, such as project managers or business analysts.
A Product Owner in...
4.7 from 3 ratings
Blog Post
Here I am sitting in my hotel room while looking at my half-empty wine glass and the stars outside while preparing for my last Professional Scrum Master (PSM) class for the year 2017 and pondering about all of the classes I have facilitated over this year. PSM has been a transformational course for ...
4.6 from 283 ratings
Blog Post
Scrum is a framework that thrives on self-organizing teams. It gives you boundaries (e.g. time-box of a Sprint), clear accountabilities (e.g. Product Owner optimizes value), and goals (e.g. “Done” Increment). But it doesn’t tell you exactly how to do the work. Every Scrum Team needs to figure out...
4.1 from 172 ratings
Video
As part of the Scrum Tapas video series, Professional Scrum Trainer Lucas Smith discusses ways that organizations and managers have looked to increase team capacity with a view of what may work and what may not. 4:39 Minutes
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Blog Post
System optimization: Upgrading Team Competencies
When developing complex innovative products, the Development Team will have different a workload for each one of their members. The speed of the entire Development Team is often limited by the speed of the specialist with peak loads. To overcome th...
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Blog Post
LEAN is an excellent way for companies to start optimizing their way of working and make sure the production of waste is kept to a minimum. Scrum itself is based on those very principles. Many companies use LEAN to optimize their business processes, but rarely do I see them actively involve the scru...
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Blog Post
Looking to hire a Scrum Master? You may go through this job description that talks about the role of a Scrum Master? and what to expect from a Scrum Master.
Here is a Sample Job Description that you may use if you find it useful.
ROLE OBJECTIVE
The Scrum Master is a valued team member ...
5 from 1 rating
Blog Post
At a recent course, one of my students asked me to share what Scrum “looked like” for me at TheScrumMaster.co.uk. This post is my response to that question. This describes my current process which has evolved via inspection and adaptation over 5 years.
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Blog Post
In this post, we'll the myth that the Product Backlog is ‘prioritized’. Although a seemingly trivial change of wording, the Product Backlog is ‘an ordered list’ instead.
5 from 3 ratings
Blog Post
The latest release of the Scrum Guide is all about addressing common Scrum misunderstandings. In this blog post I will present the top 5 misconceptions that are set straight in this latest release of the Scrum Guide.
0 from 0 ratings
Blog Post
Bringing values down to earth
Values and principles can often seem lofty and intangible so many agile practitioners prefer to focus on tools and practices. That's understandable but unfortunate. Because values and principles have the potential to provide us with clarity and guidance that transcen...
4.1 from 24 ratings
Blog Post
‘25/10 Crowd Sourcing’ is a structure that allows you to rapidly generate and sift through a group’s boldest actionable ideas in less than 30 minutes. In this article we'll explain how to use this structure to spice up your Scrum Events.
0 from 0 ratings
Blog Post
"To ensure continuous improvement, [the Sprint Backlog] includes at least one high priority process improvement identified in the previous Retrospective meeting." - The Scrum Guide, November 2017
That old familiar feeling
Have you ever had a sense of déja-vu in a Sprint Retrospective? You know...
0.5 from 1 rating
Blog Post
I once worked for an organization with many opportunities for improvement. To be honest, it was a mess. It didn’t take long to realize that the organization had implemented many dysfunctional practices and policies that were ingrained into the culture. There were many problems surrounding software d...
5 from 2 ratings
Blog Post
In this post, we’ll bust the myth that a Product Backlog has to consist entirely out of User Stories. By describing the purpose and characteristics of the Product Backlog, we'll also busted the related myth; that User Stories are an inherent, necessary part of Scrum.
5 from 2 ratings