Blog Post
The 1 Skill Every Agile Leader Must Learn
January 13, 2015
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?
Blog Post
Customer Value Is Not Enough
January 8, 2015
I was coaching a number of teams and their Sprint Reviews were boring status meetings and few stakeholders attended.
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The Scrum.org Professional Series Updates 2015
January 8, 2015
In 2015, Scrum.org will refine the Professional Scrum Master (PSM) assessments, PSM I and PSM II, in line with following objectives:
Blog Post
Empathy in the Air
January 4, 2015
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.
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What Does it Take to Change?
December 19, 2014
With the holiday season in full gear, many of us start crafting one or more New Year’s resolutions:
Blog Post
The Brave Tin Soldier
December 18, 2014
He could have wept tin tears, but that would not have been right. He looked at her and she looked at him, but neither spoke a word.
Blog Post
Taking back the Daily Scrum
December 17, 2014
This is what you might know as the daily ‘stand up.’ It is the most abused, tortured and mistreated meeting in Scrum. Or not even Scrum. If nothing else, this is usually the part of Scrum that organizations adopt and keep. If th
Blog Post
My Route to Becoming a Professional Scrum Master
December 16, 2014
My name is Peter Götz. I am an experienced software engineer. I started in 2001 and have worked in several projects and with several teams since then.
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Agile is constant change
December 4, 2014
One of the key foundations of helping your business become Agile is the use of empiricism. Empiricism is the scientific approach based on evidence, where any idea must be tested against observations, rather than intuition.
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Scrum Master - A "management" position
December 3, 2014
Traditionally an individual is declared a ‘manager’ when having hierarchical control over other individuals.
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A Scrum Master's Practical Toolbox
November 13, 2014
“A Scrum Master’s practical toolbox” offers o
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Using Scrum for Organisational Change Management
November 4, 2014
When I first started doing Scrum I was focused on project delivery. As a software professional I wanted to find better ways of delivering customer value and Scrum made total sense to me.
Blog Post
Scaling Scrum
October 29, 2014
Jeff Sutherland and I have helped hundreds of organizations scale their projects, enable their entire product development, and thread Scrum through their organizations. For sure, none of them were easy, and each had its own unique challenges.
Blog Post
Temperature Reading Retrospective
October 27, 2014
I decided to conduct a Temperature Reading Sprint Retrospective after watching the video from one of the workshops of a famous American family therapist Virgi
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Rory Cubes for the Sprint Retrospective
October 22, 2014
People love stories. We love telling and listening to interesting stories. The need for this is embedded deeply by the nature. The first stories were told by our ancestors and can be seen in the preserved rock paintings.
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Accountability is a Quality of Agile
October 21, 2014
Software is created by people; for better or for worse. That is very different from looking at software development as a robotizeable activity.
Blog Post
Monkeys for managers
October 19, 2014
I have found that coaching managers is a different approach than with Scrum teams. While you are (most of the time) involved directly with the Scrum Team as a Scrum Master, managers are less accessible.
Blog Post
The Power of Appreciating Others
October 16, 2014
On more than one occasion over the years, I have encountered software development teams that are working day and night on a "challenged" project - both waterfall *and* Scrum.
Blog Post
Is Strategy Dead?
October 12, 2014
There is a fundamental change in management happening under out feet that is challenging the very need for strategy. Small changes are happening every day and in ten years’ time we won’t recognise management as we have thought of it in the past.
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Dont fall in love with ...
October 12, 2014
Your plan. It will change anyway.
Your detailed architecture. It should emerge.
Your code. It will be refactored.
Your document. It doesn’t compile anyway.
Blog Post
In Scrum, Beware of the Re-Write Project
October 7, 2014
I work with a lot of companies to help them to improve their development processes and to either adopt Scrum or improve how they’re currently doing Scrum. Lately, I’ve noticed that a fair number of companies run into problems with a certain kind
Blog Post
The Scrum Stance
October 5, 2014
In 1995, the first codified version of Scrum was made public.
Blog Post
Change Everything without Changing Everything
October 2, 2014
At Scrum.org, we sometimes dare to talk about our what we do as “bringing humanity to work.” Sometimes I get reminded this idea is more than hyperbole or aggrandizing.
Blog Post
Don't worship at the Altar of Scrum
September 30, 2014
I am a Scrum Trainer with Scrum.org. I work with lots of organizations to help them become more agile. I see a lot of bad Scrum. More than my fair share. Sometimes I see so much bad Scrum that it makes me question why I do this.
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Announcing ScrumGuides.org
September 24, 2014
Today we are pleased to announce the release of ScrumGuides.org, a branding-free website providing the single authoritative definition of Scrum.
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Quality enablement to achieve predictable delivery
September 24, 2014
You need quality enablement to achieve predictable delivery for your organisation which takes effort to achieve.
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Searching for self-organisation
September 17, 2014
Many companies have started searching for self-organisation. That ideal or nirvana where teams can figure out how to work together effectively with limited or little direction to solve problems.
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The wall session practice
September 14, 2014
I work in the public sector as an Agile coach. One of the question I often get asked is how to estimate the size of a new project, or a new delivery, as we need to determine a budget before executing it.
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On Becoming a Scrum.org Trainer
September 10, 2014
Scrum.org holds a consistently high quality bar for our instructors.
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Does your company culture resemble Survivor?
September 10, 2014
Does your company culture resemble Survivor? Do you have a culture in your organisation where individuals that help others are considered slackers for not getting their own assignments complete?
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That much fuss about TDD
September 4, 2014
One of the important event in Agile this year seems to be an argument around Test Driven Development (TDD). More precisely, high profile personalities in our industry debated against the statement "TDD is dead".
Blog Post
DOD has made it illegal to do waterfall
September 3, 2014
Did you know that the DOD has made it illegal to do waterfall? For the first time in many years the Department of Defence (DOD) in the United States had made a major update to its procurement rules.
Blog Post
Its Just Scrum
September 3, 2014
The simple cycle of trying, inspecting, and adapting must be as old as mankind. Can’t you just picture Homo Erectus learning to control fire? I bet scorched fingers and cold nights were fairly common for a millennia or so while we refined the art of spark and tinder.
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Agile, is it just a delivery mechanism?
August 27, 2014
As a Agile coach, I refer to a few tools to help me think about where my Scrum teams should go next on their path to Agility. One of these tools is the Agile subway map, a list of Agile practices grouped in different categories. It helps me think how a specific practice could help a team solve its actual problem.
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Why Evidence Based Management can be hard
August 24, 2014
Recently I gave a talk on the ScrumDayEurope 2014 conference.
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What my father taught me about Evidence-based Management (34 years before it was invented!)
August 20, 2014
A few weeks ago I headed out to the Scrum.org offices in Boston to participate in training to hone my skills as an Evidence-based Management Consultant.
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Everyone needs to understand the value proposition
August 18, 2014
A common challenge for businesses developing new products is having a coherent and universal understanding of what the value proposition for the organisation is.