Aligning Scrum Team Topology to Strategy with OKRs and Product Goals Yeah, I know. Could I squeeze more buzzwords into the title? I guess I could include Digital Transformation, Cloud, AI, and Machine Learning for effect. But seriously, I wanted to share some insights around how to align your Scr...

Hier mein bewährtes Rezept, wie Product Owner das Sprint Review zu einem gemeinschaftlichen Arbeitstermin machen können und nicht zu einer Demonstration, Präsentation oder Feature-Abnahme verkommen lassen.

TL; DR: Ignoring the Capacity Check during Sprint Planning There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Since Scrum is an intentionally incomplete framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. For example, the Developers are ignoring a capacity c...

It might surprise you that even those with years of Scrum practice sometimes make statements about the framework that are, well, inaccurate. The Scrum Guide outlines how teams can learn to work together to deliver complex work. It’s not a how-to list of instructions, and perhaps that’s what leads to...

The Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO) course has evolved over the years and the PSPO I assessment has become even more difficult! I consider this assessment the most difficult of all the Scrum.org entry level assessments and it pays to be prepared. Here then, is my updated guide on how to pass...

Eine bewährte Anleitung, wie Du als angehender Product Owner ein Sprint Planning in Jira durchführst

​​​​​​​According to the 15th annual State of Agile Report, there has been a tremendous increase in the adoption of agile frameworks this year.  Within software teams, agile adoption grew from 37% in 2020 to 86% in 2021.  This rapid growth undoubtedly means many individuals working within agile frame...

German blog on 5 lessons that I learned in the first year as a product owner that can save you a lot of time and frustration

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer, PSTs John Riley and Ben Thorp answer questions related to regulating workflow effectively and developing a test-first mindset. They provide insight on practices and techniques useful to kickstarting continuously delivering software and non-softwar...

As long as the Scrum team has the drive to learn and to run experiments to figure out what works for them, Zombie Scrum (or fake Agile) won’t find futile ground and can’t take root!

10+ years of helping organizations scale Scrum from one team to 500+ teams has taught me one thing - most practitioners abandon the scientific principles and core values of Scrum in their pursuit of scaling Scrum. To many of these practitioners, Scaling Scrum is a whole another ball-game to which Sc...

As we head toward the five year anniversary of announcing the Scrum.org Global Professional Training Network (PTN) program read a reflection on the value that this group of partner organizations has brought to Scrum.org, the Professional Scrum Trainer community and most importantly the students who ...

10+ years of helping thousands of practitioners with implementation of Professional Scrum has taught me one thing - most practitioners have a very superficial understanding of Scrum. To most, Scrum is nothing more than "Daily Standup" and "Sprint Demo".

Supposedly, Confucius said once: "Let’s start fixing the nation with fixing the concepts first". Whether he really said it or not, nobody can be sure. But what is important, I would like to specify the meaning of Kanban. Very often people understand it in their own way and when two people talk to ea...

TL; DR: Maximizing Utilization as a Relic from the Industrial Management Past There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Since Scrum is an intentionally incomplete framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. For example, what if the focus of ...

Leaders use the Scrum Artifacts as a window into the work of the Scrum Team. This transparency enables inspection and adaptation at the appropriate level while enabling the team to self-manage. 

​​​​​​​As a Professional Scrum Trainer, I love working from home, but engaging with others in a remote environment can be challenging. If you’re using Scrum remotely and need stakeholder feedback to order your Product Backlog, here are a few ideas for how to gather it virtually.

La agilidad no ha parado de extenderse en los última década e incluso las organizaciones que miraban con recelo todo este movimiento están dando sus primeros pasos y viendo cómo pueden sumarse aumentando así su competitividad. ¿Cómo está conviviendo en estas compañías mentalidades tan diferentes? ¿C...

In a recent episode of Your Daily Scrum, Professional Scrum Trainers Todd Miller and Ryan Ripley address a general question in Scrum circles: What Does a Scrum Product Owner Do All Day?

It's time to look at the Scrum Events In previous posts in the Scrum Guide for Leaders series we explored what Scrum means for Leaders, using the Scrum Values to create a Scrum-friendly culture, and how to effectively support the Scrum roles/accountabilities. Next, we turn to the S...

Scrum celebrated its 25 year anniversary last year with an update to the Scrum Guide and lots of socially distanced parties. Over that quarter of a century, Scrum has gone from a niche method used by software developers to mainstream adoption with many millions of people using Scrum or at least part...

Die Firma Skype hat in den frühen 2010er Jahren Scrum eingesetzt, und alle zwei bis vier Wochen Releases rausgebracht. Dennoch hat WhatsApp sie völlig abgehängt, wie wir heute wissen. Und das obwohl die Mannschaft hinter WhatsApp viel kleiner war als die hinter Skype. Wie konnte das passieren?

​​​​​​​The Sprint Review meeting is one of the Product Owner’s most important events.  But even the most important events can become a little stale over time.  Here are five ideas to spice up your Sprint Review meeting. 

Das Problem mit Features ist, dass sie fertiggestellt und ausgeliefert werden sowie perfekt funktionieren, aber dennoch keinen Wert liefern können.

We started the Scrum Guide for Leaders series with a discussion of what Scrum means for you as a Leader. Next, we discussed the conditions where Scrum's Empiricism, Self-Management, and Continuous Improvement can thrive. We then explored some concrete examples of how adopting the Scrum Values as a L...

There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Since Scrum is an intentionally incomplete framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone.

SmoothApps, Fringe Technology and Scrum.org collaborated on a site that shows steps to take to unify your team to one Nexus, and walks you through step-by-step how you can easily configure your own Atlassian Jira and Confluence products to enable your Nexus! Please review the Scaling Scrum with Nexu...

Häufiges Feedback ist der Motor, meine Schulungen ständig zu verbessern.

The more ambiguous the requirement, the more difficult it is to calculate how long something will take. But teams still need to estimate their work to forecast releases. Relative sizing provides a realistic method for estimating. Ultimately, your team will find their own value scale and their own la...

The future is unknown and although some people claim to be able to predict the future, most people can't. But to look a little ahead, into the future, to have a sense of when certain items on the Product Backlog are finished, predictability would be very useful. Although we can't be completely predi...

(And that should benefit experienced Scrum Masters too)

TL; DR: My Top Ten Worst Scrum Anti-Patterns I recently was invited to a Scrum.org Webinar, and I picked a topic close to my heart: the worst Scrum anti-patterns.

If you’re leading Scrum Teams or generally are a leader in an organization that’s leveraging Scrum?

Scrum Teams entwickeln eben nicht nur Produkte und Services, sondern betreiben diese auch. Ohne den Betrieb einer Anwendung ist es unmöglich, Feedback zu erhalten. Allerdings ist Feedback essenzielle für erfolgreiche Scrum Teams, da es die Triebfeder ist, um Nutzer- und Kundenwünsche zu erfüllen. Be...

So many times, I’ve heard that round about 50–70 % of all software features are rarely or never used. In the Cloud we can now even measure it.

The Applying Professional Scrum class is frequently overlooked when it comes to public classes.  People tend to go for the Professional Scrum Master class or the Professional Scrum Product Owner class instead.  And those are really great classes.  That is… they’re great for those who already have an...

The Scrum Guide has a lot to say about the Product Backlog, and rightly so. It's pivotal to everything a Scrum Team does. But one thing the Scrum Guide doesn't tell you, is how you create a Product Backlog. So, here's one way you can do exactly that.

TL; DR: The Obsession with Commitment Matching Velocity Despite decades-long efforts of the whole agile community—books, blogs, conferences, webinars, videos, meetups; you name it—we are still confronted in many supposedly agile organizations with output-metric driven reporting systems. At the he...

La agilidad provee capacidades para ser adaptables para crear productos innovadores y responder a los cambios. Esta innovación debe basarse en un nuevo modelo de negocio para responder a la incertidumbre del mercado.

If the Empire had used Scrum, then Darth Vader would surely have been considered the Product Owner for the Death Star.  While Darth Vader does appear to have engaged in some of the traditional activities of a Product Owner, such as stakeholder engagement, his methods and his lack of faith in the Scr...

All elements of the Scrum framework play a role in enabling empirical process control. Sprint Goal is a commitment that reinforces empiricism, however, it remains a part of Scrum which often is being neglected or causes challenges to many Scrum Teams.

In this blog post, Dave West answers the question - How do you, for the lack of a better word, “manage” Stakeholders?

In a recent class, a student asked, “What are the common difficulties teams face when starting with Agile?”  To  answer this question, I refer to the Tuckman Model of group development. Psychologist Bruce Tuckman discussed team performance in his 1965 paper, Developmental Sequence in Small Groups...

This latest update to the interview guide addresses Product Owner anti-patterns from Product Backlog management and refinement to the Sprint Review.

Have you ever completed a multi-billion-dollar project only to see it blow up in your face?  Twice?  If you answered yes, you’re in good company with the Galactic Empire.  The Rebel Alliance destroyed two Death Stars as well as their successor, the Starkiller Base, using similar tactics.  If the ...

I have had the opportunity to work with some truly amazing teams that have achieved pretty amazing outcomes. One thing that every team has had in common is that, at one time, they were new to Scrum. When I engage with teams to discuss implementing the Scrum framework, they often raise potential imp...

The past 18 months have been a whirlwind. Coronavirus, elections, inequality and conflict – a quagmire of micro and macro complexities that impact the feelings and behaviours of Scrum Teams. In my opinion, it would be fair to say that teams who consistently attempt to mitigate environmental and soci...

eimagine, a full-service Indianapolis US-based information technology consulting company, used the Nexus framework to replace legacy systems for a large project for a state government agency that provides connects senior citizens with social services, health care, and their communities. By doing so,...

If I were to summarize the purpose of a Sprint, I would say that it’s to deliver a Done, usable increment that meets the Sprint Goal.

Nexus es un marco de trabajo que se basa en Scrum que sirve para escalar el trabajo de varios equipos Scrum desarrollando un producto.