In this post, we explore eight common biases, underlying research and how they distort our thinking. We also offer what you can do to reduce them.

Der Scrum Master muss beim Daily Scrum anwesend sein!

Facing a large number of risks while delivering products seems to be normal. And, it is. It is common and natural. What we need to do, is manage the risk.

Some may confuse the word “Foundation” in the name of the Professional Scrum Foundation course to mean simple or basic. But in truth this means it is a course for everybody to build a solid base of knowledge,

On many occasions in the recent past, working with distributed agile teams has amplified existing organizational, technical, and cultural challenges in many organizations.

In this blog post, we share our experience, recommendations, and lessons learned by providing the online PSM II class.

What's up awesome people. I hope you are all having a great week. In today's vlog I am sharing the differences between project management and product management. There are still growing misconceptions in the market that Scrum is an agile project management methodology. In this vlog I also bust the m...

One of the most asked question in my PSPO class is "What is the difference between Product Manager and Product Owner?", "Who has higher authority than the other?". There are many blogs, articles and youtube videos on the internet that compares Product Manager and Product Owner.

Le Daily Scrum est majoritairement incompris. Vu comme une réunion d'avancement, il est en réalité un levier à l'auto-gestion des équipes. Il n'a rien à voir avec un point d'avancement, re-découvrons-le…

This podcast tackles some of the question: Scrum vs. Kanban? How about Scrum and Kanban. Why would you want to use both? Scrum is based on Empiricism, Kanban is based on Flow, Flow enhances Empiricism and Empiricism enhances Flow. Take the best Scrum teams and the best Kanban teams and take an avera...

Inspiration for fulfilling the stances of a Scrum Master, remotely.

Scrum is intended as a simple, yet sufficient framework for complex product delivery.

In my daily life as a Scrum Master, I witness many crazy situations. I want to share my discoveries via this comic series featuring Koos Coach, the silly Scrum Master struggling to understand and master Scrum.

In this article, we shall investigate why the learning and development of multi-functional specialists in Scrum is the core of organizational Agility and value optimization. Many Development Teams are not collaborating as real teams, but as a collection of narrow specialists focused on "their" tasks...

This is quite a long read which you can download as the whitepaper "Systems Thinking in Organizational Coaching".

Hi awesome people. Courage is one of the Scrum values and as part of my New Year's resolution this year I would like to have more courage to point out elephant in the room at the risk people may dislike me for doing it.

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Ram Srinivasan takes a look at 8 common myths and misconceptions from people about Scrum discussing why they are not true and what it really means. (10:53 Minutes)

The Gatekeeper is the single point of contact between the Scrum Team and the outside world. The Gatekeeper tends to block all connections between the Scrum Team and its stakeholders; all communication goes through him/her.

In football, the team that wins is the one that gets the ball in the other team’s goal most times. Not the one that runs the most.

In this Scrum Tapas video, Professional Scrum Trainer Ravi Verma discusses the myth that Scrum cannot be used when rewriting legacy applications. Ravi provides benefits of using Scrum during such a project and how the Product Owner can place a critical role. (6:44 Minutes)

A few years ago, I was part of a team that was starting to work together under very difficult circumstances: We had to finish a showcase in the Industry 4.0 area within just six weeks.

Sprint Goals are one of the more elusive parts of the Scrum Framework. Most teams know they are important, but few use them - for a variety of reasons. In this post, Barry Overeem and I bust the myth that Sprint Goals are optional in Scrum. And we make an effort to show what makes them so vital in t...

Last year, I ran a (non-representative) survey on how Scrum Masters are allocating their time when working with a single Scrum Team. Much to the surprise of many readers, the direct Scrum Master engagement with a single Scrum Team of average size and a typical 2-week Sprint turned out to be about 12...

Defining Agile/Scrum for Marketing Scrum.org joined the discussion around Agile Marketing recently. This is an area close to my heart. I've been helping Marketing organizations leverage Scrum, Kanban and Lean Startup concepts to improve their agility since around 2016 or so and I find it a fascin...

In many organisations I see Scrum not producing its anticipated value. The concept of value varies across organisations.

As CEO and Product Owner for Scrum.org I get the amazing opportunity to visit lots of different companies. Recently I spent a week in Brazil visiting some amazing companies and talking about agility.

Leadership means having the responsibility to enable an environment that harnesses the full intellectual talent of an organization. We hire a bunch of top diverse talent but limit them by unintentionally having them work only within their part or silo of a large organization.

I read somewhere that multi-tasking makes you stupid. So, I did some research to understand why. What I learned was both interesting and revealing.

Through my professional experience, while serving my customers, working with Scrum Teams and training people in Professional Scrum, I have observed that some Scrum Masters only work to serve the Development Team and the Product Owner.

Scrum is intended as a simple, yet sufficient framework for complex product delivery. Scrum is not a one-size-fits-all solution, a silver bullet or a complete methodology.

Woohoo! Last week marked the official announcement from Scrum.org that I’m finally a Professional Scrum Trainer. I’m excited, amazed and incredibly humbled to join this community of professionals. In this post, I would like to share this journey. Perhaps it will inspire you towards a similar journey...

I first met Sally,and then later Francis her husband, at a local user group - Agile in Leeds, where Sally delivered a fantastic 10 minute talk on how she implemented Scrum to help Francis with ADHD. 

Scrum prescribes one person in the role of Product Owner (PO). Not multiple people, not a committee, just one person.

You want to know IF and HOW you can "UP your Scrum" as a Scrum Master? Read this post by Professional Scrum Trainer Jasper Alblas.

Over the years, I've seen countless Scrum adaptions, and I thought perhaps it would be interesting to sum up some of the common misinterpretations. I would love to hear about the misinterpretations that you have faced, so feel free to participate in the comment section.

I often start my Scrum training classes with this quote: "Scrum Master is an enabler not a doer". This is the second in a series of posts exploring some of the myths about Scrum Mastery.

There is often confusion when organisations transition to an agile way of working, particularly with the mapping of roles. This blog explores the role of Project Managers in Scrum.

Bottom line - WiP limits must be applied to improve flow of the delivery of value. It's a key lever to improve the performance of Professional Scrum Teams, and it's required by the Kanban Guide for Scrum.

In this post, we bust a myth that is at the heart of why refinement feels like a chore to many Scrum Teams: the belief that ‘Product Backlog refinement’ should be done as one or more required ‘meetings’ that must be attended by everyone in the team. We also offer some alternative approaches that fit...

Agile Metrics are meant to serve certain purpose(s) and can be very useful if leveraged appropriately. In this series, I want to share my experiences of how metrics may be used, abused and effectively become focal point of failure of Agile adoption in an organization.

As a servant-leader, the Scrum Master sometimes has to make very difficult decisions. This might even include removing someone from the Scrum Team. Obviously, this a difficult decision that should not be taken light-hearted. In this post, we'll share some perspectives on the kinds of situations wher...

Prove Your Knowledge of Using Scrum with KanbanDelivering products is complex work and for more than 25 years, people have been using Scrum to do so. Scrum is a framework in which you add practices that make sense for your Scrum Team or organization to build and define your overall process. Kanban ...

We have gathered content on this page which we suggest you utilize when preparing for the PSM II. These are suggested resources, and you may find additional resources not mentioned on this page helpful, along with the application of your own experience using Scrum.

In this session, we provide an overview of the Scrum framework, discuss how Scrum enables agility and ways that empiricism can empower the teams that use it.

Is it possible to use Scrum with Kanban? After a year of exploring the idea and working out the details, our answer is yes. Get ready to make your team stronger and more effective.

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...