Did you know that there are 17 United Nation, sustainable development goals. Did you know that when you’re measuring value, you can consider societal value as part of that. And that could include consideration for those 17 United Nation sustainable development goals. Now those 17 United Nation susta...

Cycle time is where we’re measuring how long a work item takes to get from one part of our workflow to another part of our workflow.

Como agile coach de organizaciones y de personas, a menudo me encuentro que muchos gerentes se equivocan tanto porque descuidan la función de planificación. También me he encontrado muchas veces que me han dicho que cuando somos ágiles no planificamos. Y eso no es verdad. En la agilidad se pl...

How can we use Monte Carlo Probabilistic Forecasting to set expectations in scrum?

Who writes acceptance criteria?. Should you even have acceptance criteria? It's a loaded question, because it's assuming that we're using user stories. And in user stories typically you might say in order to deliver a particular type of value, some particular persona wants or needs something in orde...

In our recent article “Why You Shouldn’t Modify Scrum,” we discussed five reasons why modifying Scrum is counterproductive.  We’ll expand on the topic in this article by exploring five more ways organizations sometimes change Scrum and the impacts they might experience as a result.  

How can you scale in Scrum and what scaling patterns can you use?

SDLC is an acronym that means either Software Delivery Life Cycle or Systems Development Life Cycle. And it is a lie. A fiction. A total fabrication. Somebody made it up out of thin air many years ago and the idea was cemented deep into corporate bureaucracy.

​​​​​​​According to the 2020 Scrum Guide, a Scrum Team should contain members with all the skills necessary to create an Increment of usable product each Sprint. Teams that approach their work from a product perspective find this cross-functionality easier to achieve than teams that organize around ...

The Scrum Framework is very lightweight, and it seems to get less restrictive with each release of the Scrum Guide.  What is included is really important, though.  Every piece of the framework is there for a reason.  In this article, I will discuss five common ways that teams modify the Scrum framew...

In this vlog, PST Joshua Partogi explains the flow of an effective Sprint Retrospectives with Kanban metrics.

An exploration of scientific insights. And four practical tips to encourage cohesion and coherence in your team.

There are five events in Scrum.  But just going through the motions and having each of the events on the calendar is not enough.  To get the most out of Scrum, your team needs to understand the purpose behind each of the five events.  

One of the first things that I usually hear after describing the Scrum framework and its five events to someone new to Scrum is, “that’s a lot of meetings!” I get it — at first glance, it seems like a lot. But it really isn't when I get the person to take a closer look. This article provides...

Me he encontrado varias veces que la gente en general no sabe qué hace un agile coach para las personas, los equipos y las organizaciones. Ser agile coach requiere un desarrollo de serias competencias, que en muchas sitios no están del todo bien comprendidas. Vamos a ver porqué decimos agile c...

​​​​​​​In my experience, it’s the Sprint Retrospective that teams are most likely to skip, berate, or otherwise bash.  When I hear teams talking about dropping it to “save time,” I want to pull a Darth Vader, shake my fist in the air, and say, “You don’t know the power of the Sprint Retrospective!” ...

Viele angehende Scrum Master erzählen mir im Professional Scrum Master Training, dass sie es schwierig finden, diese vier Dinge zu vereinen. Hier 3 Tipps, wie ich diese Situation in der Vergangenheit gemeistert habe.

La agilidad de negocio es la capacidad de deleitar continuamente a los clientes con entregas de valor e inspirar a los empleados en medio de los desafíos emergentes. 

Once the team has selected a point system, they need to decide which types of items to classify as a 1, 2, and so on. In this article, we will provide an exercise that can help your team create a point system organically no matter what’s in the Product Backlog.

Keine andere Rolle in Scrum kann so sehr zu mittelmäßigen Ergebnissen beitragen wie der Product Owner — Garbage in, Garbage out. Die folgende Liste mit den häufigsten Product Owner Fehlverhalten könnte daher ein Ausgangspunkt sein, über die Tätigkeit als Product Owner nachzudenken; vielleicht gibt e...

Practical ideas on how to improve Scrum, personally.

TL; DR: Scrum Master Anti-Patterns No other role in Scrum can contribute to mediocre outcomes like the Product Owner—garbage in, garbage out. Therefore, the following list of some of the most common Product Owner anti-patterns might be a starting point to reflect on the role; maybe, there is room...

Das Sprint Planning ist ein zentrales Scrum-Ereignis, welches entscheidet, wie sich das Leben Ihrer Kunden mit dem nächsten Inkrement verbessern wird. Erfahren Sie mehr darüber, wie Sie Ihren Kunden durch die Vermeidung von 20 gängigen Sprint Planning Anti-Patterns helfen können.

The Scrum Guide doesn't provide a complete list of the skills required for any of the accountabilities on a Scrum Team. For example, it doesn't specify that Developers must use Java or C# code. The Scrum Guide simply states that Developers need all of the skills to deliver a Done increment of produc...

TL; DR: Scrum Master Anti-Patterns The Sprint Planning is a core event that defines how your customers’ lives will improve with the following Product Increment. Learn more on how to improve its effectiveness by avoiding 20 common Sprint Planning anti-patterns. 🇩🇪 Zur deutschsprachigen Versio...

Why is the Scrum Master Role So Uncomfortable? Ryan and Todd discuss the hectic life of a Professional Scrum Master and their challenges when confronting complexity in an organization.

Die Gründe, warum Scrum Master den Geist des Scrum Guides verletzen, sind vielschichtig. Scrum Master Fehlverhalten reichen von unpassenden persönlichen Eigenschaften über die Verfolgung persönlicher Agenden bis hin zur Frustration mit dem Scrum Team selbst.

The reasons Scrum Masters violate the spirit of the Scrum Guide are multi-faceted. Typical Scrum Master anti-patterns run from ill-suited personal traits to complacency to pursuing individual agendas to frustration with the team itself.

In Scrum, part of the Product Owner accountability is to provide a forecast that sheds light on possible answers to the when will we get there question. In my last post, we discussed three ways to size Product Backlog items (PBIs). Today, we’ll discuss ways the Product Owner can use this information...

When will we get there?  It’s not just something you might hear from the back seat of a car on a long road trip.  It’s something that a Scrum Team’s stakeholders, customers, managers and many others want to know.  When will that thing you are working on be done?  How long do I have to wait for you t...

If you are a Star Wars fan like me, then you know that Star Wars is more than a story; it’s an Epic which holds many important life lessons.  Below are the top five things I learned about Scrum from Star Wars.

Quando si cerca di prevedere il futuro, si è raramente nel giusto. Le stime probabilistiche aiutano a migliorare le previsioni di uno Scrum Team.

Willkommen zum Sprint Anti-Patterns-Artikel aus unserer Serie über Scrum-Anti-Patterns. Ich adressiere in diesem Artikel sprintbezogene Fehlverhalten der drei Scrum-Rollen, der Stakeholder bzw. Interessenvertreter sowie des IT-Management.

​​​​​​​The concept of iterative, incremental Product delivery is included in the Scrum Guide.  But did you know that the Agile Manifesto refers to incremental, iterative delivery in at least 3 of the principles?   

TL; DR: 28+2 Sprint Anti-Patterns from Sprint Stuffing to Gold-Plating Welcome to the Sprint anti-patterns article from my series on Scrum anti-patterns, covering the three Scrum roles—pardon me: accountabilities—and addressing the contributions of stakeholders and the IT/line management. Moreove...

Scrum.org has an intentional focus on increasing the diversity of our Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) Community. As a result, we are pleased to bring you opportunities specifically for women and non-binary Scrum practitioners who are interested in learning about the journey to becoming a PST

Me he encontrado muchísimas organizaciones que lo primero que quieren hacer la agilidad de lo grande. En lo primero que piensan es en cambiar enteras. Si somos 5000, vamos a hacer un plan para cambiar los 5000. Y Roma no se hizo en un día. Se fue construyendo con el tiempo.

Teams that change the framework are not using Scrum and are missing out on some of its benefits.  The Scrum framework consists of 5 events, 3 accountabilities, 3 artifacts and five values.  Today, we will talk about the order of the events in Scrum. 

In this session, Eric Naiburg, Chief Operating Officer for Scrum.org, provides an overview of the Scrum framework. He’ll discuss how Scrum enables agility, and how an empirical process can empower teams that use it. You’ll learn about the empirical process in Scrum where decisions are made based ...

Scrum is simple, but that simplicity means that each of its elements is essential.  The values, accountabilities, artifacts and events are all part of the framework for a reason.  Teams that mess with the framework are messing with Scrum.  Teams that make changes to the elements limit Scrum's effect...

Woran würden Sie erkennen, dass Ihr Scrum Master kompetent ist? Was sind Indikatoren für den Erfolg eines Scrum Masters? Ist die regelmäßige Verwendung der Confluence-Retrospektiven-Vorlage das gewünschte Signal? Oder ist die Suche nach den Faktoren, die zum Erfolg beitragen, vergeblich, da die Grün...

TL; DR: Scrum Master Success — My Top-Nine Indicators How would you know that your Scrum Master is competent? What are indicators for Scrum Master success? Is the regular use of the Confluence retrospective template one of the desired signals? Or is the quest to understand contributing factors fu...

With the rapid increase in the adoption of Scrum and other Agile frameworks over the past several years, I’m not surprised that a few misconceptions and myths about Scrum have surfaced.  While many more organizations embrace Scrum, many individual practitioners have not undertaken formal training.  ...

Summer Lawrence shares perspectives on professional coaching.

A well-refined Product Backlog is essential for high-performing Scrum Teams.  Without it, teams will likely struggle to deliver a Done increment each Sprint.  But like all things in Scrum, we must have a balance.  So, how far out should the Product Backlog go?  

Scrums größte Stärke ist dessen Einfachheit, welche aber auch die Quelle vieler Mythen und Fehlinterpretationen ist.

The Agile Manifesto (penned in 2001) includes four values and 12 principles that describe a new approach to complex work. Agile is an umbrella term comprising a variety of frameworks and approaches to value delivery, including Scrum.  Previously, we discussed the 12 principles included in the Agile ...

I learn all the time, and 2021 taught me a lot. Based on those lessons, I’d like to share an update on what organizational agility means to me in 2022. I hope you find it useful for what it does and does not mean for you.

Scrum with Kanban includes a definition of workflow, four practices, and four measures. The first practice is visualization of the workflow. The visualization of that workflow is essentially the Kanban board. 

Misconceptions about Refinement—the process of adding detail, order and size to individual Product Backlog items can be highly detrimental to a team's ability to deliver value to the business frequently. In this article, we will discuss some of the most common myths about Refinement in Scrum.