TL; DR: Pure Scrum? Can you rely on pure Scrum to transform your organization and deliver value? Not always. While Scrum excels in simplicity and flexibility, applying it “out of… Read more

TL; DR: The Lean Tech Manifesto with Fabrice Bernhard — Hands-on Agile #65 Join Fabrice Bernhard on how the “Lean Tech Manifesto” solves the challenge of scaling Agile for large organizations… Read more

TL; DR: Product Team Empowerment Anti-Patterns Leadership anti-patterns often undermine product team empowerment — an essential success factor in Marty Cagan’s product operating model. These failures include micromanagement, overly rigid… Read more

TL;DR: Inverted MoSCoW The inverted MoSCoW framework reverses traditional prioritization, focusing on what a product team won’t build rather than what it will. Deliberately excluding features helps teams streamline development,… Read more

TL; DR: Why Leaders Support the Product Operating Model Despite Agile’s Failure Why might leaders turn to the Product Operating Model (POM) after a previous Agile transformation, for example, based… Read more

TL; DR: Product Washing By all means, the “Product Operating Model” (POM) has surged in popularity, especially among traditional organizations keen to prove their adaptability. (And, of course, among the… Read more

TL; DR: Mastering Work Intake: The Key to Sustainability and Flow — Hands-on Agile #64 How do you deal with prioritization of the flood of new requirements, requests, and ideas?… Read more

TL; DR: Product Owner Anti-Patterns No other role in Scrum can contribute to mediocre outcomes like the Product Owner—garbage in, garbage out—and it does not matter whether that’s due to… Read more

TL; DR: Unfinished Action Items: How to Make Retrospectives Useful If your team consistently creates action items during Retrospectives but rarely completes them, you’re not alone. Unfinished action items are… Read more

TL;DR: Scrum Master Salary Report 2025 — An Anonymous Poll by the Community for the Community The purpose of this anonymous Scrum Master salary report is to create a clear, data-backed… Read more

TL;DR: A Guide to Escape Agile Framework Fatigue Undergoing a transformation to Agile Primitives from a botched [insert your failed agile framework of choice here] isn’t about adopting another framework;… Read more

TL;DR: Agile Primitives Are we losing sight of what truly matters in Agile? The future isn’t about rigidly adhering to or outright dismissing frameworks like Scrum or SAFe. Instead, it’s… Read more

Hands-on Agile 2025 is Here: From Concept-Based to Context-Based Agility We’re thrilled to announce that the virtual Hands-on Agile 2025 is officially on the horizon and will be free to… Read more

TL;DR: The Perils of Founder Mode This article delves into the darker aspects of Founder Mode, popularized by Paul Graham and others. It offers a critical perspective for agile practitioners,… Read more

TL; DR: The Pre-Mortem: A Non-negotiable Part of Your Product Development Toolbox Do you want to build products that avoid costly mistakes, meet customer needs, and drastically enhance your career… Read more

TL; DR: Why Too Much Transparency Can Have a Detrimental Effect While transparency is often touted as essential in Agile, too much can have negative consequences. Oversharing can lead to… Read more

TL; DR: Why Solving Customer Problems Instead Matters Scrum is just a tool; your job is to solve real customer problems and deliver value. Stop focusing on perfecting frameworks and… Read more

TL; DR: Transformed & Scrum Despite criticism from the product community regarding Scrum as a framework for effective product creation, namely Marty Cagan himself, I believe that it is worthwhile… Read more

TL; DR: Reinventing Hands-on Agile For years, I have supported the Agile community with a wealth of free resources and opportunities for growth. From the Food for Agile Thought newsletter… Read more

TL; DR: Quick Scrum Gains Suppose you are a Scrum Master or Agile Coach. Have you recently been asked to explain your contribution to the organization’s value creation? In other… Read more

TL; DR: Agile Regulated Industries Are there agile regulated industries, or is that an oxymoron? Recently, I received a project alert from an organization looking for a Scrum Master with… Read more

TL; DR: Gaming Velocity Imagine your team’s line manager insists that a successful team improves velocity regularly. How could you, as a team, satisfy this strange, unsuitable demand without working… Read more

TL;DR: Alignment Tools Understanding and implementing the right alignment tools in agile product development can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your team and organization. Fostering better relationships between stakeholders and… Read more

TL; DR: Agile Teams as Investors Stakeholders often regard Scrum and other agile teams as cost centers, primarily focused on executing projects within budgetary confines. This conventional view, however, undervalues… Read more

TL; DR: Hands-on Agile #62: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager w/ David Pereira What does product success mean? In this energizing Hands-on Agile Meetup, David Pereira talked about the… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Interview 2024 In today’s tight job market, standing out as a genuine Scrum Master is crucial amidst a sea of imposters. Shining during the Scrum Master… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master JobGPT — Learn to Thrive in Today’s Job Market Given the current turbulent times for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches, our community must stand united. This… Read more

TL; DR: The Meta-Retrospective The Meta-Retrospective is an excellent exercise to foster collaboration within the extended team, create a shared understanding of the big picture, and immediately create valuable action-items…. Read more

TL; DR: Top Five Rookie Mistakes by Self-Proclaimed Scrum Masters Are you struggling with imposter syndrome as a new Scrum Master? Avoid five common rookie mistakes Scrum Masters make. Instead,… Read more

TL;DR: Product Owner and Scrum Master? Combining the roles of Product Owner and Scrum Master in one individual is a contentious topic in the Agile community. A recent LinkedIn poll,… Read more

TL; DR: Toyota Kata Coaching with Fortune Buchholtz Business and academic leaders advocate coaching as crucial for growth. In Agile, diverse methods like GROW and OSKAR thrive, yet Toyota Kata… Read more

TL; DR: Introducing the “Anti-Patterns Canvas” Join me in developing the Anti-Patterns Canvas, a dynamic and free tool that extends the insights of the “Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide” book. Share your… Read more

TL; DR: Technical Product Ownership Dive deep into the benefits—or the lack thereof—of the technical Product Owner (or product manager) and their profound impact on teams, customer satisfaction, and organizational… Read more

TL; DR: System-Level Scrum Stakeholder Anti-Patterns Learn how outdated organizational structures manifest themselves in system-level Scrum stakeholder anti-patterns that easily impede any agile transformation to a product-led organization. We cover… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Tasks: Let’s Bust Some Myths! Rumor says that a great Scrum Master supports one team at a time. If that is true, how do you spend… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Interview Questions on Creating Value with Scrum If you are looking to fill a position for a Scrum Master (or agile coach) in your organization, you… Read more

TL; DR: The Product Operating Model — An Interview with Marty Cagan Let’s explore Marty Cagan’s insights on revolutionizing product management, embracing empowered teams, and fostering innovation by employing the… Read more

TL; DR: Tackling Fake Agility with Johanna Rothman Your team is supposed to use an agile approach, such as Scrum. But you have a years-long backlog, your standups are individual… Read more

TL; DR: How Scrum Teams Fail Stakeholders In this article, we uncover typical ways in which Scrum teams fail stakeholders, from overpromising results to poor risk communication to neglecting feedback…. Read more

Transform Your Skills and Career with the Advanced Product Backlog Management Course Are you facing challenges in aligning vision, stakeholders, and your team and delivering real value? Then, prepare to… Read more

TL; DR: Continuous Improvement for Teams Cultivating a culture of continuous improvement within Scrum teams or Agile teams is pivotal for personal well-being, enhancing effectiveness, building trust with stakeholders, and… Read more

TL; DR: Sprint Anti-Patterns Holding Your Teams Back Welcome to Sprint anti-patterns! This article covers the three Scrum accountabilities (formerly roles) and addresses interferences of stakeholders and IT/line management with… Read more

TL; DR: How to Deal with the Agile Job Crisis While the current Agile job crisis is apparent, there is also hope for practitioners willing to refine their skills, share… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Anti-Patterns GPT Can a Custom Scrum Anti-Patterns GPT align teams with Scrum principles? Dive into how leveraging custom GPTs might offer a novel path through Scrum’s common… Read more

TL; DR: The Scrum Master Salary Report 2024 — How Do You Compare? The Scrum Master Salary Report 2024 is the fifth edition of the industry survey after 2017, 2019, 2022,… Read more

TL; DR: Dysfunction Mapping w/ Michael Lloyd In this fascinating talk, Michael introduced the concept of dysfunction mapping, a tool developed over years of trial and error aimed at creating… Read more

TL; DR: Getting Hired as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach Are you considering a new Scrum Master or Agile Coach job? However, you are not sure that it is… Read more

TL; DR: Agile Laws in Software Development On many occasions, working with agile teams has amplified existing organizational, technical, and cultural challenges in many organizations. Starting to change always requires… Read more

TL; DR: The Rise of the Scrum GPT Fewer Jobs for Scrum Masters, and now we see the universal Scrum GPT entering the competition: Will Scrum Masters change from essential… Read more

TL; DR: Sunsetting Scrum Masters In this article, I uncover indicators that a Scrum Master’s or Agile Coach’s journey is coming to a close; they are sunsetting Scrum Masters. These… Read more

TL; DR: Humble Planning w/ Maarten Dalmijn In this fascinating talk, Maarten introduced the concept of humble planning and why it’s crucial for succeeding with an Agile way of working… Read more

TL; DR: Tools to Help You Excel in 2024 Having just completed the Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide book, I will turn my focus to 2024 with new projects that build on… Read more

TL; DR: How To Spot Successful Scrum Masters In this article, I unravel the secrets of what makes a Scrum Master not just good but amazingly outstanding. From regularly achieving… Read more

TL; DR: Missing Sprint Goals Do you excel in the art of setting unattainable, imposed, or plain non-existing Sprint Goals? In other words, are you good at missing Sprint Goals… Read more

TL, DR: The Scrum Trap Scrum is a purposefully incomplete framework. Consequently, it needs to be augmented with tools and practices to apply its theoretical foundation to an organization’s business… Read more

TL; DR: Escaping the Feature Factory The feature factory fate is not inevitable; there is hope to avoid becoming a mere cog in the machinery. Learn how! In many large… Read more

TL; DR: Overcoming Common Product Backlog Management Traps w/ David Pereira How teams manage their Product Backlog often makes or breaks their value creation chances. Poor backlog management leads to… Read more

TL; DR: The Illusion of Velocity In this article, I explore the pitfalls of ‘The Illusion of Velocity’ in agile contexts, peeling back the layers of traditional metrics as leadership… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Team Failure This post on Scrum team failure addresses three categories from the Scrum anti-patterns taxonomy that are closely aligned: Planning and process breakdown, conflict avoidance and… Read more

TL, DR: Saying No Without Burning Bridges Are you navigating the delicate art of saying No as a Product Owner or product manager? Actually, it’s more of a strategic ‘yes’… Read more

TL; DR: Hands-on Agile #53: An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling with Bob Galen On September 5, 2023, we had the opportunity to listen to Bob Galen on “An Agile… Read more

TL; DR: Can We Or Should We Change Scrum? Can we or should we change Scrum, or is it a sacrilege to tweak the ‘immutable’ framework to accommodate our teams’… Read more

TL; DR: The Minimum Viable Library for Agile Leaders A new edition of the Minimum Viable Library on Agile Leadership is available! Explore a series of carefully curated collections of… Read more

TL; DR: Lost in Communication and Collaboration Lost in Communication and Collaboration addresses two categories from the Scrum anti-patterns taxonomy that are closely aligned: ineffective collaboration at the stakeholder level,… Read more

´TL; DR: Hands-on Agile #52: Jim Highsmith & the Agile Manifesto On August 17, 2023, we had the opportunity to interview Jim Highsmith about his path to agile product development:… Read more

TL; DR: Resistance to Agile Transformations Stakeholders often revert to resistance to agile transformations due to fears about job security, perceived loss of control, comfort with established practices, and misconceptions… Read more

TL;DR: Scrum Master Salary Report 2024 — An Anonymous Poll by the Community for the Community The purpose of this anonymous Scrum Master salary report is to create a clear, data-backed… Read more

TL; DR: SAFe® — Despised, Yet Successful? Many in the Agile community consider the Scaled Agile Framework designed by Dean Leffingwell and Drew Jemilo as unagile, violating the Agile Manifesto and… Read more

TL; DR: The Minimum Viable Library Product Owner Edition The Minimum Viable Library Product Owner edition is available! Explore a series of carefully curated collections of essential books, newsletters, podcasts,… Read more

TL; DR: Adherence to Legacy Systems, Processes, and Practices Administrative overreach and micromanagement in Scrum mainly arise from clinging to legacy systems and traditional (management) practices, leading to rigidity and… Read more

TL; DR: The Minimum Viable Library for Scrum Masters The Minimum Viable Library is available! Explore a series of carefully curated collections of essential books, newsletters, podcasts, and tools to… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Anti-Patterns Taxonomy As the editing process of the Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide is nearing its end, it is time to take the next step. The brand new Scrum… Read more

TL; DR: Product Discovery for Scrum Teams While Scrum excels at building and releasing Increments, it does not guarantee that those are valuable—garbage in, garbage out. Scrum teams can equally… Read more

Health Checks for Agile Teams Agile teams thrive on continuous improvement and adaptability. Self-assessment isn’t just a health check measuring tool but a compass guiding teams toward their potential. It… Read more

TL; DR: The Costs of an Oversized Product Backlog Some Product Owners believe that a comprehensive Product Backlog is the best way to accomplish the Product Goal and be fully… Read more

TL; DR: The Uncomfortable Truth of Scaling Agile Agile transformations, scaling Agile from a team level to the whole organization, are more than implementing frameworks like SAFe®. They require a… Read more

TL; DR: Useless Agile Metrics Ideally, a metric is a leading indicator for a pattern change, allowing your Scrum team to analyze the cause in time and take countermeasures. However,… Read more

TL; DR: Agile Coaches next to Scrum Masters? Often, when organizations employ agile coaches and Scrum Masters, we can observe that agile coaches work at an organizational level. In contrast,… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Success Indicators How do you know your team’s Scrum Master is successful? I identified ten Scrum Master success indicators from a team perspective, from self-sufficiency to… Read more

TL; DR: Can ChatGPT 4.0 Create Scrum Master Interview Questions? Previously, I tested how ChatGPT would answer questions from the Scrum Master Interview Guide; see below. Back in January 2023,… Read more

TL; DR: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business with Joe Justice Joe Justice worked for Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. In this Hands-on Agile meetup, Joe shared… Read more

TL; DR: Retrospective Facilitation — Going from Good to 🦄 Great The magic technique to turn a boring Retrospective into an outstanding Retrospective is the rotation of the facilitator role equally… Read more

TL; DR: 60 ChatGPT Prompts for Agile Practitioners ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for those who know how to create prompts. The simplest form of prompting ChatGPT is to… Read more

TL; DR: Life Is a Negotiation; Why Would Scrum Be Different? Life is a negotiation; why would Scrum be different, particularly given its egalitarian nature? As you may recall, no… Read more

TL; DR: 10X Your Agile Leadership Game with 10 Affordable Books Agile leadership is tricky, covering a lot of ground, from team building, decision-making, servant leadership, and self-management to including… Read more

TL; DR: Self-Management Is self-management an essential building block on an organization’s path to business agility or a nice-to-have cultural twist to, for example, keep teams happy and attract new… Read more

TL; DR: Jira Anti-Patterns If you ask people to come up with popular attributes for “Agile” or “agility,” Scrum and Jira will likely be among the top ten featured. Moreover,… Read more

TL; DR: Workshop Design with ChatGPT The following article explores whether we can use ChatGPT-4 to create workshops for agile practitioners; for example, Scrum Masters. While Liberating Structures have simplified… Read more

TL; DR: Creating a Personal Readme for Scrum Masters with ChatGPT Providing a personal readme to your new teammates and stakeholders as a Scrum Master is a great way to… Read more

TL; DR: ChatGPT 4: A Bargain for Scrum Practitioners? When OpenAI released its new LLM model GPT-4 last week, I could not resist and signed up for $20 monthly. I… Read more

TL; DR: The Stoic Scrum Master – Making Your Scrum Work #30 Can wisdom from the past still be relevant to today’s VUCA-determined world? I started reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations some… Read more

TL; DR: The Three Daily Scrum Questions Won’t Die The Daily Scrum serves a single purpose: inspecting the progress toward the Sprint Goal by reflecting on yesterday’s learning. Then, if… Read more

TL; DR: Club Scrum — You, too, ChatGPT? A few years ago, I ran a survey to figure out what Scrum Masters serving a single Scrum team do all day…. Read more

TL; DR: ChatGPT Product Owner Job Interview A few weeks ago, I ran a simulated job interview with ChatGPT for a fictitious Scrum Master position. Admittedly, I would not have… Read more

TL; DR: The Scrum Master Salary Report 2023 — How Do You Compare? The Scrum Master Salary Report 2023 is the fourth edition of the industry survey after 2017, 2019, and… Read more

TL; DR: The Definition of Done: Business Agility & Technical Excellence Most of the time, stakeholders are not interested in how we solve their problems as long as we ethically… Read more

TL; DR: Agile Transformation with ChatGPT or McBoston? This article is another excursion into this nascent yet fascinating new technology of generative AI and LLMs and the future of knowledge… Read more

Scrum Master Interview Questions, Edition 2023: The Scrum Master Role If you want to fill a Scrum Master position in your organization, you may find the following interview questions helpful… Read more

TL; DR: ChatGPT Prompts for Scrum Practitioners Last week, I ran an “interview” with ChatGPT as an applicant for a fictitious Scrum Master position based on questions from Scrum Master… Read more

TL; DR: A ChatGPT Job Interview for a Scrum Master Position Can a large language model, not specializing in anything “agile,” pass a screening interview for a Scrum Master position?… Read more

TL; DR: Please Share Your Content Ideas with me! What topics are you interested in learning about in 2023? Please share your ideas with me, and I’ll do my best… Read more

TL; DR: Red or Blue? I need your support, dear community. For months, I have been working on turning the popular Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide PDF into a new book from… Read more

TL; DR: Your Unfit Product Goal and the Product Goal Canvas We plan a lot in Scrum: There is a daily plan when the Developers think about progressing toward the… Read more

TL; DR: Business Agility, Scrum and Generative AI’s Take on Getting There There has been a lot of talking about generative AI recently, mainly fueled by excellent work results in… Read more

TL; DR: Hands-on Agile #46: Engage the Agile Fluency® Model with Diana Larsen On October 12, 2022, agile innovator Diana Larsen delved into the Agile Fluency® Model. After a short… Read more

TL;DR: Value Creation in Scrum As a tactical framework, Scrum is good at delivering Increments into customers’ hands. As we work in iterations, we probably do that several times per… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Tools, Part 1 “The Scrum framework is purposefully incomplete, […].” (Source.) This half-sentence is probably one of the more often misinterpreted statements of the Scrum Guide. On… Read more

TL; DR: Product Owner & Product Manager Salary Report 2022 How do you compare? The Product Owner and Product Manager Salary Report 2022 is based on 500-plus replies from practitioners… Read more

TL; DR: When Should a Team Stop Using Scrum? When is the time to look beyond Scrum? After all, many things—ideas, practices, mantras, etc.—outlive their utility sooner or later; why… Read more

TL; DR: Hands-on Agile #45: FAST Scaling: An Innovative Way to Scale Agile with James Shore In this energizing 45th Hands-on Agile session, James Shore shared his experiences with scaling… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Interview (6): Demand Creates Supply and the Job Market for Agile Practitioners is No Exception Scrum has proven time and again to be the most popular… Read more

TL; DR: Nine Sprint Goal Principles In Scrum, the Sprint Goal serves as the spotlight that provides transparency to the Sprint Backlog, as the flag that allows the team to… Read more

TL; DR: HoA #44: Honey, I Shrunk the Backlog w/ Allan Kelly In this energizing 44th Hands-on Agile session on product backlog management, Allan Kelly clarified one thing: The backlog… Read more

TL;DR: Scrum Master Salary Report 2023 — An Anonymous Poll by the Community for the Community The purpose of this anonymous Scrum Master salary report 2023 is to create a clear,… Read more

TL; DR: Elements of Empiricism In its theory section, the Scrum Guide refers to the three elements of empiricism: transparency, inspection, and adaptation. However, a fourth element, foundational to enable… Read more

TL; DR: Product Backlog Principles Contrary to popular belief, the Product Owner does not have dictatorial powers regarding the composition and order of the Product Backlog. Instead, Scrum as a… Read more

TL; DR: Retrospective First Principles What is your take on the Retrospective: A routine exercise at the end of a Sprint, supported by standard operating procedures? Or a critical part… Read more

TL; DR: Product Backlog Refinement First Principles The Product Backlog refinement is a continuous process to create actionable Product Backlogs, enabling a Scrum Team to run Sprint Plannings at a… Read more

TL; DR: Definition of Done Theses Given the importance of a viable Definition of Done for a Scrum team’s success, it has always puzzled me how complacent or ignorant many… Read more

TL; DR: HoA #43: Outcome-Based Product Planning w/ Jeff Gothelf In this energizing 43rd Hands-on Agile session on outcome-based product planning, Jeff Gothelf clarified one thing: “Roadmapping is a flawed… Read more

TL; DR: Agile Micromanagement There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Indeed, given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise… Read more

TL; DR: No Sprint Goal There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise… Read more

TL; DR: Unengaged Stakeholders There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone…. Read more

TL; DR: Stakeholder Trust Trust is the beginning of everything. I am hesitant to recycle an old slogan of a banking institute. However, in the context of becoming a learning… Read more

TL; DR: Prisoners of Retrospectives There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise… Read more

TL; DR: HoA #42: Lean Roadmapping and OKRs w/ Janna Bastow In this energizing 42nd Hands-on Agile Lean Roadmapping session, Janna Bastow, the go-to-authority on product roadmaps, talked about being… Read more

TL;DR: Product Owner and Product Manager Salary Report 2022 — An Anonymous Poll by the Community for the Community The purpose of this anonymous Product Owner and Product Manager salary report… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Interview Questions on the Sprint Review Scrum has repeatedly proven to be the most popular framework for software development. Given that software is eating the world,… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Developer Anti-Patterns After covering the anti-patterns of the Scrum Master, the Product Owner, and the stakeholders, this article addresses Scrum Developer anti-patterns, covering all Scrum Events and… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Stakeholder Anti-Patterns Learn how individual incentives and outdated organizational structures — fostering personal agendas and local optimization efforts — manifest themselves in Scrum stakeholder anti-patterns that easily… Read more

TL; DR: HoA #40: Best Team Ever w/ David Burkus In this energizing 40th Hands-on Agile ‘Best Test Ever’ session, David Burkus delved into the surprising science of high-performing teams…. Read more

TL; DR: 15 Sprint Review Anti-Patterns Are we still on track to accomplish the Product Goal? Moreover, how did the previous Sprint contribute to our Scrum team’s mission? Answering these… Read more

TL; DR: Sprint Retrospective Anti-Patterns What event could better embody Scrum’s principle of empiricism than the Sprint Retrospective? I assume all peers agree that even the simplest form of a… Read more

TL; DR: How to Pass the Product Owner Certification — Scrum.org’s PSPO I to III The first article of this mini-series established that you do not need a certificate to… Read more

TL; DR: Sprint Planning 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… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Anti-Patterns 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… Read more

TL; DR: 27 Product Backlog and Refinement Anti-Patterns Scrum is a tactical framework to build products, provided you identify what is worth making in advance. But even after a successful… Read more

TL; DR: HoA #38: Ask-Me-Anything w/ Roman Pichler: The Product Owner In this energizing 38th Hands-on Agile session, Roman Pichler delved into your questions on the role of the Product… Read more

TL; DR: 24+2 Daily Scrum Anti-Patterns In my experience, the Daily Scrum is the Scrum event with the highest anti-pattern density among all events. Learn more about Daily Scrum anti-patterns… Read more

TL; DR: How to Pass the Scrum Master Certification The first article of this mini-series established that you do not need a certificate to become good at what you do,… Read more

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… Read more

TL; DR: The Power and Pains of Autonomy at the ACB21 In this highly engaging talk at the Agile Camp Berlin 2021, Jimmy Janlén addresses the core element of “Agile,”… Read more

TL; DR: How to Sabotage A Product Owner — 53 Anti-Patterns from the Trenches to Avoid One of my favorite exercises from my Professional Scrum Product Owner classes is how to… Read more

TL; DR: Is a Scrum Certification a Sound Investment Advice? Do you need a Scrum certification to become good at what you do? Not really. It took me nine years… Read more

TL; DR: The SAFe ® NPS ® Score as a Scaling Framework Is -56 SAFe® has always been a controversial topic within the agile community. Therefore, back in 2017, I… Read more

TL; DR: The Zones of Value Framework w/ Valerio Zanini & Zeina Zeitouni During this workshop, Valerio Zanini and Zeina Zeitouni explored the Zones of Value Framework that Agile and… Read more

TL; DR: The Scrum Master Salary Report 2022 — How Do You Compare? The Scrum Master Salary Report 2022 is the third edition of the industry survey after 2017 and 2019…. Read more

TL; DR: Product Owner Interview Questions: The Product Mindset If you are looking to fill a position for a Product Owner in your organization, you may find the following 82… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Interview Questions on How to Make Your Scrum Master Fail Scrum has proven time and again to be the most popular framework for software development. Given… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum 2022 — Getting You Started as Scrum Master or Product Owner Probably, you are considering how to further your Scrum Master career or Product Owner career in… Read more

TL; DR: Survey: Would you recommend SAFe ®? SAFe® has always been a controversial topic within the agile community. Therefore, back in 2017, I ran a survey on the Net… Read more

TL; DR: How to Sabotage A Scrum Master — 44 Anti-Patterns from the Trenches to Avoid One of my favorite exercises from my Professional Scrum Master classes is how to best… Read more

TL; DR: Designing Powerful Questions with Daniel Stillman Powerful Conversations are the environment that drives change. Learn from Daniel Stillman how designing powerful questions helps you coach, create, connect, and… Read more

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,”… Read more

TL; DR: High-Performance Teams: Core Protocols with Richard Kasperowski Want fabulous teams that build great products? Great teams don’t happen by accident. And they don’t have to take a long… Read more

TL; DR: The Agile Metrics Survey 2021 If you value agile practices, it is crucial to know if a job offering or a prospective business partner that claims to be… Read more

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… Read more

TL; DR: Overruling the Product Owner There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Since Scrum is an intentionally incomplete framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should… Read more

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. So,… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Questions: Seven Simple Issues and Complex Answers How hard can Scrum be; the manual has 13 pages? You may have heard something along this line from skeptics… Read more

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… Read more

TL; DR: Product Owner Interview Questions: PO Anti-Patterns If you are looking to fill a position for a Product Owner in your organization, you may find the following 82 interview… Read more

TL; DR: Estimates Are Useful, Just Ditch the Numbers Many people dislike estimating work items as estimates supposedly open the path to the misuse of velocity by the managers, reintroducing… Read more

TL; DR: Adapt How You Lead for Agile Success w/ Johanna Rothman — ACB21 Too many people say, “With agile, we don’t need no stinkin’ managers.” However, because managers create… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Interview Questions (6): Scrum Anti-Patterns Scrum has proven time and again to be the most popular framework for software development. Given that software is eating the… Read more

TL;DR: Scrum Master Salary Report 2022 — An Anonymous Poll by the Community for the Community The purpose of this anonymous Scrum Master salary report is to create a clear, data-backed… Read more

TL; DR: Agile Coaches vs. Scrum Masters Do We Need Agile Coaches when Practicing Scrum? Don’t get me wrong; my LinkedIn profile states “Professional Scrum Trainer, Agile Coach, and Scrum… Read more

TL; DR: The Dogmatic Scrum Master Anti-Pattern There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Since Scrum is an intentionally incomplete framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect… Read more

TL; DR: Should Managers Attend Retrospectives? There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not… Read more

TL; DR: Unsmart Improvements There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone…. Read more

TL; DR: Skipping Retrospectives? There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone…. Read more

TL; DR: Abandoning Scrum Can a Scrum team simply decide to abandon Scrum? After all, the Scrum team is self-managing, according to the Scrum manual, also known as the Scrum… Read more

TL; DR: Linking Strategy to Everyday Work w/ John Cutler — ACB21 In this highly engaging speaker session from the Agile Camp Berlin 2021, John Cutler delves into the advantages… Read more

TL; DR: Ignoring Self-Management — Undermining Scrum from the Start There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,”… Read more

TL; DR: Three Wide-Spread Stakeholder Failures There are plenty of Scrum stakeholder failures. Given that Scrum is a framework with a precise and concise yet short “manual,” this effect should… Read more

TL; DR: Sustainable Agility at the Enterprise Level w/ Jorgen Hesselberg — ACB21 In this highly engaging speaker session on sustainable agility from the Agile Camp Berlin 2021, Jorgen Hesselberg… Read more

Scrum Master Interview: Demand Creates Supply and the Job Market for Agile Practitioners is No Exception Scrum has proven time and again to be the most popular framework for software… Read more

TL; DR: How to Win with Agile Resistant Teams w/ Scott Weiner — ACB21 In this highly engaging speaker session from the Agile Camp Berlin 2021, Scott Weiner shares a… Read more

TL; DR: 60 Questions for the New Scrum Master Congratulations to your new Scrum Master position! Now what? What has served me well over the years is a combination of… Read more

TL; DR: Increasing the Velocity of Value w/ Dave West — ACB21 In this highly engaging speaker session from the Agile Camp Berlin 2021, Dave West talks about why orienting… Read more

TL; DR: The Lack of Agile Leadership Qualities — When Change Agents Don’t Act as Role Models There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a… Read more

TL; DR: Evidence-based Interventions w/ Viktor Cessan — ACB21 In this highly engaging speaker session from the Agile Camp Berlin 2021, Viktor Cessan shares lessons learned as an agile coach… Read more

Scrum Master Skills: Visualizing the Tuckman Model “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Probably, we have all heard that piece of wisdom before. In my experience, having some —… Read more

TL; DR: Real Cross-functional Teams for Creating Real and Better Products — ACB21 In this highly engaging speaker session from the Agile Camp Berlin 2021, Jutta Eckstein and Maryse Meinen… Read more

TL; DR: Common Developer Blunders — When Your Scrum Team Lacks Alignment There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet… Read more

TL; DR: When Scrum Masters Fail — Making Your Scrum Work #13 There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet… Read more

TL; DR: Essential Agile Failure Patterns — When Noise Interferes with Signal There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet… Read more

TL; DR: The Oversized Product Backlog Problem — When Noise Interferes with Signal There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable… Read more

TL; DR: 82 Product Owner Interview Questions to Avoid Imposters If you are looking to fill a position for a Product Owner in your organization, you may find the following… Read more

TL; DR: The Frustrated Scrum Master — When all the Effort Leads Nowhere There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Failure Culture: A Requirement to Be Successful There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,”… Read more

TL; DR: The Developers Code Fallacy — They Should Talk to Customers, Too, Though There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a… Read more

TL; DR: Three Wide-Spread Stakeholder Failures There are plenty of Scrum stakeholder failures. Given that Scrum is a framework with a precise and concise yet short “manual,” this effect should… Read more

TL; DR: Gold-Plating Beyond Done There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise… Read more

TL; DR: Four Scrum Master Success Principles Contrary to popular belief, the Scrum Master success principles are tangible, when we guide the analysis with an outside perspective. Read on and… Read more

TL; DR: Three Wide-Spread Product Owner Failures There are plenty of Product Owner failures. Given that Scrum is a framework with a precise and concise yet short “manual,” this effect… Read more

TL; DR: Data-Informed Retrospectives In their book Agile Retrospectives, Esther Derby and Diana Larsen popularized the idea that a Sprint Retrospect comprises five stages. The second stage refers to gathering… Read more

TL; DR: Product Owner Interview Questions — The Product Backlog and Refinement If you are looking to fill a position for a Product Owner in your organization, you may find the… Read more

TL; DR: Three Wide-Spread Scrum Master Failures There are plenty of Scrum Masters failures. Given that Scrum is a framework with a precise and concise yet short “manual,” this effect… Read more

TL; DR: 82 Product Owner Interview Questions to Avoid Imposters If you are looking to fill a position for a Product Owner in your organization, you may find the following… Read more

TL;DR: App Prototyping with Absolute Beginners Yes, even absolute beginners can prototype an app. And learn a lot about agile product management, Scrum, empiricism, product design, and user experience along… Read more

TL; DR: Product Backlog Defense Make no mistake: Your Product Backlog is the last line of defense preventing your Scrum Team from becoming a feature factory; hence Product Backlog defense… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Interview Questions (4) Some time ago, someone on Reddit asked whether there would be any other profession that requires attending a 2-day training class and would… Read more

The Virtual Agile Camp Berlin Best Session Award Host the best session on the virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021 and win a seat in a Professional Scrum Class and other… Read more

TL; DR: Product Backlog Anti-Patterns Q&A A few weeks, Scrum.org hosted a webinar on Product Backlog anti-patterns with me, which left several questions unanswered as we ran out of time…. Read more

TL; DR: The vACB21’s Schedule, Session Proposals, Technology, and Workshops The Agile Camp Berlin 2021 will be a virtual event from May 27-29, 2021. We will spend three energizing days… Read more

TL; DR: Peer Recruiting Peer Recruiting is the new hiring: Shortly, all creative, technology-based organizations will need to abandon the command & control structures that served the industrial world of… Read more

TL; DR: Welcome to the Scrum Guide Reordered Audiobook The Scrum Guide Reordered audiobook is based on about 95 percent of the text of the Scrum Guide 2020, extending its… Read more

TL; DR: 20 Questions a New Scrum Master Should Ask Twenty questions for you — the new Scrum Master — that fit into a 60 minutes time-box. Start learning how… Read more

TL; DR: Product Discovery Anti-Patterns Scrum has proven to be an effective product delivery framework for all sorts of products. However, Scrum is equally well suited to build the wrong… Read more

TL; DR: Agile Metrics Suitable agile metrics reflect either a team’s progress in becoming agile or your organization’s progress in becoming a learning organization. At the team level, qualitative agile… Read more

TL; DR: How to Make Agile Work in Fast-Growing Startups For years, I worked in several Berlin-based, fast-growing startups in my capacity as Scrum Master, agile coach, and Product Owner…. Read more

TL; DR: A Forensic Product Backlog Analysis (Part 1) Garbage in, garbage out: No matter whether your team chose Scrum for the right purpose—solving complex, adaptive problems. No matter whether… Read more

TL; DR: Product Owner Anti-Patterns from Job Ads Like a job ad for a Scrum Master position, the equivalent for the Product Owner position also reveals excellent insight into an… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Job — 4 Steps to Identify Suitable Employers or Clients Are you considering a new Scrum Master job? However, you are not sure that it is… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Anti-Patterns from Job Ads Job ads for Scrum Master positions reveal great insight into an organization’s progress on becoming agile. I analyzed more than 50 job… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Commitments While the new Scrum Guide is less prescriptive and more inclusive, it also ties loose ends by including elements better, namely the previously free-floating Sprint Goal… Read more

TL; DR: The Scrum Guide 2020 The Scrum Guide 2020 is available now: Change is coming to make Scrum more accessible and inclusive beyond software development. Learn more about the… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Interview Questions (1) Scrum has proven time and again to be the most popular framework for software development. Given that software is eating the world, a… Read more

TL; DR: 18 Signs of a Systemic Toxic Team Culture What looked like a good idea back in the 1990ies—outsourcing software development as a non-essential business area—has meanwhile massively backfired… Read more

TL; DR: Lipstick Agile — Happiness in the Trenches? Have you noticed how many people in the agile field are unhappy with their work situation? A situation where an organization already… Read more

TL;DR: Creating an Agile Community of Practice Creating an agile community of practice helps winning hearts and minds within the organization as it provides authenticity to the agile transition — signaling… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum’s Nature: It Is a Tool; It Is Not About Love or Hate Regularly, we find articles from developers detailing why ‘Agile’ in general and Scrum’s nature, in… Read more

TL; DR: Speaking Truth to Power Do you need an emergency fund as a change agent—whether you are acting as Scrum Master, Product Owner, or agile coach—because conflict is inevitable,… Read more

TL; DR: Results of a Test of Using Unhangout to Host Virtual Barcamps Last week, 30-plus attendees of the 24th Hands-on Agile meetup ran a virtual Barcamp experiment w/ MIT’s… Read more

TL; DR: The Agile Movers & Shakers Interview w/ Ryan Ripley Today’s guest is Ryan Ripley. Ryan is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) with Scrum.org. He hosts the Agile for… Read more

TL; DR: Remote Agile Transitions We are used to saying the Scrum is a perfect probe for organizations, as it will reliably discover all dysfunctionalities. Since the pandemic has forced… Read more

TL; DR: Remote Agile Transitions We are used to saying the Scrum is a perfect probe for organizations, as it will reliably discover all dysfunctionalities. Since the pandemic has forced… Read more

TL; DR: Results of a Virtual Strategy Session for Scrum Masters Regarding Remote Work Last week, 30-plus participants in the 23rd Hands-on Agile meetup had a virtual strategy session where… Read more

TL; DR: Remote Agile Event Planning — a Cheat Sheet Imagine, you are supposed to facilitate a remote user-story mapping with 26 people from all over our organization. Or, think… Read more

TL; DR: The Agile Movers & Shakers Interview w/ Christiaan Verwijs & Barry Overeem Today we welcome Christiaan Verwijs & Barry Overeem. Christiaan and Barry are both Professional Scrum Trainers… Read more

TL; DR: Good Remote Agile Practices The first insights are available from the Remote Agile Survey: What are good remote agile practices, and what are possible low-hanging fruits that haven’t… Read more

TL; DR: Join the Remote Agile Survey There has been no shortage of articles on how to work remotely recently, including our series on remote Agile. While most of the… Read more

TL; DR: A Remote Daily Scrum with a Distributed Team We started this series on remote agile with looking into practices and tools; we explored virtual Liberating Structures, and how… Read more

TL; DR: A Remote Sprint Review with a Distributed Team We started this series on remote agile with looking into practices and tools; we explored virtual Liberating Structures, and how… Read more

TL; DR: A Remote Sprint Planning with a Distributed Team We started this series on remote agile with looking into practices and tools, followed by exploring virtual Liberating Structures, and… Read more

TL; DR: A Remote Retrospective with a Distributed Team We started this series on remote agile with looking into practices and tools, followed by exploring virtual Liberating Structures, how to… Read more

The Agile Movers & Shakers Interview with Author Mark Kilby Today’s guest is Mark Kilby. Mark is coaching, teaching and writing books on successful distributed agile teams. (Mark co-authored “From… Read more

TL; DR: Remote Agile Anti-Patterns — Pitfalls Successful Distributed Teams Avoid We started this series on remote agile with looking into practices and tools, followed by delving into virtual Liberating Structures,… Read more

TL; DR: Mastering Zoom — Remote Agile (Part 3) In this third post of the Remote Agile series, we address the tool at the heart of working with a distributed… Read more

TL; DR: Remote Agile (Part 2): Virtual Liberating Structures Last week, we addressed basic practices and tools of remote agile with distributed teams. This follow-up post now delves into virtual… Read more

TL; DR: Remote Agile, Part 1: Practices & Tools for Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, and Product Owners Agile has always been about colocation, about direct communication, physical boards, and all… Read more

TL; DR: The Successful Scrum Master Meetup During the 19th Hands-on Agile meetup, 30-plus people addressed the path to becoming a successful Scrum Master or agile coach, following up on… Read more

TL; DR: The Agile Movers & Shakers Interview with Dave West of Scrum.org Welcome to the Agile Movers & Shakers interview series. Today’s guest is Dave West. Dave West is… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Mastery How to make Scrum work? Read on to learn more about my top three objectives for Scrum Masters striving to achieve Scrum Mastery.

TL; DR: Product Mindset and Ownership in Scrum Teams There is one product, one Product Owner, one Product Backlog — a simple rule. How is that supposed to scale, you… Read more

TL; DR: The Agile Movers & Shakers Interview with Ben Linders Welcome to the Agile Movers & Shakers interview series. Today’s guest is Ben Linders: “As an independent advisor, trainer,… Read more

TL; DR: The Agile Movers & Shakers Interview with Diana Larsen While Diana Larsen continues her coaching, mentoring, and consulting practice in a limited way, she has shifted more toward… Read more

TL; DR: The Agile Movers & Shakers Interview with Viktor Cessan Welcome to the Agile Movers & Shakers interview series. Today’s guest is Viktor Cessan. Viktor has dedicated his career… Read more

TL; DR: The Agile Movers & Shakers Interview with Viktor Cessan Welcome to the Agile Movers & Shakers interview series. Today’s guest is Viktor Cessan. Viktor has dedicated his career… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Career 2020 Last week, about 30 members of the Hands-on Agile community in Berlin came together to identify opportunities for personal and professional growth for the… Read more

Save the Date: Agile Camp Berlin 2020 The Agile Camp Berlin 2020 will happen from April 17-18, 2020, at the Evangelische Schule Berlin Zentrum right in the center of Berlin. Join the Agile… Read more

TL; DR: The Agile Metrics Survey 2020 Let’s stop guessing and start crowdsourcing data and information on this critical topic: Who is using what metrics under which context to what… Read more

TL; DR: The Liberating Structures Strategy Meetup During this Liberating Structures strategy for Scrum meetup we addressed dealing with uncertainty — a particularly useful skill in highly competitive markets. Learn… Read more

TL; DR: Faking Agile Metrics — An Eye-Opening Exercise Imagine you’re a Scrum Master and the line manager of your team believes that the best sign for a successful agile… Read more

TL;DR: Agile Workspace Means Choice Among a Diversity of Spaces If you want your organization to become agile, adding more whiteboards to the workspace will not suffice. You have to… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Master Engagement Patterns 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… Read more

TL;DR: Scrum Master Duties, Serving a Single Team Scrum Master Duties: supposedly, a great Scrum Master serves only one Scrum Team—that’s at least a popular narrative in the Scrum community…. Read more

TL; DR: Scrum Accountability ‘Autonomy without accountability equals anarchy’ summarizes an essential design element of any agile organization. Without these checks and balances in place any aspiration to transform an… Read more

TL;DR: The Liberating Structures Daily Scrum Meetup This Liberating Structures for Scrum meetup addressed the Daily Scrum, particularly the notion that it is barely possible to create a Liberating Structure… Read more

TL; DR: Scrum First Principles Popularized by Elon Musk, utilizing first principles thinking to solve problems in an innovative, creative, and less biased way has proven popular in the tech… Read more

TL;DR: The Liberating Structures Product Backlog Meetup The fourth Liberating Structures for Scrum meetup addressed the Product Backlog, more precisely the issues with Product Backlogs that subsequently cause Sprint Plannings… Read more

TL;DR: The Scrum Guide Reordered The Scrum Guide Reordered is based on about 90 percent of the text of the 2017 Scrum Guide, extending its original structure by adding additional… Read more

TL; DR: The Liberating Structures Immersive Workshop for Scrum Why running a Liberating Structures immersive workshop? Since the beginning of 2019, the Hands-on Agile meetup in Berlin has been exploring… Read more

TL; DR: Agile Leadership I recently started aggregating my notes, links, and references related to agile leadership to understand better what it — in the context of an agile transition… Read more

TL;DR: Scrum Master Problem Solving — The Survey Results Scrum Master Problem Solving: We all know it; changing the way we work is extremely difficult. It requires us to find… Read more

TL;DR: Liberating Structures for Scrum: The Sprint Planning The fourth Liberating Structures Scrum meetup addressed the Sprint Planning, more precisely the reasons why Sprint Plannings fail—despite all the efforts put… Read more

TL;DR: Liberating Structures for Scrum: The Sprint Retrospective Liberating Structures Sprint Retrospective: A few weeks ago, I started an event series with my Berlin-based Hands-on Agile Meetup group on how… Read more

Save the Date: Agile Camp Berlin 2019 The Agile Camp Berlin 2019 will happen from April 26 to April 27, 2019 and the Agile Camp Berlin 2019 venue will be… Read more

The Agile Fluency ™ Model by James Shore and Diana Larsen The Agile Fluency ™ model was developed by James Shore and Diana Larsen to guide teams new to agile… Read more