15 Sprint Review Anti-Patterns Holding Back Scrum Teams
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
21 Sprint Retrospective Anti-Patterns Impeding Scrum Teams
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
How to Pass the Product Owner Certification — PSPO I, PSPO II, and PSPO III
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
Product Owner Anti-Patterns — 33 Ways to Improve as a PO
TL; DR: Scrum Product Owner 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… Read more
20 Sprint Planning Anti-Patterns
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
Scrum Master Anti-Patterns — 20 Signs Your Scrum Master Needs Help
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
27 Product Backlog Anti-Patterns
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
📺 Roman Pichler on the Product Owner at the 38th Hands-on-Agile Meetup
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
28+2 Sprint Anti-Patterns Holding Back Scrum Teams
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… Read more
Daily Scrum Anti-Patterns: 24+2 Ways to Improve as a Scrum Team
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
How to Pass the Scrum Master Certification — PSM I, PSM II, and PSM III
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
Scrum Master Success: How Do You Identify a Successful Scrum Master?
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
📺 The Power and Pains of Autonomy — Jimmy Janlén at the Agile Camp Berlin 2021
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
How to Sabotage A Product Owner — 53 Anti-Patterns from the Trenches
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
Scrum Certification: Is It a Sound Investment for Your Career?
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
SAFe ®’s NPS ® Score as a Scaling Framework Is -56 According to 505 Survey Participants
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
📺 Valerio Zanini & Zeina Zeitouni: The Zones of Value Framework — Hands-on Agile #31
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
The Scrum Master Salary Report 2022
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
Product Owner Interview Guide: The Product Mindset
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
Scrum Master Interview Questions: How to Make Your Scrum Master Fail
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
Scrum 2022: Getting You Started as Scrum Master or Product Owner
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
Survey 2022: Would you recommend SAFe ®?
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
How to Sabotage A Scrum Master — 44 Anti-Patterns from the Trenches
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
📺 Daniel Stillman: Designing Powerful Questions to help you Coach, Create, Connect and Lead — Hands-on Agile 35
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
What Capacity Check? — Making Your Scrum Work #23
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
📺 Richard Kasperowski: Core Protocols for High-Performance Teams — Hands-on Agile 34
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
The Agile Metrics Survey 2021
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
Maximizing Utilization, Ignoring Slack Time — Making Your Scrum Work #22
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
Overruling the Product Owner? — Making Your Scrum Work #21
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
My Top Ten Worst Scrum Anti-Patterns
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
Scrum Questions: Seven Simple Issues and Complex Answers from LinkedIn Polls
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
The Obsession with Commitment Matching Velocity
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
Product Owner Interview Guide: PO Anti-Patterns
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
Estimates Are Useful, Just Ditch the Numbers
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
Adapt How You Lead for Agile Success — Johanna Rothman at the Agile Camp Berlin 2021
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
Scrum Master Interview Questions (6): Scrum Anti-Patterns
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
Join the Scrum Master Salary Report 2022 — Let Us Create Transparency
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
Do We Need Agile Coaches when Practicing Scrum?
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
The Dogmatic Scrum Master Anti-Pattern — Making Your Scrum Work #20
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
Should Managers Attend Retrospectives? — Making Your Scrum Work #19
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
UnSMART Improvements at Retrospectives — Making Your Scrum Work #18
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
Skipping Retrospectives — Making Your Scrum Work #17
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
Abandoning Scrum: Can a Scrum Team Decide to Quit Scrum?
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
Linking Strategy to Everyday Work — John Cutler at the Agile Camp Berlin 2021
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
When the Management Ignores Self-Management — Making Your Scrum Work #16
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
Three Wide-Spread Stakeholder Failures in 6:05 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #8
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
Sustainable Agility at the Enterprise Level — Jorgen Hesselberg at the Agile Camp Berlin 2021
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
51 Scrum Master Interview Questions (5): Scrum Success Principles and Indicators
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
How to Win with Agile Resistant Teams — Agile Camp Berlin 2021
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
60 Questions for the New Scrum Master — Take them to the Team!
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
Increasing the Velocity of Value — Agile Camp Berlin 2021
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
The Lack of Agile Leadership Qualities — Making Your Scrum Work #15
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
Evidence-based Interventions—Agile Camp Berlin 2021
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 Cost of Team Building with the Tuckman Model
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
Real Cross-functional Teams for Creating Real and Better Products—Agile Camp Berlin 2021
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
Three Common Developer Blunders in 5:05 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #14
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
When the Scrum Master Fails by Being Overly Protective — Making Your Scrum Work #13
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
Three Essential Agile Failure Patterns in 7:31 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #12
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
The Oversized Product Backlog Will Cost You Dearly — Making Your Scrum Work #11
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
Hiring: 82 Product Owner Interview Questions—Sprint Planning, Review, and Retrospective
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
The Frustrated Scrum Master — When all the Effort Leads Nowhere
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
Why Scrum Requires a Failure Culture — Making Your Scrum Work #10
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
The ‘Developers Code’ Fallacy — Making Your Scrum Work #9
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
Three Wide-Spread Stakeholder Failures in 6:05 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #8
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
Gold-Plating Beyond Done — Making Your Scrum Work #7
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
Four Scrum Master Success Principles
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
Three Wide-Spread Product Owner Failures in 6:09 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #5
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
Data-Informed Retrospectives
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
Product Owner Interview Questions — The Product Backlog and Refinement
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
Three Wide-Spread Scrum Master Failures in 5:31 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work
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
Hiring: 82 Scrum Product Owner Interview Questions to Avoid Agile Imposters
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
App Prototyping with Absolute Beginners – Creating a Shared Understanding of How Empiricism Works
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
Product Backlog Defense – Common Patterns of Stakeholder Interference
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
Scrum Master Interview Questions (4): From Agile Metrics to Scrum Kick-off to Scrum Anti-Patterns
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 Agile Camp Berlin Best Session Award
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
Product Backlog Anti-Patterns Q&A
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
📅 🖥 Virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021 — May 27-29, 2021
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
Peer Recruiting: How to Hire a Scrum Master
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
📖 🔈 Download the Audiobook of the Scrum Guide 2020 Reordered for Free
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
20 Questions New Scrum Masters Should Ask Their Teams to Get up to Speed
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
Product Discovery Anti-Patterns
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
Agile Metrics — The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
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
How to Make Agile Work — Six Fallacies, Seven Remedies
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
Fixing Your Scrum: A Forensic Product Backlog Analysis (Part 1)
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
23 Product Owner Anti-Patterns from Job Ads: The Snitch, the Whip, the Bookkeeper, the Six Sigma Black Belt™
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
The Scrum Master Job (1): 4 Steps to Identify Suitable Employers or Clients
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
22 Scrum Master Anti-Patterns from Job Ads: From Funny to What the Heck?
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
Scrum Commitments: Tying Loose Ends and Shoehorning the Definition of Done
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
Scrum Guide 2020 — The Development Team Is Dead; Long Live the Scrum Team!
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
Scrum Master Interview Questions (1): The Scrum Master Role
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
18 Signs of a Systemic Toxic Team Culture
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
Lipstick Agile — 15 Signs You Probably Need a New Job or to Roll-up Your Proverbial Sleeves
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
How to Create an Agile Community of Practice
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
Scrum’s Nature: It Is a Tool; It Is Not About Love or Hate
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
Speaking Truth to Power 2.0 — Taking A Stand as an Agile Practitioner
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
Agile Laws & Distributed Teams: From Conway to Goodhart to Parkinson
TL; DR: Agile Laws and Remote Agile On many occasions in the recent past, working with distributed agile teams has amplified existing organizational, technical, and cultural challenges in many organizations…. Read more
Using Unhangout to Host a Virtual Barcamp or Open Space — Hands-on Agile #24
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
Agile Movers & Shakers (7): Ryan Ripley — Host of the Agile for Humans Podcast
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
Remote Agile Transitions — The Top-Ten Challenges
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
Remote Agile Transitions — The Top-Ten Challenges
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
Quo Vadis, Scrum Master: The Results of Our Virtual Strategy Session
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
Remote Agile (9): A Cheat Sheet for Remote Agile Event Planning
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
Agile Movers & Shakers (6): The Liberators Christiaan Verwijs & Barry Overeem
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
Good Remote Agile Practices — First Insights from the Survey
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
Remote Agile Survey — Let’s Stop Guessing, Join the Study
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
Remote Agile (Part 8): Daily Scrum with Distributed Teams
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
Remote Agile (Part 7): Sprint Review with Distributed Teams
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
Remote Agile (Part 6): Sprint Planning with Distributed Teams
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
Remote Agile (Part 5): Remote Retrospectives with Distributed Teams
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
Agile Movers & Shakers (5): Mark Kilby
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
Remote Agile (Part 4): Anti-Patterns — Pitfalls Successful Distributed Teams Avoid
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
Remote Agile (Part 3): Mastering Zoom
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
Remote Agile (Part 2): Virtual Liberating Structures
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
Remote Agile (Part 1): Practices & Tools for Scrum Masters & Agile Coaches
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
Development Team Anti-Patterns
TL; DR: Development Team Anti-Patterns After covering the Scrum Master and the Product Owner, this article addresses Development Team anti-patterns, covering all Scrum Events as well as the Product Backlog… Read more
32 Scrum Stakeholder Anti-Patterns
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 which easily… Read more
Liberating Structures for Scrum (6): The Successful Scrum Master
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
Agile Movers & Shakers (4): Dave West, CEO of Scrum.org
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
Scrum Mastery in 300 Words
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.
Product Mindset: Encouraging Ownership in a Scrum Team
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
Agile Movers & Shakers (3): Ben Linders
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
Agile Movers & Shakers (2): Diana Larsen
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
Agile Movers & Shakers (1): Viktor Cessan
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
Agile Movers & Shakers (1): Viktor Cessan
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
Scrum Master Career 2020 — Using Ecocycle Planning to Identify Opportunities
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
agile-camp-berlin-2020
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
Agile Metrics Survey 2020
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
Liberating Structures for Scrum (5): Strategy
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
Faking Agile Metrics or Cooking the Agile Books
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
The Agile Workspace: The Undervalued Success Factor
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
Scrum Master Engagement Patterns: The Development Team
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
Hey Scrum Master — What Are You Doing all Day? [Survey Results]
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
Scrum Accountability
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
The Meta-Retrospective — How to Get Customers and Stakeholders Onboard
TL; DR: The Meta-Retrospective A 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
Liberating Structures for Scrum (4): The Daily Scrum
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
Scrum First Principles — How to Elon Musk the Scrum Guide
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
Liberating Structures for Scrum (3): The Product Backlog
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
The Scrum Guide Reordered
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
Liberating Structures 4 Scrum: Lessons from a One-Day Immersive Workshop
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
Agile Leadership — A Brief Overview of Concepts and Ideas
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
Scrum Master Problem Solving — The Survey Results
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
Liberating Structures for Scrum (2): The Sprint Planning
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
Liberating Structures for Scrum (1): The Sprint Retrospective
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
📅 Agile Camp Berlin 2019: April 26–27, 2019
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
Agile Fluency™ Model
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