Skipping Retrospectives — Making Your Scrum Work #17

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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. One area where Scrum’s nature of being intentionally incomplete causes issues regularly is whether Scrum teams shall stick to the event schedule even if the team’s life is uneventful? For example, is skipping Retrospectives okay?

Join me and delve into the consequences of skipping Retrospectives in less than 90 seconds.

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When the Management Ignores Self-Management — Making Your Scrum Work #16

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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,” this effect should not surprise anyone. One of Scrum’s first principles is self-management. It is based on the idea that the people closest to a problem are best suited to find a solution. Therefore, the task of the management is not to tell people what to do when and how. Instead, its job is to provide the guardrails, the constraints within which a Scrum team identifies the best possible solution. Join me and explore the consequences of a management ignoring self-management and what you can do about it.

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Three Wide-Spread Stakeholder Failures in 6:05 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #8

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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 not surprise anyone. While the Scrum Guide makes numerous references to stakeholders in Scrum, stakeholders themselves are no official role (accountability), no matter their crucial contribution to a Scrum team’s overall success.

Explore with me three widespread examples of how stakeholders fail their Scrum teams in three short video clips, totaling 6 minutes and 5 seconds.

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Sustainable Agility at the Enterprise Level — Jorgen Hesselberg at the Agile Camp Berlin 2021

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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 delves into the root cause of failing agile transformation efforts: Rejection by the organization as the transformation does not address the organization’s needs. Dare we to say; Sometimes, agility is a solution looking for a problem?

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51 Scrum Master Interview Questions (5): Scrum Success Principles and Indicators

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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 development. Given that software is eating the world, a seasoned Scrum Master is nowadays in high demand. And that demand causes the market-entry of new professionals from other project management branches, probably believing that reading one or two Scrum books will be sufficient. Which makes any Scrum Master interview a challenging task.

If you are looking to fill a position for a Scrum Master (or agile coach) in your organization, you may find the following 51 interview questions useful to identify the right candidate. They are derived from my fourteen years of practical experience with XP as well as Scrum, serving both as Product Owner and Scrum Master as well as interviewing dozens of Scrum Master candidates on behalf of my clients. This article covers the ninth set of questions on Scrum success principles and their accountability/role level indicators.

So far, this Scrum Master interview guide has been downloaded more than 20,000 times.

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How to Win with Agile Resistant Teams — Agile Camp Berlin 2021

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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 case study on how to master an agile transition by creating agile resistant teams based on common sense, team autonomy, and the psychology of metrics.

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60 Questions for the New Scrum Master — Take them to the Team!

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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 observation and asking questions. The following 60 Questions for a New Scrum Master may support you in learning more about the Scrum team’s way of working and the organization’s culture.

60 Questions for the New Scrum Master — Take them to the Team! Berlin Product People GmbH (more…)