A great article where Christiaan Verwijs & Barry Overeem bust the myth that a Scrum Mastere is just a Junior Agile Coach. Read it here: https://medium.com/the-liberators/myth-the-scrum-master-is-a-junior-agile-coach-9defb2dd6def
The journey to mastering Professional Scrum
This article is for the Scrum Masters who think they are on the right track but can do better, which in essence should be the attitude of all Scrum Masters. Jasper Alblas will take you along on a part of his learning-journey so it can help you improve yourself and others towards Professional Scrum.
Read the full article here: https://medium.com/the-liberators/master-up-your-scrum-bf1d4e1b0cb0
Bootstrapping a Working Agreement for the Agile Team
Bootstrapping a Working Agreement for the Agile Team is a simple, yet powerful practice every team should have! Read about it here: https://blog.crisp.se/2018/12/05/jimmyjanlen/bootstrapping-a-working-agreement-for-the-agile-team
An aspiring org change practitioner’s learning regimen
Want to get into organization design and -change? Here’s a good post on what to read: https://medium.com/@timcasasola/books-id-tell-my-21-year-old-self-to-read-709da4afbf28
Working with Stakeholders Who Won’t Take No for an Answer
Sign up to receive weekly tips like the one below from Mike Cohn to Help You Succeed with Agile here: https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/email-tips
Do your stakeholders have a hard time accepting a “no” from the team? Or put another way, does your team have a hard time telling the stakeholders that what they want is impossible? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, you are not alone.
I’ve found two techniques useful in communicating a “no” so that stakeholders listen and understand.
First, the team should establish a track record of planning projects accurately and meeting most commitments.
You don’t need to be perfect, but if a team meets most of its commitments, the business is more likely to listen when the team says something is impossible.
Second, when telling a stakeholder that a proposed date cannot be achieved, offer alternatives. For example,
- By what date could the functionality be delivered?
- Are there especially challenging requirements that could be relaxed to meet the deadline?
- What could be done to make the date feasible? More people? Stop using the team for second-level support?
Stakeholders often want more than can be delivered by some date. This shouldn’t be the team’s problem alone.
Wanting more than can be delivered must be viewed as a shared problem. A solution can only be found by the business and team working together.
When stakeholders trust the team’s commitment and work together with team members to find solutions, they all succeed with agile.
How to Select and Develop Individuals for Successful Agile Teams: A Practical Guide
Looking for better ways to recruit and coach individuals for successful agile teams? Last week @McKinsey and @Scrumdotorg just released a study that explores the values and traits that make agile teams successful. Read the full report here: https://www.scrum.org/resources/how-select-and-develop-individuals-successful-agile-teams-practical-guide
Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!
A nice summary of the book Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There! can be found in the presentation Working with Teams from Karolina Ozadowicz that can be found here: https://prezi.com/w0jqbiy-f582/working-with-teams/
How to introduce myself as a Scrum Master in an existing team?
Some questions you could ask yourself are:
- Does the team know Agile, the Scrum framework?
- What is the composition of the team?
- What motivates the members?
- What are the common goals of the team?
- How about the values of the team?
- Is there a history that we need to know before joining the team?
- Would you start with a kick off / retrospective where the team would explain their pains and where we could discuss
way of working?
How to get a head start with Scrum
Scrum is easy to understand, yet difficult to master. The Scrum Guide says so and it’s true. If you have worked with Scrum in your organization you probably recognize it also. It’s not difficult to start with Scrum. Jasper Alblas wrote a nice article on how to get a head start with Scrum. Read it here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-get-head-start-scrum-jasper-alblas/
Five Fundamental Questions to Assess your Agile Process
Barry Overeem writes about the five fundamental questions to assess you agile process in this article: https://medium.com/the-liberators/five-fundamental-questions-to-assess-your-agile-process-376b9230c7d8
- Value. Do we know the value we seek to deliver and are we consistently delivering the maximum value?
- Flow. Do we understand how we reach that value and are we consistently reducing the time and/or increasing the ease by which we reach it?
- Quality. Do we understand how good our product and workmanship needs to be and are we consistently and demonstrably achieving it?
- Joy. Do we know what we collectively and individually need to be joyful and are we consistently meeting those needs?
- Continuous Improvement. Do we know what we need to improve across value, flow, quality and joy and are we demonstrably pursuing those improvements?