The Preconditions of Starting the First Sprint
Everyone talks about agility Agility is a way of behaving, a philosophy that supports maximising the value of the created product, accepting and even exploiting changes while being in the workflow. But agility is not a panacea. It requires the right knowledge, practice and commitment…
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Daily Standup: The technique everyone practices – yet doesn’t even exist
At the beginning of a Scrum training I often ask participants if they can name a Scrum practice. Almost without exception, the answer arrives quickly: the Daily Standup. It seems like everyone is doing it, whether they work in Scrum or not. Some people even…
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A Scrum Master’s day
In our article “Who is the Scrum Master?” we examined what the general responsibilities of a Scrum Master are, who makes a good Scrum Master and the role of certificates in the training process. In this article we take a closer look at how a…
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The “Other” Standup Meeting
Today we want to tell you about a simple trick: a different kind of standup meeting. The daily standup is the most famous – the most notorious – element of Scrum; to this day, there are leaders who think that if a few people stand…
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Who is the Scrum Master? – The meaning of the Scrum Master role
The Scrum framework defines only three roles of accountabilities: the Product Owner, the Scrum Master and the Developers. The responsibilities are clear and the boundaries are sharp and well defined: – The Product Owner owns the product from a business perspective and decides what the…
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Great idea: save on the Scrum Master!
You can’t count how many times we hear this idea: one of our developers will be 50% Scrum Master and it’s done. We’ve even heard 10%. Problem solved. We don’t have to deal with the hiring and training of a separate Scrum Master, our Scrum…
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Agile principles: sustainability
Sustainability is the final topic in our series interpreting the principles of the Agile Manifesto, which is twenty-two years old this year. (Previous articles in the series can be found here: customer satisfaction, change vs product design, team, communication. The importance of sustainability, and the…
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“No need for a retrospective, we are so good at dealing with problems on the fly”
I get the above sentence in the face over and over again. And how true it is, isn’t it? Well, no! What? How could it not? Why not? No, because retrospective is not the way to solve problems. Now get your chin off the ground…
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Do you want to achieve more in the sprint? Work less!
And time and time again, the team fills their sprint with work, which they are then unable to complete by the end of the sprint! Oh dear! More and more slips into the next sprint, the frustration and pressure builds, so they take on more…
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Agile Principles: Communication
The next topic in our series on Agile principles is communication. (Previous articles of this series can be found here: customer satisfaction, change vs planning, team.) In a nutshell: Agile puts personal communication first. This is underlined by the sixth principle of the Agile Manifesto:…
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