Articles
What Is Scrum?
Someone Made Up ‘SDLC’ And Everyone Went Along With It
Sometimes ‘Transparency’ Just Means Not Lying
I am a Professional Kanban Trainer with ProKanban.org
An Agile Not-for-Profit Organization
Guidelines that Encourage Action If you feel that work needs to be done – it probably does. So, go ahead with it. If you feel responsible…
Certification Path for UX Leads
Starting with APS (Applying Professional Scrum), a crash-course in iterative & incremental product development with self-organizing teams…
Certification Path for Testers
Starting with APS (Applying Professional Scrum), a crash-course in iterative & incremental product development with self-organizing teams…
Certification Path for Solutions Architects
What Is a Solutions Architect (SA)? In my experience, Solutions Architect is a job title applied to one of these two roles: A developer who…
Certification Path for Scrum Masters
Great Scrum Masters have a well-developed interpersonal intelligence (an eye for team dynamics), excellent group-facilitation skills, broad…
Certifications: “If I Were You…”
Considerations for Individuals — My Advice When people ask me about training and certification, the conversation often goes like this: “I’ve…
Certification & Training Paths for Agile Practitioners
Context I’ll not hide my bias toward the Scrum.org and ProKanban.org certifications. Other organizations may provide similar courseware…
Velocity: Escape this Pitfall!
The map below illustrates a classic problem with the common use of 'velocity' as a metric. Scenario Your family travels each weekend to a…
The Art of Agile Product Documentation
A Workshop Facilitation Guide This sense-making workshop helps teach a team how to simplify valuable documentation and reduce wasteful…
Looking for Work as a Scrum Master? Choose Wisely.
It appears to me there are more jobs available for Scrum Masters than ever before! Why is it so hard for some people to find employment with…
Canada’s Phoenix Payroll Catastrophe
This is a story about one of Canada’s most amazing blunders. It's a story about a multi-billion dollar failed project. First, what is Scrum…
A Story of Release Gates: An Antipattern
Continuous Deployment Is Now Table Stakes
No Longer Tolerate ‘Blocked’ or ‘Waiting’ States
Empowerment Retro
Team Retrospective — “Feeding the Machine for Corporate Review Season”
Foreword The following article was originally published in 2012 by my friend, colleague, and mentor, Mike Caspar . I have re-published it…
“Can we use Scrum with ‘remote’ staff?”
A Common Question People Ask I keep hearing from Scrum trainers that Scrum is not for remote teams. Is there any truth to that? The quick…
Does Your Team Produce ‘Bugs’?
Sub-title: Not Every Defect is a ‘Bug’ “Name It to Tame It.” Dr. Dan Siegal coined that phrase as a way of handling difficult emotional…
Defining Distributed, Remote, Co-located, and Dislocated Teams
The Problem With so much discussion about teams and their work environments, it’s important we be careful with terminology…
I am a Professional Scrum Trainer with Scrum.org
Roughly 600 people worldwide are authorized, by the authors of Scrum, to teach Scrum. I am honoured to be part of that expert community. I…
A Scrum Team Increases Their Velocity by Doing Less Work
A discussion is raging at LinkedIn about the Iron Triangle because the co-authors of Scrum say that “Scrum breaks the Iron Triangle…
A Week in the Life of a Scrum Team
A Workshop Facilitation Guide The purposes of this activity are twofold: To illustrate a few of the many real challenges that Scrum Masters…
A Lean Startup is Going to Eat Your Lunch
Warning: Your competitors are not the patient type. One of the most common pitfalls I see in companies trying to employ Agile practices is…