Scrum Improvements

The circumstances where Scrum is used are diverse. When people get Scrum to work well for them, they have had to make it fit their situation. They often feel that was a shortcoming of Scrum, and if we only “updated” Scrum to include their addendum, everyone would benefit. Product backlog refinement has been a frequently … Continue reading →

Building an Agile Organization Part 2

How can I find qualified Scrum help? “The Professional Scrum Master® (PSM® I) Certification from Scrum.Org is one of the most valuable agile certifications in the market. The greater the depth and extent of knowledge needed to earn a certificate, the greater its value.  By this measure, the PSM assessments are significantly more valuable than … Continue reading →

More on Scaling Scrum

I’ve been working with people who have actually made Scrum scale for large projects and product initiatives over the last twenty years. Our smallest project experience was 3 teams, average 25 teams, and largest was 80 teams. We abstracted a framework for this scaling which we named Nexus, defined as a causal link between things, … Continue reading →

Scrum and Continuous Improvement

Organizations usually don’t adopt Scrum because they like its name. Instead, they have heard that software development is better if they use Scrum – quicker, cheaper, higher quality, more satisfied customers and employees. Sometimes things are so bad in software development that they try Scrum just because it wasn’t what they were doing before. However, … Continue reading →

Scrum is, Scrum is not

Scrum is just a framework. Use it, or don’t. The Scrum Guide helps you know if you are. Continue reading →

Happy New Year

Scrum.org had a busy year in 2010 with the updates to the Scrum Guide, the creation of rigorous assessments, and the development of best-in-breed programs to help companies succeed with Agile. 2011 will prove to be even busier. Continue reading →

The Relentless Pursuit Of Improvement And The Role Of Assessment

I believe that if you are in an organization using Scrum, you should know the purpose of a time box, the reason for the Daily Scrum, the difference between a Sprint Backlog item and Product Backlog item, and the other roles, time-boxes, artifacts and rules that bind the Scrum framework together. The “Scrum Guide” contains … Continue reading →