Perfecting Scrum Basics
Find clear definitions and the original thinking behind the core Scrum Framework.
Retrospectives
One of the core principles in Scrum is the idea of continuous improvement. Each Sprint the Team engages in an inspect-and-adapt cycle during the Retrospective meeting. Beyond that though, the Scrum Guide doesn’t offer much insight into how to run a successful Retrospective and how to use the meeting to improve production, quality, and velocity. Visit the full course page.
How To Launch a Scrum Team
Join us as we share how we help clients launch teams. We share our step-by-step backlog for launching new teams or reinvigorating old. Three different perspectives from three Scrum Inc. coaches on what to do, what the common impediments are, how to avoid the worst and conquer the inevitable. Visit the full course page.
All Topics on Scrum Basics
Scrum "Shock Therapy" How To Change Teams FAST
While he was updating his paper for Scrum "Shock Therapy," Scott Downey of Rapid Scrum found one of the original emails he wrote about how he boosted dozens of teams into hyper productivity. He comments below and the full paper was published as: J. Sutherland, S....
White House Issues New IT Contracting Guidance
Greater Accountability and Faster Delivery Through Modular Contracting Posted by Joe Jordan, Steven VanRoekel on June 14, 2012 at 03:29 PM EDT Last week, we highlighted a number of ways in which reform of Federal Information Technology Management is giving taxpayers...
Happiness Metric: The Effect of a Bad Boss
Bad bosses are one of most damaging factors in companies leading to unhappy employees which directly affects customer satisfaction and lowers revenue. One of the the primary effects of Scrum is to eliminate the bad boss. Any leader who wants to be better should take a...
DoD Goes Agile
With waterfall failure after failure, even the government has decided to make Agile development a priority. Some people have a hard time believing this but I just want to take you through what happened in one department, the biggest one there is, the Department of...
Don’t Wait. Just Begin.
Sometimes when I talk with people about starting up a Scrum team, or transforming their organization to Scrum, they get paralyzed. They think there are just so many things to do before they can start Scrum. They’ve got to get the right tool, the right space, the right...
Happiness Metric Webinar
All the questions and growing excitement surrounding the Happiness Metric have made us decide to host a webinar on what it is, how it can be used, and how powerful it can be. Jeff's time is incredibly booked, and we know not everyone can make it to one of his classes,...
Using Scrum For Organizing Your Life
One of the most amazing and rewarding things to me is how Scrum is being used not only in software development, but in all sorts of areas, from schools and churches, to everyday. After I realized Arline was using Scrum to organize a family weekend, I asked her to...
Happiness Metric – The Wave of the Future
Update: The Happiness Webinar archive is available. We review the extensive research behind this topic. ScrumInc used the happiness metric to help increase velocity over 500% in 2011. Net revenue doubled. The way to do this is now part of a formal pattern at...
Enabling Specifications: The Key to Building Agile Systems
Previously, I discussed the notion of "Agile Requirements" and this concept is embedded in the Nokia Test. There is not a definition of Agile Requirements that is commonly agreed upon, so I now use a standard concept that is better terminology for what is needed. For...
Taking Happiness Seriously
In preparation for our upcoming webinar on The Happiness Metric we've been doing a lot of research into how the world's leading thinkers are addressing the issue. Earlier this Spring, the Earth Institute published the first World Happiness Report for the United...
On Fighter Pilots and Product Owners
The first Scrum Team was created in 1993 at the Easel Coporation in Massachusetts. Perhaps Jeff's most careful hire, and most thorough training, was the first Product Owner. He drew on his experience as a fighter pilot in Vietnam when thinking about the role of...
User Story: From the Command Post
HICSS-46 CALL FOR PAPERS
Get your papers ready for the January 2013 HICSS conference (in Maui)! The Agile and Lean Organizations track will be one half day during the 4-day conference. HICSS is a conference with a wide-variety of researchers (not just software) interested in...
ScrumPlop has Begun
Google Automation of my QA Strategy
I have consistently found in my own companies and Openview Venture Partners companies that I coach that carefully prioritized implementation of acceptance tests produces higher quality faster than anything I have seen.An Open-E in Poland they implemented continuous...
Agile Planning – Fighter Pilot Meets Solo Sailor
Recently I visited Hank de Velde on his boat that he uses to sail solo around the world with Rini van Solingen, original author of "The Power of Scrum." Hank and I had similar ideas on planning for high risk adventures.
Software in 30 Days is Out!
The official publication of "Software in 30 Days" is May 1. The book is a collaboration between the two creators of Scrum, Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber. The goal of Scrum is to actually have working software at then end of each Sprint, which should be 30 days or...
Scrum: The Future for Education?
When we first heard about teachers using Scrum in a classroom we had to know more and got in touch with those teachers through Ilja Heitlager at Schuberg Philis in the Netherlands. Here's what they sent in. It's translated into English from the original Dutch....
The Agile Manifesto, Elaborated
The Agile Manifesto is one of those documents that at one level is simple, but actually holds a lot of meaning: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation...
In the end, resistance is futile. Change or die.
Steve Denning has written a great post over at Forbes addressing some of the traditional management arguments against Scrum. His key point, I think. "What’s wrong here is the corporate culture, not Agile. Surviving in today’s marketplace requires individual and team...
New Leadership Workshop for Agile Executives
One of the biggest obstacles in transitioning to Scrum and Agile practices is management understanding and support. Scrum Inc. is now offering a course for managers and executives to help them make that switch As more and more companies realize they can’t compete...
Yet Another Waterfall Project Failure
California Scraps Massive Courts Software Project By Chris Kanaracus, IDG News California's Judicial Council has put the brakes on a long-running, massive software project that was supposed to modernize the state's trial courts case-management systems, saying the...
Sustainable Pace – why it’s important
Why We Have to Go Back to a 40-Hour Work Week to Keep Our Sanity - Alternet by Sara Robinson One hundred fifty years of research proves that shorter work hours actually raise productivity and profits -- and overtime destroys them. So why do we still do this? March 13,...
Leading vs. Managing in a Scrum Environment
Alex Brown, Scrum Inc.'s Product Owner and COO, had some thoughts on the role of management in Scrum, as he's been working on a workshop for executives for the past month or so. - jj It’s odd. A number of people have told us recently they don’t think management has a...
Answering Some Questions
Jeff had a great webinar hosted by SmartBear last Thursday. If you missed it, here's the link to the archived webinar and the slides. We got hundreds of questions from the audience, and SmartBear sent fifteen of them on, they'll be posting all of them on their site...
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