Writing specific, observable and repeatable Action Items with clear owners is an important skill for Product Owner and ScrumMasters to master (see my last post on why I feel this way). In Online Education at Applied Frameworks, we will give you plenty of opportunities to put this skill into practice as you ...
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Retrospectives without concrete action items are pretty much a complete waste of time (and this coming from a guy who thinks the Retrospective is the MOST important discussion in Scrum!!). Over-and-over again, when I encounter teams and organizations struggling to adopt Scrum and Agile, I often find lame, uninspiring Action ...
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While the human mind has an amazing capacity for creative thought and sheer computational power, it has some annoying misfires that can get in the way of building really great products. These misfires, sometimes referred to as cognitive biases, were first identified by Daniel Kanheman and Amos Tversky in the ...
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The Product Owner on my team is also a developer on the team. Do you have any advice on using Scrum in such a scenario? SHORT ANSWER: Yeah - stop doing it! LONG ANSWER: In a healthy Scrum Team, each person fills only one Scrum role at a time. Having someone ...
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Working Agreements are one of the core compacts that all good Agile teams need and use. For those of you unfamiliar with Working Agreements, they are nothing more than agreed upon protocols created by the team govern their interactions and clarify expectations. They are different from Ground Rules which tend to be more ...
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How do you cope with the weak Product Owner? You don't - find a new Product Owner (PO) or stop using Scrum. Scrum is based on the idea that an empowered, knowledgable business leader is setting direction for the product (or service) under development. When that person does not exist, ...
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This is one of my all-time favorite techniques to quickly arrive at consensus for Agile Teams. I use Roman Voting ALL the time because is fast, it is easy and it is fun. I have even had people tell me that the Roman Voting technique was the most memorable and useful ...
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Coaching is a distinct and powerful skill from the eight other essential skills of an Agile Coach (CSP-SM). Because coaching is an overloaded word in the English language, let me provide some guidance to describe what I mean when I am referring to coaching. For me, a coach is a person ...
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Back in 2012, I worked with a colleague to develop a new course for ScrumMasters (and other Agile change agents). Our goal was to figure out a way to support learners on a progressive educational journey from ScrumMaster to Agile Coach (CSP-SM). While the specific offering we developed did not ...
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Fearless Journey is a game where the goal is for the players to discover a new transformational reality. The power of Fearless Journey is that it allows us to engage in deep thinking on how to completely alters our present condition and help us ignore the little problems that distract us. The objective ...
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