Blog: Agile & Business

Scrum Roles — The ScrumMaster

November 18, 2017

The ScrumMaster (SM) is a hard role to explain, I think. It is easy to misunderstand, and, in fact, it is commonly misunderstood. The SM must first help the team learn how to self-organize. Self-organizing is a thing we humans all do, and we all can do more of it. Most of us can also […]

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About the New “Path to CSP”

November 5, 2017

Below is key information about the “Path to CSP.” Two main take-aways: You can move to a new level now by taking the Advanced CSM course — as soon as I offer the course. To become a CSP you need to take two courses and have 2 years of experience (starting January 1, 2o18). The […]

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Using a “Definition of Agile” in a Large Corporation

November 5, 2017

Fairly often a large corporation will mandate Agile. One thing to consider is Open Space Agility — more on that before and later. For now, I want to suggest a “Definition of Agile.” This is vaguely similar to the Definition of Done concept. The idea here is that often teams will… make up what Agile […]

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Is the PO full-time?

October 16, 2017

“Is the Product Owner a full-time position?” This is a good question. Here’s a partial answer now… First, people and teams typically get more done if things are simpler. So, KISS!!!! This is so important. Do you have to keep it KISS every time? Well, no, at least not to play by the Scrum rules […]

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The PO Role — some controversy

October 9, 2017

Here is a quote: This is far different from the Product Owner role in Scrum, which directs the PO to simply hand the development team a prioritized backlog of work to do. This quote is from a post on LinkedIn, and a bunch of senior agile people are fervently discussing it, on at least two […]

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5 Key Suggestions for Making Change

October 8, 2017

In agile, we want things to improve.  Improve a lot. Here are my first 5 suggestions: Do something and learn You know how to do something small.  Do it.  Don’t wait; do it now.  And learn from that. Just do Scrum (more) and learn If you do Scrum, the transparency of Scrum will force others […]

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Games People Play: Courage, Psychological Safety and the SM

September 23, 2017

Some years ago there was a book called Games People Play, by Eric Berne. The older I get the less certain I am of how people work, and what they really are.  But that people play games (and games they do not explicitly discuss or even consciously are aware of) seems probably true. It is […]

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The ScrumButt Test – Update

September 23, 2017

Next week I will be speaking to Agile Midlands about the ScrumButt Test.  And the following day, I will be doing a Webinar on ScrumButt. In part, this is because to me the ScrumButt Test is fun. Here are some key statements: The test enables you to get a reading on a Team quickly It […]

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A different kind of Scaling problem

August 22, 2017

In the Lean Agile Open on April 28th, one of the sessions was on “scaling.” And it reminded me that people use the word scaling to mean quite different things.  And often I or we do not think about this.  But each of the different meanings of Scaling is important, at least in some sense.  […]

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More on the Dedicated Agile Champion role

August 21, 2017

In 2011 I wrote a blog post about the Dedicated Agile Champion.  This title is a pattern in Manns/Rising’s book: Fearless Change. Bob Lieberman sent in a comment that I should discuss this more.  That the job can be complex in larger organizations. And I completely agree.  In fact, I discussed that complexity in the […]

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