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Got a Scrum question? Are you facing challenges with your Agile adoption? Need general advice? We are here to help. Sign-up for a 20 minute slot to one of our ask me anything (AMA) coaching sessions using the form below.
Got a Scrum question? Are you facing challenges with your Agile adoption? Need general advice? We are here to help. Sign-up for a 20 minute slot to one of our ask me anything (AMA) coaching sessions using the form below.
Join us for the May 30-31, 2020 weekend online Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®) training class from Washington DC. This course is a 2 day virtual immersive training and online learning experience that goes beyond the fundamentals of Scrum and provides a deeper understanding of the ScrumMaster role, the ScrumMaster’s responsibilities in servicing the Product Owner, the Development…
Join us for the May 23-24, 2020 weekend online Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO®) training class from Washington DC. This course is a 2 day live virtual immersive training and learning experience online that covers the Agile values and Agile principles, the fundamentals of the Product Owner role, developing a vision, roadmap and release plan, managing…
Join us for the May 16-17, 2020 weekend online Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®) training class from Washington DC. This course is a 2 day virtual immersive training and online learning experience that goes beyond the fundamentals of Scrum and provides a deeper understanding of the ScrumMaster role, the ScrumMaster’s responsibilities in servicing the Product Owner, the Development…
Due to the uncertainties around COVID-19, we are temporarily pivoting to virtual classes. The classes will still be live, instructor led, learn by doing, with lots of exercises, discussions, and simulations to ensure an interactive and engaging online learning experience. This includes our foundation and advanced classes: Certified Scrum Master (CSM) Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)Certified…
Business Analyst: "I just finished refining all stories for the upcoming 8 Sprints. I marked them all as Ready." This is a common statement I usually hear from business analysts. Here we need to look at the who/when/how much of product backlog refinement. We previously discussed the who of product backlog refinement and emphasized that refinement…
Agile Engineering practices are not new. They originate from extreme programming back in the late 90s. XP specifically calls out these practices as things you should be doing. And here we are 20+ years later still trying to get teams to adopt them. Why is that? We do Scrum not XP People might find these practices…
Join us for the May 9-10, 2020 weekend online Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO®) training class from Washington DC. This course is a 2 day live virtual immersive training and learning experience online that covers the Agile values and Agile principles, the fundamentals of the Product Owner role, developing a vision, roadmap and release plan, managing…
Join us for the April 29 - May 1 Agile Engineering Practices (CSD track) training class from Washington DC. This course is a 3 day live online immersive training and learning experience that covers the skills needed to design and build reliable, robust, and verifiable systems. Over 50% of this class involves hands-on coding through sample…
Developer: “We do a code freeze 2 days before the end of the Sprint so we can start testing.” A statement like this typically means the team is not applying agile engineering practices, the team doesn’t properly break out product backlog items into small vertical slices, and the team is working in a mini-waterfall approach with…
Let’s take a look at the top 5 Agile Engineering practices that are essential to succeeding with Scrum and overcoming the struggles teams face trying to deliver a Product Increment at the end of each and every Sprint. Test Driven Development (TDD) TDD is a development practice where we start with a very small automated test…
Executive: “Isn’t Scrum just a team level thing? Why do we need to train and coach the management team?” This sentiment is a common misunderstanding. However, for Scrum to be effective, it requires a change in organizational culture and operations. Without these changes, organization end up implementing Scrum-fall, Scrum-but, or Dark Scrum. It’s where everybody is…
Many teams struggle with breaking up or splitting a user story into smaller ones. Here are the top 13 patterns to split a user story that you can use when clarifying user stories with the team during product backlog refinement. Start by asking: 1. By Business or User Perspective Can a business stakeholder understand the user…
Developer: “I’m taking a bio break. I’ll mark that down as 1 point!” This of course is an exaggeration and I truly hope no team is doing this. However, team members are doing similar things when it comes to estimating using story points, especially when velocity is being tracked by upper management. When this happens, there…
Many teams struggle to deliver a Product Increment at the end of every Sprint. Here are the top 5 reasons why teams can't do that consistently: Lack of understanding of what a Product Increment is There is a general lack of understanding as to what a Product Increment is and how we build things iteratively and…