The Scrum Master is responsible for promoting and supporting Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. Scrum Masters do this by helping everyone understand Scrum theory, practices, rules, and values. The Scrum Master is a servant-leader for the Scrum Team. The Scrum Master helps those outside the Scrum Team understand which of their interactions with the…
Optimal Development Team size is small enough to remain nimble and large enough to complete significant work within a Sprint. Fewer than three Development Team members decrease interaction and results in smaller productivity gains. Smaller Development Teams may encounter skill constraints during the Sprint, causing the Development Team to be unable to deliver a potentially releasable…
The Development Team consists of professionals who do the work of delivering a potentially releasable Increment of "Done" product at the end of each Sprint. A "Done" increment is required at the Sprint Review. Only members of the Development Team create the Increment. Development Teams are structured and empowered by the organization to organize and manage…
The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from work of the Development Team. How this is done may vary widely across organizations, Scrum Teams, and individuals. The Product Owner is the sole person responsible for managing the Product Backlog. Product Backlog management includes: Clearly expressing Product Backlog items;Ordering the items…
The Scrum Team consists of a Product Owner, the Development Team, and a Scrum Master. Scrum Teams are self-organizing and cross-functional. Self-organizing teams choose how best to accomplish their work, rather than being directed by others outside the team. Cross-functional teams have all competencies needed to accomplish the work without depending on others not part of…
When the values of commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect are embodied and lived by the Scrum Team, the Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come to life and build trust for everyone. The Scrum Team members learn and explore those values as they work with the Scrum events, roles and artifacts. Successful use of…
Scrum is founded on empirical process control theory, or empiricism. Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what is known. Scrum employs an iterative, incremental approach to optimize predictability and control risk. Three pillars uphold every implementation of empirical process control: transparency, inspection, and adaptation. TransparencySignificant aspects of the process must…
Scrum is a framework for developing and sustaining complex products. Watch this short video to get a quick introduction to Scrum. https://youtu.be/L_sAo93ASTU For more details, watch the Scrum Foundations Video series or read the below blog series about Scrum. The series are excerpt from the Scrum Guide by the co-creators of Scrum, Ken Schwaber and Jeff…
At the 2017 Global Scrum Gathering in San Diego, CA, I presented on Fostering Self-Organizing Team. Below is the abstract of the talk, along with links to the Fostering Self-Organizing Team blog series and the presentation slides. 2017 San Diego Global Scrum Gathering Abstract: One of the 12 principles of the Agile manifesto states that “The…
Earlier when we discussed the ScrumMaster's role is fostering a self-organizing team, I mentioned that the ScrumMaster needs to be self aware of her individual skills development journey and understand at what level of expertise she is at and work on moving to the higher levels so she can effectively help the team as a whole.…
Check out the video below of Michael Hamman presenting on "The Art and Practice of the Agile Leader" at Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Michael presents some perspectives on the role and the path of the transformational Agile Leader. First, he inquires into what is meant by “transformation” (it probably doesn’t mean what you think…
We’ve seen how individuals acquire skills; how teams go through different development stages; how leaders need to adjust their leadership style based on the skills of their followers and the stage of their team to establish the necessary attributes to foster a high performing self-organizing team. A good tool to use to help in fostering this…
A self-organizing team needs to have these 7 attributes to be successful. Supportive Context: The team needs to have some basic foundations like Infrastructure including a physical space suitable for team collaboration along with modern technical tools and infrastructure to perform the needed work.Information including access to necessary people and data to better understand the work…
Check out the video below of Adam Parker presenting on "Finding Lean in Agile: What They Can Learn From Each Other" at the Washington DC Scrum User Group (DCSUG). Adam explores the connections between Lean and Agile. What is shared? What's similar? What can each learn from the other? And why highly performing teams from both…
So what's the ScrumMaster's role in getting a team to a high performing state? There are two parts to it. First, the ScrumMaster herself needs to be self aware of her individual skills development journey and understand at what level of expertise she is at and work on moving to the higher levels so she can…