Benefits of Scrum

In today’s evolving global labor market, the benefits of Scrum development methodologies are becoming increasingly apparent. Bringing together teams of people with various skill sets, from traditional software engineers to non-technical professionals such as marketers and product managers, allows organizations to harness the benefits of different expertise to transform their operations. By taking A Scrum…

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Is Anonymous Feedback Useful?

How does feedback happen on your Team? A Scrum Team member recently told me that she receives feedback anonymously from her Teammates and the business as a whole, so she’s never told who made what comment in their feedback process—that’s normal in their organization. As someone who has facilitated numerous feedback processes, this surprised me…

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When A Team Graduates From Its Coach

When a Dev team, their Agile Coach, and Team Facilitator are working well together, it’s a great thing to see! The Agile Coach helps a number of teams to strengthen their use of Scrum, improve technical skills, and identify a team kaizen each Sprint. Each of these teams has a Facilitator whose role is to…

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6 Signals of Collective Conflict Avoidance

Conflict Avoidance in Scrum

The primary goal of Scrum Mastering[1] is to enable a Well-Formed Team™ (WFT). Ideally, a Well-Formed Team[2] would take on most of its own facilitation and coaching. However, some Teams get stuck in earlier stages of maturity that we describe as Collective Conflict Avoidance. Collective Avoidance is a norm that needs to be thoughtfully and…

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Sleepwalking Through Scrum

Sleepwalking Scrum Team

How do we recognize when the way we’re “doing Scrum” is impeding our Agility? Two alternative scenarios are possible: The Team has fully internalized Agile practice in the past but now seems to be sleepwalking through the Ceremonies: the Team’s Agile practice has gotten stale, we’re sleepwalking through Scrum. The Team hasn’t experienced Agile practice…

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To Build Trust, Risk Being Candid

build trust

Search Google Books on trust and candor and the first listings you’ll get are business examples. Why? Because for a Team to respond agilely, we need to be candid with each other and have a basic trust in each other. Naturally, we’ve all experienced being on a Team where this wasn’t the case, and our whole Team was held back as a result.

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What Football Teaches Us About Scrum Teams

Even if you think that a “Fair Catch” has something to do with a summer carnival fishing tournament and a “Flea Flicker” can be eradicated with a dog collar, there are two things that all football and non-football fans know: The crazy intensity of the championship football season is among us. And, the only football teams that prove themselves worthy of achieving this level of greatness are the ones that are the epitome of a Well-Formed Team.™

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Is it a Group or a Team?

This question often occurs to me when I’m on training or coaching assignments. The provocation is usually a statement similar to the following: “We have a Development Team of 250 highly skilled engineers….”

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What Football Teaches Us About Scrum Teams

Even if you think that a “Fair Catch”[1] has something to do with a summer carnival fishing tournament and a “Flea Flicker”[2] can be eradicated with a dog collar, there are two things that all football and non-football fans know. The crazy intensity of the championship football season is among us. And, the only football…

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