Scrum Handbook: Servant Leadership And Scrum Mastering

Servant Leadership

Scrum Mastering is a servant-leadership role. That’s a given. The phrase servant leader, first coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in his groundbreaking essay, The Servant as Leader, defined the role as focusing “primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the ‘top of the pyramid,’ servant leadership is different.”

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What Do You Do When You Finish a Sprint Early?

finish a sprint early

So, let me talk about the easy stuff first. One of the best things that can happen to a Scrum Team is that it finishes its work early in a Sprint. It amazes me that Teams are confused about what to do, but they are. So here goes… If the Team finishes early, it seems to me there are two choices:

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3 Undeniable Reasons To Get Your ScrumMaster Certification Now

ScrumMaster Certification

Let’s face it, you’re really busy. So, the idea of taking time out of your crazy work day to get a certification may make you ponder, “Is this really worth it? Will it help me do my job better?” If this is what comes to your mind about becoming a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), don’t feel bad. Critically walking through the “why should I do this?” argument is time well spent. So is getting your ScrumMaster Certification. Here are some important reasons why.

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The PO and SM: A Match Made in Agile

agile relationship

Every year as the middle of February approaches, our world is taken over by little red hearts, cherubic cupids hoisting arrows and foil wrapped drugstore chocolates. The heavily scented fragrance of Valentine’s Day is in the air. For us at 3Back, even though the holiday has come and gone, our thoughts turn to partnerships that stand the test of time; a Scrummy yin and yang where complementary forces interact to create something great. We think we found it.

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SHHHHH!!! 5 Ways to Quiet Organizational Noise

Throughout our day, we experience an inordinate amount of noise. Whether it’s the garbage truck barreling down our road at 5 am, the dog that excitedly greets every passerby or the co-worker’s emphatic phone conversations on the other side of the paper-thin cubicle wall, noise is everywhere.

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When Should You Start a Sprint? When Should You Finish?

Starting. It’s on all of our minds as we work through the first week of the new year. The concept of starting brings to mind one of the most frequently asked questions I receive when I am both training and coaching. When should you start a Sprint? And, the question’s inevitable counterpart, when should you finish a Sprint?

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4 Scrum Stories We Can’t Get Enough Of

Who doesn’t love a good story? Writing a good Story is a critical, and somewhat challenging, component to the Agile process. To further assist you in your quest for good Story writing, we’ve identified 4 categories of Scrum Stories to keep in mind as you write away.

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The Dangers of Hybridized Agile

A few weeks ago, an ad caught our 3Back eye. The ad, promoting an upcoming webinar, made a claim that the best approach to solving all of your Organization’s Agile process needs is to pick and choose from a multitude of scaling frameworks, put them all together, and design your own Agile framework potpourri. This “Kitchen Sink” approach to Agile is what we call Hybridized Agile. And it’s dangerous. Very dangerous.

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What Does it Mean to Scale Agility?

Scaling Agility is a huge topic right now, with many different methods available. Most of these methods are based on Scrum and/or Kanban, so I thought it would be interesting to discuss what the scaling ‘problem’ actually is…

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