What Causes Conflict on a Team?
Change usually creates conflict, but a good ScrumMaster knows what types of conflict to expect and is prepared to handle it with correct conflict responses.
Has Your Company Chained You to Your Desk?
In my 35 years of coaching, many employees discuss managers who complain when a worker leaves their desk, but monitoring snack time and bathroom breaks won't improve productivity.
Dealing with Troublesome Team Members
Whether it’s conflicting personalities or just differing opinions, as a leader, you need to know how to deal with a difficult team member.
Gearing a Team for Maximum Outcomes
Creating a maximum outcome team is every ScrumMaster’s goal, but you must first understand how great teams form and what YOU need to do to create a great team.
Jim's 10 Tips for Scrum Development Teams
With COVID-19 forcing us all to learn about working from home, we're re-publishing our list of "Jim's 10 Tips for Scrum Development Teams," UPDATED for 2020!
What Does it Mean to BE Agile?
With the Agility mindset, it's critical to understand the concept of "being" Agile. Some people want "to do Agile", but you don't DO Agile, you must BE Agile.
5 Ways to At Least DOUBLE Team Performance
Here's 5 steps you can take as a manager or ScrumMaster to help DOUBLE your Development Team's performance (#5 is a shocker; it's easy but SUPER non-intuitive!)
Creating the Skills You Need for Agility
When beginning the transformation to Agile Development, it's hard to know exactly what skills the organization needs to adapt to the new way of working.
Speeding up Your Scrum Teams
Effective Scrum use is more than Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, and so on. To see a big difference in your team's Sprints, make these workflow changes.
Self-Managing Teams
When I teach or coach people about Scrum, we talk about self-organization, but the importance of self-organizational principles cannot be understated.
The Specialist Bottleneck: A Real Challenge in Agile Teams
Scarce specialists like technical writers, DBAs, and UX analysts often become overloaded in Agile environments. Assigning them to multiple Scrum teams seems like a fix—but leads to delays, frustration, and poor outcomes. This article offers 5 proven strategies to solve the specialist bottleneck while improving flow, reducing risk, and enhancing learning across teams.
Ground Rules for Your Team
Some initial “rules” that everyone agrees to follow will help your team avoid misunderstandings and deliberate misconduct.
DONEness Definitions (DoD)
What's the one thing YOU could do as a Scrum Master to improve your team's reliability, quality, and productivity? Read on and find out!
Is Your Scrum Team Stuck? It Might Be a Product Ownership Problem
If your Scrum teams are “doing all the right things”—running Sprints, holding Reviews—but still not improving in quality, value, or productivity, the issue may not be process. It may be a lack of real Product Ownership. This article explores why communication is a Product Owner’s most valuable skill, how traditional mindsets limit Agile success, and what to do if formal training isn’t an option.
Sprint in Trouble? Here’s What Great Scrum Teams Do Next
In Scrum, it’s not enough to deliver high-quality work. Teams must also take ownership of how the work is done and how they respond when things don’t go as planned. This post outlines five actions Scrum teams can take when they realize the Sprint Goal is at risk—and how to develop the habit of self-correction before it’s too late.
Why You Should Think Twice Before Changing Sprint Content
High-performing Scrum teams thrive on focus, commitment, and trust. Yet one of the fastest ways to erode that performance is to repeatedly change the Sprint after it’s begun. While Scrum allows flexibility, it’s not a license for chaos. In this article, we explore why scope changes during a Sprint are so damaging—and what leaders can do instead to protect team focus and boost long-term performance.
What to Do Instead of Extending a Sprint
Scrum Sprints provide empiricism, part of the Agile core beliefs, which is why extending a Sprint is never a good idea!
Keep Your Daily Scrum Short
Many Scrum events seem simple, but aren't. The Daily Scrum seems to be the event that causes the most problems for teams.
Keep Your Work In Process Low
The fastest team productivity killer is working on 3+ backlog items at once. You'll end up with a team that's great at starting work, but lousy at finishing it.
Teaching the Scrum Framework
It's critical everyone on a new Scrum Team starts with the same understanding of Scrum. A learning structure called “ShuHaRi” can be related to teaching Scrum.