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When I worked as an internal Scrum consultant for a San Diego biotech, I had the pleasure of working with one of the most talented and creative programmers I have ever met – Tim Scheer.  Tim was part of our team Scrum transformation team and he was the person on our team...

I have never been a big fan of the concept of Sprint Zero.  Recently, I heard a story from a colleague that got me thinking about Sprint Zero and I wanted to share her story with you.  She told me on the first day of working with a new client she was invited to attend their...

I was looking through some old notes and found this question from a LinkedIn group. “Has anyone experienced where impediments are raised, but you (as a Scrum Master) do not have the power, control or autonomy to remove these impediments?  If so, what have you tried to...

I came across this question\comment on the LinkedIn ScrumMasters group the other day asking about Burndown Charts and management analysis. “I send out Burndown Charts daily and have been questioned by upper managent as to why we see fluctuations, up or down to the ideal...

As it turns out, there is a way to do Scrum at scale and it’s name is LeSS – referring to the idea that less is the key to accomplishing more with Scrum.  LeSS, an acronym referring to Large–Scale Scrum, and its practices were created based on the field...

A recent question in the Certified Scrum Professionals LinkedIn Group, described a common scenario that people have when dealing with distributed Scrum Teams. “ScrumMaster and Scrum coach are onshore (the client) while vendor teams are offshore.  Is the client fooling...

Commitment is essential to Scrum since it lies at the fundamental core of Scrum – personal accountability, the drive for personal excellence and genuine connection with your peers in the workplace and the work itself.  In Scrum, participants are asked to make three...

Why does writing user stories have to suck so much? I recently heard from a colleague that they were looking for some ideas, tricks, tips and techniques to make user story writing more innovative so they can build a delightful product.  Definitely a good idea, but running a good...

I have written on user stories before, so please understand that I love user stories.  When used thoughtfully, I feel user stories can be a very powerful way to create a collaborative dynamic between the business and product developers.  User stories have the innate ability to...

In the past few weeks, I have been putting renewed effort to wrap up the course design for  a new course entirely focused on ScrumMaster practice.  During a review with a colleague, we identified one key concept we overlooked – how we define a Team.  That reminded me of the...