Scrum Master

Mike answers three common questions about Scrum Masters, including who Scrum Masters report to.

Discover what pirates have to teach us about why the ScrumMaster and product owner require …

Should teams receive partial credit on nearly finished stories when calculating their sprint …

With many competing pulls on their time, product owners can be hard to catch during a sprint. Learn …

Too many daily scrums are status meetings instead of a time for team members to share plans, …

To be effective, a Scrum Master has a right to expect at least three things from their company …

Scrum Masters exhibit a shared set of traits. Discover 6 in-demand qualities, plus a bonus …

Scrum Masters and product owners can develop a habit of making statements rather than asking …

What does a good project manager need to do to become a great  Scrum Master?

How do you effectively facilitate a daily scrum with a remote team?

What exactly does cross functional mean and why does it matter?

Coaching your team to run a daily scrum without you.

We’re excited to announce that you can now take your Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® class (A-CSM) …

Thinking of a career as a Scrum Master? 7 questions to help you decide if it's the right job for …

Recently the 2020 version of the Scrum Guide was released. What changes were made that you need to …

Our virtual Certified Scrum courses aren’t tedious 16-hour Zoom snoozefests. This video shows what …

It’s coming on Christmas. That time of year when I drop hints to my family about gifts I’d like.

New Scrum Masters face a common conundrum: How do you become a Scrum Master with no experience? …

Batman would make the perfect Scrum Master. Once he eliminates crime in Gotham City, I plan on …

From helping teams understand the boundaries of self organization to creating safety around things …

Want to become an even better Scrum Master? Follow these 10 easy-to-remember practices.

Being a Scrum Master can be tough. Here are three of the most common mistakes Scrum Masters make …

Even Scrum Masters need a holiday every now and then. Here are four things for a Scrum Master to …

A typical career path for a Scrum Master will start with serving one team. After a while that team …

Over time, Scrum teams take on some of the Scrum Master duties themselves. Does the self-organizing …

A summary of the most popular and engaging blog posts of 2016.

Although you may wish it weren’t the case, some Scrum Masters need to document how a sprint went. …

There are many ways you can run a sprint retrospective. Here’s the simplest way and still my favorite.

Conventional wisdom says that a team should do a retrospective every sprint. But if your sprints …

As we come up on the end of the year, it's time to make some New Year's resolutions. Since one of …

Being the Scrum Master of a Scrum team can be hard work. But does it get harder over time? Or easier?

Interviewing Scrum Masters can be difficult because the job is harder than most to turn into a …

A question I’ve been getting a lot lately is whether UI designers should be part of the Scrum team …

Geoff Watts is one of the leading Scrum thinkers in the world, and one of the few to hold both the …

In last week’s blog post, I wrote about whether team members should sign up for tasks during sprint …

How should we value our work as agile coaches and consultants? The way I do it is to ask myself if …

During a sprint retrospective, team members gather and discuss ways in which they can improve. This …

In my ScrumMaster classes I always make the point that Scrum is a general purpose framework that …

Of course, the answer is the whole team – that collective of ScrumMaster plus product owner plus …

On the first day of my Certified ScrumMaster course, we go over the agenda for the two days. I …

You may have heard Scrum is one of the leading agile software development processes. With more than …

Participants in my Certified ScrumMaster courses are often surprised when I recommend that …

All of a Scrum team’s members should be present when playing Planning Poker. You may be tempted to …

To see how this applies to an agile project, consider the issue of whether a team should earn …

It's always good to have a Plan B. And all Scrum teams do--it's called an abnormal termination.

An …

Happy New Year! It's resolution time. A ScrumMaster may want to resolve to praise the team more often.

I woke one morning last week to a flat tire. Always frustrating,...

Personally, I don't mind whether I've been called big cheese or manager. Call me whatever you want. …

Rather than a conventional review, here is the foreword I was asked to write for this …

In a recent interview for an upcoming agile book by Sondra Ashmore and Kristin Runyan, they asked …

Even if you've taken the often stated agile stance of getting rid of periodic performance reviews …

They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure—this adage definitely applies to new …

One of my favorite things to hear about during this part of a daily scrum is how team members in a …

If you do want to take notes, I recommend writing the note on a whiteboard or some place where …

It’s one of my favorite times of the year: March Madness. (For non-Americans: That means college …

The problem of some individuals rambling on and on and on and on ... during the daily scrum has …

It may be time to retire the phrase release planning from the Scrum or agile vocabulary.

The book is a comprehensive overview of Scrum. It goes from the principles of agile through the …

Many teams struggle with keeping the daily scrum short. Some teams even exceed the standard …

Scrum Masters need to protect agile teams from more than just overly aggressive product owners. …

When it comes to transitioning to agile a lot of companies wonder whether it is best to start small …

A project management office (PMO) that is engaged in and supportive of transitioning to Scrum can …

Coaching of all forms--whether of kids playing basketball or software professionals learning to …

Teams with subgroups formed around compatible skills, attitudes and approaches to work are less …

People often ask me whether teams should have the right to vote members off. To help answer that …

There is more to leading a self-organizing team than buying pizza and getting out of the way.

The One-Handed Clock is a useful visual metaphor that can be hung in a team room.

What should we do in the case when the team really likes having a task board, but when one team …

Each person on the team should ideally be able to see each other person on the team.

I've been paying a bit of extra attention today to what shakeups might be in store at Apple during …

Not everyone involved in an agile transition wants the change to be successful. This …

This excellent book is targeted directly at Project Management Professionals (PMPs) but will be …

Sprint planning meetings typically go into deeper detail than is appropriate for product backlog …

What my friend had found is that his product owners had evolved in adaptation to their environment, …

The scrum of scrums meeting is an important technique in scaling Scrum to large project teams. …

The selection of a new Scrum team’s ScrumMaster can impact the success or failure of the team's …

Many teams try to divide and conquer when it comes to sprint planning, often with disjointed and …

Scrum was designed to be lightweight, so if your team is complaining that it's too heavy, you need …

A challenge faced by any project leader is how to lead the team without resorting to a …

Too much work goes into use cases to not employ them to their full potential. By assigning points …

Agile Project Management with Scrum is a wonderful book. The author, Ken Schwaber (one of the …

This article was written for the Scrum Alliance soapbox. It presents an initial collection of Scrum …

Ken Schwaber and I co-wrote this article to help counter the misperception that agile projects do …