How to Get Teams Aligned on What It Means to Be Agile Discover how to align teams on what it means to be agile, from principles to practices.
Agile Collaboration: What It Is, How It Feels, and Why It Matters Collaboration on high-performing teams is like a rowing team in perfect sync.
Boost Creativity by Embracing Scrum Framework Constraints Before you break the rules of Scrum, consider how Scrum’s constraints enhance creativity and boost …
The Just Right Size for Agile Teams Teams get things done far more quickly than one person could. But as team size grows, so …
Agile Teams: Concurrent Engineering & Overlapping Work Overlapping work is one element of agile that is difficult for teams to understand and master. …
Scrum, Remote Teams, & Success: Five Ways to Have All Three In a remote-first world, how does an agile team thrive working in a virtual, distributed way?
What Is a High-Performing Agile Team? How to build and sustain a Scrum team that exceeds the sum of its parts.
What Does Scrum Mean by Cross Functional Teams? What exactly does cross functional mean and why does it matter?
25 Questions that Will Help You Know Your Teammates Better One of the benefits of being on a team is the friendships you can make with your teammates. Many of …
Advice on Conducting Agile Project Kickoff Meetings Traditionally managed projects begin with a kickoff meeting. Here’s why and how agile projects can …
Self-Organizing Teams Are Not Put Together Randomly There are things leaders can do that will influence how a team self organizes.
Include All Team Members in Sprint Meetings. Yes, Them Too. Some agile teams ban certain roles from daily scrums and retrospectives. Here’s why everyone should …
How Programmers and Testers (and Others) Should Collaborate on User Stories What do the testers do at the start of a sprint when there’s nothing to test? That problem is …
Two Types of Authority Leaders Must Give to Self-Organizing Teams How much authority must an agile team be given before it can be considered self organizing. And is …
Why the Whole Team Should Participate When Estimating Even though not everyone may work on a product backlog item, it’s still worth having the full team …
How to Reward Agile Teams Incentives and bonuses can be used to reward agile teams but must be aligned with agile principles. …
Rely on Specialists, but Sparingly A common misconception is that everyone on a Scrum team must be a generalist—equally good at all …
Teams Should Go So Fast They Almost Spin Out of Control Yes, I really did refer to guitarist Alvin Lee in a Certified Scrum Product Owner class last week. …
My Favorites for Team Movie Day One of my favorite movie scenes comes in The Untouchables when mobster Al Capone (played by Robert …
Assessing Your Agility Are you curious how “agile” your organization is? Do you wonder how you compare with other …
Agile in the Age of Hyperspecialization Agile does not at all require individuals to be generalists, but individuals are expected to work …
Agile Teamwork Discover the power of agile teamwork: conversations, collaboration, commitment, continuous …
Removing Team Members People often ask me whether teams should have the right to vote members off. To help answer that …
The Role of Leaders on a Self-Organizing Team There is more to leading a self-organizing team than buying pizza and getting out of the way.
The Benefits of Feature Teams Moving away from component teams is a difficult but necessary step for those who want to adopt an …
Cultivate Communities of Practice The most effective type of community of practice within Scrum organizations seems to be one that …
How Do You Get from Here to Agile? Iterate. The effort of adopting Scrum is best managed using Scrum itself.
Should a Team Swarm on to One Backlog Item at a Time? Discover whether agile teams should work on one product backlog item at a time or if it's OK for …
Should the Daily Scrum Be Person-by-Person or Story-by-Story? Most teams do the daily scrum per person, but some encounter the problem described here and discuss …
Establishing a Common Baseline for Story Points A common criticism of story points is that the meaning of a story point will differ among teams.
How To Fail With Agile Not everyone involved in an agile transition wants the change to be successful. This …
Programmers and Testers Can Work on Things Smaller Than User Stories A common misperception is that testers cannot do any work during an iteration until the programmers …
Software Configuration Management Patterns I knew this book would be different from the use of “Teamwork” in its subtitle. Many of the …