“If Scrum is so simple, why is it so hard to apply?” said my client. For me the answer is clear. It’s not Scrum that’s hard to apply, after all as my client stated, it’s actually very simple. No, it’s the bits that the Scrum framework doesn’t prescribe that are… Read More »Scrum – What am I Missing?
I’m hooked on a new series. Despite its name, The Fix is not about drugs or an assassin, but about service design. We’re going to be talking more and more about service design on this blog soon but, to begin with, I’d direct you over to BBC Radio 4. My… Read More »The Fix
A few months ago, I saw an interesting TED talk by Susan Pinker: “The secret to living longer may be your social life”. It refers to research done by Julianne Holt-Lunstad et al “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review” (Brigham Young Uni). Pinker tells us that Sardinia has… Read More »Proof that face-to-face communication rocks
Chances are that you aced your CSM test (if you went on the 2-day course), but how well do you really know the Scrum Guide? I’m not talking about how well could you implement Scrum, just how well you know what is written on the 17 pages written by Ken Schwaber… Read More »Scrum Guide quiz
In February 2016, we launched our workshop game, Iterative Incremental Big Bang. Although our biggest market is the United Kingdom, over 60% of sales have been shipped elsewhere in the world (as far as Canada, Vietnam, New Zealand and Russia). Our friends at ScrumTrek in Russia liked the game so… Read More »Our game … in Russian
As a Scrum Master, it’s never easy to know what a job is really going to be like before you start, but we’ve been looking out for what we think are bad smells in job offers. Please feel free to tell us your own in the comments. Job title of… Read More »Scrum Master job descriptions
There’s a man in the house in front of you. He’s tied his wife to a chair, poured petrol over her and is threatening to set her on fire. “I’ve been at work all day. When I get home, I find her [his wife] on the phone, and she refuses… Read More »How to listen like a hostage negotiator
In a recent conversation with an “Agile Coach”, the conversation turned to coaching in an organisational setting. The coach said: “It’s my job to tell people that they are doing things wrong, and that they should approach things the way I tell them to… I’m a bit like Jose Mourinho…… Read More »“The special one”
We all know that “Individuals and interactions” are important. I believe that getting explicit agreement on how the team will work together is fundamental to a happy and performing team. One exercise I have run in various orgs, from fashion retailers to hospitals, is a simple mapping of roles but is… Read More »Role mapping
As a community, we spend a lot of time debating the practicalities of Agile thinking. What makes a good retrospective? Should we run 2 or 3 week Sprints? What questions should we ask at the stand up? These are all great things to discuss, but if we agree that Agile… Read More »Culture and Behaviour
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