Retrospective Examples for Fun & Effective Sprints
95% of the time when I join a retrospective of a new team, often a team that doesn’t have a Scrum Master, it usually goes something like this: First, the team quickly collects their happiness level. “On the scale of 1 to 5, how happy were you this Sprint?” Then, the lead asks what the […]
How to become a Scrum Master with no experience (+best Scrum Master certification)
If you are coming into Agile and Scrum from a different background, there are lots of things you need to learn before you can enter the industry. But as we know, there are no guides on where to start and what to do exactly. You would need to spend hours and hours researching the topic […]
Team Building Activities for Remote Teams and Different Time Zones
A student once asked me if I have any suggestions for coordinating a distributed team that has a 12 hour difference between them. I told her that I don’t have a magic wand, unfortunately. If your team members are spread across the whole world, it IS the reason they are struggling to deliver anything. While […]
5 Easy Icebreakers for Meetings: Virtual and In-Person
How engaging are your meetings? Are people actively participating? Or are they distraught, uninterested, and generally not very creative? Sometimes we need a couple of minutes to get into the right mental space when we start a discussion. Especially, if people are on calls back-to-back all day. Watch this video if you’d like to learn […]
Top 4 Signs Your Team is Dying: Toxic Workplace Checklist
Spot the first signs of your team falling apart with this toxic workplace checklist. Identify what to look out for and how to fix it.
Kanban versus Scrum: what’s the difference?
Implementing Kanban may seem like a no-brainer. However, if you’re switching to Kanban from Scrum you might be surprised.
What does the Scrum Master do during the Sprint Planning?
Sprint Planning is the first meeting that happens every Sprint. Everybody has a role to play in it. The Product Owner brings the Sprint Goal and describes what the team should work on. Developers estimate the work and decompose it into tasks they need to do. But, what Scrum Master does in Sprint Planning can […]
3 Key Topics to Discuss with a New Team
Create a social contract with your team by setting expectations around your role with these 3 steps.
What is Scrum in Agile? 🤔
We hear the terms Scrum and Agile alongside each other all the time. They don’t really mean the same, even if sometimes they are used interchangeably (they shouldn’t 🤫). Let’s explore what Scrum is, what Agile is, and what Scrum in Agile is. To set the things straight right away and give you simple differentiation […]
Sprint Planning in Practice (Part 2)
In my previous blog post I talked about how to create a Product Backlog from scratch. We looked at an example product – online education hub about Scrum – and used a real online tool for Product Backlog management called ZenHub. Ok, so now we have our Product Backlog started with some functional and non-functional […]
Self-Organization and the role of a Scrum Master
After many discussions with students and other Agile practitioners, I came to the realization that the concept of self-organization in Scrum is widely misunderstood. And the whole point of Agile and Scrum is to create self-organizing teams that can solve complex problems on their own. How can we build the right culture if the essential […]
Scrum Master certifications: How to pass PSM I, PSM II and PSM III
If you are looking to become a Scrum Master, your first step would most likely be getting one of the Scrum certifications. As a Professional Scrum Trainer with Scrum.org I passed all three levels of the PSM assessments, and I’d like to give you some tips on how to do the same. My focus will […]
Creating a Product Backlog from scratch (Part 1)
See Product Backlog creation in action using actual tools and a realistic product example.
8 Handy Tools for Your Scrum Master’s Toolbox
[Updated: June 2022] There is no guidebook for Scrum Masters with step-by-step instructions of how to do it right, we often just have to wing it on the spot. That’s why having a set of Scrum Master tools in your toolbox and some easy go-to facilitation techniques are so important for your success in the […]
Scrum Master VS Agile Coach: What’s the difference?
Agile Coach is a popular role in organizations. So how does it fit with the Scrum Master role? And how do you become and Agile Coach?