Scrum is an agile framework for completing complex projects. This book gives examples, tools, and tricks to do Scrum well. For each trick it is explained why it helps. The practices themselves may be worth trying, but by understanding why it works the readers will be able to come up with their own ideas that work better in their organization and situation. All the practical examples in this book have helped someone, some where to become a part of a better Scrum team. Scrum’s motto is: “Inspect and Adapt”; change small things one at a time and see what works. Scrum is not done by project leaders or managers, but really by the teams—to succeed in an organization, the teams must do Scrum well. If the teams do Scrum well, the whole organization will benefit from it. Scrum helps a team self-organize, which fits in well with developers, who usually don’t like to be micromanaged. At the same time, Scrum can scale: Self-organized teams work together well, and one manager doesn’t have to manage all the people. The lessons from this book help Scrum teams develop into autonomous, proud, and independent teams. Often teams fail to become powerful enough to change the organization, so they cannot perform to their full potential. A good team can lead the stakeholders into trusting them. They will then make plans based on the team’s release planning instead of making roadmaps out of thin air, and thus make the organization much more predictable.

Practical, Proven Tools for Leading and Empowering High-Performing Agile Teams A leader is like a farmer, who doesn’t grow crops by pulling them but instead creates the perfect environment for the crops to grow and thrive. If you lead in organizations that have adopted agile methods, you know it’s crucial to create the right environment for your agile teams. Traditional tools such as Gantt charts, detailed plans, and internal KPIs aren’t adequate for complex and fast-changing markets, but merely trusting employees and teams to self-manage is insufficient as well. In Agile Leadership Toolkit, longtime agile leader Peter Koning provides a practical and invaluable steering wheel for agile leaders and their teams. Drawing on his extensive experience helping leaders drive more value from agile, Koning offers a comprehensive toolkit for continuously improving your environment, including structures, metrics, meeting techniques, and governance for creating thriving teams that build disruptive products and services. Koning thoughtfully explains how to lead agile teams at large scale and how team members fit into both the team and the wider organization. Architect environments that help teams learn, grow, and flourish for the long term Get timely feedback everyone can use to improve Co-create goals focused on the customer, not the internal organization Help teams brainstorm and visualize the value of their work to the customer Facilitate team ownership and accelerate team learning Support culture change, and design healthier team habits Make bigger changes faster This actionable guide is for leaders at all levels—whether you’re supervising your first agile team, responsible for multiple teams, or lead the entire company. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

The Provocative and Practical Guide to Coaching Agile Teams As an agile coach, you can help project teams become outstanding at agile, creating products that make them proud and helping organizations reap the powerful benefits of teams that deliver both innovation and excellence. More and more frequently, ScrumMasters and project managers are being asked to coach agile teams. But it’s a challenging role. It requires new skills—as well as a subtle understanding of when to step in and when to step back. Migrating from “command and control” to agile coaching requires a whole new mind-set. In Coaching Agile Teams, Lyssa Adkins gives agile coaches the insights they need to adopt this new mind-set and to guide teams to extraordinary performance in a re-energized work environment. You’ll gain a deep view into the role of the agile coach, discover what works and what doesn’t, and learn how to adapt powerful skills from many allied disciplines, including the fields of professional coaching and mentoring. Coverage includes Understanding what it takes to be a great agile coach Mastering all of the agile coach’s roles: teacher, mentor, problem solver, conflict navigator, and performance coach Creating an environment where self-organized, high-performance teams can emerge Coaching teams past cooperation and into full collaboration Evolving your leadership style as your team grows and changes Staying actively engaged without dominating your team and stunting its growth Recognizing failure, recovery, and success modes in your coaching Getting the most out of your own personal agile coaching journey Whether you’re an agile coach, leader, trainer, mentor, facilitator, ScrumMaster, project manager, product owner, or team member, this book will help you become skilled at helping others become truly great. What could possibly be more rewarding?

The Scrum Framework comprises eleven rules based on empirical process control. These rules can easily be described and understood, but they can be extremely challenging for teams to implement. The Professional Scrum Team helps real-world teams bring Scrum rules to life in their everyday work. Leading Scrum.org consultants and trainers Peter G tz and Uwe M. Schirmer bring together proven practices based on their real-life experience working in (and with) real Scrum teams. They show how Scrum teams can optimize their performance as teams, and how each participant can work more successfully as a Scrum team member. The authors introduce a team as it starts out with Scrum, and follows that team as it gains experience and functions with increasing effectiveness. First, you'll watch the team discover that its legacy approach to developing complex software doesn't work, seek a better way, and discover Scrum. Next, you'll watch the team take its first steps with Scrum and gain hard-won practical experience. In Part II, you'll watch as it finds better ways to discuss and describe requirements to optimize stakeholder collaboration, so developers can create the right product. Then, in Part III, you'll turn to development team practices and agile tools, discovering ways to continually improve quality and deliver functionality in ever-shorter cycles.

A Scrum Master's work is never done. The Development team needs your support, the Product Owner is often lost in the complexities of agile product management, and your managers and stakeholders need to know what will be done, by when, and for how much. Learn how experienced Scrum Masters balance the demands of these three levels of servant leadership while removing organizational impediments and helping Scrum Teams deliver real world value. Discover how to visualize your work, resolve impediments, and empower your teams to self-organize and deliver using the Scrum Values, Agile Principles, and advanced coaching and facilitation techniques. A Scrum Master needs to know when their team is in trouble and understand how to help them get back on the path to delivery. Become a better Scrum master so you can find the problems holding your teams back. Has your Daily Scrum turned in to a meeting? Does your team struggle with creating user stories? Are stakeholders disengaged during Sprint Review? These issues are common. Learn to use empiricism as your guide and help your teams create great products. Scrum is so much more than a checklist of practices to follow, yet that's exactly how many organizations practice it. Bring life back to your Scrum events by using advanced facilitation techniques to leverage the full intelligence of your team. Improve your retrospectives with new formats and exercises. Ask powerful questions that spark introspection and improvement. Get support and buy-in from management. Use Scrum as a competitive advantage for your organization. Create a definition of done that improves quality and fix failing sprints. Take the next step on your journey as a Scrum master. Transform your Scrum practices to help your teams enjoy their work again as they deliver high quality products that bring value to the world. What You Need: A moderate level of experience using the Scrum Framework.

Escape “Zombie Scrum” and Get Real Value from Agile! “Professional Scrum and Zombie Scrum are mortal enemies in eternal combat. If you relax your guard, Zombie Scrum comes back. This guide helps you stay on your guard, providing very practical tips for identifying when you have become a Zombie and how to stop this from happening. A must-have for any Zombie Scrum hunter.” --Dave West, CEO, Scrum.org “Barry, Christiaan, and Johannes have done a magnificent job of accumulating successful experiences and sharing their inspiring stories in this very practical book. They don't shy away from telling it like it is, which is why their proposals are always as useful as they are grounded in reality.” --Henri Lipmanowicz, cofounder, Liberating Structures Millions of professionals use Scrum. It is the #1 approach to agile software development in the world. Even so, by some estimates, over 70% of Scrum adoptions fall flat. Developers find themselves using “Zombie Scrum” processes that look like Scrum, but are slow, lifeless, and joyless. Scrum is just not working for them. Zombie Scrum Survival Guide reveals why Scrum runs aground and shows how to supercharge your Scrum outcomes, while having a lot more fun along the way. Humorous, visual, and extremely relatable, it offers practical approaches, exercises, and tools for escaping Zombie Scrum. Even if you are surrounded by skeptics, this book will be the antidote to help you build more of what users need, ship faster, improve more continuously, interact more successfully in any team, and feel a whole lot better about what you are doing. Suddenly, one day soon, you will remember: that is why we adopted Scrum in the first place! Learn how Zombie Scrum infects you, why it spreads, and how to inoculate yourself Get closer to your stakeholders, and wake up to their understanding of value Discover why Zombie teams can't learn, and what to do about it Clear away the specific obstacles to real continuous improvement Make self-managed teams real so people can behave like humans, not Zombies Zombie Scrum Survival Guide is for Scrum Masters, Scrum practitioners, Agile coaches and leaders, and everyone who wants to transform the promises of Scrum into reality. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Building a successful product usually involves teams of people, and many choose the Scrum approach to aid in creating products that deliver the highest possible value. Implementing Scrum gives teams a collection of powerful ideas they can assemble to fit their needs and meet their goals. The ninety-four patterns contained within are elaborated nuggets of insight into Scrum’s building blocks, how they work, and how to use them. They offer novices a roadmap for starting from scratch, yet they help intermediate practitioners fine-tune or fortify their Scrum implementations. Experienced practitioners can use the patterns and supporting explanations to get a better understanding of how the parts of Scrum complement each other to solve common problems in product development. The patterns are written in the well-known Alexandrian form, whose roots in architecture and design have enjoyed broad application in the software world. The form organizes each pattern so you can navigate directly to organizational design tradeoffs or jump to the solution or rationale that makes the solution work. The patterns flow together naturally through the context sections at their beginning and end. Learn everything you need to know to master and implement Scrum one step at a time—the agile way.