“Who should be the Product Owner (PO) for this project?” “Do we even need a PO here?” “Should the PO come from IT or the business?” “Should we split the PO role?” “What does a PO even do?” If you’re asking (or trying to answer) questions like this, this guide… Read More
The Scrum Guide, the official definition of Scrum, has changed over the years. But various practices have become “standard Scrum” even if they’re no longer… Read More
In some orgs, Scrum just means a bunch of extra meetings and a couple of funny job titles. But if you strip away the baggage and focus on the “why” of each piece of Scrum, you end up with a minimal set of responsibilities and coordination points that pretty much… Read More
Bite-sized story splitting Q&A for when you don’t need the full "Humanizing Work Guide to Splitting User Stories" Read More
In this episode, Richard and Peter answer the question: “I get the basic definitions of the Scrum roles. In the real world, though, what do these roles look like when they’re done well?” Hear their take on what it means to be a great ScrumMaster, Product Owner, or Scrum developer, beyond the “by the book” Scrum Guide answers. Read More
In this episode, Richard answers the question: “Our team is trying to use Scrum, but we get a lot of interruptions, a lot of work that pops up mid-sprint. How do we handle that kind of thing well?” He explains how to borrow a couple of concepts from Kanban to accommodate emergent work on a Scrum team in a healthy way. Read More
What parts of Scrum are essential? We’ve been on lots of teams where we started with all of the core elements of Scrum, then iteratively… Read More
Exciting. Entertaining. Do these words describe your sprint review meetings? Or are boring and unfocused more accurate? Here are tips and best practices for a reliably good sprint review (demo). Read More
inQB8 team increases new-product throughput by 10x Executive Summary: 3 Key Differences and Benefits of Agile CPG Innovation 3 Key differences from traditional CPG: Cross-functional groups work as full-time dedicated teams. Rapid test and learn cycles. Focus on… Read More
I love teaching Product Owner classes because the PO is in such a high-leverage role. The PO's work affects the work of 7, 9, maybe even 18 other people. And it's not difficult to triple the value delivered by a Scrum team, simply by improving their PO's skills in a few key ways. Let's look at the financial impact of that change... Read More