Everyone is super busy, yet things take forever to get done. I encounter this at organizations that are scaling up with scrum. All too often, leaders want to jump to a solution, such as implementing a scaling framework. Sadly, implementing a ‘fix’ without a deep understanding of the causes of the problem will likely make things worse. Blindly implementing the framework will make people even busier and things will take even longer to get done.
Exploring and understanding the root causes of the problem is a better starting point. Read the full article…

A great way to continue your agile learning journey is attending conferences. You’ll learn, build your professional network, and earn SEUs to renew your scrum certifications. To make the conference selection process easier, or harder, we’ve published
Nominal Group Technique (NGT) is a facilitation tool that helps a group quickly build a comprehensive list of ideas, issues, options or solutions, and then select the best one(s). NGT works faster than traditional brainstorming, yet generates more complete and higher quality results. NGT prevents the quieter voices from being overwhelmed and allows each participant to contribute to their full potential.
A scrum team’s definition of done helps them continuously add value to the product and avoid backsliding or breaking things. When a product meets the definition of done, new value is available and the stakeholders can access the value whenever they choose. One way to think about the definition of done, is as a checklist that helps us guarantee the quality of the product.
A product owner recently asked if it was okay to want more velocity from their team. Their team usually completed product backlog items (stories) that totaled about 180 points every sprint. The product owner thought: if my team could increase velocity to 200 points every sprint, that would be better.