TL; DR: Scrum 2021 — Getting You Started as Scrum Master or Product Owner
As 2020 comes to an end, you are probably considering how to further your career as a Scrum Master or Product Owner in 2021. Maybe, I can support you in that regard with a set of six articles that proved to be the most popular in 2020. They range from Product Owner and Scrum Master interview questions to a variety of Scrum anti-patterns and how to deal with them to the Scrum Guide Reordered 2020, the easiest way to understand patterns and concepts of the new Scrum Guide 2020. All articles feature free ebooks that delve into the problems and provide hands-on advice on how to solve them. Good luck with Scrum 2021!
TL; DR: Visual Collaboration, Rejecting Requests — Food for Agile Thought #273
Welcome to the 273rd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 29,133 peers. This week, we appreciate the merits of visual collaboration; we detail the path of agility from the team level to the organizational level, and we reflect on cost-saving with ‘Agile’ and its inherent trickiness.
We then delve into the differences between user stories and use cases; we share a hands-on guide on how to move toward a balanced, outcome-driven way of product development, and we embrace an approach that allows understanding which stakeholder requests to accept or reject—without burning bridges. We also welcome a set of 50 team building activities, games, and exercises from communication to collaboration to alignment and vision.
🎉 Wishing you a joyous Holiday season and a happy and peaceful New Year. The next edition of ‘Food for Agile Thought’ will be available on January 10th, 2021.
Back in 2017, we started the Scrum Master Salary Report 2017—the first industry report that covered in-depth the educational background, working experience, industries, and organizational details of the companies Scrum Masters or agile coaches work for. In 2019, we partnered with Scrum.org—to create the 2019 edition. Moreover, we plan to continue the collaboration in 2021 with the next edition.
If you have to make a career decision early next year, you will find the industry data the Scrum Master Trends Report 2019 contains still very helpful.
TL; DR: Awesome Remote Teams, Agile Iron Triangle — Food for Agile Thought #272
Welcome to the 272nd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 28,937 peers. This week, we embrace a set of lessons learned, tools, and practices for awesome remote teams. We also address the necessary buy-in to an agile transformation’s underlying philosophy, and we revisit the once-popular project management tool that still might be beneficial in the age of agility.
We then analyze the difference between product management and Product Ownership; we identify product-driven companies’ cultural principles, and we reflect on why so many product teams end up in the feature factory.
Lastly, we delve into the ‘one-[framework]-fits-all’ myth of agile transformation approaches.
The following 58 Product Owner theses describe the PO role from a holistic product creation perspective.
They cover the concept of the Product Owner role, product discovery, how to deal with external and internal stakeholders, product portfolio and product roadmap planning, and the Product Backlog refinement. The Product Owner theses also address the Product Owner’s part in Scrum events from Sprint Planning to Sprint Review to Sprint Retrospective, and the Daily Scrum.
TL; DR: Pre-Mortems, Leaving the Feature Factory — Food for Agile Thought #271
Welcome to the 271st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 28,708 peers. This week, we understand the advantages of pre-mortems to kick-off agile transformations; we discover learning obstacles rooted in entrenched ways of operating, and we appreciate the learnings from a long yet successful lean transformation.
We then learn about how quarterly process changes can unshackle a product team to realize its full potential; we check a system to apply objectives and key results (OKR) to product management, and we acknowledge common traps of validating product ideas, such as false positives.
Lastly, we dissect the consequences of remote work, ranging from the remote hype cycle, the risk of return, new physical and digital solutions, and the implications of remote and hybrid work.
