In Scrum, the Sprint Goal serves as the spotlight that provides transparency to the Sprint Backlog, as the flag that allows the team to rally, and the one thing that provides focus and cohesion. No Scrum team has ever been able to reap the benefits of the framework to the fullest extent without making the Sprint Goal a cornerstone of its efforts. The following nine Sprint Goal principles point at critical issues any Scrum team needs to consider on its path to excellence.
TL; DR: HoA #44: Honey, I Shrunk the Backlog w/ Allan Kelly
In this energizing 44th Hands-on Agile session on product backlog management, Allan Kelly clarified one thing: The backlog was a great idea until it wasn’t. Many successful teams deliver backlog items daily, but their backlogs aren’t getting smaller. The never-ending backlog overshadows delivery success. Product discovery, dual-track agile, OKRs, etc., make it worse by accelerating backlog growth without taking any of the rotting items away.
Learn more about Allan’s remedy for oversized product backlogs in less than an hour.
TL;DR: Scrum Master Salary Report 2023 — An Anonymous Poll by the Community for the Community
The purpose of this anonymous Scrum Master salary report 2023 is to create a clear, data-backed benchmark that allows everyone in the agile community to understand whether their compensation is adequate. (And yes, the report will cover Scrum Masters as well as Agile Coaches, both employed and freelancing.)
The goal is to have a sufficient number of replies – that would be at least 1,000 – by the end of November 2022 to create the report in time for January 2023. Of course, the report will be available for free.
In its theory section, the Scrum Guide refers to the three elements of empiricism: transparency, inspection, and adaptation. However, a fourth element, foundational to enable empiricism, is hidden in a sentence on Scrum Values. Read on and learn more about the complete picture of Scrum’s empiricism.
Contrary to popular belief, the Product Owner does not have dictatorial powers regarding the composition and order of the Product Backlog. Instead, Scrum as a framework is based on a delicate system of checks and balances, collaboration, and joint decision-making to mitigate risk; for example, the Product Owner falling in love with their solution over the problem of the customers. Learn more about critical Product Backlog principles, from the size and growth of the Product Backlog to whether a Product Backlog is necessary in the first place. (Some lean practitioners dispute its existence is justified.)
What is your take on the Retrospective: A routine exercise at the end of a Sprint, supported by standard operating procedures? Or a critical part of a Scrum team’s journey of continuous improvement? As you may assume, I advocate for the latter. In my experience, Scrum teams start utilizing Retrospectives to their full potential when they embrace a short set of Retrospective first principles, outlining the essence of the Why, the What, and the How.
