A Sprint Review without Stakeholders — Making Your Scrum Work #3

TL; DR: A Sprint Review without Stakeholders

There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. A Sprint Review without stakeholders may create an unhealthy bubble for the Scrum Team due to the disconnect, thus resulting in lower effectiveness.

Join me and explore the reasons and the consequences of stakeholders avoiding participating in the Sprint Review in less than 150 seconds.

A Sprint Review without Stakeholder — Making Your Scrum Work #3 — Age-of-Product.com
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The Hardening Sprint Fallacy — Making Your Scrum Work #2

TL; DR: The Hardening Sprint Fallacy

There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. The hardening Sprint is one of those Scrum failures that are particularly challenging.

Explore with me the deep-rooted issues we can learn from a team that practices a hardening Sprint, from the level of team maturity to possible organizational concerns of becoming agile in less than 100 seconds.

The Hardening Sprint — Making Your Scrum Work #2 — Age-of-Product.com
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Product Backlog Defense – Common Patterns of Stakeholder Interference

TL; DR: Product Backlog Defense

Make no mistake: Your Product Backlog is the last line of defense preventing your Scrum Team from becoming a feature factory; hence Product Backlog defense is vital: Figure out a process that creates value for your customers. Moreover, have the courage — and the discipline — to defend it at all costs.

Product Backlog Defense — Age-of-Product.com
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📅 🖥 Virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021 — May 27-29, 2021

TL; DR: The vACB21’s Schedule, Session Proposals, Technology, and Workshops

The Agile Camp Berlin 2021 will be a virtual event from May 27-29, 2021.

We will spend three energizing days from 1 pm to 7 pm CEST at a live virtual Barcamp using open space technology principles and practices. The general conference language is English; sessions in other languages are welcome!

📅 🖥 Virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021 — May 27-29, 2021 — vACB21 — Hosted by Berlin Product People GmbH

Read on and learn about the organization of the virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021, its preliminary schedule, from your session proposals to session planning to the essential technology to enjoy the best possible experience.

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Peer Recruiting: How to Hire a Scrum Master in Agile Times

TL; DR: Peer Recruiting

Peer Recruiting is the new hiring: Shortly, all creative, technology-based organizations will need to abandon the command & control structures that served the industrial world of the 20th century so well. Instead, they will reorganize themselves around autonomous teams to deal with the complexity and pace of innovation of the 21st century.

In such an agile world, recruiting will become a team decision, and the “human resources” department’s role will change into a supportive one. Recruiters will need to become servant leaders or facilitators, guiding the peer recruiting process.

The following guide to peer recruiting is based on my experience in participating in recruiting Scrum Team members over the last ten years. This first article will cover the Scrum Master role.

Peer Recruiting: How to Hire a Scrum Master in Agile Times — Age-of-Product.com
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Product Discovery Anti-Patterns Leading to Failure

TL; DR: Product Discovery Anti-Patterns

Scrum has proven to be an effective product delivery framework for all sorts of products. However, Scrum is equally well suited to build the wrong product efficiently as its Achilles heel has always been the product discovery part. What product discovery part, you may think now. And this is precisely the point: The Product Owner miraculously identifies what is the best way to proceed as a Scrum Team by managing the Product Backlog. How that is supposed to happen is nowhere described in the Scrum Guide. Consequently, when everyone is for themselves, product discovery anti-patterns emerge.

From sunk costs, HIPPO-ism, my-budget-my-features to self-fulfilling prophecies — learn more about the numerous product discovery anti-patterns that can manifest themselves when you try to fill Scrum’s product discovery void.

Product Discovery Anti-Patterns Leading to Failure — Age-of-Product.com
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