3 Voting Methods for Agile Teams: Facilitating Decision-Making Things are always changing in and around an agile Team, so lots of decisions have to be made. Because agile leaders believe in collaboration and self-organization, they don’t usually make the decisions by themselves. Therefore, they need quick ways to have team members vote in some way – to get shared ownership of the decisions. Here are three different voting techniques that should be in every agile leader’s toolkit. For each of these methods, assume you have already asked for a decision to be made, such “who wants to go to lu ..read more

In today's evolving global labor market, the benefits of Scrum development methodologies are becoming increasingly apparent. Bringing together teams of people with various skill sets, from traditional software engineers to non-technical professionals such as marketers and product managers, allows organizations to harness the benefits of different expertise to transform their operations. By taking A Scrum development approach, organizations transform into smaller versatile teams to produce results faster and in shorter cycles. Shorter cycles allow organizations to implement product updates w ..read more

How does feedback happen on your Team? A Scrum Team member recently told me that she receives feedback anonymously from her Teammates and the business as a whole, so she’s never told who made what comment in their feedback process—that’s normal in their organization. As someone who has facilitated numerous feedback processes, this surprised me and raised some useful questions for Scrum Masters and Team Leaders. This post unpacks common pro or con assumptions regarding anonymous feedback. I spoke to some colleagues and noticed a few common assumptions. For example: “Anonymous feedback is more o ..read more

When a Dev team, their Agile Coach, and Team Facilitator are working well together, it’s a great thing to see! The Agile Coach helps a number of teams to strengthen their use of Scrum, improve technical skills, and identify a team kaizen each Sprint. Each of these teams has a Facilitator whose role is to ensure that his or her team is correctly making use of Scrum. Ideally, the Coach and Facilitator have a close working relationship, and particularly if team members are learning how to work together, lots of reliance and trust will be placed on the Coach. But does a team need a full-time Coach ..read more

COVID-19: A silver lining? In the pandemic’s early days, a Team Leader told me, with an obvious sense of relief, that his people were doing really well despite the turmoil. Productivity had actually increased after the Team’s shift to working from home. They were working hard–it seemed like the transition had definitely improved the Team’s focus by eliminating workplace distractions. This kind of positivity was widespread early on. Suddenly, Silicon Valley giants like Facebook celebrated the virtues of remote work as a new, improved business model. The appeal of remote work wasn’t new: over th ..read more

Don’t Let COVID-19 Disrupt Your Scrum Training. Learn Online With 3Back. Like all of you, we at 3Back are contending with the overwhelming impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) on our daily lives. We also are sensitive to the reality the COVID-19 pandemic brings to classroom learning. We take our role as educators very seriously and believe we must prioritize the health and well-being of our Scrum learning community. That is why we moved all of our upcoming Scrum Training classes to a web-based format. Until further notice, our Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO ..read more

COVID-19: A silver lining? In the pandemic’s early days, a Team Leader told me, with an obvious sense of relief, that his people were doing really well despite the turmoil. Productivity had actually increased after the Team’s shift to working from home. They were working hard–it seemed like the transition had definitely improved the Team’s focus by eliminating workplace distractions. This kind of positivity was widespread early on. Suddenly, Silicon Valley giants like Facebook celebrated the virtues of remote work as a new, improved business model. The appeal of remote work wasn’t new: over th ..read more

How to reinvigorate your organization with fresh eyes through Scrum? Before you read: The following is a generalized description of problems I have seen. The path offered is just one-path; there are more. You will find a mix of Scrum Mastering and Product Ownership issues that form a common line of concerns many corporations face. Dual Crisis: Corporations face aging products1 and an aging workforce2. Many large corporations are secure in their market position, but will they stay there? These companies have the financial means to sustain a substantial loss, providing them with a safe m ..read more

How to future-proof your organization through reinvigoration, continual improvement, and product development? Before you read: The following is a generalized description of problems I have seen. The path offered is just one-path; there are more. You will find a mix of Scrum Mastering and Product Ownership issues that form a common line of concerns many corporations face. Dual Crisis: Corporations face aging products1 and an aging workforce2. Many large corporations are secure in their market position, but will they stay there? These companies have the financial means to sustain a subst ..read more

COVID-19: A silver lining? In the pandemic’s early days, a Team Leader told me, with an obvious sense of relief, that his people were doing really well despite the turmoil. Productivity had actually increased after the Team’s shift to working from home. They were working hard–it seemed like the transition had definitely improved the Team’s focus by eliminating workplace distractions. This kind of positivity was widespread early on. Suddenly, Silicon Valley giants like Facebook celebrated the virtues of remote work as a new, improved business model. The appeal of remote work wasn’t new: over th ..read more