NB. Throughout this blog, I use a variety of terms such as meeting, event, and workshop ostensibly as synonyms. Whilst this is a Professional Scrum leaning piece, facilitation is not an art solely associated with Scrum, and therefore the language I use isn’t either. …

Prior to reading this blog, please read the introduction to this series here. Professional Teaching is a complex skill that requires practitioners to probe, sense and respond to a changing learning environment. As Scrum Masters, we are naturally at home within complexity, and therefore the ability to apply empiricism to…

We all have strengths and weaknesses with the preferred stances of a Scrum Master. Like many of the teams we work with, being ‘key-shaped’ comes to mind — cross-skilled and competent at many things but having a deeper knowledge of certain stances more so than others. Personally, I feel more…

Scrum and Chemistry. I bet those two topics aren’t something you’d immediately tie together, right? However, one thing I find incredibly powerful as a trainer and as a teacher is that when you can create a ‘hook’ for a piece of knowledge to hang on, your student is much more…

’Twas the night before Sprint Review, when all through the building Not a dev was there stirring, definitely not out chilling; The increment had been tagged on the Ops branch with care, In hopes that the stakeholders soon would be there; Most of the Scrum Team were all snug in…

I’ve always liked to think of the new year as bringing fresh opportunities and reasons to be hopeful. However, as an independent consultant and business owner, the looming threat to the end of HMRC’s ‘light-touch’ approach to IR35 legislation compliance in 2022 is worrying. …

What drives you to achieve? Money? Promotion? Skill mastery? Whatever it is that motivates you, that’s okay — be thankful that you are motivated to move forwards. Without motivation in any form, you can personally and professionally stagnate to a point where you become a detractor in a team environment…

The past 18 months have been a whirlwind. Coronavirus, elections, inequality and conflict — a quagmire of micro and macro complexities that impact the feelings and behaviours of Scrum Teams. In my opinion, it would be fair to say that teams who consistently attempt to mitigate environmental and sociological complexities…

You’ve dialled into your third MS Teams call of the day. An hour later you hang up, wondering what the purpose of it was. Don’t worry, you think, maybe it will be more useful next week? We’ve all been there, and yet we resolve to continue to attend. …