Scrum Agile Project Management Expert

Nine Questions for a Good Scrum Team Structure

scrumexpert — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 14:07:40 +0000

In his book “Succeeding with Agile”, Mike Cohn present nine questions that you should ask for a current or proposed team. Questions should be asked iteratively… until you answer “yes” to each. Here are the questions: * Does the structure accentuate the strengths, shore up the weaknesses, and support the motivations of the team members? * Does the structure minimize the number of people required to be on two teams (and avoid having anyone on three)? * Does the structure maximize the amount of time that teams will remain together? * Are component teams used only in limited and easily justifiable cases? * Will you be able to feed most teams with two pizzas? * Does the structure minimize the number of communication paths between teams? * Does the structure encourage teams to communicate who wouldn’t otherwise do so? * Does the design support a clear understanding of accountability? * Did team members have input into the design of the team? Reference: “Succeeding with Agile”, Mike Cohn, Addison-Wesley, 463 pages, IBSN 978-0-321-57936-2 Besides the cultural bias (in Italy, one pizza will usually feed one person, but it might be different in the USA…), you could use these questions for every Agile project that you are currently running or plan to run to check the quality of your Scrum team.

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How Continuous Validation in Scrum Improves Content Readiness for AI Search

scrumexpert — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:37:28 +0000

The era of traditional search is rapidly fading into the past, giving way to smart algorithms and generative responses. Simply filling a website with keywords to rank high is no longer enough. Modern systems analyze the depth, veracity, and structure of content with the meticulousness of an experienced QA engineer. The team of experts at Netpeak is confident that agile methodologies are what enable the creation of such high-quality content. An agile approach transforms chaotic text writing into a streamlined production cycle with measurable results. Scrum as the Foundation of Data Quality Implementing Scrum methodology into the content creation process is a game-changer for the entire marketing team. Instead of endlessly preparing one massive piece of content, the team works in short, clear, and effective sprints. This allows for constant testing of hypotheses and checking data readiness at each intermediate stage. AI search requires impeccable logic, the absence of factual errors, and the avoidance of so-called “hallucinations” in texts. Short content development cycles enable editors and optimizers to quickly adjust the data structure. To achieve the ideal result, the team completes the following list of tasks within each work sprint: Fact-checking. Checking technical page markup. Analyzing readability for algorithms. Testing query responses. Validating the structure of all headings. Assessing the relevance of link mass. Verifying the uniqueness of each paragraph. Continuous validation within each sprint ensures that every piece of information passes a rigorous filter. Testers and editors now work together to identify weaknesses even before publication. This rhythm minimizes [...]

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Scrum Day Germany, Stuttgart, Germany, June 16 2026

scrumexpert — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 06:00:35 +0000

Scrum Day Germany is a conference about Scrum and Agile project management that propose an international line-up of Agile experts for German Scrum practitioners. It provides a multi-track sessions and full day workshops. The conference sessions are mainly in German. In the agenda of the Scrum Day Germany conference you can find topics like “Coaching Dojo”, “Why Agile Development Without Testing Doesn’t Work”, “Agile Transformation with Bottom Up Intelligence”, “Agile Budgeting and Agile Portfolio Management in Practice”, “Enterprise Agile Requirements Management”, “Product Owner Types: What You Should Know”, “Status Quo Agile – Scrum: Rather Tailor-made than According to the Textbook”, “Measuring Agile to Prove the Success of the Adoption”, “Agile Enterprise – Growing Agile beyond Tech”, “HardScrum – Software Development in the Embbeded Automotive Environment”. Web site for the Scrum Day Germany conference: http://www.scrum-day.de/

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Scrum Values and Principles: Why They Matter for Team Success

scrumexpert — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 15:07:41 +0000

Many teams adopt Scrum after hearing its benefits. They organize sprints, standups, boards, and wait for improvements. It happens occasionally. Often, something is off. Though meetings occur, little changes. Despite the process, the team isn’t working better. The answer is usually that the structure is there, but the values are not. This essay discusses those principles, why they matter more than the procedure, and how to embed them in your team. The Five Scrum Values Explained Simply Scrum relies on dedication, attention, openness, respect, and boldness. These words are uninspiring for a wall poster. They define Scrum team members’ daily behavior. Committed people work hard and keep their promises. You don’t have to work overtime or agree to everything. It involves being honest about your skills and using them. Focus means giving your full attention to current work. Scrum teams sprint for a purpose. Focus on a few things well rather than trying to do everything. Openness is sharing facts, issues, and criticism. Hidden problems cannot be tackled by a team. Openness enables early problem detection. Respect means trusting teammates’ abilities and efforts. It affects how people communicate, criticize, and resolve disagreements. Courage may be most intriguing. It requires the bravery to express an uncomfortable opinion, raise a problem, disagree with a decision, or admit faults. Without bravery, the other four virtues are hard to follow. A simple illustration of how these values work together: imagine a developer who notices a problem mid-sprint but stays quiet because they are afraid [...]

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The Cone of Uncertainty in Scrum

scrumexpert — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 12:00:53 +0000

Uncertainty in the Product Backlog is a big risk for the schedule of a Scrum project. How clever your estimations might be, Agile has to consider them using the notion of “cone of uncertainty”. The problem when trying to plan in Scrum is that the full scope of the release in Agile software development can be quite hard to estimate. This is due to the fact that the requirements are intentionally not well-know early on in the process. Confounding this problem is that frequently the release date is a hard deadline. This means that an Agile team must perform an unknown amount of work in a fixed amount of time. The “Cone of Uncertainty” describes the reduction of the uncertainty about scope after each Scrum sprint. It is only at the end of an Agile project that you eliminate the uncertainty and know the exact amount of scope is known. In anticipation of scope problems in project management, the software development schedule should be aligned to address the highest priority feature sets and features in early iterations. You defer lower priority feature sets and features to later iterations. To reduce the Cone of Uncertainty and the risks around missing a release deadline further, the requirements lead (product owner) and the Scrum team should actively defer low priority features from all feature sets to later sprints. These are the key considerations and decision points for reducing the Cone of Uncertainty in Agile: Primary goal: reduce dangerous uncertainty (feasibility, integrations, regulatory risk) [...]

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Free Retrospective Tools for Distributed Scrum Teams

scrumexpert — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 08:00:50 +0000

Even if Agile approaches favor collocated teams, distributed Scrum teams with remote work are more common that what you might think. Many Agile software development teams are based on a virtual organization. This article presents some free online retrospective tools that can be used to facilitate retrospectives for distributed and remote Scrum teams. You will find in this article only online Scrum retrospective tools that are supposed to be used for free in the long term. We do not list tools that offer only a free trial based on duration or the number of retrospectives. We will also only mention the tools that have features specifically dedicated to Agile and Scrum retrospectives. There are many other tools that Scrum teams might use, from video conferencing platforms to online whiteboard software. Mentioning all these tools will result more in a book than an article. If you want to add a tool that fits these requirements to this article, just let us now using the contact form. Free retrospective tools for distributed scrum teams listed in this article are EasyRetro, Retro Cadence, RetroTeam, Reetro, IdeaBoardz, Metro Retro, Pointing Poker, Retro Cadence, Retrospected / Retro-Board, Retrospect.team, Scrumlr, Sprint Boards, Stormboard, Swift Board. Updates March 23 2026: added Mural, RetroTime, RetroTool.io, removed GoRetro (no more free plan), Metro Retro (renamed as Ludi, no more free plan), Retro Cadence (domain expired), May 7 2024: added Kollabe, Return removed postfacto (open source tool archived) December 5 2022: added EasyRetro, Miro, RetroTeam, Swift Board January 17 2022: [...]

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Agile Australia, Melbourne, Australia, May 19-20 2026

scrumexpert — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 11:00:10 +0000

Agile Australia is a two-day conference built specifically for Agile and Scrum practitioners in Australia who are serious about expanding their thinking and ways of working: at an individual and organizational level. Hear valuable insights from highly regarded keynotes, learn how to create high-quality solutions faster and network with potential clients and collaborators. In the agenda of the Agile Australia conference you can find topics like “Continuous Delivery sounds great but it won’t work here”, “Deep Dive – Cost of Delay”, “Causal loop diagrams”, “Psychological safety through Deep Democracy”, “Ten years after adopting Agile”, “What colour is your Agile?”, “Simple ingredients for leadership agility”, “Towards an Agile Country”, “Scaled Agile: A Federal Government Implementation”, “Coaching Product Owners Effectively”, “The heart of Agile is in your local primary school”, “Using visual management to introduce Lean thinking”, “Failing @ Scaling: don’t panic, and carry a towel!”, “Intent-based Leadership”, “Myths and patterns of organisational change”, “Simplicity by Design”, “Achieving tangible business benefits with the Scaled Agile Framework”, “Autonomy and Leadership at Spotify”, “Concrete experimentation in Agile environments”. Web site for the Agile Australia conference: http://www.agileaustralia.com.au/

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SoCraTes UK, Abingdon, UK, June 18-21 2026

scrumexpert — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 10:30:08 +0000

SoCraTes UK is an International Software Craftsmanship retreat for open-minded craftspeople and agile software developers in Great Britain and abroad who want to improve their craft and the software industry as a whole. It’s a great opportunity to speak to and code with many like-minded and talented developers. The conference itself is free. SoCraTes UK, the International Software Craftsmanship retreat, follows the open space format for conferences. Open space is a simple methodology for self-organizing conference tracks. It relies on participation by people who have a passion for the topics to be discussed. There is no preplanned list of topics, only time slots and a space in the main meeting room where interested participants propose topics and pick time slots. SoCraTes UK is totally community-focused. It is a great opportunity to speak to and code with many like-minded and talented software developers in a very relaxed and beautiful setting. Website for the SoCraTes UK conference: https://socratesuk.org/

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Journée Agile Belge, Liège, Belgium, May 22 2026

scrumexpert — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 10:00:16 +0000

The Journée Agile Belge is a one-day conference focused on Agile software development approaches like Scrum that takes place in Belgium, each year in a different city. Most of the presentations and workshops are in French, but there might be also some talks in English. In the agenda of the Journée Agile Belge conference, you can find topics like “¨Help! my product is invisible”, “From Good to Great to Agile!”, “Storytelling & Digital”, “Introduction to Behavior-Driven Development”, “Being Agile is About Caring”, “Accelerated Learning: How Can Agile Help You?”, “Listening based on Theory U”, “Do We Really Need Automated Testing?”, “Using Simulation to Experience Modern Agility”, “How to Create a Team of Agile Teams?”, “When Lean UX Meets Agile Development”. Website for the Journée Agile Belge conference: https://www.journeeagile.be/

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Atlassian Fires 1600 Employees

scrumexpert — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:29:58 +0000

Software giant Atlassian has announced it is laying off about 10% of its workforce, or roughly 1,600 positions, and replacing its chief technology officer as it restructures to invest further in artificial intelligence. More than 900 affected positions were involved in software research and development, a spokesperson said. Most of Atlassian’s employees work in software engineering and design, accounting for over 50% of its 13,813 full-time workforce in June 2025. About 640 affected employees are in North America, 480 in Australia and 250 in India, with the remainder spread across Japan, the Philippines, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to the spokesperson. Atlassian has grown its revenue by attracting subscriptions to its workflow apps, including Jira, Confluence and Trello, recording US$1.6bn revenue in the last three months of 2025, up US$300m from the prior year. It is not profitable and has recorded millions in losses every year since 2017, including a net loss of US$42m in the last three months of 2025, up from US$38m the prior year

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