People & Teams

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Winning 8 Winning Qualities of a Scrum Master

A good leader keeps everything in order. In this fast-paced era where agile methodologies have become a more often used framework, a good Scrum Master is what is needed. But what makes a good Scrum Master? 

Dan Martin's picture Dan Martin
Lessons as a Proxy PO

Sometimes a challenge can be turned into an opportunity. When our team learned that the business needed to pull their popular Product Owner to focus on another team, a sense of panic set in. There would be a job search that could and did take months. Who would help the team on their path to creating value in the interim? How would we operate? Over time, what seems to be a negative turn of events was turned upside down. 

Vic Bartash's picture Vic Bartash
Business analyst reaching across the table to shake the hand of another agile team member Fitting into an Agile Environment as a Business Analyst

It's the perennial question: Is there a role for business analysts in an agile environment? It stems from the fact that the Scrum Guide defines only three roles on the team: the development team, the ScrumMaster, and the product owner. Business analysts often feel like they have to justify their role. But the BA provides significant value. Here are three main ways they can make a difference on an agile team.

Frank Hamilton's picture Frank Hamilton
Agile project management team collaborating Agile Project Management: 10 Tips from the Masters

In today’s fast-paced world, organizational agility is critical to business success. However, it’s common for there to be a clash between the traditional top-down business culture and the agile business philosophy. Agile project management is not just a set of processes and predetermined activities, but rather a genuine philosophy that forces organizations to embrace a brand-new mindset.

Isabell Gaylord's picture Isabell Gaylord
Agile team all putting their hands in for a high five How to Nail Agile Collaboration and Build Better Products

The rapid rate of technological change is forcing enterprises to reinvent themselves and provide more flexible approaches, so agile transformations are key. However, knowing that agile is important is one thing, but the ability to properly implement the main principles, tools, and techniques of agile is another. Let’s explore time-tested agile principles that will help your organization build innovative products that customers love.

Matthew Chen's picture Matthew Chen
Agile team member having a virtual meeting from home Agile Value Delivery: A Critical Component of Virtual Meetings

The recent surge in virtual meetings necessitates an entirely new set of desirable behaviors. But how do you keep participants engaged and material useful and on topic remotely, when it's hard enough to do that with everyone in the same room? The key is keeping value delivery front and center. Here are some tips and best practices for virtual meetings that will help you continue to deliver value.

Joe Schofield's picture Joe Schofield
Solved Rubik's cube Solving 6 Major Challenges of Implementing Agile

Implementing agile often means throwing out the rulebook when it comes to how teams work, how projects are organized, and even what the office floor plan looks like. This can be a difficult transition, but it's nothing to fear if you can anticipate the challenges and plan accordingly. Here are six of the greatest challenges teams face when implementing agile, along with some tips on how to avoid them.

Ashley Halsey's picture Ashley Halsey
Agile developers and testers collaborating Testing in Agile: How to Get Started

There is a lot of interest in organizations around a transformation to agility. However, the focus is usually on agile development, so it may not be clear how software testing is done in agile. If you're responsible for leading your testing teams, don't let them be left behind. Here’s how you can make testers part of the transformation, too—step by step, because this is agile, after all.

Balazs Schaffhauser's picture Balazs Schaffhauser
Agile team deciding how best to accomplish their work 6 Anti-Patterns Preventing Agile Teams from Self-Organizing

People have different cultural backgrounds, habits, beliefs, interests, capabilities, knowledge, skills, and temperaments. When put together on a team, they can’t always be governed by a rulebook to become self-organized. The dynamics among them have to be understood to recognize the anti-patterns first. Here are six anti-patterns that must be avoided and remediated to help teams move toward self-organization.

Ajeet Singh's picture Ajeet Singh
Person holding a sparkler with fireworks in the background Top 10 AgileConnection Articles of 2019

Agile isn't something you can adopt through tooling; you have to adhere to agile principles every step of the way. The top articles from 2019 show that people were looking to enhance and advance their agile practices, with popular topics including how to empower your team throughout agile adoption, using metrics to improve, refining Scrum practices, and scaling agile. Check out this roundup for ways to boost your agile operations.

Beth Romanik's picture Beth Romanik

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