What science tells us about how work agreements create high-performing teams. And five practical areas to focus on. — A while ago I was taking a walk with my partner Lisanne. A noisy flock of geese flew overhead in a messy V formation. We laughed at the amount of noise they produced. It all looked very chaotic. Then another flock flew overhead. It was a similar number of birds…

An investigation of scientific research into what motivates teams, and how many of these insights informed the Scrum framework and other Agile methodologies — When people first look at the Scrum framework, they often see the roles and the events first. They see only the structure of Scrum; who wears the hats and when. And that makes sense. We are still so embedded in the leftovers of the mechanical perspective that originated during the…

The more ideas you read about, the better your code becomes — I love coding. Or rather, what coding allows me to create. What started out in GWBasic in my childhood evolved into .NET, Node.JS, and Angular these days. Writing code is deeply engrossing, provided that I’m able to find the right solution to the problems I’m attempting to solve. There are…

An exploration of scientific insights. And four practical tips to encourage cohesion and coherence in your team. — Do your Daily Scrums feel like a pointless ritual where everyone just lists what they’ve done yesterday, and what they do will do today? Does Sprint Planning feel like a waste of time because everyone only wants to know what they have to do? And does your Sprint Review consist…

We recently discussed a case on our community Discord that concerned a team without proper Sprint Reviews, stakeholders, and increments. The first intuition of many Scrum Masters — including myself — was to host a Sprint Retrospective. But this leaves the reflection and the initiative for change entirely with the…

Why many Scrum teams struggle with continuous improvement, and how you can do better — Do your Sprint Retrospectives feel like a waste of time? Are members of your team wondering what the point is of talking about improvement when nothing ever happens? Are you struggling to improve with your team, even though the whiteboard, Mural, or desk is littered with stickies with improvements ideas…

An exploration of the color theory of change, and how it illustrates a bias in our community that may explain our failure to enact meaningful change — Do you start a new Scrum team by explaining the roles, artifacts, and events? Do you rarely consider how to build coalitions and persuade people in power to support your work with Scrum? Are you not initially thinking about the psychological needs of people and how to motivate them to…

An investigation of three schools of thought on team development and high-performing teams — Recently, the concept of “fluid teams”, “dynamic reteaming” or “ad-hoc teaming” has gained traction in the Agile community. Although the concept has many different definitions, a characteristic they share is that members move in and out of a team during its lifetime. There is obviously a wide range of fluidity…

Reflections from participants on their experience of Liberating Structures — What are Liberating Structures? I could explain that there are 33 of them and that each one is a “microstructure” with a specific purpose. I could give you examples of how they work. For example, the Liberating Structure 1–2–4-ALL asks participants to first reflect in silence on a question…