Agile Best Practice

The 17th State of Agile Report shared that 93% of executives thought that their teams could do the same amount of work in half the time, if their teams collaborated better.

That's quite a statistic. We’ll leave it up to you to decide whether this reflects a lack of efficiency due to poor collaboration, or a disconnect between leadership expectations and the realities faced by development teams.

What we do know is that improving team collaboration has benefits and that improved collaboration is a key benefit of effective agile practices.

So if you think your team could work more effectively, here are six tips for improving team collaboration that we think will make your working life better, and help you deliver for your customers.

1. Agile Teams Are Cross-Functional

Cross-functional teams are the backbone of agile collaboration. It's Agile 101:

The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

Ideally, your agile team should be able to deliver work independently. The skills and expertise of your team should allow you to handle diverse tasks without creating dependencies on other teams. You can take ownership of the software you're delivering.

The benefit of organizing into cross-functional teams is a greater shared understanding of your project, where you can each see how the pieces fit together. This type of collaboration supports the efficient flow of work and ensures that knowledge and skills are consistently shared.

2. Take an Iterative Approach

Or to put it another way, make it easier to fail fast, so your team can learn why, and correct your course. By breaking down large projects into manageable increments, your team can focus on delivering small, functional parts of working software at regular intervals. This approach goes hand-in-hand with continual feedback from users, ensuring that issues are uncovered quickly and dealt with just as fast. This shared team focus on user feedback, and the shared purpose and collaboration that comes with it, is a key benefit of agile development.

3. Maintain Regular and Transparent Communication

Daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, and planning meetings are all designed to foster regular and clear communication. You and your team should see these meetings as an opportunity to share ideas, discuss progress and blockers, and collaborate. If your daily stand-up is nothing more than a shopping list of tasks, then you're doing it wrong.

If your daily stand-up is nothing more than a shopping list of tasks, then you're doing it wrong.

Someone who has wasted too much time in shopping-list meetings.

Beyond team meetings, clear communication is important anywhere the details of your work are shared. Agile tools like Easy Agile TeamRhythm provide a central platform for prioritizing work and tracking progress. With a central source of truth that everyone can access to understand goals, priorities, and team commitment, collaboration can be more effective, keeping the team aligned and focused.

4. Conduct Team Retrospectives

Hot take: regular retrospectives are the most important agile practice your team can adopt.

Team retrospectives provide a structured opportunity to reflect on your work and discuss how it can be done better next time. This is team-led improvement because you and your team are in the driver's seat. Encouraging honest and open discussions during retrospectives helps build trust among team members and fosters a collaborative mindset. By continuing to work on processes and behaviors, you and your team can improve your performance over time and make your working life better.

5. Use Collaboration Tools

The right tools can make a big difference in team collaboration. The best tools provide a reliable source of truth that the whole team can access, in a place where the whole team will access it. It's a simple concept; a shared understanding of the work is supported by shared and willing access to the same information.

Choose a tool that makes it easy for you and your team to access information and keep it updated. If you're already working in Jira, an integration like Easy Agile TeamRhythm provides a better view of your work in a story map format, with goals, objectives, and team commitment all made clear. Team retrospective boards are attached to each sprint (or spun up as required for Kanban teams) so you have your team-led ideas for improvement tightly connected to the work in Jira.

No matter which tool you choose, make sure it will facilitate better alignment, streamline your workflows, and provide a clear picture of roadblocks and progress. By using collaboration tools effectively, your team stays organized, focused, and connected, no matter where each member is located.

6. Build a Positive Team Culture

It may sound obvious, but a positive team culture is essential for effective collaboration. Creating an environment where team members feel valued, respected, and motivated, encourages the psychological safety they need to share their great ideas, learn from missteps, and collaborate more effectively with their colleagues.

High-performing teams recognize the achievements of others, share constructive feedback, and support practices that lead to a healthy work-life balance. Make it regular, and keep it authentic. A positive culture not only improves team dynamics but also boosts overall productivity and job satisfaction.

Successful Team Collaboration

Effective collaboration can be the difference between your team achieving their goals, or falling short. By embracing agile practices like the regular communication that comes from agile planning meetings, to the learnings that come from taking an interactive approach to development, and creating time for team-led improvement with retrospectives, you can seriously boost your team dynamics.

Easy Agile TeamRhythm Supports Team Collaboration

Easy Agile TeamRhythm is designed to make your agile practices more accessible and effective, helping your team plan, prioritize, and deliver work with better alignment and clarity.

Built around a story map for visualizing work and retrospective boards that encourage team-led improvement, TeamRhythm facilitates sprint and release planning, dependency management, backlog management, user story mapping, and retrospectives.

Tight integration with Jira makes Easy Agile TeamRhythm a reliable source of truth, no matter where you and your team members are located.

Watch a demo, learn about pricing, and try for yourself in our sandbox. Visit the Easy Agile TeamRhythm Features and Pricing page for more.

Easy Agile TeamRhythm

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What is agile PI planning?

PI Planning is a critical event for agile teams to set a clear direction for the upcoming Program Increment or Planning Interval (SAFe 6.0). It helps teams to identify potential risks, assess impact and effort, and benefit from coordination and alignment around priorities and milestones

PI Planning at its core promotes agility. By fostering closer alignment between stakeholders and development teams, it enables effective decision-making, promotes transparency, and encourages adaptive planning. This iterative approach empowers teams to continuously refine their strategies, ensuring successful outcomes and delivering value to stakeholders.

As a result it is necessarily a collaborative process - that ultimately optimizes the delivery of value by blending predictability and agility, while maximizing team efficiency and productivity. But we often overlook how to make the PI Planning event itself more agile.

While an important ceremony for any organization aiming to stay ahead of the competition in today's market - it can also be daunting. From figuring out the right approach to creating feedback loops that keep individuals focused and motivated, there are plenty of complexities when it comes to mastering agile PI Planning.

Additionally in today's distributed landscape, agile teams face unique challenges when it comes to effective collaboration and planning. The key to agile PI Planning agile requires a shift towards more flexible, collaborative and efficient processes and environments.

The key to agile PI Planning requires a shift towards more flexible, collaborative and efficient processes and environments.

This blog post will provide an overview on what challenges there are to agile PI Planning in Jira, and how you can overcome them using Jira together with Easy Agile programs.

Top 3 challenges of agile PI Planning in Jira

1. Collaborating across tools and timezones

Real-time collaboration is essential for agile PI planning, but it is challenging to implement in a remote or distributed environment. The pandemic accelerated the shift to a remote workforce, creating new challenges for PI planning.

Agile teams in Jira striving to effectively plan often face a version of these challenges. One of the most common obstacles teams face is the lack of a visual, intuitive platform that can accommodate the dynamic nature of agile planning. Teams end up using physical boards or switching tools, requiring manual work to implement back into Jira, which can disrupt the flow of work and lead to inefficiencies.

2. Misalignment and miscommunication

PI planning aims to break down silos and bring together multiple teams working on the same sprint. However, with so many teams involved in the planning process, it is common for teams to prioritize their specific goals or issues, leading to inefficient communication. The challenge lies in getting everyone to speak the same language, work to a shared understanding of priorities and ensuring they are all on the same page.

Another hurdle is accommodating cross-team dependencies. Agile teams often work closely with other teams across their organization, and their workstreams are often intertwined. Teams need a straightforward way to visualize these dependencies, to anticipate blockers and plan effectively. What’s more, the process of creating and managing dependencies across multiple teams can become complex and time-consuming.

3. Not being able to see the bigger picture

Lastly, long-term or bigger picture planning can be a struggle. It is easy for PI planning to become too focused on processes and lose sight of the bigger picture where we need to align our goals, objectives and capabilities. In short, it is crucial to align PI planning with the business and customer needs. The planning process should aim to deliver value to customers, build on existing success, and address new challenges. Achieving this requires collaboration, discipline, and creativity.

Teams need to be able to see the big picture and plan work in alignment with the business’ goals and strategy. to Without it, the disconnect can make it challenging for teams to align their day-to-day tasks with their long term goals. The lack of a dedicated space for capturing objectives and their business value can also lead to misalignment and missed opportunities.

So what is needed for agile PI Planning?

When looking for an add-on or additional solution to work with Jira to solve for agile PI Planning, it is key to find one that provides:

1. A shared view and understanding to maintain transparency and alignment for the ART, especially program-level visibility
2. Connection between business priorities and the work of delivery teams
3. Dependency management
4. Real-time collaboration
5. A tool that everyone can use and access to continue collaboration

Agile PI Planning with Jira and Easy Agile Programs

By using Jira and Easy Agile Programs for your PI planning, you can ensure that your agile workflows are streamlined, collaborative, and in line with your strategic objectives. Easy Agile Programs empowers teams to adapt quickly to changes, manage risks better, and deliver value more efficiently. What’s more, it is a native app embedded in Jira, meaning there is little to no configuration as the tool is set up using your underlying Jira data.

Read on to find out how it helps solve the challenges of agile PI Planning specifically.

1. A shared space to collaborate and iterate

The Program Board (ART Planning Board)

Remember, the key to agile planning is flexibility and collaboration, and the ability to adjust plans as necessary. At the same time, it is important to make the process as easy and intuitive as possible and to avoid wasting time on administrative tasks.

If your teams are in Jira, the first place to start is by creating an environment in Jira so there’s less manual overhead and cognitive load for everybody to be able to participate and for planning to translate into delivering. Easy Agile Programs digitises the SAFe Program Board (ART Planning Board for SAFe 6.0) which provides transparency to all members of the ART.

It is built using native Jira issuse and boards, and acts as a single source of truth during and beyond planning. It’s here we have a holistic view of the work we’ve committed to as an ART and an indication of whether we’re on track to achieve it, with the flexibility of making adjustments without leaving the tool should we need to.

The digitised Program Board in Easy Agile Programs is highly visual and also filterable, allowing you to focus in on specific teams, status of issues, or features/epics for focussed ART, PO and coach syncs during the Program Increment/Planning Interview.

The Team Planning Board

Unlike other tools, teams have a dedicated Team Planning Board for team breakout sessions. Here teams can break down features into stories and schedule them within sprints, estimate capacity and plan work collaboratively within and across teams. Given that teams have access to their own backlog and are scheduling work onto their own board in Jira, there is no downtime or double handling.

2. Anticipating and visualizing dependencies

Visualizing and managing program risks and dependencies is not only crucial for effective Planning - but it is also a clear indicator of how well we stay aligned as teams within the ART. Easy Agile Programs is a powerful way to visualize dependencies, enabling teams not only to create, identify, and understand the health of dependencies, but also to resolve dependencies across multiple teams. This fosters collaboration, breaks down siloes and mitigates potential roadblocks to progressing the work.

On the Team Planning Board

When teams are at the stage of breaking down features into stories or epics, they can easily create and understand dependencies within and across teams.This means that work is never created without understanding how it aligns or conflicts with other teams in the ART to maintain alignment. Creating dependencies is easily done through drag and drop:

On the Program Board

Identifying dependencies and potential risks to scheduling work is a critical part of PI Planning. Aside from visible dependency lines, Easy Agile Programs also visualises the health of those dependencies. Green means the dependency is healthy, orange means it is at risk, and red indicates a conflict. Black dependency lines indicate dependencies external the PI or Program - critical for the Release Train Engineers to address between ARTs.

This is all visible on the Program Board where we can also filter by dependencies:

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3. Bigger picture planning and alignment

Third level hierarchy

Connecting the work of the teams to what the business cares about is instrumental in the delivery of value. Easy Agile Programs provides the connective tissue between higher level business priorities and initiatives with third level hierarchy, making it easy to understand what is scheduled to deliver against business priorities and how it is progressing.

PI Objectives

From the Team Planning Board  can easily create draft PI Objectives and link them to Jira issues, ensuring alignment and transparency with business value. This is a critical part of linking what the team is working on to broader business objectives, and Easy Agile Programs literally links the issues to these objectives so that we can filter the work by objective.

Agile planning is iterative, and plans often require adjustments.

Can I still use Easy Agile Programs for planning if I'm not practising SAFe?

Absolutely. Easy Agile Programs is not just for teams practising the SAFe methodology.

The tool is flexible and adaptable, making it equally beneficial for any agile team that values interactive, visual planning. Regardless of the specific framework you use, Easy Agile Programs facilitates clear communication, makes it easier to manage dependencies, provides a shared view of team capacities and progress, and aligns teams with overarching business objectives.

This way, whether you're practicing Scrum, Kanban, or your own unique blend of agile methodologies, you can still leverage the power of Easy Agile Programs to foster a more collaborative and efficient planning process.

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Many organizations, especially those in highly regulated industries, struggle to manage large-scale projects. SAFe, or the Scaled Agile Framework, can provide a solution. (OR That's where SAFe, or the Scaled Agile Framework, comes into play.)

SAFe is a framework designed to help businesses make sustainable changes on a large scale. It offers training and guidance for implementing agile practices across the enterprise, whether it's at a small team level, department level, or throughout the entire organization.

In this blog post, we will delve deeper into the benefits of implementing SAFe, focusing specifically on how it can be utilized within the financial services industry to create a lean enterprise.

Benefits of SAFe for financial services

SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) is an incredibly valuable approach for organizations looking to enhance their operations. By adopting SAFe, financial services firms can achieve numerous benefits that are specific to their industry.

1. Business Agility: SAFe enables financial services firms to become more adaptable and responsive to market dynamics. By adopting SAFe practices at an enterprise level, organizations can foster a culture of continuous improvement, allowing them to quickly adapt to changing customer demands, regulatory requirements, and emerging technologies.
2. Enhanced Customer Experience: In today's competitive financial services landscape, providing exceptional customer experiences is paramount. SAFe promotes customer-centricity by encouraging regular feedback loops with customers throughout the development process. This allows financial institutions to gather insights, identify pain points, and rapidly iterate on their products and services, ensuring they meet the evolving needs and expectations of their customers.
3. Accelerated Time-to-Market: Time is of the essence in the financial industry. SAFe empowers organizations to speed up their time-to-market by breaking down silos and fostering collaboration between departments. By leveraging agile practices, financial services firms can respond quickly to market opportunities, launch innovative solutions faster ensuring they are first to seize market opportunities
4. Risk Mitigation: Compliance and risk management are critical considerations for financial services organizations. SAFe provides a structured governance framework that incorporates compliance requirements into the development process. This ensures that products and services adhere to regulatory standards.
5. Improved Operational Efficiency: Financial services firms deal with significant complexity, from managing intricate financial systems to addressing regulatory demands. SAFe helps optimize operational efficiency by promoting transparency, communication, and continuous improvement. By implementing Lean principles and agile practices, organizations can eliminate waste, optimize processes, and enhance overall operational performance.
6. Employee Engagement and Empowerment: SAFe emphasizes the empowerment of teams, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning. This approach leads to increased employee engagement, as team members feel more involved in decision-making processes and have a sense of ownership over their work. The result is a motivated and empowered workforce that drives organizational success.

Visualizing Dependencies for Seamless Collaboration and Timely Delivery

In the intricate world of SAFe, covering every aspect can be overwhelming. For the purpose of this blog, let's focus on a specific use case.

The financial services industry often deals with complex projects involving multiple teams and stakeholders. In such scenarios, visualizing and understanding dependencies among teams becomes critical. This is where the SAFe program board comes in. It acts as a centralized space for teams to effectively visualize, manage dependencies, and progress transparently.

Consider the example of Easy Agile Bank, preparing to launch its self-service banking platform. Various teams, including software, marketing, and customer success, collaborate to make this launch successful. To ensure a seamless rollout, understanding team dependencies and efficient work scheduling are paramount. The goal is to prevent bottlenecks that could delay the launch of the new self-service banking app.

Let’s take a closer look at what this might look like. Below you can see the Team Planning board in Easy Agile Programs for the Software team. The red, yellow, green and black lines indicate dependencies. Some dependencies exist within the software team, while others are cross-team dependencies with the marketing team.

The color of the dependency lines reflects their health status. A red dependency represents a conflict, yellow indicates at risk, green signifies a healthy state and black indicates external dependencies outside the current view, such as work in the backlog or in an other Program Increments. To avoid bottlenecks, you need to address the red dependencies and the yellow where possible.

With Easy Agile Programs, visualizing dependencies becomes effortless. Teams can act swiftly and adjust plans accordingly to prevent delays in the app launch. For instance, the software team identifies a red dependency with the marketing team regarding the live chat system. While the software team plans to set it up in Sprint 2, the marketing team don’t plan on mapping out the live chat experience and messaging until Sprint 3. The dependency line serves as a visual indicator, prompting teams to discuss and reschedule work.

After a brief discussion, the software team decides to reschedule the live chat setup to Sprint 4. As a result, the dependency line turns green, indicating a smooth progress and successful avoidance of a potential bottleneck.

“When I would ask colleagues how long it would take to untangle and understand dependencies, they would suggest a week. With Easy Agile Programs, it took us three minutes”.

Stefan Höhn, NFON

Harness the Power of the SAFe Program Board

Overall, the program board can help teams prioritize their work and make informed decisions about resource allocation. By visualizing dependencies, teams can identify critical path items and focus their efforts on the most important tasks that need to be completed first. This ensures that teams are working in a coordinated, transparent manner and reduces the risk of unnecessary delays or conflicts.

The SAFe program board acts as a valuable tool for teams to effectively manage dependencies, promote collaboration, and achieve alignment in large-scale agile projects.

Easy Agile Programs allows teams to identify and create dependencies effortlessly, empowering teams to navigate the complex financial services landscape with ease.

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When I first began working as a Scrum Master, I quickly became focused on the world of metrics. I believed that for my teams to succeed, they needed to have a continuously improving velocity, a stable cumulative flow diagram, or a perfect burn-down chart.

Sound familiar?

The problem with these metrics is that they are efficiency, not value focused.

It doesn't matter if a team builds one hundred new features rapidly if none of those actually deliver value to the customer. Efficiency metrics also have a habit of being misused and misunderstood, and this can breed malcontent.

Rather than focusing heavily on the data in retrospectives, I aim to focus on the people. The Agile Manifesto after all is about enabling people and their interactions.

Each of us are beating hearts behind our devices

Making time for human interaction...has resulted in far better outcomes than any beautifully constructed burndown chart.

Through embracing a human-first approach, a team I once worked with learned that they as a group were avid gamers. They'd been working together for years but hadn't known. This team was under a lot of pressure to deliver to difficult timescales and retros had fallen by the wayside.

This was the first thing I focused on; getting them believing in retrospectives again. Taking a human-centred approach, I melted the ice with some unfettered time to talk about non-work stuff “What was your favourite childhood video game”.

Just a few minutes of idle chatter about Sonic, Legend of Zelda, and Mario kicked off a chain of events that started with a few of them arranging to game together that evening, and before long, we had weekly video game-themed zoom backgrounds and retrospectives always had a gaming twist. Think Dungeons & Dragons, Tetris, Pokémon & Among Us.

Another great sign that a team is on the right track is how much they laugh together. This team was noticeably happier as a consequence, the change was drastic, almost tangible.

We aren't just avatars on our screens, each of us are beating hearts behind our devices, with passions, likes, dislikes, and aspirations. Making time for human interaction and building retrospectives that focus on our human side, has resulted in far better outcomes than any beautifully constructed burndown chart.

Why embrace a People-Centred approach?

Let’s delve a little into why you should focus on the human side. What’s in it for you?

• Increased Team Engagement and Participation: When retros are people-centered, team members will feel more connected to their colleagues, they’ll feel more comfortable actively participating, and have an increased sense of ownership of the team's successes and challenges.
• Improved psychological safety: With a people-centric approach, you can more easily create a safe and inclusive environment for team members to share their thoughts and experiences openly, without fear of judgement. This can foster a sense of belonging and increase the overall morale of the team.
• More enjoyment: We spend 8 of our waking hours working and half or more of our adult lives working. We owe it to ourselves to have a bit of fun in the process. A people-centric approach can result in people looking forwards to the next retro. More enjoyment, more engagement, and better outcomes. Simple.
• Better profitability: Oh, and it’s also better for the bottom line. A study by Gallup found a clear link between engagement and profitability in companies. Why are highly engaged teams more profitable? Teams that rank in the top 20% for engagement experience a 41% decrease in absenteeism and a 59% decrease in turnover. Engaged employees come to work with enthusiasm, focus, and energy.

The perfect conditions for continuous improvement.

Looking to get started with a few people-focused retrospectives?

Try a few of these free templates;

Psychological Safety Retro

The Aristotle project led by Google, found that the presence of psychological safety was the biggest factor in high performance for teams. Use this format to build the foundations of psychological safety with your teams, baseline the current levels and develop actions to improve.

Healthy Minds Retro

You wouldn’t let your car go without a service, and I bet your phone battery rarely goes below 10%. Why don’t we place the same focus on looking after our own needs, individually or collectively? Use this retro to narrow in on improvements that improve your team's health.

Spotify Health Check Retro

Famed for the agile framework that was never intended as a framework, some coaches at Spotify also released a team health check format which is great for measuring and visualising progress as a team. The simplicity of this format and its ability to highlight areas of focus as well as progress over time is particularly powerful. The best bit? It’s the team's perspective, not any external maturity model or arbitrary metric.

Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose Retro

Based upon the book ‘Drive’ by Dan Pink which highlighted the surprising things that motivate us, this retro helps teams to investigate the areas of their work which amplify or dampen our sense of autonomy, mastery & purpose. This book was a game changer for me and this retro could change the game for your teams.

5 Dysfunctions of a Team Retro

Another format based upon a highly acclaimed book, this retro builds upon the works of Patrick Lencioni and his 5 dysfunctions of a team. Using this retro, you can highlight the dysfunctional behaviours in your team and collectively solve those challenges together. One team, our problems, our solutions.

Let’s leave you with some things to think about

The key to unlocking the true potential of your teams lies in embracing a people-centered approach to retrospectives. By focusing on the human side of our teams, we can foster stronger connections, create a safe and inclusive environment, and ultimately drive better outcomes for both the team and the organization.

Remember, the Agile Manifesto is about enabling people and their interactions, and by placing people at the heart of our retrospectives, we can build stronger, happier, and more productive teams.

Forget about chasing the perfect metrics, and instead focus on building meaningful connections and fostering a culture of continuous improvement that is rooted in the human experience.

Retrospectives integrated with your work in Jira

Hoping to improve how your team is working together? Easy Agile TeamRhythm helps you turn insights into action, to improve how you’re working and make your next release better than the last.

TRY TEAMRHYTHM FREE FOR 30 DAYS

About Chris

For ten years now, Chris Stone has been fostering an environment of success for high-performing teams and organizations through the use of agility. He has worked across a wide range of industries and with some of the largest organizations in the world, as well as with smaller, lean enterprises.

​As The Virtual Agile coach, Chris intends to enable frictionless innovation, regardless of location, and is a firm believer in enabling agility whilst working virtually. Find him online at Virtually Agile >>

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The seventh principle of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development is:

Working software is the primary measure of progress.

Not story points, not velocity, not estimates: working software.

Jason Godesky
Better Programming

Estimation is a common challenge for agile software development teams. The anticipated size and complexity of a task is anything but objective; what is simple for one person may not be for another. Story points have become the go-to measure to estimate the effort involved in completing a task, and are often used to gauge performance. But is there real value in that, and what are the risks of relying too heavily on velocity as a guide?

Agile estimation

As humans, we are generally terrible at accurately measuring big things in units like time, distance, or in this case, complexity. However, we are great at making relative comparisons - we can tell if something is bigger, smaller, or the same size as something else. This is where story points come in. Story points are a way to estimate relative effort for a task. They are not objective and can fluctuate depending on the team's experience and shared reference points. However, the longer a team works together, the more effective they become at relative sizing.

The teams that I coach have all experienced challenges with user story estimation. The historical data tells us that once a story exceeds 5 story-points, the variability in delivery expands. Typically, the more the estimate exceeds 5 points, the more the delivery varies from the estimate.

Robin D Bailey, Agile Coach, GoSourcing

Scale of reference

While story points are useful as an abstraction for planning and estimating, they should not be over-analyzed. In a newly formed team, story points are likely to fluctuate significantly, but there can be more confidence in the reliability of estimations in a long-running team who have completed many releases together. Two different teams, however, will have different scales of reference.

At a company level, the main value I used to seek with story points was to understand any systemic problems. For example, back when Atlassian released to Server quarterly, the sprints before a release would blow out and fail to meet the usual level of story point completion. The root cause turned out to be a massive spike in critical bugs uncovered by quality blitz testing. By performing better testing earlier and more regularly we spread the load and also helped to de-risk the releases. It sounds simple looking back but it was new knowledge for our teams at the time that needed to be uncovered.

Mat Lawrence, COO, Easy Agile

Even with well-established teams, velocity can be affected by factors like heightened complexity with dependencies scheduled together, or even just the average number of story points per ticket. If a team has scheduled a lot of low-complexity tickets, their process might not handle the throughput required. Alternatively having fewer high-complexity tickets could drastically increase the effort required by other team members to review the work. Either situation could affect velocity, but both represent bottlenecks.

Any measured change in velocity could be due to a number of other factors, like capacity shifting through changes in headcount with team members being absent due to illness or planned leave. The reality is that the environment is rarely sterile and controlled.

Relative velocity

Many organizations may feel tempted to report on story points, and velocity reports are readily available in Jira. Still, they should be viewed with caution if they’re being used in a ‘team of teams’ context such as across an Agile Release Train. The different scales of reference across teams can make story points meaningless; what one team considers to be a 8-point task may be a 3-point task for another.

To many managers, the existence of an estimate implies the existence of an “actual”, and means that you should compare estimates to actuals, and make sure that estimates and actuals match up. When they don’t, that means people should learn to estimate better.
…
So if the existence of an estimate causes management to take their eye off the ball of value and instead focus on improving estimates, it takes attention from the central purpose, which is to deliver real value quickly.

Ron Jefferies
Co-Author of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development
Story Points Revisited

Seeking value

However, story points are still a valuable tool when used appropriately. Reporting story points to the team using them and providing insights into their unique trends could help them gain more self-awareness and avoid common pitfalls. Teams who are seeking to improve how they’re working may wish to monitor their velocity over time as they implement new strategies.

Certainly, teams working together over an extended period will come to a shared understanding of what a 3 story point task feels like to them. And there is value in the discussion and exploration that is needed to get to that point of shared understanding. The case for 8 story points as opposed to 3 may reveal a complexity that had not been considered, or it may reveal a new perspective that helps the work be broken down more effectively. It could also question whether the work is worth pursuing at all, and highlight that a new approach is needed.

The value of story points for me (as a Developer and a Founder) is the conversations where the issue is discussed by people with diverse perspectives. Velocity is only relatively accurate in long-run teams with high retention.

Dave Elkan, Co-CEO, Easy Agile

At a company level, story points can be used to understand systemic problems by monitoring trends over time. While this reporting might not provide an objective measure, it can provide insights into progress across an Agile Release Train. However, using story point completion as a measure of individual or team performance should be viewed with considerable caution.

Story points are a useful estimation tool for comparing relative effort, but they depend on shared points of reference, and different teams will have different scales. Even established teams may notice velocity changes over time. For this reason, and while velocity reporting can provide insights into the team's progress, it must be remembered that story points were designed for an estimation of effort, rather than a measure. And at the end of the day, we’re in the business of producing great software, not great estimates.

Looking to focus your team on improvement? Easy Agile TeamRhythm helps you turn insights into action with team retrospectives linked to your agile board in Jira, to improve your ways of working and make your next release better than the last. Turn an action item into a Jira issue in just a few clicks, then schedule the work on the user story map to ensure your ideas aren’t lost at the end of the retrospective.

Many thanks to Satvik Sharma, John Folder, Mat Lawrence, Dave Elkan, Henri Seymour, and Robin D Bailey for contributing their expertise and experience to this article.

Do you know your customers? As in, really know them?

🥞 What do they eat for breakfast?

😎 Who’s their favourite James Bond villain?

🛁 Do they shower in the morning or at night?

Okay, so you don’t have to get that creepy…

But you do need to know a lot about the customers you’re developing products for. Otherwise, the features you’re working on might not be useful or valuable.

This is pretty important stuff, so let’s take a look at 7 reasons why it’s good to have a healthy level of customer obsession in your agile teams...

1. Agile and customer focus go hand-in-hand

Agile is all about the customer. At least, it should be.

It’s right there in the first two agile principles:

(1) Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

(2) Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.

You can’t really call yourselves agile unless you put your customers at the centre of what you’re doing.

2. Each sprint should deliver a better product for your customers

One reason why agile should (🤞 in theory - we’ll expand on this shortly) benefit your customers is that every two to four weeks, your users will usually get new features and upgraded products.

This is kind of a big deal when you compare it to traditional project management approaches.

Pre-agile, customers could be waiting many months or even years before they would see any changes. In many cases, by the time updates were released, customers, technologies, and requirements had moved on.

But when you’re agile, it means that:

• Your customers can request updates, features, and changes at any time
• Users should potentially see new features added to a roadmap and rolled out in weeks or months, not years.
• If something’s not working, your customers can report the issue and provide feedback right away
• Users can see how the product is developing and growing
• Your product is moving forward and the customer is moving forward with it
• The product becomes more valuable to your customers over time

… but it’s important to note that all of these really awesome benefits only really apply if you’re prioritising your backlog and choosing features with your customers’ best interests at heart 💞

3. Agile teams need to know what’s valuable to their customers

As we’ve talked about previously, “there is a chasm between the output of a team and successful outcomes for their customers. And the success of a team is measured by outcomes, not code.”

Fact is, your customers have different priorities to your developers.

Your developers likely want to work on projects that they find exciting or fulfilling. But the best agile teams know they need to prioritise the features that matter to their customers. Because if you’re not solving their most important problems, your customers will find someone else who will solve them 😨

4. Customer focus leads to better quality products

When you’re obsessed with your customers, you deliver products that actually matter.

One study found that “quality is influenced by top management’s commitment through customer focus”.

And this makes sense - if your team stays focused on your customers, there’s a much better chance that they’ll build the right things at the right time for the right people. And this is critical to the success of your product and organisation.

It’s also a great way to avoid building bloated products with unnecessary features.

5. Do better planning and prioritising

Your backlog shouldn’t simply be a to-do list. It needs to include feedback from your customers and attempt to tackle their greatest pain points.

Program Increment (PI) Planning in scaled agile relies on a healthy customer obsession to inform your product requirements.

During PI Planning, you’ll discuss the backlog with other teams in your Agile Release Train (ART), prioritise your features, and schedule work for the upcoming iterations.

Without a solid understanding of your customers to inform your backlog, you could end up planning an entire increment that doesn’t deliver anything useful or move the product forward for users. And that’s a pretty costly risk, if you ask us.

6. Do everything better with customer feedback

Teams who are obsessed with customers love getting customer feedback, whether it’s via customer interviews, surveys or just having a chat about their experience 🤓

Customer feedback is incredibly powerful because it can help you:

• Understand your customers - Know what their biggest problems are and what they care about most
• Motivate your agile team - Help your team understand the problems they’re solving, the difference they’re making, and that their work is meaningful
• Spot trends and patterns - Ensure your product adapts to what’s in demand right now and what your customers will need in the future
• Make better products - Find out what’s not working so you can fix it
• Track your progress - See whether customers are happier with your product over time
• Stay relevant - Because products and companies that solve problems stick around long-term
• Get buy in - When your customers are involved in the process, they’ll feel more committed to the product, which can reduce churn
• Improve retention - Reduce churn and keep your customers for longer when you incorporate their feedback and ideas into your product
• Make data-informed decisions - Stop relying on your assumptions and let the data drive your strategy

So customer feedback is obviously awesome, but what do you actually DO with it? How do you share it with the team and turn it into actions? Well, that’s where user story mapping comes in.

7. Agile user story mapping is all about the customer

Most agile teams run user story mapping sessions to discuss what functions and features are needed in the product. User stories are a visual tool for customer focused development, ensuring your customer journey stays front and center throughout development.

This is where customer feedback comes into play. When your team can access a wealth of feedback from users, they can write user stories informed by real data. This gives them a much better chance of prioritizing features that will add value to users right away. And it means they’ll always know what features to work on next.

Plus, it makes it much simpler for your team to reach a consensus, compared to your team of developers butting heads about which features they think should be prioritised 😬💥

By the way, one of the best ways to help your team be more user-focused is to help them streamline the way they do user story mapping 👇

So, if the paper and sticky notes approach isn’t working for you, try a digital user story mapping tool like Easy Agile TeamRhythm.

Simply enter your stories, click and drag to move them around, organise horizontally and vertically, and arrange stories into sprint and version swimlanes. Plus, the Jira integration means that any changes are automatically saved in Jira so that your team can get straight to work.

Sign up for a free 30-day trial of Easy Agile TeamRhythm and let us know what you think!

Being more customer-focused is a solid strategy.

If your team isn’t exactly obsessed with your customers, maybe it’s time to change that?

Because at the end of the day, if you’re focusing on your customers, you’ll make more of the right decisions about what products, features, and requirements you need to work on. Which means your team will find it easier to make decisions, you’ll waste less time, your users will stay loyal, and you’ll build a better product that gets better all the time.

It’s a solid strategy. Everybody wins! 🎉

What is a Scrum Master? The Scrum Master guides the daily Scrum in projects or software development to streamline processes as much as possible. This person applies agile methodologies to guide successful project outcomes.

If you want to become a Scrum Master, learn what defines this role. Explore its duties and how the servant leadership style supports carrying out the various responsibilities it involves.

Find out how the Scrum Master's role benefits product or project development. Finally, discover what qualifications you need to become a Scrum Master and what job types you can apply to complete your studies.

What is a Scrum Master’s role?

A Scrum Master's role is dynamic. They must be flexible and adapt to various circumstances, because the Scrum Master serves a vital role in managing projects.

Every product development project needs a different approach. The Scrum Master must adapt their approach to each position and even play the role of an agile coach at times.

Whatever role the Scrum Master takes on, they play a servant leader role (we’ll review what this is later). So, their responsibilities vary when guiding the team's progress.

Some ways that the Scrum Master works with team members and product owners include:

• Sprint planning with team members and product owners to check that everyone understands what needs to be done
• Solving issues such as work estimation, scope creep and over-committing to work volumes
• Holding daily standup meetings to discuss product issues, backlogs, and any other team member concerns
• Acting as a facilitator to limit blockers that hold the team back from completing iterations on time. The Scrum Master also handles any roadblocks by improving workflows
• Having sprint reviews that ensure team collaboration and helpful feedback
• Holding retrospectives to see how team members can improve
• Monitoring the Scrum board to ensure that all cards are current and that Jira and other software works properly
• Hosting individual meetings to get to know and help team members one-on-one
• Handling portfolio planning tools such as analyzing burndown charts. They use burndown charts and other tools as inputs into what the team needs to build and the cadence levels for their work.
• Making sure that the team members use agile guidelines in their projects. These guidelines help team members meet stakeholder needs.

At the end of the day, the Scrum Master champions the Scrum process for successful project outcomes.

Servant leadership

Part of answering the question, “What is a Scrum Master”? involves looking at leadership styles. These styles include bureaucratic, democratic, transactional, and many others. One style that fits well with the role of the Scrum Master is to be a servant leader, an approach that works well with small teams.

Servant leaders:

• Support a team spirit
• Share responsibility
• Share decision-making
• Focus on achievements instead of faults

Servant leaders find solutions which promote workflows and stakeholder satisfaction.

Scrum Master according to Scrum methodology

The Scrum Guide, written by Ken Schwaber, provides an excellent outline of the diverse responsibilities of the Scrum Master. Here are some of this person’s roles:

• Adopting the role of an agile coach to lead organizational transformation using the Scrum methodology
• Planning Scrum applications to help the organization understand how the new iterative workflow process works and adapt to changes
• Guiding leaders, managers, and other stakeholders in understanding the benefits and applications of the Scrum product development methodology
• Helping increase the Scrum team's productivity
• Collaborating with other organizational Scrum Masters within the organization to help team members adopt agile principles
• Promoting positive working relationships between team members, product owners, and other stakeholders
• Guiding sprint planning, daily stand-up meetings, sprint reviews, and product backlog items

Scrum Master challenges

While the Scrum Master supports a streamlined workflow, their job is not always as simple as it sounds. Here are some challenges they may encounter:

1. Change resistance

Scrum Masters’ concepts may be new to employees, so Scrum Masters can encounter resistance. Either way, the Scrum Master must create solutions to dealing with any resistance to change.

2. Lack of understanding

Not everyone will understand or even like agile processes. A good Scrum Master must overcome this and to help teams connect principles with practical implementation to assimilate agile practices.

3. Gaining leadership support

Scrum Masters can only do their work effectively if they have the full support of leadership. Scrum processes can be pretty challenging, which initially disrupts old processes, making transformation difficult.

Managers may be afraid that the Scrum Master will usurp their authority. Departments may not want to adapt their processes, but the Scrum Master must use agile coach techniques to overcome fears and unwillingness to adapt.

Unless the Scrum Master has the full buy-in of leadership, any change initiative will derail before it even starts.

How Scrum Master positions can work

Role rotation. Agile teams rotate the responsibility of this role between members. For example, each team member does admin tasks for each Scrum meeting.

Part-time role. The Scrum Master takes on additional responsibilities.

Full-time role. The Scrum Master takes on a dedicated, full-time role. They must have the experience to do this work and skillfully show the team how to apply agile practices.

Guiding many teams. A Scrum Master guides several development teams. They monitor the work progress for several teams.

Agile coach. This Scrum Master role involves coaching teams or other Scrum Masters.

If the Scrum Master role interests you, you should know that Scrum Master jobs are common, partly due to the popularity of the agile method.

Organizations often look for ways to improve product development. They want Scrum Masters to help guide the process to get products to the market quicker.

You can look on LinkedIn for positions for good Scrum Masters. Their research shows that these positions are in high demand, so you can improve your skills with Scrum Master certifications. Your prospects are diverse as you can work in manufacturing, health, government, education, and many others.

Scrum Masters can get a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) qualification. They can also be a Professional Scrum Master.

How to become a certified Scrum Master

Scrum.org offers various resources, including Scrum certifications and training. So, if you want to follow a career in agile methodologies and lead a Scrum team, you can become a CSM or a PSM. You can also opt to train through the Scrum Alliance, which has been operating since 2001.

Hundreds of thousands of Scrum Masters have attained qualifications through these organizations. Both provide recognizable certifications at various Scrum Master levels, so perhaps it's time to boost your career.

You can achieve a Professional Scrum Master (PSM) certificate from scrum.org. This is available at three different levels, including:

• The PSM I certificate. This certificate shows that students understand Scrum and its applications as per the Scrum Guide.
• The PSM II certificate is proof that you can apply the Scrum principles and practices in a complex real-work situation.
• PSM III certificate. This certificate shows that students have an in-depth understanding of Scrum Values and can apply Scrum principles and practices in complex environments and situations.

Anyone who wants to improve their career opportunities can sign up with Scrum Alliance to get their CSM certification. You can become a:

• Certified ScrumMaster (SCM). This certificate focuses on servant leaders and how to help the Scrum team work together to enact the Scrum framework.
• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO). This certificate is for anyone involved in the business aspect of projects. If you want to know more about product development, productivity, and meeting stakeholder needs, this one is ideal.
• Certified Scrum Developer (CSD). This certificate is good when you want to know how to apply techniques and tools to build great software products. You will learn how to apply iterative Scrum methods in this certification process.
• The Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) learns how to improve Agile methodology implementation in each project they guide.

Take your career up a notch.

Easy Agile provides a range of resources to help Scrum Masters achieve their agile methodology goals. In addition, you can access resources such as our learning hub and webinars to improve your skills.

Scrum Masters can also explore Easy Agile Programs for Jira to enhance the software development team’s experience. Another excellent resource is Easy Agile Scrum Workflow for Jira.

Enhance your Scrum Master role with resources that make your work easier by overcoming resistance to new learning curves.

The sprint planning meeting helps agile teams plan and get on the same page about each sprint. It’s an opportunity to decide on prioritization based on the product vision, issue urgency, stakeholder feedback, and knowledge from the previous sprint.

The goal of the meeting is to determine which backlog items should be tackled during the upcoming sprint. The team, guided by the product owner and Scrum Master, decide which items from the product backlog should be moved to the sprint backlog for hopeful completion over the coming weeks (sprint duration).

Sprint planning plays a critical role in the Scrum process. The meeting ensures teams enter a sprint prepared, with work items chosen carefully. The end result should be a shared understanding of sprint goals that will guide the next sprint.

While sprint planning should occur before any type of sprint, for the purposes of this article, we will focus on sprint planning sessions for Scrum teams. Continue reading to learn our top tips for a successful sprint planning meeting. 🎉

How does the sprint planning meeting fit into the Scrum framework?

Scrum is a hugely popular agile methodology used in product development. The process involves a series of sprints that are improved upon and adjusted based on continual feedback from customers, stakeholders, and team members.

The sprint planning meeting sees the entire team comes together to decide what work they hope to complete over the upcoming sprint. The product owner helps decide which priority product backlog items move to the sprint backlog. This is an incredibly important phase that guides the team’s goals over the next two weeks.

The Scrum Master acts as a Scrum guide. They help the development team stay on track in each sprint, ensuring everyone gets the most out of the process. The Scrum team works together to complete the amount of work decided on during sprint planning. To ensure everyone remains on track and on the same page, daily stand-ups are held each day. This provides an opportunity for team members to address any issues or potential bottlenecks that could keep work from running smoothly.

Following the sprint, a sprint review takes place, which gives stakeholders an opportunity to provide feedback. Finally, a sprint retrospective meeting gives the team an opportunity to assess and improve upon their process. The Scrum concludes and begins again with another sprint planning meeting.

Here are some tips to make sure each sprint planning meeting sets you up for success:

1. Reserve the same time for sprint planning ⏰

Book your sprint planning meeting on the same day and at the same time every two weeks to ensure your entire team keeps that time slot available. Sprint planning is vital to the success of each sprint — it’s a meeting that shouldn’t be shuffled around.

Pick a time that works for everyone involved, asking for feedback from your team about when is best. Schedule the meetings well in advance in everyone's calendar so that no one forgets about it or books other engagements.

2. Set a sprint planning meeting duration and stick to it ⏳

Sprint planning is important, but that doesn’t mean it should take forever. Set a time limit for your meeting, and do your best to stick to it. If you are well prepared with an agenda and refined backlog, you should be able to get straight to planning.

We recommend scheduling no more than 2-4 hours for sprint planning. Let the Scrum Master be in charge of ensuring the team stays on track and completes planning in the allotted time.

3. Complete backlog refinement before sprint planning begins 📝

Complete your backlog refinement ahead of your sprint planning meeting. Otherwise, you will spend far too much time adding details, estimating, or splitting work.

The sprint planning meeting should be reserved for planning and goal setting. While the backlog shouldn’t be set in stone, it should provide team members with enough details to move forward with planning instead of refinement.

4. Incorporate stakeholder feedback from the sprint review 😍

What insights did stakeholders share throughout the sprint or during the sprint review? You are designing this product for them, so incorporating their feedback is crucial to the end result.

Make sure every decision is based on customer needs. After each sprint, share your product goals and sprint goals with your stakeholders and adjust per their feedback.

5. Incorporate sprint retrospective insights 💡

Sprint retrospectives are a critical part of the agile process, providing a time for the team to discuss how they can improve. There are lessons to be learned every time you complete a sprint or iteration. Agile continually takes what a team learns and turns those experiences into actionable improvements. So, ignoring these lessons would be very un-agile of you. 🤔

How did the last sprint go? Was each team member satisfied with the process, and what was accomplished? What changes did your team decide would make the next sprint more effective? Use these insights to make each sprint better than the last one.

6. Clearly define what success looks like ✅

Set clearly defined goals, objectives, and metrics. What is the definition of done? How will the team know if they are successful? You should leave the sprint planning meeting with a clear idea of what needs to get done and what success looks like.

7. Use estimates to make decisions based on team capacity 📈

Overloading your team or any individual beyond their capacity does far more harm than good. The team will be more likely to make mistakes, and morale will diminish as goals remain consistently out of reach.

Use agile estimation techniques and story points to better understand workload and capacity. How much work and effort is needed to accomplish your goals? Ensure you set realistic and reasonable goals based on your best estimations.

8. Align sprint goals with overall product goals 🎉

Ensure you have a goal for the sprint and that all backlog items relate to the end goal. Your sprint goals should work alongside your overall product goals.

Failing to prioritize your objectives can result in a random selection of to-dos. Completing disconnected backlog items will still get work done, but it will result in unexpected outcomes and a low sense of accomplishment for the team. Each backlog item should be chosen with a clear purpose that relates to your product and sprint goals.

9. Leave room for flexibility 💫

Any agile methodology is flexible by nature, and Scrum is no exception. If there isn’t room for flexibility, something has gone seriously wrong.

It's important to acknowledge that not everything will always go to plan. You will continually find new information, stakeholder insights, and dependencies that the team will need to adjust to along the way. Ensure the team understands they need to be flexible and that they are supported throughout each sprint.

Sprint planning made easy

The effectiveness of sprint planning can make or break the coming week for a Scrum team. It’s important for the development team to take the necessary time to prepare for each upcoming sprint. This means going into the meeting with clear goals, objectives, stakeholder feedback, and a refined backlog.

Make the most of your sprint planning and do it with ease using Easy Agile TeamRhythm. Transform your flat product maps into dynamic, flexible, and visual representations of the customer journey. Story points will help your team make decisions and account for capacity while keeping the customer top-of-mind.

Learn more about the benefits of user story mapping and read our ultimate guide to user story maps.

Do your teams have a clear understanding of what needs to be done – and why?

One of the keys to being agile is to focus on the work that matters. This means working on projects that add value to the business and contribute to performance. But for many organizations, teams can get caught up on the latest feature or development, without understanding how that relates to the bigger picture of what the business cares about.

To keep your team focused on what they have set out to achieve in order to deliver value and achieve business outcomes, setting smart PI Objectives is essential. We look at why they’re so important, what makes a good PI objective, and how you can use them in your organization.

At a glance:

• PI objectives help teams understand how what they’re doing matters to the business.
• Good PI objectives are SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timebound.
• Linking features to PI objectives within the same tool makes it easier for teams and stakeholders to see how work is achieving business objectives.

What are PI objectives?

When an agile team gets together for a PI planning session, there are two key outputs:

1. The Program Board (ART Planning Board in SAFe 6.0) covers big picture information such as features, dependencies between teams, and milestones. A feature is an agreed upon piece of work identified as being important to meeting business needs. For software development teams, this might be a new product feature. For marketing teams, it might be a website refresh or an advertising campaign.
2. PI objectives link the scheduled features to broader business objectives and value. This helps align work that needs to be done with broader business goals. They are then broken down into committed and uncommitted objectives.
   1. Committed objectives are those the team is confident they can deliver within the Program Increment. These objectives have been committed by the team through a confidence vote.
   2. Uncommitted objectives are those the team have low confidence in delivering but can help to build a buffer into the PI. This is because while the outcome of these objectives may not be certain, they are included in the teams capacity and plan for the PI should capacity remain after delivering on committed objectives.

The benefits of having smart PI objectives

PI objectives link what teams are working on to what the business cares about. They create alignment with business objectives by clearly connecting features to business value. As a result, teams know how their work is adding value.

Smart PI objectives provide a framework for this. They help build trust, create a shared language, and provide a clear direction. Everyone in the team can then understand what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and why it’s important.

Without smart PI objectives in place, teams can spend time on tasks that aren’t adding value to the business and impact agility.

PI objectives are essential to your ability to measure success. Completing features alone isn't enough - they must drive a business outcome. They help get teams clear on why the work they do matters and define what success looks like.

What makes a good PI objective?

We’ve talked about why PI objectives are so critical, and now we’ll explain what makes a good PI objective.

Good PI objectives:

• Allow the business to see deliverables in a set timeframe
• Provide clarity on how scheduled work fits into the big picture
• Enhance communication between teams and stakeholders
• Include no more than 7 to 10 objectives in total
• Aligns with what the business cares about
• Are clear on why it’s important and what it will deliver
• Are understood by anyone who picks them up

Are SMART – that is, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timebound

PI objectives need to be SMART

Using the SMART goal-setting framework to write your PI objectives helps keep your objectives clear and concise. Under this framework, your PI objective needs to be:

• Specific – Clearly and explicitly state the intended outcome of your objective.
• Measurable – Describe what your team needs to do to achieve the objective and how they will quantify success. Stakeholder feedback should form part of this.
• Achievable – Ensure the objective is realistic and within your team’s control and influence.
• Relevant – Align the objective with overall business objectives.
• Timebound – Set an appropriate timeframe to achieve the objective within the PI.

Team PI objectiveEnsure Easy Agile server customers have a seamless option to migrate to cloud by implementing JCMA and site import/export by the end of Q3.

Tips for writing SMART (and smart) PI objectives

Typically, many teams will run PI planning sessions in one tool, and then use another tool (like Confluence) to record PI objectives.

But separating PI objectives from the planning sessions makes it hard for the team and stakeholders to see how the work is shifting the dial for the business.

With the Easy Agile Programs, you can directly link your features to your objectives within the same tool. You're also able to describe the objective within Easy Agile Programs and assign business value:

By connecting features to PI objectives within the same tool, teams and business stakeholders gain clear visibility of work. They can see how their work is helping to achieve business objectives.

Learn more

Using the SMART framework to define PI objectives helps your teams focus on the right work. They align projects with broader business goals while providing a shared understanding across teams. By working towards the same purpose, they help keep your teams and organization productive and agile.

You can with Easy Agile Programs

Ready to bring your PI Objectives into Jira?

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One question that often arises is, “What are the indicators of a highly effective Scrum Master?" When striving to become an exceptional Scrum Master, consider the following:

• Identify Repeated Mistakes: While occasional mistakes are expected, it is important for the Scrum Master to collaborate with the team to identify recurring mistakes. By implementing policies and practices, the team can prevent these mistakes from happening again.
• Address Systemic Issues: If the team consistently encounters the same issues, the Scrum Master must recognize the presence of systemic problems. Working with the team, the Scrum Master can establish countermeasures to prevent these issues from reoccurring.
• Measure Improvements Over Time: Are we continuously improving as a team? Assess whether the team is more effective now compared to prior periods, such as 6, 9, and 12 months ago. Similarly, consider if the team will be better in the future. If progress stalls, it may be necessary to reevaluate the effectiveness of the Scrum Master.

If your team is progressing across all three of these areas, that’s a great sign that the Scrum Master is effective and that the team is learning and improving.

To drive continuous improvement, the Scrum Master should utilise the retrospective. The retrospective is a Scrum event conducted after the Sprint Review to evaluate and adapt the process and the team's ability to deliver products effectively. During this session, the Scrum Master guides the team in celebrating successes and exploring areas for improvement.

Outlined below is a 7-step checklist used by Scrum Masters during retrospectives to address problems:

1. Discuss the Problem: In the retrospective, the Scrum Master facilitates a discussion to identify the main challenges faced by the team.
2. Assess Impact: Determine the urgency and impact of the problem. Immediate action may be required for highly impactful issues, while less pressing matters can be addressed later.
3. Identify Root Causes: Understanding the root cause allows the team to gain deeper insights and generate potential solutions.
4. Generate Solutions: Once a significant problem is recognized, the Scrum Master guides the team in brainstorming solutions to address the issue.
5. Implement Solutions: This step is carried out in the subsequent retrospective. The Scrum Master ensures that the proposed solutions are tried and tested.
6. Evaluate Initial Results: Assess the effectiveness of the implemented solution. Did it fix the problem, make it worse, or have no effect?
7. Determine Next Steps: Based on the results, decide whether the problem is resolved or if further action is needed. This may involve continuing with the current solution or pivoting to a different approach.

For example, let's consider a team struggling with high defect rates. Their defect rates surpass both the organisation's average and industry standards. Here's how the 7-step checklist could be applied:

Step 1: In the retrospective, the Scrum Master raises the issue of high defect rates for discussion.

Step 2: The Product Owner shares feedback from the help desk team, highlighting customer complaints and the negative impact on sales.

Step 3: After deliberation, the team recognizes that many defects are missed during manual testing and identifies the lack of test automation as a contributing factor.

Step 4: A team member with experience in automated testing proposes implementing unit-level automated testing practices.

Step 5: In the subsequent retrospective, the team reports applying the new unit testing practices to all their work during the sprint.

Step 6: The team acknowledges that the automated tests identified six defects that would have otherwise been missed.

Step 7: The team agrees to continue using automated unit testing practices and plans to expand to integration-level testing as more of the codebase is covered.

By utilising this 7-step checklist, Scrum Masters can effectively leverage retrospectives to address recurring mistakes, resolve ongoing issues, and foster continuous growth and improvement within their teams.

“Do or do not; there is no try.” While this is certainly Jedi Master Yoda’s most famous quote, it doesn’t exactly apply to agile development. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite of agile. If Yoda were a Scrum Master, however, the quote would look a lot more like this: “Try and again try; that is how you do.”

The Scrum Master facilitates the Scrum team, leading them to a hopeful victory. It’s rewarding, but the Scrum Master role is filled with pressure. The success of the Scrum and the wellbeing of the team falls on the Scrum Master’s shoulders.

If you’re a Scrum Master or aspire to become one, you’ve come to the right place. Master Scrum theory and your leadership skills with our six strategies for Scrum Masters.

Understanding Scrum values and the role of the Scrum Master

Scrum is an agile practice commonly used for product development. It’s based on completing a set amount of work in short bursts — called sprints — so that teams can continuously create iterations as they learn more about a product and its stakeholders.

Ken Schwaber co-created the Scrum framework in the early 1990s to help teams manage complex development projects. He also founded Scrum Alliance and established Scrum.org, an online resource for agile teams.

At the beginning of a Scrum, the product owner decides which product backlog items will be moved to the sprint backlog. From there, the Scrum Master takes over, leading the team through Scrum events, including:

• Sprint planning
• Daily Scrum or daily standups
• Sprint review
• Sprint retrospectives

The role of the Scrum Master is to guide the team through the Scrum process. They facilitate the process, helping the team to master the framework and improve from one sprint to the next.

Characteristics that define a great Scrum Master

Being an effective Scrum Master goes beyond simply following the rules of Scrum. Here are some additional characteristics that truly define excellence in this role:

1. Emotional intelligence

A great Scrum Master possesses high emotional intelligence. This means they can:

• Understand and manage their own emotions.
• Empathize with the team members' feelings and perspectives.
• Facilitate constructive communication and resolve conflicts gracefully.

2. Strong facilitation skills

It's not just about managing the daily Scrum meetings. They need to:

• Encourage open dialogue.
• Ensure every voice is heard.
• Guide the team towards consensus without being overbearing.

3. Adaptability

The landscape of a project can change rapidly. Great Scrum Masters:

• Adapt to changes swiftly without losing focus.
• Help the team pivot strategies quickly while maintaining morale.

4. Lifelong learner

The world of Agile is always evolving. Exceptional Scrum Masters:

• Commit to continuous learning.
• Stay updated with the latest practices, tools, and methodologies.

5. Servant leadership

At the heart of a Scrum Master's role is servant leadership. This involves:

• Placing the team's needs above their own.
• Removing obstacles that hinder the team's progress.
• Empowering team members to take ownership and make decisions.

6. Analytical thinking

A great Scrum Master should be able to:

• Analyze the team's processes and identify bottlenecks.
• Use data-driven insights to foster continuous improvement.

7. Motivational skills

Keeping the team motivated is crucial for sustained productivity. They excel at:

• Recognizing and celebrating small wins.
• Encouraging a positive, collaborative team culture.

8. Excellent communication

Communication is key. They need to:

• Convey ideas clearly and concisely.
• Ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page.

By embodying these characteristics, a Scrum Master not only facilitates effective project management but also fosters a thriving team environment that encourages innovation and success.

Six strategies to become a great Scrum Master

Here are six strategies for Scrum Masters to improve their skills or prepare for their future roles.

1. Don’t forget to be agile yourself

Do you live by agile principles yourself? How agile are you in your leadership style?

Effective Scrum Masters know that they also need to continually improve based on new experiences, successes, and failures. It’s important to learn from your mistakes so that you don’t make them again, but it’s just as important to learn from your successes. Take the time to review your process, including what went well and what didn’t, so you know how you can improve as a leader and facilitator.

2. Get to know your team

Your ability to lead your team is tied to how well you know them. You should continually get to know your team’s strengths and weaknesses. How well do they work together? Who brings out the best in one another, and who doesn't work so well together? Dig deep to truly understand the root dynamics of the team.

Learn more about each individual on the team as well. What do they need help with? What do they excel at? What feedback can you provide to help them grow in their role? How can you help them succeed? Build rapport with your team members by asking how they’re doing, giving and receiving feedback, and finding common ground.

3. Foster a culture of continuous feedback

The agile methodology is based on continuous improvement. How will the individuals on your team improve if you don’t provide them feedback? Likewise, how will you improve if you don’t ask for, and accept, feedback from the team?

Feedback is a two-way street, and it only works if it’s constructive and continuous. Don’t wait until you have something negative to address — you need to regularly provide both positive and negative feedback. Doing this on a regular basis will help you and your team become accustomed to hearing feedback, so it won’t be jarring or off-putting when you do.

As the Scrum Master, you should foster an environment in which all members give and receive constructive feedback.

4. Hone your communication skills

Being in charge doesn’t mean you’re always doing the talking. The opposite is true: Great leaders are great communicators. As a leader, you need to constantly listen to your team, keeping both ears open for any issues your team or the individuals on it may be dealing with.

Actively listen to the concerns of the development team, and consider how each individual on your team prefers to communicate. Do they prefer bold and to-the-point interactions? Or do they need time to ease into a conversation? Everyone communicates a little differently, and understanding your team's preferences will help you make the most of each interaction.

Scrum Masters need to hone their communication skills in order to be effective leaders for their teams. Regularly assess your communication style and its effectiveness, and ask your team for feedback on how you are doing.

5. Make the most of every retrospective

The retrospective is the final event of a Scrum. They are an incredibly important part of the Scrum process, and they should not be overlooked, rushed, or underutilized. As the Scrum Master, you need to take responsibility for making sure retrospectives are effective and occur after each Scrum. Go in with a plan to make the most of every retro meeting.

That doesn’t mean you need to take charge of everything. It’s helpful to let your team run the occasional retrospective. Everyone involved should continually contribute their own ideas to improve the meeting.

Collect regular feedback from your team on how they think your retrospectives are going. Ask for ideas on how they could improve, and change things up. Repeating the exact same questions and retrospective activities will bore your team and lead to reduced engagement.

For more retrospective perspective, read our five steps to holding effective sprint retrospectives.

6. Become a certified Scrum Master

A Scrum Master certification can take you from simple Scrum Master to masterful Scrum Master. While certification isn’t required to become a professional Scrum Master, it certainly helps.

Scrum.org, the website founded by the co-creator of Scrum, offers a three-part certification program called The Professional Scrum MasterTM. The program has three assessment levels that validate your knowledge of the Scrum framework and practical application of Scrum theory.

• The Professional Scrum MasterTM I (PSM I)
• The Professional Scrum MasterTM II (PSM II)
• The Professional Scrum MasterTM III (PSM III)

We’re also big fans of Pretty Agile’s SAFe training programs:

• SAFe Scrum Master SSM Certification
• SAFe Advanced Scrum Master

A certification is a great addition to your resume, and it will help you fine-tune your facilitation skills and Scrum knowledge.

Easy Agile for Scrum Masters

“Try and again try; that is how you do.”

The beauty of agile is that regardless of how many certifications or years of experience you have, there’s always more to improve. Agile is an iterative process in which learning continues from sprint to sprint and project to project. As a Scrum Master, it’s up to you to continue learning the craft and perfecting your facilitation skills, the Scrum Master role involves life-long learning.

Easy Agile builds products designed to help Scrum Masters and agile developers work more efficiently and effectively. Our tools are specifically designed for teams that use and love Jira but need more functionality in order to prioritize customer needs.

Try Easy Agile TeamRhythm to support your team agility from planning through to review. TeamRhythm supports user story mapping, backlog refinement, sprint and version planning, and team retrospectives, building a continuous cycle of improvement right in Jira. It’s a win-win-win for Scrum Masters, development teams, and customers. Try our products absolutely free for 30 days.

Business agility alone is no longer enough to succeed in today’s rapidly changing digital age. To compete and thrive, companies need to deliver value at speed and remove anything that gets in the way of seamless workflow. SAFe® flow accelerators can be the key to unlocking this momentum – but how do you successfully apply them to consistently deliver value?

SAFe methodologist Rebecca Davis sat down with Easy Agile's Jasmin Iordanidis to reflect on the concept of flow and business agility. In this article, we share their tips on how to accelerate flow in your organization. You'll learn:

• Why you need a flow mindset for flow accelerators to be successful
• How improving flow improves customer outcomes
• How to work with flow accelerators

Why flow begins with having the right mindset

Under the SAFe® framework, flow is present when a company can quickly, continuously, and effectively deliver quality products and services that deliver value. This requires all individuals and teams in the value stream to be working optimally with minimum delays and rework, an approach that is significantly different to the traditional ways of work.

“Mindset is big when it comes to working in this way,” said Rebecca. “Rather than simply following policy or the way things have always been done, people need to have conversations and ask questions to find ways to improve. And that means everyone in the company, whether you’re at the team or solution or executive level, needs to really understand and live these principals”.

This makes cultivating a flow mindset of open communication and information sharing across all teams and levels essential. It helps pave the way for accelerated feedback loops that help identify blockers early, rectify issues fast, and facilitate continuous, seamless workflow.

How improving flow improves customer outcomes

SAFe® flow accelerators help work flow through the system without interruptions so your company can deliver continuous value in the shortest amount of time as possible. They do this by helping to remove interruptions, progress work quickly, and create a smooth workflow, which together improve productivity across the value stream. “Accelerators are tangible levers you can pull to improve flow,” said Jasmin. “You can apply metrics to each accelerator so you can quickly assess whether it’s working and adjust accordingly”.

This improved productivity generally leads to improved output from your people. “By removing blockers, you can give people in your business more time to do the work that makes them happier and that makes a difference,” said Jasmin. “They can do more deep work - in whatever form that looks like for them – and ultimately, this leads to improved customer outcomes”.

What are the eight SAFe® flow accelerators?

The SAFe® framework includes eight flow accelerators, with each designed to address a specific activity that interrupts value flow.

1. Visualise and limit WIP: Too much WIP confuses priorities, overloads people, and reduces productivity. Continually adjust WIP to better match demand to capacity and help increase flow through the system.
2. Address bottlenecks: Bottle necks cause the value stream to operate well below capacity. Focus on eliminating dominant bottlenecks by adding additional skills, people, or other resources.
3. Minimise handoffs and dependencies: Excessive handoffs and dependencies can cause rework and delays. Create teams and ARTs with all the knowledge, resources, skills, and decision-making authority to create an end-to-end flow of value.
4. Get faster feedback: Fast feedback helps speed up learning and improvement. Build mechanisms and processes to collect, analyze, and evaluate data early in the development process.
5. Work in smaller batches: The smaller the batch size, the faster teams can collect and evaluate feedback and adjust. Optimize size by balancing the trade-offs between holding cost and transaction cost.
6. Reduce queue length: Long queues lead to waste, delays, and information decay. Start tracking queue length and keep backlogs short to create flexibility to work on new high priority tasks.
7. Optimise ‘time in the zone’: People and teams in the zone demonstrate higher creativity, productivity, happiness, and fulfillment. Focus on creating an environment where workers have time and space free from interruptions.
8. Remediate legacy policies and practises: Legacy policies can become part of the culture and inhibit flow, even when they are no longer fit for purpose. Take steps to identity these policies then eliminate, modify, or mitigate.

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‍4 steps to winning with  SAFe® flow accelerators

1. Build a hypothesis

The first step is to build your hypothesis. Clarify what you believe will change and think about when you might first see if flow is moving in a different way to how it was before.

TIP: Start conversations and gather insights from the teams that will be directly impacted by these changes.

2. Choose high-impact accelerators

When choosing which accelerators to focus on, you’ll need to start with reading, digesting, and understanding them all. You can then take these learnings and start conversations with people on the ground to get an idea of where improvements can be made. “There are no sequential steps to follow when it comes to the accelerators,” said Rebecca. “Once you’ve found areas of improvement, you can self-select which accelerators you think will have the most impact and start working with those”.

TIP: Remember if you can’t see it, you can’t accelerate it. So, if you don’t know where to start making improvements, look out for any friction points or gaps in the value stream.

3. Decide when to check progress

“There’s no one-size-fits all answer as to when to check whether an accelerator is improving flow,” said Rebecca. “How long you need to wait depends on the action and the insights you gathered when building your hypothesis”. This means that for some actions, you can check whether flow has improved the next day while others may take a few weeks to see results.

TIP: Identify the earliest moment you can look back and see that something has changed and note this as your time to check in.

4. Use flow metrics correctly

It’s important to remember that flow metrics are not to be used as punitive measures but instead as a marker to measure whether an accelerator has improved flow. For many people, this requires a mindset shift away from thinking that if something goes wrong or if it fails, it didn’t work. And that means that sometimes, there may be a risk that the metrics may be used in a negative way.

“It helps to understand that sometimes people fall back on old behaviours when things get hard – and that includes people in leadership positions,” said Rebecca. “So be honest and courageous if you see metrics used in a negative way. This can help the team get back to the reasons why the metrics are being used in the first place”.

TIP: Build and maintain trust by clarifying how each metric helps improve outcomes and deliver value. If there is no clear link, then consider dropping it.

Accelerating flow helps teams focus on delivering value

Creating time and space for teams to focus on producing value can help your organization respond more quickly to changing customer needs and business conditions. SAFe® flow accelerators can help remove unnecessary work and blockers to create an environment of continuous improvement, optimization, and consistent value creation.

To improve flow across your organization, learn how Easy Agile Programs empowers your organization to visualize where you may have conflicts or risks to work not progressing and to easily unblock these so teams can maintain momentum and continue to deliver value.

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