A 5-day journey to living from your priorities
It’s easy to spend our day reacting to what comes at us. What if you could be proactive, intentionally making decisions based on your priorities? It is possible!
Our five-day short course guides you through the process of identifying your life priorities and scaling them day to everyday decisions. You’ll learn how to establish a rhythm to build good habits and grow a team that will be with you in the journey.
If you’ve been curious about Scrum and begun learning or exploring it, you’re the person I wrote my FAQ for.
I’ve had so many people ask me about Scrum over the years.
- Where do I go to learn Scrum?
- How does it apply to my kind of work?
- What exactly is this Scrum thing?
I would mostly answer questions ad hoc or point them to an article I had found helpful.
This year though, I’ve begun working on a guide for applying Scrum to everyday life. It’s not finished yet, but I completed the first pass of an FAQ section.
That FAQ section turned out to be more extensive than I initially planned. Mostly because I realized there are A LOT of questions people have about Scrum.
After working through almost 100 questions, here are 3 takeaways that surfaced for me.
- Scrum does have its own language.
- Scrum is easy to learn but hard to master.
- There are different paths to Scrum.
Scrum does have its own language.
I had a lot of “What is…?” questions because Scrum introduces many new concepts. You have the roles, the events, the artifacts, the values, the pillars…
Here are just the “What is…?” questions:
- What is a PBI (product backlog item)?
- What is a daily standup?
- What is a product owner?
- What is a scrum master?
- What is a sprint in scrum?
- What is a sprint review in scrum?
- What is a user story?
- What is acceptance criteria in scrum?
- What is scrum backlog refinement?
- What is sprint planning in scrum?
- What is the backlog in Scrum?
- What is the definition of done?
- What is the definition of scrum?
- What is the development team?
- What is the goal of each Scrum event?
- What is the goal of the scrum of scrum event?
- What is the increment in scrum?
- What is the sprint goal in scrum?
- What is velocity in Scrum?
Just keeping all the words straight is a challenge for many when they begin to learn Scrum.
But you must first understand the basic parts to learn how they interact and relate to one another. This brings up questions like:
- How does the product owner help the scrum master?
- How does the scrum master help the product owner?
- How is the product owner different from the scrum master?
- Does the scrum master facilitate all the scrum events?
- Can one person be the scrum master for multiple teams?
- How are acceptance criteria and the definition of done different?
- How are acceptance criteria and user stories different?
- How are the product backlog and sprint backlog different?
This is just a sampling and leads to my second takeaway.
Scrum is easy to learn but hard to master.
While it’s a bit cliche, the saying certainly holds true.
Scrum is quite simple by design. And its power is in the daily application of this simplicity. It's not easy for an individual to alter their behavior and can be pretty challenging for teams or organizations to change.
And this is why scrum can be hard to master.
Scrum requires you and your team to work in a new way, and it’s tempting to import old behaviors or schemas that aren’t very compatible with Scrum.
I often get asked if the current team leader can just be the scrum master and product owner. Or how to add all these new scrum meetings on top of all the current meetings.
Both of these questions come from a desire to hold onto the old while trying to embrace the new. You can’t do both.
Questions abound again regarding the relationship between Scrum and the team or the organization.
- How does a scrum master help an organization?
- How does scrum help an organization?
- Is a scrum master a project manager?
- What if I don’t have all the scrum roles on my team?
- What’s the right scrum team size?
- When does Scrum not work well?
- What does self-organizing mean?
Knowing all the pieces of Scrum is the first step, but these questions illustrate how learning the parts doesn’t equal understanding the whole.
There are different paths to Scrum.
Friends ask me a lot if they should get various scrum certifications, and my answer depends on their current situation and goals.
Certifications have a role to play, but sitting in a three-day training does not make you a scrum master. Certificates can be helpful for:
- Providing a structured way to learn the basics about scrum.
- Checking the box for a job application that requires a specific certification.
- Introducing you to others interested in Scrum (both instructors and fellow students).
I organized questions about certifications into 4 groups.
I see a more common path to scrum through practice, evaluation and repetition. If you’re interested in Scrum, two approaches you may want to consider include:
- Gain proximity to a Scrum team.
- Start practicing elements of scrum in your everyday life.
Gain proximity to a Scrum team.
Joining an existing scrum team is probably the best way to learn as you get to see it up close from people who already have understanding and experience. But this might not be an option if no teams in your organization are practicing scrum, and your reason for wanting to learn it is to apply it to your current team.
You can also gain proximity through existing Scrum communities, either online or locally. This won’t be the same as working daily within a scrum team, but it still gives you a window of insight and opportunities to build relationships with others practicing scrum.
Start practicing elements of scrum in your everyday life.
Starting small lets you experiment and discover not just the what but the how and why of practicing scrum.
Here are a few questions from people checking it out.
I’ve experimented with using Scrum to organize my home DIY projects, manage writing work and homeschool my kids.
The beautiful part of Scrum is you’re not expected to be perfect on the first try. Scrum is designed for you to evaluate and improve as you iterate.
So give it try.
Think about an area of your life you would like to have better prioritization and focus. And begin experimenting with how you can apply the essentials of Scrum to that area.
Scale Your Impact
What if it took the same amount of work to engage and serve 100 people as it would for 10? Let’s map out your workflows and processes and then adapt them in order to impact others at scale.
Scrum FAQs
If you want to see all the questions from the FAQ, you can find them in my Scrum Guide for Everyday People or you can browse them below.
What is Scrum?
- What is the definition of scrum?
- Is Scrum hard to learn?
- When did Scrum start?
- What do all the scrum words mean?
How to use Scrum
Learning to apply Scrum
- How to choose between Scrum and Kanban?
- How does scrum help an organization?
- Is scrum a methodology or a framework?
- What’s the difference between scrum and agile?
Scrum team
- How does a scrum team work?
- Is a Scrum Master a project manager?
- Can a scrum master be a developer?
- What’s the right scrum team size?
Scrum roles
- What are the roles in scrum?
- What if I don’t have all the scrum roles on my team?
- Who are the stakeholders in scrum?
- Is an agile coach a scrum role?
Scrum master role
- What is a scrum master?
- Why is a scrum master called a servant leader?
- Why is a scrum master important?
- Can scrum masters work remotely?
- Can one person be the Scrum Master for multiple teams?
Scrum master responsibilities
- What does a scrum master do each day?
- How does a scrum master remove impediments?
- How does a scrum master coach the team?
- How does a scrum master motivate the team?
Scrum master and product owner
- Can the scrum master also be the product owner?
- How does the scrum master help the product owner?
- How does the product owner help the scrum master?
- How is the product owner different from the scrum master?
- Are the scrum master and the product owner part of the scrum team?
Product owner
Development team
- What is the development team?
- What does self-organizing mean?
- Does a Scrum development team have to be programmers?
- What does a scrum development team do each day?
Scrum events overview
- What are the Scrum events?
- What scrum events are timeboxed?
- When should scrum events be held?
- Which scrum event is most important?
Beginning a sprint
- What is sprint planning in scrum?
- What is a sprint in scrum?
- Is the sprint a scrum event?
- At which scrum event is the sprint backlog created?
Middle of a sprint
Ending a sprint
Facilitating scrum events
- How to facilitate scrum events?
- How to improve scrum events?
- Who facilitates (or owns) scrum events?
- Does the scrum master facilitate all the scrum events?
Scrum events responsibilities
Scrum events purpose
- What is the goal of each Scrum event?
- Which scrum events facilitate inspection and adaptation?
- Which scrum event is for process improvement?
- What is the goal of the scrum of scrum event?
Scrum design
Scrum elements
Scrum backlog
- What is the backlog in Scrum?
- How are the product backlog and sprint backlog different?
- What is a PBI (product backlog item)?
Agile story points
- What are story points?
- Are Scrum story points measured in hours?
- Do story points in Scrum always use the Fibonacci sequence?
- What is velocity in Scrum?
Scrum certifications
Scrum master certifications
- How to get certified as a scrum master?
- Why become a Certified Scrum Master (CSM)?
- How quickly can I become a scrum master?
Product owner certifications
Comparing certification
- CSM vs. CSPO, how do they compare?
- CSM vs. PSM, how do they compare?
- How does the PMI-ACP compare to other scrum certifications?
- How does the PMP compare to other scrum certifications?
Scrum user stories
- What is a user story?
- What is acceptance criteria in scrum?
- How to use acceptance criteria in project management?
- How are acceptance criteria and user stories different?
Acceptance criteria
- What's an example of acceptance criteria?
- What is acceptance criteria in scrum?
- How to write an acceptance criteria statement?
- How are acceptance criteria and user stories different?
- How are acceptance criteria and the definition of done different?
To learn more about Scrum, check out my What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.
Still not sure about your next step with Scrum? I offer a couple of free coaching sessions each month. You can signup for a free 1-hour coaching session, and we can work together to identify a good next step for you.
A 5-day journey to living from your priorities
It’s easy to spend our day reacting to what comes at us. What if you could be proactive, intentionally making decisions based on your priorities? It is possible!
Our five-day short course guides you through the process of identifying your life priorities and scaling them day to everyday decisions. You’ll learn how to establish a rhythm to build good habits and grow a team that will be with you in the journey.
This post is part of an upcoming guide called Everyday Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum where I will explore and explain the key elements of Scrum.
Perhaps you have heard about Scrum but are not exactly sure what it is. Or maybe you know some about it but are not sure how to apply it, especially outside a software development context.
You find my my current and future guides on everyday.design. Signup to be the first to know when new guides are released.
There are a lot of new terms when learning the Scrum essentials, and this post probably introduced you to some of the vocabulary.
If you want to learn more about specific Scrum topics, here are a few to choose from or check out the scrum FAQs.
Applying Scrum
- How do I keep my team focused on the right work?
- What to do when projects change?
- Getting work done as a team
- How to change direction after investing effort?
Agile in Everyday Life
- Can I use Scrum for non-software development projects?
- Scrum for marketing
- Scrum for creative design
- Scrum in content creation
- Scrum in personal development
- Scrum in education
- Scrum in everyday home projects
Scrum Roles
- What is a Scrum Product Owner?
- What does a Product Owner do each day?
- Getting Certified as a Product Owner
- What is a Scrum Master?
- What does a Scrum Master do each day?
- Getting Certified as a Scrum Master
- Can The Scrum Master And Product Owner Be The Same Person
- How Is A Scrum Master Different Than A Project Manager?
Scrum Meetings
- How to do a standup/check-in?
- How to do sprint planning in Scrum?
- How does backlog refinement work in Scrum?
- What is a sprint review in Scrum?
- How to conduct a retrospective in Scrum?
Scrum General Topics
- Why Use Scrum?
- What Is The Definition Of Scrum?
- What Are The Pros & Cons Of Scrum?
- Scrum: Expectations Vs. Reality
- Is Scrum Hard To Learn?
- How To Align The Scrum Values With Your Organizational Culture
- What's the difference between iterative and incremental development?
- What Is The Definition Of Done In Scrum?
Scrum Advanced Topics
- Learn To Forecast Progress In Scrum
- What If I Don't Have All The Roles In Scrum?
- Scaling Using SAFe
- Cost Estimation
To learn more about Scrum, check out my What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.