Books in the The Professional Scrum Series series

Leverage Evidence-Based Management, a scientific method, to enable organizations to achieve goals under conditions of uncertainty.   Organizations often believe in the certainty of their plans and see every deviation from the plan as a sign of failure. They view the organization as a machine for creating and executing plans instead of looking at it as a responsive organism, attentive to the changes in its environment. In a world of uncertainties, organizations need to be capable of reinventing themselves every day based on new information.   In Unlocking Business Agility with Evidence-Based Management, authors Patricia Kong, Todd Miller, Kurt Bittner, and Ryan Ripley use the framework developed by Scrum.org called Evidence-Based Management (EBM). EBM is an empirical approach that helps organizations use experimentation and rapid feedback to progress toward goals. This path is not always obvious or straightforward, but that is a benefit: in a complex and changing world, the path toward goals will always be uncertain. EBM helps organizations use new data to adapt their plan toward their goals.   Throughout the book, the authors present stories and experiences that illustrate how EBM can be applied to set better goals and then leverage empiricism to achieve those goals using feedback, learning, and evidence. This definitive guide will help your organization identify its true purpose, improve its ability to reach goals, and build a culture of trust, transparency, and growth. Clarify goals and demonstrate value, success, and progress using agile metricsProgress toward goals in uncertain and rapidly changing circumstancesEmbrace empiricism and experimentation to find solutions for complex problemsFind real-world anonymized case studies on how to articulate goals and measurements in a way that fosters self-management and business agility   Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Hone Agile Product Owner Behaviors that Lead to Marketplace WinnersOrganizations pour vast resources into building new products and services. Yet too many are poorly conceived, don't delight (or even satisfy) customers, and fail in the marketplace. The solution is more effective agile product ownership and product management. This book is an expert guide to the behaviors, stances, and practices of world-class agile product development, reflecting deep in-the-trenches experience from world-renowned experts.Chris Lukassen and Robbin Schuurman introduce powerful tools, ideas, and skills for delivering superior products and services, and for avoiding pitfalls that keep you from seeing what customers really need and want. Learn through a start-to-finish, Scrum-based case study, drawing on concepts the authors created for their breakthrough Scrum.org Professional Scrum Product Owner-Advanced (PSPO-A) training course. This innovative approach has already helped thousands of product owners excel--and it can transform the way you create products.Replace negative product owner behaviors with approaches that lead to excellenceRepresent customers more empathetically and effectivelyConnect customers, values, and features more coherentlyTell better stories, set clearer goals, and create more valuable roadmapsInnovate business models, run better experiments, and scale products more successfullyMake more successful decisions, involve the right people, and rely on better dataBecome a great agile collaborator, across governance, budgeting, contracting, and beyondInfluence customers, users, stakeholders, and teams to improve your overall effectivenessOptimize every organizational role related to product ownershipProduct owners, managers, and team leads will find this guide indispensable along with Agile/Scrum coaches, consultants, and executives wanting to generate more value from product management across the organization.

Hone Your Agile Leadership Skills to Help Your Organization Transform and ThriveTo leverage the immense opportunities associated with accelerating change, organizations need teams capable of trying new ideas quickly, learning from their experiences, and adapting based on that learning. Helping these teams to grow and thrive requires agile leaders who support, inspire, and encourage, and who can leave behind the management skills of directing, monitoring, and rewarding or punishing.The Professional Agile Leader is a realistic, practical guide, written by experienced agile leaders who share their collective experiences in helping agile leaders to grow responsive and adaptive teams. They structure powerful lessons around a case study based on decades of experience helping agile leaders achieve and sustain agile transformation. Best of all, they never settle for high-level hand-waving--they show you how it's really done.Reignite once-successful organizations that have lost their wayForm cross-functional teams and empower them with purposeLearn to let go, as your teams start taking more responsibilityOvercome forces that want to reel you back into the "old rules"Realign the whole organization, since agile and traditional models can't coexist foreverAchieve the most challenging goal of all: changing cultureGreat agile leaders aren't born that way--they're regular people who care deeply about helping others achieve shared goals and have discovered a better way to lead. Whatever your role in the organization, this guide will help you master those skills and mindsets a whole lot faster."Drawing on vast experience, Ron, Kurt, and Laurens tease out practical tips and patterns for good leadership [and show] how a leader can help shape the environment for agile teams to succeed. . . . The narrative style of the book makes it easy to read, and I am sure there will be many times that you see yourself in it."--From the Foreword by Dave West, CEO and Product Owner, Scrum.orgRegister your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Today, organizations want to scale Scrum to ever larger and more complex projects, driving the benefits of agility throughout the enterprise. But most conventional solutions to scaling agility have added complexity and deviated from the principles that make Scrum so attractive. Scaling Scrum with Nexus introduces a better approach, reflecting the authors' many years of applying and scaling Scrum in multiple industries. Four leading Scrum.org experts introduce the Nexus Framework, showing how it enables smooth integration among multiple Scrum teams, as well as highly-effective collaboration with non-Scrum teams working on the same project. Drawing on their immense experience, they explain what Nexus is, how it works, and how it solves agile scalability problems that have bedeviled organizations for years. Next, they offer start-to-finish guidance for applying Nexus Framework principles throughout your own organization. Readers will walk through forming a Nexus, organizing work in a Nexus environment, managing and enabling a Nexus, and much more -- all that is needed to succeed with Scrum in even the most challenging global projects.

Teams and individuals find the rules of the Scrum Framework to be easy to describe but challenging to implement. The Professional Scrum Team helps you bring the Scrum Framework rules to life in your everyday work, optimising both team and individual performance and creating more value. Three leading Scrum experts bring together proven practices based on decades of real-life experience participating in, leading, and supporting Scrum Teams. They introduce a team as it starts out with Scrum and follow it as it gains hard-won practical experience, gradually mastering the intense collaboration that Scrum demands. As you share the teams experience--facing and overcoming realistic challenges--you'll discover better ways to work together, enhance your practices, leverage tools, continuously improve, and deliver functionality in ever-shorter cycles. Understand how Scrum Teams work, collaborate, and promote transparency Explore common problems that lead less experienced Scrum Teams to give up Find your Scrum Teams best approach to solving complex adaptive problems Integrate DevOps practices with Scrum to improve effectiveness Productively and professionally resolve conflicts that arise from close collaboration Help your organisation learn how to improve its results by better supporting its Scrum Teams This guide is for anyone who works with Scrum Teams or wants to become more effective as a Scrum Team member or leader.