#156. Neil Benson dives into the essentials of continuously improving Scrum practices in this episode of the Amazing Apps podcast.

Drawing on the book "Mastering Professional Scrum" by Stephanie Ockerman and Simon Reindl, Neil outlines critical areas for team success, such as creating valuable products and understanding organizational influences. He emphasizes five core capabilities needed for continuous improvement: teaching, facilitation, coaching, technical excellence, and servant leadership.

Neil discusses the continuous improvement process recommended by Ockerman and Reindl, which includes self-assessment questionnaires and root cause analysis to address team issues. He highlights the importance of the Scrum pillars—transparency, inspection, and adaptation—and shows how sprint events like planning and review foster a culture of empiricism, allowing teams to run experiments and refine their practices based on real-world outcomes.

Celebrating the traits of high-performing scrum teams, Neil underscores the significance of being cross-functional, self-managing, and collaborative. He touches upon practices that bolster collaboration within these teams, such as backlog refinement and pair programming, while also stressing the freedom scrum teams have to define their workflows within Scrum guidelines.

Neil also addresses common challenges, such as the absence of key roles during refinement sessions, and recommends using the Five Whys technique to tackle root causes. He provides practical tips like conducting multiple short refinement sessions to prevent release delays.

With actionable insights and a call to action to use the self-assessment questionnaire from the book, this episode is a goldmine for Power Platform and Dynamics 365 teams looking to elevate their Scrum practices. Tune in to learn practical strategies for continuous improvement and master the art of agile with your team.

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RESOURCES

• Simon Reindl on LinkedIn
• Stephanie Ockerman on LinkedIn
• Mastering Professional Scrum from Amazon (affiliate)
• Mastering Professional Scrum audiobook on Audible (affiliate)
• Stephanie Ockerman's site, Agile Socks
• Mastering Professional Scrum on InformIT