Scrum is not a panacea for everything. — In 2010, Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland wrote the first version of the Scrum Guide to help people worldwide understand Scrum. Scrum quickly became the # 1 framework in the software development industry. I’m a great Scrum enthusiast myself. Having said that, it’s easy to notice that many people try…

Being a Product Owner is not easy and achieving perfection requires many years of hard work. However, there are 6 mistakes that should be avoided like the plague as they can completely ruin your product efforts. — #6 Acting like a project manager Some Product Owners confuse their role with that of the project manager: Assigning tasks to team members. Pushing instead of letting others pull work from the Product Backlog.

Velocity is one of the most misused Agile metrics. Managers, Product Owners and Scrum Masters trying to keep it constant at all costs drive their Teams to the abyss of no return — What is Velocity? Velocity is an indication of how many Product Backlog Items (e.g. User Stories) were turned into an Increment during the Sprint by the Scrum Team. Velocity can be measured in several ways. A frequently used metric is the sum of Story Points corresponding to Product Backlog Items completed during Sprint…

Working with the worst manager I have come across was challenging. He regularly accused developers of the slightest mistakes, pointed with his finger at the tools and methods we should use to solve problems, end even took away our mouses and keyboards to correct our code. He spent hours analyzing…

I remember my worst meeting with a customer as if it was yesterday. A public sector company. 26 people from various departments representing various interests showed up. After about half an hour, I realized that I was talking to 5 people. Others formed their groups and conducted lively conversations, completely…

Many of us would like to take a break from customers sometimes, focus on important, internal tasks. I have such moments myself. Some of us have been told that Scrum forbids it. Is this really the case? — For a long time, I was convinced that Scrum Sprints make no sense without customers. After all customer collaboration is deeply embedded in Agile values and principles, there is a customer for every product and every Increment is a concrete stepping stone towards the Product Goal.

Running a startup is challenging. Over 90% of startups fail. However, some failures can be mitigated if the owners don’t delude themselves for too long. — It was 10 PM. The office was illuminated only by the dim light of an open laptop. Anna once again looked at the message from a key customer — after many months of negotiations, he announced that the purchase of the product would be postponed for another year.

The simplest solution is almost always the best. Toyota has taught us how to easily get to the bottom of the problems. Its “5 Whys” Root Cause Analysis Technique can help you not only in your software projects but in any other field as well. — 5 Whys The “5 Whys” was developed at Toyota as part of the Toyota Production System. The goal of this technique is not to settle for the first answer, but to ask more “Why” questions to get to the real root of the problem.

EOY is coming. So these are my top 12 Product Management books, one for each month. Each of them has profoundly changed the way I view the world. #12 The Professional Product Owner: Leveraging Scrum as a Competitive Advantage Scrum is obviously not the only framework available, but it should be the default choice for every Product. Trainers Don McGreal and…