2024-04-11 21:15
The recent shift to the virtual space and home office created a more convenient work-life balance but created very new challenges as well. How to grow talents, how to collaborate, and how to… Read More
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Agile And Scrum Blog By Zuzi Sochova Blog
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All about Agile, Scrum, and Kanban by Zuzi Sochova, Agile Coach and Certified Scrum Trainer.
2024-03-10 19:52
Traditional organizations are based on hard skills. They hire for detailed position descriptions and look for certain experiences, and once you are hired, they evaluate your hard skills and… Read More
2024-02-12 12:36
Quite often during the last few months, I heard people being frustrated with not functioning ScrumMasters. One reason for it described in a post Why Some Organizations are Laying of “S… Read More
2024-01-04 06:11
Every year I speak at many conferences and based on my experience I recommend some places to go for inspiration. Here is my list of the Top 10 Agile conferences to attend in 2024… Read More
2023-11-27 08:20
There are so many books, blogs, and sites describing different retrospective formats, but it’s still one of the most common questions I get in the ScrumMaster classes.
When I started a… Read More
2023-10-26 06:55
For some time there was a trend of laying off so-called ScrumMasters from mostly big organizations. At first, it looks like Scrum is over. However, I would be careful with such conclusions… Read More
2023-09-27 18:20
One of the tools I have started using more over the years is a metaphor. Many years ago I was taught the Speed Boat retrospective and tried it with teams. It brought great energy and fun, it… Read More
2023-08-16 22:00
One of my biggest passions in the agile space is developing great ScrumMasters and helping them to become successful in their role. I become ScrumMaster in 2005 and I didn’t know much… Read More
2023-07-01 15:04
It’s more than 20 years since Agile Manifesto and some organizations still take Agile as another process or tool. But it can’t be farther from reality. We try to explain that it… Read More
2023-06-01 07:24
One of the very common questions people ask is why companies are failing their agile transformations and what do we need to do to create sustainable agility? Let’s start with the most… Read More
2023-05-02 09:47
We talk about changing agile mindset for years now, and it’s hard to describe. People who are far from being Agile are often saying “That’s what we are already doing… Read More
2023-04-13 20:57
It’s important to realize that the employee experience starts already before the day one during the recruiting process. In agile organizations where hard skills and past experience a… Read More
2023-03-05 20:03
Considering the shift from siloed based departments with subject matter experts focusing on their specialization in traditional organizations to more general cross-functional teams where m… Read More
2023-02-01 09:03
I wrote here about the need of changing the HR in agile organizations. Agile HR helps organizations to adapt their culture to be more creative and collaborative and less control and compet… Read More
2023-01-04 09:02
Every year I speak at many conferences and based on my experience I recommend some places to go for inspiration. Here is my list of the Top 10 Agile conferences to attend in 2023… Read More
2022-12-03 10:57
In my previous post, I was writing about the need for awareness of what is happening in the organization. Looking deeper into the culture, safety is a prerequisite of collaborative environ… Read More
2022-09-08 09:21
As organizations are changing the way they work, their need for overall business agility is growing. Different departments are trying to not only implement the agile frameworks and apply S… Read More
2022-06-19 22:32
I started organizing a conference because I wanted to bring interesting people to the Czech Republic, to Prague where I live. I wanted to give people here some sort of feeling of what it m… Read More
2022-03-30 10:23
Lately, I realized that people start listening more than reading and that podcasts become quite popular. So here is a list of my personal recommendations on top 10s agile podcasts.
#1: The… Read More
2022-02-15 10:36
Some time ago I published my new book The Agile Leader: Leveraging the Power of Influence that is looking at organizational agility and is focusing on the shift required from the… Read More
2022-01-04 10:53
Every year I speak at many conferences and based on my experience I recommend some places to go for inspiration. It’s not my intention to cover them all, I’m sharing… Read More
2021-11-08 12:38
The article was originally published by Emergence Journal (Sep 2021).
Four times a year, Emergence Journal brings together a curated selection of exclusive stories by great thinkers and… Read More
2021-09-30 15:16
There is almost no class where no one would ask me about estimations. So why estimations are not part of Scrum? Let’s start with a bit of context. The whole idea of agile estimation… Read More
2021-09-24 08:35
Speaking of creating the right environment – even in the agile world you sometimes need to make a decision. While that’s not surprising to most managers, it’s often somet… Read More
2021-08-17 06:27
Over the last two decades, agile shifted from software teams to organizations. We talk about different cultures, agile organization, agile leadership, agile HR, agile finance, all over bus… Read More
2021-06-11 10:36
Agile is a journey. In the beginning, people think it’s about different tools, new processes, new names. They keep comparing it to what they know and they are frustrated that the new… Read More
2021-05-05 10:11
People are always asking me what to read. I created the three lists recommending books ScrumMasters shall read, books Product Owners shall read, and books agile leaders shall read. And rec… Read More
2021-04-07 13:25
People mostly believe that agility needs to start top-down and that they need management support first but I know many organizations where the top-down approach failed and many others wher… Read More
2021-03-15 17:26
Agile organizations are collaborative, creative, and adaptive networks. They are like living organisms, operating on different principles. They naturally flatten the hierarchical structure… Read More
2021-03-01 18:37
It’s very common that people ask me how they shall measure the success of their Agile transformation. It’s a hard question because there is no meaningful metrics unless you kno… Read More
2021-02-05 07:06
Companies are not scaling Agile or Scrum, they are scaling success. At our agile journey, we were often wondering how to start, what practices, tools, and processes shall we use. What I le… Read More
2021-01-21 23:26
Recently I received a nice magazine in my mailbox, the Journal of Business Agility – Emergence. If you are looking for stories from different organizations, inspiration from agile lead… Read More
2021-01-04 13:22
Every year I speak at many conferences and based on my experience I recommend some places to go for inspiration. 2020 was a weird year with almost every conference canceled or transferred to… Read More
2020-12-22 10:17
It’s the end of the year, and that’s always a good time to reflect back. So how about if you do a very different retrospective this time, and instead of focusing on improvements… Read More
2020-12-08 09:43
To my huge surprise, I realized that the concept of failing fast and learning from failure is difficult for some people to accept. They always feel the frustration when I say that ScrumMaste… Read More
2020-11-25 12:11
There was a new version of ScrumGuide published last week. And I have to say that I mostly like it. It’s lighter, less prescriptive, and simple. Here are a few differences.
#1 –… Read More
2020-11-17 12:23
In most of the surveys about barriers of agility in organizations, you learn that the top three places are culture, structure, and leadership. There is no surprise. Organizations were design… Read More
2020-10-28 12:42
Autonomy is a topic that is in my mind for a while. How come that in some environments it’s so simple to let it grow and some others are so much struggling with it. The more I think ab… Read More
2020-10-08 06:39
Great ScrumMasters are patient, can give space and dedicate their time to help other people grow. They are servant leaders and Catalysts. It sounds simple and not conflicting at first look… Read More
2020-09-03 08:41
Understand Scrum is simple. If you don’t know what Scrum is and is not, there is a 17-page definition called Scrum Guide. If you like to know what is agile, go to the four values and 1… Read More
2020-08-16 08:58
Most of the organizations are doing some employee engagement survey nowadays. Mostly they do it on yearly basis, then it usually takes a few weeks to generate results, so then when they fina… Read More
2020-07-15 08:41
Great Product Owners are not only having business knowledge, authority and time, but also a few additional skills which people often don’t expect.
“Great Product Owner is a facil… Read More
2020-05-08 07:49
The world recently changed into a very unpredictable stage. No one expected it, no one was ready for it, and not many people like it either. However, every crisis is good for something, and… Read More
2020-04-16 07:48
Managers are very often asking me who is driving the agile transformation and expecting some special position like VP of Agile or Chief Agilist. To their surprise, there is no such position… Read More
2020-04-01 13:21
I recently posted a quote from a conference saying that “Removing hierarchy and cross-team dependencies made space for strong collaborative teams.” Interestingly, I got many… Read More
2020-03-19 20:44
I had never been any fan of the virtual world. I mean emails are fine, they are relatively private and wait in your mailbox until you have time to answer. Better than calls. But otherwise? N… Read More
2020-01-08 00:19
I travel & speak at many conferences each year. Here is my list of TOP 10 conferences you shall attend in 2020:
#1: Business Agility 2020 Conference (New York, USA) March 11… Read More
2019-12-05 06:41
I already wrote here that during the agile journey, the Agile HR changes the entire focus from being compliant driven to focus on overall employee experience. Agile HR is about leadership, s… Read More
2019-11-01 15:18
Understand Scrum is simple. If you don’t know what Scrum is and is not, there is a 17-page definition called Scrum Guide. If you like to know what is agile, go to the four values and 1… Read More
2019-10-15 07:49
Agile is not about new practices, processes, or tools. It’s a different way of thinking and approaching things. In one word adaptiveness. If we go next level, it’s a customer-cen… Read More
2019-09-28 16:47
Let’s start with a bit of context. We apply Agile not because it’s a new cool method but because it’s a good answer to the complexity of the nowadays world. We change beca… Read More
2019-08-28 18:50
ScrumMaster is a Catalyst leader introduced by Bill Joiner in his book Leadership Agility. Catalyst is the third step on the leadership journey from Expert to Catalyst. In a very simple way… Read More
2019-07-18 13:25
Finally, as the last blog about the Agile HR in this series or talent management if you like, is focusing on the skills and experiences of good HR. Primarily it’s about the understandi… Read More
2019-07-03 11:48
The third blog from this Agile HR series focuses on positions, career paths, and salaries. As I already mentioned in the first Agile HR blog about hiring, positions are not that important in… Read More
2019-06-13 13:00
#1: World-class Program
Several years in a row we managed to achieve high-quality program while keeping it affordable to the people in the Czech Republic. This year you can be looking forwar… Read More
2019-05-23 15:12
Being a Product Owner is not simple. At the end of the day, Product Owners are responsible for the overall Product success. They need to have business knowledge, authority and time. But let… Read More
2019-05-08 12:33
Being great ScrumMaster is a journey, where you have to learn a lot about Agile, Scrum, coaching, facilitation, change, business agility, technical practices, leadership… But all over… Read More
2019-04-25 10:44
Agile at the organizational level changes everything. I wrote here already about Agile HR, Agile Board of Directors, and Agile at the Executive Team Level. Let’s have a look at the top… Read More
2019-04-03 17:50
Next blog in the “From Good to Great” series (Don’t Copy Find Your Own Way, Radical Transparency, Agile Mindset, and Collaboration) is focusing on cross-functional teams. I… Read More
2019-03-20 18:00
Next blog in the From Good to Great series (Don’t Copy Find Your Own Way, Radical Transparency, and Agile Mindset) is focusing on the collaboration. There is nothing magical on it, jus… Read More
2019-03-12 01:03
The next topic in my Agile HR series focuses on evaluations and performance reviews. Once you hire the right person to the team, it’s time to start thinking about evaluations and perfo… Read More
2019-02-08 05:15
The more organizations shift to Agile, the more they need to redesign how they work with the employees. During this series, we focus on different functions of HR in Agile organization and ex… Read More
2019-01-25 16:56
The next blog in the From Good to Great series which started by Don’t copy, find your own way and Radical transparency is focusing on the most important part of being Agile &ndash&hell…Read More
2019-01-10 07:44
I travel & speak at many conferences each year. Here is my list of TOP 10 conferences you shall attend in 2019:
#1: Business Agility 2019 Conference (New York, USA) March 13-14… Read More
2018-12-26 17:27
I started the series From Good to Great by advising you to find your own way of being Agile. The next blog focuses on radical transparency. Let’s be truthful for a moment, how many org… Read More
2018-12-09 11:48
Agile become part of our lives and you can see some sort of “Agile” in every other company, but still, many companies are failing to be Agile and understand the mindset. Ron Jeff… Read More
2018-11-21 20:44
Are you also wondering why you shall be Agile and your board of directors and the executive team is not? I wrote about Agile at the executive team last time, now it’s time to have a lo… Read More
2018-11-01 12:20
Building a great team is not that simple as it may look. Sometimes you are lucky and the team just forms without any effort, sometimes you are not and all you get is the group of individuals… Read More
2018-10-18 09:14
One of the topics most of the project managers and traditional organizations at the beginning of their Agile transformation journey are struggling are deadlines. How can we do Scrum and comm… Read More
2018-09-27 08:36
Agile can’t stay just at the team level. Agile transformation only creates disturbance and gap between the management and employees. And the more Agile the teams are, the bigger the di… Read More
2018-09-13 12:47
Many Czech corporations are now starting their Agile journey, at least they say so. Despite fancy labels, they don’t have any desire to change so, unfortunately, you can only expect so… Read More
2018-08-31 13:09
Agile HR or if you want Talent Management as it is called nowadays turn the whole company around. It’s employees centric, delivering value to the whole organization. At a glance, not m… Read More
2018-08-18 03:42
To continue my with my book recommendations (check Five books every ScrumMaster should read and Five books every Product Owner should read), I have several books here, I would recommend ever… Read More
2018-07-27 02:14
To continue my with my book recommendations (check the five books every ScrumMaster should read), I have several books here, I would recommend every Product Owner to read. It’s a mix w… Read More
2018-07-10 23:20
I have several books here, I would recommend every ScrumMaster to read. It’s a mix which will help you to understand ScrumMaster role in much broader perspective. In addition to t… Read More
2018-06-26 20:18
#1: World-class Program
Several years in a row we managed to achieve high-quality program while keeping it affordable to the people in the Czech Republic. This year you can be looking forwar… Read More
2018-06-13 09:40
It seems to be a very common question. In general, if you are willing to change yourself, yes. There is no bigger enemy than yourself. There is no environment, size or business restrict… Read More
2018-06-02 08:43
Leader and manager, what is the difference? Is there any? People are often mixing these terms up so let’s make it more clear.
Firstly, managers shall be leaders. That’s where the… Read More
2018-05-18 16:03
One of the very common questions I got at my trainings is how to do agile contracts. In a traditional world where there is neither trust nor collaboration, the contract is the key. It must b… Read More
2018-04-21 02:02
What is agile leadership about? How would you define it, how would you explain it? Those are just a few questions people are asking these days.
Agile leaders are able to inspire others… Read More
2018-04-04 09:35
Some time back I went through the ORSC – Organizational Relationship and System Coaching and wrote this article to share my learning with the Agile community. Now it’s time to sh… Read More
2018-03-18 15:42
Modern world brings not only the different way of developing software called Agile but also changes in the organizational structure and leadership. You see it more and more often. People at… Read More
2018-02-15 14:38
The world is changing in cycles, fashion goes in cycles, and the same is true for Agile. What was trendy yesterday, is not today and it can change surprisingly fast So let’s have a lo… Read More
2018-01-31 19:38
In order to achieve success at the organizational level, we need to start management talent development program to create leaders who will help to grow a company, make quick decisions and st… Read More
2018-01-17 13:00
I travel & speak at many conferences each year. Here is my list of TOP 10 conferences for 2018:
#1: Big Apple Scrum Day (New York, NY, USA) – May 11, 2018. Enthusiastic community… Read More
2018-01-03 20:45
The new State of Scrum Survey is out today. Together with some expected statistics, it brought also few interesting points and surprisingly also short success-stories from different industri… Read More
2017-12-14 21:36
When I go around the Old Town in Prague I can feel the Christmas atmosphere – Huge Christmas tree is already decorated, a small market with gifts. The holiday season is here
It’… Read More
2017-12-10 11:17
One of the things you have to know as a trainer is how to design a content for your class. The traditional teaching methods which were mostly about listening and reading, are very inefficien… Read More
2017-11-19 22:19
A few days back there was a new update to the Scrum Guide – the definition of Scrum. So what’s new? Not much, which is a good think. Most of the changes were minor, correcting, c… Read More
2017-11-01 23:14
Some time ago, when I first heard the definition of LeSS (Large Scaling Scrum) product, I found it a bit unrealistic. Large Scaling Scrum is one of the Agile Scaling methods and I happen to… Read More
2017-10-19 18:23
Definition of Done (DoD) is a simple thing, although people are often struggling with it. It only defines what “done” means. It brings consistency into the product delivery. It s… Read More
2017-10-05 06:23
Are we already Agile? How do we know we are Agile? What level of Agility have we? It’s hard to say. On one hand, you never touch Agile as Agile is like a star on the horizon. On the ot… Read More
2017-09-17 12:18
Agile and Scrum transformation is not any easy and it takes time. For a big organization, such time can easily be counted in years. During those years you would be dealing with so-calle… Read More
2017-08-25 01:43
The more the Agile Leadership is popular, people are asking for more description. Who is the Agile Leader, what makes him different from a traditional manager, and which competences and skil… Read More
2017-08-06 14:00
Most of the people, when you ask them, admit that KPIs are not any useful at their organizations. They don’t motivate, they don’t change people’s behavior to any better way… Read More
2017-07-12 17:41
Culture is intangible. It’s hard to touch. Hard to define, hard to measure. However, it is the critical piece for the organizational success. We may debate if culture follows an o… Read More
2017-07-05 10:39
The world dimension of #ScrumMasterWay concept represents three levels ScrumMasters shall operate. The third element is called Entire System. Though the time and energy ScrumMasters spend on… Read More
2017-06-21 15:26
The world dimension of #ScrumMasterWay concept represents three levels ScrumMasters shall operate. The second element is called Relationships. Though the time and energy ScrumMasters spend o… Read More
2017-06-08 04:00
The world dimension of #ScrumMasterWay concept represents three levels ScrumMasters shall operate. The first element is called My team. Though the time and energy ScrumMasters spend on each… Read More
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