Sign Up for Updates
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Karas on 7 Companies in 7 Industries That Have Successfully Adapted to COVID-19
- izle on Five Ways You Can Use LinkedIn to Find a New Job
- filmi izle on 5 Ways to Succeed in a Virtual Interview
- erotik on Agile QuickTip: Use an External Facilitator
- Giora Morein on Agile QuickTip: The Sprint Planning Mini Retro
Boost your Career with a CSM Certification
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinBoost your Career with a CSM Certification A CSM certification is an invaluable addition to your resume. But it’s more than just that! It can significantly help you with your professional life, and also greatly benefit the organization you work for. 9 ways getting a CSM certification can benefit your career Certified ScrumMasters earn…
Enhance your Team Management Skills with a CSM Certification
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinEnhance your Team Management Skills with a CSM Certification As a certified ScrumMaster, you will gain access to valuable team building and management methodologies. Here are some the ways that a CSM certification can help you improve your team management and collaboration skills: As a CSM, you will have the opportunity to motivate and lead…
Why do Project Managers Make Such Great ScrumMasters?
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinWhy do Project Managers Make Such Great ScrumMasters? You don’t have to be a project manager to become a ScrumMaster. In fact, according to a recent survey of more than 2,100 ScrumMasters by Scrum.org and Age of Product, about 31 percent said they held a project manager title before they became a ScrumMaster. That said,…
Five Ways You Can Use LinkedIn to Find a New Job
/1 Comment/in Blog /by Giora MoreinFive Immediate Ways You Can Use LinkedIn to Find a New Job! More than 95% of recruiters use LinkedIn to find talent, and there are currently more than 20 million open jobs available on the platform. However, if you struggle with making meaningful connections or closing opportunities using LinkedIn, you’re not alone. According to experts…
5 Ways to Succeed in a Virtual Interview
/1 Comment/in Blog /by Giora MoreinJob hunting while the world is on stand-still can feel like running on a hamster wheel. You’re working as hard as you possibly can, and running non-stop, but you’re still getting nowhere. If you look at the numbers though, you’ll see that employment in the US is turning itself around, with payroll employment rising by…
Upgrade Your Daily Scrum
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinIs your Daily Scrum getting repetitive or monotonous? Have you had any feedback that the format is stale, or have you noticed team members not paying as much attention as you would like them to? Here are some of our favorite ideas for spicing things up a bit, ideas that you can implement, either as…
7 Companies in 7 Industries That Have Successfully Adapted to COVID-19
/1 Comment/in Blog /by Giora MoreinWhat does Business Agility truly mean? Failing fast, creating iterative strategies, delivering minimum viable products, and rapidly adapting to change and uncertainty. COVID-19 – and the unprecedented global disruption it has caused – has forced organizations of all sizes in all industries to deal with rapidly changing markets. In fact, 43% of small business owners…
Agile QuickTip: Schedule your Collaboration Time
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinSchedule your Collaboration Time Looking for some ideas to make your team more effective? Why not schedule collaboration time from the outset. Many scrum teams, especially if they are new, struggle to find opportunities and reasons to collaborate and work with one another. They may even find it awkward to approach one another and ask…
Agile QuickTip: Use an External Facilitator
/1 Comment/in Blog /by Giora MoreinHave you ever considered improving your Sprint retrospective with the help of an external facilitator? If you can’t think why that would help, just keep reading. As the ScrumMaster, you know that a successful retrospective is key to the continued improvement of the team. This is where the team discusses the sprint as a whole…
‘All things Agile’ GIFs by Giora Morein
/0 Comments/in Blog /by thinklo4“Have you tried out Giora’s GIFs? If not – you’re missing out! Who doesn’t love a GIF? When words just aren’t enough, and you need to explain something unique to your team, or respond quickly on the fly, a GIF can sum up a whole lot of meaning in just a couple of seconds. If…
Agile QuickTip: Kick off your Team with a Retrospective
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinKick off your Team with a Retrospective Starting your scrum team off the right way can be the difference between success and failure. Here’s a great idea to set them up for success, by starting by looking back – with a retrospective. Everyone has their own way of kicking off a scrum team. Some Scrum…
11 Ways You Can Inject Some Joy into your Videoconferencing
/0 Comments/in Blog /by thinklo4Working from home getting old? Here are some ways to make meetings with disparate teams a lot more fun, adding some laughter and interactive features to your latest videoconferencing zoom call. Have Fun with Backgrounds Teleport yourself to the leaning tower of Pisa, or lounge in the Oval Office or on stage at Carnegie Hall.…
Agile QuickTip: Estimation a drag? Get the whole team involved.
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinEstimation a drag? Get the whole team involved. While it might seem counter-intuitive, getting your entire team involved in the estimation process will end up providing more clarity, and actually improve your plans overall. Let’s just admit it. Estimating stories or other backlog items is not fun. A lot of times it can even become…
Agile QuickTip: Conduct your daily scrum in front of the board
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinConduct your daily scrum in front of the task board The daily scrum provides team members an update on exactly what’s happened over the last 24 hours, what has been learned, and what sort of adjustments need to be made over the next 24 hours. However, have you ever thought about how you’re hosting your…
Can Working Remotely and Working Agile… Work, Together?
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinWant to meet for a coffee? … Oh right. Whether you think it’s a great idea or not, you’ve probably found yourself working as part of a remote team over the past few weeks, and none of us know exactly when it’s going to end. For those of us who thrive on the agile idea…
It’s Official – Women Are Killing it in Agile!
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Giora MoreinThe ScrumMaster trends report 2019 showed that women in the ScrumMaster role are taking home a higher salary than their male counterparts. Those with training and certification were doing even better than those without. Here at ThinkLouder, we’ve seen that women are eager and excited to get the ScrumMaster certification under their belts. In fact,…
Agile QuickTip: Yellow and Red Cards!
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinHere’s how introducing yellow and red meeting cards can help you focus your teams meetings, and stop them getting taken off track. We’ve all been there when a meeting loses focus. Sometimes participants get too far in the weeds, sometimes they start talking about things that aren’t relevant, or maybe start talking about redundant things…
Agile Quicktip: Use Defect Thresholds to Help Product Quality
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinUse Defect Thresholds to Help Product Quality Most scrum teams have backlogs that contain more than just user stories and new product features. Oftentimes, they contain bugs and defects that have been reported by customers or users or even by the team itself. These aren’t always handled right away. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing,…
Agile QuickTip: Using Multiple Choice Estimates
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinAgile QuickTip: Using Multiple Choice Estimates If you ever find that estimating tasks during sprint planning is painful and argumentative then multiple choice estimates might really help with your team’s planning. Most scrum teams follow a similar path during sprint planning. Team members will break user stories or backlog items down into individual implementation tasks…
Agile QuickTip: Don’t Manage Cross-Team Dependencies – Eliminate Them
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinDon’t manage cross-team dependencies – eliminate them. One of the biggest challenges that a scrum team has to contend with when working in a multi-team, or scaled enterprise environment is managing cross-team dependencies. This is where your team is dependent on some other team to deliver something of their own, before you can make any…
Agile QuickTip: User Stories and Product Ideas Should be Born on Index Cards
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinHow Do You Capture Your User Stories and Product Ideas? Try Index Cards Here’s an out of the box idea that at first glance might seem counter-intuitive. I believe that user stories and product ideas should be born on index cards, rather than immediately logged electronically. Most Agile or scrum teams will use some kind…
Agile QuickTip: Safety Checks to Kick Off Your Meetings
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinSafety Checks to Kick Off Your Meetings We often assume that participants in teams feel comfortable being open, transparent and forthcoming in a way that will make meetings and interactions meaningful and valuable. But what if this assumption is wrong? How would we know? How might this affect a meeting, it’s participants and the meeting…
Agile QuickTip: Your Process Management Tool is not a Facilitation Tool
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinProcess management tools are a common way to for a team to manage its work, it’s backlog, and its plans. But these are repositories of information, they are not likely the best way to create this information. Here’s an idea that might make work better. Most agile scrum teams will use some kind of digital…
Agile QuickTip: Get rid of the ‘Survey 7’ Level-Up to Get Feedback
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinGet rid of the ‘Survey 7’ to Level-Up the Way You Get Feedback Surveys can be a really effective tool when collecting feedback or gaining insights from different stakeholders. Their versatility allows them to be used to get feedback from users and customers as well as to get ideas for improvements from team members. Surveys…
Agile QuickTip: Add Expiration Dates to Your Backlog Items
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinAdd Expiration Dates to Your Backlog Items If you have a backlog that’s getting out of control, consider using expiration dates to help control the list and streamline your team’s priorities. Many mature agile teams or scrum teams that have been together for a while might find themselves with a backlog that’s hundreds if not…
Agile QuickTip: Use Working Agreements for your Daily Scrum
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinUse Working Agreements for your Daily Scrum Have you ever considered that working agreements for your daily scrum might make them a lot more valuable, and help separate the daily scrum from any other meetings you have each day? Your team’s daily scrum or daily stand up might be one of the most important meetings…
Agile QuickTip: A Wishlist of Ready!
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinA Wishlist of Ready! Many Agile and Scrum teams have adopted the practice of having a “Definition of Ready” as a way to explicitly define when a Story – or Backlog Item – is “Ready” for a team to take into a Sprint. This often serves as an entrance gate for Stories and ideas to…
Agile QuickTip: Explicit Sprint Learning Goals
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinExplicit Sprint Learning Goals On this edition of Agile Quick Tips, we’re going to be discussing how setting explicit sprint learning goals could help improve your team overall. Agile teams or scrum teams will often set goals during sprint planning that help them to maximize value and optimize the product that sprint. But what if…
Agile QuickTip: Achievement Focused Daily Scrum
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinAchievement Focused Daily Scrum If you’re feeling like your daily Scrum or Stand-up is getting less valuable, and losing some of its effectiveness, why not turn things around by changing the focus to achievements rather than activities? Most Agile team’s Stand-ups or Scrums focus pretty heavily on activities. Questions asked in the daily Scrum include…
Agile QuickTip: The Open Meeting Parking Lot
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinThe Open Meeting Parking Lot Meetings getting off track? Have you thought about using the idea of an Open Meeting Parking Lot to make an entire meeting more focused? Many Agile teams complain about meetings that get derailed. This can be anything from a daily Scrum that takes much longer than ideal because everyone has…
Agile QuickTip: Implicit Task Estimates Instead of Explicit Ones
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinImplicit Task Estimates Instead of Explicit Ones by Giora Morein You’re about to learn how changing your task estimates from explicit to implicit could make all the difference to the productivity and experience of your Scrum teams. Sprint planning is where most Scrum or Agile teams will take a story or a different backlog item…
Agile QuickTip: Vegas-Style Retrospective
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinVegas-Style Retrospective by Giora Morein Vegas-style retrospective might really be the difference-maker in helping your team identify and exploit those improvement opportunities that can propel them through the stratosphere. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas! This famous tag line might not immediately sound like it has much to do with agile learning or Scrum…
Agile QuickTip: Using a Shared Daily Goal to make Your Sprint more Valuable
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinUsing a Shared Daily Goal to make Your Sprint more Valuable The idea of a ‘Shared Daily Goal’ is really simple, and by using this tactic at the end of every scrum, you might see a huge impact on how valuable your daily scrum meetings are. The daily scrum or daily stand-up is all about…
Agile QuickTip: Begin and End Your Sprint in the Middle of the Day
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinBegin and End Your Sprint in the Middle of the Day My latest Agile QuickTip is all about how ending and starting your sprints in the middle of the day might make your team way more effective. Most scrum teams will end their sprints at the end of the day, and then start the next…
Agile QuickTip: Use a Calendar to Make your Sprint Planning Meeting More Accurate
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinUsing a calendar to drive your sprint planning meeting can make your sprint plan a lot more successful. Every sprint starts with sprint planning. Sprint planning is where team members and their product owner collaborate to define a plan to maximize the value of the upcoming sprint. This will sometimes include outlining the timeline for…
Agile QuickTip: Publishing your Team’s Definition of Done
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinPublishing your Scrum team’s definition of done Taking the extra step of publishing your scrum team’s definition of ‘done’ could help your agile team to collaborate and focus on getting things finished. Every scrum team and every agile team is always looking for ways to deliver as much value as possible in each sprint. This…
Agile QuickTip: Learning Focused Daily Scrum
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinTurn your traditional Scrum or stand-up agenda on its head with a learning focused Scrum. Typically, agile or scrum teams have a daily Scrum or stand up where the focus is on progress or activity. Looking at what you’ve accomplished since the previous Scrum, the questions addressed are typically; ‘What have you achieved?’; ‘What challenges…
Agile QuickTip: Try an Audio Signal to Start or End your Daily Scrum
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinTry an Audio Signal to Start or End your Daily Scrum Using an audio signal at the beginning or the end of your daily Scrum could help define precisely when it starts and finishes, and make the Scrum a lot more focused. One thing that a lot of scrum or agile teams complain about is…
Agile QuickTip: The Sprint Planning Mini Retro
/2 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinThe Sprint Planning Mini Retro You could be making Sprint Planning far more effective by including a mini retrospective at the end of it. Sprint planning is the opening ceremony for every team Sprint. This is where your entire team comes together with your product owner and facilitated by your ScrumMaster, to figure out the…
Agile QuickTip: Limit Your Agile Teams Product Backlog
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinLimit Your Agile Teams Product Backlog Limiting the number of items on your product backlog might make your product owner, and in fact your entire Scrum team, more focused. Many Agile product owners that I work with complain about their product backlog being really long. They mention that it’s cluttered with stale ideas, old feedback,…
Agile QuickTip: Avoid Starting Sprints on Mondays or Fridays
/2 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinAvoid Starting Sprints on Mondays or Fridays Sometimes a small change can make a big difference. Starting sprints on days other than Mondays and Fridays can make your scrum more valuable, and solve some common scrum problems for your agile team. A lot teams will start their agile sprints on Mondays and end them on…
Agile Quicktip: Budgeting Your Scrum Update Times
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinHave you ever considered that budgeting time for each team member to give their daily updates might make your daily Scrum more valuable? One thing that a lot of scrum or agile teams complain about, is getting value out of their daily Scrum. In some cases, team members might be providing too much information or…
Agile QuickTip: A Minute of Fun
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinA Minute of Scrum Fun Set your Scrum apart with a minute of fun! Many scrum or agile teams find their daily Scrum or stand up can become a little boring or stale. When it’s not that interesting, you might find that people even start to dread going. Unengaged team members can lead to late…
Agile QuickTip: Teach your Team to W.A.I.T
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinTeach your Team to W.A.I.T If you’re the scrum master of an agile scrum team and you find that those daily scrum meetings are taking longer than you want, or your team members are getting too into the details, and you aren’t getting enough value from the scrum, here’s a tool that might help your…
Agile QuickTip: Schedule Sync Time Before the Daily Scrum
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinHave you considered how ensuring you have some sync time scheduled before your daily scrum might make for an overall better stand up? One of the constant challenges for agile or scrum teams is making sure that the daily stand up is concise, focused and valuable. Far more often it takes longer than we’d like…
Agile QuickTip: Don’t Show Up At All
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinIt may sound counter-intuitive, but if you’re a ScrumMaster, you might be able to improve your daily scrum or daily standup by not showing up at all. If you’re the scrum master of an agile or scrum team and you feel your scrum isn’t as engaging or as interesting as it could be, you’ve probably…
Agile QuickTip: Schedule Follow Up Times
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinHave you considered using scrum follow-ups to keep your scrum meetings on point? One problem that scrum or agile teams have to contend with is the long daily scrum. The most effective daily scrum meetings are between 10 and 15 minutes, keeping the content brief but relevant. Instead of hitting that target, we often see…
Agile QuickTip: Start Scrums at Off Times
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinOne of the most common frustrations that teams have with their daily scrum meeting is getting everyone to show up on time. Could the answer be, start at off times? The daily scrum – or standup – is intended to be no longer than 15 minutes, so when team members show up 5 minutes late,…
Agile QuickTip: Popcorn Scrums
/0 Comments/in Blog /by Giora MoreinThe daily scrum is an integral part of any scrum team. Here you can discuss what you’ve been working on the previous day, bring up challenges that are standing in the way of progress, and set the context for the day’s work. But have you heard of the Popcorn scrum method? One of the challenges…
Bridging the Gap from the Classroom to the Workplace – What’s the Secret?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Uncategorized /by Giora MoreinThe success of encouraging employees to train further and take courses is long recognized. In fact, companies that offer comprehensive training programs see a 24% improvement in their profit margins over those businesses that spend less on employee engagement and development. As well as this, 68% of workers claim that training and professional development is…
7 Things You Got Wrong About Agile
/0 Comments/in Blog, Uncategorized /by Giora MoreinAgile is a powerful business tool, with the 2018 State of Agile report showing that the majority of organizations that adopt Agile see increased business value. Despite the widespread adoption, there are still many myths and misconceptions about Agile. We look at some of the biggest. 1. Agile is Just for IT and Software Agile originated…
Every Ounce of Value
/0 Comments/in Blog, Uncategorized /by Giora MoreinUnderstanding the concept of ‘Every Ounce of Value’ means recognising a core truth. Value is created by the people at the bottom. As the value creators, the people in the trenches and on the ground are who create the products, speak to the consumers and are best placed to make quick decisions. The goals of…