New to agile? What does the ScrumMaster do anyway?
Bob Hartman 

I often have people ask me what a ScrumMaster does. Interestingly, today it came up on a mailing list I read on a regular basis. So, naturally that means it is time for a blog entry to talk about it!

I am a big believer in simplifying things, so let’s start with an overly simplistic definition for what the ScrumMaster does:

“A ScrumMaster removes impediments for the team”

It seems many people believe this to be the only thing a ScrumMaster does. Maybe it was the way they were taught. Maybe they misinterpreted something. This is definitely not all a ScrumMaster does. ... full article with author credits

Doing Agile versus Being Agile
By Bob Hartman

I spent the past week in Orlando, Florida at the Agile Development Practices conference, and I heard a number of people say “We do agile at our company.” When pressed further it suddenly became “We do agile at our company except we don’t do …”

To me that sums up the problem of DOING agile versus BEING agile. It is quite easy to DO agile. You pick the non-threatening pieces and parts and simply do those. Then you say you are doing agile and no one is the wiser. Unfortunately, when pressed you have to admit to not quite doing agile very well.

Being agile is completely different. Being agile means you understand the principles which lead to true agile success. It also means the team and organization are both constantly improving.

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New to agile? Keep it simple
By Bob Hartman

When dealing with an agile implementation, particularly in the case of a new agile team, we often make things too complex and difficult. We tend to keep putting band-aids on the process until we have something that is overly burdensome and no longer useful. I’ve now seen enough of this to know there needs to be an intervention! So take a deep breath, relax and read how to simplify your life on an agile team.

The starting point is the six basic principles of what I call “Simple Agile.” Here are the six principles:

6 Principles of Simple Agile

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