Agile & Scrum

How teams plan and deliver work when not everything can be known in advance: the ideas behind agile, the basics of managing a project, and Scrum, Kanban and Lean in practice — including in IT operations.

19 pages 131 glossary terms PSM I PSPO I

How to use this topic

The first four pages set the scene: what agile is, the basics of project management, planning a project up front, and how to choose the approach that fits the work. The next nine pages explain Scrum — the framework, the team, the events, the artifacts, managing the backlog, forecasting, the Scrum Master and Product Owner in practice, and scaling. The last six pages cover Kanban, Lean, agile in IT operations, stakeholders and risk, tools and anti-patterns, and preparing for the Scrum.org assessments. How a Scrum team builds quality in is explained in Quality in Agile Teams.

The Scrum pages follow the official Scrum Guide (2020) by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. Where common practice adds something the guide does not require — story points, velocity, a Definition of Ready — the pages say so, because that difference matters in the assessments and in real teams.

Pages are tagged with the certifications they help with: PSM I (Professional Scrum Master) and PSPO I (Professional Scrum Product Owner), both from Scrum.org.

Learning path

  1. 01What Is Agile?What agile means and where it came from: the problems with big up-front plans, the Agile Manifesto's four values and twelve principles, and what agile is not.Beginner
  2. 02Project Management BasicsWhat a project is and how it differs from ongoing operations: scope, time and cost, stakeholders, the project lifecycle, and predictive, adaptive and hybrid ways of working.Beginner
  3. 03Predictive PlanningPlanning a project up front: the work breakdown structure, estimates and dependencies, Gantt charts and milestones, the critical path, and when a predictive plan is the right choice.Intermediate
  4. 04Choosing an ApproachHow to pick a way of working that fits the work: certainty and agreement, the Stacey matrix and Cynefin, when Scrum, Kanban, a predictive plan or a hybrid fits, and frameworks such as PRINCE2 and the PMBOK Guide.Intermediate
  5. 05Scrum at a GlanceThe whole Scrum framework on one page: empiricism and lean thinking, the three pillars, the five values, and how the team, events and artifacts fit together.BeginnerPSM IPSPO I
  6. 06The Scrum TeamWho does what in Scrum: the Product Owner, the Scrum Master and the Developers, their accountabilities, team size, self-management and cross-functional teams.BeginnerPSM IPSPO I
  7. 07Scrum EventsThe Sprint and the four events inside it — Sprint Planning, the Daily Scrum, the Sprint Review and the Sprint Retrospective — with their purpose, attendees and timeboxes.BeginnerPSM IPSPO I
  8. 08Scrum Artifacts and CommitmentsThe three artifacts and the commitment that belongs to each: the Product Backlog and Product Goal, the Sprint Backlog and Sprint Goal, and the Increment and Definition of Done.BeginnerPSM IPSPO I
  9. 09Product Backlog ManagementKeeping the Product Backlog useful: user stories and acceptance criteria, the INVEST checks, refinement, splitting work, and ordering by value with techniques such as MoSCoW and WSJF.IntermediatePSPO I
  10. 10Estimation and ForecastingHow teams estimate and forecast without false precision: relative sizing and story points, planning poker, velocity, burn-down and burn-up charts, and probabilistic forecasts.IntermediatePSM IPSPO I
  11. 11The Scrum Master in PracticeWhat a Scrum Master actually does: serving the team, the Product Owner and the organization, coaching and facilitation, removing impediments, and common traps.IntermediatePSM I
  12. 12The Product Owner in PracticeWhat a Product Owner actually does: product vision and goals, maximizing value, working with stakeholders, saying no, releasing often, and measuring value with Evidence-Based Management.IntermediatePSPO I
  13. 13Scaling AgileWhen one team is not enough: what scaling has to solve, Nexus, LeSS, SAFe and Scrum@Scale compared, why the Spotify model is not a framework, and when not to scale.Advanced
  14. 14KanbanManaging the flow of work: visualizing work, limiting work in progress, flow metrics such as cycle time and throughput, Little's Law, and using Kanban with Scrum.Intermediate
  15. 15Lean ThinkingThe ideas behind agile and Kanban from manufacturing: value and waste, the seven wastes in software and IT, pull, flow and continuous improvement.Beginner
  16. 16Agile in IT OperationsApplying agile to operations and network teams: unplanned work and interruptions, Kanban for ops, combining projects and daily operations, and how agile fits with DevOps and ITIL.Intermediate
  17. 17Stakeholders, Risk and CommunicationKeeping the people around a project informed and involved: stakeholder analysis, RACI charts, communication plans, and handling risks and issues in both predictive and agile work.Beginner
  18. 18Agile Tools and Anti-PatternsThe tools teams use for boards and backlogs, metrics that help and metrics that hurt, and common ways agile goes wrong — from cargo-cult Scrum to Zombie and Dark Scrum.Intermediate
  19. 19Preparing for PSM I and PSPO IHow the Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master and Product Owner assessments work, how to prepare, the wording traps in their questions, and how they compare with other agile certifications.BeginnerPSM IPSPO I

Agile & Scrum glossary

Short definitions of the terms used in this topic. The full glossary covers every topic.