Facilitating Professional Scrum Teams

Improve team alignment, effectiveness, and outcomes

Facilitating Professional Scrum Teams by Patricia Kong, Glaudia Califano and David Spinks, published by Addison-Wesley is available from the Pearson website as well as at all good retailers.

Unlock the true power of collaboration within Scrum Teams with this practical guide packed with tips, tools, and real-life scenarios to elevate your facilitation skills.

Synopsis

Scrum requires healthy collaboration, not just between the members of the Scrum Team, but also between the Scrum Team and its stakeholders to gather feedback and input. These stakeholders include users and customers of the product developed by the Scrum Team. Healthy collaboration entails embracing and leveraging individual experiences and perspectives—a dynamic that is core to solving complex problems.

Collaboration is the heart of thriving Scrum Teams, but most available resources on collaboration focus solely on meeting formats and neglect to show how Scrum Teams truly harmonize their efforts and make informed decisions effectively. This book bridges the gap by not only providing effective facilitation techniques but also delving into the how and why of facilitation—all geared toward improving effectiveness, achieving impactful outcomes, and helping Scrum Teams work through challenges.

Provides tools and insights for Scrum Teams to better facilitate team interactions to leverage group diversity.
Uses real-world scenarios that illustrate common Scrum Team challenges and how they can be overcome with effective and timely facilitation.
Shares comprehensive facilitation approaches accompanied with effective guidance on when to use them, how they can be combined, and how they can help to achieve desired outcomes.

Leverage facilitation as a powerful complementary practice to Scrum to drive results and achieve goals.

Reviews

The book emphasizes the need of communication, collaboration and coordination by appropriate facilitation. The book pulls in known practices and patterns, described by the liberating structures as well as new practices, developed by the authors.

– Christoph Dibbern

Quite simply a brilliant read and a must for any Scrum Masters bookshelf.

Beautifully written and packed full of insights, practical examples, and techniques to help Agile teams achieve their objectives and create a purposeful, safe, creative, and fun environment to learn and grow.

What amazed me most about this book is that not one word jarred with me at all. If you are an Agilist and looking for a way to improve and coach your teams in the art of facilitation, look no further.

A book I will read and reference, again and again.

– Matthew Bond

The book reads as a collection of Scrum events and scenarios with ideas on how to deal with them. Unlike other books you can tell that the ideas have all been tried and proven by the authors.

You may find that some of the ideas presented you already know or are not relevant to your situation however I am confident you will still find some new ones you didn’t know about and appreciate the authors thoughts on ideas that you have not been confident in before.

I recommend reading through the entire book briefly then coming back to read the sections of interest in greater detail. This book is now part of our toolkit and company library!

– Anon.

Having attended the (PSF-Skills) course by scrum.org prior to the release of this book, I found it more than a compliment. It is packed full of tips and practical examples beyond only scrum teams – it is all about facilitating (full stop). I would recommend this book to anyone who facilitates scrum teams (target of the book) but also if you work with people on products, change etc.

– Tunde Sangobiyi

This book expertly removes the ambiguity of facilitation and highlights the value an influential facilitator adds to a team’s effectiveness through relatable stories, practical advice, and techniques to try. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, including management, working in product development, regardless of their use of Scrum.

– Nic Easton

Brilliantly blends practice and theory. Real-life Scrum scenarios throughout the book paint a clear picture of how to put facilitation principles, skills, and techniques into action to overcome common Scrum challenges. Visualize what it looks like to guide people from not-so-effective collaboration toward greater creativity, responsibility, alignment, and improved outcomes.

– Stephanie Ockerman

Working with Scrum teams? Then buy this book! It’s packed with advice and real-life examples to support your desired goals. The stories shared by the experienced authors resonated with me, and I loved the practical facilitation ideas. I will be returning to this book again and again.

– Caroline Stacey

The authors’ insights into Scrum facilitation are transformative. Drawing from my own Agile expertise and teaching at Harvard, I can attest to the book’s profound value. It’s a must-read for anyone striving for highperformance teams. Kudos for this enlightening guide!

– Richard Kasperowski

This book is a must-have for anyone working with Scrum teams. Packed with practical tips, relatable scenarios, and a sprinkle of humor, it offers invaluable guidance to not only boost your Scrum team’s success but also turn up the dial on effective facilitation on every-day scenarios. Kudos to the authors for sharing their expertise and compelling insights.

– Saniya Khalil

I started out as a Scrum Master ten years ago. Reading this book back then would have speeded up my journey helping Scrum teams to work more effectively. It covers everything that Scrum Masters need to get started facilitating Scrum events in a practical yet entertaining way.

– Simon Flossmann

Read this book if you want potent techniques to take your team facilitation to another level. You’re likely facing some of these scenarios already. Use these approaches to get effective results.

– David Boyd