Notes from 70 Scrum Master Theses

 Notes are from here. 


- Every "good practice" must be tailored to context.

- Scrum Master should never act as enforcer 

- Product backlog includes user stories, bugs, spikes, and non-functional requirements

- A Product Backlog is “actionable” if the Scrum Team can organize a successful Sprint Planning at a moment’s notice.

- Incomplete and poorly prepared work items seriously hamper the effectiveness of a Scrum Team. These items should never be selected for the Sprint Backlog, but instead sorted out during Product Backlog refinement meetings.

- Daily Scrums cannot fix — and is not supposed to fix—, among other things: a dysfunctional organization, a dysfunctional Scrum Team, an inadequate Product Backlog, a Sprint Planning session gone wrong, low-quality user stories, or a missing product vision.

- All issues, concerns and frustrations, should be documented — even if just temporarily using sticky notes. Though it’s always better to keep a formal document or file. (Limit access to these documents to the Scrum Team members, though.)

- Reasons typically given by management for transitioning to Scrum and other agile practices include: Making the organization more efficient; Helping the organization deliver faster; and Improving the predictability of delivery dates. Organizations making the switch to Agile must be clear on their "why" for adopting the new framework. 

- A successful transition to Scrum requires the backing of C-level executives; a bottom-up approach is futile.

- Be wary of Scrum anti-patterns (patterns that do not align with Scrum). 


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