Too many teams are still organized around silos. Business over here. Tech over there. Maybe design somewhere in the middle trying to translate. And when people can’t talk to each other just because they have different skill sets, you don’t really have a team: you have specialists in a vacuum.

Rebel Scrum is excited to announce Siva Balu  as the afternoon keynote speaker for Scrum Day Madison 2026 , happening October 15, 2026, at the Madison Marriott West . This year’s theme, “Agility in the Age of AI,”  comes to life through Siva’s keynote, “ From AI Hype to AI for Your Business .”  Drawing from real-world experience at a Fortune 3 organization and beyond, Siva will share how leaders can cut through the noise, apply AI responsibly, and deliver meaningful business

Teams run into this situation all the time. Someone notices a small problem. A developer says, “Oh, that’s an easy fix. I can knock that out quickly.” And then the question comes up: “Should we just fix it now?” The answer is a solid “it depends.” Scrum doesn’t give you a rule that says yes or no. Instead, it gives you something better: the ability to use your judgment as a team. Start With the Product Owner Before anyone jumps in and starts fixing something, the first questi

In a single building, we can create a mask, make the chip, test the chip, make another mask, and have a fast recursive loop for improving the chip design.

The Product Backlog is so much more than a simple priority list. It is a plan for how the Product Owner and the Scrum team will deliver the Product Goal and maximize value. But the Product Owner can't come up with this list - or even order it - entirely in a vacuum. Stakeholder feedback as well as input from the Developers is invaluable to ensuring that the Product Backlog is a good plan. Having a good conversation about the ordering of the Product Backlog comes down to g

For years we have heard the phrase “content is king.” Today, I think it's fair to say that context is king.

Scrum uses what I like to call a “just in time” approach to meetings.

Do they prefer Kanban? Let them use Kanban. Do they prefer Scrum? Let them eat cake (I mean, let them use Scrum.) Scrum with Kanban? Well, that's the best of both worlds—let them do it.

A dependency exists when a Scrum Team needs work from another team before they can complete their own work. For example, a development team may be waiting on the SQL team to make a database change. Or Human Resources may need software changes before updating the onboarding process. In short, dependencies are those times when one team is waiting on another. Dependencies are the number one problem when you start to scale Agile beyond just one team. So what can we do about it?

Scrum is not an end unto itself. It's a great tool for helping a team focus on value, but the goal isn’t to “do Scrum.” The goal is to maximize value for the customer.

Scrum training isn’t (just) about certification or even "learning the rules". It’s about alignment. When teams train together, they don’t just learn Scrum—they learn how to work together. And that shared understanding is often the difference between a group that simply does the work and a team that truly performs.

In the Applying Professional Scrum class, which is like Scrum 101 for those who have never had formal training, one of our 'warm-up' questions in the class is to ask, "What is the value of working as a team?"

Limiting work in progress makes everything better.

Rebel Scrum is the host of the annual Scrum Day conference. This year's schedule has been announced.

Scrum is designed for complex work. That kind of work can’t be reduced to checklists, scripts, or rigid instructions. It requires people who can think, experiment, apply their experience, and adapt when reality doesn’t match the plan. In other words, Scrum requires people with agency.

The world isn’t slowing down. Technology is evolving faster than most organizations can keep up and we all know requirements are constantly changing. But we don’t need a better plan - we need better ways to learn, and we need to keep our options open. That’s why we need Scrum now more than ever. Here are five reasons Scrum is not outdated, irrelevant, or “too simple”. It’s a force multiplier. 1) A Learning Organization Scrum is designed to turn organizations into learning s

If you don’t track your work with a ticket, did it really happen?

During my recent Professional Scrum Product Owner - Advanced  classes, one of the class participants - Anna Rosine - made the comment that "Band-aids last forever."  We were talking about technical debt and the tendency for organizations to do a quick fix, but then not come back around and, well, fix it. Band-aids are supposed to be temporary. You put one on, it does its job, and then you take it off. But in many organizations, band-aids have a funny way of sticking around fa

In my practice, I get the chance to talk to a lot of different individuals from many organizations. Here are some of the things that really stood out to me about 2025. 1) The Product Model One of the brightest spots of 2025 is that organizations really are beginning to adopt the Product Model — and this is where they are getting the most value. For too long, organizations have been adopting Agile but keeping a Waterfall mindset. In the misguided name of “efficiency,” they sep

At Rebel Scrum, we love discussing ideas and learning what works for our readers. Here ’s our list of the 10 most popular Rebel Scrum articles, by traffic, in 2025. Is there something that you would like to hear about next year? Contact us  to share your article ideas. Video: Characteristics of a Great Product Owner Article: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing for Agile teams Article: How the 12 Principles in the Agile Manifesto Work in Real Life Article: How to cr