Certified Scrum Master (CSM)

A WORKBOOK FOR REFERENCE TO HELP YOU BECOME A GREAT SCRUM MASTER

Mark Palmer
CERTIFIED SCRUM TRAINER & AGILE COACH

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SCRUM ALLIANCE CERTIFICATIONS ...............................................................................................................................2

YOUR INSTRUCTOR ........................................................................................................................................................3

SELF-ORGANIZATION .....................................................................................................................................................4

AGILE OVERVIEW ...........................................................................................................................................................5

THE AGILE MANIFESTO ................................................................................................................................................13

PRINCIPLES BEHIND THE AGILE MANIFESTO ...............................................................................................................14

SCRUM VALUES ...........................................................................................................................................................15

SCRUM OVERVIEW ......................................................................................................................................................16

SCRUM ROLES ..............................................................................................................................................................19

BUILD YOUR OWN SCRUM ..........................................................................................................................................21

ENGINEERING PRACTICES ............................................................................................................................................22

DEFINITION OF DONE ..................................................................................................................................................23

SCRUM ARTIFACTS .......................................................................................................................................................24

TEACH BACK .................................................................................................................................................................27

PRODUCT VISION .........................................................................................................................................................28

USER STORIES ..............................................................................................................................................................29

ESTIMATION ................................................................................................................................................................30

SIMULATION ................................................................................................................................................................31

COACHING ...................................................................................................................................................................32

POWERFUL QUESTIONS ...............................................................................................................................................37

FACILITATION ...............................................................................................................................................................40

MEETING FACILITATION GUIDE ...................................................................................................................................45

SETTING EXPECTATIONS ..............................................................................................................................................54

NOTES ..........................................................................................................................................................................55

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Scrum Alliance Certifications

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 • 25 years IT experience
• 10 Years as a Developer
• 5 years as a Waterfall Project Manager
• Owned 3 businesses
• 16 years agile experience
o 6 years as a Scrum Master
o 2 years as a Product Owner
o 5 years as an Agile Coach
o 3 years as a Trainer

Mark Palmer
mark@greatfishagility.com
www.greatfishagility.com
www.linkedin.com/in/markcpalmer/

Scrum Alliance Certifications

Other Agile/Scrum Certifications

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 Self-Organization
Self-organization is to Scrum as the heart is to the human body. Without it, Scrum cannot reach
its fullest potential.

Can a team be successful without regular retrospectives?

What did you notice about your speed from round to round?

What did you notice about your quality from round to round?

When did you learn the most, doing up-front planning before round 1, or by doing round 1?

Did you notice team members helping each other? And not keeping information to
themselves?

What did you notice about your team dynamics as we moved from round to round?

How did you feel personally in rounds 1, 2 and 3?

Did you feel motivated in rounds 1, 2 and 3?

How did you feel personally in round 4?

Did you feel motivated in round 4? If not, why?

What if I asked you to plan all 4 rounds before starting round 1? Would your estimates have
been anywhere near your actuals? In real life are we asked to estimate big projects up front
even before a team is formed? Does that seem extra silly now?

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Agile Overview

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The Agile Manifesto

Individuals and Interactions Processes and Tools

Working Software Comprehensive Documentation

Customer Collaboration Contract Negotiation

Responding to Change Following a Plan

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Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto

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Scrum Values

Commit
Courage
Focuses

Open
Respect

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Complex

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Scrum Overview

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The 3 pillars necessary for Empirical The 3 roles in scrum are:
Process Control (and therefore scrum)
are: 1. Product Owner
1. Transparency 2. Scrum Master
2. Inspection 3. Development Team
3. Adaptation
The 5 events (also known as “inspect & adapt
points”) are:
The 3 artifacts in scrum are:

Product Backlog 1. The Sprint

1.

Sprint Backlog 2. Sprint Planning

2.

Product Increment 3. Daily Scrum

3.
4. Sprint Review
The 5 values of scrum are:
5. Sprint Retrospective
1. Focus
2. Openness The 1 activity in scrum is:

Respect Product Backlog Refinement

3. 1.

4. Commitment
box of one
time - _____
A sprint is a _____
5. Courage month
___________ or less.

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Scrum Roles

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The Scrum Master The Product Owner

1. Facilitator 1.
Owns the Product Backlog

2. Servant Leader 2. Voice of the Customer

3. Removes Impediments 3. Creates Acceptance Criteria

4. Protects the Team 4. Owns the Product Vision

5. Coach 5.
Can say "no" to items added to the Product Backlog

6.
Manages the Scrum Framework 6.
Maximizes Value of the work/ROI

7. Scrum Referee 7.
Responsible for Product Backlog Management

The Development Team

What about the Project Manager?

1. 3-9 members What about

me?
Creates/adheres to the Definition of Done
2.

3. Estimates all work

4. Responsible for Quality

5. Meets Sprint Commitments

6. Works to continuously improve

7.
Self organized and cross functional

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Build Your Own Scrum

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Engineering Practices

Engineering Concept Short Definition

Pair Programming 2 programmers, 1 workstation, switching seats frequently

Code Refactoring Optimizing code without changing functionality

Technical Debt The cost of rework

Test Driven Development Test first, code second
Continuous Integration Merging code internally, multiple times a day

Continuous Delivery If CI is successful, auto-promote the work to production

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 Definition of Done
A sample definition of done taken from an actual scrum team is below. The
items below are by no means required for the team you serve. But they are a
good guideline/starting point.

Code meets coding and naming

Write code components
standards and checked into repository
Create/update unit tests Unit tests pass 100% - zero defects

Conduct code review All issues addressed

Create wireframes and UI UI meets standards

Update design document Document reviewed

Create/update automated acceptance Acceptance tests pass 100% - zero
test defects
Perform code coverage test Code coverage is same or better %
Integration test pass 100% - zero
Run integration tests
defects
Run performance tests Same or better performance

Update user guide Updates reviewed and checked in

Update online context help Updates reviewed and checked in

PBI demonstrated for PO, acceptance
Product Owner Accepted
criteria met
Update build scripts Builds completing without error

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Scrum Artifacts
The Product Backlog

Owner: Product Owner

Items in it are called? Product Backlog Items (PBIs)
How often can order change? Any time
Who collaborates on items in it? The Scrum Team
When do items get added? Any time
PBIs can be updated at any time by the? Product Owner
The Product Backlog lists all: work know to be needed on the product

The Sprint Backlog

Owner: Development Team

How often can the order change? Any time

Who decides to add/remove tasks
during a sprint? Development Team
Who decides when to add/remove PBIs
during a sprint? Development Team

The Increment

What is it? The sum of all PBIs in the Sprint

and the value of the increments from the previous Sprints

The Increment must be: Done and in usable condition

The Increment must meet the team’s: Definition of Done

The Increment is a step toward: a vision or a goal

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Scrum Events
The Sprint

Purpose: To deliver a done, usable, releasable increment

Duration: One month or less
Inputs: Product Backlog and a Sprint Goal
Outputs: Product Increment that is done, usable, and potentially releasable

Sprint Planning

Purpose: Scrum Team determines "What" they will do and "How" they will do it.

Duration: Maximum 8 hours for a one-month Sprint

Attendees: Scrum Team and anyone they feel is needed
When: Start of the Sprint
Inputs: Prioritized Product Backlog, Protected Capacity of the Dev Team, Historical Velocity

Outputs: Sprint Backlog with Tasks, Sprint Goal, How it will be implemented

Daily Scrum

Purpose: Review progress towards the Sprint Goal

Duration: 15 minutes or less
Attendees: Development Team. SM and PO are optional
When: Every day, dame time and same place
Inputs: Talk about progress from the day before, plan today, and anything in the way

Outputs: Plan for the day to meet the Sprint Goal, new impediments to achieving the Sprint Goal

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Sprint Review

Purpose: Inspect and adapt with stakeholders and get feedback on the Product Increment

Duration: Maximum 4 hours for a one-month Sprint

Attendees: Scrum Team and key stakeholders/users/customers
When: End of the Sprint (Before the Retrospective)
Inputs: Product Increment that meets the Definition of Done, Sprint Forecast
Outputs: Feedback from stakeholders, new PBIs, decision on what to work on next

Sprint Retrospective

Purpose: Inspect and adapt how the team is working together

Duration: Maximum of 3 hours for a one-month Sprint
Attendees: Scrum Team
When: After the Sprint Review, prior to the next Sprint Planning
Inputs: What went well, didn't go well, what can we improve?
Outputs: Identify improvement for the next Sprint and create a plan to achieve it

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 Teach Back
The best way to learn is to teach. And the best way to help your company
succeed with Agile and Scrum adoption is for YOU to educate them. The teach
back will give you practice at two key skills:
1. Teaching others what you’ve learned
2. Conveying the value of doing thing differently than they are used to doing them
Fill out the details about your experience below:
For the Teach Back my
partner was:

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Product Vision
For: (target customer)

Who needs: (statement of need or opportunity)

The: (product name)

Is a: (type of product)

That: (key benefit, reason to buy)

Unlike: (primary competitive alternative)

Our Product: (statement of primary differentiation)

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 User Stories
An invitation to a conversation
What is a User Story? ________________________________________

What are the 3 C’s of a User Story?

ard
onversation
onfirmation

Front of Card Back of Card

(who/user)
As a __________________ I know this story is done when…
o Acceptance Criteria 1
(what/feature)
I want _________________
o Acceptance Criteria 2
(why/benefit)
So that ________________ o Acceptance Criteria 3

Backlog Refinement

ndependent/Immediately Actionable
When does it
happen? As needed
egotiable How long does it
up 10% of Dev Team's Sprint Capacity
last?
aluable What’s the
Shared understanding of PBIs, Estimate and Split PBIs
purpose?
stimable Who is in
charge? Scrum Team
mall/Sized to fit in the Sprint
PBI Attributes

estable D escription
O rder
V alue
E stimate

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Estimation

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 Simulation
You will have 2 sprints to build the product you created in your product vision. The sprint
structure will be as follows:

Sprint Planning (5 minutes)

 Part 1:
1. Dev team decides “what” stories to bring into the sprint
2. PO clarifies any questions
3. PO and dev team together create sprint goal
 Part 2:
1. Dev team figures out “how” to build each story and creates necessary
development tasks

Build Your Product (10 minutes)

 Development Team members build the product, Product Owners do not.
 Product Owners have 2 jobs during this timebox:
1. Answer any questions the Development Team has about the stories on which
they are working.
2. Accept or reject completed stories based on acceptance criteria.

Update Your Metrics and Info Radiators (3 minutes)

 Update your Scrum Board; burndown chart; and Sprint Report

Sprint Review (3 minutes)

 Provide available metrics
 Demonstrate the Product Increment to your customer

Backlog Refinement (5 minutes)

 If any changes are needed in your product backlog, this is the time to make them.

Retrospective (2 minutes)
 How can your team improve itself for the next sprint?

What were your takeaways?

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Coaching

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Powerful Questions

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Facilitation

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Meeting Facilitation Guide

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Setting Expectations

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Notes

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