10+ years of helping organizations scale Scrum from one team to 500+ teams has taught me one thing – most practitioners abandon the scientific principles and core values of Scrum in their pursuit of scaling Scrum. To many of these practitioners, Scaling Scrum is a whole another ball-game to which Scrum principles and values do not apply.
In my previous blog – Scrum Discovery Cheat Sheet – From a Superficial to Scientific Understanding of Scrum I shared how we can apply Scrum Discovery Game invented and refined by Kate Terlacka and Dani Tobler to help practitioners deepen their understanding of Scientific Scrum. In this blog, I am adapting that approach to scaling scientific Scrum with the Nexus framework through the Nexus Discovery Cheat Sheet.
You can use this cheat sheet in many different contexts…
- Before you deliver or attend Nexus training
- Deepening your understanding after you attend Nexus training
- Preparing for a Scrum.org Nexus assessment
- Helping others deepen their understanding of Nexus
Here’s how you might get the best results from this cheat-sheet…
- Print out the cheat-sheet.
- Choose a real world company you are familiar with as the context for completing this exercise.
- Try to answer all the questions in the cheat-sheet in the context of how you would implement Scaled Professional Scrum with Nexus in that company. Imagine what you would do if you had a magic wand to implement Nexus in the way that Ken Schwaber intended for it to be implemented, after your waved away all the dysfunctions.
- Read the Nexus Guide and Scrum Guide.
- Understand every single term mentioned in the Scrum Glossary and Professional Scrum Development Glossary.
- Answer all the questions in the cheat-sheet you printed out. Make improvements as you discover new insights.
- Take the these free practice assessments – Nexus Open Assessment, Scrum Open Assessment, Product Owner Open Assessment, Scrum Developer Open Assessment.
- Make a list of every question you got wrong.
- Go back to step 4 with special focus on the questions you got wrong.
- Repeat the assessments until you score 100% consistently.
Hope this helps. Let me know how it went for you and how we can make this better.
And if you want your teams to shift from wasting time and money with superficially Scaled Scrum to maximizing value with scientifically Scaled Scrum, contact us to see how we can help you.
Scrum On!

November 4, 2021
Ravi has around 25 years of Software Delivery and Consulting Experience, including Agile Enablement for companies ranging from 10 people to 10,000 people. He is able to earn the trust and respect of C-Level executives and help them understand how the application of Agile Principles, Values, and Practices can become a powerful means to achieving sustainable competitive advantage.
Ravi has a Bachelors Degree in Computer Engineering from R.V.C.E., Bangalore, and a Masters in Entrepreneurship from SMU, Dallas. Ravi received a Certificate in Organizational Development from DePaul University and Linkage Inc. and is an MBTI Certified Practitioner, with a Certificate in Advanced Conflict Resolution from Kilmann Diagnostics. He has also been trained in facilitating workshops for leading organizational change based on the book “Leading Bold Change” by Dr. John Kotter workshops.
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