Scrum Discovery Cheat Sheet – From a Superficial to Scientific Understanding of Scrum

10+ years of helping thousands of practitioners with implementation of Professional Scrum has taught me one thing – most practitioners have a very superficial understanding of Scrum. To most, Scrum is nothing more than “Daily Standup” and “Sprint Demo”.

8+ years of learning from the Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer Community has taught me many techniques to expand and elevate this flawed, superficial understanding of Scrum among my students and clients. One of the best techniques I learned from the Scrum.org PST Community is a game called Scrum Discovery. I think it was invented and refined by Kate Terlacka and Dani Tobler, but I could be wrong. I have adapted their game into the Scrum Discovery Cheat Sheet.

You can use this cheat sheet in many different contexts…

1. Before you deliver or attend Scrum training
2. Deepening your understanding after you attend Scrum training
3. Preparing for a Scrum.org assessment
4. Helping others deepen their understanding of Scrum

Here’s how you might get the best results from this cheat-sheet…

1. Print out the Scrum Discovery Cheat Sheet.
2. Watch this video to get a quick introduction to Scrum.
    
3. Read the Scrum Guide
4. Understand every single term mentioned in the Scrum Glossary and Professional Scrum Development Glossary
5. Choose a real-world company you are familiar as the context for completing this exercise. Imagine that you have a magic wand that lets you wish away all the dysfunctions in this company and that you are given all the power you need to implement Professional Scrum in this company the way that the Scrum Guide intended for Scrum to be implemented. I know this is a big ask. Play with me 🙂
6. Now, answer all the questions in the Scrum Discovery Cheat Sheet in the context of your chosen company, with the assumption that you have that magic wand. Make improvements as you discover new insights.
7. Take these free practice assessments repeatedly until you score 100% consistently – Scrum Open Assessment, Product Owner Open Assessment, Scrum Developer Open Assessment.
8. Make a list of every question you got wrong.
9. Go back to step 2 and start reviewing all the suggested resources again, with a special focus on the topics related to questions you got wrong in the assessments.
10. Repeat each assessment 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 superficial Scrum to maximizing value with scientific Scrum, contact us to see how we can help you.

Scrum On!