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Top Books to guide your Scrum Master journey

10 Jul

Each minute of our life is a lesson but most of us fail to read it. I thought I would just add my daily lessons & the lessons that I learned by seeing the people around here. So it may be useful for you and as memories for me. 

Scrum is the most popular Agile framework. It is simple to adopt, but implementing it with success could prove to be challenging. The only way to overcome the “glitches” that may appear in the process is to understand its fundamentals and discover practical techniques that will help you get past any obstacles.

Anyone who has ever taken on a role of Scrum Master will tell you it is much harder than it looks. The responsibilities are massive, the traps are common and the organisations are unwilling to change. Agile Project Management requires a deep level of skill and understanding. It doesn’t lend itself to a step-by-step manual that you might find in a book.

That is why I have made a selection of top 20 Scrum Master books you should read if you are thinking of becoming a Scrum Master, or even if you are already one. I strongly believe below list of books are a game changer for the pre-game, game and post-game phases of the Scrum methodology.

  1. The Scrum Guide by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland
  2. Scrum: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide To Learn And Master Scrum Agile Framework by Hein Smith
  3. The Great ScrumMaster: ScrumMasterWay by Zuzana Šochová
  4. Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great by Esther Derby
  5. Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland
  6. Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process by Kenneth S. Rubin
  7. Scrum: A Pocket Guide by Gunther Verheyen
  8. Scrum Mastery: From Good To Great Servant-Leadership by Geoff Watts
  9. Learning Agile: Understanding Scrum, XP, Lean, and Kanban by Andrew Stellman & Jennifer Greene
  10. A Scrum Book: The Spirit of the Game by Jeff Sutherland
  11. Fixing Your Scrum by Ryan Ripley and Todd Miller
  12. Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition by Lyssa Adkins
  13. Agile Software Development with SCRUM, by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle.
  14. The Scrum Field Guide: Practical Advice For Your First year by Mitch Lacey
  15. Managing Agile Projects by Sanjiv Augustine.
  16. The Scrum Master’s Path 2 books in 1. A Guide for Servant Leaders Navigating Growth and Change Using SCRUM and the Agile Project Management
  17. Fun In Scrum — A Visual Approach Towards Mastering Scrum Fundamentals by Souvik Seal
  18. Zombie Scrum Survival Guide by Christiaan Verwijs, Johannes Schartau, Barry Overeem
  19. Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn
  20. The Elements of Scrum by Chris Sims & Hillary Louise Johnson

You can find few more suggestions here : https://agileforgrowth.com/scrum-master-books/

Learning is a lifelong process. Improving oneself is never a bad thing. Scrum helps us to adapt to changes and dynamics of the market. The same can be said for Scrum Masters. If you don’t work on yourself and seek to improve your knowledge, skills, and experiences, you’ll be stuck.

Hope this list of books help you select the best fit book for your agile and scrum learning. Do remember to comment down below your favourite book on the topic that might help other readers. If you have already read any of the above books do not forget to comment down your review and learnings from the book. 

Any book suggestions, drop it in the comments!

Please feel free to share your story and any lessons you learned, experienced, you came across in your life in the comments below. If you enjoyed this or any other posts, I’d be honored if you’d share them with your family, friends, and followers!

If you wish to follow my journey outside of my writing, you can find me on LinkedIn and Facebook

 
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Posted by on July 10, 2022 in Technical, Work Place

 

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Success is no Accident

24 Jun

Each minute of our life is a lesson but most of us fail to read it. I thought I would just add my daily lessons & the lessons that I learned by seeing the people around here. So it may be useful for you and as memories for me. 

“Success is no accident. It is hard work, Perseverance, Learning, Studying, Sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”– Pelé

Life is not an accident. The choices that we make determine our success. We can either choose self-defeat and self-pity or self-motivation and self-encouragement. Success in life may look different for every individual, but the definition of success is same.

Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. It is not defined by wealth but by contentment. Success depends on hard work, sustained toil, determination and perseverance. It is not a question of luck. Remember that success is not the key to happiness but happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. Our best successes  are often accompanied by  our greatest disappointments.

One can attribute success to so many things around. Things like families, friends, education, work, skills, and talents could all be part of your success. Apart from them, certain core variables constitute the right success equation.

Among them, the first and foremost variable is ‘doing things that you love’. When you do things that you love, you find every positive outcome as a success even if it’s little. There’s no obstacle for you, but only challenges and opportunities.

Many of us are not willing to try but want to enjoy the fruits of success without any hard work, sacrifice or struggle. Life has its own struggles. These struggles  motivate us to move forward. Adversity always presents opportunities for introspection. To succeed in life and achieve results, you must master three mighty forces—Desire, Belief and Expectation. Many a time, when we are confronted with a problem, we analyse and get stuck up with it rather than finding a solution to it. Sometimes from the remains or wreckage, we find a hidden opportunity. Our response to our struggles decides how we move forward.

An interesting infographic showcasing the growth timeline of one of the most interesting CEOs of the decade, Sundar Pichai. Seen here is his growth from being a product manager to becoming the CEO of Alphabet Inc.

Failing is a part of life which teaches us many things. Without failing, success is almost impossible. We need to learn how to bounce back from failures. The work of J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter series was rejected by 12 publishers before going on to fame and fortune. You may stumble, people will doubt you and you need to build yourselves from the stones thrown at you. We need to have a positive attitude. Achievement is not just about the happy, shiny things—it is also about withstanding tough times and challenging situations. Resilience demonstrated under pressure is perhaps the darker side of achievement, but is in many ways just as important as the more obvious markers of success.

Nick Vujicic was born with no arms and legs, but that did not stop him from being successful. Today he is a motivational speaker and continues to inspire and touch the lives of many. It is the choices that we make that lead to success. When life gives lemons, make lemonade out of them. We need to access risks and laugh at life.

By Doing What you LIKE, your focus and hard work falls in line automatically. Constant learning and improvisations will become a part of you.

Above all, it will never seem like hard work for you. The process and journey will be enjoyable. Despite the good and bad, your perseverance will shield you against all the odds.

Success needs some sacrifices from you. It takes at least a little. Success will ask you to sacrifice your comfort zone.

Working towards your dreams and goals can make you sleepless and stay awake without a count. Sometimes, success needs you to work at the cost of all the fun things you thought you could do.

The list goes on. But there is no success at the cost of families, friendships, and other good things in life. I like to remind you here.

You will never become successful as long as you continue to blame someone or something else for your lack of success. If you are going to be a winner, you have to acknowledge the truth—it is you who took the actions, thought the thoughts, created the feelings, and made the choices that got you to where you now are. It was you! The person with the negative attitude sees limitations. The person with the positive attitude sees possibilities. “Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success”

Finally, do what you like. Do it with the best of your efforts. Success wraps you eventually.

References: https://learnfromblogs.com/ https://www.competitionreview.in/

Please feel free to share your story and any lessons you learned, experienced, you came across in your life in the comments below. If you enjoyed this or any other posts, I’d be honored if you’d share them with your family, friends, and followers!

If you wish to follow my journey outside of my writing, you can find me on LinkedIn and Facebook

 
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Posted by on June 24, 2022 in Experiences of Life., Life & It's Importance

 

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Leadership Starts with Simply Being a GOOD Person

21 Apr

Each minute of our life is a lesson but most of us fail to read it. I thought I would just add my daily lessons & the lessons that I learned by seeing the people around here. So it may be useful for you and as memories for me.

It doesn’t matter if you are running a business, managing a team, or teaching a class–leadership skills are important. Some people seem to be born knowing what to do to inspire and lead people, but for most of us it doesn’t come that naturally.

Being good is all about our core VALUES as a person.  Every one of us has a set of core values.  Our values have been built from a young age into adulthood.  From day one, the people that have raised us, our parents, relatives, guardians, and friends, have been IMPRINTING values upon us.  When you were young and impressionable, you were just young and impressionable. 

Not everyone will become a great leader, but everyone can become a better leader.

What makes some people excel as leaders often feels shrouded in mystery. You can read about leadership, research it, and talk about it, yet the interest in leadership alone will not necessarily teach you how to be a good leader.

You will have more information than the average person, but learning effective leadership is lifelong work. It requires experience – and lots of it. Most importantly, it requires observation and a commitment to action.

Remember words like these: “Show respect for your sister; that type of behavior may be okay for your friends, but not you; do your chores, everybody does their role in this family.” Those words instilled the values of respect, strength, and hard work. Take a minute and reflect on words you may remember from your childhood. Now let’s fast forward from your childhood to, if appropriate, parenthood. As a parent, have you ever heard your parents voice come out of you as you talk to your kids?  Most parents have, and it’s cute and scary all at the same time. 

  • MunnaPrawin

In living and leading a fearless life, values are an integral part of navigating and overcoming fear.  In life, when things are good our values are beneficial and positive. However, when a crisis strikes, tragedy sets in, a roadblock is thrown up, and the value of your values skyrockets. I’ve always felt that you learn more about a person when the chips are down. During challenging times our values can be our bedrock, our lightpost and something that carries us through the challenge. 

It is really interesting to reflect back on the first global crisis I had to lead a company through.  It was September 11th and I was in the middle of a capital raise to keep our company alive.  It was also on the heels of the Internet Bubble bursting.  I was leading a struggling tech company in Silicon Valley that was running out of money and America just got hit by terrorists.  In fact, on September 11th we had investors from New York and Chicago in our offices in California and we became their hosts for over a week as all planes were grounded. 

In the face of adversity, the values that immediately struck were STRENGTH, COURAGE and FAITH.  Just a day earlier the company relied on its own strength, but today the company needed mine.  Everyone was shaken, and I don’t mean professionally.  We were all shaken personally and as Americans we were literally numb. As a company we pulled together for our employees, served our clients, but more importantly served our community, all while we were struggling and running out of cash.  We were courageous in the face of fear and had faith that if we did the right things, good things would happen to us. We made it through September 11thstronger as a company and closer as a family.  And our Fearless Leadership was rewarded with a successful capital raise and the company stayed in business and grew. 

The lessons I learned during that crisis I have been able to apply at other times in my career – during the financial meltdown of 2008-2009 and most recently during the global pandemic we are all experiencing. In all of these instances, I have lived and learned that simply waking up and being a good person is perhaps the biggest part of being a steady and consistent leader during troubled times.

Final Thoughts

Learning how to be a good leader, first and foremost, is an inside job. You must focus on growing as a person, regardless of the leadership title that you hold. You cannot take others where you yourself have not been. So focusing on yourself, regardless of your time or where you are in your career, will have long term benefits for you and the people around you.

Being a Fearless Leader is built on being a good person and living your core values. Values are great in good times, and they are literally the super-glue during the tough times. 

Author: Brendan P. Keegan

Please feel free to share your story and any lessons you learned, you experienced, you came across in your life in the comments below. If you enjoyed this, or any other other posts, I’d be honoured  if you’d share it with your family, friends and followers!

If you wish to follow my journey outside of my writing, you can find me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MunnaPrawin) Instagram(MunnaPrawin) and Twitter(@munnaprawin1).

 
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Posted by on April 21, 2021 in Experiences of Life., Work Place

 

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Comfort zone is graveyard of our Dreams

02 Jan

Each minute of our life is a lesson but most of us fail to read it. I thought I would just add my daily lessons & the lessons that I learned by seeing the people around here. So it may be useful for you and as memories for me.

It has always been said that life begins at the end of your comfort zone, so then why are so many of us afraid of stepping outside of it? I will tell you why, because being inside your comfort zone minimises stress and anxiety. This makes it super duper easy to never push the boundaries, because it’s pretty darn comfy inside your little safety bubble, right?

Coming out of your comfort zone is tough in the beginning, chaotic in the middle, and awesome in the end…because in the end, it shows you a whole new world. We always tend to slide into our comfort zones whenever we find a familiar environment. It is time to get out of our comfort area and challenge ourselves to attain new dimensions in life. What can seem like small marginal gains start to stack together to create a rhythm that is unstoppable.

The comfort zone is a psychological state in which one feels familiar, safe, at ease, and secure. You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone. I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy, I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.

The comfort zone is nothing else but a graveyard for your dreams & ideas.

For some people, the thought of stepping out of their safety bubble is unfathomable, especially if you know for certain that anxious feelings will arise.

Doing everyday normal activities is so familiar that it doesn’t create any apprehension. However, flying solo across the world, jumping out of an airplane, or following your bucket list dream of opening a new business will probably make people a little jittery. Really, why would you want to provoke feeling anxious? Here’s why. Because, every time you do you will grow-each time a little piece of the fear of the unknown is removed and replaced with a little piece of empowerment. And if you continuously do this the size of your fear bubble will get smaller while your comfort bubble gets bigger. With that said, we all need a little extra motivation every now and then to face our fear and step out of our comfort zone bubbles, and these comfort zone quotes will help you do it.

Sometimes it is good to be in uncomfortable situations because it is in finding our way out of such difficulties that we learn valuable lessons. Each time you try something for the first time you will grow-a little piece of the fear of the unknown is removed and replaced with a sense of empowerment. Real change is difficult at the beginning, but gorgeous at the end. Change begins the moment you get the courage and step outside your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone

I will guarantee you that the day you step outside your comfort zone by making success your goal, is the day you discover that adversity, risk, and daring will make life sweeter than you ever imagined.

This is the new year the new you. You can pass through another year, coasting on cruise control. Or you can step out of your comfort zone, trying things you have never done before, and make 2021 as the year that you elevate from where you are & soar high. Make it happen!

It is time to rise above NORMAL!

Please feel free to share your story and any lessons you learned, you experienced, you came across in your life in the comments below. If you enjoyed this, or any other other posts, I’d be honoured  if you’d share it with your family, friends and followers!

If you wish to follow my journey outside of my writing, you can find me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MunnaPrawin) Instagram(MunnaPrawin) and Twitter(@munnaprawin1).

 
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Posted by on January 2, 2021 in Experiences of Life., Life & It's Importance, Work Place

 

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