The R2M is a self-transcending learning journey for those who seek to distinguish themselves in Scrum Mastery.

What will you experience on the journey?

What is the Road to Mastery?

Oh no! we're stranded...

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Guiding others on their Road to Mastery

Our handbook for all involved in the Serious Scrum community.

Meet our team

Learn more about the Serious Scrum Sponsor Program

Can you engage in commercial and promotional activities at Serious Scrum?

All articles submitted to Serious Scrum are subject to and must pass 'review'.

A Step-by-Step Guide

How to publish an article to Medium

The Road to Mastery E-Book Series.

How to apply the Serious Scrum Brand

The Basecamp is where we meet each other and learn about our ambitions and challenges.

Equip yourself for maximum agility.

What are your motivations for setting out on the Road to Mastery?

Have I mentioned Scrum is teamwork? So, let’s get to know each other. 

Yo dawg, let’s agree on how to agree.

Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning.

Limits are not a bad thing to have. They can be lifesaving. 

Starfleet General Order 1

How would you like your feedback to be served?

Committing: Executing the decision.

Storytelling time! Stories are fundamental to how we perceive, think, and act.

What do travelers already know about Scrum? Travelers connect their understanding of Scrum.

Although Scrum is simple, it is widely misunderstood. 

Is your organization drowning in its pool of tears?

Alice concludes she can’t survive without help.

Well done! You’ve almost made it to Wonderland! (or have you...) 

You don't have access to this content (just yet).

What you need to know about Wonderland

"Successful use of Scrum depends on people becoming more proficient in living these five values." - The Scrum Guide

Ubuntu: "I am what I am because of who we all are."

Alice and the Caucus Race

The 💓 of Scrum is the Sprint

Development with Scrum is both iterative and incremental.

Scrum is teamwork.

The team model in Scrum is designed to optimize flexibility, creativity, and productivity.

Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose

Experienced Professional Scrum Master, Kanban Professional, and Agile Coach.

Scrum is a framework for facilitating interactions between individuals. 

“There is no I in the word ‘team’”, Tex would say. “But there is... in the word ‘win’” Michael would reply with a grin. - Phil Jackson, Eleven Rings

"Scrum Masters are true leaders who serve the Scrum Team and the larger organization." - The Scrum Guide

Alice adapts and resists the new power structure.

Where are we?

Your Product may cover a lot of ground, some known, some unknown. There are hidden treasures, yet there are also risks.

How the epic film trilogy from the 80s is still relevant today.

How the epic film trilogy from the 80s is still relevant today.

How the epic film trilogy from the 80s is still relevant today.

love at first sight doesn't always turn out to be the one.

The benefits of Agility sound so desirable. But be warned! It’s not all sunshine and lollipops.

A story about “Large Company Inc.” that fell in love with Scrum and Agile.

How to find the balance and make "predictability" a powerful tool for organizational succes.

A story about “Large Company Inc.” that fell in love with Scrum and Agile.

A powerful tool given in the wrong hands can turn into a backfiring weapon

And weapons how to kill them…. Enemy 1: Hierarchy

And weapons how to kill them…. Enemy 2: Fear

“A transition to agility is more than a change of working method: it is a new organizational philosophy. However the hard part of this change can’t be achieved without the soft change,”

And weapons how to kill them…. Enemy 5: Centralization

And weapons how to kill them…. Enemy 4: Habit

And weapons how to kill them…. Enemy 3: Decision Bias

And weapons how to kill them…. Enemy 6: Inflexible business practices

Our starting point for Scrum discussions

How the best people for the job might be the ones that you never thought of.

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The R2M applies TBR By Sharon Bowman to stimulate accelerated co-creative learning.

Ikigai(生き甲斐, "a reason for being").

Coaching 101: Open-ended questions invite people to ponder, consider, open, notice, discover and awaken...

How we act is not who we are.

What to keep in mind with virtual events during the Road to Mastery?

Get the oxygen flowing

Elmo stands for: Enough, Let’s Move On. ‘Elmo’ is a word that the guide and travelers may use to indicate a conversation is either off-topic or taking too long. 

We refer to our trainers as guides.

Formats for fast activities to quickly assess where learners stand as they enter the room!

A format for a one-minute activity to gauge where learners believe they (subjectively) stand on the learning ladder.

The act of picking and choosing aids the learning process.

The choice is yours... or is it?

The way of the lazy trainer.

"Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down." - Adam Savage

A 10 minute activity to reflect on poor decisions made and practice active listening.

Simplicity is key to transparency. Can travelers explain a concept using few and simple terms?

Think-pair-share (TPS) is a collaborative learning strategy where learners work together to solve a problem or answer a question about an assigned topic.

A designated space where participants can explore information regarding a specific concept or technique.

Scott is Serious about Scrum.

How to activate learners during a lecture

Keeping it: Short, Simple, Small and Shared!

It's time to bring out the Sherlock Holmes in you.

Go with the flow

Imagine your own concept map

mapping and connecting

The tastiest way to munch through the matter

Let's go back to the future

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Leave it up to the learners

From trainer led to learner led.

Bring out the Sherlock in you!

Happy brainz!

Challenge paradigms

Kay knows some serious Scrum-Fu!

Short, simple, small.

Grab and Gab

Coaching is not convincing

An index of 75+ R2M co-active training formats.

It's all in the mix!

Practicing peer to peer coaching

You may ask yourself... How did I get here?

Will you look into the mirror?

Let's park it for later

Movement over sitting

During this journey we'll explore more than just Scrum

Does the team feel adequately prepared, aligned, and equipped to begin their journey? 

175+ book to read on the road.

Equip yourself for ultimate facilitation!

Creating a shared understanding on the basics of Agility.

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda. 

Agile is often defined as having a certain mindset

What constitutes good or bad team spirit?

Don't go chasing waterfalls

Alice attends a meeting on "how to get dry..."

Simplicity is key to transparency. Can participants explain what a Scrum Master is using few and simple terms?

Ball Toss

The Spirit of the Game

These are the terms of our service for the Road to Mastery.

Experience the R2M at one of the world's most charming trails.

the legal stuff

Let's learn what Scrum is based on

Sjoerd Nijland

Simplicity is key to transparency. Can participants explain what a Scrum Master is using few and simple terms?

fill in the blanks

Your ticket to an imposter syndrome

Let's piece it together

Sooooo, what exactly would you say you do here?

Something isn't quiet right!

a fast group brainstorming, refinement, and mapping technique

Are you ready to roll or do you feel stuck at the start?

"Captain's Log, Sprint 31 day 3. Position, 14 hours in PBI XII. I'm running through code reviews. Code complexity is high. Barely sufficient to maintain the service level. Refactoring is now imperative. John tried to get out of the Daily Scrum to continue work on PBI XI, but his resistance was futile. The effect of Harry Mudd's on my team continued to grow, his continuous interruptions were unacceptable. Harry Mudd is now confined to his quarters under guard."

A quick and simple format where participants together determine the domain and scope of a certain subject.

How to tell better User Stories

A training canvas to level-up your Product Backlog refinement techniques

Situation Normal All Fracked Up

What's bugging your product?

Let's cool things down a bit.

Continue your journey with the R2M Trailblazer License

Expedite the Road to Mastery (Virtual Edition) to new pastures.

Guide others on their journey with the R2M Guide License

In the beginning, all things are hopeful.

For this Road to Mastery to be really useful for you, it will be.... like what?

When would you go which way?

A guideline to coaching others on their Road to Mastery.

May I have your attention please

how are you preparing for this journey?

What's in the way?

Before this journey is over, I want to…

You’ve made it to our first checkpoint, well done!

Movement trumps sitting

Questions to trigger personal stories and anecdotes.

Are you the Hero, or the Outlaw?

What's your cup of tea?

Positive and constructive feedback

Steady does it. We’ve made it to our second checkpoint.

Parroting trumps sitting

Which Way?

Where to begin guiding travelers on the Road to Mastery?

The Travel Journal is where trailblazers and guides reflect and record the learnings. 

It takes a bit of courage going down that cliff!

Agile is a tough nut to crack

Let me Google that for you!

Step into...

Roadmapping versus Backpacking

Which way are you going? 

What would you write home about?

What would you write home about?

Great, you’re here. Lift the weight from your shoulders and put the backpack down.

Walk & Reflect

In a complex environment, a good backpack beats any roadmap.

“How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another.” - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Agile Onion

The exact instruction challenge

Meet Herbie

The effectiveness of direct communication

What constitutes and promotes healthy "Interactions between Individuals"?

We're well on our way!

I'm going on a journey...

Scaling requires agility

Customer collaboration every step of the way

Wait.. What?

What's our vector, Victor?

Hold your horses!

Reasons to celebrate

The Travel Journal keeps a record of the learning journey.

Heading in the right direction

the rules of Scrum guide relationships and interactions

Step into...

Get the oxygen flowing to the brain

fill in the blanks

potato potàto

Getting familiar with the various elements of framework

For Scrum to be really useful for you, it will be.... like what?

The framework and the canvas

Let’s flex those muscles

All warmed up?

How are the teams organized on ‘the field’? 

The choice is yours

Keep the ball moving.

“Encouraging engineers to go out into the field and listen to what customers and dealers have to say.” — Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka 1986

“All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order, what have the Romans done for us?”

Stopping production creates instant urgency and a shared collective ambition to resolve something fast.

reducing waste and focusing on the essentials

Take a deep breath to assess the situation in the field.

What's the word thats going around?

Wicked Questions

It’s game time! 

Swing it!

The Pillars

“Scrum is founded on empirical process control theory, or empiricism.” - The Scrum Guide

Perhaps a complicated and abstract term like ‘Transparency’ can best be explained through a childhood story.

Exchanging perspectives

Totally bananas!

Parts, Purposes, Complexities

The tastiest way to become familiar with Scrum.

What does Scrum reveal?

It’s about to get real hot!

I love stories in which protagonists find themselves, by whatever unforeseen event, in a strange new land with strange new rules. Alice winds up in Wonderland, Wendy in Neverland, Dorothy in the land of Oz. 

An [...] Scrum Team is like [...]

A routine for exploring the complex interaction between beauty and truth.

Movement trumps sitting

Feeling fuzzy inside?

Holy smokes!

Create your own Scrum scenario

Exchanging perspectives through the lens of Scrum Values

This ‘Liberating Structure’ is an activity designed to practice deeper listening to develop empathy.

What we say and do leaves and impact crater.

Re-energize.

A mindful meditation

Who doesn’t enjoy a bit of office drama now and again? 

Don't Panic!

Explore perspectives openly when faced with complexity.

Huddle around the campfire. It's storytelling time.

Put a face to those fears

The Travel Journal keeps a record of the learning journey.

Heading in the right direction

Getting to grips with the accountabilities in Scrum.

A meditation to prepare us for the climb

Where are you?

Let’s briefly reconvene at Basecamp, where we first connected to get ready for the journey ahead. 

What will support you on your climb?

What happens when things go wrong?

Reach for the top!

Leap with commitment.

Reaching the top!

A mood management technique

Meet your inner monks

Hang in there, buddy!

Which direction will our mountaineers take?

The Scrum Master is a leader who *serves*.

Oh no! another muddied sign!

mapping and visualizing accountability

The tastiest way to scrum through the matter

Capture the experience

Learn how to translate vision to value with validation.

Attune the spirit to the river

Let’s step into our Kayaks

What exactly does a Product Owner own?

Are you Product or Project Minded?

From strategic vision to daily planning

Go with the flow

Waste in the Stream

Don't get your paddle stuck!

Calm Stream

Participants together visualize and validate how a certain product, service or feature is of value

What's your cathedral?

Optimize for value

Inspection in Scrum doesn’t just cover the process and progress. It requires a review of Value. 

A Masterclass on the Product Goal.

What direction will our kayakers go?

Participants empathize with its audience by creating a canvas of a persona's ambitions, needs, feelings, motivations, etc.

A visual technique of plotting out various stakeholders of a product on a chart

Quickly identify and validate a target audience.

A group activity to develop transparency over the narrative of a user journey

As a ...

For a frog an ocean is an exaggerated hypothesis.

Together define desired, acceptable outcomes as scenarios

Splash!

Size does matter!

Stranded

Define a Sprint Goal

Let's get them un-stuck.

"Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down." - Adam Savage

A format for a one-minute activity to gauge where a Product Owner stands.

Capture the experience

Contact information

A Mindful Meditation

Finding better ways

Survival Skills & Gear

The AA Meeting

Game Changers

Stay alert and fit

On your way to becoming a true Robinscrum.

A powerful prompt to create harmony and understanding

"Those who don't believe in magic will never find it" - Ronald Dahl

"Aaaaaaaargh!"

The Power of Small Wins

"Just a castaway, an island lost at sea, oh"

On your way to becoming responsible rebels

Where do you stand in the sand?

Finding better ways

Watch out! it's a (consensus) trap!

Thumbs up!

Powerful gestures

WILSON!!!

I think "camoflage" should actually be named: " "

On your way to becoming a high-performing self-managing unit

Unpacking complexity, guiding understanding, and identify what comes next.

Unlocking new areas and potential

Send an SOS to the world

You can’t spell “Scrum” without “rum”.  

Get the high-quality leather-bound companion books for guides

Exploring the unknown

In or Out?

We're all mad here

One who makes no mistakes makes nothing.

What's needed to dive deeper? Trust is like the air we breathe.

We all live in a yellow submarine

Stepping aside, so others can step up.

On your way down to strange encounters

The messengers of the approaching product apocalypse

Strange encounters of the Scrum kind.

That doesn't smell right

Let's rewire what we know about testing

Manage codebases.

Recording what is actually happening

A Radar is a visualisation technique to quickly collect 360-degree feedback on how individuals in the group rate certain areas. 

Developers are Value Creators

Boy we’re in deep!

Who ya gonna call?

Everyday Leadership

How to break through to production safely

Boy we’re in deep!

What's your organization sweeping under the Rug?

Your mother doesn't work here

Hit the moles as fast as you can as they arise/emerge!

Make it stick!

This adventure is at an end, but the Road goes on!

canyoning, caving and tomb raiding

Meditation to mentally prepare ourselves for the adventure

Nanananana

Speak friend and enter

The way is blocked...

What are the commitments in Scrum?

Make it visible!

Bring your flashlights!

Pauze and reflect

Let's update our understanding!

What goes in a Product Backlog?

Order or priority

Where to focus

Here's Tom with the weather

How can you keep your stakeholders from being in the dark?

You can't start a fire without a spark

Pauze and reflect

The canyoneers encountered yet another ancient and incorrect artifact. It’s almost unrecognisable. 

We’re getting closer to unlocking value. 

To be or not to be part of the Sprint Backlog

Let’s make work visible. 

Oh no! We’ve disturbed three Cavetrolls from their slumbers! 

Pauze and reflect

Oh dear! it appears someone has been here before, but not made it through alive.

What's in the chests?

Are we done?!

Almost Done...

Back to your caves!

“By making the work visible, the team self-organized and achieved incredible performance.” - Jeff Sutherland

It's playtime!

Set your mind for the journey.

Sailing takes practice. 

Rules enable creative play.

Co-create a Scrum Event table.

Hold on to your ropes! 

Cancel culture...

That went smooth!

Let’s go bananas! 

How high can you stack ‘m? 

Let's DO something

Ahoi! 

Get it together

Piece it back together

Where's Nemo?

Watch out for anti-patterns! Rigid behavior dies hard. 

Refreshing!

Woooosh! 

The Daily Scrum is a like a lighthouse. 

Are you stoked?

When all else fails... burn it down.

Don't look up.

Make work visible

Who want's work items to live forever?

drip drip drip

Steady as she goes.

Don't crash!

...And another one.

Turn your Product Backlog into a Product 'Zen' log

Review at scale

15 minutes of fame

Babbeling and Bubbeling

Less is more

Make it even better.

On this cruise anything is possible

Still cruizin' along just fine.

Facilitating professional play

With Warping anything goes. 

A classic.

Not even the sky is the limit

The happiest Retro of them all!

Let’s think outside the box. 

Let's make a movie

It's your wonderland, make it wonderful.

Our long voyage is nearing its end.

Get access to the virtual R2M Playbook and the 12 Adventures

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