What is it?

This is a practical, interactive session where your team will try out key Scrum practices, reflect on the experience, and explore if Scrum is the right fit for how you work.

Why is it useful?

This workshop gives your team a fast, hands-on way to experience Scrum and decide if it could help you work smarter, deliver faster, and adapt to change.

Scrum was developed by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber in the early 1990s, formally presenting it together at the OOPSLA conference in 1995 as an agile framework for software development.

Objectives

• Experience key Scrum practices through hands-on activities
• See how short sprints and fast feedback affect teamwork
• Reflect on whether Scrum fits your team’s work and culture
• Identify ways to improve how your team works today
• Decide on next steps for testing or adapting Scrum in your real work

Resources Required

• Time: 2 hours
• Cross-functional teams (ideally 5–9 people)
• PowerPoint slides or a whiteboard for the presentation
• Large paper on the wall
• Flip charts for recording discussions
• Marker pens
• Action Plan Template (included in the separate download)

Process

Welcome and purpose (10 minutes)

1. “Today we’re testing if Scrum feels useful, not committing to it forever.”
2. “We’ll try some key Scrum practices and reflect at the end.”
3. Question: “What questions or concerns do you have about Scrum?”
4. Capture responses on the board to revisit later.

Part 1: Work in small bursts (25 minutes)

Activity: Fast-build challenge

1. Split into teams of 3–4.
2. Choose a simple creative task (e.g., from the list provided or choose your own).
3. Work in two 5-minute sprints with a 2-minute review between.
4. Incorporate the changing requirements after Sprint 1 (simulate changing business needs).

Debrief questions:

• How did working in short bursts help (or not)?
• How did feedback change what you built?
• Does this approach feel helpful in your real work?

Part 2: Make work visible (20 minutes)

Activity: Visualise your actual work

1. List your current work as sticky notes or virtual cards.
2. Sort them into: To Do, Doing, Done.
3. Look at the “Doing” column:
   • What’s stuck?
   • Who is doing what?

Mini-lesson: Scrum uses simple boards to focus on finishing, not just starting.

Question: Would making your work visible every day help or distract you?

Part 3: Try a mini stand-up (15 minutes)

Activity: Run a quick stand-up

1. Ask the team to answer:
   • What did I do?
   • What will I do next?
   • What’s blocking me?
2. Keep to 30 seconds per person. Time it.

Debrief questions:

• Did that feel useful or like a checkbox exercise?
• What helped the team understand the big picture?

Part 4: Reflect honestly (30 minutes)

Activity: Group discussion

1. Discuss as a group openly:
   • What parts of Scrum felt useful today?
   • What parts felt forced or unnecessary?
   • Where could Scrum help us deliver faster or collaborate better?
   • Where might it slow us down or add confusion?
2. Capture reflections on a board under three headings:
   • Helpful
   • Not helpful
   • Unsure / Questions

Part 5: Decide next steps (15 minutes)

Activity: Team decision time

1. Questions for the team:
   • Do we want to run a short Scrum trial in our real work for 1–2 sprints?
   • Or do we want to explore other ways of working?

If yes: agree how to start (e.g., what’s Sprint 1).
If no: agree on what you’ll try instead to improve how you work.