In the first part, I presented my favorite list of Scrum's hard parts and how to work around them. In the second part, I offer you a colorful bouquet of workarounds as well. Have fun!

The Product Backlog

According to the Scrum Guide, the Product Backlog is never complete. Initially, it contains only the best-understood requirements.

In innovative projects, neither requirements nor technology are known in advance. This can lead to great uncertainty. How do we know that we are in time, budget and scope so that our supervisor will receive the bonus in his target agreement?

The workaround is very simple. Make sure the project initialization phase is long enough, at least several months! If you encounter resistance from agile fundamentalists, use the term "Sprint 0". A marathon of enjoyable meetings with stakeholders is about to take place. Until the final requirements are documented in detail.

Another clever idea on top of that. Write requirements with the user story template. This gives the Product Backlog an agile touch.

And remember: as long as nothing is implemented, all wishes of stakeholders can be taken into account!

The Scrum Master as Servant Leader

According to the Scrum Guide, the Scrum Master is a Servant Leader of the Scrum Team.

If you work in a company that introduces Scrum, take advantage of these new servants. After all, your company has to pay them. Here are a few examples of what Scrum Masters are used for in practice:

• Scrum Master as a messenger. Instead of telling unpleasant messages directly, use the Scrum Master as a messenger. You do not  believe how many conflicts can be avoided!
• Scrum Master as a reporter. The Agile Manifesto says that software is the most important measure of progress. But not  everyone wants to inspect software when you can analyze numbers and graphs instead! It takes a reporter at the team level. No one can do that better than the Scrum Master.
• Scrum Master as a project manager. Scrum Masters who used to work as project managers are often more than willing to contribute their experience. To control Scrum projects effectively and efficiently, convert the Daily Standup into a status meeting. Combine that with assigning tasks to developers. This is how the transition from classic project management to Scrum runs smoothly.

To get the basics of agile software development right, visit my online course. If you want to keep up with what I'm doing, follow me on dev.to, LinkedIn or twitter. Or visit my GitHub project.