Twitter is not just about sharing what you had for lunch
By following experts in your field, you are exposed to a priceless library of knowledge and access to industry thought leaders.
Let’s face reality, those in the scrum expert world will most likely not draw a following the likes of Katy Perry or Taylor Swift. That said, may I suggest to help increase your current knowledge [or if new to the game] of Scrum, you’ll want to follow these Scrum authors, speakers, and trainers listed below. The list includes both people and organizations, all of them specializing in Scrum training and knowledge.
Scrum experts and orgs to follow
This list is focused on those that tweet primarily about the Scrum methodology, but Scrum concepts are used in other agile methodologies and many of these pundits actively share agile knowledge beyond Scrum boundaries.
Twitter
- Ken Rubin is author of Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process. He is the principle consultant at Innolution, where he provides consulting and training services to technical and senior executive teams. His tweets include an “Agile glossary term of the day,” with a link to a blog post in which he provides a definition and some context.
- Mitch Lacey, the author of The Scrum Field Guide, recently released the second edition of that popular book. Lacey is a coach, consultant, and trainer, and his upcoming classes can be found on mitchlacey.com. He has been conference chair for the Agile Alliance's Agile 2014 and Agile 2012.
- Ilan Goldstein is a Scrum trainer, blogger, and author; the owner of AxisAgile and the founder of Scrum Australia. Goldstein, like Lacey and Rubin, is also an author of a "Mike Cohn Agile Signature Series" book, titled Scrum Shortcuts Without Cutting Corners.
- Geoff Watts is the founder of Inspect and Adapt, a leadership, Scrum, and agile training company based in Cheltenham, England. Besides authoring Scrum Mastery: From Good to Great Servant-Leadership and The Coach’s Casebook: Mastering the Twelve Traits that Trap Us, Watts’ accomplishments include speaking at TEDx and creating Scrum Coaching Cards.
- Ken Schwaber is the co-creator of Scrum and founder of Scrum.org, a community site that offers tools and resources to Scrum practitioners. Though Schwaber himself is following only 55 people on Twitter, he has a following of over 28,000 and is well respected within the Scrum community.
- Jeff Sutherland is the second co-creator of Scrum and founder of Scrum Inc., another site with resources for those who want to improve their knowledge of Scrum. Sutherland tweets more often than Schwaber, passing along information about upcoming Scrum-related webinars and blog posts.
- Dan Tousignant, is an agile coach and trainer at AgileProjectManagementTraining.com. Though Tousignant’s company offers Scrum-based courses, such as Scrum Master Certification Training and Advanced Scrum Master and Agile Coaching Training, there are also courses in Kanban and PMI-ACP certification preparation, among other things. Tousignant tweets often and has a following of close to 68,000.
- Mike Cohn is the author of three books, including Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum, and was a founding member of both the Agile Alliance and the Scrum Alliance. He founded Mountain Goat Software, which offers training and consulting services.
- Kane Mar is a certified Scrum trainer, organizational agility coach, and co-founder and principle consultant for Scrumology, a consultancy, specializing in Scrum training, coaching, team mentoring, and consulting. Mar studied and worked alongside Ken Schwaber and was one of the first accredited Scrum trainers worldwide.
- Michele Sliger is another certified Scrum trainer, agile coach, trainer, and consultant, and the owner of sligerconsulting.com. She is a co-author of The Software Project Manager’s Bridge to Agility, and her passion is helping traditional teams cross the bridge to agile practices. With close to 12,000 tweets in her history, Sliger is quite an active Twitter user, though her tweets are not all about agile and Scrum. She actively retweets other posts from her network, as well as personal tweets.
- Roman Pichler specializes in Scrum product management. Another certified Scrum trainer, he’s also the author of Agile Product Management and Scrum; writes a blog for product owners and product managers, allthingsproductowner.com; and is the author of several product management tools, including the Vision Board, the GO Product Roadmap, and the Product Canvas.
- Peter Saddington is a certified Scrum trainer and an organizational scientist. He writes for AgileScout.com and is the author of The Pocket Agile Guide, published in 2012. He currently works for Agile For All, an agile training organization. His tweets often go beyond Scrum and frequently include photos of agile teams in action.
Organizations related to Scrum
- Scrum Alliance: Not only will the Scrum Alliance tweets provide information about what’s happening at the Scrum Alliance, but the Scrum and Agile Coaches public list provides you with a list of 35 Twitter handles of Scrum and agile coaches around the world.
- Ken Schwaber’s organization, Scrum.org, has its own Twitter account and is quite active. Tweets include blog posts, articles, retweets, and news about what’s happening in the Scrum community.
- Scruminc, Jeff Sutherland’s company, also has its own Twitter account, which is used to promote events, activities, blog posts, and training.
- Master Scrum provides job opportunities for those who have Scrum or agile skills. Though tweets are primarily related to recruiting, there is also a Facebook page that includes articles that might help those who are searching for jobs in the field.
- Scrumexpert.com is a news site that includes links to an abundance of articles, blog posts, books, podcasts, quotes, videos, and news stories. There’s also information about agile and Scrum conferences being held throughout the world.
- The 3Back Team is a group of 11 senior Scrum coaches. Their site offers a variety of training opportunities and a Scrum recommended reading list.