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Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches

Every week day, Certified Scrum Master, Agile Coach and Business Consultant Vasco Duarte interviews Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches from all over the world to get you actionable advice, new tips and tricks, improve your craft as a Scrum Master with daily doses of inspiring conversations with Scrum Masters from the all over the world. Stay tuned for BONUS episodes when we interview Agile gurus and other thought leaders in the business space to bring you the Agile Business perspective you need to succeed as a Scrum Master. Some of the topics we discuss include: Agile Business, Agile Strategy, Retrospectives, Team motivation, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Backlog Refinement, Scaling Scrum, Lean Startup, Test Driven Development (TDD), Behavior Driven Development (BDD), Paper Prototyping, QA in Scrum, the role of agile managers, servant leadership, agile coaching, and more!
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Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
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Oct 10, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

In this project, there were several teams working on different aspects of the project: UI, Data, etc. The Project Manager pushed the different teams to “deliver”, even if that was done at the expense of quality. Nousheen, wanting to help, started to push the team as well, leaving some of the critical aspects of being a Scrum Master behind. Listen in to learn how the “push to deliver” created a negative spiral for the project, and learn some of the key lessons Nousheen got from that project. 

 

About Nousheen Manzoor

Nousheen believes that the future of leadership is kindness and empathy, and the same goes for any role which involves individuals and teams, like the Scrum Master role!

You can link with Nousheen Manzoor on LinkedIn.

Oct 7, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

The Great Product Owner: The Customer advocate Product Owner

This Product Owner was very close to the customer, and listened to their needs as well as the struggles they had with the product. Through their work, the PO tried to focus on adding to the backlog stories that would help the customer directly, and would often act as the customer when talking to the team. They were able to focus on prioritization, and prioritized the work for the team. The PO was also able to create clear priorities and have conversations with the team about the 3 V’s: Vision, Value, and Validation. 

The Bad Product Owner: The Product Owner that skipped the Sprint Reviews, and what that caused for the Scrum team

The processes we have in place influence the choices, and the focus of the Product Owners. In this segment, we talk about a team and their Product Owner that did not host a Sprint Review. Instead, the PO would focus on reviews with individuals, separate discussion with single stakeholders. However, that meant that other stakeholders would not know what the team had worked on during the Sprint. Furthermore, the team was not involved, and did not have the chance to show, and be proud of what they had accomplished during the Sprint. This was an anti-pattern that Ruta tried to overcome. Listen in to learn how Ruta tackled this anti-pattern.

Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.

Oct 6, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Ruta shares some of the behaviors she wants to see in a team, to assess her own success as a Scrum Master. Behind the behaviors listed, we find the need to observe ownership and commitment on the part of the team. Listen in, to hear the list of behaviors, and how you can evaluate those for your team.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The 4L’s with some customizations to help the team have fun in the retrospective!

Ruta’s suggestion for the week is the 4 L’s retrospective, with some customizations that help the team get into the mood of the Agile Retrospective, and add some fun to the retrospective. 

In this segment, we refer to the interview with Robbie Ross and the concept of Relentless Improvement.

Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM’s that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!  

About Ruta Hardikar

Ruta has over 8 years experience with Agile, and has taken the roles of Agile Coach, Scrum Master, Release Train Engineer (RTE in SAFe), working with GM Financial.

You can link with Ruta Hardikar on LinkedIn

Oct 5, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Ruta was working with a group of Scrum Masters to create and launch an Agile Release Train. They looked at the process as a change that required certain steps to be successful. In this episode, we discuss the step-by-step process you can use to create and launch an Agile Release Train, prepare the first PI Planning event, and align all the teams!

 

About Ruta Hardikar

Ruta has over 8 years experience with Agile, and has taken the roles of Agile Coach, Scrum Master, Release Train Engineer (RTE in SAFe), working with GM Financial.

You can link with Ruta Hardikar on LinkedIn

Oct 4, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

As part of working with teams, we must learn to grow teams, to make them feel as a group that can perform and overcome the challenges they will inevitably face. In this segment, we talk about a team Ruta was working with, and how she helped them create a safe space to share and talk about “the hard stuff”, and how we can build in team building into the Scrum ceremonies with the goal of building a great team. 

In this segment, we talk about the Tuckman model of group development, and the book The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Lencioni.

Featured Book of the Week: Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

In Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry, Ruta found different aspects we need to develop as Scrum Masters. Scrum Masters work in a people-oriented job, therefore we need to actively study and learn more about people’s defining characteristics. The book helped Ruta learn to manage, and benefit from emotions, rather than be afraid of them. 

In this segment, we also talk about Start with Why by Simon Sinek.

How can Angela (the Agile Coach) quickly build healthy relationships with the teams she’s supposed to help? What were the steps she followed to help the Breeze App team fight off the competition? Find out how Angela helped Naomi and the team go from “behind” to being ahead of Intuition Bank, by focusing on the people! Download the first 4 chapters of the BOOK for FREE while it is in Beta!

Oct 3, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Ruta started working with a new team that had recently adopted Agile. Many of the practices and processes were new to the team, but also to Ruta as the Scrum Master. As Ruta started to push for some changes, she noticed that the Product Owner and Business Analyst on the team wanted to control the Sprint Reviews very carefully, including who was invited to see the team’s deliverables. When Ruta started to ask about why they wanted to control the Sprint Reviews so carefully, she discovered something that helped her understand the why, but also the need to consider people’s personalities when implementing Scrum.

In this episode, we refer to the book The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday.

Oct 1, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

About Geoff Watts

Geoff Watts is the founder of Inspect & Adapt, The Agile Licensing Library, ORGANIC agility and most recently Agile Mastery Institute and one of the most well-respected authors, coaches, trainers and speakers in the worlds of agile and coaching. Oh yeah - and he has also co-written an agile joke book as well!

You can find out more about the Agile Mastery Institute, and Geoff Watts

Sep 30, 2022

This Product Owner was very open to taking into account the needs and requests by the team, and spent time with the team, trying to understand those. The PO felt ownership over the outcome the team was able to deliver, and tried to help the team achieve what was needed. This was a PO that felt, and made the team feel they were part of the team! 

The Bad Product Owner: Blaming the team, and other anti-patterns

This Product Owner was very distant from the team, and did not see themselves as part of the development process. It was a case of the PO missing the “owner” in the role name. Although they shared what needed to be done, they did not spend time with the team working through the requirements. Then, in the Sprint reviews, he would throw the team under the bus, and criticise them openly. This was just one of the many anti-patterns, listen in to learn about the other major anti-patterns this PO displayed. 

Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.

About Pedro Silva

Pedro considers himself a Scrum Master supporting software development teams while keeping his focus on their growth towards the efficient delivery of value, while having a blast.

You can link with Pedro Silva on LinkedIn.

Sep 29, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

When it comes to defining success, Pedro has some key questions he asks of himself to assess his impact as a Scrum Master. Listen in to learn about the four questions Pedro asks when assessing his own work, and the impact on the Scrum team.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Team Canvas, a tool to help build great teams

Pedro likes to use the Team Canvas as a way to help teams come together, and define their joint, group identity. He also uses some ice-breaker exercises like the MAD/SAD/GLAD or Lean Coffee formats, which we’ve discussed in previous episodes here on the podcast. 

 

About Pedro Silva

Pedro considers himself a Scrum Master supporting software development teams while keeping his focus on their growth towards the efficient delivery of value, while having a blast.

You can link with Pedro Silva on LinkedIn.

Sep 28, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

When teams, and organizations start on their Agile adoption journey, Pedro observes, they often lack the ability to grasp what needs to be different in the team and the organization beyond the “simple” process change. In this episode, we talk about a team that started their Agile journey on the wrong foot, and discuss what Scrum Masters can do to help teams grasp what “else” need to be different. 

 

About Pedro Silva

Pedro considers himself a Scrum Master supporting software development teams while keeping his focus on their growth towards the efficient delivery of value, while having a blast.

You can link with Pedro Silva on LinkedIn.

Sep 27, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

When Pedro joined this team, he noticed that the team members did not try to include a new team member in their conversation. Although sometimes this pattern is subtle, in this team it was an obvious lack of inclusivity in the team’s approach to communication: they did not use a language that the new team member would understand! Listen in to hear the critical lessons Pedro learned about inclusivity in Agile teams! 

Featured Book of the Week: The Speed Of Trust by Stephen Covey

In The Speed Of Trust by Stephen Covey, Pedro found a clear manual on how to focus on building trust within an Agile team, and with stakeholders. He shares one of the key lessons, that trust has many different aspects that we don’t often consider. Listen in to learn how trust can change depending on the relationship and the context. 

 

About Pedro Silva

Pedro considers himself a Scrum Master supporting software development teams while keeping his focus on their growth towards the efficient delivery of value, while having a blast.

You can link with Pedro Silva on LinkedIn.

Sep 26, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Pedro joined a team right at the start of the Corona pandemic, and because of that did not have the opportunity to spend time with the team face to face before the team went full remote. This led to Pedro not being able to create a bond with each team member. Later on, he realized that the team had started to drift apart themselves, and on top of that, Pedro did not have the strong relationships that would allow him to help the team members open up, and share their challenges. Listen in to learn what to take into account when starting as a full remote Scrum Master.

 

About Pedro Silva

Pedro considers himself a Scrum Master supporting software development teams while keeping his focus on their growth towards the efficient delivery of value, while having a blast.

You can link with Pedro Silva on LinkedIn.

Sep 23, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

The Great Product Owner: Enthusiastic Product Owners, and how they behave when working with Scrum teams

Great Product Owners are enthusiastic about what they do, they have a clear Vision, but are able to stay curious and listen to the team, stakeholders, and customers. In this segment, we look at some of the behaviors that Product Owners like this have when interacting with the team and the Scrum master.

The Bad Product Owner: Two Anti-Patterns to look out for!

In this segment, we explore two Product Owner anti-patterns that illustrate how the PO role is not only critical, but can be actively destructive for a Scrum team. The first story features a Product Owner that preferred to focus on the hardware side of the product, and through their command-and-control personality tried to bully the Scrum Master into submission! 

The second story is about the Product Owner that was absent, a very frequent anti-pattern for the PO role. 

In this segment, we refer to our Coach Your Product Owner e-course, which helps you tackle some of these anti-patterns proactively in your role as a Scrum Master!

Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.

About Shaun Bradshaw

Shaun is a founder and principal of Zenergy Technologies, a modern software delivery solutions firm that specializes in Agile, DevOps, Quality, and Automation. Shaun’s background in QA, testing, and metrics has played an important role in his work as an Agile consultant since he joined the community in 2008.

You can link with Shaun Bradshaw on LinkedIn and connect with Shaun Bradshaw on Twitter. You can also follow Shaun Bradshaw’s blog at the Zenergy Technologies site.

Sep 22, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

When looking out for his own success in working with a Scrum team, Shaun pays special attention to how team members speak with each other, and the stance they take regarding collaboration as a team. In this segment, we also explore what we can do when our teams are remote, and the observations that we need to make are no longer that easy because team members are not right there, in front of us.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Exploring emotions with the Mad/Sad/Glad format

Emotions are very powerful influencers in a team. If we can’t talk about them, we miss what might be the key influencer in some patterns we notice in teams and between teams and stakeholders. Shaun invites us to explore emotions with the Mad/Sad/Glad retrospective format. 

In this segment, we refer to the Core Protocols (of which Mad/Sad/Glad is part), which has been a topic in our podcast before. 

Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM’s that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!  

 

About Shaun Bradshaw

Shaun is a founder and principal of Zenergy Technologies, a modern software delivery solutions firm that specializes in Agile, DevOps, Quality, and Automation. Shaun’s background in QA, testing, and metrics has played an important role in his work as an Agile consultant since he joined the community in 2008.

You can link with Shaun Bradshaw on LinkedIn and connect with Shaun Bradshaw on Twitter. You can also follow Shaun Bradshaw’s blog at the Zenergy Technologies site.

Sep 21, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

As Shaun started to work with this team, he observed that a particular, frequent pattern was disturbing the team’s ability to deliver their work: a VP would “swoop in” and distract the team, by directing them to an “urgent” request. As he investigated further, he learned that the anti-pattern had been there for a while. So the question was: what can be done differently to help the team move on from that anti-pattern? 

Listen in to learn how to tackle this specific interruption anti-pattern that affects many teams! 

 

About Shaun Bradshaw

Shaun is a founder and principal of Zenergy Technologies, a modern software delivery solutions firm that specializes in Agile, DevOps, Quality, and Automation. Shaun’s background in QA, testing, and metrics has played an important role in his work as an Agile consultant since he joined the community in 2008.

You can link with Shaun Bradshaw on LinkedIn and connect with Shaun Bradshaw on Twitter. You can also follow Shaun Bradshaw’s blog at the Zenergy Technologies site.

Sep 20, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Shaun was working with a team that was consistently failing to meet their Sprint commitments. At first glance, the team was doing everything right, the Product Owner was present and supportive. After a few failed attempts, Shaun decided to “visualize” how the team worked, by asking them to plan out a Sprint on the board. Through this technique, Shaun finally realized that the team was working as if they used Waterfall, even if they were just planning the Sprint. That insight changed the team, and changed Shaun’s approach to coaching that team! Listen in to learn how! 

Featured Book of the Week: Predictably irrational by Dan Ariely

In Predictably irrational by Dan Ariely, Shaun found an explanation for some of the confusing observations he had made as a Scrum Master. It helped him understand that, even if some behaviors appear irrational, they can be predictable once we have the right models in mind.

How can Angela (the Agile Coach) quickly build healthy relationships with the teams she’s supposed to help? What were the steps she followed to help the Breeze App team fight off the competition? Find out how Angela helped Naomi and the team go from “behind” to being ahead of Intuition Bank, by focusing on the people! Download the first 4 chapters of the BOOK for FREE while it is in Beta!

 

About Shaun Bradshaw

Shaun is a founder and principal of Zenergy Technologies, a modern software delivery solutions firm that specializes in Agile, DevOps, Quality, and Automation. Shaun’s background in QA, testing, and metrics has played an important role in his work as an Agile consultant since he joined the community in 2008.

You can link with Shaun Bradshaw on LinkedIn and connect with Shaun Bradshaw on Twitter. You can also follow Shaun Bradshaw’s blog at the Zenergy Technologies site.

Sep 19, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Many have, at some point, thought that the framework they used was “the Agile”. Particularly, with Scrum, many still use Scrum as a synonym to Agile. However, when we start to deepen our knowledge we learn that there are different ways to put in practice the Agile Values and Agile Principles. In this story, we explore the story where shaun finally realized that Scrum and Agile are different in critical aspects, and how that changed his stance as a Scrum Master.

 

About Shaun Bradshaw

Shaun is a founder and principal of Zenergy Technologies, a modern software delivery solutions firm that specializes in Agile, DevOps, Quality, and Automation. Shaun’s background in QA, testing, and metrics has played an important role in his work as an Agile consultant since he joined the community in 2008.

You can link with Shaun Bradshaw on LinkedIn and connect with Shaun Bradshaw on Twitter. You can also follow Shaun Bradshaw’s blog at the Zenergy Technologies site.

Sep 16, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

The Great Product Owner: Curiosity, dedication and Vision, critical skills for great Scrum PO’s

Great Product Owners play a pivotal role in the success of Scrum teams, they define the Vision, and work to anticipate end user needs. But to achieve that, they - as Robbie puts it - “do all kinds of small things along the way”. In this episode, we discuss how this PO was able to put into practice some specific techniques that helped them define what needed to be done, while keeping a great relationship with the stakeholders, and keeping the trust by the team. 

The Bad Product Owner: The many demands on the Scrum Product Owner role

The Product Owner is a very demanding role, Robbie describes how this aspect is often misunderstood by people in the role. The demands of the PO role go far beyond the context of the product itself, and include many demands on the human relations and collaboration skills for the Product Owner. 

Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.

 

About Robbie Ross

Robbie is an Agile Practice Manager at Jumar Technology with a passion for working with and empowering teams to foster an Agile environment at scale. He’s also a Certified Scrum Master, Kanban practitioner and Agile community member helping teams release their genuine potential to deliver value. Quite a career shift since completing a Sports Science degree at University.

You can link with Robbie Ross on LinkedIn and connect with Robbie Ross on Twitter

Sep 15, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Robbie invites us to consider the Scrum Master engagement as a game of chess. The Scrum Guide provides the rules, but the way you play the game is different every time. You learn from the past, but constantly adapt to what is there at the moment. He suggests we consider “relentless improvement” as the core focus of our reflection practice. 

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Tips for hosting an Agile Retrospective outdoors

As we publish this episode, the heat-wave in the northern hemisphere is subsiding, and it might even be a good idea to visit the great outdoors for that important conversation with the team. Robbie describes for us an Agile Retrospective that happened outside the office, in a park near by. In this episode, we explore why that might be a good idea, and how to prepare for acing the facilitation when the office material is not readily available. 

Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM’s that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!  

 

About Robbie Ross

Robbie is an Agile Practice Manager at Jumar Technology with a passion for working with and empowering teams to foster an Agile environment at scale. He’s also a Certified Scrum Master, Kanban practitioner and Agile community member helping teams release their genuine potential to deliver value. Quite a career shift since completing a Sports Science degree at University.

You can link with Robbie Ross on LinkedIn and connect with Robbie Ross on Twitter

Sep 14, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Robbie was working with a large organization, and helping a team. But he quickly noticed that there was a wider, systemic impact for the change they were asked to do. When working with the team, he suggested that they consider the stories in a “3 amigos” session before Sprint Planning. When this new practice was adopted, it was clear that a simple change like adopting the “3 amigos session” had had a large impact on the team, and the surrounding environment. Listen in, to learn how the “3 amigos” session can help your team collaborate, and define better stories. Learn more about the 3 amigos meeting from Steve Thomas and the 3 amigos session strategy by George Dinwiddie, who were some of the first to propose the practice in the agile community.

 

About Robbie Ross

Robbie is an Agile Practice Manager at Jumar Technology with a passion for working with and empowering teams to foster an Agile environment at scale. He’s also a Certified Scrum Master, Kanban practitioner and Agile community member helping teams release their genuine potential to deliver value. Quite a career shift since completing a Sports Science degree at University.

You can link with Robbie Ross on LinkedIn and connect with Robbie Ross on Twitter

Sep 13, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Very often teams compare themselves to other teams. Even when successful, the comparison is inevitable, and sometimes even pushed/fostered by stakeholders. Robbie shares a story of a team that got stuck in the comparison of velocity with another team. And even if the team was working great, they were still trying to “achieve” the same number of story points that the other team was doing. Even when asked not to focus on the number, the team worked on getting their velocity higher, and higher, but not because they were working better, just because they were assigning more story points to the same work! In this episode, we discuss this and other anti-patterns that emerge when teams start focusing on the velocity, rather than the impact of the work they have ahead. 

Featured Book of the Week: Scrum, the art of doing twice the work in half the time by Sutherland

In Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time,  by Sutherland Robbie found an inspiring book that helped him find the Scrum Master career. He describes the book as filled with solutions and valuable even for people with significant experience! 

How can Angela (the Agile Coach) quickly build healthy relationships with the teams she’s supposed to help? What were the steps she followed to help the Breeze App team fight off the competition? Find out how Angela helped Naomi and the team go from “behind” to being ahead of Intuition Bank, by focusing on the people! Download the first 4 chapters of the BOOK for FREE while it is in Beta!

About Robbie Ross

Robbie is an Agile Practice Manager at Jumar Technology with a passion for working with and empowering teams to foster an Agile environment at scale. He’s also a Certified Scrum Master, Kanban practitioner and Agile community member helping teams release their genuine potential to deliver value. Quite a career shift since completing a Sports Science degree at University.

You can link with Robbie Ross on LinkedIn and connect with Robbie Ross on Twitter

Sep 12, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Robbie was new to the Scrum Master role at this time. As many of us do, he was focusing on the stakeholders, and what they were asking from him, and the team. When an urgent situation came up, he accepted it immediately and canceled all the Sprint ceremonies, to let the team focus on the urgent request that had come up. Quickly, the team went in their own different ways, and Robbie noticed that some team members were working on similar topics, without knowing of each other’s work. But there was more to come! Listen in, to learn what anti-patterns are likely to emerge when the team stops with the Scrum ceremonies, and focuses on their own individual work.

 

About Robbie Ross

Robbie is an Agile Practice Manager at Jumar Technology with a passion for working with and empowering teams to foster an Agile environment at scale. He’s also a Certified Scrum Master, Kanban practitioner and Agile community member helping teams release their genuine potential to deliver value. Quite a career shift since completing a Sports Science degree at University.

You can link with Robbie Ross on LinkedIn and connect with Robbie Ross on Twitter

Sep 10, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

It’s a commonly discussed topic in Agile circles. We’re frequently reminded how important it is for team performance. But how do we, as Scrum Masters, help our teams achieve that state, where they are free to express their thoughts on the challenges they face as a team without the fear of being overruled, ridiculed, or chastised for having a non-standard opinion?

In this episode, we explore Psychological Safety with Stephan Wiedner, and discuss what we can do to help create an environment where each individual can excel and help the team perform. 

 

A personal lesson learned about the critical importance of Psychological Safety

Back in 2007... (Full notes available at http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes)

About Stephan Wiedner

Stephan Wiedner is a psychological safety expert whose career has focused on developing sustainable high performance leaders, teams, and organizations. His passion for unleashing the collective potential of people has led him to cofound Noomii.com, the web’s largest network of independent life coaches, Skillsetter.com, the deliberate practice platform for interpersonal skills, and Zarango.com, the psychological safety training experts. Stephan has been a guest speaker for ACETech, MAGI, Marketing IMPACT Council, and many other audiences interested in psychology, business, and technology. His writing has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and other popular publications. Stephan is married with two children and enjoys spending quality time in the outdoors, hiking, biking, camping, and reading.

You can link with Stephan Wiedner on LinkedIn

Sep 9, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

The Great Product Owner: Setting Scrum teams free! A Product Owner superpower

Great Product Owners are able to focus the team on concrete goals that the team feels committed to achieve. They are available to the team when necessary, and through the use of clear goals gives the team the decision power on how to achieve the goals!

The Bad Product Owner: Helping PO’s stop dictating the “how” to their Scrum teams

When Product Owners want to dictate how developers work, it can lead to conflict, and lack of motivation from the part of the team! But how to detect the more subtle ways in which PO’s try to dictate to developers the “how”? In this episode, we talk about several different aspects of this PO anti-pattern, and then discuss how Scrum Masters can evaluate how they can help the Product Owners.

 

[IMAGE HERE] Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.

 

About Ricardo Ribeiro

Ricardo is a Scrum Master (PSM) and certified Professional Scrum Product Owner™ (PSPO) with over 10 years of experience leading high-performing teams and delivering complex Transformational Programmes within the Banking, IT, Computer Hardware and Oil & Gas companies.

You can link with Ricardo Ribeiro on LinkedIn.

Sep 8, 2022

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Scrum Masters are asked to have team effectiveness in mind in their role, focusing on the value the team delivers to the business and the quality with which it does it. In that context, the success of the Scrum Master is directly linked to how well they work with the business to ensure that the business perspective is taken into account by the Product Owner and the team.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The 4 perspectives of the Sailboat Retrospective

In this episode, we explore different retrospective formats that can help your team share their concerns, and hopes for improvement. We also dig deeper into the Sailboat Retrospective format and share 4 different perspectives that are implicit in that format.

 

[IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM’s that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!  

 

About Ricardo Ribeiro

Ricardo is a Scrum Master (PSM) and certified Professional Scrum Product Owner™ (PSPO) with over 10 years of experience leading high-performing teams and delivering complex Transformational Programmes within the Banking, IT, Computer Hardware and Oil & Gas companies.

You can link with Ricardo Ribeiro on LinkedIn.

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