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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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Feb 27, 2024

Luis Garcia: Forecast Over Estimation, How To Transform Your Approach To Project Management, NoEstimates Unplugged Week

This is one of a series of episodes where Product Owners explain how they used, and benefited from #NoEstimates in their work with teams. 

To know more about #NoEstimates, sign-up to get the first 3 chapters of the book here.

Introduction to #NoEstimates

Luis Garcia, transitioning from estimation discomfort to a #NoEstimates approach as a product owner, discovered its benefits after attending a workshop by Woody Zuill. Faced with the challenges of hard commitments in government projects, he sought to shift focus from when to what and why in project discussions.

A Transformative Project Example 

Implementing #NoEstimates in a kanban team, Luis emphasized work breakdown and comfortable task sizing. This method facilitated stakeholder communication, improved expectation management, and enabled precise progress measurement through metrics like cycle time and using techniques like Monte Carlo forecasting.

Overcoming Implementation Challenges 

When Luis tried to introduce #NoEstimates, he originally faced skepticism, misconceptions about planning, and stakeholder resistance. In those cases, Luis advises focusing on forecasting based on available data, ensuring team stability, and managing expectations effectively. And focusing on progress transparency, instead of trying to change people’s minds.

Strategic Stakeholder Management 

Successfully integrating #NoEstimates involved fostering team accountability and ownership over the refinement process, thereby enhancing stakeholder dialogue and planning efficiency. For example, Luis shares that #NoEstimates shifted the team's focus to identifying and preparing the most valuable tasks, leveraging data for all planning and prioritization decisions. This focus helped to keep stakeholders informed, and improved transparency.

Measuring Success and Communicating Progress 

Without traditional estimates, Luis's team adopted a probabilistic approach to measure and communicate progress, supported by insights from the book "Thinking in Bets" by Annie Duke.

When it came to adopting a different way to measure and communicate progress, practicality was key; even simple tools like Excel were effective for data management in the #NoEstimates process, emphasizing simplicity and scalability.

Advice for #NoEstimates Adopters 

Luis recommends low-change experimentation with #NoEstimates to experience its benefits firsthand and stresses the importance of informative discussions over rigid planning.

Resource Recommendation 

For those considering #NoEstimates, Luis suggests starting with the "NoEstimates" book and following thought leaders like Vasco Duarte, Woody Zuill, and Allen Holub on social media.

About Luis Garcia

Luis is a Program Manager at Formula.Monks, specializes in developing impactful digital products. Luis has over 10 years of experience and several Agile certifications, he adeptly applies Agile frameworks to meet client needs. His background includes a Master's in Computer Engineering and an Executive MBA. He is also fluent in English, Spanish, and French, he values diverse work environments and continuous learning.

You can link with Luis Garcia on LinkedIn.

Feb 26, 2024

Lee Beckett: Using NoEstimates to Help Agile Teams Focus On Value, And Create Transparency - NoEstimates Unplugged Week

 

This is one of a series of episodes where Product Owners explain how they used, and benefited from #NoEstimates in their work with teams. 

To know more about #NoEstimates, sign-up to get the first 3 chapters of the book here.

 

Exploring #NoEstimates

Lee Beckett shares his journey from coder to Product Owner (PO), and how his diverse experience led him to question the effectiveness of traditional estimation techniques in agile environments. He discusses the adoption of a #NoEstimates approach, highlighting its benefits in simplifying processes and focusing on delivering value.

Lee illustrates how abandoning estimates, except for significant items, streamlined project workflows and improved team dynamics. This approach fostered a culture of trust and transparency, crucial for managing stakeholder expectations and focusing on product delivery.

Challenges and Solutions

Implementing #NoEstimates was surprisingly straightforward for Lee's team, emphasizing the importance of establishing trust and transparency with stakeholders from the outset.

Lee stresses honesty in forecasting and advises giving stakeholders meaningful insights rather than fixed dates to help manage expectations effectively.

After adopting #NoEstimates, the team's planning focused on work discussion rather than assigning numerical values, allowing for more flexible and goal-oriented sprint planning.

Measuring Success

Without traditional estimates, the team measures progress through product delivery and stakeholder feedback, ensuring a focus on value creation.

Lee advises teams to ensure open communication and clear prioritization with stakeholders before moving to #NoEstimates, ensuring a foundation for success.

Recommended Resource

For those interested in exploring #NoEstimates further, Lee recommends the "Agile for Humans" podcast, particularly the interview with Josh Anderson and Ryan Ripley.

About Lee Beckett

Lee Beckett, has over 17 years of experience in digital product development, and is a certified Product Owner and Lean Practitioner. Skilled in setting product goals and managing backlogs, Lee excels in guiding teams through the product lifecycle and fostering a culture of empiricism and learning in agile environments.

You can link with Lee Beckett on LinkedIn.

Feb 23, 2024

Johannes Andersen: Ceremony Over Substance, The Scrum Master Trap, And How It Affects Teams And The Product Owner

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 Scrum Master: Beyond the Backlog, How a Great Scrum Master Helps Product Owners

From a Product Owner's perspective, Johannes shares what an ideal Scrum Master looks like. This Scrum Master not only introduced him to Scrum but also focused on the underlying purpose beyond mere processes. His patience, clarity, and pragmatic approach in defining priorities and solving conflicts greatly facilitated the PO's understanding of product development challenges. This Scrum Master’s ability to foster meaningful conversations significantly helped Johannes in the PO role, highlighting the importance of a Scrum Master's soft skills in guiding and supporting the product vision.

The Bad Scrum Master: Ceremony Over Substance, The Scrum Master Trap, And How It Affects Teams And The Product Owner

From a Product Owner's perspective, Johannes highlights an anti-pattern where the Scrum Master becomes overly focused on ceremonies and strict adherence to Scrum guidelines, losing sight of the actual outcomes. This approach mistakenly centralizes process ownership with the Scrum Master, rather than distributing it among the entire team. Johannes advises addressing this issue by realigning the Scrum Master's role towards shared goals and understanding, using tools like Team Topologies for discussion. The key is moving beyond the "servant" aspect of "servant leader" to foster a team environment where understanding and self-direction are prioritized.

 

[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 Johannes Andersen

Johannes comes from a finance and fintech background, and is now an enterprise agility maestro at a leading telco in Copenhagen! He focuses on optimizing the flow from strategy to execution, championing portfolio management with a keen eye on doing the right things, even if imperfectly. Johannes is an international speaker on product development topics.

You can link with Johannes Andersen on LinkedIn.

Feb 22, 2024

Johannes Andersen: Autonomy as an Achievement, Empowering Self-Sufficient Scrum Teams

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 being a successful Agile Coach and Scrum Master, Johannes emphasises the goal of becoming unnecessary as the team matures. For Johannes, success is evident when the team autonomously conducts check-ins, engages in constructive debates, and effectively self-organizes while maintaining good relationships. The ability to request help and independently run retrospectives are signs of a well-functioning team that continuously challenges its own processes.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Timeline Retrospective With a Twist

Johannes shares a favorite retrospective format, focusing on flexibility and open dialogue. Starting with a timeline to objectively list events, the process encourages a shared understanding of recent activities. The team then categorizes experiences into "Well," "Not Well," and "Makes Me Wonder," before voting on action points. As familiarity grows, discussions evolve to directly address improvement areas. Johannes emphasizes the value of natural conversation over strict adherence to structured methods, suggesting that effective retrospectives can thrive on organic interaction.

 

[IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he’s learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox! 

 

About Johannes Andersen

Johannes comes from a finance and fintech background, and is now an enterprise agility maestro at a leading telco in Copenhagen! He focuses on optimizing the flow from strategy to execution, championing portfolio management with a keen eye on doing the right things, even if imperfectly. Johannes is an international speaker on product development topics.

You can link with Johannes Andersen on LinkedIn.

Feb 21, 2024

Johannes Andersen: The Critical Role of the Leap of Faith in Organizational Change Programs

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 episode, Johannes discusses leading a small business unit through a change process to improve project flow and efficiency. Initially working in silos, the team aimed to reorganize around customer-focused products. Despite considering an outside-in model, they chose an inside-out approach for practicality. An off-site session helped visualize the workflow under the new structure, but progress in the change was slow due to overplanning. Johannes learned that successful change requires adaptability and a leap of faith, emphasizing the importance of navigating between complicated and complex models as reality shifts.

In this episode, we talk about the importance of being able to differentiate between complex and complicated types of work and change.

 

[IMAGE HERE] As Scrum Master we work with change continuously! Do you have your own change framework that provides the guidance, and queues you need when working with change? The Lean Change Management framework is a fully defined, lean-startup inspired change framework that can be used as the backbone of any change process! You can buy Lean Change Management the book at Amazon. Also available in French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.

 

About Johannes Andersen

Johannes comes from a finance and fintech background, and is now an enterprise agility maestro at a leading telco in Copenhagen! He focuses on optimizing the flow from strategy to execution, championing portfolio management with a keen eye on doing the right things, even if imperfectly. Johannes is an international speaker on product development topics.

You can link with Johannes Andersen on LinkedIn.

Feb 20, 2024

Johannes Andersen: Disjoint Silos, The Illusion of Teamwork and How it Affects Agile Coaches’ Work

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 segment, Johannes reflects on his transition from a business unit to an HR position, which initially seemed promising due to the team-based approach they embraced in HR. However, he soon discovered that the HR team lacked unity, with various small roles not functioning cohesively as a team. Tasked by his manager to enhance the HR team's effectiveness, Johannes found himself dedicating much of his time to internal issues rather than organizational improvement. The core issue was the absence of a shared goal, leading to misalignment and lack of collaboration within the team, effectively making them "disjoint silos" rather than a unified force. We discuss Vasco’s mnemonic of “One Team, One Goal” andthe importance of aligning around a single, shared goal to foster true teamwork.

Featured Book of the Week: "The Goal" by Eliyahu M. Goldratt

In this segment, Johannes discusses how "The Goal" by Eliyahu M. Goldratt profoundly influenced him. Appreciating its novel-based approach, he found it uniquely effective for teaching new concepts, allowing readers to empathize with the learning process. Johannes admires the book's focus on outcomes and its clarity on defining a company's "goal," highlighting its system thinking approach as a critical aspect of understanding and solving organizational problems.

 

[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 Johannes Andersen

Johannes comes from a finance and fintech background, and is now an enterprise agility maestro at a leading telco in Copenhagen! He focuses on optimizing the flow from strategy to execution, championing portfolio management with a keen eye on doing the right things, even if imperfectly. Johannes is an international speaker on product development topics.

You can link with Johannes Andersen on LinkedIn.

Feb 19, 2024

Johannes Andersen: Collaboration Over Isolated Performance, Lessons Learned as a Scrum Product Owner

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 episode, Johannes shares a personal story of his struggles as a Product Owner (PO). In his early career, Johannes believed he needed to have all the answers and provide detailed requirements alone; but he quickly found that it was not so easy to define all the features by himself. This experience taught him the importance of involving the entire team in writing user stories, highlighting that collaboration, not individual effort, leads to success. Johannes emphasizes focusing on outcomes, encouraging POs to ask goal-oriented questions and to view technical solutions through the lens of their importance. He recommends resources like Mike Burrows' list of questions to foster effective communication and collaboration.

 

[IMAGE HERE] Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story - How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.

 

About Johannes Andersen

Johannes comes from a finance and fintech background, and is now an enterprise agility maestro at a leading telco in Copenhagen! He focuses on optimizing the flow from strategy to execution, championing portfolio management with a keen eye on doing the right things, even if imperfectly. Johannes is an international speaker on product development topics.

You can link with Johannes Andersen on LinkedIn.

Feb 17, 2024

BONUS: Beyond Profit, How Happy Office Is Redefining Success in the Workplace, with Maartje Jansen and Fennande van der Meulen

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.

Maartje and Fennande's journey into the realm of happiness at work began with a blend of personal insight and professional evolution. 

A conversation with a neighbor about the  innovative step of hiring the Netherlands' first Chief Happiness Officer, led them to the realization that prioritizing worker happiness is not just beneficial but essential for business success. 

This revelation was the cornerstone for founding Happy Office, the consultancy they work for.

Both had always valued engagement and purpose in their work, but now they were seeing the business world through a new lens: one that focuses on harnessing the full potential of employees, beyond just profit generation. 

Their early skepticism from academic circles about influencing work culture was overturned by practical experiences.

The Four Pillars of Workplace Happiness

They define happiness at work simply by saying: “it’s when you find yourself whistling on the way to and from work!”

They use four ideas to help describe how to achieve that outcome, the four Ps of Purpose, People, Progress, and Positivity. 

These pillars serve as the foundation for creating a work environment where employees feel energized rather than drained. 

At the core of their definition lies the basic human needs for meaningful relationships and contributions, suggesting that true happiness at work is about finding the right balance that fulfills these needs.

The Critical Role of Happiness in Today's Workplace

This episode’s conversation underscores the heightened relevance of workplace happiness in the contemporary world, noting a discernible difference in organizations that take it seriously. 

The emphasis on happiness is linked to broader trends in recognizing the value of positive work culture in fostering creativity, cooperation, productivity, and resilience among employees. 

They also touch on the preventative role of a positive culture in reducing stress and burnout, supported by data and practical experience from their consulting work.

Fostering Happiness at Work: Practical Strategies

Offering actionable advice, Maartje and Fennande highlight the importance of starting with a clear understanding and discussion of what happiness means to a team. 

They advocate for evaluating and improving upon the four pillars, emphasizing that cultural change should be incremental rather than big-bang. 

Their approach is against the notion of rapid, transformative programs, suggesting instead a step-by-step experimentation to cultivate a lasting positive culture.

Making Change Last: The Role of Leadership

The challenge of ensuring lasting change is met with strategies rooted in engaging employees in meaningful conversations about their best work experiences and needs to flourish. 

Despite initial resistance, these discussions pave the way for practical, tangible steps towards happiness. 

The importance of leadership in modeling desired behaviors and the agile approach to HR are highlighted as critical factors in making happiness at work a sustainable reality.

About Maartje Jansen and Fennande van der Meulen

Fennande van der Meulen is an expert in workplace happiness and positive culture, co-leading Woohoo Unlimited. Utilizing the Happy Office method, she offers online training, workshops, and in-depth programs to enhance work happiness, culture, and productivity. Her approach is evidence-based, rooted in science, and internationally recognized.

You can link with Fennande van der Meulen on LinkedIn.

Maartje Jansen specializes in improving work culture using the Happy Office method, emphasizing positive organizational environments. She addresses issues like unclear company values and negative workplace dynamics. Her approach includes workshops, extensive programs, and evidence-based strategies grounded in scientific research, aimed at enhancing workplace happiness and productivity.

You can link with Maartje Jansen on LinkedIn.

Feb 16, 2024

Freddie Brown Jr: Inspiring Excellence, How the Commitment and Clarity Transforms the Performance of the Scrum Product Owner

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: Inspiring Excellence, How the Commitment and Clarity Transforms the Performance of the Scrum PO

In this segment, Freddie highlights the exceptional qualities of a great Product Owner (PO), Sara. She exhibited visionary leadership, with a clear and effectively communicated product vision. Her ability to inspire the team and her commitment to the product's success were some of the most important qualities highlighted by Freddie. Sara's enthusiasm for the work, skill in defining and explaining requirements, and prompt feedback to the development team set her apart as an exemplary PO.

The Bad Product Owner: Collaboration Over Dictation, Tackling the Micro-Manager Scrum PO Challenge

In this segment, Freddie discusses the challenges of dealing with a micro-managing Product Owner (PO) who dictates team processes and avoids accountability. This PO type often over-commits work, ignoring team capacity. Freddie suggests that Scrum Masters should foster a collaborative environment, seek to understand the team's feelings towards the PO's behavior, and communicate with the PO to get to the root cause of their behavior's. He emphasizes the importance of helping the PO explain their goals to the team, to create alignment and avoid misunderstandings.

 

[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 Freddie Brown Jr.

Meet Freddie Brown Jr, the Agile Genie! With a magic brain that grants your corporate wishes faster than Aladdin's lamp, he transforms chaos into strategic brilliance. He’s the genie you never knew you needed, making agile dreams come true – all with a sprinkle of humor that's truly magical! 🪔🚀😄

You can link with Freddie Brown Jr. on LinkedIn and connect with Freddie Brown Jr. on Twitter

Feb 15, 2024

Freddie Brown Jr: Beyond Project Completion Metrics, The Key Metrics For Scrum Masters

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 for Scrum Masters, Freddie invites us to go beyond conventional metrics like project completion. Key aspects include fostering collaboration, building high-performing teams, and enhancing organizational agility. Success encompasses team happiness and morale, creating a psychologically safe environment, encouraging innovation and efficiency, stakeholder feedback satisfaction, and effectively removing team impediments.

Featured Retrospective Format For The Week: Simplifying Retrospectives for Impact

When it comes to Agile retrospectives, Freddie emphasizes simplicity and effectiveness. He advocates for a straightforward approach, asking the team to reflect on what went well, what didn't, and potential improvements. The process begins with an icebreaker, like expressing feelings through a picture, to ease into the session. Freddie also recommends using MURAL as a tool to facilitate this simple yet impactful retrospective format.

 

[IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he’s learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox! 

 

About Freddie Brown Jr.

Meet Freddie Brown Jr, the Agile Genie! With a magic brain that grants your corporate wishes faster than Aladdin's lamp, he transforms chaos into strategic brilliance. He’s the genie you never knew you needed, making agile dreams come true – all with a sprinkle of humor that's truly magical! 🪔🚀😄

You can link with Freddie Brown Jr. on LinkedIn and connect with Freddie Brown Jr. on Twitter

Feb 14, 2024

Freddie Brown Jr: From Assessment to Action, How Scrum Masters Can Start Their Engagement With A New Team

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 episode, Freddie shares a story from his role as a change agent in a team engagement. He begins with 'CCC' - coffee, conversation, and candidness - to understand the team's dynamics. Following this, he conducts a thorough team and technical assessment to identify gaps. In one case, while noticing a lack of SAFe knowledge, Freddie designed a Scaled Scrum Master workshop and implemented a skill improvement plan. The process concluded with a retrospective on the training, emphasizing the importance of celebrating changes and achievements, guided by metrics.

 

[IMAGE HERE] As Scrum Master we work with change continuously! Do you have your own change framework that provides the guidance, and queues you need when working with change? The Lean Change Management framework is a fully defined, lean-startup inspired change framework that can be used as the backbone of any change process! You can buy Lean Change Management the book at Amazon. Also available in French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.

 

About Freddie Brown Jr.

Meet Freddie Brown Jr, the Agile Genie! With a magic brain that grants your corporate wishes faster than Aladdin's lamp, he transforms chaos into strategic brilliance. He’s the genie you never knew you needed, making agile dreams come true – all with a sprinkle of humor that's truly magical! 🪔🚀😄

You can link with Freddie Brown Jr. on LinkedIn and connect with Freddie Brown Jr. on Twitter

Feb 13, 2024

Freddie Brown Jr: Self-Organizing For Success, How Agile Teams Need to Define and Accept Roles and Responsibilities

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.

This segment features Freddie discussing challenges faced by a team with undefined roles and blurred responsibilities. He recalls an experience where QA personnel doubled as Scrum Masters, leading to role confusion. Freddie emphasizes the effectiveness of the RACI matrix in clarifying roles and responsibilities. He advises fostering discussions where teams define their own roles, thereby encouraging self-organization and clear understanding of each member's duties.

Featured Book of the Week: Whiteboard: Business Models That Inspire Action by Daren Martin

In this segment, Freddie discusses how "Whiteboard" by Derrin Martin profoundly influenced his approach as a Scrum Master. The book, renowned for its models that inspire action, offers simple yet powerful explanations on driving organizational change. Its use of illustrations effectively conveys messages, with a key takeaway being the philosophy of striving to improve by 1% daily.

 

[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 Freddie Brown Jr.

Meet Freddie Brown Jr, the Agile Genie! With a magic brain that grants your corporate wishes faster than Aladdin's lamp, he transforms chaos into strategic brilliance. He’s the genie you never knew you needed, making agile dreams come true – all with a sprinkle of humor that's truly magical! 🪔🚀😄

You can link with Freddie Brown Jr. on LinkedIn and connect with Freddie Brown Jr. on Twitter

Feb 12, 2024

Freddie Brown Jr: From Chaos to Clarity, How A Process To Manage The Inflow Of Work to an Agile Team Transformed Their Performance

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 episode with Freddie, we explore the story of a team that was grappling with conflicting priorities. Freddie stepped in to shield the team and initiated a dialogue with the leadership, who were familiar with agile methodologies. The root cause of the problem seemed to be the absence of a structured process to integrate and prioritize new work that led to shifting priorities. Freddie worked with the stakeholders to create a clear process for leaders to introduce and manage new priorities effectively, without disrupting the team. This story highlights the need for clear processes that manage the “inflow” of work to the team.

 

[IMAGE HERE] Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story - How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.

 

About Freddie Brown Jr.

Meet Freddie Brown Jr, the Agile Genie! With a magic brain that grants your corporate wishes faster than Aladdin's lamp, he transforms chaos into strategic brilliance. He’s the genie you never knew you needed, making agile dreams come true – all with a sprinkle of humor that's truly magical! 🪔🚀😄

You can link with Freddie Brown Jr. on LinkedIn and connect with Freddie Brown Jr. on Twitter

Feb 9, 2024

Viktor Didenchuk: Effective, Protective, Result-Oriented, The Traits of a Successful Scrum Product Owner

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: Effective, Protective, Result-Oriented, The Traits of a Successful PO

When describing a great Product Owner and how they work, Viktor focuses first on effective communication; a great PO must clearly articulate what's working and what isn't to the team and stakeholders while fostering a reflective environment. Secondly, protection is essential; they must safeguard the team and product vision amidst constantly evolving technology, resisting the urge to chase every new trend. Finally, being result-oriented is vital; a great PO has a clear understanding of the desired outcomes and end state of the product. Viktor encapsulates this with the mantra, "It's always the leader who is wrong, and it's always the team who wins."

The Bad Product Owner: The Blind PO, Focusing On Short-Term Requests Instead Of The Overall Product Vision

Viktor discusses a common anti-pattern in product ownership: the 'blind PO' who lacks a clear vision. This type of PO is overly preoccupied with politics and managing stakeholder requests, neglecting the broader product vision. They often focus solely on satisfying immediate customer demands, which can work for some but not all scenarios. This approach can lead to team demotivation. Viktor emphasizes the need for POs to reflect, ask probing questions, and truly 'own' the product, considering long-term goals and the product's overall direction, rather than just short-term customer requests.

 

[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 Viktor Didenchuk

Viktor began his career as a Software Engineer in the mid 2010's, before discovering a passion for coaching and facilitating value delivery. He currently serves as a Scrum Master at Lloyds Banking Group, the UK's largest retail bank, where he contributes to the Agile transformation of a 60,000+ employee organization, navigating and sharing the challenges encountered.

You can link with Viktor Didenchuk on LinkedIn

Feb 8, 2024

Viktor Didenchuk: Reflect, Review, Succeed, How To Develop Your Own Success Routine As A Scrum Master

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.

Viktor discusses the definition of success for Scrum Masters, emphasizing the goal of making oneself redundant. For Viktor, success involves the team being self-sufficient in facilitating conversations and functioning effectively without constant guidance. He advocates for regular self-evaluation through 360 feedback and daily journaling to aid in self-development. Assessing team success and reviewing metrics in the scrum of scrums are crucial. Viktor encourages Scrum Masters to develop a personalized success routine, ensuring continuous improvement and effective team leadership.

Featured Retrospective For The Week: The Battle Between Two Movies, Finding Relatable Metaphors For Retrospectives

In this segment, Viktor discusses his preferred retrospective format, emphasizing the importance of relatability and personal connection. He suggests tailoring retrospectives to team interests, like using metaphors. He shares one example where he used two popular movies to represent two competing technical approaches that the team needed to decide on. In retrospectives, he focuses on facilitating discussion, not directing it. Viktor highlights the value of observing and mentioning interesting patterns, and stresses the importance of curiosity about team dynamics and self-reflection.

 

[IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he’s learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox! 

 

About Viktor Didenchuk

Viktor began his career as a Software Engineer in the mid 2010's, before discovering a passion for coaching and facilitating value delivery. He currently serves as a Scrum Master at Lloyds Banking Group, the UK's largest retail bank, where he contributes to the Agile transformation of a 60,000+ employee organization, navigating and sharing the challenges encountered.

You can link with Viktor Didenchuk on LinkedIn

Feb 7, 2024

Viktor Didenchuk: Behind the Scenes, Helping A Company Pivot From Enterprise To SaaS, And How To Help Agile Teams Change

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 episode, Viktor discusses the transition of his company's focus from an enterprise-centric product to a SaaS offering. The main challenge was establishing an incident management process for the new product. The team sought inspiration from industry giants like Google and Netflix, creating a rulebook and testing the process in real-time. They used OKRs for regular review, gradually involving more staff. Stress factors for users were identified and addressed, including establishing a dedicated Slack channel. A critical hurdle was motivating people to participate, recognizing that incentives vary across individuals. The solution included designing benefits for those managing incidents, acknowledging that the role isn't suited for everyone.

 

[IMAGE HERE] As Scrum Master we work with change continuously! Do you have your own change framework that provides the guidance, and queues you need when working with change? The Lean Change Management framework is a fully defined, lean-startup inspired change framework that can be used as the backbone of any change process! You can buy Lean Change Management the book at Amazon. Also available in French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.

 

About Viktor Didenchuk

Viktor began his career as a Software Engineer in the mid 2010's, before discovering a passion for coaching and facilitating value delivery. He currently serves as a Scrum Master at Lloyds Banking Group, the UK's largest retail bank, where he contributes to the Agile transformation of a 60,000+ employee organization, navigating and sharing the challenges encountered.

You can link with Viktor Didenchuk on LinkedIn

Feb 6, 2024

Viktor Didenchuk: Leadership Lessons, Managing Agile Team Anxiety Sparked by Rumors

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 segment, Viktor shares his experience with a team affected by a rumor about organizational changes. The rumor, lacking official communication, grew and significantly impacted the team's dynamics. Team members felt different and became fearful for their jobs, leading to a decline in Agile values. Over months, the situation worsened, with anxiety amplifying the issue. Viktor emphasizes the importance of addressing rumors promptly, encouraging escalation to leadership for proper handling and making clear the consequences of neglecting such rumors.

Featured Book Of the Week: The Swordless Samurai, by Kitami Masao

Viktor discusses the impact of "The Swordless Samurai," a book detailing the leadership of a historic Japanese ruler. This true story emphasizes timeless leadership principles, highlighting the ruler's role in fostering effectiveness in others. Viktor connects this with his own leadership beliefs, asserting that failures are his responsibility, not his team's. In this segment, we also discuss two other influential books, "Extreme Ownership" and "Radical Candor."

 

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 Viktor Didenchuk

Viktor began his career as a Software Engineer in the mid 2010's, before discovering a passion for coaching and facilitating value delivery. He currently serves as a Scrum Master at Lloyds Banking Group, the UK's largest retail bank, where he contributes to the Agile transformation of a 60,000+ employee organization, navigating and sharing the challenges encountered.

You can link with Viktor Didenchuk on LinkedIn

Feb 5, 2024

Viktor Didenchuk: Breaking the Ice, How To Turn a Tough Agile Retrospective Around

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 episode, Viktor, shares a challenging experience in conducting retrospectives. He faced difficulty in initiating conversations among engineers, who prefer concrete specifics over discussing feelings. Despite his facilitation skills, Viktor struggled to engage the team. Eventually, by openly admitting his uncertainty and holding space for silence, he encouraged team participation. Viktor shares tips like holding weekly retrospectives, setting up a retro board at the sprint's start, and using current events as facilitation tools, emphasizing that metaphors can significantly aid dialogue.

 

[IMAGE HERE] Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story - How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.

 

About Viktor Didenchuk

Viktor began his career as a Software Engineer in the mid 2010's, before discovering a passion for coaching and facilitating value delivery. He currently serves as a Scrum Master at Lloyds Banking Group, the UK's largest retail bank, where he contributes to the Agile transformation of a 60,000+ employee organization, navigating and sharing the challenges encountered.

You can link with Viktor Didenchuk on LinkedIn

Feb 3, 2024

BONUS: Beyond Frameworks, A Vision for Agile Coaching Excellence with Rahul Bhattacharya

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 episode, we explore Rahul’s experience with Agile Coaching and how he developed his coaching approach systematically and beyond any frameworks. His latest book is: Coaching Agile: A guide for Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters to build and scale their coach approach, and now available on Amazon. 

The Agile Coach's Toolbox: Beyond Frameworks 

Rahul's journey from startup co-founder to Agile Coach is a story of evolution and adaptability. His experience in the corporate world, starting as a product manager, led him to realize the power of Agile methodologies. Rahul emphasizes the importance of a broad perspective, advocating for a framework-agnostic approach in Agile coaching. He shares invaluable lessons about what works and what doesn't, offering a treasure trove of practices that transcend specific frameworks. This holistic approach is crucial for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches who wish to apply the most effective strategies in diverse environments.

The Agile Coach vs. Scrum Master: Clarifying Roles and Expectations 

Rahul draws a distinct line between the roles of an Agile Coach and a Scrum Master. While a Scrum Master focuses on framework specifics, an Agile Coach takes a more versatile approach, borrowing practices from various frameworks. This differentiation is pivotal for professionals in the field, especially when navigating job roles and expectations. Rahul's book provides a roadmap for understanding these roles better, even as early as during the interview process. His insights on clarifying expectations and preparing for roles are invaluable for anyone aspiring to excel in the Agile domain.

Understanding Products and Markets: The Agile Coach's Edge 

In a striking perspective shift, Rahul highlights the necessity for Agile Coaches to deeply understand the products or services they're working with. This product-centric approach adds substance and context to Agile coaching, enabling coaches to have meaningful conversations about impact and efficiency. Rahul's background in product management becomes a vital asset here, showcasing how product knowledge can dramatically enhance the effectiveness of Agile methodologies. His emphasis on product discovery practices and on-site observations offers a concrete strategy for Agile Coaches to integrate product understanding into their coaching framework.

Rahul's interview is a goldmine of insights for Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters. By focusing on these three key areas – an expansive toolbox, role clarity, and product understanding – Rahul provides a roadmap for professionals to elevate their Agile practices. For more on Rahul's systemic approach and his journey in the Agile world, visit Rahul’s website and connect with him on LinkedIn.

👉Listen NOW and continue the conversation and deepen your Agile knowledge with Rahul's latest book, a must-read for every Scrum Master and Agile Coach aspiring to excel in their field.

About Rahul Bhattacharya

Rahul is a very experienced Agile Coach and Scrum Master, blending his rich experience in agile methodologies with practical insights. His approach emphasizes pragmatism and adaptability, focusing on impactful coaching strategies that nurture continuous improvement and learning in dynamic organizational environments.

Rahul is also the author of Coaching Agile - A Guide for Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters to Build and Scale Their Coach Approach, the book we will be discussing in this episode.

You can link with Rahul Bhattacharya on LinkedIn and connect with Rahul Bhattacharya on Twitter

Feb 2, 2024

Kulsoom Pervez: From Interference to Empowerment, Overcoming Micromanagement Tendencies in a Scrum Product Owner

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: Customer-Centric Product Owner, Focused On Clear Prioritization And Collaboration With The Scrum Team

Kulsoom shares insights on the traits of a great Product Owner (PO), that excelled by staying close to the customer, understanding market needs, and bringing valuable insights to the team. This PO consistently communicated the vision and roadmap, while also being receptive to suggestions from the team. Notably, the PO’s ability to prioritize work effectively involved mastering the art of saying "no." This PO’s strengths included building strong relationships with the team and maintaining an open-minded approach, which facilitated a smooth and productive partnership, making the Scrum Master's role more effective and the overall team dynamic more cohesive and successful.

The Bad Product Owner: From Interference to Empowerment, Overcoming Micromanagement Tendencies in PO’s

Kulsoom discusses a Product Owner (PO) that tended to micromanage the team and focused excessively on details, neglecting the broader vision and roadmap. This over-involvement extended to interfering with estimations and pushing work onto the team rather than allowing them to pull it, often losing sight of priorities. Kulsoom advises a non-judgmental approach to understand the root causes of this behavior, such as the PO's work environment, their trust in the team, or underlying challenges they face. She emphasizes the importance of including the PO in retrospectives to build trust and address these challenges effectively.

 

[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 Kulsoom Pervez

Kulsoom is passionate about constructing sustainable, resilient, and high-performing teams, consistently delivering value to customers through the transformative power of Agility. She embodies a leadership style that inspires, empowers, and fosters the growth of her colleagues. Kulsoom enjoys reading and has also dabbled in blogging.

You can link with Kulsoom Pervez on LinkedIn.

Feb 1, 2024

Kulsoom Pervez: Fostering Team Collaboration in Scrum, The Essence of Agile Leadership For Scrum Masters

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 success for Scrum Masters, Kulsoom focuses on team empowerment and collective success. She questions whether team members are happy and engaged in their work. Kulsoom emphasizes the importance of reminding teams to distinguish between what they can and cannot influence, especially when venting frustrations. She also touches upon the significance of team members owning their responsibilities instead of blaming others. The episode delves into whether team members assist each other collaboratively or try to individually stand out as heroes, underscoring the essence of teamwork in the realm of Scrum Mastery.

Featured Retrospective Format For The Week: The Values Retrospectives, Helping Teams Find Purpose And Alignment

In this segment, Kulsoom discusses her favorite agile retrospective format, emphasizing the importance of variety to prevent team boredom. The focus is on 'The Values Retrospectives,' where team members discuss and agree on values that are important to them. This format is instrumental in aligning team actions with their defined values. Kulsoom highlights the critical nature of helping team members understand and embody these values in their work. Additionally, she provides insight into the significance of explaining the concept of values, ensuring every team member has a clear and shared understanding of what they represent.

 

[IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he’s learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox! 

 

About Kulsoom Pervez

Kulsoom is passionate about constructing sustainable, resilient, and high-performing teams, consistently delivering value to customers through the transformative power of Agility. She embodies a leadership style that inspires, empowers, and fosters the growth of her colleagues. Kulsoom enjoys reading and has also dabbled in blogging.

You can link with Kulsoom Pervez on LinkedIn.

Jan 31, 2024

Kulsoom Pervez: Creating Confident Teams, A Change Process To Tackle Agile Team Performance And Removing Impediments Continuously

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.

Kulsoom shares her experience as a Scrum Master tasked with improving a team. She identified key issues like the team's size and unaddressed impediments to delivering stories. Her approach involved building relationships with the team, innovating retrospective methods for a safe space, and partnering with middle management. Key lessons included running impediment surveys to highlight issues to leadership, prioritizing impediments with management, and preparing data for leadership conversations. These strategies led to a more confident team, unafraid to raise impediments, teaching her the importance of assuming positive intent, understanding leadership goals, and making leadership her allies.

 

[IMAGE HERE] As Scrum Master we work with change continuously! Do you have your own change framework that provides the guidance, and queues you need when working with change? The Lean Change Management framework is a fully defined, lean-startup inspired change framework that can be used as the backbone of any change process! You can buy Lean Change Management the book at Amazon. Also available in French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.

 

About Kulsoom Pervez

Kulsoom is passionate about constructing sustainable, resilient, and high-performing teams, consistently delivering value to customers through the transformative power of Agility. She embodies a leadership style that inspires, empowers, and fosters the growth of her colleagues. Kulsoom enjoys reading and has also dabbled in blogging.

You can link with Kulsoom Pervez on LinkedIn.

Jan 30, 2024

Kulsoom Pervez: The Struggle for Team Unity, And How To Recognize Our Limits As Scrum Masters

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 episode, Kulsoom shares her experience with a group of skilled individuals who struggled to function as a team. As their Scrum Master, she noticed a lack of accountability and ownership, issues with completing sprint stories, and a blame culture during retrospectives. The team, marred by tension between developers and QA, created an unhealthy environment. Despite her efforts to revitalize retrospectives and foster change, progress was slow and draining. Eventually, Kulsoom and several team members left the company, leading her to understand the limits of her influence and the importance of self-care and mental health for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches.

Featured Book Of The Week: Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Grenny et al.

Kulsoom delves into how the book "Crucial Conversations" profoundly influenced her role as a Scrum Master. She emphasizes the book's impact in shaping her approach to crucial conversations, vital for anyone in a change agent role like hers. Highlighting the importance of courage and skill, Kulsoom discusses the book's framework for managing critical discussions effectively. She underscores how having a structured approach to conversations is essential for effective communication and problem-solving in agile environments.

 

[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 Kulsoom Pervez

Kulsoom is passionate about constructing sustainable, resilient, and high-performing teams, consistently delivering value to customers through the transformative power of Agility. She embodies a leadership style that inspires, empowers, and fosters the growth of her colleagues. Kulsoom enjoys reading and has also dabbled in blogging.

You can link with Kulsoom Pervez on LinkedIn.

Jan 29, 2024

Kulsoom Pervez: Building Trust, Not Agendas, And Learning To Be A Better Scrum Master

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 episode, Kulsoom discusses her challenging experience as a Scrum Master with a team new to agile in a scaled agile environment. Facing the departure of the previous Scrum Master, she steps in with determination but quickly adopts an overly directive approach. This causes change fatigue among team members, who were already struggling with a steep learning curve and significant changes in their work methods. Reflecting on this, Kulsoom advises new Scrum Masters to observe and understand a team's dynamics without a pre-set agenda, emphasizing the importance of building comfort and trust, and embracing curiosity over the need to "fix" the team.

 

[IMAGE HERE] Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story - How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.

 

About Kulsoom Pervez

Kulsoom is passionate about constructing sustainable, resilient, and high-performing teams, consistently delivering value to customers through the transformative power of Agility. She embodies a leadership style that inspires, empowers, and fosters the growth of her colleagues. Kulsoom enjoys reading and has also dabbled in blogging.

You can link with Kulsoom Pervez on LinkedIn.

Jan 26, 2024

Isshai Kamara: The Making of a Great Product Owner, Learning, Leading, And Succeeding

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 Making of a Great Product Owner, Learning, Leading, And Succeeding

This episode with Isshai delves into the qualities of a great Product Owner (PO). Key attributes include an eagerness to learn, and their ability to craft compelling user stories. These POs are not only available to their team and the Scrum Master but are also deeply committed to the team's success. Their popularity among developers is a testament to their effectiveness, and they regularly check in with team members. Isshai also emphasizes the importance of helping POs build trust capital within the team, highlighting how interpersonal skills and team dynamics play a crucial role in a PO's success.

The Bad Product Owner: From Tech Expert to Team Enabler, Reframing the PO Role

In this segment, Isshai explores a Product Owner (PO) anti-pattern involving POs with a technical background. These POs often preemptively size stories, overshadowing the input from developers and testers. This behavior led to dissatisfaction among the developers. Isshai suggests effective strategies for addressing this issue, such as encouraging POs to prioritize developers' opinions, utilizing project management principles when interacting with senior team members, referencing authoritative sources on agile practices, aligning with the team on shared goals, and maintaining a focus on supporting the team's needs. These tips aim to foster a more collaborative and respectful dynamic within the agile team.

 

[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 Isshai Kamara

Isshai Kamara is a seasoned IT professional with over 12 years of experience, specializing in Agile delivery roles and Scrum implementation. Initially a Technologist, he later transitioned into Project and Engineering Management. With 8 years in Agile delivery, Isshai has become an advocate for IT careers, aiding professionals in transitions and conducting bootcamps for tech roles. His extensive experience in Agile methodologies and commitment to IT career development make him a distinguished figure in the tech community.

You can link with Isshai Kamara on LinkedIn and connect with Isshai Kamara on Instagram

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