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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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Now displaying: 2015
Jun 9, 2015

Agile is not a process, and that is an important realization that all teams should reach at some point. But how to get them to that realization? How to help team members understand that Agile is not a set of recipes that you follow blindly?

About Ben Linders

Ben Linders is an Independent Consultant in Agile, Lean, Quality and Continuous Improvement, based in The Netherlands. Author of Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives, Waardevolle Agile Retrospectives & What Drives Quality.

You can follow Ben Linders on Twitter, and connect with Ben Linders on LinkedIn.


You can find Ben’s Agile self-assessment in his web-site, and find more about his work and upcoming workshops.

Jun 8, 2015

How do you handle people that are not team players? We hear often that our role as Scrum Masters is to help the team collaborate. How can we do that if some team members are not team players? Ben explains how he was able to detect that in one team and what he did about it.

In this episode we mention the book Liftoff: Launching Agile Teams & Projects, by Diana Larsen and Ainsley Nies, a book that can help you get a project or a team started in the right way.

Ben also mentions one of his blog posts on how to help teams form with the use of Futurespectives for team chartering.

 

About Ben Linders

Ben Linders is an Independent Consultant in Agile, Lean, Quality and Continuous Improvement, based in The Netherlands. Author of Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives, Waardevolle Agile Retrospectives & What Drives Quality.

You can follow Ben Linders on Twitter, and connect with Ben Linders on LinkedIn.

 

You can find Ben’s Agile self-assessment in his web-site, and find more about his work and upcoming workshops.

Jun 5, 2015

How do you help the whole organization evolve and improve? Easy, says Claudio. Here’s his recipe:

  1. Look at the whole value stream (from concept to cash!)

  2. Find out what impedes flow in that value stream

  3. Use PopcornFlow to learn, and solve those flow bottlenecks

  4. Rinse and repeat.

Claudio also adds, that when we look at the whole value stream we see how important the role of management really is, because management is the function responsible to make flow happen at the value stream level.

About Claudio Perrone

Claudio is an independent Lean & Agile management consultant, entrepreneur and startup strategist. You may know him for the amazing cartoons he creates for his presentations or, perhaps, for A3 Thinker, a deck of brainstorming cards for Lean Problem Solving. These days he focuses on PopcornFlow, a brand-new continuous evolution method for personal and organisational change.

You can connect with Claudio Perrone on twitter, and see Claudio Perrone on LinkedIn. These days Claudio is focusing on his latest work: PopcornFlow, a method by which you can Learn how to establish a continuous flow of small, traceable, co-created, explicit change experiments. For you, your team, your organization.

Jun 4, 2015

What does it mean to be more Agile? Claudio has a very concrete definition of agility that you can start using today to measure how agile is your team. His definition: the more experiments you run, the more agile you are. After all experiments lead to learning, and learning leads to adaptation. Evolve as quickly as a virus, not as an elephant!

About Claudio Perrone

Claudio is an independent Lean & Agile management consultant, entrepreneur and startup strategist. You may know him for the amazing cartoons he creates for his presentations or, perhaps, for A3 Thinker, a deck of brainstorming cards for Lean Problem Solving. These days he focuses on PopcornFlow, a brand-new continuous evolution method for personal and organisational change.

You can connect with Claudio Perrone on twitter, and see Claudio Perrone on LinkedIn. These days Claudio is focusing on his latest work: PopcornFlow, a method by which you can Learn how to establish a continuous flow of small, traceable, co-created, explicit change experiments. For you, your team, your organization.

Jun 3, 2015

Sometimes recruiting for what people already know is the right approach. But is that always the right approach? Claudio suggests that sometimes you should rather focus on potential and he explains why.

About Claudio Perrone

Claudio is an independent Lean & Agile management consultant, entrepreneur and startup strategist. You may know him for the amazing cartoons he creates for his presentations or, perhaps, for A3 Thinker, a deck of brainstorming cards for Lean Problem Solving. These days he focuses on PopcornFlow, a brand-new continuous evolution method for personal and organisational change.

You can connect with Claudio Perrone on twitter, and see Claudio Perrone on LinkedIn. These days Claudio is focusing on his latest work: PopcornFlow, a method by which you can Learn how to establish a continuous flow of small, traceable, co-created, explicit change experiments. For you, your team, your organization.

Jun 2, 2015

Daily meetings fail for many reasons, and Claudio has an idea of why it happens regularly. The 3 questions in the Scrum daily just can’t work in all situations. Claudio discusses some ideas on how to improve the questions the team asks in the daily meeting and gives a few tips on how to improve the Scrum board to make work more visible and focus the team on Flow.

We also discuss a promising framework to help teams understand the “why” of every story they develop. This is a framework developed based on the work by Clayton Christensen (Innovator’s Dilemma), and tries to define the content of products from a different perspective: the job to be done that customers hire the product for. Watch Clayton Christensen present the idea of jobs to be done on youtube. Or listen to the Jobs-To-Be-Done radio podcast if you want to know more about this promising framework.

About Claudio Perrone

Claudio is an independent Lean & Agile management consultant, entrepreneur and startup strategist. You may know him for the amazing cartoons he creates for his presentations or, perhaps, for A3 Thinker, a deck of brainstorming cards for Lean Problem Solving. These days he focuses on PopcornFlow, a brand-new continuous evolution method for personal and organisational change.

You can connect with Claudio Perrone on twitter, and see Claudio Perrone on LinkedIn. These days Claudio is focusing on his latest work: PopcornFlow, a method by which you can Learn how to establish a continuous flow of small, traceable, co-created, explicit change experiments. For you, your team, your organization.

Jun 1, 2015

Change can be made cheap and easy with the right method that develops a culture of continuous improvement in the team and ultimately the organization. Claudio’s method: PopcornFlow is a an approach to help teams get out of the rut of no-improvement. The method consists of 7 steps:

  1. List the problems and observations

  2. Create options by asking questions like: what could we do now to improve?

  3. Define possible experiments in the form of: Action, reason (why?), expectation, duration)

  4. Select and commit to run one of the experiments you listed

  5. Implement and follow-up the execution of the experiment you selected

  6. Review the results once the experiment is completed

  7. Define what your next steps are given what you learned from that experiment

Understand the gap between expectations and reality, and start the process all over again.

You can find out more about Claudio’s method at: PopcornFlow.com.

About Claudio Perrone

Claudio is an independent Lean & Agile management consultant, entrepreneur and startup strategist. You may know him for the amazing cartoons he creates for his presentations or, perhaps, for A3 Thinker, a deck of brainstorming cards for Lean Problem Solving. These days he focuses on PopcornFlow, a brand-new continuous evolution method for personal and organisational change.

You can connect with Claudio Perrone on twitter, and see Claudio Perrone on LinkedIn. These days Claudio is focusing on his latest work: PopcornFlow, a method by which you can Learn how to establish a continuous flow of small, traceable, co-created, explicit change experiments. For you, your team, your organization.

May 29, 2015

Follow the pain to understand the system. Look for unexplained trends, then look outside the team for possible explanations. Find out who is actually communicating with whom. Measure everything you can to detect changes, or impacts from others outside the system. Then sit back and see the big picture.

About Tim Bourguignon

Tim likes to describe himself as a full time geek, agile developer and BS hunter. He was born in France, raised as a European child and currently lives in Germany where he juggles with software development and Scrum Mastering. When he's not in front of a computer, you'll find him behind a camera, in his running shoes or with his wife & son... of course never in that order!

You can connect with Tim Bourguignon on twitter or visit Tim Bourguignon’s website to see what he is up to.

May 28, 2015

How do you measure success? You measure all the things! Wait, don’t switch off yet, because Tim has a very good idea on how you can do this.

  1. Always take notes. In meetings, after conversations, all the time.

  2. Measure everything you can. Tasks completed, cycle time, features, interactions, etc.

  3. Get numbers on everything you do as a Scrum Master. How many times did you talk to each team member this week? How many times did you feel lost, or did not know how to go forward?

  4. Look at trends. Only numbers can help you see trends. So measure and stand back to see the big picture.

About Tim Bourguignon

Tim likes to describe himself as a full time geek, agile developer and BS hunter. He was born in France, raised as a European child and currently lives in Germany where he juggles with software development and Scrum Mastering. When he's not in front of a computer, you'll find him behind a camera, in his running shoes or with his wife & son... of course never in that order!

 

You can connect with Tim Bourguignon on twitter or visit Tim Bourguignon’s website to see what he is up to.

 

May 27, 2015

The recipe for recruiting that Tim shares is about understanding motivation and passion, but recognizing that team work cannot be assessed in an interview. Be ware of the lone wolves when interviewing for Scrum team.

About Tim Bourguignon

Tim likes to describe himself as a full time geek, agile developer and BS hunter. He was born in France, raised as a European child and currently lives in Germany where he juggles with software development and Scrum Mastering. When he's not in front of a computer, you'll find him behind a camera, in his running shoes or with his wife & son... of course never in that order!

You can connect with Tim Bourguignon on twitter or visit Tim Bourguignon’s website to see what he is up to.

May 26, 2015

Tim’s story is about a team that is changing an organization. He discusses how believing you can, and wanting to improve the world can sometimes lead you down the wrong road. And he suggests a few rules to take into account if you want to survive the change process as a team.

About Tim Bourguignon

Tim likes to describe himself as a full time geek, agile developer and BS hunter. He was born in France, raised as a European child and currently lives in Germany where he juggles with software development and Scrum Mastering. When he's not in front of a computer, you'll find him behind a camera, in his running shoes or with his wife & son... of course never in that order!

You can connect with Tim Bourguignon on twitter or visit Tim Bourguignon’s website to see what he is up to.

May 25, 2015

Tim as seen Scrum have a gigantic impact on the organization where he worked. This was a traditional, heavily regulated industry, and scrum had a huge impact. This was a transition where Tim learned the power of the political play. A sobering story that hopefully prepares us to understand that aspect of organizational life.

About Tim Bourguignon

Tim likes to describe himself as a full time geek, agile developer and BS hunter. He was born in France, raised as a European child and currently lives in Germany where he juggles with software development and Scrum Mastering. When he's not in front of a computer, you'll find him behind a camera, in his running shoes or with his wife & son... of course never in that order!

You can connect with Tim Bourguignon on twitter or visit Tim Bourguignon’s website to see what he is up to.

May 22, 2015

To understand how the system behaves we must “poke” it, and Scrum is just the perfect method for that. Every sprint is an experiment that helps the team and the Scrum Master understand how the system behaves and reacts to the different experiments that we run every sprint. Jeremy has a collection of metrics he follows-up regularly to keep in aware of how the system behaves, and enable him to actual test new approaches every sprint.

About Jeremy Jarrell

Jeremy Jarrell is an agile coach and author who helps teams get better at doing what they love. He is heavily involved in the technology community, both as a highly rated speaker as well as a syndicated author whose articles and videos have appeared on numerous popular websites.

You can connect with Jeremy Jarrell on twitter, and link with Jeremy Jarrell on LinkedIn. Jeremy’s web-site is at www.jeremyjarrell.com

Jeremy’s latest video course, Agile Release Planning, is available now from FrontRowAgile.com.

May 21, 2015

For a successful Scrum Master, Scrum is just the starting point. Success starts when the team is able to own the process, and tweak it to fit their needs without losing sight of why they adopted Scrum in the first place. Jeremy explains how he defines success and the paths he takes to get there.

About Jeremy Jarrell

Jeremy Jarrell is an agile coach and author who helps teams get better at doing what they love. He is heavily involved in the technology community, both as a highly rated speaker as well as a syndicated author whose articles and videos have appeared on numerous popular websites.

You can connect with Jeremy Jarrell on twitter, and link with Jeremy Jarrell on LinkedIn. Jeremy’s web-site is at www.jeremyjarrell.com

Jeremy’s latest video course, Agile Release Planning, is available now from FrontRowAgile.com.

May 20, 2015

Passion is in the overlap between attitude and aptitude, and it is the ingredient that makes good Scrum Masters even better. Jeremy explains how he looks and tests for passion in the recruiting interview.

About Jeremy Jarrell

Jeremy Jarrell is an agile coach and author who helps teams get better at doing what they love. He is heavily involved in the technology community, both as a highly rated speaker as well as a syndicated author whose articles and videos have appeared on numerous popular websites.

You can connect with Jeremy Jarrell on twitter, and link with Jeremy Jarrell on LinkedIn. Jeremy’s web-site is at www.jeremyjarrell.com

Jeremy’s latest video course, Agile Release Planning, is available now from FrontRowAgile.com.

May 19, 2015

Incremental delivery is a buzzword in the Agile lingo. It is very often used, but seldom defined. Jeremy explains what incremental really means, and gives us an insight about the far-reaching benefits for those that take his definition to heart.

In this book we refer to the book User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton.

About Jeremy Jarrell

Jeremy Jarrell is an agile coach and author who helps teams get better at doing what they love. He is heavily involved in the technology community, both as a highly rated speaker as well as a syndicated author whose articles and videos have appeared on numerous popular websites.

You can connect with Jeremy Jarrell on twitter, and link with Jeremy Jarrell on LinkedIn. Jeremy’s web-site is at www.jeremyjarrell.com

Jeremy’s latest video course, Agile Release Planning, is available now from FrontRowAgile.com.

May 18, 2015

There is a tool that every Scrum Master must use daily, the mental checklist of whom you’ve talked to. Jeremy shares how he uses that tool to keep tabs on how the team is doing, and how to help them further.

In the episode we also talk about a classic that every Scrum Master should read: How to win friends and influence people, by Dale Carnegie. This book, according to Wikipedia, will:

  1. Get you out of a mental rut, give you new thoughts, new visions, new ambitions.

  2. Enable you to make friends quickly and easily.

  3. Increase your popularity.

  4. Help you to win people to your way of thinking.

  5. Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done.

  6. Enable you to win new clients, new customers.

  7. Increase your earning power.

  8. Make you a better salesman, a better executive.

  9. Help you to handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contacts smooth and pleasant.

  10. Make you a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist.

  11. Make the principles of psychology easy for you to apply in your daily contacts.

  12. Help you to arouse enthusiasm among your associates.

About Jeremy Jarrell

Jeremy Jarrell is an agile coach and author who helps teams get better at doing what they love. He is heavily involved in the technology community, both as a highly rated speaker as well as a syndicated author whose articles and videos have appeared on numerous popular websites.

You can connect with Jeremy Jarrell on twitter, and link with Jeremy Jarrell on LinkedIn. Jeremy’s web-site is at www.jeremyjarrell.com

Jeremy’s latest video course, Agile Release Planning, is available now from FrontRowAgile.com.

May 15, 2015

Wayde has worked with many teams, and in this episode he describes the aspects of the system conditions that affect team’s performance. Those system conditions are not the ones you would expect to hear about. The fact is that we work with people, and people make up the system we are part of, in the end it is all much more touchy feely than we would like to accept.

About Wayde Stallmann

Wayde is an Agile coach with TeamFirstDevelopment.com.  He is interested in helping teams improve using the same techniques that Improv theater teams use to develop Great Team Players.

You can connect with Wayde Stallmann on twitter, or link with Wayde Stallmann on LinkedIn. Or email Wayde Stallmann at wayde@wayde.com.

May 14, 2015

Mistakes are part of the process of learning, we all know that. But Wayde goes further and challenges us to accept them as gifts, not just part of the process. Listen how Wayde tackles mistakes when they happen to help the team accept, and build on those mistakes rather than try to recover. This mental shift can have a huge impact on team’s performance.

About Wayde Stallmann

Wayde is an Agile coach with TeamFirstDevelopment.com.  He is interested in helping teams improve using the same techniques that Improv theater teams use to develop Great Team Players.

You can connect with Wayde Stallmann on twitter, or link with Wayde Stallmann on LinkedIn. Or email Wayde Stallmann at wayde@wayde.com.

May 13, 2015

We talk about “odd ball” questions, and games you can play in your interviews to find great Scrum Masters. Wayde also asks Vasco one of those odd ball questions. Find out what happens and learn great questions and the process for the perfect recruiting interview.

About Wayde Stallmann

Wayde is an Agile coach with TeamFirstDevelopment.com.  He is interested in helping teams improve using the same techniques that Improv theater teams use to develop Great Team Players.

You can connect with Wayde Stallmann on twitter, or link with Wayde Stallmann on LinkedIn. Or email Wayde Stallmann at wayde@wayde.com.

May 12, 2015

Lack of trust destroys your team. That we all know, but Wayde shares how that phenomenon affected one team he worked with, and some antidotes to that process. In this episode we also mention a book dedicated to highly functioning teams: Patrick Lencioni’s The Advantage, and share 2 games you can play with your team to grow trust

About Wayde Stallmann

Wayde is an Agile coach with TeamFirstDevelopment.com.  He is interested in helping teams improve using the same techniques that Improv theater teams use to develop Great Team Players.

 

You can connect with Wayde Stallmann on twitter, or link with Wayde Stallmann on LinkedIn. Or email Wayde Stallmann at wayde@wayde.com.

 

May 11, 2015

Using these 3 minute games you can jump start your team’s day, and get everybody in the mood to perform. These games are publised at Wayde’s website TeamFirstDevelopment.com, and  are based on Improv Theater and helps the team get the “yes, and…” mindset.

About Wayde Stallman

Wayde is an Agile coach with TeamFirstDevelopment.com.  He is interested in helping teams improve using the same techniques that Improv theater teams use to develop Great Team Players.

You can connect with Wayde Stallmann on twitter, or link with Wayde Stallmann on LinkedIn. Or email Wayde Stallmann at wayde@wayde.com.

May 8, 2015

The 5 tools that you can use to assess the system are:

  1. Agile Fluency model: a model to assess the development of the teams you work with. To know more, check out AgileFluencyImmersion.com, a workshop that helps you and your teams learn how to achieve better results.

  2. Strategy Maps: A diagram that creates clarity on what are the defined, but also real goals for an organization

  3. Design your coaching alliance: A method to help you, as a Scrum Master, understand what are the goals for your work with the teams, and to anchor your work on a clear vision and outcome.

  4. Impact Mapping: a method to help you discover and understand what are the high-value work items (User Stories or Features) for your teams to work on. This tool alone will have a great impact on your work with Product Owners.

  5. Value Stream Mapping: A way to analyse how the work is completed in an organization. Following the work from start to completion and creating a Value Stream Map of that work will give you insights into what are the impediments to value creation in your organization.

About Steve Hoyler

Steve Holyer serves as advocate, trainer and mentor for companies looking for a better ways of working, using Agile practices in a productive, fulfilling, and fun way.

He learned his craft serving as a Scrum Master with multiple teams and organisations, so he knows how to change an organisation from the inside. Steve now serves as an indie-label Agile Coach-for-Hire. He's passion lies with coaching managers and teams to find ways to do software better.

 

You can contact Steve Hoyler on twitter, and find Steve Hoyler on LinkedIn. For more, check his Lift Off workshop.

 

May 7, 2015

The 3 rules to access your success of the scrum master:

  1. Trust is high in the team - check out how Steve measures trust

  2. Impediments are removed - check out how Steve follows the impediments to resolution

  3. Software is delivered when the market needs it - check out what Steve defines as the market need.

In this episode we also cover the Agile Fluency Model, a model by Diana Larsen and James Shore that can help teams find their “next improvement”, and keep their continuous improvement on track.

We also cover a method that Steve uses to keep his focus on value while working with the teams: creation Real Options, an approach that Chris Matts and Liz Keogh have made popular.

About Steve Hoyler

Steve Holyer serves as advocate, trainer and mentor for companies looking for a better ways of working, using Agile practices in a productive, fulfilling, and fun way.

He learned his craft serving as a Scrum Master with multiple teams and organisations, so he knows how to change an organisation from the inside. Steve now serves as an indie-label Agile Coach-for-Hire. He's passion lies with coaching managers and teams to find ways to do software better.

You can contact Steve Hoyler on twitter, and find Steve Hoyler on LinkedIn. For more, check his Lift Off workshop.

May 6, 2015

Steve tells us a story about a most unlikely candidate for the Scrum Master position. How he was part of the interview process and what made him think this unlikely candidate would be a great Scrum Master. A very inspiring story about what Scrum Masters need to be successful.

Steve also shares his ideas on how to interview Scrum Masters to be sure you are hiring the right candidates.

About Steve Hoyler

Steve Holyer serves as advocate, trainer and mentor for companies looking for a better ways of working, using Agile practices in a productive, fulfilling, and fun way.

He learned his craft serving as a Scrum Master with multiple teams and organisations, so he knows how to change an organisation from the inside. Steve now serves as an indie-label Agile Coach-for-Hire. He's passion lies with coaching managers and teams to find ways to do software better.

You can contact Steve Hoyler on twitter, and find Steve Hoyler on LinkedIn. For more, check his Lift Off workshop.

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