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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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Now displaying: January, 2016
Jan 29, 2016

System thinkers need tools and techniques to help them focus on the system and not get blindsided by the shiny symptoms that cross our attention every single day. Ryan shares some of the tools he uses to help him see the system at play.

About Ryan Ripley

Ryan Ripley loves helping people do great work. He is a servant leader at heart and is passionate about fostering safety and trust in the workplace. Ryan created the Agile for Humans podcast to put the focus back on the individuals and interactions that make agile work.

You can link up with Ryan Ripley on LinkedIn and connect with Ryan Ripley on Twitter.

Ryan also hosts a popular Agile podcast: Agile for Humans. Be sure to check it out!

Jan 28, 2016

How we measure success in our roles as Scrum Masters must include some metrics, and must include interaction with the team and stakeholders we work with. Ryan explains his approach and the tools he uses to measure his own success.

About Ryan Ripley

Ryan Ripley loves helping people do great work. He is a servant leader at heart and is passionate about fostering safety and trust in the workplace. Ryan created the Agile for Humans podcast to put the focus back on the individuals and interactions that make agile work.

You can link up with Ryan Ripley on LinkedIn and connect with Ryan Ripley on Twitter.

Ryan also hosts a popular Agile podcast: Agile for Humans. Be sure to check it out!

Jan 27, 2016

Ryan has gone through many change processes as a leader and as a participant. In this episode he shares some of his insights, including one critical insight that he still uses today to shape his approach to change management.

About Ryan Ripley

Ryan Ripley loves helping people do great work. He is a servant leader at heart and is passionate about fostering safety and trust in the workplace. Ryan created the Agile for Humans podcast to put the focus back on the individuals and interactions that make agile work.

You can link up with Ryan Ripley on LinkedIn and connect with Ryan Ripley on Twitter.

Ryan also hosts a popular Agile podcast: Agile for Humans. Be sure to check it out!

Jan 26, 2016

When we try to help teams we often forget that just because people work in the same area or are nominally called a “team” they may not be a real team. In this episode Ryan relates the story of a team that imploded because of the anti-patterns inherent to teams that aren’t really teams.

We also refer to the Super-Chicken Ted talk that explains some of the anti-patterns that destroy team’s effectivity. We also talk about the book Get Rid or Performance Appraisals by Luis Goncalves.

 

About Ryan Ripley

Ryan Ripley loves helping people do great work. He is a servant leader at heart and is passionate about fostering safety and trust in the workplace. Ryan created the Agile for Humans podcast to put the focus back on the individuals and interactions that make agile work.

You can link up with Ryan Ripley on LinkedIn and connect with Ryan Ripley on Twitter.

Ryan also hosts a popular Agile podcast: Agile for Humans. Be sure to check it out!

Jan 25, 2016

The transition from Project Manager to Scrum Master is never an easy one. Ryan describes his own journey and how he overcame his own delusion of control. During this episode we also introduced the book The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Lencioni.

About Ryan Ripley

Ryan Ripley loves helping people do great work. He is a servant leader at heart and is passionate about fostering safety and trust in the workplace. Ryan created the Agile for Humans podcast to put the focus back on the individuals and interactions that make agile work.

You can link up with Ryan Ripley on LinkedIn and connect with Ryan Ripley on Twitter.

Ryan also hosts a popular Agile podcast: Agile for Humans. Be sure to check it out!

Jan 22, 2016

The systems view of the Scrum Master work is not limited to one system. We work with the teams which are one system, but we also work with the team of teams. How the teams interact and cooperate is a system in itself. Enabling cooperation between Scrum Masters can be a very effective way to work with the larger systems.

About Jiri Sitina

Jiri works at GoodData. He is currently based in Prague and helps GoodData’s engineering teams to work better, cooperate more, keep on improving and enjoy what they are doing.

You can connect with Jiri Sitina on LinkedIn and link with Jiri Sitina on Twitter.

Jan 21, 2016

How we define success for our role as Scrum Masters is very often linked to how we see the role and the evolution of the role. Jiri talks about different approaches to the role of Scrum Master and reminds us that we should not be satisfied with being the “Scrum mum”.

About Jiri Sitina

Jiri works at GoodData. He is currently based in Prague and helps GoodData’s engineering teams to work better, cooperate more, keep on improving and enjoy what they are doing.

You can connect with Jiri Sitina on LinkedIn and link with Jiri Sitina on Twitter.

Jan 20, 2016

Small steps can lead to big changes. As Jiri says, there’s no point in going against the big wall of large steps in change, it is often disappointing and prone to failure. Identifying the pain points and then taking one step at a time can lead to amazing results.

The book Lean Change Management by Jason Little is referred to as a guide to understand effective change management.

About Jiri Sitina

Jiri works at GoodData. He is currently based in Prague and helps GoodData’s engineering teams to work better, cooperate more, keep on improving and enjoy what they are doing.

You can connect with Jiri Sitina on LinkedIn and link with Jiri Sitina on Twitter.

Jan 19, 2016

Retrospectives are one of the key ceremonies for teams. Well prepared and executed retrospectives can take a team from ordinary to extraordinary and can help teams avoid the anti-patterns that so often lead to difficult problems down the line.  

One of the resources that Jiri uses when preparing his retrospectives is Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives.

About Jiri Sitina

Jiri works at GoodData. He is currently based in Prague and helps GoodData’s engineering teams to work better, cooperate more, keep on improving and enjoy what they are doing.

You can connect with Jiri Sitina on LinkedIn and link with Jiri Sitina on Twitter.

Jan 18, 2016

The Product Owner role can enable to make the work of the team very difficult. In this episode Jiri talks about how important the Product Owner role really is and how to help teams align. We also talk about aligning remote teams discussing some of the techniques that Jiri uses to have remote teams collaborate effectively.

About Jiri Sitina

Jiri works at GoodData. He is currently based in Prague and helps GoodData’s engineering teams to work better, cooperate more, keep on improving and enjoy what they are doing.

You can connect with Jiri Sitina on LinkedIn and link with Jiri Sitina on Twitter.

Jan 15, 2016

Event Storming is a technique that comes from Domain Driven Development. Alberto has adapted that technique to his work as a coach to help organizations identify their own patterns and therefore be able to change them. In this episode we explore how this technique can be used to foster organizational change.

About Alberto Brandolini

Alberto looks at himself as sit at the intersection between the Agile/Lean community and the Domain-Driven Design community. Sometimes, he says, the solution is to write better software, sometimes the solution is to take a big modelling surface and see "the problem" in all its magnificence, sometimes the solution is to have a beer.

You can link up with Alberto Brandolini on LinkedIn, or connect with Alberto Brandolini on Twitter.  

Jan 14, 2016

When are we successful as Scrum Masters? We don’t really know until we start observing the patterns of behaviour and communication between the team members and other stakeholders involved. Alberto describes some patterns of behaviors he looks for to assess his success.

About Alberto Brandolini

Alberto looks at himself as sit at the intersection between the Agile/Lean community and the Domain-Driven Design community. Sometimes, he says, the solution is to write better software, sometimes the solution is to take a big modelling surface and see "the problem" in all its magnificence, sometimes the solution is to have a beer.

You can link up with Alberto Brandolini on LinkedIn, or connect with Alberto Brandolini on Twitter.  

Jan 13, 2016

Sometimes we enter organizations and teams where everybody talks about how messy things are. This language prevents the people in that organization from seeing the situation clearly and does not allow them to move on. Alberto uses many techniques to help teams and organizations recognize and remove the “messiness” from their lives. In this episode he explains how he does that.

About Alberto Brandolini

Alberto looks at himself as sit at the intersection between the Agile/Lean community and the Domain-Driven Design community. Sometimes, he says, the solution is to write better software, sometimes the solution is to take a big modelling surface and see "the problem" in all its magnificence, sometimes the solution is to have a beer.

You can link up with Alberto Brandolini on LinkedIn, or connect with Alberto Brandolini on Twitter.  

Jan 12, 2016

Alberto entered a team that needed help, but had nothing to be proud of. This team was not ready to collaborate, yet Alberto tried to force that collaboration. Listen to what he learned from that experience and how he would approach the same situation today.

About Alberto Brandolini

Alberto looks at himself as sit at the intersection between the Agile/Lean community and the Domain-Driven Design community. Sometimes, he says, the solution is to write better software, sometimes the solution is to take a big modelling surface and see "the problem" in all its magnificence, sometimes the solution is to have a beer.

You can link up with Alberto Brandolini on LinkedIn, or connect with Alberto Brandolini on Twitter.  

Jan 11, 2016

As Scrum Masters we start working with teams and sometimes miss the context of the start for that relationship. Alberto shares with us a story of a failed “insertion point”, where he realized that we must actively understand and shape how our assignments start.

About Alberto Brandolini

Alberto looks at himself as sit at the intersection between the Agile/Lean community and the Domain-Driven Design community. Sometimes, he says, the solution is to write better software, sometimes the solution is to take a big modelling surface and see "the problem" in all its magnificence, sometimes the solution is to have a beer.

You can link up with Alberto Brandolini on LinkedIn, or connect with Alberto Brandolini on Twitter.  

Jan 8, 2016

We all face silos in our organizations, and sometimes even in our teams. Henri did just that, and found a way to replace those silos with collaboration. Listen to hear how Henri removed the silos, step by step.

About Henri Karhatsu

Henri is a consultant at his own company Karhatsu IT Consulting in Helsinki, Finland.

He is a very experienced software developer that has worked for and with many clients over his career. He's also been exploring how to improve our industry of software development and sharing his learnings in his blog.

You can connect with Henri Karhatsu on LinkedIn, and reach out to Henri Karhatsu on Twitter.

Henri Karhatsu’s blog.

Jan 7, 2016

Success for a Scrum Master is defined in many ways. For Henri this means focusing on constant evolution and change. He refers to the Toyota Kata by Rother as a model to follow when working with teams and defining success for you, and the team. He emphasizes how important it is to focus on one improvement goal at a time.

About Henri Karhatsu

Henri is a consultant at his own company Karhatsu IT Consulting in Helsinki, Finland.

He is a very experienced software developer that has worked for and with many clients over his career. He's also been exploring how to improve our industry of software development and sharing his learnings in his blog.

You can connect with Henri Karhatsu on LinkedIn, and reach out to Henri Karhatsu on Twitter.

Henri Karhatsu’s blog.

Jan 6, 2016

When helping a team or an organization go through a change process we tend to be very goal and plan oriented. Henri shares a different story, where progress was more important than “the right” thing to change. Keeping the change progressing becomes more important than doing the right kind of changes at the expense of commitment and acceptance by the team and the organization.

About Henri Karhatsu

Henri is a consultant at his own company Karhatsu IT Consulting in Helsinki, Finland.

He is a very experienced software developer that has worked for and with many clients over his career. He's also been exploring how to improve our industry of software development and sharing his learnings in his blog.

You can connect with Henri Karhatsu on LinkedIn, and reach out to Henri Karhatsu on Twitter.

Henri Karhatsu’s blog.

Jan 5, 2016

In teams, just like in all relationships, the routine kills the ability to innovate and evolve. Henri shares with us a story of such an anti-pattern in one of the teams he worked with. He shares one advice for all Scrum Masters: start with small changes, and one at a time. And don’t stop helping the team to change.

About Henri Karhatsu

Henri is a consultant at his own company Karhatsu IT Consulting in Helsinki, Finland.

He is a very experienced software developer that has worked for and with many clients over his career. He's also been exploring how to improve our industry of software development and sharing his learnings in his blog.

You can connect with Henri Karhatsu on LinkedIn, and reach out to Henri Karhatsu on Twitter.

Henri Karhatsu’s blog.

Jan 4, 2016

A Scrum Master must be able to perform at many levels when working with a team. One of those levels is self-discipline and self-control. In this episode we discuss the need to learn to be patient. Sometimes we are too eager to propose solutions, and then bad things happened because we did not consider the team in our actions. Henri presents two tools that can help you learn to be patient.

About Henri Karhatsu

Henri is a consultant at his own company Karhatsu IT Consulting in Helsinki, Finland.

He is a very experienced software developer that has worked for and with many clients over his career. He's also been exploring how to improve our industry of software development and sharing his learnings in his blog.

You can connect with Henri Karhatsu on LinkedIn, and reach out to Henri Karhatsu on Twitter.

Henri Karhatsu’s blog.

Jan 1, 2016

In this episode Angel shares many of the tools and techniques he uses to support the start of a change process in a system. There’s plenty of work to prepare the change before it can get started, and most of that work is about understanding the system we are about to be part of. We talk about many tools, like using Experiments, A3 problem solving and PDCA cycles for learning at the organisational level.

 

About Angel Diaz-Maroto

Angel is a seasoned and very energetic Agile coach and a frequent speaker at international conferences and Agile events in Europe and America. He is Certified Scrum Coach. Currently he is member of Agilar, one of the leading Agile coaching firms in Europe and Latin-America.

He is now at Agilar, but before he was the leader at one of the biggest Agile transformations in europe, including business and IT at the Spanish branch of a multinational bank (ING). He lead the transformation from the trenches and starting from scratch. He as more than 15 years of experience in many different roles and is a professor at ESNE (University School of design, innovation & technology).

You can link up with Angel Diaz-Maroto on LinkedIn and connect with Angel Diaz-Maroto on Twitter.

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