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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: 2016
Nov 28, 2016

Kiryl shares with us a story of a team that wanted to change, they wanted to improve their ways of working. But they faced a massive challenge: their client did not want to change.

How do we help client organizations change when we are outsiders? One tip: seek the help of an experienced colleague and listen to this episode for ideas on how to make it happen.

 

About Kiryl Baranoshnik

Kiryl Works and lives in Minsk, Belarus. He is an experienced ScrumMaster and Agile Ambassador with EPAM Systems. Accredited ICAgile trainer with AgileLAB. Co-founder and leader of a local Agile/PM community. Former software developer.

You can link with Kiryl Baranoshnik on LinkedIn and connect with Kiryl Baranoshnik on Twitter.

Nov 25, 2016

The answer to “how do we grow trust in a team” is always: step-by-step. Issam shares with us some steps we can take to grow trust in and with our teams. He also shares ideas on how we can create the safe environment we need for trust to grow.

 

About Issam Sedki

Scrum master and agile coach with more than 12 years experience on software developement in many countries. With various certifications ranging from project management to Agile and Scrum. Certified PMP professional scrum master, cobit5, pmi agile certified practionner. Issam has been through a lot in this industry.

You can link with Issam Sedki on LinkedIn.

Nov 24, 2016

Issam shares with us the list of questions and aspects he looks at when evaluating his work as a Scrum Master. He also shares with us many tips that help us understand how the team is doing in each of those aspects. In this episode we share lots of detailed questions and symptoms we can look at to assess the team’s behaviour and our success.

 

About Issam Sedki

Scrum master and agile coach with more than 12 years experience on software developement in many countries. With various certifications ranging from project management to Agile and Scrum. Certified PMP professional scrum master, cobit5, pmi agile certified practionner. Issam has been through a lot in this industry.

You can link with Issam Sedki on LinkedIn.

Nov 23, 2016

If we help our teams too well, they may become dependant on our presence to solve the problems that they should be able to solve on their own. Issam shares a story about the “let me answer that” anti-pattern, where the Scrum Master takes responsibility for answering questions that the team should answer on their own. We discuss the consequences of that anti-pattern and how to get out of it!

 

About Issam Sedki

Scrum master and agile coach with more than 12 years experience on software developement in many countries. With various certifications ranging from project management to Agile and Scrum. Certified PMP professional scrum master, cobit5, pmi agile certified practionner. Issam has been through a lot in this industry.

You can link with Issam Sedki on LinkedIn.

Nov 22, 2016

Teams often say “yes” way too often. In fact, saying “no” is one of the lost messages of Scrum that popularized the phrase: “The Art of the Possible”. Sometimes teams act as if the phrase had been “The Art of the Impossible”. But what is a Scrum Master to do when the team focuses so much on saying “yes” that they overcommit?

 

About Issam Sedki

Scrum master and agile coach with more than 12 years experience on software developement in many countries. With various certifications ranging from project management to Agile and Scrum. Certified PMP professional scrum master, cobit5, pmi agile certified practionner. Issam has been through a lot in this industry.

You can link with Issam Sedki on LinkedIn.

Nov 21, 2016

Self-organization can unleash the productivity in a team. It can transform the way teams work and take them to very high levels of productivity and effectiveness. But there are conditions required for self-organization to happen. You can’t just order people to self-organize, and Issam shares with us some of the conditions he sees as required before self-organization can happen.

 

About Issam Sedki

Scrum master and agile coach with more than 12 years experience on software developement in many countries. With various certifications ranging from project management to Agile and Scrum. Certified PMP professional scrum master, cobit5, pmi agile certified practionner. Issam has been through a lot in this industry.

You can link with Issam Sedki on LinkedIn.

Nov 18, 2016

Tony shares with us a huge toolbox and many tips on how to use Retrospectives as a tool to understand the system conditions that affect the teams we work with. Listen how these tools helped one team member understand the negative consequences his success had in other teams.

 

About Tony Richards

Tony is an Agile coach working with a global insurer wanting to become more Agile. Starting his career as a software developer working with Toyota he has a background in Lean and came across Agile in 2010 as part of a test and learn initiative. He is keen to help leaders understand their role in creating an environment where Agile can flourish. To support this he has been working on a game inspired by the research of Michael Spayd and Lyssa Adkins to support this journey.

You can link with Tony Richards on LinkedIn, and see Tony Richards’ posts on Front Row Agile.

Nov 17, 2016

Tony quotes Basketball legend on trust: “good teams become great ones when members trust each other to surrender the me to the we". Tony also shares how he chooses to work with teams, and it is not what most of us do today.

 

About Tony Richards

Tony is an Agile coach working with a global insurer wanting to become more Agile. Starting his career as a software developer working with Toyota he has a background in Lean and came across Agile in 2010 as part of a test and learn initiative. He is keen to help leaders understand their role in creating an environment where Agile can flourish. To support this he has been working on a game inspired by the research of Michael Spayd and Lyssa Adkins to support this journey.

You can link with Tony Richards on LinkedIn, and see Tony Richards’ posts on Front Row Agile.

Nov 16, 2016

How would you go, as a CEO, from asking people to report their vacation to allowing them to take as much vacation as they want, whenever they want? With a leap of faith! Listen in as Tony describes how one CEO did just that and what happened next.

 

About Tony Richards

Tony is an Agile coach working with a global insurer wanting to become more Agile. Starting his career as a software developer working with Toyota he has a background in Lean and came across Agile in 2010 as part of a test and learn initiative. He is keen to help leaders understand their role in creating an environment where Agile can flourish. To support this he has been working on a game inspired by the research of Michael Spayd and Lyssa Adkins to support this journey.

You can link with Tony Richards on LinkedIn, and see Tony Richards’ posts on Front Row Agile.

 
Nov 15, 2016

There are many ways to fail, but there are some ways that are just way too common. Tony shares what is probably the most common way to fail at Scrum. In this episode we also share 7 other tools and tips for Scrum Masters.

In the episode we also mention Samantha and Karen and their work in the Scrum community. We refer to the Moving Motivators game in Management 3.0 and quote Lyssa Adkins: “you need to be one half step ahead of your team!”

 
 

About Tony Richards

Tony is an Agile coach working with a global insurer wanting to become more Agile. Starting his career as a software developer working with Toyota he has a background in Lean and came across Agile in 2010 as part of a test and learn initiative. He is keen to help leaders understand their role in creating an environment where Agile can flourish. To support this he has been working on a game inspired by the research of Michael Spayd and Lyssa Adkins to support this journey.

You can link with Tony Richards on LinkedIn, and see Tony Richards’ posts on Front Row Agile.

Nov 14, 2016

Tony shares a great story about how to get people to enter the Agile/Lean mindset, and a story about how we, as Scrum Masters can easily forget the capital rule of Scrum: involve the team.

 

About Tony Richards

Tony is an Agile coach working with a global insurer wanting to become more Agile. Starting his career as a software developer working with Toyota he has a background in Lean and came across Agile in 2010 as part of a test and learn initiative. He is keen to help leaders understand their role in creating an environment where Agile can flourish. To support this he has been working on a game inspired by the research of Michael Spayd and Lyssa Adkins to support this journey.

You can link with Tony Richards on LinkedIn, and see Tony Richards’ posts on Front Row Agile.

Nov 12, 2016

In this episode I talk with Karolina Trzcionka and Malgorzata Dec about the coaching approach and how that can help us in our roles as Scrum Masters.

Karolina and Malgorzata have completely different backgrounds (Computer Science and Psychology), but they help Future Processing internally as coaches. They started their journey learning about coaching and being certified by the International Coaching Federation (ICF), and now they work at Future Processing helping local leaders and Scrum Masters to learn and apply the coaching approach to their work.

We talk about how important it is to have people in each organization that understand and practice the coaching approach.

About our guests

Karolina Trzcionka is a Delivery Manager, coach and trainer. Working in IT since 2008 - Karolina started as a QA, and then a Scrum Master at Future Processing where she works today. Karolina works closely with the teams and learned about  leadership and management in that work. That led her into coaching where she is able to support leaders and teams in their job.

You can link with Karolina Trzcionka on LinkedIn.

Małgorzata Dec is a Psychologist, trainer, coach and HR specialist since 2011. She supports people creating professional relationships and reaching their full potential. As a trainer she shares ideas to increase the quality of life. As a coach she helps individuals and teams in their change and self-development process.

You can link with Małgorzata Dec on LinkedIn.

Nov 11, 2016

Where do we start to begin understanding the system we must deal with? Stefan shares his tools and also insights on how we can go from a fuzzy view of the system to a more concrete understanding of the system conditions we must deal with at work.

In this episode we mention the blog post From Skills to Mindset, a blog where Stefan explains his views on what is critical for working with the system.

 

About Stefan Wolpers

Stefan has been working as agile coach and product owner for fast growing, mainly Berlin-based startups for about 10 years. He is writing on hiring agile practitioners, Why agile fails?, and curates Age of Product’s “Food for Agile Thought” newsletter.

You can link with Stefan Wolpers on LinkedIn and connect with Stefan Wolpers on Twitter.

Nov 10, 2016

Stefan Wolpers on the 2 levels of success for Scrum Masters

Stefan shares his measure of success for the work of a Scrum Master, and how important it is to consider multiple levels of success. He also shares tips on how to hire Scrum Masters, tests and interview ideas.

 

About Stefan Wolpers

Stefan has been working as agile coach and product owner for fast growing, mainly Berlin-based startups for about 10 years. He is writing on hiring agile practitioners, Why agile fails?, and curates Age of Product’s “Food for Agile Thought” newsletter.

You can link with Stefan Wolpers on LinkedIn and connect with Stefan Wolpers on Twitter.

Nov 9, 2016

Involving stakeholders is not always easy. In most organisations, those that should help the team understand what they need to deliver are often busy and do not have time to help the team understand the problem - even if they have time to spend hours criticising their work. Stefan shares with us tips and tricks on how to involve the stakeholders effectively in defining what the team needs to deliver.

 

About Stefan Wolpers

Stefan has been working as agile coach and product owner for fast growing, mainly Berlin-based startups for about 10 years. He is writing on hiring agile practitioners, Why agile fails?, and curates Age of Product’s “Food for Agile Thought” newsletter.

You can link with Stefan Wolpers on LinkedIn and connect with Stefan Wolpers on Twitter.

Nov 8, 2016

Agile requires a lot more social interaction than other approaches to software development. Are we ready for that? Are all the team members ready for that? In this episode we discuss how to work with reluctant team members and how to help teams learn their new role in the organization when Agile is adopted.

 

About Stefan Wolpers

Stefan has been working as agile coach and product owner for fast growing, mainly Berlin-based startups for about 10 years. He is writing on hiring agile practitioners, Why agile fails?, and curates Age of Product’s “Food for Agile Thought” newsletter.

You can link with Stefan Wolpers on LinkedIn and connect with Stefan Wolpers on Twitter.

Nov 7, 2016

Many organisations want to adopt Agile because it supports some part of their world view that existed before Agile was there. In fact we adapt easily to changes that support our world view, so the first question in our mind when joining a new organization should be “why exactly do you think Agile is a good approach for his company?”.

Stefan shares a story of failure that is related to the lack of alignment between what we want (our real goals) and what Agile is about. In the process we are reminded of how people are always the key to any successful transformation.

We also mention the story of Zappos and their adoption of Holacracy.

 

About Stefan Wolpers

Stefan has been working as agile coach and product owner for fast growing, mainly Berlin-based startups for about 10 years. He is writing on hiring agile practitioners, Why agile fails?, and curates Age of Product’s “Food for Agile Thought” newsletter.

You can link with Stefan Wolpers on LinkedIn and connect with Stefan Wolpers on Twitter.

Nov 4, 2016

When is conflict good, and when is it a problem? Brandon shares his answer to this question as well as 5 other questions that he asks when evaluating the system to detect critical system conditions.

 

About Brandon Adams

Brandon is an advocate for Lean-Agile methods and is passionate about helping others learn more about he underlying concepts and how to implement them.  He enjoys environments in which he can teach, coach, and train individuals and teams to improve both personally and professionally.

You can link with Brandon Adams on LinkedIn and connect with Brandon Adams on Twitter.

Nov 3, 2016

We all know that metrics can be good or bad depending on how they are used. Brandon shares his views on how metrics can be used, and also 2 key indicators to evaluate our impact and success as Scrum Masters.

 

About Brandon Adams

Brandon is an advocate for Lean-Agile methods and is passionate about helping others learn more about he underlying concepts and how to implement them.  He enjoys environments in which he can teach, coach, and train individuals and teams to improve both personally and professionally.

You can link with Brandon Adams on LinkedIn and connect with Brandon Adams on Twitter.

Nov 2, 2016

Brandon explains his own views about change leadership and shares his thoughts on what are 3 of the key activities we must undertake when leading change.

 

About Brandon Adams

Brandon is an advocate for Lean-Agile methods and is passionate about helping others learn more about he underlying concepts and how to implement them.  He enjoys environments in which he can teach, coach, and train individuals and teams to improve both personally and professionally.

You can link with Brandon Adams on LinkedIn and connect with Brandon Adams on Twitter.

Nov 1, 2016

We are taught since early age that conflict is bad. Conflict breathes resentment and ultimately creates problems. However, that’s not the whole truth. In fact, conflict can be the life-line of a team. In this episode Brandon shares a story of how a team was led astray by the lack of conflict and eventually ended up failing.

In this episode we refer to the book: The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Lencioni.

Because understanding people is also about understanding their personality, we discuss the importance of personality models such as the DISC model. Here’s a test you can use with your team.

 

About Brandon Adams

Brandon is an advocate for Lean-Agile methods and is passionate about helping others learn more about he underlying concepts and how to implement them.  He enjoys environments in which he can teach, coach, and train individuals and teams to improve both personally and professionally.

You can link with Brandon Adams on LinkedIn and connect with Brandon Adams on Twitter.

Oct 31, 2016

A team is more than the sum of its individuals. Looking at a team that way allows us to understand that the interaction between the team members is really the key to help teams achieve their potential.

 

About Brandon Adams

Brandon is an advocate for Lean-Agile methods and is passionate about helping others learn more about he underlying concepts and how to implement them.  He enjoys environments in which he can teach, coach, and train individuals and teams to improve both personally and professionally.

You can link with Brandon Adams on LinkedIn and connect with Brandon Adams on Twitter.

Oct 28, 2016

When analyzing and understanding the systems we work with we have many possible tools to help us find what is affecting the system and therefore the team. Adolfo lists 3 tools he uses and how he uses them to find out what are the system conditions in play.

 

About Adolfo Foronda

Adolfo Foronda has been a front end developer, content management, and ux specialist since the early 90's. He’s worked with a number of silicon valley startups, financial institutions, and is the founder of Nerd Stalker Media and the Nerd Stalker podcast. Adolfo is a rabid advocate and constructive critic of Agile.

You can link with Adolfo Foronda on LinkedIn and connect with Adolfo Foronda on Twitter. Adolfo’s work can be followed on Nerd Stalker media.  

Oct 27, 2016

A key condition for our success as Scrum Masters is that all stakeholders are engaged and collaborating to help the team deliver. Adolfo explains how he involves the right stakeholders using a very familiar tool: The Retrospective.

In this episode we refer to the book Agile Retrospectives by Diana Larsen and Esther Derby.

 

About Adolfo Foronda

Adolfo Foronda has been a front end developer, content management, and ux specialist since the early 90's. He’s worked with a number of silicon valley startups, financial institutions, and is the founder of Nerd Stalker Media and the Nerd Stalker podcast. Adolfo is a rabid advocate and constructive critic of Agile.

You can link with Adolfo Foronda on LinkedIn and connect with Adolfo Foronda on Twitter. Adolfo’s work can be followed on Nerd Stalker media.  

Oct 26, 2016

Change is a tumultuous sea sometimes. And understanding that can bring enormous benefits as we learn to navigate that change process. Understanding the politics behind any change process is a key process for us as Scrum Masters. Knowing who to involve, how to involve them and who plays what role is critical. In this episode we talk about the dos and don’ts of change in any organization.

In this episode we refer to the book Lean Change Management by Jason Little and The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green.

 

About Adolfo Foronda

Adolfo Foronda has been a front end developer, content management, and ux specialist since the early 90's. He’s worked with a number of silicon valley startups, financial institutions, and is the founder of Nerd Stalker Media and the Nerd Stalker podcast. Adolfo is a rabid advocate and constructive critic of Agile.

You can link with Adolfo Foronda on LinkedIn and connect with Adolfo Foronda on Twitter. Adolfo’s work can be followed on Nerd Stalker media.  

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