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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: April, 2017
Apr 28, 2017

As Scrum Masters we need to understand the overall conditions that affect the teams we work with. Those teams are part of what we call the system. Jonathan asks 3 questions to help him understand the system, and how it may affect the teams he works with. Listen in to learn his three questions and how he applies them.

About Jonathan Fulton

Agile Coach, Scrum Master and former Developer who has applied Lean and Agile approaches in a variety of organisations and projects such as tickets and turnstiles at the London Olympics park, online gambling websites, and kids TV streaming to mobile devices.

 

You can link with Jonathan Fulton on LinkedIn and connect with Jonathan Fulton on Twitter.



Apr 27, 2017

As Scrum Masters we seek to help, support others, but also to reach a point where we are happy with our work and the results we get. That’s our success. Jonathan shares what he looks at when defining his successful contribution to the teams and organisations he works with. Jonathan takes 3 aspects into consideration when assessing his contribution. Listen in to learn more.

About Jonathan Fulton

Agile Coach, Scrum Master and former Developer who has applied Lean and Agile approaches in a variety of organisations and projects such as tickets and turnstiles at the London Olympics park, online gambling websites, and kids TV streaming to mobile devices.

You can link with Jonathan Fulton on LinkedIn and connect with Jonathan Fulton on Twitter.



Apr 26, 2017

Conversations are how we relate to the people around us. We connect, we discuss, we fight, but we also agree and come to a common course of action. All those aspects are critical in a change process. Jonathan explains how he uses conversations as a way to foster and support change over time. Listen in to learn about such a moment and how Jonathan used conversations in that specific moment to support the change process.

About Jonathan Fulton

Agile Coach, Scrum Master and former Developer who has applied Lean and Agile approaches in a variety of organisations and projects such as tickets and turnstiles at the London Olympics park, online gambling websites, and kids TV streaming to mobile devices.

 

You can link with Jonathan Fulton on LinkedIn and connect with Jonathan Fulton on Twitter.

 

Apr 25, 2017

One of the consequences of adopting Scrum is that many things that were previously hidden become visible. That’s not always an easy process, so many teams try to avoid that. In this episode we talk about such a team. That went from Scrum to Kanban to avoid the pain of transparency that Scrum brought in. Luckily Jonathan was keeping track of some of the key metrics for that team. Listen in to learn what happened.

About Jonathan Fulton

Agile Coach, Scrum Master and former Developer who has applied Lean and Agile approaches in a variety of organisations and projects such as tickets and turnstiles at the London Olympics park, online gambling websites, and kids TV streaming to mobile devices.

 

You can link with Jonathan Fulton on LinkedIn and connect with Jonathan Fulton on Twitter.

 

Apr 24, 2017

We’ve learned since early age that it is unwise to enrage the people around us. It probably started with our parents, and then we go to work and we want to keep that strategy: avoid conflict. But is it really wise to avoid conflict in a team? Listen in as Jonathan walks us through one such case, and the inevitable consequences.

About Jonathan Fulton

Agile Coach, Scrum Master and former Developer who has applied Lean and Agile approaches in a variety of organisations and projects such as tickets and turnstiles at the London Olympics park, online gambling websites, and kids TV streaming to mobile devices.

 

You can link with Jonathan Fulton on LinkedIn and connect with Jonathan Fulton on Twitter.



Apr 21, 2017

When working with organizations, we are part of facilitating the right aspects. Gunther asks us to facilitate the system, not the mechanics of the system. What that means for us as Scrum Masters will depend on the phase of transition the organization is in. Listen in to hear Gunther’s views on how to facilitate a system (not the mechanics of the system).

 

About Gunther Verheyen

Gunther left consulting in 2013 to partner with Ken Schwaber, Scrum co-creator, at Scrum.org. He represented Ken and Scrum.org in Europe

Gunther left Scrum.org in 2016 to continue his journey of Scrum as an independent Scrum Caretaker.He calls himself a connector, writer, speaker, humaniser. Gunther assists, serves, advices teams, individuals and executives.

Gunther believes that Scrum - the most applied software development framework - will not only increase the value that software delivers to organizations but is also a way to re-humanise the workplace for people. Gunther likes to inspire individuals, teams, departments, and organizations to realize their potential.

Beyond Scrum, Gunther is all about his family, life, books, and music. He communicates in Dutch and in English. Gunther is co-creator to Agility Path and the Nexus framework for Scaled Professional Scrum.

You can link with Gunther Verheyen on LinkedIn and connect with Gunther Verheyen on Twitter.

Apr 20, 2017

Is your organization shifting to the left of the Agile Manifesto? Even if the minimal unit of success for the Scrum Master might be the team, and the Sprint. The overall goal for us should be to enable agility at the organizational level. How do we do that? Listen in on Gunther’s views on organizational change.

 

About Gunther Verheyen

Gunther left consulting in 2013 to partner with Ken Schwaber, Scrum co-creator, at Scrum.org. He represented Ken and Scrum.org in Europe

Gunther left Scrum.org in 2016 to continue his journey of Scrum as an independent Scrum Caretaker.He calls himself a connector, writer, speaker, humaniser. Gunther assists, serves, advices teams, individuals and executives.

Gunther believes that Scrum - the most applied software development framework - will not only increase the value that software delivers to organizations but is also a way to re-humanise the workplace for people. Gunther likes to inspire individuals, teams, departments, and organizations to realize their potential.

Beyond Scrum, Gunther is all about his family, life, books, and music. He communicates in Dutch and in English. Gunther is co-creator to Agility Path and the Nexus framework for Scaled Professional Scrum.

You can link with Gunther Verheyen on LinkedIn and connect with Gunther Verheyen on Twitter.

Apr 19, 2017

Is Scrum a team framework? Gunther disagrees, and explains why he thinks that Scrum is fundamentally a framework for the whole organization. Maybe starting from the team (check out the upcoming BONUS episode with Gunther on this topic), but then it goes beyond. If we limit the role of the Scrum Master to the team, we are missing one of the largest contributions of Scrum to Agile organizations.

 

About Gunther Verheyen

Gunther left consulting in 2013 to partner with Ken Schwaber, Scrum co-creator, at Scrum.org. He represented Ken and Scrum.org in Europe

Gunther left Scrum.org in 2016 to continue his journey of Scrum as an independent Scrum Caretaker.He calls himself a connector, writer, speaker, humaniser. Gunther assists, serves, advices teams, individuals and executives.

Gunther believes that Scrum - the most applied software development framework - will not only increase the value that software delivers to organizations but is also a way to re-humanise the workplace for people. Gunther likes to inspire individuals, teams, departments, and organizations to realize their potential.

Beyond Scrum, Gunther is all about his family, life, books, and music. He communicates in Dutch and in English. Gunther is co-creator to Agility Path and the Nexus framework for Scaled Professional Scrum.

You can link with Gunther Verheyen on LinkedIn and connect with Gunther Verheyen on Twitter.

Apr 18, 2017

As Scrum Masters we try to help our teams, and team members find their inner motivation. The intrinsic motivation that helps them grow and succeed. Gunther shares his views on where intrinsic motivation comes from. In this episode Gunther also covers self-organization and its impact and role for scrum teams.

 

About Gunther Verheyen

Gunther left consulting in 2013 to partner with Ken Schwaber, Scrum co-creator, at Scrum.org. He represented Ken and Scrum.org in Europe

Gunther left Scrum.org in 2016 to continue his journey of Scrum as an independent Scrum Caretaker.He calls himself a connector, writer, speaker, humaniser. Gunther assists, serves, advices teams, individuals and executives.

Gunther believes that Scrum - the most applied software development framework - will not only increase the value that software delivers to organizations but is also a way to re-humanise the workplace for people. Gunther likes to inspire individuals, teams, departments, and organizations to realize their potential.

Beyond Scrum, Gunther is all about his family, life, books, and music. He communicates in Dutch and in English. Gunther is co-creator to Agility Path and the Nexus framework for Scaled Professional Scrum.

You can link with Gunther Verheyen on LinkedIn and connect with Gunther Verheyen on Twitter.

Apr 17, 2017

Gunther’s journey has taken him to very different places, but where he feels at homes is with teams. Helping teams reach their potential. Finding what drives him was a pivotal moment in his career and he shares his view of why that may also be an important realization for you.

 

About Gunther Verheyen

Gunther left consulting in 2013 to partner with Ken Schwaber, Scrum co-creator, at Scrum.org. He represented Ken and Scrum.org in Europe

Gunther left Scrum.org in 2016 to continue his journey of Scrum as an independent Scrum Caretaker.He calls himself a connector, writer, speaker, humaniser. Gunther assists, serves, advices teams, individuals and executives.

Gunther believes that Scrum - the most applied software development framework - will not only increase the value that software delivers to organizations but is also a way to re-humanise the workplace for people. Gunther likes to inspire individuals, teams, departments, and organizations to realize their potential.

Beyond Scrum, Gunther is all about his family, life, books, and music. He communicates in Dutch and in English. Gunther is co-creator to Agility Path and the Nexus framework for Scaled Professional Scrum.

You can link with Gunther Verheyen on LinkedIn and connect with Gunther Verheyen on Twitter.

Apr 14, 2017

No, the title is not a joke. It is actually one of the topics we discuss in this episode. Think about it. Why would we want to be part of the stale, slow, burocratic navy when we can be a pirate and share the benefits of our work? This is a metaphor for many of our organizations where the team and we feel much more like in the navy instead of a self-directed, clearly organized, adaptable pirate ship. There’s only one problem: what happens if you start a small pirate ship in a large navy-like organization? That’s the Systems Thinking question we must answer for every Agile team will at some point be like that small Pirate ship surrounded by a large fleet of burocrats. How you tackle that situation will be critical for the survival of your team, and your own survival in that organization.

In this episode we refer to The New New Product Development Game by Takeuchi and Nonaka. We also refer to Jim Benson’s Why Plans Fail.

 

About Scott Seivwright

Scott works as  Scrum Master, transformation lead and Agile coach. He is passionate about building great teams and create great places to work. He is interested in Agile, Management 3.0 and constantly looking for  better ways of working.

 

You can link with Scott Seivwright on LinkedIn and connect with Scott Seivwright on Twitter.

Apr 13, 2017

What is our critical role in an organization? Help the team? Protect the team? Remove impediments? Surely you’ve heard of all of these being a critical role for the Scrum Master. But what if that’s not the case? What if the role of the Scrum Master is quite different from what you have been told thus far? Check out this episode to learn about what is the critical role of the Scrum Master according to Scott Seivwright.

 

About Scott Seivwright

Scott works as  Scrum Master, transformation lead and Agile coach. He is passionate about building great teams and create great places to work. He is interested in Agile, Management 3.0 and constantly looking for  better ways of working.

 

You can link with Scott Seivwright on LinkedIn and connect with Scott Seivwright on Twitter.

Apr 12, 2017

Where do we get started with a BIG change? Using our Agile and Lean mindset we know that we must bring in small, incremental, specific changes on a regular cadence and adapt to what happens when those small changes are implemented. This perspective, explained by the KAIZEN approach in the Toyota Production System (aka Lean), allows us to always be ready to take the next step (whatever that step is). Scott explains how he approaches change with KAIZEN, and the Lean mindset.

In this episode we refer to NUMMI, the factory that Toyota turned around from the worst American car factory to one of the best. We also refer to transactional analysis by the Psychologist Eric Berne.

 

About Scott Seivwright

Scott works as  Scrum Master, transformation lead and Agile coach. He is passionate about building great teams and create great places to work. He is interested in Agile, Management 3.0 and constantly looking for  better ways of working.

 

You can link with Scott Seivwright on LinkedIn and connect with Scott Seivwright on Twitter.

Apr 11, 2017

Developers working Agile? Great! But what happens when none of the organization outside the team works that way, or even understands what it means? Burn-out follows, for sure! How we handle the organization’s reaction (or counter-reaction) to the Agile teams is extremely critical in an Agile adoption process. Scott shares with us his learnings from such a story.

In this episode we refer to the Death March projects (check out Death March by Yourdon), the #NoEstimates Book and the SAFe House of Lean.

 

About Scott Seivwright

Scott works as  Scrum Master, transformation lead and Agile coach. He is passionate about building great teams and create great places to work. He is interested in Agile, Management 3.0 and constantly looking for  better ways of working.

 

You can link with Scott Seivwright on LinkedIn and connect with Scott Seivwright on Twitter.

Apr 10, 2017

Scrum is a framework that helps us focus on the activities that are most likely to lead to a reliable delivery on a specific cadence (the sprint). However, there are many aspects of Scrum that are just supporting that overall goal. What happens when we take those supporting elements too seriously, like the role of stakeholders who are not in the team? The famous (or infamous) Chicken and Pig story of Scrum is still causing problems today. Listen in to Scott to understand what happened and how to approach it if it happens to you.

In this episode we refer to Tom Gilb and the Impostor syndrome.

 

About Scott Seivwright

Scott works as  Scrum Master, transformation lead and Agile coach. He is passionate about building great teams and create great places to work. He is interested in Agile, Management 3.0 and constantly looking for  better ways of working.

 

You can link with Scott Seivwright on LinkedIn and connect with Scott Seivwright on Twitter.

Apr 7, 2017

Luca, who’s coached at the fast paced environment of the Ferrari F1 team surely knows what “speed” and “time-to-market” mean in the extreme cases. However, independently of all of that pressure Luca has been able to develop his coaching approach without focusing on pushing, forcing or manipulating people to do “the right thing”. How did he do that? We discuss his career and his learnings in this special episode about coaching.

Luca, just like all of us, tried to help people that did not want help, but that only led to his frustration as a professional and very little results. So he embarked on a journey to become a more effective coach. One of the key lessons Luca shares is about the commitment that is expected from the coach, as well as the team or individuals in the team.

For complete show notes, visit http://scrum-master-toolbox.org/.

About Luca Minudel

Luca Minudel is a Lean-Agile Coach & Trainer with 14 years of experience in Lean/Agile and 20+ in professional software delivery.

He is passionate about agility, lean, complexity science, and collaboration.

He contributed to the adoption of lean and agile practices at Ferrari's F1 racing team. For ThoughtWorks he has delivered training, coaching, assessments and organisational transformations in top-tier organisations in Europe and the United States. He worked as Head of Agility in 4Finance and he is working as coach for a top bank in Canary Wharf.

Luca is founder and CEO at SmHarter.com, a company that helps organisations turn their way of working into their competitive advantage.

You can link with Luca Mindel on LinkedIn and connect with Luca Mindel on Twitter.

Apr 7, 2017

How we identify the system conditions affecting the team is not an easy task or problem to solve. However, if we continuously help the team, we will eventually work on the system problems as well. In this episode, Nabeel shares such a story with us. Explaining why when it comes to the system, the team is the first point of entry.

 

About Nabeel Ansar

Nabeel has a diverse experience in Software test Automation for web and mobile, software Engineering,and product development.

Nabeel can help assemble an implementation team, and lead that team to a successful outcome. He can also asses and improve your already in place software development processes. Nabeel's passion it to provide Agile coaching (true Agility) and can train individuals and entire departments.

You can link with Nabeel Ansar on LinkedIn and connect with Nabeel Ansar on Twitter.

Apr 6, 2017

In this career, Nabeel faced many problems as a Scrum Master and change agent. Being able to overcome those problems is only part of the process for our own personal and professional growth. The continued growth is facilitated by the benchmark, or success criteria that we build for ourselves. Listen in to learn the 5 criteria that Nabeel uses to assess his own growth.

 

About Nabeel Ansar

Nabeel has a diverse experience in Software test Automation for web and mobile, software Engineering,and product development.

Nabeel can help assemble an implementation team, and lead that team to a successful outcome. He can also asses and improve your already in place software development processes. Nabeel's passion it to provide Agile coaching (true Agility) and can train individuals and entire departments.

You can link with Nabeel Ansar on LinkedIn and connect with Nabeel Ansar on Twitter.

Apr 5, 2017

Agile software development is a team sport. As such, the appraisal or performance evaluation in an organization needs to change to take that into account. But what happens when HR is pushing individual performance appraisals? Listen in to learn what happened at the company where Nabeel was working.

 

About Nabeel Ansar

Nabeel has a diverse experience in Software test Automation for web and mobile, software Engineering,and product development.

Nabeel can help assemble an implementation team, and lead that team to a successful outcome. He can also asses and improve your already in place software development processes. Nabeel's passion it to provide Agile coaching (true Agility) and can train individuals and entire departments.

You can link with Nabeel Ansar on LinkedIn and connect with Nabeel Ansar on Twitter.

Apr 4, 2017

Cross-functional teams are a key enabler of agility in an organization. However, putting together and being effective as a cross-functional team is not an obvious outcome. In this story Nabeel describes one example of how the term “cross-functional” can be understood in a wrong way and with disastrous consequences.

 

About Nabeel Ansar

Nabeel has a diverse experience in Software test Automation for web and mobile, software Engineering,and product development.

Nabeel can help assemble an implementation team, and lead that team to a successful outcome. He can also asses and improve your already in place software development processes. Nabeel's passion it to provide Agile coaching (true Agility) and can train individuals and entire departments.

You can link with Nabeel Ansar on LinkedIn and connect with Nabeel Ansar on Twitter.

Apr 3, 2017

Agile adoption is a process, we learn a lot during that process, and we face many similar risks no matter the organization. Nabeel shares with us a story of an adoption process where the words were right, but the behavior had not yet changed. The difference between “doing” Agile (e.g. using the words) and being agile (e.g. displaying the behaviors).

 

About Nabeel Ansar

Nabeel has a diverse experience in Software test Automation for web and mobile, software Engineering,and product development.

Nabeel can help assemble an implementation team, and lead that team to a successful outcome. He can also asses and improve your already in place software development processes. Nabeel's passion it to provide Agile coaching (true Agility) and can train individuals and entire departments.

You can link with Nabeel Ansar on LinkedIn and connect with Nabeel Ansar on Twitter.

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