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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: June, 2017
Jun 30, 2017

When we see a problem surfacing in the team, we should look outside the team. It is likely that there are system conditions affecting the team’s performance. Can you understand what that is? Tatum shares with us the Missing Conversation, a common cause of deeper problems, and what to do about it.

 

About Tatum Bisley

Tatum has 15 years of learning sector experience with the last 3 years in development - helping to make the tools that will enable corporate learning in years to come. Currently building a new jobs and skills application - Hiup - and VR, AR and MR applications for immersive learning.

You can link with Tatum Bisley on LinkedIn and connect with Tatum Bisley on Twitter.

Jun 29, 2017

Scrum Master success is about helping the team, and Tatum shares his own story and how he used the “Donut technique” to help the team find ways to talk about the real issues they were facing. This simple technique helped Tatum reach his own success, by helping the team. Can you use the same technique? You bet! Listen to Tatum’s story.

 

About Tatum Bisley

Tatum has 15 years of learning sector experience with the last 3 years in development - helping to make the tools that will enable corporate learning in years to come. Currently building a new jobs and skills application - Hiup - and VR, AR and MR applications for immersive learning.

You can link with Tatum Bisley on LinkedIn and connect with Tatum Bisley on Twitter.

Jun 28, 2017

Tatum explains how he applies the John Kotter change steps in his own work, and helps me find an insight I took to work the next day and benefited from! Very actionable episode on change, techniques and steps we need to go through in every change process.

 

About Tatum Bisley

Tatum has 15 years of learning sector experience with the last 3 years in development - helping to make the tools that will enable corporate learning in years to come. Currently building a new jobs and skills application - Hiup - and VR, AR and MR applications for immersive learning.

You can link with Tatum Bisley on LinkedIn and connect with Tatum Bisley on Twitter.

Jun 27, 2017

Saying yes to everything can easily lead to overwhelm. We want to please the business or the customer, and end up taking on much more work than is sustainable. How do we avoid that, and how do we help teams that are in that anti-pattern get out of it? Listen to this episode to learn about the practices that Tatum put in place to avoid that anti-pattern.

 

About Tatum Bisley

Tatum has 15 years of learning sector experience with the last 3 years in development - helping to make the tools that will enable corporate learning in years to come. Currently building a new jobs and skills application - Hiup - and VR, AR and MR applications for immersive learning.

You can link with Tatum Bisley on LinkedIn and connect with Tatum Bisley on Twitter.

Jun 26, 2017

Our teams very often deal with the pressure to “add more”. “Just this one more story” - they say. Well, that can devolve into an anti-pattern, and that is what happened with Tatum.

Listen in to learn how Tatum handled that anti-pattern and how you can avoid it in your teams.

In this episode we refer to the work by Roman Pichler on the role of the Product Owner.

 

About Tatum Bisley

Tatum has 15 years of learning sector experience with the last 3 years in development - helping to make the tools that will enable corporate learning in years to come. Currently building a new jobs and skills application - Hiup - and VR, AR and MR applications for immersive learning.

You can link with Tatum Bisley on LinkedIn and connect with Tatum Bisley on Twitter.

Jun 23, 2017

Understanding the many forces that affect the teams we work with represents a challenge for us as Scrum Masters. We need to learn about different parts of the organization, that we may never have worked with. We need to learn about the impact of the technical environment, which we may not be experts on. And the list goes on. Peter shares with us the power of visualization as a key tool to help understand the environment around the team. In this episode we mention one book recently published by Oikosofy about visual tools that help us understand the system. Head over to Actionable Agile Tools to learn more.

 

About Peter Gfader

Peter hates shitty software and tries his best to improve the profession of software development. For this reason, he joined scrum.org. The seek for improvement keeps him getting out of bed every day... and the smell of coffee that reminds him of warm sunny Sundays in a beach cafe with sand between his toes.

One day, Peter woke up and realized that software development is not only about code, but also about people: From his teammates till the end user. Some people you just give donuts and some you need to give a little bit more. Peter is on a journey to make everyone happy.

If he is not sitting on a mountain bike or playing the trumpet, you might find him at a local user group to hang out with other geeks!

You can link with Peter Grader on LinkedIn and connect with Peter Gfader on Twitter.

Jun 22, 2017

Peter shares his tips on how to establish a shared definition of success with the customer and team that he works with. He also shares some interesting tools to help in that conversation.

In this Episode we refer to the Happiness Index, a tool that Peter uses when assessing his own success as a Scrum Master.

 

About Peter Gfader

Peter hates shitty software and tries his best to improve the profession of software development. For this reason, he joined scrum.org. The seek for improvement keeps him getting out of bed every day... and the smell of coffee that reminds him of warm sunny Sundays in a beach cafe with sand between his toes.

One day, Peter woke up and realized that software development is not only about code, but also about people: From his teammates till the end user. Some people you just give donuts and some you need to give a little bit more. Peter is on a journey to make everyone happy.

If he is not sitting on a mountain bike or playing the trumpet, you might find him at a local user group to hang out with other geeks!

You can link with Peter Grader on LinkedIn and connect with Peter Gfader on Twitter.

Jun 21, 2017

#NoEstimates and #MobProgramming are big trends in the Agile community, but how do we get the benefits and quality of those practices? How do we help teams go from heavy up-front planning to quick, and often planning while still helping each other, raising the quality and feeling like they are working in a real team? Listen to this episode to learn how Peter helped a team reach just that kind of flow! :)

 

About Peter Gfader

Peter hates shitty software and tries his best to improve the profession of software development. For this reason, he joined scrum.org. The seek for improvement keeps him getting out of bed every day... and the smell of coffee that reminds him of warm sunny Sundays in a beach cafe with sand between his toes.

One day, Peter woke up and realized that software development is not only about code, but also about people: From his teammates till the end user. Some people you just give donuts and some you need to give a little bit more. Peter is on a journey to make everyone happy.

If he is not sitting on a mountain bike or playing the trumpet, you might find him at a local user group to hang out with other geeks!

You can link with Peter Grader on LinkedIn and connect with Peter Gfader on Twitter.

Jun 20, 2017

Talent is everywhere in the world, and we can’t always find the right people in our city. But having an offshore team presents specific challenges that we must prepare for. In this episode, Peter shares with us a story of an offshore team, and how the context he missed as a Scrum Master for an offshore team was so critical. In this Episode we also play a fun game that Peter explains in the following blog post: Can you find the 3 smells in “I added a Refactoring Story for the next Cleanup Sprint”?

 

About Peter Gfader

Peter hates shitty software and tries his best to improve the profession of software development. For this reason, he joined scrum.org. The seek for improvement keeps him getting out of bed every day... and the smell of coffee that reminds him of warm sunny Sundays in a beach cafe with sand between his toes.

One day, Peter woke up and realized that software development is not only about code, but also about people: From his teammates till the end user. Some people you just give donuts and some you need to give a little bit more. Peter is on a journey to make everyone happy.

If he is not sitting on a mountain bike or playing the trumpet, you might find him at a local user group to hang out with other geeks!

You can link with Peter Grader on LinkedIn and connect with Peter Gfader on Twitter.

Jun 19, 2017

Peter started working with a team. An XP team. His role and assignment was to help the team, but he was early on told that he should not focus, or “spend” time with people outside the team. What followed next was entirely predictable. Listen in to learn how focusing on the team alone can negatively affect your work as a Scrum Master.

 

About Peter Gfader

Peter hates shitty software and tries his best to improve the profession of software development. For this reason, he joined scrum.org. The seek for improvement keeps him getting out of bed every day... and the smell of coffee that reminds him of warm sunny Sundays in a beach cafe with sand between his toes.

One day, Peter woke up and realized that software development is not only about code, but also about people: From his teammates till the end user. Some people you just give donuts and some you need to give a little bit more. Peter is on a journey to make everyone happy.

If he is not sitting on a mountain bike or playing the trumpet, you might find him at a local user group to hang out with other geeks!

You can link with Peter Grader on LinkedIn and connect with Peter Gfader on Twitter.

Jun 16, 2017

As Scrum Masters we must spend a considerable amount of time investigating and understanding those system conditions that affect the team, but are outside its control. Jonas has a tool he uses to that effect and shares that with us in today’s episode.

 

About Jonas Allared

Jonas is an experienced Scrum Master and Agile Coach and he is especially passionate about creating effective teams and healthy organizations. With focus on the human side he enjoys raising both the well-being and productivity of those he works with.

You can link with Jonas Allared on LinkedIn and connect with Jonas Allared on Twitter.

Jun 15, 2017

When assessing his own work, Jonas focuses on how dependant the team is on his contribution. The less a team is dependant on him, the better he is providing for the team. But he also has a tool up his sleeve that he uses to help him improve over time. In this episode we also discuss the role of metrics in assessing our work as Scrum Masters.  

 

About Jonas Allared

Jonas is an experienced Scrum Master and Agile Coach and he is especially passionate about creating effective teams and healthy organizations. With focus on the human side he enjoys raising both the well-being and productivity of those he works with.

You can link with Jonas Allared on LinkedIn and connect with Jonas Allared on Twitter.

Jun 14, 2017

Working with changing organisations can be frustrating. There are so many obstacles in our way, and we often feel alone in the process of change. Jonas shares his experience and tips on how to avoid that feeling of loneliness and frustration. In this episode we refer to the book Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins and the tool to analyse conversations called “Ladder of Inference”.  

 

About Jonas Allared

Jonas is an experienced Scrum Master and Agile Coach and he is especially passionate about creating effective teams and healthy organizations. With focus on the human side he enjoys raising both the well-being and productivity of those he works with.

You can link with Jonas Allared on LinkedIn and connect with Jonas Allared on Twitter.

Jun 13, 2017

The length of Sprint has been a subject of much debate in the agile community since Scrum introduced the original length of 4 weeks. But what is the right length for the Sprint? Jonas shares with us a cautionary tale on how longer sprints can lead to large problems. He also shares his views and experience on how to go from longer to shorter sprints. All the way to 1 week sprints.

 

About Jonas Allared

Jonas is an experienced Scrum Master and Agile Coach and he is especially passionate about creating effective teams and healthy organizations. With focus on the human side he enjoys raising both the well-being and productivity of those he works with.

You can link with Jonas Allared on LinkedIn and connect with Jonas Allared on Twitter.

Jun 12, 2017

Scrum made it clear from the start that Scrum Master and Product Owner roles are different and require different mind-sent and therefore also different people. But still many companies want to push for having only one person in both roles. Does that work? Maybe it can work, but in this episode we listen to a story where that did not work and what are the signs to look for if are ever in that position.

 

About Jonas Allared

Jonas is an experienced Scrum Master and Agile Coach and he is especially passionate about creating effective teams and healthy organizations. With focus on the human side he enjoys raising both the well-being and productivity of those he works with.

You can link with Jonas Allared on LinkedIn and connect with Jonas Allared on Twitter.

Jun 9, 2017

The #NoEstimates hashtag has been very active on twitter, and many people in the Agile community are pitching in with their thoughts. But what is #NoEstimates about for the author of the first #NoEstimates book? What can we learn from Vasco’s journey that led him to find #NoEstimates? Join us for this active and passionate conversation between Gunther and Vasco.

 

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.

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 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.

 

About Vasco Duarte

The regular host of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast Vasco Duarte joins Gunther for a reverse interview this week.

Vasco is on a journey to transform product development organizations into product business organizations. He does that by focusing the work of the product development teams on the end-to-end life-cycle of their products. From Concept to Cash and Back!

He is currently a Managing Partner at Oikosofy.

Product Manager, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Director, Agile Coach are only some of the roles that Vasco has taken in software development organizations. Having worked in the software industry since 1997, and Agile practitioner since 2004.

You can read more from Vasco at his blog: http://SoftwareDevelopmentToday.com

You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn and connect with Vasco Duarte on Twitter.

Jun 8, 2017

What does it mean to be a successful Scrum Master? That’s a question we ask every week on the podcast. But how about asking: what does it mean to have a successful Scrum adoption? Vasco and Gunther discuss the value of Scrum for organizations and what we need to reach successful Scrum in any organization.

 

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.

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 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.

 

About Vasco Duarte

The regular host of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast Vasco Duarte joins Gunther for a reverse interview this week.

Vasco is on a journey to transform product development organizations into product business organizations. He does that by focusing the work of the product development teams on the end-to-end life-cycle of their products. From Concept to Cash and Back!

He is currently a Managing Partner at Oikosofy.

Product Manager, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Director, Agile Coach are only some of the roles that Vasco has taken in software development organizations. Having worked in the software industry since 1997, and Agile practitioner since 2004.

You can read more from Vasco at his blog: http://SoftwareDevelopmentToday.com

You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn and connect with Vasco Duarte on Twitter.

Jun 7, 2017

Adopting Agile and Scrum specifically is no easy feat. In fact there’s a lot of failed Scrum adoptions out there. What are those problems that prevent our Scrum adoption from succeeding? And most importantly, where should we start when working with a new team or organization? In this episode we discuss the best way to get started with Scrum. Vasco shares with us the 2 steps that every Scrum Master should start with in a new team or organization.

 

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.

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 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.

 

About Vasco Duarte

The regular host of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast Vasco Duarte joins Gunther for a reverse interview this week.

Vasco is on a journey to transform product development organizations into product business organizations. He does that by focusing the work of the product development teams on the end-to-end life-cycle of their products. From Concept to Cash and Back!

He is currently a Managing Partner at Oikosofy.

Product Manager, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Director, Agile Coach are only some of the roles that Vasco has taken in software development organizations. Having worked in the software industry since 1997, and Agile practitioner since 2004.

You can read more from Vasco at his blog: http://SoftwareDevelopmentToday.com

You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn and connect with Vasco Duarte on Twitter.

Jun 6, 2017

In this episode we review the first 2 waves of Scrum. What they were, and what they meant for the Agile adoption and community. Next we do a bit of future prediction and look at what is the next wave of Agile and Scrum. Where is Scrum going? How can a Scrum Master get ready for that? Check out this Episode to learn what’s next for Scrum.

 

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.

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 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.

 

About Vasco Duarte

The regular host of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast Vasco Duarte joins Gunther for a reverse interview this week.

Vasco is on a journey to transform product development organizations into product business organizations. He does that by focusing the work of the product development teams on the end-to-end life-cycle of their products. From Concept to Cash and Back!

He is currently a Managing Partner at Oikosofy.

Product Manager, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Director, Agile Coach are only some of the roles that Vasco has taken in software development organizations. Having worked in the software industry since 1997, and Agile practitioner since 2004.

You can read more from Vasco at his blog: http://SoftwareDevelopmentToday.com

You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn and connect with Vasco Duarte on Twitter.

Jun 5, 2017

We’ve all gone through a twisting and turning Agile journey. When you are a pioneer in Agile adoption like Vasco is, it is impossible not have gone through some very interesting, and twisted steps in that journey. In this episode Vasco shares a secret about his own Agile journey and that that has completely shaped his view of Agile in software development in particular, but also in the overall business landscape.

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.

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 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.

 

About Vasco Duarte

The regular host of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast Vasco Duarte joins Gunther for a reverse interview this week.

Vasco is on a journey to transform product development organizations into product business organizations. He does that by focusing the work of the product development teams on the end-to-end life-cycle of their products. From Concept to Cash and Back!

He is currently a Managing Partner at Oikosofy.

Product Manager, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Director, Agile Coach are only some of the roles that Vasco has taken in software development organizations. Having worked in the software industry since 1997, and Agile practitioner since 2004.

You can read more from Vasco at his blog: http://SoftwareDevelopmentToday.com

You can link with Vasco Duarte on LinkedIn and connect with Vasco Duarte on Twitter.

Jun 2, 2017

There’s some serious gaps in the current Agile scaling frameworks. We know that because we are the start of the scaling journey. But what are the scaling frameworks missing today that we should be looking out for? Steve shares his views on what is missing and how looking at the system performance can help us find the gap, as well as what solutions are already out there to help us close the gap. In this episode we discuss the TameFlow community as well as the concept of Throughput Accounting, from the Theory of Constraints.

 

About Steve Tendon

Steve Tendon popularised the Theory of constraints in some of the agile community and he is also the Creator of the TameFlow systems thinking approach which nurtures breakthrough performance innovation.

This system is described in the book with the same name: Tame the Flow.

You can link with Steve Tendon on LinkedIn and connect with Steve Tendon on Twitter.

Jun 1, 2017

What is success for us in our roles is a question that we constantly ask here on the podcast and we get many different answers. This week we have Steve Tendon with us that shares with psychological flow, a state of FLOW is when we reach optimum performance. Success is then helping our teams reach a state of FLOW. Listen to the episode to hear Steve’s definition of flow as well as his tips on how to help teams reach that state of flow.

 

About Steve Tendon

Steve Tendon popularised the Theory of constraints in some of the agile community and he is also the Creator of the TameFlow systems thinking approach which nurtures breakthrough performance innovation.

This system is described in the book with the same name: Tame the Flow.

You can link with Steve Tendon on LinkedIn and connect with Steve Tendon on Twitter.

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