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.
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.
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.
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.
Scrum Masters with a long experience will rapidly detect the anti-patterns in the teams or organisations that they join. However, there’s another reality going on. The reality of the people that live there, in that organization and have not known a different way to be. If we try to change things too quickly, we risk losing the respect and trust of the people we work with. Don shares with us what is an alternative approach when we “already know what to do”.
In this episode we refer to the book The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey.
About Don McGreal
Don McGreal is VP of Learning Solutions at Improving Enterprises.
He specializes in agile training and coaching at the enterprise and team levels within larger organizations. Don is a Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer who has authored and taught classes for thousands of software professionals around the globe.
He is also co-founder of TastyCupcakes.org, a comprehensive collection of games and exercises for accelerating the adoption of agile principles.
You can link with Don McGreal on LinkedIn and connect with Don McGreal on Twitter.
Don reminds us that we must support the team’s success. That’s our main role as Scrum Masters. If we expect a lot of taps on the back and praise, then Scrum Master is not really the job for us. Instead, we should know that the team recognises our contribution, but they are the ones that need to succeed.
About Don McGreal
Don McGreal is VP of Learning Solutions at Improving Enterprises.
He specializes in agile training and coaching at the enterprise and team levels within larger organizations. Don is a Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer who has authored and taught classes for thousands of software professionals around the globe.
He is also co-founder of TastyCupcakes.org, a comprehensive collection of games and exercises for accelerating the adoption of agile principles.
You can link with Don McGreal on LinkedIn and connect with Don McGreal on Twitter.
What is a good approach to change. There’s probably as many good approaches as there are change projects. Change is unique and contextual. Don shares one story about the mindset of change and what he learned then that he still applies today.
In this episode we refer to the book Lean Change Management by Jason Little.
About Don McGreal
Don McGreal is VP of Learning Solutions at Improving Enterprises.
He specializes in agile training and coaching at the enterprise and team levels within larger organizations. Don is a Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer who has authored and taught classes for thousands of software professionals around the globe.
He is also co-founder of TastyCupcakes.org, a comprehensive collection of games and exercises for accelerating the adoption of agile principles.
You can link with Don McGreal on LinkedIn and connect with Don McGreal on Twitter.
Teams have a natural evolution, and we can’t jump steps in their development. We can, however, help them through those stages. Especially the storming phase in the team development is critical in our work. Don shares some of the ideas and tools he uses to help teams through the storming phase of their careers.
About Don McGreal
Don McGreal is VP of Learning Solutions at Improving Enterprises.
He specializes in agile training and coaching at the enterprise and team levels within larger organizations. Don is a Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer who has authored and taught classes for thousands of software professionals around the globe.
He is also co-founder of TastyCupcakes.org, a comprehensive collection of games and exercises for accelerating the adoption of agile principles.
You can link with Don McGreal on LinkedIn and connect with Don McGreal on Twitter.
When retrospectives don’t work we, sometimes, get discouraged. This also happened to Don. A very experienced Scrum Master that started just like us: from the beginning. Retrospectives, a very important part of the Scrum process, are sometimes abandoned because they are difficult to conduct and get value from. So Don changed his approach to retrospectives. Listen in as Don explains what he learned and why actions are so important for successful retrospectives.
About Don McGreal
Don McGreal is VP of Learning Solutions at Improving Enterprises.
He specializes in agile training and coaching at the enterprise and team levels within larger organizations. Don is a Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer who has authored and taught classes for thousands of software professionals around the globe.
He is also co-founder of TastyCupcakes.org, a comprehensive collection of games and exercises for accelerating the adoption of agile principles.
You can link with Don McGreal on LinkedIn and connect with Don McGreal on Twitter.
The teams we work with exist within systems, and are a system on their own. How do we help teams develop their purpose? After all, purpose is what guides the development of any system. Antti shares his views on the importance of defining purpose and vision, and explains his approach.
In this episode we refer to the book Liftoff by Diana Larsen and Ainsley Nies.
About Antti Kirjavainen
Antti is an experienced coach and an entrepreneur. He defines himself as a knowledge work management thinker, product development coach, a licensed Management 3.0 facilitator. He wants to help teams and organisations maximise their collaboration, success and fun in knowledge work. Antti's background is in games and software development.
Antti works at Flowa, an Agile consultancy in Finland.
You can link with Antti Kirjavainen on LinkedIn and connect with Antti Kirjavainen on Twitter.
If we define success as an end point we might be in serious trouble. As Antti puts it, there’s no end to the improvement cycle. What does that mean for us as Scrum Masters? Listen in to learn about Antti’s experience.
About Antti Kirjavainen
Antti is an experienced coach and an entrepreneur. He defines himself as a knowledge work management thinker, product development coach, a licensed Management 3.0 facilitator. He wants to help teams and organisations maximise their collaboration, success and fun in knowledge work. Antti's background is in games and software development.
Antti works at Flowa, an Agile consultancy in Finland.
You can link with Antti Kirjavainen on LinkedIn and connect with Antti Kirjavainen on Twitter.
Changes can’t always be done from start to finish. Sometimes we need to start small. With an experiment, and build on that over time. Antti shares his story of an experiment that enabled an organization to change their way of working, and how that happened in detail.
About Antti Kirjavainen
Antti is an experienced coach and an entrepreneur. He defines himself as a knowledge work management thinker, product development coach, a licensed Management 3.0 facilitator. He wants to help teams and organisations maximise their collaboration, success and fun in knowledge work. Antti's background is in games and software development.
Antti works at Flowa, an Agile consultancy in Finland.
You can link with Antti Kirjavainen on LinkedIn and connect with Antti Kirjavainen on Twitter.
False pride happens when we are proud of something that does not really help us achieve our goals. Antti shares a story of a team that was proud of their “prototype”, and how that led to problems, when the “prototype” no longer survived the pressure of constant changes.
About Antti Kirjavainen
Antti is an experienced coach and an entrepreneur. He defines himself as a knowledge work management thinker, product development coach, a licensed Management 3.0 facilitator. He wants to help teams and organisations maximise their collaboration, success and fun in knowledge work. Antti's background is in games and software development.
Antti works at Flowa, an Agile consultancy in Finland.
You can link with Antti Kirjavainen on LinkedIn and connect with Antti Kirjavainen on Twitter.
There are many things we take for granted, our beliefs, that prevent us from improving or seeing how things could be done differently. Teams are not immune to that phenomenon, Teams also have their own belief systems. Antti explains how they can affect teams and how to help them get out of their belief “box”.
About Antti Kirjavainen
Antti is an experienced coach and an entrepreneur. He defines himself as a knowledge work management thinker, product development coach, a licensed Management 3.0 facilitator. He wants to help teams and organisations maximise their collaboration, success and fun in knowledge work. Antti's background is in games and software development.
Antti works at Flowa, an Agile consultancy in Finland.
You can link with Antti Kirjavainen on LinkedIn and connect with Antti Kirjavainen on Twitter.
Where do we start understanding what is going on? When we move from one team to another, we need a process of adjustment and learning. We are, after all, outsiders for the first few weeks. Mark explains his approach to getting started with new teams, and what he looks for when identifying the critical system conditions for the team.
About Mark Thuun
Mark started as a software developer when he learned some basic PASCAL from his dad taught. He was then 7-8 years old. Mark has been working as a Scrum Master since january 2015. For 2 years he worked with teams in the biggest telco in Denmark, and currently works for the danish national lottery.
You can link with Mark Thuun on LinkedIn.
The 2 dimensions of success for Mark are team (including PO and stakeholders) happiness and delivering running/working software. But how do we measure those? Do you have a system in place that helps you assess your success in those two dimensions? Listen to Mark explain how he measures his own success around these 2 dimensions of success for Scrum Masters.
About Mark Thuun
Mark started as a software developer when he learned some basic PASCAL from his dad taught. He was then 7-8 years old. Mark has been working as a Scrum Master since january 2015. For 2 years he worked with teams in the biggest telco in Denmark, and currently works for the danish national lottery.
You can link with Mark Thuun on LinkedIn.
Teams, and Scrum Masters often want to “hide” the problems they face by fear of upsetting the stakeholders. But is that really how you foster change? In this episode we listen to a story where showing the problem to all involved helped create the necessary change.
About Mark Thuun
Mark started as a software developer when he learned some basic PASCAL from his dad taught. He was then 7-8 years old. Mark has been working as a Scrum Master since january 2015. For 2 years he worked with teams in the biggest telco in Denmark, and currently works for the danish national lottery.
You can link with Mark Thuun on LinkedIn.
Teams can adopt new ideas, and learn how to improve. Or they can get stuck in the cycle of trying and quitting, but not learning. Which is the pattern in your team? Looking for the patterns of learning in our teams - and detecting the lack of learning - is a great way to prevent teams from committing performance suicide.
About Mark Thuun
Mark started as a software developer when he learned some basic PASCAL from his dad taught. He was then 7-8 years old. Mark has been working as a Scrum Master since january 2015. For 2 years he worked with teams in the biggest telco in Denmark, and currently works for the danish national lottery.
You can link with Mark Thuun on LinkedIn.
Distributed teams are hard to work with, but if you add cultural differences to the mix things get complicated pretty quickly. In this episode we hear a story of a team that was scattered, and a Scrum Master that did not know about the nuances of the team’s national culture. Listen it to learn what happened and how to avoid it from happening to you.
About Mark Thuun
Mark started as a software developer when he learned some basic PASCAL from his dad taught. He was then 7-8 years old. Mark has been working as a Scrum Master since january 2015. For 2 years he worked with teams in the biggest telco in Denmark, and currently works for the danish national lottery.
In this Bonus episode, we have Diana Larsen, and James Shore, both authors of acclaimed books about Agile. They join us to talk about their model called Agile Fluency Model™. We talk about how the model emerged.
For complete show notes, visit http://www.scrum-master-toolbox.org.
Links:
About the authors
Diana Larsen joins us today from Portland, Oregon. Diana leads the practice area for Agile software development, team leadership, and Agile evolutions at FutureWorks Consulting. Diana is co-author of Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great; Liftoff: Start and Sustain Successful Agile Teams; Five Rules for Accelerated Learning; and co-originator of the Agile Fluency™ model.
You can link with Diana Larsen on LinkedIn and connect with Diana Larsen on Twitter.
James Shore joins us today from Portland, Oregon. James is a long-time Agile practitioner who teaches, writes, and consults on Agile development processes. He is a recipient of the Agile Alliance's Gordon Pask Award for Contributions to Agile Practice, co-author of /The Art of Agile Development/, and co-creator of the Agile Fluency Model. InfoQ has named him as one of the "most influential people in Agile." You can find his screencasts at letscodejavascript.com and essays at jamesshore.com.
You can link with James Shore on LinkedIn and connect with James Shore on Twitter.
What do you use to evaluate your understanding of the system where you are? Christian suggest that some questions can help us go a long way towards understanding the system where we work. In this episode we refer to the Happy Melly community, where many other people like us try to understand how to create happier systems of work!
About Christian Delez
Christian is passionate about team dynamics and culture design. Christian loves trying new human interactions patterns to bring happiness for each individual in a team. Christian works as an agile project leader and coach. He also volunteers in www.GreatnessGuild.org and www.tealcamp.ch.
You can link with Christian Delez on LinkedIn and connect with Christian Delez on Twitter.
What aspects do you consider when evaluating your success as a scrum master? In this episode we review the 3 aspects that Christian uses to evaluate the impact of his work. And for each of those 3 aspects we discuss possible metrics for us to use.
About Christian Delez
Christian is passionate about team dynamics and culture design. Christian loves trying new human interactions patterns to bring happiness for each individual in a team. Christian works as an agile project leader and coach. He also volunteers in www.GreatnessGuild.org and www.tealcamp.ch.
You can link with Christian Delez on LinkedIn and connect with Christian Delez on Twitter.
Change resistance is a big topic in the change management community. So big in fact that many say it should be the focus of our work. But should it? How do you organize so that change becomes a normal aspect of daily work life? Christian shares the ideas they are trying out at his workplace, and how that could be useful for you in your efforts to help change take hold.
About Christian Delez
Christian is passionate about team dynamics and culture design. Christian loves trying new human interactions patterns to bring happiness for each individual in a team. Christian works as an agile project leader and coach. He also volunteers in www.GreatnessGuild.org and www.tealcamp.ch.
You can link with Christian Delez on LinkedIn and connect with Christian Delez on Twitter.
What have you done lately to help your team communicate better? Lack of communication, or even ineffective communication can cause problems. Serious problems. In this episode we talk about how communication can be improved, and what happens when it doesn’t.
In this episode we refer to the concept of Obeya, the large project room where the team can communicate and create the community aspect of a project.
About Christian Delez
Christian is passionate about team dynamics and culture design. Christian loves trying new human interactions patterns to bring happiness for each individual in a team. Christian works as an agile project leader and coach. He also volunteers in www.GreatnessGuild.org and www.tealcamp.ch.
You can link with Christian Delez on LinkedIn and connect with Christian Delez on Twitter.
The Definition of Done, or DoD, is an original part of Scrum. And it is there to help teams focus on the things that matter to deliver their work at an acceptable level of completion, aka “Done, Done”. But itself does not make miracles happen. There’s a lot of work in making a DoD stick, and Christian relates one of those stories in this episode.
About Christian Delez
Christian is passionate about team dynamics and culture design. Christian loves trying new human interactions patterns to bring happiness for each individual in a team. Christian works as an agile project leader and coach. He also volunteers in www.GreatnessGuild.org and www.tealcamp.ch.
You can link with Christian Delez on LinkedIn and connect with Christian Delez on Twitter.