Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
In this episode, we explore in detail some of the most common anti-patterns Darren sees in the Product Owner role, and we discuss why a PO training is not necessary for a great PO.
To be a great Product Owner, it isn’t necessary to have attended a certification course. However, it is necessary to have a good connection to the business and a sharp focus on outcomes (impact) over output (more work). In this segment, we discuss what happens when you have those characteristics in your PO.
There are many sides to a failed Product Owner role. In this episode, Darren shares with us some of the most common anti-patterns that he’s witnessed in his career as a Scrum Master.
In this segment, we refer to the remote facilitation online masterclass by Judy Rees.
For more anti-patterns, read Darren’s “How to Fail as Product Owner” infographic.
[IMAGE HERE]Are you having trouble helping the team working well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at: bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.
About Darren Smith
Darren, aka the Naked Scrum Master, has been helping teams and organizations be better than they were by exposing dysfunction and helping people to remove obstacles from their path so they can be happier and more fulfilled in their working lives.
You can link with Darren Smith on LinkedIn and connect with Darren Smith on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
“Leaders make leaders of other people” is the phrase Darren shares with us to explain his view on what success is for a Scrum Master. By focusing on the team, and what they can do, Darren helps teams grow and become self-sufficient.
In this episode, we refer to Darren Smith’s The Naked Scrum Master blog, as well as the book Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke.
There are many formats that Darren likes to use. In this episode, he advocates the use of the “right” method for the retrospective, at the “right” time. Listen to the story of a team under pressure, and what Darren did to be able to help the team with his retrospective format.
About Darren Smith
Darren, aka the Naked Scrum Master, has been helping teams and organizations be better than they were by exposing dysfunction and helping people to remove obstacles from their path so they can be happier and more fulfilled in their working lives.
You can link with Darren Smith on LinkedIn and connect with Darren Smith on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
Change processes can sometimes be overwhelming. Darren has found his own way to handle that by focusing on small steps and one inspiring question he shares with us in this episode. Listen in to learn what is the question that can inspire change in your Scrum team.
In this episode, we refer to the book Lean Change Management by Jason Little.
About Darren Smith
Darren, aka the Naked Scrum Master, has been helping teams and organizations be better than they were by exposing dysfunction and helping people to remove obstacles from their path so they can be happier and more fulfilled in their working lives.
You can link with Darren Smith on LinkedIn and connect with Darren Smith on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
You only know a good team when they are under pressure. It’s easy to “follow the process” if you have a lot of time, and little pressure. However, as a Scrum Master, you know you’ve done good work when the team sticks to the process (and even improves it) when they are under pressure. I advocate using self-imposed pressure to get better, I’ve written and recorded a video about that based on my own experience as a runner. The same is true in your work as a Scrum Master!
In Agile Actionable Metrics For Predictability by Dan Vacanti, Darren found the inspiration to start using and learning from metrics. It also got Darren started on Probabilistic Forecasting, a method he uses regularly.
In this segment, we also refer to Agile Retrospectives by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen, and to Scrum Mastery, but Geoff Watts. Both Diana Larsen and Geoff Watts have been guests here on the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast.
About Darren Smith
Darren, aka the Naked Scrum Master, has been helping teams and organizations be better than they were by exposing dysfunction and helping people to remove obstacles from their path so they can be happier and more fulfilled in their working lives.
You can link with Darren Smith on LinkedIn and connect with Darren Smith on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
I’ve often said that we don’t coach the same team two days in a row. Each team is unique, but each team changes also daily. We must, as Scrum Masters, be on our toes and ready to adapt. In this episode, we explore a story that shares why that is important. We talk about a solution that worked for a team but backfired in another team. Same problem, same solution, completely opposite results! What do you believe in, which worked before, but might be wrong today?
About Darren Smith
Darren, aka the Naked Scrum Master, has been helping teams and organizations be better than they were by exposing dysfunction and helping people to remove obstacles from their path so they can be happier and more fulfilled in their working lives.
You can link with Darren Smith on LinkedIn and connect with Darren Smith on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
Product Owners are also responsible for the success of their products, not just for the content (user stories, etc.) they help develop. We discuss how PO’s with a business focus have a positive impact on the teams they work with. We also discuss what happens when the PO is overbearing and pushy towards the team.
Product Owners are responsible for the success of the products they own, but also for the business success of those products. Addo shares some of the aspects that help PO’s succeed, like being physically present with the team, or making sure the team and the PO get together on the same location regularly, when working with a distributed team.
When PO’s are overbearing and patronizing, they inadvertently cause the team members to step back and not share their insights and ideas. There’s a risk that team members will do only what they are “told” because they lose motivation. In this segment, we discuss how Scrum Masters can help these PO’s learn to allow the team to participate actively in the product design.
[IMAGE HERE]Are you having trouble helping the team working well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at: bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.
About Addo de Visser
Addo is a good team player, has a broad experience in different roles (Agile Coach, Scrum Master). Trainer in Agile. He communicates very well within all levels of an organization. He is motivated by structuring, getting people to work together towards a common goal, and bridge the gap between Business and IT.
Addo is the author of a book on Agile. Addo’s book in English: “Agile: the times they are a-changing”. Addo’s book in Dutch: “Agile: the times they are a-changing”.
Remember: the profit of the book goes completely to program for children in developing countries!
You can link with Addo de Visser on LinkedIn and connect with Addo de Visser on Twitter.
You can also visit Addo’s page on Cap Gemini Academy.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
In this episode, we talk about how predictable teams are, and the impact that the “energy” in the team can have on their success. We review how you can use these two aspects to measure your success as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach.
Addo prefers any format that is not the standard Went well/Didn’t work/To improve. He shares with us an exercise that will help the team members conect on a personal level, and develop the team dynamic at the same time. Two truths and a lie, is a simple exercise to, for example, start a new team off on the right foot.
About Addo de Visser
Addo is a good team player, has a broad experience in different roles (Agile Coach, Scrum Master). Trainer in Agile. He communicates very well within all levels of an organization. He is motivated by structuring, getting people to work together towards a common goal, and bridge the gap between Business and IT.
Addo is the author of a book on Agile. Addo’s book in English: “Agile: the times they are a-changing”. Addo’s book in Dutch: “Agile: the times they are a-changing”.
Remember: the profit of the book goes completely to program for children in developing countries!
You can link with Addo de Visser on LinkedIn and connect with Addo de Visser on Twitter.
You can also visit Addo’s page on Cap Gemini Academy.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
When Addo was asked to help an energy company to transition to Agile, he started to develop an approach that he shares with us in this episode. We discuss 5+ lessons he learned, and share how those practices can start a bottom-up transformation at your organization.
About Addo de Visser
Addo is a good team player, has a broad experience in different roles (Agile Coach, Scrum Master). Trainer in Agile. He communicates very well within all levels of an organization. He is motivated by structuring, getting people to work together towards a common goal, and bridge the gap between Business and IT.
Addo is the author of a book on Agile. Addo’s book in English: “Agile: the times they are a-changing”. Addo’s book in Dutch: “Agile: the times they are a-changing”.
Remember: the profit of the book goes completely to program for children in developing countries!
You can link with Addo de Visser on LinkedIn and connect with Addo de Visser on Twitter.
You can also visit Addo’s page on Cap Gemini Academy.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
It is tempting to make project managers the new Scrum Masters. They just need to be trained, right? In this segment, we discuss what can happen when people with the wrong mindset get assigned to the position of Scrum Master. We also talk about the different leadership styles that Scrum Masters need to embrace.
Scrum a pocket guide by Gunther Verheyen (who’s been a guest on the podcast before) is a book that Addo describes as “concise and to the point”. In this segment, we also refer to Software in 30 days by Ken Schwaber and The Goal for Eliahy Goldratt, a book on Theory of Constraints.
About Addo de Visser
Addo is a good team player, has a broad experience in different roles (Agile Coach, Scrum Master). Trainer in Agile. He communicates very well within all levels of an organization. He is motivated by structuring, getting people to work together towards a common goal, and bridge the gap between Business and IT.
Addo is the author of a book on Agile. Addo’s book in English: “Agile: the times they are a-changing”. Addo’s book in Dutch: “Agile: the times they are a-changing”.
Remember: the profit of the book goes completely to program for children in developing countries!
You can link with Addo de Visser on LinkedIn and connect with Addo de Visser on Twitter.
You can also visit Addo’s page on Cap Gemini Academy.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
When we face difficult situations at work, sometimes we let go of what we believe in. Has that happened to you? In this episode, we talk about what happens when Scrum Masters “forget” their values and personal identity and try to adapt to a reality that is not theirs. Addo invites us to think: are we the right person fo the job we are struggling with?
About Addo de Visser
Addo is a good team player, has a broad experience in different roles (Agile Coach, Scrum Master). Trainer in Agile. He communicates very well within all levels of an organization. He is motivated by structuring, getting people to work together towards a common goal, and bridge the gap between Business and IT.
Addo is the author of a book on Agile. Addo’s book in English: “Agile: the times they are a-changing”. Addo’s book in Dutch: “Agile: the times they are a-changing”.
Remember: the profit of the book goes completely to program for children in developing countries!
You can link with Addo de Visser on LinkedIn and connect with Addo de Visser on Twitter.
You can also visit Addo’s page on Cap Gemini Academy.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
From the Great communicator to the Absent PO, we discuss two contrasting patterns in the PO role. Which one is your PO more like?
Great Product Owners are often good at communicating at all levels of the organization. They understand enough the technology and have a keen interest in how the customers and users experience the product they are in charge of. Finally, we talk about the critical role PO’s have in managing stakeholders. We also talk about the concept of BizDevOps, an approach that encourages collaboration between developers, operations staff and business teams.
In a previous survey I ran with you, the audience for this podcast, we found out that one of the most common, and most difficult PO anti-patterns was that of the Absent Product Owner.
In this segment, we explore Rik’s experience with that anti-pattern, and how Scrum Masters can help their PO’s step out of that anti-pattern.
In this segment, we also explore a possible practical solution to coach the PO: the Sprint Checklist, which is freely available here on the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast website.
[IMAGE HERE]Are you having trouble helping the team working well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at: bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.
About Rik Pennartz
Rik is an agile coach, who's worked during the last years at the Volksbank, the Dutch Railways and ABN AMRO bank. Rik also teaches various agile courses such as Professional Scrum Master, DevOps fundamentals and Leading SAFe.
You can find Rik Pennartz at the Cap Gemini Academy.
You can link with Rik Pennartz on LinkedIn and connect with Rik Pennartz on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
In this episode, we talk about 3 aspects that Rik focuses on when evaluating the success of his work as a Scrum Master and coach. Listen in to learn what are the three questions he asks of himself and the team.
How can you start your retrospective in a funny, yet insightful check-in exercise? In this segment, we talk about the Meme Retrospective exercise. Have every team member look for a meme that described their last sprint. Print those out, and paste them on the wall where you will have the retrospective. You’re sure to get a laugh, while still talking about the real issues the team is facing.
About Rik Pennartz
Rik is an agile coach, who's worked during the last years at the Volksbank, the Dutch Railways and ABN AMRO bank. Rik also teaches various agile courses such as Professional Scrum Master, DevOps fundamentals and Leading SAFe.
You can find Rik Pennartz at the Cap Gemini Academy.
You can link with Rik Pennartz on LinkedIn and connect with Rik Pennartz on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
What is needed to change the culture in your organization? For example towards DevOps or Agile culture? We discuss many of the aspects that count towards that change and draw on many examples from other companies and industries. In this episode we mention:
This is an episode filled with references that will help you with your leadership and change leadership skills.
About Rik Pennartz
Rik is an agile coach, who's worked during the last years at the Volksbank, the Dutch Railways and ABN AMRO bank. Rik also teaches various agile courses such as Professional Scrum Master, DevOps fundamentals and Leading SAFe.
You can find Rik Pennartz at the Cap Gemini Academy.
You can link with Rik Pennartz on LinkedIn and connect with Rik Pennartz on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
In this episode, we explore the story of a team that was scattered and working outside the office. We then explore the anti-patterns that made those team members feel like outsiders in their own team. Finally, we talk about the antidote, what to do to make the team feel like a team, no matter where they are.
In this episode, we also talk about Transformational Leadership.
In The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle, Rik found a definition of the characteristics of successful groups. What makes them tick and got some inspiring stories that help him be a better coach for his teams.
About Rik Pennartz
Rik is an agile coach, who's worked during the last years at the Volksbank, the Dutch Railways and ABN AMRO bank. Rik also teaches various agile courses such as Professional Scrum Master, DevOps fundamentals and Leading SAFe.
You can find Rik Pennartz at the Cap Gemini Academy.
You can link with Rik Pennartz on LinkedIn and connect with Rik Pennartz on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
When Scrum Masters start their journey but come from project management or even line management background, there’s the temptation to “tell people what to do”. However, that’s not a good approach to help teams grow and improve. In this episode, we explore the role of the Scrum Master as a coach, and discuss how to set up and host “Coaching Conversations”.
In this episode, we refer to Gregg Popovich, legendary coach of the Basketball team San Antonio Spurs.
About Rik Pennartz
Rik is an agile coach, who's worked during the last years at the Volksbank, the Dutch Railways and ABN AMRO bank. Rik also teaches various agile courses such as Professional Scrum Master, DevOps fundamentals and Leading SAFe.
You can find Rik Pennartz at the Cap Gemini Academy.
You can link with Rik Pennartz on LinkedIn and connect with Rik Pennartz on Twitter.
Transformation is a big word. What does it mean in practice, and what can we learn from Jeff’s and Amer’s stories to help us in our own roles as Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches and Change Agents? We deep dive into a real story that started small, and slow, but achieved great changes that both teams and their organization benefited from.
About Amer Hamzeh and Jeff Campbell
Amer is the Product Lead for Platform at Native Instruments, a leading manufacturer of software and hardware for computer-based audio production DJ-ing. Having honed his skills as a Software Engineer, Scrum Master, and Product Manager at the time when Agile, Lean Startup, DevOps, and Cloud Computing were breaking into the mainstream he has spent the past few years as a Product Manager building internal Software Platforms that reduce the cognitive overhead and enables delivering high-quality software in a sustainable manner.
You can link with Amer Hamzeh on LinkedIn and connect with Amer Hamzeh on Twitter.
Jeff is an Agile Coach who considers the discovery of Agile and Lean to be one of the most defining moments of his life and considers helping others to improve their working life not to simply be a job, but a social responsibility.
He is the author of actionable agile tools, which you can get on Amazon and directly from the author at bit.ly/aatbook
As an Agile Coach, he has worked with driving Agile transformations in organisations both small and large.
You can link with Jeff Campbell on LinkedIn and connect with Jeff Campbell on Twitter.
You can also learn more about Jeff Campbell’s work at his company’s website.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
From some of the characteristics that make great Product Owners to two common anti-patterns that PO’s suffer from. In this episode, we take a deep dive into the PO role and why it is so critical for the success of the team and the product.
In this segment, we explore some of the characteristics that make Product Owners great contributors to the success of the team. We also discuss how teams change when teams exhibit these characteristics.
It is common that some Project Managers switch over to the PO role when their organization “goes Agile”. But there are some risks when that happens. In this segment, we talk about the possible anti-patterns of the PO that used to be a project manager, as well as about what happens when the PO is not available when the team needs.
Are you having trouble helping the team working well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at: bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.
About Moana Pledger
Mo started her career in education and program management before moving into digital delivery. She's pretty sure she was a servant-leader before she had even heard the term. Her passion is to build healthy teams and foster the all-important relationship between business and team, which allows a safe space for the magic to happen.
You can link with Moana Pledger on LinkedIn and connect with Moana Pledger on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
In order to assess her success as a Scrum Master, Moana likes to look at the team members’ ability and willingness to take on the responsibility for learning and adapting to the challenges they face. But there are other signs like the team taking responsibility for preparing and hosting their own retrospectives. Finally, we talk about the idea of “swarming” and how teams that implement that approach ends up achieving more.
In this episode, we talk about the 3-amigo sessions, team health-checks and their role for Scrum Masters, a technique called Satisfactogram, and the “pats-on-back” technique, which is similar to the Kudos Box from Management 3.0.
Lean Coffee, a format we referred to in several other episodes, is a good format to help teams explore what is critical for them at that time. Moana describes how this format is a safe format for team members to approach topics that may seem untouchable when using other conversations and retrospective formats. We should also note, that the Lean Coffee format is also very good at helping to discuss the “edge” topics, that could easily be forgotten otherwise.
About Moana Pledger
Mo started her career in education and program management before moving into digital delivery. She's pretty sure she was a servant-leader before she had even heard the term. Her passion is to build healthy teams and foster the all-important relationship between business and team, which allows a safe space for the magic to happen.
You can link with Moana Pledger on LinkedIn and connect with Moana Pledger on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
When Moana was asked to help this organization, she found a common anti-pattern: the teams had reverted back to Waterfall after their previous Agile Coach left. This is a very common pattern, and we must learn how to deal with it. In this episode, we explore the context of that organization and also learn about the techniques that Moana employed to help that organization get back on the Agile adoption path.
In this episode, we refer to Lean Coffee, a technique you can use to help teams talk and open up about their situation.
About Moana Pledger
Mo started her career in education and program management before moving into digital delivery. She's pretty sure she was a servant-leader before she had even heard the term. Her passion is to build healthy teams and foster the all-important relationship between business and team, which allows a safe space for the magic to happen.
You can link with Moana Pledger on LinkedIn and connect with Moana Pledger on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
When all works well with a team, there’s the temptation for us as Scrum Masters to think that the “team gets it”, but even if that is the case, your role, and who you are is part of that system. When you leave things will be different. In this episode, we explore what happens when the Scrum Master leaves, and the previous technical lead takes over. In this story, we will hear the anti-patterns that can easily develop when the critical role of the Scrum Master is taken by someone else.
In this episode, we refer to Behavior Driven Development and “The New World Order” retrospective exercise, you can host a similar Agile Retrospective by using The Perfection Game exercise by Jim and Michele McCarthy, authors of the Core Protocols.
In Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind by Nancy Kline, Moana learned that it is critical to focus on improving our own performance so that we can help the teams we work with. In the book, she learned about the importance to focus on the quality of attention she gives to others when working with them.
About Moana Pledger
Mo started her career in education and program management before moving into digital delivery. She's pretty sure she was a servant-leader before she had even heard the term. Her passion is to build healthy teams and foster the all-important relationship between business and team, which allows a safe space for the magic to happen.
You can link with Moana Pledger on LinkedIn and connect with Moana Pledger on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
Not all teams have the benefit of working within an Agile organization. Some of the teams we work with are stuck between Waterfall and Agile. And as Scrum Masters, we very often get asked to work with teams that are struggling with exactly that problem. In this episode, we discuss how we can help teams that are in a similar situation, and what Mo learned from that story that you can use to your advantage.
In this episode, we refer to Martine Davos, and Agile Coach and Scrum trainer.
About Moana Pledger
Mo started her career in education and program management before moving into digital delivery. She's pretty sure she was a servant-leader before she had even heard the term. Her passion is to build healthy teams and foster the all-important relationship between business and team, which allows a safe space for the magic to happen.
You can link with Moana Pledger on LinkedIn and connect with Moana Pledger on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
About Chelsie Raiola
Chelsie has been working as a Scrum Master in the Greater Boston Area for just over two years. She has experience working with both co-located and distributed teams developing on-premise and SaaS solutions worldwide. She is an avid lover of technology, dogs, and bullet journals, Chelsie loves finding ways to bring Agile outside of the office.
You can link with Chelsie Raiola on LinkedIn.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
About Chelsie Raiola
Chelsie has been working as a Scrum Master in the Greater Boston Area for just over two years. She has experience working with both co-located and distributed teams developing on-premise and SaaS solutions worldwide. She is an avid lover of technology, dogs, and bullet journals, Chelsie loves finding ways to bring Agile outside of the office.
You can link with Chelsie Raiola on LinkedIn.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
About Chelsie Raiola
Chelsie has been working as a Scrum Master in the Greater Boston Area for just over two years. She has experience working with both co-located and distributed teams developing on-premise and SaaS solutions worldwide. She is an avid lover of technology, dogs, and bullet journals, Chelsie loves finding ways to bring Agile outside of the office.
You can link with Chelsie Raiola on LinkedIn.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website.
About Chelsie Raiola
Chelsie has been working as a Scrum Master in the Greater Boston Area for just over two years. She has experience working with both co-located and distributed teams developing on-premise and SaaS solutions worldwide. She is an avid lover of technology, dogs, and bullet journals, Chelsie loves finding ways to bring Agile outside of the office.
You can link with Chelsie Raiola on LinkedIn.