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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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Now displaying: May, 2021
May 31, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

What are the necessary conditions for us to successfully implement, and benefit from Scrum? That’s a question that we explore in this episode, where Dov shares a story of a team that worked isolated from the rest, and which did not have a real Product Owner. In this episode, we also discuss what we should do when Scrum isn’t the right fit for the conditions around the team. 

About Dov Tsal

Dov Tsal is a versatile agile coach, scrum-master, change-agent and enabler, helping companies teams and individuals to make an impact. Dov is also the creator of the #MeetingSpicer, a coaching tool to hack meeting culture. He is also the co-creator of The Agile Tao Podcast about understanding agility through the Taoist prism.

You can link with Dov Tsal on LinkedIn

May 29, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

In this episode, we explore Luke’s lessons learned when working with Agile teams remotely. 

About Luke Szyrmer

Luke is the host of the Align Remotely podcast. Luke has managed or participated in fully remote teams for almost a decade. He has lead programs of widely distributed teams. Over the last 9 years, he has lead teams building software, running marketing and sales, and launched a bestselling book. Remotely. In many cases, with people he never met or spoke to in person.

You can link with Luke Szyrmer on LinkedIn and connect with Luke Szyrmer on Twitter

You can also follow Luke’s work at AlignRemotely.com.

May 28, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Looking at the Product Owner in relation to the team is a critical aspect of our assessment when coming into a new team. In this episode, we talk about the PO that was absent, and let the team alone, and contrast that with a PO that saw herself as a team member and how that changed the perspective the team had on the PO role. 

The Great Product Owner: PO as a team member, not only team stakeholder

This Product Owner believed that the team needed to share her vision, and never missed a chance to share the purpose and the vision with the team. The PO also made sure that all the team members were heard, and role-modeled the idea of experimentation, and learning from exposing ideas to customers. Finally, the PO assumed the role of a team member, not a team stakeholder. 

The Bad Product Owner: Helping the PO focus on value and delight for customers

We’ve discussed often here on the podcast how “being absent” is one of the most common, and most dangerous Product Owner anti-patterns (see this article on how to solve that anti-pattern). But there’s an even worse variation that mixes in the “belief” that Agile will solve all the problems the team has, which leads the PO to step back even further. In this segment, we talk about how to bring the PO back into the conversation with the team and focus on value and delight for customers. 

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 Kya MacDonald

Kyla imagines a world where the talk at Friday drinks is all about the great things we achieved in the week, what we learned, and what we can try next. As she puts it, people who find satisfaction, meaning, fun, and growth in their work, will naturally be in a better position to find the same in their home life. The thing that excites Kyla the most about agile is how concepts and principles apply to any and every area of your life. Which for her is running, paragliding and life on her hobby farm (they call it a lifestyle block in NZ).

You can link with Kyla MacDonald on LinkedIn and connect with Kyla MacDonald on Twitter.

May 27, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Kyla was working with a team of coaches, and they defined they vision as “We exist to support teams to deliver more value, more frequently with more ease and more delight”. This helped them accept that they were always there to push the teams forward, and then again move forward. To ensure they kept themselves accountable, they needed to keep score for themselves as a team of coaches. Listen in to learn how they measured themselves and the impact they had on the teams they worked with.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The 3 V’s

Kyla shares the 3V’s format, where the team discusses Value, Velocity and Vitality! This format helped her introduce the concept of fulfillment and how the work we do has many dimensions. 

Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM’s that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!  

About Kyla MacDonald

Kyla imagines a world where the talk at Friday drinks is all about the great things we achieved in the week, what we learned, and what we can try next. As she puts it, people who find satisfaction, meaning, fun, and growth in their work, will naturally be in a better position to find the same in their home life. The thing that excites Kyla the most about agile is how concepts and principles apply to any and every area of your life. Which for her is running, paragliding and life on her hobby farm (they call it a lifestyle block in NZ).

You can link with Kyla MacDonald on LinkedIn and connect with Kyla MacDonald on Twitter.

May 26, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Kyla was working on an Agile transformation program. This program started with an inspiring question: “what would a great day look like at work?”

The CIO that had just arrived helped management learn from other organizations, and that started to transform the organization. Listen in to learn how that Agile transformation team helped change the mindset and desire to go to work for hundreds of people. 

About Kyla MacDonald

Kyla imagines a world where the talk at Friday drinks is all about the great things we achieved in the week, what we learned, and what we can try next. As she puts it, people who find satisfaction, meaning, fun, and growth in their work, will naturally be in a better position to find the same in their home life. The thing that excites Kyla the most about agile is how concepts and principles apply to any and every area of your life. Which for her is running, paragliding and life on her hobby farm (they call it a lifestyle block in NZ).

You can link with Kyla MacDonald on LinkedIn and connect with Kyla MacDonald on Twitter.

May 25, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Kyla was working with a team that was under a lot of pressure. They were busy, and stressed. No one in that organization wanted to disturb, or interrupt this team. So much so, that planning was done only with senior people. However, by not wanting to interrupt the team, the organization was making the team unaware of why they were working on, and confused. The story changes when the Product Owner starts involving the team in planning and decision making. 

Featured Book of the Week: Leadership is Language by David L. Marquet

In Leadership is Language by David L. Marquet (a previous guest here on the podcast), Kyla learned about how language impacts people and behaviours. A key lesson for us, Scrum Masters. In this episode, we also talk about The Skilled Facilitator by Roger M. Schwarz, where she learned some of the concepts she now applies in her work as Scrum Master. 

How can Angela (the Agile Coach) quickly build healthy relationships with the teams she’s supposed to help? What were the steps she followed to help the Breeze App team fight off the competition? Find out how Angela helped Naomi and the team go from “behind” to being ahead of Intuition Bank, by focusing on the people! Download the first 4 chapters of the BOOK for FREE while it is in Beta!

About Kyla MacDonald

Kyla imagines a world where the talk at Friday drinks is all about the great things we achieved in the week, what we learned, and what we can try next. As she puts it, people who find satisfaction, meaning, fun, and growth in their work, will naturally be in a better position to find the same in their home life. The thing that excites Kyla the most about agile is how concepts and principles apply to any and every area of your life. Which for her is running, paragliding and life on her hobby farm (they call it a lifestyle block in NZ).

You can link with Kyla MacDonald on LinkedIn and connect with Kyla MacDonald on Twitter.

May 24, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

When Kyla worked with her first Agile team, she got lucky. The team was filled with great people, who were curious, and willing to change and learn. Later on, when working with another team, she had the same expectations. However, that team was not like the first. They thought Agile was a waste of time. This setup Kyla for a very important lesson that all Scrum Masters will have to learn, sooner or later. 

About Kyla MacDonald

Kyla imagines a world where the talk at Friday drinks is all about the great things we achieved in the week, what we learned, and what we can try next. As she puts it, people who find satisfaction, meaning, fun, and growth in their work, will naturally be in a better position to find the same in their home life. The thing that excites Kyla the most about agile is how concepts and principles apply to any and every area of your life. Which for her is running, paragliding and life on her hobby farm (they call it a lifestyle block in NZ).

You can link with Kyla MacDonald on LinkedIn and connect with Kyla MacDonald on Twitter

May 21, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

In this episode, we talk about how an empathic Product Owner can make a big difference when working with Scrum teams. We also discuss how Product Backlogs are really owned by the PO and the team, not only the PO.

The Great Product Owner: Empathy, and handling pressure, key PO skills

A team will quickly notice if the Product Owner has empathy, which is a critical asset for Product Owners that want to succeed. A great PO will also know how to communicate with the team, so that they can work on handling the inevitable delivery pressure that will affect both the team and the Product Owner. Finally, we discuss how great Product Owners are proactive about involving stakeholders. 

In this episode, we talk about the #NoEstimates approach to determining release dates (We’ve also discuss the #NoEstimates ideas in these episodes).

 

The Bad Product Owner: Sharing the ownership of the backlog

Philip shares with us why he thinks that there is widespread confusion about the Product Owner role. Many think that it is only the Product Owner that writes / maintains the backlog. However, really great teams understand that the PO is only one of the people that ensures the backlog is ready and up to the necessary level for the team. We also discuss what we can do, as Scrum Masters, to help teams and Product Owners own the backlog together. In this episode, we also talk about the idea of the “3 amigos” session to refine product backlog items (we’ve covered the 3 amigos sessions and approach in these episodes).

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 Philip Rogers

Phil, is a father of four children and volunteer paleontologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. He is also an "agile whisperer" (coach) who has worked with scores of teams in the spirit of continuous learning, continuous improvement, and simply finding creative ways to collaborate and have fun in the workplace.

You can link with Philip Rogers on LinkedIn and connect with Philip Rogers on Twitter.

May 20, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

When we try to assess our impact and success as Scrum Masters, we can look at team happiness and satisfaction. Measuring those will help us assess our impact, and there are simple ways to do it. In this episode, we talk about the Niko Niko Calendar (the Niko Niko Calendar has been previously discussed also in other episodes) and the ideas from the Spotify Health Check approach.

Featured Retrospective From for the Week: Pick Discussion Questions

Philip shares with us a format that can be setup relatively quickly, and focuses on helping the team get started with a productive discussion on some of the most pressing topics for them. Philip shares some of the questions he uses when starting this kind of retrospective, and suggests we use a Futurespective to help teams gain fresh insights on their approach to work. 

 

[IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM’s that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!  

About Philip Rogers

Phil, is a father of four children and volunteer paleontologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. He is also an "agile whisperer" (coach) who has worked with scores of teams in the spirit of continuous learning, continuous improvement, and simply finding creative ways to collaborate and have fun in the workplace.

You can link with Philip Rogers on LinkedIn and connect with Philip Rogers on Twitter.

May 19, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Philip was working with a health care organization, and discovered that they had not yet had help from other agile coaches. As he started working with teams, he discovered that one of the people who brought him in, was not all that positive on the change Philip had been hired to do. 

This created confusion, and conflict. So Philip started working on how to align teams quickly and developed a “rapid alignment framework” using techniques like Inception from the book The Agile Samurai by Rasmusson

In this episode, we also discuss Story Mapping and the Scrum Master playbook by Philip

About Philip Rogers

Phil, is a father of four children and volunteer paleontologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. He is also an "agile whisperer" (coach) who has worked with scores of teams in the spirit of continuous learning, continuous improvement, and simply finding creative ways to collaborate and have fun in the workplace.

You can link with Philip Rogers on LinkedIn and connect with Philip Rogers on Twitter.

May 18, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Philip was working in an organization that was undergoing an Agile transformation. As they started to work with a few teams, they observed that the teams were quite large, and had a trade union representative. This meant that the teams were heavily silo-ed, with testers only doing testing, developers only programming, etc. Because of this, the teams could not be made smaller. In this episode, we discuss how we can help teams improve, even when they are stuck with their current structure. Philip shares the Team Canvas, to help facilitate the definition of working agreements

Featured Book of the Week: Agile Retrospectives by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen

In Agile Retrospectives by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen, Philip found a book that helped him learn how to run effective retrospectives and become a retrospective specialist. As he practices his approaches to retrospectives, Philip ended up creating a Trello Board with many retrospective formats to serve as inspiration and help other Scrum Masters host great retrospectives. You can check out Philip’s retrospective Trello Board here

How can Angela (the Agile Coach) quickly build healthy relationships with the teams she’s supposed to help? What were the steps she followed to help the Breeze App team fight off the competition? Find out how Angela helped Naomi and the team go from “behind” to being ahead of Intuition Bank, by focusing on the people! Download the first 4 chapters of the BOOK for FREE while it is in Beta!

About Philip Rogers

Phil, is a father of four children and volunteer paleontologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. He is also an "agile whisperer" (coach) who has worked with scores of teams in the spirit of continuous learning, continuous improvement, and simply finding creative ways to collaborate and have fun in the workplace.

You can link with Philip Rogers on LinkedIn and connect with Philip Rogers on Twitter.

May 17, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Philip was helping an organization setup an offshore operation by helping a team startup. That caused communication problems as the times the teams could be at work did not have sufficient overlap. But there were many other anti-patterns that came from having 2 teams on opposite sides of the planet. 

In this episode, we talk about how to setup a global software development operation, and share some of the practices that can help, even when teams are globally distributed. 

About Philip Rogers

Phil, is a father of four children and volunteer paleontologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. He is also an "agile whisperer" (coach) who has worked with scores of teams in the spirit of continuous learning, continuous improvement, and simply finding creative ways to collaborate and have fun in the workplace.

You can link with Philip Rogers on LinkedIn and connect with Philip Rogers on Twitter.

May 14, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

In this episode, we share some of the most critical anti-patterns in the Product Owner role.

The Great Product Owner: Constantly seeking to learn

This Product Owner was a “team player”, worked with the team closely, and did not try to establish a position of superiority. The PO made the roadmap visible to all, and was great at involving the stakeholders in product decisions. But the PO did not stop there, and actively searched for training, to learn even more about the Product Owner role!

The Bad Product Owner: Unfocused, solution-centric, part-time Product Owner, a recipe for failure

This Product Owner was not able to focus, the engineering background didn’t help in this case, as the PO was constantly drifting into discuss solutions instead of sharing the “what” and “why” that would help the team find the right solution. But the biggest anti-pattern is when the PO can’t even dedicate their whole time to the role of PO. 

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 Evelien Acun-Roos

Evelien Acun-Roos is an experienced Agile Trainer at Xebia Academy, Professional Scrum Trainer at Scrum.org and a Certified Trainer for “Training from the Back of the Room”.

You can link with Evelien Acun-Roos on LinkedIn and connect with Evelien Acun-Roos on Twitter

May 13, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Evelien focuses on the Happiness metric as well as business value to help her understand where the team and Product Owner are in their journey to success. By having the business value discussed during the retrospective and during Sprint planning she tries to focus the team on having an impact, and helps clarify what the PO wants to deliver. 

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The 4 L’s retrospective

Evelien shares the 4 L’s retrospective and how she changes the “Loved” square to focus on appreciating and thanking someone in the team for something they did. This helps us teach team members to compliment each other and creates positive energy in the retrospective. 

Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM’s that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!  

About Evelien Acun-Roos

Evelien Acun-Roos is an experienced Agile Trainer at Xebia Academy, Professional Scrum Trainer at Scrum.org and a Certified Trainer for “Training from the Back of the Room”.

You can link with Evelien Acun-Roos on LinkedIn and connect with Evelien Acun-Roos on Twitter.

May 12, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

In this organization, both leadership and the teams wanted Agile. However, the middle-management was resisting the adoption of Agile. This story helped Evelien understand that sometimes, we need to tackle the anxiety and fear that an Agile adoption brings. Middle-management was the “backbone” of the organization, they had been there for a long time, and they didn’t know what Agile meant for them. That created anxiety, and consequently resistance. Evelien explains how they engaged with middle-management and started helping them understand how Agile would help them (not only teams and leadership). 

About Evelien Acun-Roos

Evelien Acun-Roos is an experienced Agile Trainer at Xebia Academy, Professional Scrum Trainer at Scrum.org and a Certified Trainer for “Training from the Back of the Room”.

You can link with Evelien Acun-Roos on LinkedIn and connect with Evelien Acun-Roos on Twitter.

May 11, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

This team had a “rotating Scrum Master”, however what happened was that the Scrum Master role was mostly ignored, and the team stopped learning and improving. The rotating aspect of the Scrum Master role led to a lack of accountability for that role, and consequently for the team! The team stopped challenging themselves. 

Featured Book of the Week: Training From The Back Of The Room by Sharon Bowman

In Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins, Evelien found one of the first professional agile coaching books, which helped her in her Agile journey. After that, Evelien found Training From The Back Of The Room by Sharon Bowman, a book that helped her perfect her delivery of training and understand why the game and engaging approaches are so important when delivering knowledge and information to the teams we work with.

How can Angela (the Agile Coach) quickly build healthy relationships with the teams she’s supposed to help? What were the steps she followed to help the Breeze App team fight off the competition? Find out how Angela helped Naomi and the team go from “behind” to being ahead of Intuition Bank, by focusing on the people! Download the first 4 chapters of the BOOK for FREE while it is in Beta!

About Evelien Acun-Roos

Evelien Acun-Roos is an experienced Agile Trainer at Xebia Academy, Professional Scrum Trainer at Scrum.org and a Certified Trainer for “Training from the Back of the Room”.

You can link with Evelien Acun-Roos on LinkedIn and connect with Evelien Acun-Roos on Twitter.

May 10, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Evelien was asked to help an organization transition to Agile using Scrum. There were multiple teams in that organization which Evelien and others started working with. With a mix of training and hands-on support they started working with all the teams. However, later it became clear that leadership in that organization was not aware of what Agile or Scrum meant in practice. Leadership started to ask for the same things, and in the same way that they always had. Effectively pushing the teams back into waterfall!

We discuss what we can do, when starting to work with a new organization, to help leadership understand what changes when we adopt Agile.

About Evelien Acun-Roos

Evelien Acun-Roos is an experienced Agile Trainer at Xebia Academy, Professional Scrum Trainer at Scrum.org and a Certified Trainer for “Training from the Back of the Room”.

You can link with Evelien Acun-Roos on LinkedIn and connect with Evelien Acun-Roos on Twitter.

May 7, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

In this episode, we discuss how distance, both physical and otherwise, can help build or destroy the relationship between Product Owner and the team.

The Great Product Owner: The emotionally available Product Owner

Great Product Owners are emotionally available to the team. That’s the first characteristic we discuss in this episode, where we also explore the role of having a Vision for the product, as well as knowing how to negotiate with stakeholders, and helping the Scrum Master protect the team from interference. 

The Bad Product Owner: Physical and emotional distance, the destroyers of the Product Owner effectiveness

This Product Owner was sitting 5 floors above the team (literally). He was not available for the team to ask questions or interact with. The physical distance a PO builds with their team also transforms into emotional/relationship distance and destroys the collaboration that is so critical. We share some tips on how to overcome that distance between team and Product Owner.

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 Wouter Gheysen

Wouter is a creative generalist with a broad area of interest beyond agility, a focus on people, and working with teams. He is a coach, guide and life long learner with a keen interest in facilitation, design thinking and systemic coaching.

You can link with Wouter Gheysen on LinkedIn and connect with Wouter Gheysen on Twitter.

May 6, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Success can have many different perspectives. We start this episode, discussing how those perspectives affect how we define and measure success with the teams we work with. And Wouter asks an important question, we should all think about: “What do you do that brings success to the team you work with?”

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Sailboat Retrospective

Even if he uses many different retrospective formats, the first retrospective format that Wouter uses with a new team is The Sailboat Retrospective. For many teams, this format is something new, that helps them feel engaged with the retrospective. The use of metaphor, and drawing can also engage the team, and help the team discuss difficult problems that would otherwise be difficult to approach.

Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM’s that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!  

About Wouter Gheysen

Wouter is a creative generalist with a broad area of interest beyond agility, a focus on people, and working with teams. He is a coach, guide and life long learner with a keen interest in facilitation, design thinking and systemic coaching.

You can link with Wouter Gheysen on LinkedIn and connect with Wouter Gheysen on Twitter.

May 5, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

Wouter was working in a bank, with a team that was just at the start of their Agile transformation. This team was insecure about the idea of a demo, they weren’t sure about how to conduct a demo with stakeholders, and the team members were hesitant to take ownership of that ceremony. 

Slowly, and methodically, Wouter helped the team first learn how, and then slowly take over the demo. By the end of this change, the team fully owned the demo, and team members put themselves forward to be the ones demonstrating the achievements they had accomplished during the sprint.

About Wouter Gheysen

Wouter is a creative generalist with a broad area of interest beyond agility, a focus on people, and working with teams. He is a coach, guide and life long learner with a keen interest in facilitation, design thinking and systemic coaching.

You can link with Wouter Gheysen on LinkedIn and connect with Wouter Gheysen on Twitter.

May 4, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

When we work in a company that is in, or has just gone through an Agile transformation, we often see that external coaches leave and slowly the good behaviors fade away. The pressure of delivery takes over, and the teams start skipping the good things that had helped them before, like the retrospectives. In this episode, we discuss what Scrum Masters can do to help teams stick to the good practices they’ve learned and how the collaboration with the PO is so critical in keeping the process going, and the team improving. 

Featured Book of the Week: Coaching Agile Teams, by Lyssa Adkins

In Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins, Wouter found instpiurational and practical tops that he wanted to try in his work. It helped him understand the importance of coaching and gave him methods and tools to deal with conflict in the team.

How can Angela (the Agile Coach) quickly build healthy relationships with the teams she’s supposed to help? What were the steps she followed to help the Breeze App team fight off the competition? Find out how Angela helped Naomi and the team go from “behind” to being ahead of Intuition Bank, by focusing on the people! Download the first 4 chapters of the BOOK for FREE while it is in Beta!

About Wouter Gheysen

Wouter is a creative generalist with a broad area of interest beyond agility, a focus on people, and working with teams. He is a coach, guide and life long learner with a keen interest in facilitation, design thinking and systemic coaching.

You can link with Wouter Gheysen on LinkedIn and connect with Wouter Gheysen on Twitter.

May 3, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

One of the challenges for Scrum Masters is to know when the team is already working at their pace. The idea of sustainable pace is that we help the team find and slowly improve their pace, rather than do the “death march” sprints that can destroy the team’s morale and productivity. In this episode, we talk about how we may be able to help the teams we work with find their pace, and how to know when we are pushing them too hard (and too little). 

About Wouter Gheysen

Wouter is a creative generalist with a broad area of interest beyond agility, a focus on people, and working with teams. He is a coach, guide and life long learner with a keen interest in facilitation, design thinking and systemic coaching.

You can link with Wouter Gheysen on LinkedIn and connect with Wouter Gheysen on Twitter.

May 1, 2021

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

In this episode, we have the organizing team for the Scrum Master Summit 2021, and they share their vision of how we can help form and develop the Scrum Master Community. 

About Yves Hanoulle, Mike Leber, Rahul Bhattacharya, Nagesh Sharma

Yves Hanoulle is the track curator for the “Scaling Agile Beyond One Team” track in the Scrum Master Summit 2021. He’s also the author and co-host for the Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master Edition Audiobook. 

You can connect with Yves Hanoulle on Twitter and link with Yves Hanoulle on LinkedIn.

Mike Leber is the track curator for the “Scrum Masters enabling Business Agility” track, and organizer of the Business Agility Conference. Mike is also a Business Agility Coach. 

You can link with Mike Leber on LinkedIn and connect with Mike Leber on Twitter

Rahul Bhattacharya is the host of the Agile Atelier podcast, and the curator for the “Common Product Owner blindspots” track. He’s also an Agile Coach. 

You can link with Rahul Bhattacharya on LinkedIn and connect with Rahul Bhattacharya on Twitter

Nagesh Sharma is the curator for the “Remote facilitation for Scrum Masters” track on the Scrum Master Summit 2021 and a certified Remote Facilitator. 

You can link with Nagesh Sharma on LinkedIn and connect with Nagesh Sharma on Twitter

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