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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: June, 2021
Jun 30, 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.

Ademar was working at a startup, and worked together with the CTO to grow the company, and hire, support and train the Agile teams they were hiring. We explore what are some of the steps we should consider, and the tools we can use to help start-up agile teams. 

In this episode, we refer to Lean Change Management by Jason Little

About Ademar Perez

Ademar Perez is cultivating high performing product teams as an Agile Coach at Xero. He fell in love with the Agile way of working after seeing 5 to 6 scrum teams collaborate to develop a customer facing application. Since then, Ademar has helped over 30+ teams become self-organizing and high-performing.

You can link with Ademar Perez on LinkedIn.

Jun 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.

Ademar joined a team that was dependent on the Product Owner to create and prioritize the User Stories for the team. The team would always wait for the PO to drive the conversation, and would never challenge or question the PO’s ideas. It was a “yes” team. Ademar found out that this team had been told that “the PO is the customer!” But this was hiding a bigger problem, the team did not know who the customer really was. Listen in to learn about the anti-patterns that develop when the team does not think about the customer on their own. 

In this episode we refer to Marty Cagan’s work as well as the Scrum Guide

Featured Book for the Week: The Scrum Fieldbook, by JJ Sutherland

In The Scrum Fieldbook: A Master Class on Accelerating Performance, Getting Results, and Defining the Future, by JJ Sutherland, Ademar learned that Scrum is not only made for software, it can work in any industry and organization. In this segment, we also refer to Coaching Agile Teams, by Lyssa Adkins

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 Ademar Perez

Ademar Perez is cultivating high performing product teams as an Agile Coach at Xero. He fell in love with the Agile way of working after seeing 5 to 6 scrum teams collaborate to develop a customer facing application. Since then, Ademar has helped over 30+ teams become self-organizing and high-performing.

You can link with Ademar Perez on LinkedIn.

Jun 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.

Ademar started as a project manager. As he tried to find solutions to the problems he was facing, he found Agile. From there it was a short jump to being a Scrum Master and a project manager for Agile projects. The story he has to share, is one where he was brought into a team that was in trouble. The communication with the client wasn’t working. And to top that off, he had to deliver bad news to the client. Listen in to learn about how to deliver bad news, and also how to work as a Scrum Master in a client project, where the stakes were high. 

About Ademar Perez

Ademar Perez is cultivating high performing product teams as an Agile Coach at Xero. He fell in love with the Agile way of working after seeing 5 to 6 scrum teams collaborate to develop a customer facing application. Since then, Ademar has helped over 30+ teams become self-organizing and high-performing.

You can link with Ademar Perez on LinkedIn

Jun 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.

About Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick

Squirrel has been coding for forty years and has led software teams for twenty. He uses the power of conversations to create dramatic productivity gains in technology organisations of all sizes. Squirrel’s experience includes growing software teams as a CTO in startups from fintech to biotech to music, and everything in between. He lives in Frogholt, England, in a timber-framed cottage built in the year 1450.

You can link with Douglas Squirrel on LinkedIn and connect with Douglas Squirrel on Twitter

Jeffrey Fredrick is an internationally recognized expert in software development and has over twenty-five years’ experience covering both sides of the business/technology divide. An early adopter of XP and Agile practices, Jeffrey has been a conference speaker in the US, Europe, India and Japan. Through his work on the pioneering open-source project CruiseControl, and through his role as co-organizer of the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference (CITCON), he has had a global impact on software development. 

You can link with Jeffrey Fredrick on LinkedIn and connect with Jeffrey Fredrick on Twitter

Jun 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.

We discuss how the growth mindset can help Product Owners, and also how to work with PO’s that come from a technical background. 

The Great Product Owner: The growth mindset Product Owner

Great Product Owners display the “growth mindset”, as Mustafa describes. They are easy to talk to and often discuss and accept ideas for experiments that the team can implement in the product. The PO focuses on representing the business goals and needs inside the team, and knows what tools to bring to create the right discussions and conversations with the team. Finally, the great PO links the team’s work to the goals and metrics that matter for the company.

The Bad Product Owner: Using Personal Agility Coaching Framework to help PO’s

Some PO’s that have a technical background tend to focus on the “how” part of the work and less on the “why”. This is an anti-pattern in the PO role. We discuss how to bring this topic up with the PRoduct Owner, and refer to the “Personal Agility Coaching Framework” as a way to help PO’s learn about their role. 

Are you having trouble helping the team work 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 Mustafa Ergun

Mustafa is an experienced Scrum Master. He has a passion for helping individuals and organizations see their potential and make things better. His current focus is on improving teams' performance through insightful facilitation. Mustafa is always eager to learn, share his experience with others and enjoys seeing people succeed.

You can link with Mustafa Ergun on LinkedIn and connect with Mustafa Ergun on Twitter.

Jun 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.

Mustafa looks at three different aspects of the Scrum Master work to define what success looks like. From these aspects he suggests we ask specific questions to evaluate the team’s situation and progress over time. Listen in to learn about these 3 different aspects, and how to incorporate these into your regular reflection as a Scrum Master. 

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Breaking Bad Retrospective

Mustafa focuses on formats that help the team be fully engaged in sharing insights, questions, and learnings. He suggests we focus on helping teams share via games, and suggests a TV series based retrospective: “The Breaking Bad Agile Retrospective”. Listen in to learn how Mustafa introduces and facilitates retrospectives based on TV series. 

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 Mustafa Ergun

Mustafa is an experienced Scrum Master. He has a passion for helping individuals and organizations see their potential and make things better. His current focus is on improving teams' performance through insightful facilitation. Mustafa is always eager to learn, share his experience with others and enjoys seeing people succeed.

You can link with Mustafa Ergun on LinkedIn and connect with Mustafa Ergun on Twitter.

Jun 23, 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, Mustafa noticed that the prioritization process was not working very well, and was a topic of discussion. The organization tried to use the concept of the MVP (Minimum Viable Product), but the discussion around MVP’s still led to very large increments. Then Mustafa worked with the Product Owner to implement a different approach. They devised the idea of the Minimum Viable Increment (MVI), and helped the team adopt and implement that idea. Listen in to learn how Mustafa helped the team go from MVP to MVI and learn to release/deliver incrementally.

About Mustafa Ergun

Mustafa is an experienced Scrum Master. He has a passion for helping individuals and organizations see their potential and make things better. His current focus is on improving teams' performance through insightful facilitation. Mustafa is always eager to learn, share his experience with others and enjoys seeing people succeed.

You can link with Mustafa Ergun on LinkedIn and connect with Mustafa Ergun on Twitter.

Jun 22, 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 many organizations, and teams, there is a strong focus on metrics and measuring everything (e.g. velocity). When Mustafa joined this team, he found the same pattern of focusing very much on the “pointing” of stories, instead of understanding the goal/impact of the story. But this led to the team being “lost” as to how to implement their stories. At this point Mustafa suggested the team focus their attention on understanding the stories first. Listen in to learn how to facilitate a conversation around the stories the team will work on. 

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!

Featured Book of the Week: Fixing your Scrum by Ripley and Miller

In Fixing your Scrum by Ripley and Miller, Mustafa found a book that helped him understand the many possible dysfunctions that organizations suffer from when adopting Scrum. 

In this segment we also refer to How Will You Measure Your Life? By Clayton Christensen, a book that helped Mustafa put his work in perspective, and reflect about how he wants his work to help him build the life he wants for himself.

About Mustafa Ergun

Mustafa is an experienced Scrum Master. He has a passion for helping individuals and organizations see their potential and make things better. His current focus is on improving teams' performance through insightful facilitation. Mustafa is always eager to learn, share his experience with others and enjoys seeing people succeed.

You can link with Mustafa Ergun on LinkedIn and connect with Mustafa Ergun on Twitter.

Jun 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.

Mustafa started his Agile journey when he learned about Lean. When he learned about Scrum, he then volunteered to work as a Scrum Master. Soon after that he worked in an organization with several teams. As he, and his colleagues started facilitating a cross-team planning session (aka Big Room Planning), he realized that the team members were “lost”. It was time to pull the handbrake! Listen in to learn how Mustafa and his colleagues turned that situation around. Learned from their failure to setup the session properly, and quickly regrouped to help the teams benefit from that planning session! 

About Mustafa Ergun

Mustafa is an experienced Scrum Master. He has a passion for helping individuals and organizations see their potential and make things better. His current focus is on improving teams' performance through insightful facilitation. Mustafa is always eager to learn, share his experience with others and enjoys seeing people succeed.

You can link with Mustafa Ergun on LinkedIn and connect with Mustafa Ergun on Twitter.

Jun 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.

The relationship the PO has with stakeholders is key in their ability to say “no” and stay true to the Vision of the product. In this episode, we also discuss how sometimes, standing back and letting the team lead is the wrong thing to do for a PO!

The Great Product Owner: Helping Product Owners master 2 important aspects of the role

This PO was on top of their game when it came to knowing the product and their customers. The PO was able to say “no” to stakeholders, and was clear on the Vision for the product. And most importantly, the PO was very deliberate at checking if they had made the right decision. In this segment, we talk about the “Create a Compelling Product Vision” FREE e-course that helps Scrum Masters work with PO’s and stakeholders to define a clear Vision for the product. 

The Bad Product Owner: When steeping back as a PO is the wrong thing to do

Product Owners do well when they stand back and let the team step up and own the execution of the User Stories. However, sometimes the PO may judge the team to be more autonomous than they really are. In this segment, we talk about how we can assess if the team is ready to work with less PO guidance (which is needed, for example, when scaling up the PO role)

Are you having trouble helping the team work 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 Pascal Clarkson

Pascal has a bachelor degree in computer science. After years of working as a software engineer and having 8+ years of practical experience with the Scrum Framework, he has shifted his attention towards group facilitation. He uses Systemic Modelling and other methods to support groups in their discovery of how they can be the best version of themselves.

You can link with Pascal Clarkson on LinkedIn and connect with Pascal Clarkson on Twitter

You can also follow Pascal’s writings on Artocraft.nl.

Jun 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.

In Pascal’s perspective, Scrum Masters can be successful if they help the teams be comfortable with change, and feel accountable for their delivery. In order to get there, we must help teams know what success means (they need to be part of defining it) and measure it (help them do it!) In this segment, we also refer to the “what could go wrong” retrospective exercise. 

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Questions that generate conversations

In this segment, we talk about a simple concept: “helping teams have a conversation”. Pascal shares some of the tips and questions he uses when helping teams get started with the improvement conversation we hope to trigger in every retrospective. 

Pascal also shares a critical tip on how to handle the situation when the team does not go along with your plan in the retrospective. Don’t miss it!  

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 Pascal Clarkson

Pascal has a bachelor degree in computer science. After years of working as a software engineer and having 8+ years of practical experience with the Scrum Framework, he has shifted his attention towards group facilitation. He uses Systemic Modelling and other methods to support groups in their discovery of how they can be the best version of themselves.

You can link with Pascal Clarkson on LinkedIn and connect with Pascal Clarkson on Twitter

You can also follow Pascal’s writings on Artocraft.nl.

Jun 16, 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 company had been using Agile for a while, but now they wanted to introduce the concept of squads, chapters and guilds. This required that the teams be reorganized as this model requires teams to be cross-functional. Pascal helped the organization set up a “team market”. When Pascal started participating in this team market he started realizing that everyone had a different reaction to that event. In this episode, we talk about how change is really a personal process, and that we need to take into account individual experiences and expectations. We also refer to the self-selection workshop process. 

About Pascal Clarkson

Pascal has a bachelor degree in computer science. After years of working as a software engineer and having 8+ years of practical experience with the Scrum Framework, he has shifted his attention towards group facilitation. He uses Systemic Modelling and other methods to support groups in their discovery of how they can be the best version of themselves.

You can link with Pascal Clarkson on LinkedIn and connect with Pascal Clarkson on Twitter

You can also follow Pascal’s writings on Artocraft.nl.

Jun 15, 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.

Pascal was working with a team that had a team member that was particularly good at pointing out problems. She had worked at that company for a long time, and had developed a reputation for “being difficult”, which led to the other team members judging this one team member’s actions, and they ended up dismissing her actions. In this episode, we hear about how Pascal approached this situation, and modeled curiosity to help other team members understand why she was pointing out problems. 

Featured Book of the Week: From Contempt to Curiosity: Creating the Conditions for Groups to Collaborate Using Clean Language and Systemic Modelling by Caitlin Walker

In Contempt to Curiosity by Caitlin Walker, Pascal learned about Systemic Modeling and Clean Language, which gave him a set of models to do group facilitation. It all starts with getting people to be curious about each other. 

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 Pascal Clarkson

Pascal has a bachelor degree in computer science. After years of working as a software engineer and having 8+ years of practical experience with the Scrum Framework, he has shifted his attention towards group facilitation. He uses Systemic Modelling and other methods to support groups in their discovery of how they can be the best version of themselves.

You can link with Pascal Clarkson on LinkedIn and connect with Pascal Clarkson on Twitter

You can also follow Pascal’s writings on Artocraft.nl.

Jun 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.

Pascal was working with a group of teams and Scrum Masters. In his attempt to help, he gave feedback to the Scrum Masters he was working with, but then a surprise hit. He was asked: “what are you doing here?” Pascal had made a common mistake, he had assumed everyone knew why he was brought in! In this episode, we discuss why it is important to set the stage when we start working with teams. We also refer to the idea of Systemic Modeling

About Pascal Clarkson

Pascal has a bachelor degree in computer science. After years of working as a software engineer and having 8+ years of practical experience with the Scrum Framework, he has shifted his attention towards group facilitation. He uses Systemic Modelling and other methods to support groups in their discovery of how they can be the best version of themselves.

You can link with Pascal Clarkson on LinkedIn and connect with Pascal Clarkson on Twitter

You can also follow Pascal’s writings on Artocraft.nl.

Jun 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 episode, we learn about applying Scrum and Agile in sales teams and for sales organizations.

About Brad Jeavons

Brad Jeavons is the author of the book Agile Sales and the host of the Enterprise Excellence Podcast and the Enterprise Excellence Youtube Channel. Brad is passionate about helping create a better future economically, socially and environmentally. He does this by sharing knowledge and supporting organizations to create cultures of continuous improvement and innovation at all levels.

You can link with Brad Jeavons on LinkedIn and connect with Brad Jeavons on Twitter.

Jun 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.

In this episode, we challenge you to think about what is needed beyond a great PO to be able to help the Agile teams succeed. We also discuss how the planning practices in some companies actively destroy product ownership. 

The Great Product Owner: What we need beyond a great PO

Is a good Product Owner enough? Do we really need the PO role? These are some of the thought-provoking questions we tackle in this episode. We explore ideas from Lean Startup, Customer Development and mention the book Rethinking Agile by Klaus Leopold

The Bad Product Owner: How corporate planning destroys product ownership

The Product Owner is one of the hardest roles in Agile and Scrum. Tomo starts by sharing aspects of the PO role that are often forgotten or ignored. We also discuss the dynamics that often push PO’s to only focus on managing their backlog, and miss the impact of having a clear direction / Vision for the teams. 

In this segment, we refer to the Beyond Budgeting movement, which tries to bring Agile ideas and practices to the finance departments of large and mid-size organizations.

Are you having trouble helping the team work 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 Tomo Lennox

Tomo has 20 years experience in project management, both waterfall and Agile. A few years ago he was at David Anderson's first Kanban Conference and has been a fanatic ever since, even though he has lost several jobs as a result of it. Tomo became then an advocate for projection over guessing, and reactive planning.

You can link with Tomo Lennox on LinkedIn and connect with Tomo Lennox on Twitter.

Jun 10, 2021

Tomo starts by recommending we always have more than one format ready to go when preparing a retrospective. However, we explore “The Best Story” retrospective format that helps team members talk about their work. In this segment, we also refer to the “mood-graph” (aka Journey Lines for the Sprint). 

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 Tomo Lennox

Tomo has 20 years experience in project management, both waterfall and Agile. A few years ago he was at David Anderson's first Kanban Conference and has been a fanatic ever since, even though he has lost several jobs as a result of it. Tomo became then an advocate for projection over guessing, and reactive planning.

You can link with Tomo Lennox on LinkedIn and connect with Tomo Lennox on Twitter.

Jun 9, 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 with Agile and Scrum teams, we may find that the team does not have a simple tool in place for visualizing work: a simple task or story board. In this episode, we explore how we can introduce the concept and the impact of a simple task/story board to the teams we work with.

About Tomo Lennox

Tomo has 20 years experience in project management, both waterfall and Agile. A few years ago he was at David Anderson's first Kanban Conference and has been a fanatic ever since, even though he has lost several jobs as a result of it. Tomo became then an advocate for projection over guessing, and reactive planning.

You can link with Tomo Lennox on LinkedIn and connect with Tomo Lennox on Twitter.

Jun 8, 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.

Tomo worked with 6 teams on a project. Although the teams were good at developing software, they lacked something that was critical. As Tomo investigated further, he pinpointed what was missing, and focused on providing them with the tools to overcome their lack of innovation, and decision making ability. 

In this segment, we refer to the concept of Swarming, which when applied correctly can make times much more productive. 

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!

 

Featured Book of the Week: Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit by Mary and Tom Poppendieck

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit by Mary and Tom Poppendieck is one of the foundational books for Lean applied to software. Although many have followed the Poppendieck’s, their book still has many learnings on how to apply Lean to software development. 

In this segment, we also refer to the work by Klaus Leopold, of which the book Rethinking Agile is one example

About Tomo Lennox

Tomo has 20 years experience in project management, both waterfall and Agile. A few years ago he was at David Anderson's first Kanban Conference and has been a fanatic ever since, even though he has lost several jobs as a result of it. Tomo became then an advocate for projection over guessing, and reactive planning.

You can link with Tomo Lennox on LinkedIn and connect with Tomo Lennox on Twitter.

Jun 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.

When Tomo took this position, he realized that it was a “make-it-or-break” kind of job. In that job, he successfully helped the team “inch” the velocity up, but the deck was stacked against the team. The company wanted the product to be #1 in the market, but that’s almost impossible job at the first try. Listen in to learn how Tomo and team tackled and learned from this nearly impossible mission. 

In this episode, we refer to ScrumBan which combines the best aspects of Kanban and Scrum. In this episode, we also refer to the book Inspired by Marty Cagan

About Tomo Lennox

Tomo has 20 years experience in project management, both waterfall and Agile. A few years ago he was at David Anderson's first Kanban Conference and has been a fanatic ever since, even though he has lost several jobs as a result of it. Tomo became then an advocate for projection over guessing, and reactive planning.

You can link with Tomo Lennox on LinkedIn and connect with Tomo Lennox on Twitter.

Jun 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.

Lack of details, can be a motivator for the team to bring their creative thinking. Great Product Owners can take advantage of that. In this episode, we also discuss what happens when the PO doesn’t really know what they own.

The Great Product Owner: Bring a problem, and solve it with the team

Great Product Owners inspire the team to think of solutions the PO could not think of. To do that, they share the context and pain of the customer, and leave the details out, so that the team asks questions, and starts imagining what the successful outcome would look like. In this segment, we also discuss how important it is that the PO gives time, and space to the team so they can work on the problem the PO brings to the team.

The Bad Product Owner: The PO who does not know what he owns

Sometimes, the Product Owner isn’t clear on what exactly they own. In those cases, the team can’t be clear either on what they are trying to achieve. This lack of clarity can come from the fact that the PO “hat” is thrown to someone who isn’t right for the job, and may even have a few other “side” jobs they need to attend to. Are these characteristics present in your PO? Listen in, to learn how Dov suggests we tackle these PO anti-patterns.

 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 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.

Jun 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.

When it comes to define success for a Scrum Master, Dov suggests we think of it as the success of a parent. Where the perspective, and the actions we take change constantly because the team (like a child) is also continuously evolving and changing. In this segment, we share many tips on how to review and assess our performance as Scrum Masters. 

Featured Retrospective Format of the Week: The Silent Retrospective

Dov introduces the “silent retrospective”, an approach he takes to help the team reflect and share their insights in a way that allows all to share their views and thoughts. We also talk about how to prepare and facilitate the “silent retrospective”. 

 

[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 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.

Jun 2, 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.

It is often the case that in organizations that are in a process of change, the people who can block, or enable change are only a few. In this episode, we talk about these “linchpins” of change, and reflect on how we can build productive relationships with those stakeholders, with the aim to help progress Agile adoption. 

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.

Jun 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.

The problems in Scrum adoption can come from the conflict between a team and the person “pushing” the process. In this segment, we talk about the approaches we some times take as Scrum Masters that negatively affect the team and their Agile adoption.

Featured Book of the Week: The Agile Tao by Peter Merrel

The Agile Tao by Peter Merrel is based on the Book of Tao, an ancient book with series of meditations on the mysterious nature of the Tao--the Way, the Light, the very Source of all existence. Dov shares how The Agile Tao helped him understand better his role 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 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.

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