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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: December, 2021
Dec 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.

The Great Product Owner: Working with the team to make decisions

Great Product Owners understand that they are part of the team, and try to setup collaborative decision making through active conversations with team and stakeholders. This develops the relationship between PO and team, and setups up a powerful partnership. 

The Bad Product Owner: When the PO stands back and does not drive the product or the collaboration between teams

When product organizations are separated into different silos, and the Product Owner stands back, problems emerge quickly. On top of that, when the PO does not feel, or want to be accountable for the product, things get even worse. We also discuss the anti-pattern of missing, losing the customer voice in the work of the Product Owner. 

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 Kathryn Tancos

Kathryn is a certified Scrum Master focused on Agile transformations and helping teams build a better way of working. How did this Emmy Award-winning news producer become an avid Agilist? Through communication, curiosity, and collaboration, the pillars of successful Agile teams. Her goal is to inspire teams and organizational cultures to foster a sense of self-leadership throughout the transformation journey.

You can link with Kathryn Tancos on LinkedIn and connect with Kathryn Tancos on Twitter.

Dec 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.

Even when measuring our success can be difficult, we can define a set of questions that help us reflect and help teams. Kathryn shares some of those questions, as well as a “guideline” for our success as Scrum Masters. Listen in to learn about Kathryn’s success questions. 

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Tweaking Start/Stop/Continue to help teams that have a hard time speaking up

Kathryn likes to adapt the format to the team. Even when using simple formats, such as Start/Stop/Continue, Kathryn prefers to add some twists so that all team members participate actively. In this segment, Kathryn shares a story of a team that had a hard time speaking up, and what she did to help the team contribute actively 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 Kathryn Tancos

Kathryn is a certified Scrum Master focused on Agile transformations and helping teams build a better way of working. How did this Emmy Award-winning news producer become an avid Agilist? Through communication, curiosity, and collaboration, the pillars of successful Agile teams. Her goal is to inspire teams and organizational cultures to foster a sense of self-leadership throughout the transformation journey.

You can link with Kathryn Tancos on LinkedIn and connect with Kathryn Tancos on Twitter.

Dec 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.

An organization that started an Agile transformation, hired 2 external consultants to help the transformation. However, the 2 transformation coaches were not enough to cover the many teams in that organization. This put Kathryn and other Scrum Masters in a tough spot. In order to contribute, Kathryn started to ask questions, and discuss with the 2 transformation coaches, which turned out to be a practical way to scale their knowledge and influence in the overall organization. In this segment, we discuss how we can help setup the Agile transformation in our organizations, starting by focusing on the “why” and the values the transformation is supposed to bring into the organization.

About Kathryn Tancos

Kathryn is a certified Scrum Master focused on Agile transformations and helping teams build a better way of working. How did this Emmy Award-winning news producer become an avid Agilist? Through communication, curiosity, and collaboration, the pillars of successful Agile teams. Her goal is to inspire teams and organizational cultures to foster a sense of self-leadership throughout the transformation journey.

You can link with Kathryn Tancos on LinkedIn and connect with Kathryn Tancos on Twitter.

Dec 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.

Kathryn was part of an agile transformation and working with 6 different teams. As she dug deeper into the ways of working in those teams, she found that there were patterns in their behaviors that negatively affected their performance. Among these, there was the belief that the team knew all the solutions and did not need to talk to, or listen to other teams. In this segment, we hear about how Scrum Masters can help change these patterns, and the other organizational patterns that make Agile transformations fail. 

Featured Book of the Week: Radical Candor by Kim Scott

In Radical Candor by Kim Scott, Kathryn found a framework for giving and receiving feedback that helped her with the difficult conversations she needed to have in her Scrum Master role. The book shares ideas, and stories on how to build an environment of trust and respect. 

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 Kathryn Tancos

Kathryn is a certified Scrum Master focused on Agile transformations and helping teams build a better way of working. How did this Emmy Award-winning news producer become an avid Agilist? Through communication, curiosity, and collaboration, the pillars of successful Agile teams. Her goal is to inspire teams and organizational cultures to foster a sense of self-leadership throughout the transformation journey.

You can link with Kathryn Tancos on LinkedIn and connect with Kathryn Tancos on Twitter.

Dec 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.

Kathryn started as a journalist, and was “recruited” to help in an IT project that aimed to help journalists in their day-to-day work, that took her on a journey towards Agile and eventually she took on the PO and later the Scrum Master role. As a Scrum Master, later on in her career, she tried to help a team working remotely, and that was only part of the challenge. As the team started to work on the product, they did not seek feedback from the partners and stakeholders, leading to a lot of surprises in the Sprint Reviews. This story helped Kathryn learn an important lesson for her as a Scrum Master. Listen in to learn about the critical tip she has to share based on this story.

 

About Kathryn Tancos

Kathryn is a certified Scrum Master focused on Agile transformations and helping teams build a better way of working. How did this Emmy Award-winning news producer become an avid Agilist? Through communication, curiosity, and collaboration, the pillars of successful Agile teams. Her goal is to inspire teams and organizational cultures to foster a sense of self-leadership throughout the transformation journey.

You can link with Kathryn Tancos on LinkedIn and connect with Kathryn Tancos on Twitter.

Dec 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.

About Peter Lam

Peter has helped some of Australia’s largest corporations and government departments realise benefits from adopting digital, agile & ‘new ways of working’ as an Enterprise Agile Coach, program manager and as a people leader / Head of Projects.

You can link with Peter Lam on LinkedIn and connect with Peter Lam on Twitter.

Dec 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.

About Sally Elatta 

Sally Elatta is the CEO and founder of AgilityHealth®. She is a thought leader in the space of Enterprise Business Agility and Measurement and advises top executives of leading global enterprises through their Enterprise Business Agility (EBA) transformations. Sally believes in making an impact in everything you touch – whether that’s for individuals, teams, organizations or as an agent of social change. She has three beautiful children, and loves music and travel.

You can link with Sally Elatta on LinkedIn and connect with Sally Elatta on Twitter

You download the report about the Team Performance Predictors at AgilityHealth.com.

For a Scrum Master self-assessment, visit this self-assessment page

To access the Agile Explainer Videos with a free trial, visit this page.

Dec 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.

About Joshua Kerievsky

Joshua founded his company (Industrial Logic) from his studio apartment in NYC in 1996. It began as a lifestyle company, which meant he was able to pursue his craft while helping clients. He gradually grew the company and today they help organizations around the world.

Joshua is also an international speaker and is regularly invited to speak and visit many conferences.

You can link with Joshua Kerievsky on LinkedIn and connect with Joshua Kerievsky on Twitter. 

Here you can find Joshua’s company, Industrial Logic, and their blog.

For more on the Joy of Agility, check out the book’s website.

Dec 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.

About Maria Matarelli and Peter Stevens

Maria is a co-founder of the Personal Agility institute an organization focused on helping individuals & organizations apply Agile to do more of what matters. She has a background in IT project Management, and helps companies by showing companies how to implement Agile techniques that help them get to market faster.

You can link with Maria Matarelli on LinkedIn and connect with Maria Matarelli on Twitter

Peter is a co-founder of the Personal Agility Institute, and creator of the Personal Agility system. As Peter puts it, he inspires people to change their situation for the better, and helps companies transform into more effective, more successful and happier organizations.

You can link with Peter Stevens on LinkedIn and connect with Peter Stevens on Twitter.

Dec 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.

About Thomas Juli

Thomas is a human business architect, his vision is to help establish Human Business as the new business paradigm by the year 2030.

You can link with Thomas Juli on LinkedIn and connect with Thomas Juli on Twitter

You can find Thomas Juli’s website, Motivate2B here.

You can find Thomas Juli’s book, The Spirit of Human Business on Amazon.

Dec 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.

The Great Product Owner: The developer that became a great PO!

This Product Owner had been a very skilled developer (just like the Bad PO story), however the reason why this skilled developer had moved to the PO position was because he wanted to have a higher impact, and saw that the PO position helped achieve that impact. This PO was able to communicate with stakeholders, and represent the product as well as the technical perspective of the team. The PO was able to listen to, and respect the team’s perspective in a way that made the team feel trusted. 

In this segment, we refer to situational leadership.

The Bad Product Owner: The developers that became a bad PO!

Rasmus shares with us the story of a developer that, being motivated by the prestige and salary, wanted to move to the PO position. The developer saw that as the only way to progress in the career, and that’s when the problems started. Listen in to learn about the many anti-patterns that developed because of this career move that was motivated by all the wrong reasons.

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 Rasmus Lund-Jensen

Rasmus is an agile coach and Scrum Master from Denmark. He is passionate about finding pragmatic ways for teams to reach their potential. He previously spent six years at the LEGO Group where he learned the power of bad jokes. If people are laughing, it means they are listening. 

You can link with Rasmus Lund-Jensen on LinkedIn and connect with Rasmus Lund-Jensen his website.

Dec 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.

Scrum Masters help others “do”, and because of that they are further away from the delivery work, making it hard to understand - sometimes - how we contribute to that delivery. Rasmus shares with us tips and questions to ask that helps us understand how we help teams deliver and succeed. 

In this segment, we refer to the Monday episode, where Rasmus talks about an Agile transformation story.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Setting up Conversations, a key Scrum Master skill

Although Rasmus shares with us a structured format, he starts by asking us to create moments of pure conversation with the team. Creating the conditions for conversations to happen on a regular basis is Rasmus’ favorite approach to Agile Retrospectives. The structure format he shares with us is the Sailboat Retrospective, which we’ve covered in the past from multiple perspectives

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 Rasmus Lund-Jensen

Rasmus is an agile coach and Scrum Master from Denmark. He is passionate about finding pragmatic ways for teams to reach their potential. He previously spent six years at the LEGO Group where he learned the power of bad jokes. If people are laughing, it means they are listening. 

You can link with Rasmus Lund-Jensen on LinkedIn and connect with Rasmus Lund-Jensen his website.

Dec 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.

In this episode, we share the story of a transformation, and how people started to imagine the worst possible scenario. This led to bigger and bigger problems. Rasmus shares how a communication approach he calls: frequent, short and boring town halls helped dispel those disaster scenarios that people had in mind, and helped communicate the “why” and “how” of the transformation in a way that engaged the organization. 

About Rasmus Lund-Jensen

Rasmus is an agile coach and Scrum Master from Denmark. He is passionate about finding pragmatic ways for teams to reach their potential. He previously spent six years at the LEGO Group where he learned the power of bad jokes. If people are laughing, it means they are listening. 

You can link with Rasmus Lund-Jensen on LinkedIn and connect with Rasmus Lund-Jensen his website.

Dec 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.

This team was succeeding in the improving and implementation of their practices. They were in control of the testing. They were doing most things right. As they felt more comfortable, they started thinking about the future, and decided to invest in tackling a future risk with a “quick” hackathon. What happened next was both surprising and instructive on how, even the best teams, can lose sight of what Agile is all about. 

In this segment, we refer to the Tuckman model of team development

Featured Book of the Week: I'm Afraid Debbie From Marketing Has Left for the Day by Munster

How do we make changes stick in the real world? Munster’s I'm Afraid Debbie From Marketing Has Left for the Day is about asking the right questions to understand how change can be implemented in a way that sticks. In this segment we also refer to Thinking Fast and Slow by Kahneman.

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 Rasmus Lund-Jensen

Rasmus is an agile coach and Scrum Master from Denmark. He is passionate about finding pragmatic ways for teams to reach their potential. He previously spent six years at the LEGO Group where he learned the power of bad jokes. If people are laughing, it means they are listening. 

You can link with Rasmus Lund-Jensen on LinkedIn and connect with Rasmus Lund-Jensen his website.

Dec 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.

Rasmus was helping an organization in their Agile transformation. In this organization only a few people had seen such a transformation before. Many were going through the first Agile transformation. When management, Product Owners and Scrum Masters recommended the teams use Scrum, they got an immediate push back. The teams saw Kanban as a more adequate method for them. An immediate stand-off emerged that made the work with the teams very difficult. Listen in to learn what Rasmus learned from that story, and what the organization ended up doing to help the teams get started with Scrum. 

About Rasmus Lund-Jensen

Rasmus is an agile coach and Scrum Master from Denmark. He is passionate about finding pragmatic ways for teams to reach their potential. He previously spent six years at the LEGO Group where he learned the power of bad jokes. If people are laughing, it means they are listening. 

You can link with Rasmus Lund-Jensen on LinkedIn and connect with Rasmus Lund-Jensen his website.

Dec 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.

The Great Product Owner: Great tools that PO’s use to help Agile teams shine

Great Product Owners help the team take responsibility by giving them more ownership. They are also able to challenge the team, yet respect their decisions. We also talk about the tools and practices that great PO’s have which help the team deliver, and contribute to the product. 

The Bad Product Owner: The Agile anti-patterns that emerge when the PO tells the team what to do

Who is the real Product Owner for your team? That’s a great question that Max asks us at the start of the episode, and we explore further. Not knowing who is the real PO is only one of the anti-patterns we discuss, as we also explore the Bossy PO who wants to tell people exactly what to do. We discuss what that looks like as well as the problems that happen when the PO tries to tell the team what to do. 

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 Maximilian Dazer

Maximilian’s goal is to drive change from the bottom. For every team he creates a vision and tries to get them on board to pursue the change together. Maximilian wants to free people from the micromanagement-hell version of “scrum".

You can link with Maximilian Dazer on LinkedIn.

Dec 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.

Team morale is Max’s focus when it comes to measuring his success as a Scrum Master. He asks a few specific questions which he describes in this episode, and then evaluates the team’s answer to a survey he sends the team members during the Sprint. Max also likes to use some flow metrics (e.g. Cycle time) to reflect on how the team is evolving, as well as help the team select the improvements to put in practice. 

In this episode, we refer to Cycle time, and Cycle time scatter plot.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Scrum Values Retrospective

Max prefers to prepare his retrospectives based on the events of the preceding Sprint. However, he has a format he likes to run with all of his teams, and even at regular intervals. The Scrum Values retrospective is about helping the team reflect on how they grow, and evolve as Agile teams by creating a conversation on how they want to apply the Scrum values as defined in the Scrum Guide.

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 Maximilian Dazer

Maximilian’s goal is to drive change from the bottom. For every team he creates a vision and tries to get them on board to pursue the change together. Maximilian wants to free people from the micromanagement-hell version of “scrum".

You can link with Maximilian Dazer on LinkedIn.

Dec 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.

Max worked in an company-wide initiative that touched on one of the most sensitive aspects of software development: career progression, and salaries. This was a change program that required care and attention to people’s expectations. In this episode, he describes how the organization was able to bring in change, even in the most sensitive topics, and still get people’s support and collaboration.

About Maximilian Dazer

Maximilian’s goal is to drive change from the bottom. For every team he creates a vision and tries to get them on board to pursue the change together. Maximilian wants to free people from the micromanagement-hell version of “scrum".

You can link with Maximilian Dazer on LinkedIn.

Dec 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.

Max worked with a team that was composed of team members from two previous teams. As he joined in the role of the Scrum Master, he started noticing that the team members did not focus on collaboration, but rather on single, individually assigned tasks (listen in to learn about how you can detect if your team is falling prey to the same anti-pattern). This way of working was causing delays, and slowing down the team because of the many handovers necessary. In this episode, the Scrum Master can help the team understand the anti-pattern, and help teams get out of the silo-thinking. In this episode we refer to Conway’s Law, an empirical observation and statement by Mel Conway that helps us understand why organizations and software end up mirroring each other: “if you have a 3 team compiler organization, you end up with a 3-pass compiler”.

Featured Book of the Week: User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton

User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton helped Max understand many critical aspects of applying Agile to the requirements/definition of the product. He learned about how the Backlog could be different than a simple list of requirements/user stories, and how User Stories are meant to be used. 

Jeff Patton has been a previous guest on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast.

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 Maximilian Dazer

Maximilian’s goal is to drive change from the bottom. For every team he creates a vision and tries to get them on board to pursue the change together. Maximilian wants to free people from the micromanagement-hell version of “scrum".

You can link with Maximilian Dazer on LinkedIn.

Dec 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.

When Max started as a Scrum Master, and tried to put in practice what he knew about the role, he faced some unexpected challenges. Having had industrial engineering training, he felt he should be busy all the time, and therefore started to “force” Scrum on the team. This story does not end well for Max, but the lesson he learned was fundamental for his growth as a Scrum Master. Listen in to learn what was his lesson, and how it changed him for the future. 

In this episode, we refer to Taylorism, and the online publication Serious Scrum.

About Maximilian Dazer

Maximilian’s goal is to drive change from the bottom. For every team he creates a vision and tries to get them on board to pursue the change together. Maximilian wants to free people from the micromanagement-hell version of “scrum".

You can link with Maximilian Dazer on LinkedIn.

Dec 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.

The Great Product Owner: Consistently creating positive conversations with stakeholders and Agile teams

A great Product Owner is consistent in their approach. Lucia shares with us how this particular PO was able to be consistent in their communication and support for the team, but also in looking outside, getting ideas and inspiration from competitors and the market at large. As the PO consistently communicated with the team and stakeholders, they were creating regular and productive invitations for a conversation with stakeholders and team members. 

The Bad Product Owner: How to help your PO shine even when they are super-busy!

When the Product Owner is overloaded, they lose focus, and are unable to serve the teams at the right time, and in the right amount. In this segment, we hear the story of the PO that was so busy that they could only be a scatter-shot PO. Randomly giving ideas and demands to the team, who was lost with the lack of support from the PO. In this segment, we talk about how important it is to help the PO focus, and work within the limited time they might have to help the team. As Scrum Master, this is one of our major tasks: help the PO shine, even when they are super busy! 

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 Lucia Alarcon

Lucia is a Delivery Lead and a coach working in Wellington NZ, leading an amazing development squad to achieve the delivery of multiple digital initiatives using Agile, creating a culture of empowerment, collaboration and communication. With 15+ years of experience, her professional (and personal!) journey has taken her through a variety of organizations and halfway around the world from Argentina. Lucia loves all things Agile, facilitation and coaching. 

You can link with Lucia Alarcon on LinkedIn and connect with Lucia Alarcon on Instagram.

Dec 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.

When it comes to assessing her own success as a Scrum Master, Lucia uses the “health” metaphor to identify and measure critical aspects of a healthy team. In this episode, we talk about The Squad Health Check. The Squad Health Check was also described in these episodes. We also mention Radical Candor, as a feedback framework as well as Clean Language.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Lean Coffee, the swiss army knife of Agile Retrospectives

Lucia likes to try many formats, but there’s one format she often comes back to thanks to its power to spark creative, and insightful conversations. That format is the Lean Coffee Retrospective format, which focuses the team’s conversations instead of trying to cover too many things in a retrospective. In this segment, we also refer to the game Cards Against Humanity, which you can learn more about (and download) by listening to this episode with Ellen Santamaria.

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 Lucia Alarcon

Lucia is a Delivery Lead and a coach working in Wellington NZ, leading an amazing development squad to achieve the delivery of multiple digital initiatives using Agile, creating a culture of empowerment, collaboration and communication. With 15+ years of experience, her professional (and personal!) journey has taken her through a variety of organizations and halfway around the world from Argentina. Lucia loves all things Agile, facilitation and coaching. 

You can link with Lucia Alarcon on LinkedIn and connect with Lucia Alarcon on Instagram.

Dec 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.

This company was working with several vendors, which meant that for any deliverable there were a lot of parties involved. To manage their work, they were using Trello, a tool that helps teams manage tasks. However, the way they were using that tool was creating problems for the teams and team members. Lucia worked with them to change how they applied the tool to their work, and to learn more about Kanban. In the process, she implemented an effective, stepwise process for introducing change in any organization. Listen in to learn about the key steps she took in this process. 

In this segment, we refer to the Kanban method, an Agile method that is used by many teams all over the world. 

About Lucia Alarcon

Lucia is a Delivery Lead and a coach working in Wellington NZ, leading an amazing development squad to achieve the delivery of multiple digital initiatives using Agile, creating a culture of empowerment, collaboration and communication. With 15+ years of experience, her professional (and personal!) journey has taken her through a variety of organizations and halfway around the world from Argentina. Lucia loves all things Agile, facilitation and coaching. 

You can link with Lucia Alarcon on LinkedIn and connect with Lucia Alarcon on Instagram.

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