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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: January, 2022
Jan 31, 2022

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.

Nielsh works with a startup that is creating technology to help people with little or no access to legal services. As important as this work is, the team is faced with a dilemma: even if the technology is needed, why don’t we see the adoption we expected to see? Together with Nilesh, we explore the need to create a language for the team so that they can talk about what is not working, and therefore take ownership of solving the adoption problem. 

About Nilesh Makan

Nilesh is the founding Director at Padawan Consulting, where the vision is to build transformed businesses through transformed people. He works with companies in the arena of Digital Transformation, considering how to leverage people, process and technology to design and build innovative solutions.

You can link with Nilesh Makan on LinkedIn and connect with Nilesh Makan on Twitter.

Jan 28, 2022

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: Available and part of the team, the key aspects of a great PO

This particular PO helped Priyanka learn her role as a Scrum Master. But that wasn’t all. This PO knew and understood well the business and product they owned. They would quickly answer the team’s questions and make themselves available to the team. The PO also knew, and was able to put time aside to listen to the team’s ideas and was always prepared with a Plan B in case some idea was not possible. Finally, the PO felt they were part of the team, and were there to enable the team to succeed!

The Bad Product Owner: The PO that burned out, and created a big problem for themselves and the team

This PO was not only a Product Owner, but they also played the Scrum Master role in the team. It was easy to see that the PO was overloaded, but in this case the PO also was involved in “everything else”. Over time, the PO burned out and the team suffered. This taught an important lesson to Priyanka: we must help the PO’s understand their role, and when to step back. The wrong expectations can create huge problems for the team and the PO themselves!

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 Priyanka Gorai

Priyanka started her journey as a Software Test Engineer in 2014 and has more than 7 years in the software industry. Priyanka was thrilled by the concept of servant leadership in agile software development, and started supporting her team and then became a full-time Scrum Master. She is very passionate about agile development and wants to share that passion with others. She’s also learned that while improving individuals or a team, one can improve themselves.

You can link with Priyanka Gorai on LinkedIn.

Jan 27, 2022

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 definition of success can change based on the context of the team, however there are certain questions that Priyanka likes to ask for every team she works with. Priyanka shares those questions with us, as well as some self-assessment questions for Scrum Masters to help them fine tune their approach to the team they work with. 

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Superpowers retrospective format

Priyanka prefers to experiment with multiple retrospective formats. This helps her maintain the team’s energy high in every retrospective. However, when starting with a new team, she prefers to use the Superpowers format, where the team can talk about the “enemies” (challenges) as well as share what each team member can contribute to the team to overcome the challenges they expect to face. 

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 Priyanka Gorai

Priyanka started her journey as a Software Test Engineer in 2014 and has more than 7 years in the software industry. Priyanka was thrilled by the concept of servant leadership in agile software development, and started supporting her team and then became a full-time Scrum Master. She is very passionate about agile development and wants to share that passion with others. She’s also learned that while improving individuals or a team, one can improve themselves.

You can link with Priyanka Gorai on LinkedIn.

Jan 26, 2022

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 is a story of how the Scrum Masters in an organization came together to learn and practice coaching with each other. The community of practice they created helped the Agile adoption change progress in that company, but also supported the Scrum Masters in learning and improving their craft. 

In this episode, we refer to the GROW and OSCAR coaching models, as well as Liberating Structures

About Priyanka Gorai

Priyanka started her journey as a Software Test Engineer in 2014 and has more than 7 years in the software industry. Priyanka was thrilled by the concept of servant leadership in agile software development, and started supporting her team and then became a full-time Scrum Master. She is very passionate about agile development and wants to share that passion with others. She’s also learned that while improving individuals or a team, one can improve themselves.

You can link with Priyanka Gorai on LinkedIn.

Jan 25, 2022

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.

Priyanka joined a small team that already felt they were following Scrum. However, as she started to understand better what was going on, she noticed the team followed the motions, but did not understand what Scrum was all about. To add to the challenge, the team did not have a good experience with the previous Scrum Master. They were not happy, and showed it with regular complaining. Listen in to learn how Priyanka solved the situation by working with the team. 

Featured Book of the Week: Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time, by Sutherland et al.

In Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time, by Sutherland et al. Priyanka found many examples of the challenges that Scrum Masters can expect to face, and how Scrum helps them solve those challenges. 

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 Priyanka Gorai

Priyanka started her journey as a Software Test Engineer in 2014 and has more than 7 years in the software industry. Priyanka was thrilled by the concept of servant leadership in agile software development, and started supporting her team and then became a full-time Scrum Master. She is very passionate about agile development and wants to share that passion with others. She’s also learned that while improving individuals or a team, one can improve themselves.

You can link with Priyanka Gorai on LinkedIn.

Jan 24, 2022

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.

Priyanka joined a team where not all were happy to receive a new Scrum Master. As she started to interact with the team, she noticed that some of the team members would contradict her regularly. She had to overcome this resistance to her presence in a constructive way, and that’s what we explore in this episode.

In this episode, we refer to the GROW and OSCAR coaching models. 

About Priyanka Gorai

Priyanka started her journey as a Software Test Engineer in 2014 and has more than 7 years in the software industry. Priyanka was thrilled by the concept of servant leadership in agile software development, and started supporting her team and then became a full-time Scrum Master. She is very passionate about agile development and wants to share that passion with others. She’s also learned that while improving individuals or a team, one can improve themselves.

You can link with Priyanka Gorai on LinkedIn.

Jan 21, 2022

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: Navigating the product predictably, and inviting criticism enables great product conversations

Great PO’s are well organized, as that helps the team know what to expect, and when to expect it. Not only the features/work to do, but also the type of information they get as well as when they can interact with the PO. But the good organization of the PO goes beyond their relationship with the team, and also includes having a good understanding of what the stakeholders needs. 

We also discuss how the PO invites, and welcomes criticism of the product and their work, and is not afraid of calling the team out when they are gold plating, and not focusing on the customer/user/stakeholder needs. 

The Bad Product Owner: Stepping back so much that the team got lost

This PO had no say on what the team was doing. The PO acted almost as a secretary because someone else was defining and scheduling the stories for the team. Even if the PO role was not clear in this organization, the fact that the PO was stepping back so much let the team in limbo. We discuss how the PO role is critical in enabling the team to succeed!

 

[IMAGE HERE] 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 ​​Linda van Sinten

Linda van Sinten is an experienced Scrum Master and creator of the Liberating Structures Visual design cards. She combines her knowledge of Scrum with the powerful skill of creating visualizations and visual tools to drive teams forward. She has trained over 500 people in making powerful visuals out of ideas, structuring strategies and product visions in Tech, Healthcare and other industries. 

You can link with ​​Linda van Sinten on LinkedIn.

Jan 20, 2022

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.

Linda describes her own success as a Scrum Masters through the behaviors she wants to see in the teams she works with. We discuss what we need to do as Scrum Masters to enable those behaviors as well as the importance of asking questions. The goal: to help teams feel enthusiastic about their work!

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Creative thinking formats to spice up your retrospectives

Linda prefers to use different formats in most retrospectives, and especially likes to use formats and exercises that encourage creative thinking by the team. These formats help the teams get out of “complaining” and focus on improvements. She describes some formats for us, and we refer to Story Cubes; The 4 L’s; Liberating Structures; 1-2-4-all and other formats you can use to spice up your retrospectives. 

In this segment, we also refer to the Ecocycle planning workshop

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 ​​Linda van Sinten

Linda van Sinten is an experienced Scrum Master and creator of the Liberating Structures Visual design cards. She combines her knowledge of Scrum with the powerful skill of creating visualizations and visual tools to drive teams forward. She has trained over 500 people in making powerful visuals out of ideas, structuring strategies and product visions in Tech, Healthcare and other industries. 

You can link with ​​Linda van Sinten on LinkedIn.

Jan 19, 2022

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.

Working with change is a lot about helping the organizations “see” what is going on, and helping them decide what they already want to change. In this episode, we discuss a specific technique that Linda used to bring insights, and visibility into the teams and their challenges, and how that technique helped kick-start a change that was necessary. 

About ​​Linda van Sinten

Linda van Sinten is an experienced Scrum Master and creator of the Liberating Structures Visual design cards. She combines her knowledge of Scrum with the powerful skill of creating visualizations and visual tools to drive teams forward. She has trained over 500 people in making powerful visuals out of ideas, structuring strategies and product visions in Tech, Healthcare and other industries. 

You can link with ​​Linda van Sinten on LinkedIn.

Jan 18, 2022

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, the teams found themselves dependent on their managers or group leads. The culture was that the group leads would know the answer to everything. Additionally, all improvements were given to “improvement teams”, leaving the Scrum teams out of the improvement discussions. Listen in to learn how Linda and the rest of the Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters were able to turn this story around, and help the teams take an active role in the definition of their work!

Featured Book of the Week: Dare to Lead by Brené Brown

In Dare to Lead by Brené Brown, Linda learned a different way to lead. She learned that it is ok to not know the answer to every question, and it is necessary to give space to the others, to the teams we work with. She learned about inviting others to share to be vulnerable. 

As Linda puts it: “if you always talk, you hear only what you already know!”

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 ​​Linda van Sinten

Linda van Sinten is an experienced Scrum Master and creator of the Liberating Structures Visual design cards. She combines her knowledge of Scrum with the powerful skill of creating visualizations and visual tools to drive teams forward. She has trained over 500 people in making powerful visuals out of ideas, structuring strategies and product visions in Tech, Healthcare and other industries. 

You can link with ​​Linda van Sinten on LinkedIn.

Jan 17, 2022

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.

As Linda worked with multiple teams, she saw a pattern emerge. When she brought all her experience, and advice to teams that were new to Agile, the teams would invariably run away from here, or even tell her to step back. This helped Linda learn a very important lesson for Scrum Masters: we are there to help the team, not to help the team “do what we want them to do”. Listen in to learn what Linda went through, and how she works with Scrum teams now.

About ​​Linda van Sinten

Linda van Sinten is an experienced Scrum Master and creator of the Liberating Structures Visual design cards. She combines her knowledge of Scrum with the powerful skill of creating visualizations and visual tools to drive teams forward. She has trained over 500 people in making powerful visuals out of ideas, structuring strategies and product visions in Tech, Healthcare and other industries. 

You can link with ​​Linda van Sinten on LinkedIn.

Jan 14, 2022

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: Developing great networks with stakeholders

Great Product Owners know their product backlog back and forth, and develop great networks within the organization that help solve the critical problems, and answer questions for themselves and the teams they work with. This particular PO also made a point of being available for the team when the teams needed them, and met regularly with stakeholders 1-on-1. 

In this segment, we talk about User Story Mapping, and Impact Mapping

The Bad Product Owner: The many anti-patterns that develop when people are forced to take on the PO role

This Product Owner did not want to take on that role, they were forced to take it, and acted mostly like a Backlog secretary. By stepping back due to other responsibilities, this PO left the team to their own devices, and was mostly absent when the team needed them. 

And this was just the start, listen in to learn about the many anti-patterns that develop when people are forced to take on 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 Samet Ulutas

Samet has been working as an Agile Coach for more than 3 years and coached 35+ different teams until now. Samet has plenty of experience dealing with difficulties of an Agile Transformation, including being to witness the Agile Transformation of the largest private bank in Turkey from the beginning. Samet is also the co-owner of "Be Agile Stay Agile" YouTube channel. 

You can link with Samet Ulutas on LinkedIn and connect with Samet Ulutas on Twitter.

Jan 13, 2022

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.

There are 3 factors that Samet reviews regularly to assess his own work as a Scrum Master. We discuss those 3 factors, as well as some of the questions to take into account for a possible survey that documents the progress of the team over time. 

Featured Retrospective Format For The Week: Helping teams warm up to the retrospective

Samet shares Retromat.Org, a tool that helps Scrum Masters come up with new formats for every retrospective. When preparing for the retrospective, Samet puts special focus on the warm-up/check-in part, to help teams get ready to discuss the really important topics. Samet shares with us some tips on how to help teams get ready for the retrospective with some warm-up/check-in exercises. 

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 Samet Ulutas

Samet has been working as an Agile Coach for more than 3 years and coached 35+ different teams until now. Samet has plenty of experience dealing with difficulties of an Agile Transformation, including being to witness the Agile Transformation of the largest private bank in Turkey from the beginning. Samet is also the co-owner of "Be Agile Stay Agile" YouTube channel. 

You can link with Samet Ulutas on LinkedIn and connect with Samet Ulutas on Twitter.

Jan 12, 2022

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 organization was going through an Agile transformation, when Samet joined the Agile Coaching office in that organization. As the Agile Coaching office developed they were tasked with helping the teams adopt Agile, but that would require more than just “coaching”. Together with the rest of the team, Samet developed an “Agile Mirror” that would help the teams assess their own performance and progress. Listen in to learn how they deployed that Agile assessment to help the team, and the organization adopt Agile. 

About Samet Ulutas

Samet has been working as an Agile Coach for more than 3 years and coached 35+ different teams until now. Samet has plenty of experience dealing with difficulties of an Agile Transformation, including being to witness the Agile Transformation of the largest private bank in Turkey from the beginning. Samet is also the co-owner of "Be Agile Stay Agile" YouTube channel. 

You can link with Samet Ulutas on LinkedIn and connect with Samet Ulutas on Twitter.

Jan 11, 2022

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.

Samet was working with a team that was new to Agile. This team had been successful in the past, so they did not see any need to change, or move to a new process. As Samet tried to organize the Scrum ceremonies for the team, he was met with their absence. The team did not participate. Through this experience, Samet learned that trying to push Agile on a team that is not ready is not a good idea, but there are certain activities that are helpful even for teams that are not yet ready for Agile. Listen in to learn how Samet turned this situation around.

Featured Book of the Week: Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great by Larsen and Derby

In Agile Retrospectives by Diana Larsen and Esther Derby, Samet learned about the retrospective standard format, and started believing that retrospectives could have a great impact on the team’s performance over time. This is a book that Samet now recommends to all Agile leaders, not only Scrum Masters. 

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 Samet Ulutas

Samet has been working as an Agile Coach for more than 3 years and coached 35+ different teams until now. Samet has plenty of experience dealing with difficulties of an Agile Transformation, including being to witness the Agile Transformation of the largest private bank in Turkey from the beginning. Samet is also the co-owner of "Be Agile Stay Agile" YouTube channel. 

You can link with Samet Ulutas on LinkedIn and connect with Samet Ulutas on Twitter.

Jan 10, 2022

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 our eagerness to help, often we try to come up with solutions for the teams. When we do so, we amplify an anti-pattern of disengagement and lack of ownership. In this episode, we explore that anti-pattern, and discuss how Scrum Masters can avoid, or get out of that behavior, so that we may help the teams grow and take ownership of their process!

About Samet Ulutas

Samet has been working as an Agile Coach for more than 3 years and coached 35+ different teams until now. Samet has plenty of experience dealing with difficulties of an Agile Transformation, including being to witness the Agile Transformation of the largest private bank in Turkey from the beginning. Samet is also the co-owner of "Be Agile Stay Agile" YouTube channel. 

You can link with Samet Ulutas on LinkedIn and connect with Samet Ulutas on Twitter.

Jan 7, 2022

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 protector of the team

Great Product Owners are catalysts, they help the team deliver and protect them from interference and chaos. Great PO’s look at the team’s performance as the product of their ability to set them up for success by focusing on the problem, and letting the team contribute to designing the solution.

The Bad Product Owner: The “knows-all, decides-all” Product Owner anti-pattern

Sometimes, Product Owners think their role is to be heroes. Even if that’s a well intended anti-pattern, it creates significant problems for the teams they work with. In these cases, PO’s become easily bottlenecks for the team, as they want to be involved in everything, and every decision. Why does this anti-pattern emerge, and what can we do about it? Matthew helps us explore some tips and tools for Scrum Masters working with this type of Product Owners.

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 Matthew Green

Before becoming a Scrum Master, Matthew worked in a variety of roles both inside and outside of IT. This eclectic background has served him well in working with teams and individuals to help them on their own journey to a more humane way of working. 

You can link with Matthew Green on LinkedIn and connect with Matthew Green on Twitter.

Jan 6, 2022

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.

Matthew describes his goal as a Scrum Master and explains how he assesses the impact of his performance. We also discuss some of the “unmeasurable” aspects of the Scrum Master role, and how to keep those in mind even if it’s hard to quantify our impact on those dimensions.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Wheel of Agile Goodness

Matthew shares a format that focuses on finding the teams’ strengths and focusing on how to get even better. In some cases, teams can feel that Scrum is “pushing them to the hamster wheel”, and that detracts from motivation and satisfaction. Matthew suggests a format that helps teams get out of that hamster wheel anti-pattern.

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 Matthew Green

Before becoming a Scrum Master, Matthew worked in a variety of roles both inside and outside of IT. This eclectic background has served him well in working with teams and individuals to help them on their own journey to a more humane way of working. 

You can link with Matthew Green on LinkedIn and connect with Matthew Green on Twitter.

Jan 5, 2022

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.

Matthew shares with us two contrasting approaches to change, and change leadership. Company 1 wanted to go Agile in a way that would require only the IT department to change. Company 2 focused on helping the teams and viewed change as a slow, and people-centric process. In this episode, we talk about the role of creating “community” in a change process as well as supporting people through Communities of Practice. Listen in to learn how a community of practice can help your organization.

About Matthew Green

Before becoming a Scrum Master, Matthew worked in a variety of roles both inside and outside of IT. This eclectic background has served him well in working with teams and individuals to help them on their own journey to a more humane way of working. 

You can link with Matthew Green on LinkedIn and connect with Matthew Green on Twitter.

Jan 4, 2022

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.

Matthew was helping a team working in a “big data'' context. He started noticing that their refinement meetings did not look like he expected. As he started to look deeper into that practice, he found that the team had developed a critical anti-pattern that prevented them from collaborating. The refinement meeting was just one symptom of a much deeper problem...

Featured Book of the Week: The Coaching Habit by Michael Stainer

In The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Stainer, Matthew found a model that helped me get into the “curiosity mindset”, and out of the Scrum dictator role that some Scrum Masters adopt. This helped Matthew learn to adapt Scrum to the context where he worked.

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 Matthew Green

Before becoming a Scrum Master, Matthew worked in a variety of roles both inside and outside of IT. This eclectic background has served him well in working with teams and individuals to help them on their own journey to a more humane way of working. 

You can link with Matthew Green on LinkedIn and connect with Matthew Green on Twitter.

Jan 3, 2022

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.

Matthew started working with 3 COBOL teams who promptly stated: “Scrum does not work here”. The team also had heavy deadline pressure which made it even harder for them to think about changing their way of working. 

In this situation, the role of the Scrum Master is to look for opportunities. Not to push, but to help. Matthew shares his tips on how to handle this tough situation. 

About Matthew Green

Before becoming a Scrum Master, Matthew worked in a variety of roles both inside and outside of IT. This eclectic background has served him well in working with teams and individuals to help them on their own journey to a more humane way of working. 

You can link with Matthew Green on LinkedIn and connect with Matthew Green on Twitter.

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