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 Product Owner (PO) ensured every team member had a voice, fostering an environment for experimentation and ideation. They facilitated developer participation in hackathons and effectively communicated the vision and roadmap. The backlog was consistently well-organized and prioritized. The PO actively shared feedback, motivating the team. They sought opportunities for recognition and took pride in sprint reviews. This PO's commitment extended to continuous learning and self-improvement through training, events, and meetups, reflecting a growth-oriented mindset nurtured through Lorraine's coaching.
Lorraine recounts an experience with a PO that was often absent. The Product Owner was spread thin across multiple teams, leading to scheduling conflicts with scrum events. This resulted in a disorganized backlog and a lack of a clear vision. Open, candid conversations were crucial in highlighting the impact on the team. Together, Lorraine and the PO adjusted the calendar to prioritize the team's needs. With improved availability, the team thrived. Lorraine also collaborated with the PO to advocate for more dedicated time from management.
[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 Lorraine Chambers
Lorraine's vision of excellence is summed up in the words of philosopher, Lao Tzu -- “A leader is best when people barely know he exists ... " She's held several roles in the Fintech industry, including Product Owner and Quality Assurance. She's a native New Yorker that loves travel, music and museums.
You can link with Lorraine Chambers on LinkedIn and connect with Lorraine Chambers on Instagram.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, we explore what success means for Scrum Masters and Lorraine’s perspective. Lorraine suggests that success starts when both the team and customers are genuinely content and motivated. Key indicators include the team independently addressing anti-patterns, initiating discussions about their work, and requiring less assistance with basic tasks. Lorraine emphasizes the importance of a defined coaching plan (see the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel) and personal accountability. Conducting quarterly team health surveys provides concrete feedback for self-improvement, enabling Lorraine to track progress and address areas for growth effectively.
When it comes to retrospective formats, for mature teams, Lorraine favors the Lean Coffee approach, providing an informal setting where participants shape the agenda in real-time. This allows for open discussions on chosen topics within time constraints. Lorraine highlights how Lean Coffee often uncovers diverse team concerns. For less mature teams, she leans towards the Drop/Add/Keep/Improve framework (DAKI retrospective), emphasizing continuous improvement. She suggests that we use the "Improve" to inspire improvements that we keep an eye on during the Sprint. With remote teams, she utilizes MURAL's private mode for collaborative sticky-note sessions.
[IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he’s learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!
About Lorraine Chambers
Lorraine's vision of excellence is summed up in the words of philosopher, Lao Tzu -- “A leader is best when people barely know he exists ... " She's held several roles in the Fintech industry, including Product Owner and Quality Assurance. She's a native New Yorker that loves travel, music and museums.
You can link with Lorraine Chambers on LinkedIn and connect with Lorraine Chambers on Instagram.
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 story starts with an agile transformation featuring a shift-left initiative. The team faced challenges in implementing test automation due to unclear policies and time allocation. Recognizing the challenges faced by the teams, Lorraine engaged with managers and leaders, advocating to give teams the support they needed. Through that, it was possible to help the teams with guidance on Test-Driven Development and support in using an internal testing tool. When it comes to helping teams adopt new practices, Lorraine advises identifying policy and decision-makers, gathering relevant data, and proposing time-limited experiments for major changes, culminating in retrospective evaluations.
[IMAGE HERE] As Scrum Master we work with change continuously! Do you have your own change framework that provides the guidance, and queues you need when working with change? The Lean Change Management framework is a fully defined, lean-startup inspired change framework that can be used as the backbone of any change process! You can buy Lean Change Management the book at Amazon. Also available in French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.
About Lorraine Chambers
Lorraine's vision of excellence is summed up in the words of philosopher, Lao Tzu -- “A leader is best when people barely know he exists ... " She's held several roles in the Fintech industry, including Product Owner and Quality Assurance. She's a native New Yorker that loves travel, music and museums.
You can link with Lorraine Chambers on LinkedIn and connect with Lorraine Chambers on Instagram.
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, Lorraine explores the story of a midsized team within a larger organization. Operating in silos, the team members juggled disconnected tasks, leading to significant carryover between sprints, and an inability to fulfill sprint commitments. The silos led to limited collaboration which, in time, further hindered progress. Lorraine addressed concerns with the Product Owner and manager, but changes were deemed unfeasible at the time. This situation impeded the team's ability to self-organize. As reflection for Scrum Masters, Lorraine advises reflecting on the organizational team model and strategizing how to foster collective participation in sprint planning, shared goals, and self-organization within the team.
Lorraine discusses a pivotal book in her career: "Radical Candor" by Kim Scott, emphasizing its guidance on effective communication and feedback provision for coaches. The book advocates candidness in delivering both praise and criticism, underscoring the significance of nurturing relationships. Lorraine recounts an illustrative story from the book where a lack of candor led to performance issues. The lesson: timely, candid feedback is crucial.
[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 Lorraine Chambers
Lorraine's vision of excellence is summed up in the words of philosopher, Lao Tzu -- “A leader is best when people barely know he exists ... " She's held several roles in the Fintech industry, including Product Owner and Quality Assurance. She's a native New Yorker that loves travel, music and museums.
You can link with Lorraine Chambers on LinkedIn and connect with Lorraine Chambers on Instagram.
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, Lorraine reflects on a pivotal early experience as a Scrum Master. Faced with communication breakdowns in her new team, exacerbated by disrespectful responses to a junior member, she initially hoped for resolution without intervention. However, tensions escalated. Seeking guidance from an agile coach, they conducted communication-focused sessions, delving into communication styles and sharing some active listening practices. Progress seemed slow, prompting Lorraine to shift her coaching approach. She designed a workshop on navigating disagreements, using role-playing exercises. Additionally, she emphasized creating a collaborative working agreement and proactive identification of anti-patterns. Ultimately, Lorraine emphasizes arming teams with tools for independent problem-solving.
[IMAGE HERE] Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story - How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.
About Lorraine Chambers
Lorraine's vision of excellence is summed up in the words of philosopher, Lao Tzu -- “A leader is best when people barely know he exists ... " She's held several roles in the Fintech industry, including Product Owner and Quality Assurance. She's a native New Yorker that loves travel, music and museums.
You can link with Lorraine Chambers on LinkedIn and connect with Lorraine Chambers on Instagram.
Troy, in this Agile Uprising podcast episode, delves into his intriguing journey in the realm of forecasting and estimation for software development. Inspired by that episode, we discuss the concept of Gambler's Ruin, a mathematical problem turned into a game. Troy shares the main insights from Gambler’s Ruin and mentions Prateek Singh of ProKanban.org who has used this concept to demonstrate that even a slight skill advantage can lead to success when focusing product development on what Troy calls “Small Bets”
Small bets relate to the implications of spending money on a product idea. It's not just an expense; it's an investment with an anticipated return on investment (ROI). The crucial question arises: how do we strategically place these bets in product development? Here, Troy exposes the fallacy of assuming we can determine value upfront. We also discuss the concept of anti-fragility and highlight how many processes are inadvertently designed to be fragile. In this context, the size of the bet correlates with cycle time, and "time" itself becomes the bet's magnitude. As Annie Duke advocates in her book "Thinking in Bets," small bets bolster resilience, while large bets can lead to vulnerability.
How do we know we are making small bets? Troy sheds light on the pivotal flow metrics that software development teams should diligently track. He explains the relationship between Work In Progress (WIP) and cycle time, referring to Little's law formula. And he introduces work item age as a metric that can help predict WIP and Cycle time, which gives teams a tangible representation of their current investment. This metric aids in decision-making and fosters a more effective approach to forecasting.
In the podcast, Troy advocates for a paradigm shift in prioritization practices. He highlights that the more time spent prioritizing work, the larger the bet size (planning time directly affects bet size). Drawing from the wisdom of Don Reinertsen and the principles outlined in the book "Principles of Product Development Flow," he stresses the intrinsic cost associated with all work undertaken. Aligning individuals and teams on priorities is essential, yet the priority itself may hold uncertainty.
To aid teams in this endeavor, Troy discusses the Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) framework, and how it offers a pragmatic approach to prioritize tasks based on contributing factors. However, prioritization is directly affected by dependencies, which means that eliminating dependencies becomes a critical step towards making smaller, more manageable bets. For example, by segregating dependencies, teams can significantly reduce bet sizes and enhance predictability.
In this episode, Troy elucidates how conventional prioritization techniques can inadvertently hinder forecasting and predictability. He provides insights into alternative approaches that foster adaptability and more accurate forecasts.
For those eager to dive deeper into the world of Agile metrics and predictability, Troy recommends Dan Vacanti's book, "Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability," as an invaluable resource.
About Troy Lightfoot
Troy is a Lean Product Development Coach and trainer for ProKanban.Org. He coaches and trains Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe and other Agile Scaling approaches. Troy transitioned from computer science to full-time Agile coaching, specializing in Lean Portfolio and Program Management. He is also a co-founder of the Agile Uprising Podcast, and an active blogger. For further insights into Troy's work and methodologies, visit ProKanbanTraining.com and explore the Agile Uprising podcast. Additionally, you can delve deeper into Troy's teachings at ProKanban.org.
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, Tom highlights anti-patterns like a lack of trust in the team's judgment and over-explanation of implementation details. Tom offers a valuable tip of using stories to illustrate the distinction between "how" and "why" for effective communication. He underscores the importance of clearly defining Acceptance Criteria (ACs) while avoiding dictating the solution's appearance. Tom also emphasizes the need for coaching efforts directed towards the team's understanding and collaboration, demonstrating the reciprocal nature of the Product Owner role.
Tom delves into the nuances of an effective Product Owner (PO). Tom shares a cautionary tale of a PO's performance shift after changing teams, emphasizing the importance of aligning behavior with team needs. He advises against expecting uniformity and highlights the role of self-awareness in fostering an environment of growth and effectiveness. He emphasizes the need to adapt PO behaviors between different teams, underscoring the need for refined communication. Prioritization, a crucial aspect, is explored in depth.
[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 Tom Siebeneicher
Tom is an engaging speaker, who has delivered presentations at conferences like the Atos DREAM Conference, the Agile Leadership Day, and TED XKE by Xebia. Their enthusiasm for discussing Agile is evident in those talks.
You can link with Tom Siebeneicher on LinkedIn.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, we explore Tom’s thoughts on the factors for Scrum Master success. He emphasizes the importance of team members feeling safe to share impediments and the prompt resolution of such issues. Tom encourages actions that promote collaboration and the consistent identification of impediments. He advises a perpetual drive for improvement and stresses the necessity of measuring progress. Tom underlines the need for a space where honesty and constructive criticism can be part of the team dynamics to ensure continuous growth and success in the Scrum Master role.
Tom shares his preferred Agile retrospective format, emphasizing the increased impact of being physically together in one room. He advocates for a simple start/stop/continue approach, focusing not only on the retro itself but also on the moments leading up to it. Tom underscores the importance of observing non-verbal cues to gauge team dynamics and potential pressure points. For remote retrospectives, he advises a thorough check-in with each participant. He stresses the significance of verbally setting the scene, considering it a critical aspect of a successful retrospective.
[IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he’s learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!
About Tom Siebeneicher
Tom is an engaging speaker, who has delivered presentations at conferences like the Atos DREAM Conference, the Agile Leadership Day, and TED XKE by Xebia. Their enthusiasm for discussing Agile is evident in those talks.
You can link with Tom Siebeneicher on LinkedIn.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
Tom explores the process of change management when adopting Scrum. He shares some of the lessons he’s learned over the years, emphasizing the importance of understanding the "why" behind the change and garnering leadership support. Tom advocates for open communication through town hall meetings and QA sessions, fostering knowledge acquisition. He highlights the significance of individual empowerment and addresses the limitations of change capacity for teams and organizations. Tom offers a valuable tip to assess if teams are adopting change willingly or being pressured, underscoring the need to gauge the optimal pace of change adoption. In this episode, we refer to the Lean Change Management framework for effective implementation, which is described in Jason Little’s book: Lean Change Management.
[IMAGE HERE] As Scrum Master we work with change continuously! Do you have your own change framework that provides the guidance, and queues you need when working with change? The Lean Change Management framework is a fully defined, lean-startup inspired change framework that can be used as the backbone of any change process! You can buy Lean Change Management the book at Amazon. Also available in French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.
About Tom Siebeneicher
Tom is an engaging speaker, who has delivered presentations at conferences like the Atos DREAM Conference, the Agile Leadership Day, and TED XKE by Xebia. Their enthusiasm for discussing Agile is evident in those talks.
You can link with Tom Siebeneicher on LinkedIn.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
Tom shares the story of a team that slowly drifted away from Scrum, and it’s values, but without noticing it themselves! The team followed the rituals, but their retrospectives pushed them aways from Agile and Scrum principles. The team inadvertently, and over time, adopted a waterfall approach. To avoid this in your teams, Tom advocates for digging into root causes instead of symptom-fixing. Eventually, Tom helped the team do a “scrum reset” which realigned the team, prompting a valuable tip: conduct resets every six months. Tom emphasizes double-loop learning, urging a focus on long-term improvement amidst day-to-day challenges.
Tom delves into the transformative impact of Eric Ries' "The Lean Startup." The book revolutionized his perspective on Minimum Viable Products (MVPs), emphasizing radical experimentation and learning over rigid planning. It liberated him from the constraints of plan-driven approaches, emphasizing the dynamic nature of execution. Tom underscores the criticality of continuous measurement and learning, a principle he now prioritizes in his approach. He shares valuable advice: never underestimate the power of measuring and learning in the pursuit of agile success.
[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 Tom Siebeneicher
Tom is an engaging speaker, who has delivered presentations at conferences like the Atos DREAM Conference, the Agile Leadership Day, and TED XKE by Xebia. Their enthusiasm for discussing Agile is evident in those talks.
You can link with Tom Siebeneicher on LinkedIn.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, Tom reflects on his experience as an Agile coach overseeing multiple Scrum teams. Initially observing signs of stress, he attempted a collective retrospective to address concerns. However, when it faltered, he realized that the team was struggling with deeper issues. Notably, key team members struggled to collaborate, leading to discomfort and communication blockers. Tom's hesitation to engage directly with these team members impacted the team's cohesion. He emphasizes the importance of fostering a safe environment for open dialogue and encourages connecting with the people in the team to enhance coaching effectiveness. Tom also shares some of the pivotal moments that influenced his coaching journey.
[IMAGE HERE] Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story - How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.
About Tom Siebeneicher
Tom is an engaging speaker, who has delivered presentations at conferences like the Atos DREAM Conference, the Agile Leadership Day, and TED XKE by Xebia. Their enthusiasm for discussing Agile is evident in those talks.
You can link with Tom Siebeneicher on LinkedIn.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this segment, Toby discusses common anti-patterns associated with Product Owners (POs), particularly the issue of them treating their role as a part-time role. Many organizations assign PO responsibilities as a secondary task, causing problems like absenteeism during critical team interactions. This particular PO, who had a full-time job outside of their role, lacked both Agile and software development experience, along with emotional intelligence. The key takeaway was the importance of PO presence and engagement with the team, with a suggestion to have them spend a full day working alongside the team to improve collaboration.
In this segment, Toby discusses the qualities of a great Product Owner (PO). The exceptional PO he describes, was known for their easy collaboration with the team and their constant availability. The PO emphasized understanding before imposing their views and consistently approached discussions from the perspective of the key Personas for the product. The PO also encouraged the team to consider the system from the customer/user standpoint, this PO deeply comprehended the team's workflow, which made collaboration easy. Additionally, they recognized the efficiency of pre-refinement in the team's processes, and made the necessary adaptation to their own workflow.
[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 Toby Rao
Toby is an ICF-credentialed Coach and accredited IC Agile trainer, and practices as a certified Executive coach. With a dynamic Agile journey beginning in 2007, he's an active contributor to the global Agile community. He is based in Washington DC Metro, and speaks at Agile events worldwide and co-founded the A20 Agile conference. Toby also co-founded two thriving Agile meetups in the Washington DC area, with a combined 1300 members.
You can link with Toby Rao on LinkedIn and connect with Toby Rao on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, we discuss how to achieve true self-organization within the team. Toby’s perspective is that success is measured by several key factors, including active participation and engagement in daily standup meetings. Toby suggests we assess our success by observing if team members are paying attention, interacting with one another, and openly sharing solutions during these meetings.
Toby’s favorite retrospective format is the "4 L's retrospective," which stands for Liked, Learned, Lacked, and Longed for. In this segment, he highlights its effectiveness in generating ideas, with a particular emphasis on the "learned" component. Toby stressed the importance of continuous learning for both himself and his team, making it a central theme in his retrospectives. The format encourages sharing valuable learning moments and contributes to the team's growth and improvement.
[IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he’s learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!
About Toby Rao
Toby is an ICF-credentialed Coach and accredited IC Agile trainer, and practices as a certified Executive coach. With a dynamic Agile journey beginning in 2007, he's an active contributor to the global Agile community. He is based in Washington DC Metro, and speaks at Agile events worldwide and co-founded the A20 Agile conference. Toby also co-founded two thriving Agile meetups in the Washington DC area, with a combined 1300 members.
You can link with Toby Rao on LinkedIn and connect with Toby Rao on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, Toby talks about a team whose burndown chart resembled a cliff, indicating possible problems in the way they managed their sprints. The team was essentially following a mini-waterfall approach, with stories remaining open until the last two days of the sprint. Toby realized the need for change and emphasized the importance of observing what's happening beyond the team's actions. He acknowledged that change couldn't happen overnight and worked with the team to break down stories for better progress transparency. But that wasn’t an easy process! Toby shares how he got the team from “you are criticizing us” to having the team take ownership of their process and make the necessary changes.
[IMAGE HERE] As Scrum Master we work with change continuously! Do you have your own change framework that provides the guidance, and queues you need when working with change? The Lean Change Management framework is a fully defined, lean-startup inspired change framework that can be used as the backbone of any change process! You can buy Lean Change Management the book at Amazon. Also available in French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.
About Toby Rao
Toby is an ICF-credentialed Coach and accredited IC Agile trainer, and practices as a certified Executive coach. With a dynamic Agile journey beginning in 2007, he's an active contributor to the global Agile community. He is based in Washington DC Metro, and speaks at Agile events worldwide and co-founded the A20 Agile conference. Toby also co-founded two thriving Agile meetups in the Washington DC area, with a combined 1300 members.
You can link with Toby Rao on LinkedIn and connect with Toby Rao on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, Toby shares his experience working with a once high-performing team that faced challenges after a leadership change and the introduction of new team members. The established team members, deeply bonded, struggled to share information with the newcomers who questioned team practices. The team found itself stuck in the "storming" phase of development, with trust being a significant issue. Toby emphasized the importance of creating new working agreements when a team undergoes significant changes and promoting collaboration with a "yes, and" approach. He highlighted the need for trust-building interventions, engaging retrospectives, celebrating small successes, and conducting 1-on-1 conversations to address the trust imbalance and improve team dynamics.
In this episode, we refer to the Tuckman Stages Of Group Development and TastyCupcakes.org.
In Toby's discussion about his favorite book, "Atomic Habits" by James Clear, he highlighted how the book transformed his perspective. He successfully encouraged team members and friends to read it by emphasizing its approach to change. The book's principle of breaking down significant changes into small daily habits resonated with Toby. It underscored the idea that consistent small actions can result in substantial transformations. Toby also mentioned how the book influenced his coaching style, particularly by suggesting the effective question, "What's your plan to solve that problem?" It emphasized the power of incremental changes and thoughtful problem-solving strategies.
[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 Toby Rao
Toby is an ICF-credentialed Coach and accredited IC Agile trainer, and practices as a certified Executive coach. With a dynamic Agile journey beginning in 2007, he's an active contributor to the global Agile community. He is based in Washington DC Metro, and speaks at Agile events worldwide and co-founded the A20 Agile conference. Toby also co-founded two thriving Agile meetups in the Washington DC area, with a combined 1300 members.
You can link with Toby Rao on LinkedIn and connect with Toby Rao on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, Toby shares his experience of working with a team in this transition. Toby emphasized the importance of addressing the initial challenges, including stakeholder engagement and logistics. He highlights the need to overcome mindset barriers within the organization. Key takeaways from this conversation include: the importance of seeking to understand before being understood, helping others grasp the team's needs, involving leads and stakeholders from other teams to identify blockers, and being open to negotiation for the team's success. Ultimately, creating shared understanding and transparency led to successful collaboration.
In this episode, we refer to the Tuckman Stages Of Group Development.
[IMAGE HERE] Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story - How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.
About Toby Rao
Toby is an ICF-credentialed Coach and accredited IC Agile trainer, and practices as a certified Executive coach. With a dynamic Agile journey beginning in 2007, he's an active contributor to the global Agile community. He is based in Washington DC Metro, and speaks at Agile events worldwide and co-founded the A20 Agile conference. Toby also co-founded two thriving Agile meetups in the Washington DC area, with a combined 1300 members.
You can link with Toby Rao on LinkedIn and connect with Toby Rao on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
Squirrel delves into the misconception that outsourcing engineers overseas automatically leads to cost reduction in software organizations. He explains that while the salary expenses might be lower for offshore teams, other costs come into play.
He illustrates the situation with an example involving two tech teams, one located onshore in California, USA, and the other in India. The Indian team had one quarter the salary of the onshore team, prompting the question of why the more expensive US engineers are retained. The discussion highlights the importance of evaluating the genuine costs of offshoring beyond just salaries. Additionally, Squirrel raises the question of which team is more productive and points out the time zone difference as a significant factor impacting communication and coordination.
Surprisingly, when the overall costs are tallied, they often don't exhibit a substantial difference due to various expenses that often get ignored. The aspect of speed of delivery is also examined, and the suggestion is made to have a local representative support the outsourced team to facilitate smoother communication. Beyond the operational costs, we also talk about how difficult it is to maintain effective communication between teams, and the cost of frequent international travel.
Squirrel emphasizes the necessity of having experienced individuals in the offshore team, highlighting that it’s even more important to hire very senior people in offshore teams. We also discuss how hard it is to find accommodation for senior engineers that move to the offshore locations.
Squirrel delves into the patterns that can enhance the effectiveness of offshoring. The concept of near shoring is introduced, especially when there are significant challenges in finding talent close to the headquarters.
The discussion then pivots to the importance of team organization for offshoring success. The idea of cross-functional teams or feature teams is introduced as an effective approach. Squirrel references FeatureTeams.org, emphasizing that these teams possess the flexibility to work on any feature, thereby minimizing communication dependencies.
A strategy to integrate feature teams across regions is presented through the "ambassador pattern," which involves designated individuals who bridge the communication gaps between teams in different locations.
We also discuss how to optimize communication and resources for remote teams. Squirrel introduces the notion that outsourcing and offshoring may be a possible solution to solve the talent problem by tapping into global talent pools. He offers practical tips, such as conducting all meetings online and making it a rule to always include offshore team members. Creating opportunities for "osmotic communication" – the exchange of information through casual interactions – is suggested as a means to foster team cohesion across distances.
The episode concludes with a list of recommended resources for further exploration. These include Stack Overflow’s own experience about fully remote work, Squirrel's own website (DouglasSquirrel.com), Team Topologies (a topic which has been presented on the podcast by its authors Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais), the FeatureTeams.org website, and the virtual office platform Sococo.
Throughout the conversation, Squirrel provides insights into the complexities of offshoring, shedding light on the multifaceted considerations that impact its success. From cost evaluation to effective team organization and communication strategies, the episode offers a comprehensive overview of the nuances surrounding offshore software development teams.
About Douglas Squirrel
Squirrel has been coding for more than 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 his website.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, Seye highlights a remarkable product owner with a background as a Scrum Master. Her calm demeanor and willingness to experiment, even without a clear endpoint, stood out. She actively engaged in collaborative experimentation, asking "Can we try this?" and collectively defining and learning from experiments with the team. This experimental mindset contributed to her effectiveness as a Product Owner. Moreover, she adeptly interacted with all team members and had the valuable skill of calming down heated discussions.
In this episode, Seye discusses the disengaged Product Owner (PO) anti-pattern. He underscores the significant impact of PO engagement on performance, highlighting the necessity for their active involvement in discussions that lead to clarity. Other anti-patterns include treating the backlog as a simple "to do list" and having insufficiently detailed backlog items (DEEP Backlog) for prioritization and estimation. These issues stem from diverse causes, such as organizational oversight of product ownership. Seye suggests assisting POs in understanding their role, offering guidance to rectify these patterns and enhance their effectiveness in Agile teams.
[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 Seye Kuyinu
Seye has been a Scrum Master for about a decade now. He first connected to Agile, frustrated with the lack of adequate communication that plagues traditional complex projects. He finds People and Interactions over Processes & Tools cannot be overstated, while seeing that everything is a fractal- our individual, team, organization and societal challenges are the very same. The solution in every layer is the same- an understanding of ONENESS!
You can link with Seye Kuyinu on LinkedIn and connect with Seye Kuyinu on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, Seye delves into his multi-layered perspective on success as a Scrum Master. Firstly, he emphasizes understanding success from the perspective of those he serves, suggesting collaboration to define it. He also sees success in terms of "working software" and advises teams to contextualize its meaning. Seye underscores the human aspect of product development and references the concept of "making people awesome" from Modern Agile. He encourages Scrum Masters to align with their personal values and live them out, adding depth to their success definition in the agile context.
In this episode, Seye introduces his preferred retrospective formats, starting with "temperature mapping." Using tools like MURAL, this format encourages team members to share their emotions throughout the sprint. Another favorite is the "Sailboat retrospective," employing visuals to stimulate discussion. Seye also advocates for a "futurespective" using storytelling, where teams envision the future. These formats foster open communication, engagement, and forward thinking, enhancing the retrospective experience and driving improvements in the team's agile process.
[IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he’s learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!
About Seye Kuyinu
Seye has been a Scrum Master for about a decade now. He first connected to Agile, frustrated with the lack of adequate communication that plagues traditional complex projects. He finds People and Interactions over Processes & Tools cannot be overstated, while seeing that everything is a fractal- our individual, team, organization and societal challenges are the very same. The solution in every layer is the same- an understanding of ONENESS!
You can link with Seye Kuyinu on LinkedIn and connect with Seye Kuyinu on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, Seye delves into change leadership within an organization facing team cohesion challenges. He highlights the initial step of process assessment and the impact of conflicting factions within a team. The breakdown of processes led to differing interpretations of the team's goals. Seye references Arlo Belshee's work in Agile Engineering Fluency (detailed map here), and suggests establishing work agreements, visualizing the change process, and securing buy-in for effective change. He underscores the importance of collective ownership of change and introduces the idea of a team coaching canvas to facilitate progress. The episode emphasizes collaborative change leadership to address team dynamics and process issues.
[IMAGE HERE] As Scrum Master we work with change continuously! Do you have your own change framework that provides the guidance, and queues you need when working with change? The Lean Change Management framework is a fully defined, lean-startup inspired change framework that can be used as the backbone of any change process! You can buy Lean Change Management the book at Amazon. Also available in French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.
About Seye Kuyinu
Seye has been a Scrum Master for about a decade now. He first connected to Agile, frustrated with the lack of adequate communication that plagues traditional complex projects. He finds People and Interactions over Processes & Tools cannot be overstated, while seeing that everything is a fractal- our individual, team, organization and societal challenges are the very same. The solution in every layer is the same- an understanding of ONENESS!
You can link with Seye Kuyinu on LinkedIn and connect with Seye Kuyinu on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, Seye discusses an organization's journey towards creating value streams and aligning teams accordingly. They adopted the approach of taking teams to the work rather than the reverse. This involved setting up teams for new features, but the structure changed after a few months, leading to reassigning team members. Seye refers to the Tuckman's stages of group development to highlight the transitional nature of teams. In this episode, we also discuss how important it is to focus on setting up a robust infrastructure to make it possible to dynamically reconfigure teams, underlining the importance of adaptability in Agile environments.
Seye's recommended book for Scrum Masters is "The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship" by David Whyte. The book explores reimagining work and relationships, emphasizing the need for a holistic view rather than strict work-life balance. Another impactful read is “Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond” by Bob Galen, which transformed Seye's coaching approach. He suggests adapting language to the audience, shifting from software development jargon to business terminology. Seye advocates speaking the language of those being served, aligning communication for more effective collaboration.
[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 Seye Kuyinu
Seye has been a Scrum Master for about a decade now. He first connected to Agile, frustrated with the lack of adequate communication that plagues traditional complex projects. He finds People and Interactions over Processes & Tools cannot be overstated, while seeing that everything is a fractal- our individual, team, organization and societal challenges are the very same. The solution in every layer is the same- an understanding of ONENESS!
You can link with Seye Kuyinu on LinkedIn and connect with Seye Kuyinu on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, Seye discusses a common anti-pattern that scrum masters can fall into, which involves not recognizing the distinction between Scrum practices and real-world situations. The organization Seye was working at had embraced Agile methodologies. However, Seye found some Agile adoption issues like never ending meetings, one-hour daily standups, and conflicts during sprint planning. Seye suggests refraining from commanding the team and emphasizes the importance of not imposing the daily stand-up. He reflects on his own experience of lacking context and merely following the Scrum guide. To address this, we discuss forming coaching agreements with teams to ensure mutual understanding and effective implementation of Agile principles. Seye underscores the need for practical adaptation rather than rigid adherence.
In this episode, we also refer to Holacracy, and the book Getting Things Done by David Allen.
[IMAGE HERE] Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story - How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.
About Seye Kuyinu
Seye has been a Scrum Master for about a decade now. He first connected to Agile, frustrated with the lack of adequate communication that plagues traditional complex projects. He finds People and Interactions over Processes & Tools cannot be overstated, while seeing that everything is a fractal- our individual, team, organization and societal challenges are the very same. The solution in every layer is the same- an understanding of ONENESS!
You can link with Seye Kuyinu on LinkedIn and connect with Seye Kuyinu on Twitter.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this segment, Khwezi highlights an exceptional Product Owner (PO) she collaborated with. The PO possessed a deep understanding of the product's market, customers, and business context, enabling her to continuously update the product effectively. She exhibited excellent teamwork despite the distributed nature of the team, showing awareness of diverse cultures. Her proficiency in user story mapping facilitated smoother processes, including onboarding new team members. Overall, the PO's comprehensive grasp of the product's ecosystem and her collaborative skills stood out as instrumental in driving the team's success.
While POs typically hold respected roles with authority over the product backlog, some misuse this status, behaving as if superior to the team. Often from management, such POs pose various challenges, including not being available often enough when the teams need their presence. Scrum Masters play a role in educating POs, advising team lift-offs to define roles, and coaching the POs to be active team participants. Khwezi emphasizes the Scrum Master's mediation role, and we discuss the “Coach Your PO e-course” which aims to help Scrum Masters have an effective PO collaboration.
[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 Khwezi Mputa
Khwezi is an experienced Agile coach, trainer, and IT professional since 2008. With diverse roles like Scrum Master, Agile Project Manager, and Business Analyst, she's active in the Agile community, promoting diversity. Passionate about teaching, she empowers individuals and organizations to reach their full potential through coaching and mentoring.
You can link with Khwezi Mputa on LinkedIn.