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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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Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
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Now displaying: Category: general
Dec 16, 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: Repetition as a communication strategy for Product Owners

This Product Owner was very clear in their communication with the team and stakeholders. The PO was able to regularly and consistently share their Vision for the product, the long term plan and their ambition. The PO understood that repetition was part of the communication strategy! 

In this segment, we also talk about the Scrum Master - PO relationship, and how important it is to continuously work on that. To support you with the Scrum Master - PO relationship, we’ve developed a course you can take at your own pace. This course focuses on concrete aspects of coaching with PO’s that Scrum Masters must be aware of. You can find out more about that e-course at bit.ly/coachyourpo.

The Bad Product Owner: The conditions that create bad Product Owners

As Scrum Masters, we must be aware that Product Owners are not “bad” on purpose. Paula suggests that, if we find a bad PO, we look beyond the PO and understand what are the circumstances, or the missing knowledge that may be causing that outcome. Paula suggests we ask: “what are the Product Owner being asked to do?”, “are priorities clear for the Product Owner themselves?”. In this segment, we also discuss metrics, and how the metrics we have in our organization may help (or not) the PO’s.

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 Paula Dunne

Paula is an Agile Coach with experience in large organization Agile adoption as well as in coaching product owners.

You can link with Paula Dunne on LinkedIn.

Dec 15, 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.

Paula suggests that our retrospectives, how they run, how effective they are, can be a great indicator of our success as Scrum Masters. We discuss what to look for, and how to reflect on the retrospectives to take lessons for our work as Scrum Masters.

Featured Retrospective for the Week: Helping team members integrate their thinking with a drawing icebreaker

When teams come to the Retrospective, they have the burden of the Sprint that just ended still fresh in their mind. It’s our job, as facilitators, to help the team get out of that “pressure” and “performance” mode, into the reflection and learning mode they need in the Retrospectives. Paula suggests that starting with a drawing icebreaker is a great way to help teams focus on the topic at hand, and get ready to learn deeply about their work!

 

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 Paula Dunne

Paula is an Agile Coach with experience in large organization Agile adoption as well as in coaching product owners.

You can link with Paula Dunne on LinkedIn

Dec 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.

Paula was responsible for helping a division design and develop an agile framework that would fit their needs. In that process, she learned about the need to have people in the team that have big ideas and are positive, but also people who can challenge the thinking of the team, and consider all possible difficult questions. 

In this episode, we talk about The 6 Thinking Hats by Edward De Bono

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 Paula Dunne

Paula is an Agile Coach with experience in large organization Agile adoption as well as in coaching product owners.

You can link with Paula Dunne on LinkedIn

Dec 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.

When Paula joined this team, she noticed the team was not sharing the good (or bad) things that were happening. We discuss how teams in the new “remote world” become passive and do not follow-up on their agreements, and let things drop because the other person is not there, present by their side. In this segment, we talk about how important it is to work on the relationships between team members as well as between team members and stakeholders, especially in this remote work world!

Featured Book of the Week: The Art of Being Brilliant by Cope and Whittaker

In The Art of Being Brilliant: Transform Your Life by Doing What Works For You by Cope and Whittaker, is a book that helped Paula orient her career and learn about positive psychology which helped her feel and help others feel more confident in themselves. In this segment, we refer to Woody Zuill, a previous guest on the podcast and his mantra “turn up the good”.

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 Paula Dunne

Paula is an Agile Coach with experience in large organization Agile adoption as well as in coaching product owners.

You can link with Paula Dunne on LinkedIn

Dec 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.

Paula was working with a team that needed to learn about estimation and limiting their capacity. However, that’s a tough role to take on as a Scrum Master. As Scrum Masters, we want the teams to believe they can do well, and do more. Paula had to learn to be the source of bad news for the team, and become the person who insisted they prioritize their work together with the Product Owner.

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.

Dec 9, 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: Willing to learn, and ready to experiment, the secret to great newbie PO’s!

This PO had never heard about Scrum before they started their work as PO for a Scrum team. They were also new to Agile in general. However, the PO decided and took action on learning quickly what was expected, and sought out a strong collaboration with the team, participating in their retros, and by being willing to try new things that might have seemed confusing or even scary at first. 

The Bad Product Owner: Unable to make decisions, and with low confidence, the PO perfect storm! And how to solve it!

This Product Owner was not empowered by their stakeholders, and therefore not confident. To add to the problems, the PO was also not available, and took a long time to be able to make decisions. This led to the team sometimes having very undefined and unclear requirements. When the team asked questions, the PO was often not able to answer their questions, nor did they take those questions forward to someone who could answer them. The scene was set for a disaster, but thankfully something happened that changed the dynamics. Listen in to learn how Jill and the teams were able to change things, and ultimately got to a point where they got what they needed from the PO.

 

[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 Jill Stott

Jill Stott is here to make friends! She's worked in IT for too many years to count. She is passionate about assisting ScrumMasters to be successful and happy in their roles. Jill knows that there is no such thing as a perfect chocolate chip cookie and she isn't afraid to use puppets.

You can link with Jill Stott on LinkedIn

Dec 8, 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.

When it comes to reviewing, and assessing our own success as Scrum Masters, Jill chooses to focus on a few metrics that she follows and discusses with the team. In this episode, we share and discuss what those metrics are, and how you can introduce the idea to the team.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Introducing Retrospectives on Demand, an Agile approach to Agile retrospectives!

Jill has used many different formats in her role as Scrum Master. But lately, she’s shifted to “retrospectives on demand”. She encourages teams to raise their hand whenever something is on their mind, and they want to discuss it. As a heuristic for these retrospectives on demand, she started a board with the team, and whenever there are a certain number of cards on that board, the team gets together and discusses those topics. 

 

About Jill Stott

Jill Stott is here to make friends! She's worked in IT for too many years to count. She is passionate about assisting ScrumMasters to be successful and happy in their roles. Jill knows that there is no such thing as a perfect chocolate chip cookie and she isn't afraid to use puppets.

You can link with Jill Stott on LinkedIn

Dec 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.

Jill was working with a UI toolkit team. This team served a lot of other teams as their direct users/customers. All seemed to be going fine, but as the number of client teams was growing, senior management came in and asked them to adopt the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) as a way to help coordinate the work of these multiple teams. This started a process of SAFe adoption that Jill describes in detail in this episode!

 

About Jill Stott

Jill Stott is here to make friends! She's worked in IT for too many years to count. She is passionate about assisting ScrumMasters to be successful and happy in their roles. Jill knows that there is no such thing as a perfect chocolate chip cookie and she isn't afraid to use puppets.

You can link with Jill Stott on LinkedIn

Dec 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.

Jill was working in a team where all the team members knew each other well, it was almost like a group of friends. However, this team was not perfect. They struggled to complete even a third of all the stories they took into the Sprint. When looking back, she can recognize the pattern of the dominant/opinionated developer who wanted to take a lot into every sprint. This left the Product Owner and Business Analyst for that team frustrated, because the unpredictability had already become a problem. Listen in to learn how that team was able to move away from the “take as much as you want” mentality into the sprint. 

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

In Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins, Jill found an essential guide to her work as a Scrum Master. It was the book that helped her understand the different responsibilities of a Scrum Master, the difference between Agile Coaching and the Scrum Master role. It’s a book she still refers to even now. 

 

About Jill Stott

Jill Stott is here to make friends! She's worked in IT for too many years to count. She is passionate about assisting ScrumMasters to be successful and happy in their roles. Jill knows that there is no such thing as a perfect chocolate chip cookie and she isn't afraid to use puppets.

You can link with Jill Stott on LinkedIn

Dec 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.

Jill was helping a team under a lot of pressure. In her journey as a Scrum Master at the time, Jill wanted to help the team, and therefore took the role of the organizer for the team, setting up their meetings, and ensuring the team was following Scrum. However, the team did not want to do Scrum at the time. On top of that, Jill was also a tester on the team! The scene was set for a major problem. Listen in to learn what happened, and how Jill learned what it means to be a Scrum Master for a team under pressure! 

About Jill Stott

Jill Stott is here to make friends! She's worked in IT for too many years to count. She is passionate about assisting ScrumMasters to be successful and happy in their roles. Jill knows that there is no such thing as a perfect chocolate chip cookie and she isn't afraid to use puppets.

You can link with Jill Stott on LinkedIn

Dec 2, 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: How to win the trust of your team as a Product Owner

Great Product Owners think about the impact of their work on the team, not only the product. They plan the communication with the team and the stakeholders, and work with the Scrum Master to help facilitate workshops with the team and stakeholders. Over time, and thanks to their openness and honesty, great PO’s win over the trust from the team.

The Bad Product Owner: The project manager PO

Sometimes Product Owners fall into the project management temptation of splitting the work for the team. And in the worst case, they split the work even before the team is involved, or even defined. This approach creates waste, and makes the PO a single point of failure for the team’s success.

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 Elly Griffith-Ward

Elly is an Agile Coach at a major e-commerce company. Previously in user research (and a royal food historian). She aims to 1) improve the experience of work through reducing mental load, improving communication and forming strong teams 2) shift the focus from managing the worker to managing the work by focusing on flow and waste.

You can link with Elly Griffith-Ward on LinkedIn and connect with Elly Griffith-Ward on Twitter

Nov 30, 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 team, the communication with stakeholders was a problem. The stakeholders make it clear they were not satisfied with the information they were getting from the team. On top of that, Elly felt she was not able to connect with, and understand all the people in the team. She decided to try the DISC personality test with the team. She facilitated a workshop where the focus on the personalities in the team. 

In this episode, we refer to the book Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss.

 

About Elly Griffith-Ward

Elly is an Agile Coach at a major e-commerce company. Previously in user research (and a royal food historian). She aims to 1) improve the experience of work through reducing mental load, improving communication and forming strong teams 2) shift the focus from managing the worker to managing the work by focusing on flow and waste.

You can link with Elly Griffith-Ward on LinkedIn and connect with Elly Griffith-Ward on Twitter

Nov 29, 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 team Elly was working with had a very large number of items in progress (high WIP). This was also a result of the team being under a lot of pressure to deliver. The team was motivated to deliver, but was also feeling down because of the inability to deliver all they wanted, when they wanted. Elly started to help the team by understanding their context, and then trying to understand where the work was being held up. She started learning Value-Stream-Mapping, a technique that helped identify the bottlenecks, something she had learned about in the book The Goal by Goldratt. Through that research work, Elly found out some options to improve the flow of work for that team. Listen in to learn what those were, and what technique she used to help the team! In this segment, we talk about the concept of Shifting Left, and Extreme Programming.

Featured Book of the Week: Nonviolent Communication by Rosenberger

In Nonviolent Communication by Rosenberger, Elly found a book that helped her as a Scrum Master, but also in other aspects of her life. The book offers a model of communication that tries to focus on resolving conflicts, and helps us become more self-aware of how we communicate with others. In this segment, we also talk about the hand-brain model, and the two thinking/acting systems (System 1 and System 2) that Kahneman describes in the book Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow.

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 Elly Griffith-Ward

Elly is an Agile Coach at a major e-commerce company. Previously in user research (and a royal food historian). She aims to 1) improve the experience of work through reducing mental load, improving communication and forming strong teams 2) shift the focus from managing the worker to managing the work by focusing on flow and waste.

You can link with Elly Griffith-Ward on LinkedIn and connect with Elly Griffith-Ward on Twitter.

Nov 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.

Many Scrum Masters will recognize the impediment to Agile adoption that Elly mentions in this episode: there are other, interdependent parts of the organization that are not using Agile! However, the way in which this impediment expresses itself is very diverse between organizations. In this episode, we explore one of the anti-patterns that comes from trying to implement Agile in a previously waterfall organization. Listen in to learn to recognize the signs of problems, and how to help your organization despite this “glass ceiling”.

 

About Elly Griffith-Ward

Elly is an Agile Coach at a major e-commerce company. Previously in user research (and a royal food historian). She aims to 1) improve the experience of work through reducing mental load, improving communication and forming strong teams 2) shift the focus from managing the worker to managing the work by focusing on flow and waste.

You can link with Elly Griffith-Ward on LinkedIn and connect with Elly Griffith-Ward on Twitter

Nov 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.

The Great Product Owner: Thinking BIG, but executing the details together with the team

A great Product Owner is able to change their perspective easily, they are able to talk about “the big vision”, as well as discuss some detailed questions that the team needs to answer when implementing the stories selected for a Sprint. This PO kept a “one pager” with a visual representation of the product roadmap, which helped create a language about the product that helped define direction, and collect feedback from the team, as well as stakeholders.

The Bad Product Owner: Lost in the inbox, how PO’s can lose sight of what matters for the product and the Scrum team!

This PO saw themselves as the project manager. He delegated work to specific team me mbers, and saw his relationship with stakeholders as one of reporting only. This PO ended up acting like a (broken) telephone between stakeholders and the team. The PO was not able to focus on outcomes, instead focusing on detailed requests that arrived constantly by email and other means.

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 Caterina Reinker

Caterina is a social anthropologist and passionate Scrum Master. She regards organizations like villages - or cities - with their own language, institutions, and explicit and many implicit rules. Caterina works and lives in Germany and helps groups of people, big and small, in their agile journey.

You can link with Caterina Reinker on LinkedIn.

Nov 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.

Caterina invites us to evaluate success in the Scrum Master role by defining and making success measurable. She uses a Continuous Improvement roadmap to solicit feedback from her stakeholders and the team. Using transparency towards her work as a way to create the right conversations in the team, as well as with the stakeholders.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The 5 Why’s, a facilitation guide to helping the team go beyond symptoms

Caterina’s favorite format for Agile Retrospectives is the 5 Why’s retrospective. In this segment, Caterina shares with us her insights on how to facilitate the conversation with the team, and how to avoid some potential pitfalls of that format.

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 Caterina Reinker

Caterina is a social anthropologist and passionate Scrum Master. She regards organizations like villages - or cities - with their own language, institutions, and explicit and many implicit rules. Caterina works and lives in Germany and helps groups of people, big and small, in their agile journey.

You can link with Caterina Reinker on LinkedIn.

Nov 23, 2022

change to happen

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 a new organization starts to adopt SAFe, they usually start with a push by management. However, it’s not always easy to keep management’s attention on that change for a long time. In this episode, we hear about a SAFe adoption where Caterina and the team were able to keep management’s attention on the adoption of SAFe enough to help all the teams learn, adopt and adapt to this new framework.

 

About Caterina Reinker

Caterina is a social anthropologist and passionate Scrum Master. She regards organizations like villages - or cities - with their own language, institutions, and explicit and many implicit rules. Caterina works and lives in Germany and helps groups of people, big and small, in their agile journey.

You can link with Caterina Reinker on LinkedIn.

Nov 22, 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.

Caterina was working with a team who was really burdened by technical debt. The team talked about technical debt all the time. However, when the Product Owner started to be part of the conversation, the team realized that many of the things they worried about were not really that relevant for the customer. In this episode, we explore how some teams focus on certain aspects so much (like technical debt), that they end up forgetting other, eventually more important, aspects of their work.

Featured Book for the Week: User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product by Jeff Patton

In this episode, we explore the book User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton, who has been a guest on the podcast. Caterina shares the key lessons from the book, and describes how she uses this book almost every day because of the powerful, yet simple methods that it shares.

In this segment, we also talk about Distinction by Pierre Bourdieu, a book that helped Caterina understand the importance and impact of people’s backgrounds can have on how they relate to each other and communicate.

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 Caterina Reinker

Caterina is a social anthropologist and passionate Scrum Master. She regards organizations like villages - or cities - with their own language, institutions, and explicit and many implicit rules. Caterina works and lives in Germany and helps groups of people, big and small, in their agile journey.

You can link with Caterina Reinker on LinkedIn.

Nov 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.

Caterina was the Scrum Master for a team whose work she did not understand. This can be a tough spot, especially for new Scrum Masters. In this episode, we hear how Caterina learned to be a Scrum Master for a team, even when she did not understand the technical aspects the team was working on. A must have skill for Scrum Masters!

 

About Caterina Reinker

Caterina is a social anthropologist and passionate Scrum Master. She regards organizations like villages - or cities - with their own language, institutions, and explicit and many implicit rules. Caterina works and lives in Germany and helps groups of people, big and small, in their agile journey.

You can link with Caterina Reinker on LinkedIn.

Nov 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.

Matthias shares with us his perspective on what are great, and not-so-great Scrum Masters. His Product Owner perspective helps us understand our work as Scrum Masters from a totally different point of view.

The Great Scrum Master: Learning how to step back and still help the Scrum team succeed

Matthias describes a great Scrum Master as someone that is able to help the team grow, and own their work even when the Scrum Master is not there. We hear about a Scrum Master that was able to reduce their engagement with a team down to 20% of his time, but still help the team succeed. In this segment, Matthias also shares with all the Product Owners out there, what they can expect (and not) from Scrum Masters they work with. 

The Bad Scrum Master: When the SM protects the Scrum team far too much!

We know that a Scrum Master must be able to protect their teams. However, that can be too much sometimes. In this segment, we hear about a Scrum Master that was so successful at protecting the team, that they separated the team from the client to the point where collaboration with the client was no longer possible. Especially in consulting/third party software development, the role of the Scrum Master is critical when it comes to building a productive relationship with the client organization.

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 Matthias Kostwein

Matthias is a Project Manager, turned Programmer, turned PO, turned Client Service Director with a varied background in different industries from Mechanical Engineering to IT Agencies. Throughout all of his journey, Agile has been part of his work life, even before he knew what Scrum was.

You can link with Matthias Kostwein on LinkedIn

Nov 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.

In this episode, we share two retrospective formats. The one that Matthias likes to use as the Product Owner, is the Client - Team retrospective, where the goal is to engage with the client and try and build a better relationship between Client and Team. 

Because Matthias is a Product Owner, we dive into his definition of a successful Product Onwer. He shares the importance of understanding the responsibilities that the Product Owner has, as well as the PO’s role in helping people achieve something great, instead of telling them what to do. In this segment, we also talk about the importance of setting great Sprint Goals, and Matthias shares with us a video that helps explain the importance of knowing how to communicate requirements as a Product Owner. 

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Meme Agile Retrospective, a fun and engaging format

Matthias prefers to focus on the core aspect of the Retrospective practice, helping the team stay constructive and productive. He likes to change formats regularly, and recommends the “meme retrospective” as a fun and active retrospective format that invites the team members to actively contribute to the retrospective. 

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About Matthias Kostwein

Matthias is a Project Manager, turned Programmer, turned PO, turned Client Service Director with a varied background in different industries from Mechanical Engineering to IT Agencies. Throughout all of his journey, Agile has been part of his work life, even before he knew what Scrum was.

You can link with Matthias Kostwein on LinkedIn

Nov 16, 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 team had had a Product Owner from the client organization. However, that PO was no longer available, and Matthias joined the team as their new Product Owner. The team was overworked, and the client had many expectations which were causing further pressure on the team. Matthias, joining as the new PO, needed to help the team and the client align better their processes and even help change some processes in the client organization. As the Product Owner, however, he was in a tough spot. He needed to help the team define their work, but also help the client organization change. Listen in to learn how Matthias was able to take on the role of a change agent, even as the Product Owner for the team. 

 

About Matthias Kostwein

Matthias is a Project Manager, turned Programmer, turned PO, turned Client Service Director with a varied background in different industries from Mechanical Engineering to IT Agencies. Throughout all of his journey, Agile has been part of his work life, even before he knew what Scrum was.

You can link with Matthias Kostwein on LinkedIn

Nov 15, 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.

Matthias shares the story of a team that was in trouble with their estimations. Matthias had just joined this team, and noticed that the team was not able to communicate the uncertainty of their estimates. On top of that, this team was working with a very demanding customer, who had pushed the team to “minimize” their estimates! As a Product Owner, Matthias had to help the team get back their confidence, and build trust between team and customer. Listen in to learn how Matthias (as a Product Owner) helped this team work better with this challenging client.

Featured Book of the Week: Lean from the Trenches (Managing Large-Scale Projects with Kanban) by Kniberg

Matthias recommends Lean from the Trenches (Managing Large-Scale Projects with Kanban) by Kniberg, and Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Sutherland. However, as he puts it, he’s learned the most about the Product Owner role from interacting with his peers, and trying to foster a more collaborative environment. He describes empathy as an essential skill for Product Owners. 

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 Matthias Kostwein

Matthias is a Project Manager, turned Programmer, turned PO, turned Client Service Director with a varied background in different industries from Mechanical Engineering to IT Agencies. Throughout all of his journey, Agile has been part of his work life, even before he knew what Scrum was.

You can link with Matthias Kostwein on LinkedIn

Nov 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.

Matthias joined, as a Product Owner, a project that was in trouble. A former Product Owner had quit, the team was having trouble predicting what they could deliver. On top of that, the Scrum Master and the Tech Lead did not see eye-to-eye. In this messy situation, Matthias had to help out the team and the Scrum Master recover! Luckly, Matthias had enough experience as a Scrum Master to help mediate the conflict! Listen in to learn how Product Owners can be critical partners to the Scrum Master when things aren’t working well! 

 

About Matthias Kostwein

Matthias is a Project Manager, turned Programmer, turned PO, turned Client Service Director with a varied background in different industries from Mechanical Engineering to IT Agencies. Throughout all of his journey, Agile has been part of his work life, even before he knew what Scrum was.

You can link with Matthias Kostwein on LinkedIn

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