There are cultures that put a high premium of failure. They devise all kinds of approaches to avoid failure. This is in contrast with the Agile perspective of failing fast, in other words, to fail before the failure is catastrophic.
However, as Scrum Masters, we must help our teams, and our organizations be comfortable with small failures, as that is what drives learning and helps the teams evolve.
Small, and quick failures may even be the fastest way to take a team from mediocre to high-productivity.
In this episode we talk about how Scrum Masters can face, and overcome the fear of failure that exists in some cultures.
About Massimiliano Fattorusso
Massimiliano has a strong interest in agile methodologies and lean principles. He is keen on sharing lessons learned as a speaker at international and local conferences. Empathy, creativity and drive to innovate is part of his identity. Massimiliano is not afraid of addressing the uncomfortable truth, that’s how he helps bring teams forward.
You can link with Massimiliano Fattorusso on LinkedIn and connect with Massimiliano Fattorusso on Twitter.
When it comes to being a successful Scrum Master, we need to have a clear definition that helps us make regular decisions about where to put our focus. In this episode, Max shares with us 3 aspects that he has in mind and reflects on when it comes to assessing his progress as a Scrum Master. We also talk about concrete practices that Max has found help reach his own definition of success.
Retrospectives are usually about what has happened. How the Sprint went. How the release went. However, sometimes it is useful for the team to reflect on their near future. The Pre-Mortem Retrospective format focuses on that near future. In this episode, Max explains how you can use that format to help improve cross-team collaboration in a multi-team environment
About Massimiliano Fattorusso
Massimiliano has a strong interest in agile methodologies and lean principles. He is keen on sharing lessons learned as a speaker at international and local conferences. Empathy, creativity and drive to innovate is part of his identity. Massimiliano is not afraid of addressing the uncomfortable truth, that’s how he helps bring teams forward.
You can link with Massimiliano Fattorusso on LinkedIn and connect with Massimiliano Fattorusso on Twitter.
Sometimes the changes we address are straight forward. In this episode we explore the deployment of a management method: Objectives and Key Results, or OKRs. As Scrum Masters we work also to support improvements at the organizational level. OKR’s are one management method that many organizations adopt and will probably cross your path.
In this episode we discuss how Scrum Masters can help deploy a process like OKR’s. One of the change processes we must be familiar with.
About Massimiliano Fattorusso
Massimiliano has a strong interest in agile methodologies and lean principles. He is keen on sharing lessons learned as a speaker at international and local conferences. Empathy, creativity and drive to innovate is part of his identity. Massimiliano is not afraid of addressing the uncomfortable truth, that’s how he helps bring teams forward.
You can link with Massimiliano Fattorusso on LinkedIn and connect with Massimiliano Fattorusso on Twitter.
When a team is starting down the conflict path there are signs we can detect early enough to help them. In this episode we talk about the signals of conflict, and when the conflict starts to become to big to solve without management intervention.
Conflict is one of the ways in which teams destroy themselves, listen in to learn about what you can do to avoid, or resolve conflict.
In Radical Candor by Kim Scott, Massimiliano found something that changed his view on how to provide feedback. One takeaway was: “it’s crucial that the person getting the feedback knows that I want the best for them”. Do you care for the people you give feedback to?
About Massimiliano Fattorusso
Massimiliano has a strong interest in agile methodologies and lean principles. He is keen on sharing lessons learned as a speaker at international and local conferences. Empathy, creativity and drive to innovate is part of his identity. Massimiliano is not afraid of addressing the uncomfortable truth, that’s how he helps bring teams forward.
You can link with Massimiliano Fattorusso on LinkedIn and connect with Massimiliano Fattorusso on Twitter.
We’ve heard that cognitive diversity in a team can have a good impact on team performance. Whether that diversity is added by looking at gender, race or any other dimension, the expectation is that when you add more points of view to a team you avoid things like Groupthink, and other related pitfalls. But is that so?
In this episode, we explore a situation when adding cognitive diversity to the team was a big problem. And then we discuss how we can avoid that in our own work.
About Massimiliano Fattorusso
Massimiliano has a strong interest in agile methodologies and lean principles. He is keen on sharing lessons learned as a speaker at international and local conferences. Empathy, creativity and drive to innovate is part of his identity. Massimiliano is not afraid of addressing the uncomfortable truth, that’s how he helps bring teams forward.
You can link with Massimiliano Fattorusso on LinkedIn and connect with Massimiliano Fattorusso on Twitter.
The focus on process and rules of certain cultures (like the Japanese or German cultures) is often regarded as a positive towards the adoption of structured, linear approaches to work. But how about Scrum? How does Scrum fit the Japanese Culture? In this episode, we explore the fit between Scrum and the Japanese culture. While discussing the Japanese cultural context we also explore possible problems with Scrum adoption in multinational companies, where many cultures are mixed in one single organization.
About Donna Marie Lee
Former software engineer turned pragmatic change agent working in Tokyo. Enthusiastic about inspiring teams to be great and achieve their goals.
Certified Scrum Professional with more than 5 years experience in training, facilitating and coaching agile and scrum practices.
Previously worked as a Line Manager and Team Lead responsible for nurturing the growth and maturity of teams and individuals within the company.
A quick way to check if our work as Scrum Masters is having the needed impact is to check if the team is still hosting the Scrum Retrospectives when we are away. If that’s the case, then it is likely that the Scrum Master has done a fairly good work. In this episode, we discuss this and other approaches Scrum Masters can use to assess their contribution to the team.
When we think of retrospectives we typically think of a meeting room, people sitting down (or standing) and executing some prepared exercises over the course of the meeting. But that’s not what a retrospective is about. It’s simply a possible format. In this episode, we discuss the 5 stages of retrospectives and how those can be implemented in many different ways.
In this episode, we refer to Retromat, a useful resource to help you plan your retrospective.
About Donna Marie Lee
Former software engineer turned pragmatic change agent working in Tokyo. Enthusiastic about inspiring teams to be great and achieve their goals.
Certified Scrum Professional with more than 5 years experience in training, facilitating and coaching agile and scrum practices.
Previously worked as a Line Manager and Team Lead responsible for nurturing the growth and maturity of teams and individuals within the company.
When teams start a change process, we often look back at single events that may have triggered that change. In this episode, we talk about a different type of process. A process where the Scrum Master helps the team find the right change by asking questions. We discuss the process that questions help trigger, and how that helps the team (and the Scrum Master) find the right time and the right way for change to take hold.
About Donna Marie Lee
Former software engineer turned pragmatic change agent working in Tokyo. Enthusiastic about inspiring teams to be great and achieve their goals.
Certified Scrum Professional with more than 5 years experience in training, facilitating and coaching agile and scrum practices.
Previously worked as a Line Manager and Team Lead responsible for nurturing the growth and maturity of teams and individuals within the company.
In this episode, we discuss the common anti-pattern of teams that are nothing but a loosely coupled group of individuals. Where collaboration is difficult, if not impossible. A group that can’t work well together because they share very little that would make them a team.
We then discuss the approaches, the tools, and strategies that Donna Marie used to help that group of people become a real team.
In Scrum Mastery by Geoff Watts, Donna Marie found practical advice for her journey as a Scrum Master. She especially appreciated the real-life stories that the author shares. Those stories helped her connect with the Scrum Master role as well as learn valuable practices and strategies for her role.
About Donna Marie Lee
Former software engineer turned pragmatic change agent working in Tokyo. Enthusiastic about inspiring teams to be great and achieve their goals.
Certified Scrum Professional with more than 5 years experience in training, facilitating and coaching agile and scrum practices.
Previously worked as a Line Manager and Team Lead responsible for nurturing the growth and maturity of teams and individuals within the company.
Scrum Masters face difficult moments regularly. Helping organizations and teams improve is not a linear process, and sometimes people react emotionally to the changes they are facing. Donna Marie shares a story of when she took that push-back personally. We then discuss how to overcome the temptation to take things personally, and what to do instead.
About Donna Marie Lee
Former software engineer turned pragmatic change agent working in Tokyo. Enthusiastic about inspiring teams to be great and achieve their goals.
Certified Scrum Professional with more than 5 years experience in training, facilitating and coaching agile and scrum practices.
Previously worked as a Line Manager and Team Lead responsible for nurturing the growth and maturity of teams and individuals within the company.
In this week we explore the “system conditions” that can cause catastrophic failure in teams. Specifically, we look at the lack of commitment to quality anti-pattern, where that comes from, and how we can, as Scrum Master, help teams overcome that anti-pattern.
About Daniel Heinen
Daniel has been a Scrum Master since 2014 on a Scrum pilot at BMW. Since 2016 focusing on organizational change management, for example, facilitating communities of practices for Scrum adoption at BMW. Recently he started working as a Scrum Master and Agile Coach at Autonomous Driving BMW, who decided in 2017 to restructure according to the LeSS framework.
You can link with Daniel Heinen on LinkedIn.
There are many possible answers to the question: “what does Success mean for you as a Scrum Master”. And some of those answers can be very detailed and in-depth. But that’s not the only way to look at our success as Scrum Masters.
In this episode, we discuss a simple definition of success. Listen in to learn more about that simple definition, and see how that can help you improve your own work as a Scrum Master.
The Weather Report retrospective format is a metaphor-based format that helps the team highlight the “clouds” or “storms” they faced in the previous sprints.
You use this exercise as a check-in (with a short phrase or two from each team member), or as a starter for a deeper conversation about what we might want to do differently in the next Sprint.
About Daniel Heinen
Daniel has been a Scrum Master since 2014 on a Scrum pilot at BMW. Since 2016 focusing on organizational change management, for example, facilitating communities of practices for Scrum adoption at BMW. Recently he started working as a Scrum Master and Agile Coach at Autonomous Driving BMW, who decided in 2017 to restructure according to the LeSS framework.
You can link with Daniel Heinen on LinkedIn.
When a change process starts it is easy to be tempted to “drive” that change in the organization. However, that’s not always a good option. In this episode, we discuss the possible negative side effects of “driving” change into a team or organization.
How can Scrum Masters get out of the “drive” change anti-pattern? In this episode, we discuss how management can play a major role in helping move to a pull-mode change process and what the role of the Scrum Master is in that type of change.
Listen in to learn about concrete tools and practices that help the Scrum Masters go from “teacher” to “moderator” in the change process.
About Daniel Heinen
Daniel has been a Scrum Master since 2014 on a Scrum pilot at BMW. Since 2016 focusing on organizational change management, for example, facilitating communities of practices for Scrum adoption at BMW. Recently he started working as a Scrum Master and Agile Coach at Autonomous Driving BMW, who decided in 2017 to restructure according to the LeSS framework.
You can link with Daniel Heinen on LinkedIn.
When leaders are “strong”, we may have the top-down scrum anti-pattern. When the leader drives what the team does, and the team just follows orders. In this episode, we discuss this Scrum anti-pattern and how we, Scrum Masters, can tackle such situations.
Look out for team burnout, lack of trust from stakeholders and how people hide from the latent conflict. All symptoms that something is about to break.
In Scaling Lean & Agile Development by Larman and Vodde, Daniel found a good description of the scaling problems developers usually face when working in large organizations, and why we must take a deliberate approach to help many teams work together (scaling Agile).
About Daniel Heinen
Daniel has been a Scrum Master since 2014 on a Scrum pilot at BMW. Since 2016 focusing on organizational change management, for example, facilitating communities of practices for Scrum adoption at BMW. Recently he started working as a Scrum Master and Agile Coach at Autonomous Driving BMW, who decided in 2017 to restructure according to the LeSS framework.
You can link with Daniel Heinen on LinkedIn.
In this episode, Daniel tells us the story of when the Product Owner took a “leader” role, and hid information from the stakeholders. The Product Owner promised many things to management to ensure funding for the project. This is a common anti-pattern in project organizations, but it can have serious consequences in an Agile environment because of the additional transparency that Agile and Scrum bring to the process.
In this episode, we talk about how Daniel and the team handled the difficult and delicate situation they were facing.
In this episode, we refer to the #NoEstimates movement, and the concept of Muda (Type 1) from Lean Manufacturing.
About Daniel Heinen
Daniel has been a Scrum Master since 2014 on a Scrum pilot at BMW. Since 2016 focusing on organizational change management, for example, facilitating communities of practices for Scrum adoption at BMW. Recently he started working as a Scrum Master and Agile Coach at Autonomous Driving BMW, who decided in 2017 to restructure according to the LeSS framework.
You can link with Daniel Heinen on LinkedIn.
David works in Ireland, and even if the workplace is multi-cultural and diverse, there are some national culture traits that show up often. In this episode, we discuss the feedback culture, and how feedback is given and should be understood in Ireland.
Working as Scrum Masters, the type of feedback and how it is conveyed becomes a key topic for us. Although we must adapt to the local culture, we must also be aware of how national cultures handle conflict (or avoid it). In this episode, we talk about indirect-feedback cultures and how that affects the Scrum Master work.
About David Denham
David Denham works as a Scrum Master in Workday in Dublin and is one of the leaders of the Agile-Lean Ireland community and co-organiser of the ALI conference. He previously worked as a UX lead and believes in the power of Product delivery teams being involved in Product Discovery, through practicing Design Sprints. He practices failure every single day by attempting to use his agile coaching skills with his 2 small daughters!
You can link with David Denham on LinkedIn and connect with David Denham on Twitter.
Scrum Masters can easily feel the Impostor Syndrome. After all, we are there to help a team, that usually works with a technology we don’t fully understand, and develops a product for a business we might not be familiar with. How can we them overcome the Impostor Syndrome? David suggests that we should focus on a set of simple questions that guide our actions. These questions help us focus on the core role of the Scrum Master, and help us acknowledge our strong points and main responsibilities as Scrum Masters.
There are many metaphor formats for retrospectives. The Speed Boat Retrospective, the Amazon Product retrospective, the Sailboat Retro, the Hot-air Baloon Retro, etc. All of these formats help the team be creative about finding the impediments they want to focus on. It helps the team get out of their day-to-day scenarios and think deeper about the issues they want to tackle. Metaphors also help the teams discuss problems that they would otherwise hesitate addressing.
About David Denham
David Denham works as a Scrum Master in Workday in Dublin and is one of the leaders of the Agile-Lean Ireland community and co-organiser of the ALI conference. He previously worked as a UX lead and believes in the power of Product delivery teams being involved in Product Discovery, through practicing Design Sprints. He practices failure every single day by attempting to use his agile coaching skills with his 2 small daughters!
You can link with David Denham on LinkedIn and connect with David Denham on Twitter.
David started working with a group of teams that were component-focused and started seeing the usual anti-patterns. The “concept to cash” cycle was too slow. How do you help an organization get out of the component-focused organization and switch to a more outcome-oriented organization?
In this episode, we explore one approach that David put in practice, and how that may help your organization recognize what they are missing by sticking to the silo-prone component-based organization.
In this episode, we refer to Design Sprints, a method that focuses on a quick learning process, and also discuss the game “Build Your Own Scrum”.
About David Denham
David Denham works as a Scrum Master in Workday in Dublin and is one of the leaders of the Agile-Lean Ireland community and co-organiser of the ALI conference. He previously worked as a UX lead and believes in the power of Product delivery teams being involved in Product Discovery, through practicing Design Sprints. He practices failure every single day by attempting to use his agile coaching skills with his 2 small daughters!
You can link with David Denham on LinkedIn and connect with David Denham on Twitter.
In this team, David saw a sense of panic! The team was trying to define and commit to the maximum possible amount of work that could fit in one increment. They were measured by their “predictability” (how much of what was committed was actually delivered), and that led to lots of escalations to management. The team started being late and pushing QA/testing to the next sprint. The conditions were set for a disaster!
Listen in to learn about this story and how David and his colleagues helped this team.
David found the ideas in the book to be helpful in his own journey as a coach. He refers to the learning model for teams (Shu-Ha-Ri) and the many tools in the book that helped him in his job.
In this segment, we also talk about the book User Story mapping by Jeff Patton.
About David Denham
David Denham works as a Scrum Master in Workday in Dublin and is one of the leaders of the Agile-Lean Ireland community and co-organiser of the ALI conference. He previously worked as a UX lead and believes in the power of Product delivery teams being involved in Product Discovery, through practicing Design Sprints. He practices failure every single day by attempting to use his agile coaching skills with his 2 small daughters!
You can link with David Denham on LinkedIn and connect with David Denham on Twitter.
When Scrum Masters come to work with a team they must make a critical decision. Are they there to help the team, in their own terms, or to “bring in” Scrum or improvements? There’s a critical difference between these alternative approaches.
In this episode, we discuss how Scrum Masters can fail when they come to the team to “bring in” Scrum. Listen in to learn how that looks like, and how to detect that anti-pattern before it is too late.
In this episode, we refer to the Kanban Method.
About David Denham
David Denham works as a Scrum Master in Workday in Dublin and is one of the leaders of the Agile-Lean Ireland community and co-organiser of the ALI conference. He previously worked as a UX lead and believes in the power of Product delivery teams being involved in Product Discovery, through practicing Design Sprints. He practices failure every single day by attempting to use his agile coaching skills with his 2 small daughters!
You can link with David Denham on LinkedIn and connect with David Denham on Twitter.
As we explore the impact of culture in the adoption of Agile and Scrum, we must also reflect on the impact of the corporate culture. Despite the influence of national cultures, international corporations also bring their own culture which may, or may not align with the national culture.
In this episode, we look at how individuals quickly adapt to the prevailing culture, and how corporate cultures can influence disproportionately the Agile adoption process.
In this episode, we refer to the book The Corporate Culture Survival Guide by Edgar Schein.
About David Sabine
David is a Scrum trainer and an advisor to software development organizations. He is in demand among Canada’s largest enterprises including Scotiabank, Sun Life Financial, and Canada’s Federal Government. He formerly worked with DigitalOcean and Myplanet.com, among others. He’s been helping people with the ways they use Scrum since 2007.
You can link with David Sabine on LinkedIn and connect with David Sabine on Twitter.
When thinking about what success means for Scrum Masters, David follows the ideas in the Scrum Guide. We reflect on the Scrum Artifacts, and how the Scrum Master’s job can be summarized as increasing transparency of the Scrum Artifacts.
In The Lean Coffee, a group of people select a set of topics they want to discuss, then prioritize those topics and discuss them one-by-one, ending with an action or conclusion for each item. For David, this is a technique that helps the team be fully focused on the discussion at hand. It can be a fast-paced conversation (set a shorter time-box) or a leisure-pace conversation (longer time-box) depending on how much time you have available.
About David Sabine
David is a Scrum trainer and an advisor to software development organizations. He is in demand among Canada’s largest enterprises including Scotiabank, Sun Life Financial, and Canada’s Federal Government. He formerly worked with DigitalOcean and Myplanet.com, among others. He’s been helping people with the ways they use Scrum since 2007.
You can link with David Sabine on LinkedIn and connect with David Sabine on Twitter.
When we are involved in large organization transformations there can be a sense of overwhelm. That the organization and the different groups are too large to grasp. So how do you survive a large transformation process? In this episode, we explore some of the practices that David learned through his own story when involved with a transformation in a large organization.
In this episode, we refer often to the book The Corporate Culture Survival Guide by Edgar Schein.
About David Sabine
David is a Scrum trainer and an advisor to software development organizations. He is in demand among Canada’s largest enterprises including Scotiabank, Sun Life Financial, and Canada’s Federal Government. He formerly worked with DigitalOcean and Myplanet.com, among others. He’s been helping people with the ways they use Scrum since 2007.
You can link with David Sabine on LinkedIn and connect with David Sabine on Twitter.
When Scrum Masters try to help teams, they must be aware of the differences between what is being said by management, and what is being done in practice. In this episode, we explore how Scrum Masters can explore the real situation (as opposed to what is being said about the situation), and how Scrum Masters can help teams get out of their own self-defeating patterns.
In Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig tells the story of a motorcycle trip that unites father and son. It is a book that begs us to reflect on our values. As Scrum Masters, we must also inquire into our, and the team’s values so that we can help them reflect and be coherent with those values.
About David Sabine
David is a Scrum trainer and an advisor to software development organizations. He is in demand among Canada’s largest enterprises including Scotiabank, Sun Life Financial, and Canada’s Federal Government. He formerly worked with DigitalOcean and Myplanet.com, among others. He’s been helping people with the ways they use Scrum since 2007.
You can link with David Sabine on LinkedIn and connect with David Sabine on Twitter.
The Scrum Master’s role is primarily a role that serves the team. Without that presence, the teams suffer, and in this episode, we explore what might happen when the Scrum Master - eager to help the organization - focuses on the context, rather than the team.
About David Sabine
David is a Scrum trainer and an advisor to software development organizations. He is in demand among Canada’s largest enterprises including Scotiabank, Sun Life Financial, and Canada’s Federal Government. He formerly worked with DigitalOcean and Myplanet.com, among others. He’s been helping people with the ways they use Scrum since 2007.
You can link with David Sabine on LinkedIn and connect with David Sabine on Twitter.