Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Josh Lambert: Strategies for Improved Team Collaboration in Agile Teams 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, Josh shares a team's struggles – newly formed, but spanning distant timezones, and facing communication issues. Individual work overshadowed teamwork, and this was made worse by very unclear responses from a team member that was not meeting their sprint goals. Frustration peaked on the final day of one of the Sprints. Reflecting on that story, Josh advocates transparent communication, urging team members to share when help is needed. He stresses the importance of a working agreement when seeking help and proposes conducting psychological safety assessments and focusing on team well-being. Featured Book for the Week: "Coaching Agile Teams" by Lyssa Adkins In this episode, Josh recommends "Coaching Agile Teams" by Lyssa Adkins for Scrum M

Josh Lambert: T-Shaping Agile Teams, To Ensure Survival and Success When A Team Member Leaves 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 with Josh, we explore a high-performing team facing challenges. Despite excellent collaboration and goal achievement, knowledge silos arose due to a distributed application ownership among different individuals. When a senior developer announced their departure, it became clear the team would not be able to take on the extra responsibility. With the lessons from this story, Josh advises sharing real-life stories with the team, to highlight potential problems with siloed-ownership of code, and advocates "T-Shape the team" for broader skill sets, and suggests swarming on stories to address resource gaps. He also suggests the use of a skills matrix for effective knowledge sharing, and visualizing the skill gaps.   [IMAGE

BONUS: The Future Of Agility, Experiment Driven Development, With Vasco Duarte 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. Merry Christmas, everyone! As we bid farewell to 2023, we present the final BONUS episode of this Christmas week—a glimpse into what we believe is the future for every Agile team out there.  Brace yourselves for a deep dive into the heart of agility: learning at the speed of experimentation! Specifically, we'll explore the exciting realm of Experiment-driven development, a game-changer poised to reshape how teams approach learning and development. Don't forget, each episode this week complements the Coach Your Product Owner e-course, accessible at bit.ly/coachyourpo. Throughout this week, we've delved into five crucial topics that every Scrum Master should master, with each topic complementing a module in the Coach Your PO e-course. Today's focus

BONUS: Unleashing Agile Experimentation, Accelerating Learning Cycles With 24h Experiments, With Vasco Duarte 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. Merry Christmas, everyone! In today's Christmas week BONUS episode, we're diving into the world of Agile experimentation, specifically exploring how to enable 24-hour experiments—a topic that promises to revolutionize the way we approach product development. As we explore this exciting subject, remember that each episode this week is a companion to the Coach Your Product Owner e-course, accessible at bit.ly/coachyourpo. This week's episodes are designed to equip Scrum Masters with essential tools to assist their Product Owners in mastering five key areas. Today, we unravel the secrets of conducting rapid experiments that speed up your learning and development cycles. First: Defining Experiments and Their Purpose in P

BONUS: Helping Product Owners Make Decisions Quickly With Experiments, And Lean Startup, With Vasco Duarte 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. Merry Christmas, everyone! We hope your holiday season is filled with joy and festive cheer. As we continue our Christmas week BONUS episodes, today's focus is on empowering Product Owners (POs) to quickly make informed decisions based on the definition of value and value metrics.  As usual in this year’s BONUS week of episodes, this episode is a crucial companion to the Coach Your Product Owner e-course, accessible at bit.ly/coachyourpo. Quick Decision Making is the Goal! While defining and measuring value are vital, our ultimate objective as Scrum Masters is to expedite the decision-making process. The pace of software development is directly correlated with the speed at which POs, stakeholders, and the team make de

BONUS: Helping the PO Measure Value, Unwrapping Metrics Mastery with Vasco Duarte 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. Merry Christmas, dear listeners! We hope your festive season is filled with joy and warmth. Today marks another special BONUS episode in our Christmas week lineup, and we're diving into the crucial topic of helping Product Owners measure value. If you missed our previous episode on defining business value, be sure to check it out as today's content builds upon those insights. This episode, like all others this week, is a companion to the Coach Your Product Owner e-course, accessible at bit.ly/coachyourpo. Why We Need To Help Product Owners Measure Value Ever envisioned driving a familiar road blindfolded? Many teams find themselves in a similar predicament, knowing their backlog and delivery process well but lacking clarity on their goal. A b

BONUS: How To Help Your Product Owner Define Value, with Vasco Duarte 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. Merry Christmas, everyone! This is the first of 5 BONUS episodes for this Christmas week, each of these episodes complements one or more modules of the Coach Your Product Owner e-course available at bit.ly/coachyourpo. In this episode, we delve into one of the crucial aspects of the Product Owner role: defining, measuring, and leveraging Business Value.  Why We Need To Help Product Owners Define Value We start the episode with an anecdote about training Product Owners. Many of those POs faced the common challenge of delivering from a well-defined, high-pressure backlog, which led them and their teams to "be a slave to the backlog." Those PO’s understood during the training, that having a crystal clear definition of value turned the decision-making proc

Sofia Katsaouni: The Pitfalls of Multiple Product Owners For One Team, And A Solution That Worked 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: Collaboration, Guidance And Trust, What Great PO’s work to achieve In this episode, Sofia explores the qualities of a great Product Owner (POs), highlighting their guidance, collaborative problem-solving with the team, and how they shielded the team from interference. Trust-building is a key aspect, achieved by not imposing solutions and avoiding unilateral communication of deadlines. Sofia offers a tip on helping POs communicate "no" kindly to stakeholders. Additionally, she discusses the effective involvement of stakeholders, emphasizing onboarding and expectation-setting before demos.   The Bad Product Owner: The Pitfalls of Multiple PO’s For One Team, And A Solution That Worked In this episode, Sofi

Sofia Katsaouni: Adapt and Thrive, A Success Perspective For Scrum Masters And Agile Coaches 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, Sofia defines success for Scrum Masters as achieving team self-organization by fostering independence and ownership. Emphasizing adaptability in the evolving dynamics of organizational living systems, she advises focusing on changes and working to create acceptance. Sofia shares a practical tip of viewing the Kanban board from right to left. Success, to her, is marked by team members raising previously discussed topics, indicating ownership. Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Separating Event From Impact, A Lesson In Coaching And Reflection Skills In this episode, Sofia discusses a retrospective format focusing on "What happened?," "Impact on you," and "Your learnings." This format effectively separates event

Sofia Katsaouni: Collaborative Change, Lessons in OKR Adoption For Agile Organizations 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, Sofia shares insights from her involvement in a change process at the C-level, implementing OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) within the product engineering organization. Collaborating with the CTO, they navigated challenges, emphasizing the importance of clear messaging, team training, and collaborative spaces for discussion. Sofia provides practical tips on introducing OKRs, creating facilitation guides, and stressing organizational alignment.   [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 b

Sofia Katsaouni: Building Team Resilience And Transforming Team Dynamics with Agile Coaching 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, Sofia reflects on coaching three teams and the challenges that arose from small patterns evolving into significant issues. The lack of collaboration and knowledge sharing within the team led to failing to deliver, which in turn led to external pressure and low morale. Sofia emphasizes the importance of allowing teams to experiment for self-driven change, highlighting the human dynamics within teams. Featured Book of the Week: Responsive Agile Coaching by Niall McShane In this episode, Sofia discusses the book "Responsive Agile Coaching," which delves into diverse coaching approaches for Scrum Masters and Agile coaches. The author introduces various stances, such as the show-and-tell stance or Open-and-hold stance, off

Sofia Katsaouni: The Importance of Mentorship in a Scrum Master or Agile Coach’s Journey 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, Sofia recounts her struggles as a junior coach facing challenges in a new team. Despite wanting to lead a kickoff, she was overruled by the engineering lead, leading to self-doubt and frustration. She emphasizes the importance of open communication, sanity checks with external perspectives, and listening to one self. The lack of support left her feeling overwhelmed, highlighting the need for mentorship in agile coaching.  In this episode, we refer to nonviolent communication, an approach that can help us when we find ourselves in the middle of a conflict situation.   [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

Robert Briese: Beyond Requirements, Rethinking Agile Product Ownership 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: Impact Mapping And Other Tools Great POs Use To Focus On Outcomes In this episode, Robert discusses the attributes of a great Product Owner based on an energy company's experience. The exemplary PO managed a budget, aimed to introduce new products, and emphasized impactful market presence. The PO's coachability and commitment to improvement are highlighted, along with insights from Marty Cagan's "Inspired." A great PO, as outlined, prioritizes impact over outputs, maintains clarity on product goals and business vision, and employs tools like Impact Mapping for outcome-focused development. The Bad Product Owner: Beyond Requirements, Rethinking Agile Product Ownership In this episode, Robert identifies Product Owner (PO) anti-p

Robert Briese: Measuring Autonomy, A Scrum Master's Success Metric 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, Robert discusses his definition of success for Scrum Masters, centered on team autonomy and leadership. He evaluates success by assessing whether the team takes ownership, becomes self-sufficient, and embraces servant leadership. Examples include measuring team members' inclusivity in discussions and gauging the Scrum Master's necessity for meeting facilitation. The episode emphasizes the Scrum Master's role in challenging and empowering the team. Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Visualization During The Sprint, A Catalyst For Great Retrospectives In this episode, Robert recommends the Derby and Larsen 6-step retro agenda as his favorite retrospective format. He emphasizes a good Scrum Master's ability to adapt to various formats

Robert Briese: Tools and Tips for Organizational Transformation, An Agile at Scale Approach 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, Robert shares insights from a change process aimed at meeting a challenging deadline for a customer event. The organization transitioned from functional to cross-functional teams, addressing bottlenecks and implementing the "chief product owner" system from the Agile scaling framework LeSS. The episode recommends strategies such as self-selection for teams, weekly PO alignment, visualizing deliverables, establishing overall priorities, and using tools like system modeling and Causal Loop Diagrams.   [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 f

Robert Briese: Fixed Time/Scope Projects and The Pitfalls of Individual PO Goals 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, Robert discusses the challenges of supporting teams tasked with building an ecommerce platform. The teams were given a limited time, and a fixed scope to deliver! Each team had its own Product Owner (PO), leading to conflicting goals and self-destructive patterns. The looming deadline for a major customer event added pressure. Robert suggests practical tips, including creating a shared understanding above team and product management levels, aligning POs on a shared backlog, establishing shared priorities, utilizing user story mapping, and implementing the Chief Product Owner pattern.   Featured Book of the Week: "Large-Scale Scrum" by Vodde and Larman In this episode, Robert recommends "Large-Scale Scrum" by Vodde and Larman fo

Robert Briese: Agile Retrospectives Without Blame, The Importance of The Retrospective Prime Directive 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 with Robert, we talk about what we need to consider when introducing Scrum in support organizations, navigating heated retrospective discussions, and emphasizing the use of the prime directive. Robert highlights the importance of avoiding blame and instead fostering an environment of continuous improvement. Norm Kerth’s retrospective prime directive serves as a tool to steer conversations away from finger-pointing, encouraging teams to address challenging issues constructively. The retrospective prime directive reads: “Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and

Thorben Pantring: The Micro-Manager PO, And The Impact It Has On Agile Teams 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: Empowering Teams, The Art of Servant Leadership in Product Ownership A greatProduct Owner, as described by Thorben, is an outward-facing individual who actively engages with customers, bringing their challenges to the team for collaborative problem-solving. This PO allows the team autonomy, offering ideas without being directive, fostering a collaborative atmosphere in refinement sessions. Engaged in large-scale adoption, this PO excelled as a master collaborator and embraced the servant leadership role. Thorben emphasizes the development team's centrality in software, debunking the notion of working for the team. This Product Owner embodied customer focus, collaboration, and servant leadership. The Bad Product Owner: The Mic

Thorben Pantring: The Three Dimensions Of Scrum Master Success, Team, Collaboration, and Organization 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. Thorben outlines success for Scrum Masters in three dimensions: team, collaboration, and organization. Early in the Scrum journey, focusing on the team is vital, emphasizing self-management and shared responsibility. The sprint goal emerges as a powerful tool for team focus. Collaboration between teams is crucial, as he mentions on this week’s Monday episode. For organizational success, Thorben references the sprint review bazaar episode (Wednesday), emphasizing that success encompasses the entire department's ability to deliver value, narrating an illustrative story of a team focusing on code merging instead of value creation. Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The 5 Why’s Retrospective Thorben's favored retrospecti

Thorben Pantring: A Stakeholder Engagement Revolution With A Review Bazaar, An Agile Change Story 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. Thorben discusses a change management challenge involving scheduling multiple sprint reviews for a scaling development effort. Attempting to consolidate reviews into one meeting resulted in decreased stakeholder participation and insufficient feedback. Consulting with Konstantin Ribel (who’s been a guest on the podcast), they conducted some experiments, seeking volunteers via internal Slack. Teams were named for specificity, and experiment learnings were documented, evolving into a company-wide change approach. Over time, the "science fair" of experiments expanded to larger audiences, employing demo environments instead of presentations. The result: a successful review bazaar with up to 100 stakeholders, a vast improvement from thei