Podcasts about Scrum

In this episode of Startup Hustle, Matt Watson interviews Krishna Oza, founder and COO of Git Hired, discussing the challenges of hiring software engineers, particularly for startups. Krishna shares his personal experiences that led to the creation of GitHired, an AI-driven platform designed to help startups find the right technical talent based on proof of work. The conversation delves into the unique needs of early-stage developers, the importance of product thinking, and how GitHired identifies and surfaces 10x engineers. Krishna also discusses the business model of GitHired and the struggles faced by startup founders in finding suitable engineering talent.TAKEAWAYSKrishna's personal experience with hiring challenges inspired GitHired.Startups need engineers who can match their fast-paced environment.Early-stage developers are builders who understand product development.Product thinking is crucial in today's AI-driven landscape.10x engineers possess product vision and minimal organizational friction.Get Hired surfaces hidden engineering talent through GitHub analysis.The platform creates one-page portfolios for applicants based on their work.Complexity of projects is a key factor in evaluating candidates.The business model includes a flat fee for successful hires.Startup founders often struggle to find engineers who can build for users.⏱️ Episode Breakdown00:00 The Genesis of GitHired03:01 The Ideal Early Stage Developer07:01 The Importance of Product Thinking10:10 Identifying 10x Engineers12:52 The Role of Proof of Work20:09 Business Model and Market Fit23:40 Startup Founder StrugglesLinks & ResourcesConnect with Krishna Oza on LinkedInWhat Smart CTOs Are Doing Differently With Offshore Teams in 2025Subscribe to the Global Talent SprintFull Scale – Build your dev team quickly and affordablyIf you're trying to get your team out of the basement and into real product ownership, this episode is your playbook. Stop being a ticket factory. Build teams that think, create, and lead.Follow the show, rate it, and send this to someone who's still trying to do “real Scrum.” They need it more than you do.

Lai-Ling Su: What Scrum Masters Must Do More of in 2026—Think Like a Business Owner Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "Success is so contextual. And I think the definitions and measurements of success also change over time. So, only you can definitively say what success is at any given time and how to appropriately measure it for your situation." - Lai-Ling Su   Lai-Ling frames success for Scrum Masters around what she'd love to see more of in 2026: smart, strategic, and commercial decision-making. She observes a distinct gap in the business landscape—too few people are making decisions that balance customer value, revenues, expenses, and long-term sustainability.  This could mean reducing SKUs to enhance operational flow and reduce burnout, investing in change management from day one of a transformation, or cutting unused software licenses to save a colleague's job or fund product innovation. To help Scrum Masters develop this capability, Lai-Ling puts them in the shoes of a business owner—whether through simulations, shadowing business leaders, or pairing with product owners to understand the business side of products beyond just the build side.  She emphasizes the difference between learning strategy through theory (like an MBA) versus learning it through actually operating a business, where consequences are real and immediate.   Self-reflection Question: When did you last consider how a decision in your domain impacts the broader commercial viability of your organization? Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: LEGO Serious Play Lai-Ling loves using LEGO for deeply reflective retrospectives, and she's a certified LEGO Serious Play facilitator. The approach works beautifully for tender and courageous conversations because building with LEGO does several things simultaneously: it's fun, the physical act of building helps process and articulate thoughts you didn't have words for, and it depersonalizes what's said because participants talk about a physical object rather than directly about people. You don't need expensive certified kits—just grab basic bricks from a local shop, pose a reflective question, and let people build.  Lai-Ling notes that her best retrospectives have often been the most deeply uncomfortable ones for participants, because of how much personal and emotional truth emerges when you create that safe space for constructive dialogue. The kinetic and visual elements help crystallize ideas that would otherwise not come out so easily.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Lai-Ling Su: When Leadership Changes—Supporting Teams Through the Uncertainty Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "We have a once in a generational or once in a lifetime type of opportunity to fundamentally work with these leaders to shift the workplace environments and the workplace dynamics in the way that we've been trying to craft in the world of product and agile for the last few decades." - Lai-Ling Su   Lai-Ling brings a systems-level challenge that has profound implications for Scrum Masters everywhere. Australia is on the brink of its largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history—$3.5 trillion over the next couple of decades—with 70% of private and family businesses planning to sell or succeed as part of this generational change.  This creates leadership vacuums as business leaders transition out and new ones step in. Some are family members stepping into roles without the full capability to lead; others are external CEOs facing resistance when they do things differently.  These transitions stall decisions, lose customer confidence, and fracture once tight-knit teams. Lai-Ling sees this as an unprecedented opportunity for Scrum Masters to support both outgoing and incoming leaders through succession planning, capability uplift, and protecting teams during the transition.  Teams need to be respected for what they've achieved, and Scrum Masters can serve as bridges—creating awareness about the team's strengths and facilitating dialogue between old and new leadership to ensure continuity.   Self-reflection Question: How might you proactively prepare your team to navigate an upcoming leadership transition, whether it's anticipated or unexpected?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

AI can make teams faster. But it can also quietly make them worse. In this episode, Brian Milner and Hunter Hillegas dig into the risks no one wants to talk about—from eroding developer judgment to weakening team communication—and what healthy teams should do about it.   Overview AI tools are powerful. They can generate code, draft tests, and accelerate delivery in ways that felt impossible just a few years ago. But speed is not the same as effectiveness. In this episode, Brian sits down with Mountain Goat Software CTO Hunter Hillegas to explore where AI may actually be hurting Agile teams. They discuss the risk of losing junior developer growth paths, the illusion of productivity through inflated metrics, the danger of outsourcing judgment, and how AI can quietly create communication silos inside Scrum teams. This is not an anti-AI conversation. It is a practical one. You will hear what guardrails healthy teams should consider, why accountability still belongs to humans, and how to use AI as a tool without letting it reshape your culture in ways you did not intend. If your team is leaning into AI, this episode will help you do it with your eyes open.   References and resources mentioned in the show: Hunter Hillegas Blog: AI Doesn't Eliminate Agile Teams — It Increases the Need for Great Ones by Mike Cohn #169: Building Practical AI for Agile Teams with Hunter Hillegas #82: The Intersection of AI and Agile with Emilia Breton #151: What AI Is Really Delivering (and What It's Not) with Evan Leybourn & Christopher Morales Mountain Goat Software Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast    Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we'd love your input.   Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one.   Got an Agile subject you'd like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode's presenters are: Brian Milner is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and host of the Agile Mentors Podcast training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work.  Hunter Hillegas is the Chief Technology Officer at Mountain Goat Software. With over 20 years of experience in software development, product ownership, and team leadership, he leads the creation of tools like the AI Toolkit and Team Home to support effective, engaging learning experiences. Hunter lives in Santa Barbara, California, with his wife and their dog Enzo.

Lai-Ling Su: Why the Us-Versus-Them Mentality Is the Fastest Path to Team Self-Destruction Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "The quickest way to self-destruction is to have an us-versus-them mentality. Because it permeates into every behavior, every action or inaction, and it impacts every single outcome as a result of it." - Lai-Ling Su   Lai-Ling shares a compelling story about a leadership team in healthcare technology that was self-sabotaging their way into non-delivery—so much so that critical commercial outcomes were at serious risk. Yet the team themselves couldn't see it; it was invisible to them. She identifies three layers of the us-versus-them dynamic that needed unpicking.  First, recent M&A activity had merged a larger corporate entity with a smaller, more nimble one, and people remained ferociously loyal to leaders from their old organizations.  Second, business goals were separate from technology goals, causing people to fall back to people-pleasing within their direct reporting lines rather than collaborating on shared purpose.  Third, the tension between growth ambitions and addressing legacy activities created another divide. What struck Lai-Ling most was how these "classic" patterns were invisible to those experiencing them—they just accepted it as part of doing business. The destruction wasn't always stormy and visible; sometimes it was silent, with work piling up, nothing getting done, yet no one overtly upset.   In this segment, we talk about the importance of creating awareness and how Scrum Masters must be willing to point out these patterns, even at the risk of being seen as the odd ones out.   Self-reflection Question: What "classic" anti-patterns might be invisible in your organization right now because everyone has accepted them as just part of doing business? Featured Book of the Week: The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande Lai-Ling approaches the book recommendation differently—she believes no single book has fundamentally influenced her, but books as a collective have made her who she is. She emphasizes reading far and wide across all topics and genres, looking for patterns in unexpected places. One standout is The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, which challenges the perception that checklists take away autonomy. Gawande writes about how checklists are a rapid-fire communication tool that can mean the difference between a seriously injured soldier dying on the battlefield or making it to a hospital with a good chance of survival. Lai-Ling also recommends When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, about a surgeon who became a cancer patient and had to navigate a massive identity shift—much like the identity shift we ask leaders to make during transformations.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

The Scrum That Actually WorkedIn 1996, Chrysler — a Fortune 500 company with resources to hire the best talent and buy the best tools — had spent two years and millions of dollars building payroll software.It hadn't printed a single paycheck.The project was called C3: Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation. It was supposed to unify payroll for 87,000 employees across multiple divisions. It had executive sponsorship from CIO Susan Unger. It used Smalltalk, an object-oriented programming language that promised to solve exactly the kind of tangled legacy problems Chrysler faced.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Libsyn Description: In this episode, Jason tackles a modern construction epidemic: email overload. For the sender, it feels productive. You fire it off, get a dopamine hit, and move on. But for the receiver especially project managers and project engineers it becomes an endless queue of stress, batching, and overwhelm. Jason explains why email as a primary internal communication tool slows projects down, increases stress, and hides capacity issues. He challenges leaders to rethink how they delegate and to use better systems like Scrum, Kanban boards, and task management platforms to create flow instead of chaos. What you'll learn in this episode: Why email multiplies communication time by 4x. How batching and queueing create hidden work-in-progress. Why email culture overwhelms PMs and PEs. The leadership responsibility behind delegation overloa. Better alternatives for managing internal work and communication. If your team is drowning in inboxes… Is it because of workload or because of how you're assigning it? If you like the Elevate Construction podcast, please subscribe for free and you'll never miss an episode.  And if you really like the Elevate Construction podcast, I'd appreciate you telling a friend (Maybe even two

Lai-Ling Su: The Product and Service Story That Every Scrum Master Needs to Hear Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "It was kind of at that moment that I realized, like, community was about providing people with the opportunities that they otherwise wouldn't have had. And whilst you could technically execute your product or service well, the customer experience is fundamentally a deeply emotional one." - Lai-Ling Su   Lai-Ling shares a powerful story from when she was just 11 years old, running front of house at her family's restaurant inside an Australian workers' club. When a popular band was booked to play on a Saturday night, the venue reached max capacity—and almost everyone wanted food. With no ticketed order system and only her memory to match orders to customers, chaos ensued.  One father approached her, yelling about how long his food was taking. At the end of the night, Lai-Ling mustered the courage that only an 11-year-old possesses and asked him point-blank why he had reacted so strongly. His answer floored her: he only got to see his son every other weekend, and this evening was supposed to create a cherished memory together. Instead, they were hangry most of the night.  This moment taught Lai-Ling that customer experience is fundamentally emotional—it's not about the food, but about what the interaction means to the people we serve. For the next decade, she continuously inspected every aspect of their restaurant operations, always seeking to improve how they served customers while remaining commercially viable. In this episode, we refer to the "Scrum Masters are the future CEO's, and a podcast by the Lean Enterprise Institute" blog post by Vasco.    Self-reflection Question: When was the last time you paused to understand the deeper meaning behind a stakeholder's frustration, rather than just addressing the surface-level complaint?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

The Concept of Scrum Fluid TeamsFluid Scrum Teams are a concept introduced by Willem-Jan Ageling, where a stable group of individuals (e.g., 20 members) self-organize into smaller, temporary teams each Sprint to address specific objectives. This approach allows for flexibility and adaptability, as team compositions change based on the current needs of the projects at hand.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Comedian and actor Mike Bubbins welcomes one of the key players of Warren Gatland's golden generation, former Wales centre Jonathan Davies, to his bar. He will be discussing the players and coaches from Llanelli who inspired him the most.

What if the estimates we fight so hard to defend are actually the very thing slowing us down? In this episode, Felipe sits down with Vasco Duarte --- Agile coach, author of #NoEstimates, and host of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast --- for a candid conversation about why traditional estimation may be creating more illusion than clarity... and what to do instead. Vasco brings serious field credibility. He led initiatives at Nokia involving 500 people, 100 teams, across four continents. And he saw projects fail not because the work was impossible --- but because leaders trusted the plan more than the evidence unfolding in real time. This conversation hits home for construction and project management professionals who operate under pressure, contracts, and commitments. Key Takeaways -

Was steckt wirklich hinter agilem Arbeiten – und ist das ein Umfeld, in dem du dich wohlfühlen würdest? In dieser Folge vergleichen wir klassische Hierarchien mit agilen Ansätzen wie Scrum und erklären, warum langfristige Detailplanung in komplexen Zeiten oft einfach nicht mehr funktioniert. Stattdessen geht es in der Agilität um kurze Lernzyklen, schnelle Entscheidungen und die Bereitschaft, Verantwortung zu übernehmen. Wir sprechen über Rollen wie Product Owner und Scrum Master, über Kommunikation und das Loslassen von Kontrolle. Wenn du aus einem traditionellen Umfeld kommst und überlegst, ob Agilität zu dir passt, bekommst du hier eine ehrliche und praxisnahe Orientierung.

Cat & Cloud Podcast Cat & Cloud Coffee www.catandcloud.com/ Specialty Coffee Ambassador: Meeting Guests Where They Are - Ep# 438 EPISODE SUMMARY Chris, Jared, and Casey dig into a classic specialty coffee problem: the gap between “coffee nerd language” and what customers actually need to have a great experience. They unpack why trust and hospitality come before origin stories and point scores, and how to guide people with simple, confidence-building choices instead of overwhelm. Along the way they riff on the limits of the 80+ point mindset, why the market ultimately decides what's valuable, and how cafés can create “stair steps” that help guests level up over time. The thesis is simple: make it welcoming, make it relatable, and help people win on their first step. CHAPTER TITLES 00:00 Cold Open: Fruit and Chocolate, and Casey on the Mic 05:00 Scrum Boards and the “Smallest Viable” Way to Improve 15:00 Sharing in Specialty Coffee: Engage and Build Trust 21:00 It's a Party not a Club. Welcoming others into Specialty Coffee 26:00 Specialty Scores, Coffee Assessment, and What “Value” Really Means 35:00 Specialty Coffee Industry Shifts 45:00 Knowing and Responding to the Guest Cat & Cloud: Instagram www.instagram.com/catcloudcoffee/ Webstore www.catandcloud.com/ We LOVE our Wholesale Partners! Interested in serving our coffee at your business? Learn more about our Partner Program https://catandcloud.com/pages/wholesale Links – The Home of Scrum: scrum.org Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time - by Jeffrey Sutherland and J.J. Sutherland (book) Cat & Cloud Coffee was founded in 2016 by three friends who believe experiences and connections shape our lives. Former barista champions and lifelong coffee professionals, they envisioned a better way to do business and set out to create a values-driven organization that put culture first. Our mission is to inspire connection by creating memorable experiences. Whether it's with guests in our 4 retail locations in Santa Cruz, our team members, or our wholesale partners across the country, we strive to leave everyone better than we found them. The Cat & Cloud Podcast is a space for us to share our experiences and adventures in coffee and business in hopes of inspiring more people to create culture and values-driven organizations. Hosted by Chris Baca and Jared Truby Produced by: Casey Ryan Feb. 2026

In this episode of Startup Hustle, Matt Watson interviews John Morlan, founder and CEO of Smarter Risk, about the transformative impact of AI on startups. John shares his journey of integrating AI into his business, enhancing productivity, and improving collaboration with developers. He discusses the balance between product-led and sales-led growth strategies, the importance of knowledge management, and the challenges of achieving product-market fit. The conversation emphasizes the necessity of hands-on involvement from founders and the evolving role of AI in business operations.⏱️ Episode Breakdown00:00 Introduction to AI in Startups00:57 John's Journey with AI04:58 Prototyping and Development with AI09:47 Balancing Coding and Leadership15:03 Sales vs. Product-Led Growth19:51 Building a Knowledge Base with AI24:57 Final Thoughts on AI and ProductivityLinks & ResourcesConnect with John Morlan on LinkedInWhat Smart CTOs Are Doing Differently With Offshore Teams in 2025Subscribe to the Global Talent SprintFull Scale – Build your dev team quickly and affordablyIf you're trying to get your team out of the basement and into real product ownership, this episode is your playbook. Stop being a ticket factory. Build teams that think, create, and lead.Follow the show, rate it, and send this to someone who's still trying to do “real Scrum.” They need it more than you do.

The Three Paths Scrum OpensI have watched teams celebrate their “perfect Sprint.” Every ceremony attended. Every artifact updated. Every role filled. And yet their product no closer to solving the user's problem than it was three Sprints ago. They'd mistaken the map for the journey.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Comedian and actor Mike Bubbins welcomes one of his heroes to the bar - the legendary and iconic entertainer Max Boyce. With a career spanning over 50 years, Max reveals his top five outside halves.

John Duggan is joined by Shane Hannon & Adrian Barry for this Sunday's Newsround!SUBSCRIBE at OffTheBall.com/join

Prabhleen Kaur: The Art of Coaching Product Owners on What vs. How Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. The Great Product Owner: Master of Stakeholder Relationships and the Power of No "The best PO is the person who has the superpower of saying no, and they can deal with the stakeholders with the same prowess." - Prabhleen Kaur   Prabhleen describes working with a Product Owner who managed multiple stakeholders—not just a handful, but a significant number with competing priorities. What made him exceptional was his deep understanding of each stakeholder's pulse and motivations. He knew when to push back and how to frame the "no" in a way that stakeholders could accept. This wasn't random resistance—it came from thorough preparation manifested in clear roadmaps that made most incoming work predictable for the team.  His user stories stood out for their richness in context: beyond the business requirements, they included information about who would be impacted, which proved invaluable for a team dealing with multiple interconnected systems.  He leveraged JIRA's priority field effectively, ensuring the moment anyone opened the board, they could immediately understand what mattered most. Prabhleen emphasizes that this PO understood his role as the "what" while respecting the team as the "how." By maintaining strong stakeholder relationships built on mutual understanding, he created space for the team to prepare, plan, and deliver without constant firefighting.   Self-reflection Question: Does your Product Owner have the preparation and stakeholder relationships needed to confidently say "no" when priorities compete, or does every request become an emergency? The Bad Product Owner: Technical Experts Who Manage the Sprint Backlog "The PO is the what, and the team is the how. When POs start directing the team about how to do things, the sprint goal gets compromised." - Prabhleen Kaur   Prabhleen addresses a common anti-pattern she's observed repeatedly: Product Owners with technical backgrounds who cross the line from "what" into "how." When POs come from developer or technical roles, their expertise can become a liability if they start prescribing solutions rather than defining problems.  They direct the team on implementation approaches, suggest specific technical solutions in user stories, and effectively manage the sprint backlog instead of focusing on the product backlog. The consequences are predictable: stories keep getting added or removed mid-sprint, the sprint goal becomes meaningless, and the team ends up delivering nothing because focus is constantly shifting.  Prabhleen's solution starts in backlog refinement, where she ensures conversations about technical approaches happen openly with the whole team during estimation. When a PO suggests a specific implementation, she facilitates discussion about alternatives, allowing the team to voice their perspective.  The key insight: everyone comes from a good place—the PO suggests solutions because they believe they're helping. The Scrum Master's role is to create space for the team to own the "how" while helping the PO see the value in stepping back.   Self-reflection Question: When your Product Owner has technical expertise, how do you help them contribute their knowledge without directing the team's implementation choices?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

In this episode, Matt Watson interviews Matt Haycox, an experienced entrepreneur who shares insights from his 25 years in business, focusing on capital raising, the challenges of entering the tech space as a non-technical leader, and the impact of AI on business development. Haycox discusses his journey from traditional businesses to tech ventures, emphasizing the importance of understanding both technical and commercial aspects of business. He also highlights the value of learning from mistakes and building trust within teams.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Matt Haycox02:52 Matt's Entrepreneurial Journey05:46 Transitioning into Tech and SaaS09:00 The Role of AI in Business Development11:55 Understanding the Micro-SaaS Landscape15:08 The Importance of a Good CTO18:03 Learning from Mistakes in Business21:05 Conclusion and ResourcesLinks & ResourcesConnect with Matt Haycox on LinkedInWhat Smart CTOs Are Doing Differently With Offshore Teams in 2025Subscribe to the Global Talent SprintFull Scale – Build your dev team quickly and affordablyIf you're trying to get your team out of the basement and into real product ownership, this episode is your playbook. Stop being a ticket factory. Build teams that think, create, and lead.Follow the show, rate it, and send this to someone who's still trying to do “real Scrum.” They need it more than you do.

Prabhleen Kaur: When Team Members Raise Concerns with Clarity, Not Anger Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "My idea of success as a Scrum Master is when you look around, you see motivated people, and when something goes wrong, they come to you not in anger, but with concern." - Prabhleen Kaur   Prabhleen offers a refreshing perspective on measuring success as a Scrum Master that goes beyond velocity charts and feature counts. She shares a pivotal moment when her team was in production, delivering relentlessly with barely any time to breathe. A team member approached her—not with frustration or blame—but with thoughtful concern: "This is not going to work out." He sat down with Prabhleen and the Product Owner, explaining that as the middle layer in an API creation team, delays from upstream were creating a cascading problem.  What struck Prabhleen wasn't just the identification of the issue, but how he approached it: with options to discuss, not demands to make. This moment crystallized her definition of success. When team members feel safe enough to voice concerns early, when they come with ideas rather than accusations, when they see themselves as part of the solution rather than victims of circumstances—that's when a Scrum Master has truly succeeded.  Prabhleen reminds us that while stakeholders may focus on features delivered, Scrum Masters should watch how well the team responds to change. That adaptability, rooted in psychological safety and mutual trust, is the true measure of a team's maturity.   Self-reflection Question: When problems emerge in your team, do people approach you with defensive anger or constructive concern? What does that tell you about the psychological safety you've helped create? Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Keep-Stop-Happy-Gratitude Prabhleen shares her favorite retrospective format, born from necessity when she joined an established team with dismal participation in their standard three-column retrospectives. She transformed it into a four-column approach: (1) What should we keep doing, (2) What should we stop doing, (3) One thing that will make you happy, and (4) Gratitude for the team. The third column—asking what would make team members happy—opened unexpected doors. Suggestions ranged from team outings to skipping Friday stand-ups, giving Prabhleen real-time insights into team needs without waiting for formal working agreement sessions. The gratitude column proved even more powerful. "Appreciation brings a space where trust is automatically built. When every 15 days you're sitting with the team making a point to say thank you to each other for all the work you've done, everybody feels mutually respected," Prabhleen explains. This ties directly to the trust-building discussed in Tuesday's episode—using retrospectives not just to improve processes, but to strengthen the human connections that make teams resilient.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

In Part 2 of this Q&A series stemming from questions in the webinar, Managing Your AI Teammate, Eric Naiburg continues the conversation with Darrell Fernandes, diving deeper into how AI is reshaping the way Scrum Teams work.Together, they explore practical applications of AI in Scrum — from drafting and refining user stories to strengthening Definitions of Done and improving Gherkin statements. Darrell shares how AI can help teams create clearer, more consistent, and testable backlog items, while also warning against over-reliance.Eric and Darrell examine AI's impact on team dynamics, including how meeting-recording tools can summarize conversations, capture action items, and support retrospectives. They also address the human side of adoption: differing mental models, fear of change, and the critical role Scrum Masters play as enablers — not gatekeepers — of AI experimentation.Finally, they tackle a topic many teams overlook: total cost of ownership. As AI capabilities expand, Product Owners must understand infrastructure, data, and operational costs to avoid unintended financial consequences.If you're navigating how to thoughtfully integrate AI into your Scrum Team — balancing opportunity, risk, and cost — this episode offers practical insights and grounded guidance.

Prabhleen Kaur: How AI Is Changing the Way Agile Teams Deliver Value Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "AI's output is not the final output—it's always the two eyes we have that will get us the best results." - Prabhleen Kaur   Prabhleen brings a timely challenge to the coaching conversation: the impact of AI on teams and how Scrum Masters should navigate this transformation. She frames it as both a challenge and an opportunity—teams are now capable of delivering faster than consumers can absorb, fundamentally changing expectations and dynamics.  Prabhleen has observed her teams evolve from uncertainty about AI to confidently leveraging it for practical benefits. Developers use AI for writing and understanding code, particularly helpful for onboarding new team members who need to comprehend existing codebases quickly. QA professionals find AI invaluable for generating test cases based on story and epic context already captured in JIRA.  The next frontier? Agentic AI, where AI systems communicate with each other to produce better outputs. But Prabhleen offers an important caution: AI is learning from many conversations, not all of which are reliable. The human element—critical thinking and verification—remains essential.  For Scrum Masters, this means facilitating conversations about how teams want to experiment with AI, exploring edge cases in testing that AI can help identify, and helping teams navigate the evolving landscape of possibilities while maintaining quality and judgment.   Self-reflection Question: How are you helping your team explore AI as a tool for improvement while ensuring they maintain critical thinking about the outputs AI produces?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Estimating can bring out strong reactions, and for good reason. Mike Cohn and Brian Milner unpack why it gets misused, what “estimate responsibly” really means, and how to use planning to make better decisions without turning numbers into weapons. Overview In this episode, Brian sits down with Mike Cohn to talk about estimating and planning in a way that teams can actually live with. They explore why estimates became such a hot button topic, what the “no estimates” movement is reacting to, and how Mike's thinking has evolved over time. You will hear practical guidance on story points versus time, why teams should estimate only when it helps someone make a decision, and how to keep estimates from damaging trust. They also cover where flow metrics help, where they fall short, and how teams build credibility with leadership through responsible planning. References and resources mentioned in the show: Mike Cohn Estimating & Planning in Agile - A 2026 Field Guide Accurate Agile Planning Course Blog: Estimating and Planning in Agile: Why They Still Matter in 2026 by Mike Cohn Blog: Getting Better Estimates Is Easier Than You Think by Mike Cohn Blog: What Are Agile Story Points? By Mike Cohn Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we'd love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you'd like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode's presenters are: Brian Milner is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and host of the Agile Mentors Podcast training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Mike Cohn, CEO of Mountain Goat Software, is a passionate advocate for agile methodologies. Co-founder of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance, he thrives on helping companies succeed with Agile and witnessing its transformative impact on individuals' careers. Mike resides in Northern Idaho with his family, two Havanese dogs, and an impressive hot sauce collection.

Prabhleen Kaur: When Lack of Trust Turns Teams Into Isolated Individuals Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "Teams self-destruct despite best efforts when they lack trust." - Prabhleen Kaur   Prabhleen observed a troubling pattern while shadowing a team: stand-ups had become a register activity where people reported individual status without any connection to the sprint goal. There was no "we" in the conversation—only "I."  The team had experienced a missed deadline due to a PR conflict that wasn't merged in time, but instead of addressing it openly, everyone focused on fixing the immediate problem while avoiding the deeper conversation. The discomfort was never voiced, and resentment accumulated silently.  Prabhleen explains that team destruction is never about one action—it's about the accumulation of unspoken concerns that eventually explode at the worst possible moment. To rebuild trust, she recommends starting with peer reviews that encourage natural collaboration and conversation.  Scrum Masters must be vocal about challenges in front of the entire team, modeling the openness they want to see. For teams that have completely withdrawn, anonymous feedback and scheduled one-on-ones can create safe spaces for honest communication. The key insight? Trust is rebuilt when people realize they will be heard and understood, not judged.   In this segment, we talk about how trust is the foundation of effective teams and how its absence leads to working in silos.   Self-reflection Question: When your team experiences a failure or missed deadline, do you create space for open conversation about what happened, or does everyone quietly move on while resentment builds? Featured Book of the Week: Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland Prabhleen recommends Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland as a foundational read for understanding the spirit behind the framework. "When I actually read the book and understood the nuances of rugby and how the team should be, everything started making sense. I grew beyond the Scrum guide, beyond following rules—it's about how the team operates around you as a collective," she explains. Prabhleen also highly recommends Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet, summarizing its core message as "leaders lead leaders." Both books shaped her understanding that frameworks exist to enable collaboration, not to create compliance. Check out the David Marquet episodes on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast for more insights on intent-based leadership.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Prabhleen Kaur: Letting Teams Own Their Process Through Working Agreements Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "It's about coaching the team, not teaching them." - Prabhleen Kaur   Prabhleen shares a powerful lesson about the dangers of being too directive with a forming team. When she joined a new team, her enthusiasm and experience led her to immediately introduce best practices, believing she was setting the team up for success. Instead, the team felt burdened by rules they didn't understand the purpose of. The process became about following instructions rather than solving problems together.  It wasn't until her one-on-one conversations with team members that Prabhleen realized the disconnect. She discovered that the team viewed the practices as mandates rather than tools for their benefit. The turning point came when she brought this observation to the retrospective, and together they unlearned what had been imposed.  Now, when Prabhleen joins a new team, she takes a different approach. She first seeks to understand how the team has been functioning, then presents situations as problems to be solved collectively. By asking "How do you want to take this up?" instead of prescribing solutions, she invites team ownership. This shift from teaching to coaching means the team creates their own working agreements, their own definitions of ready and done, and their own communication norms. When people voice solutions themselves, they follow through because they own the outcome.   In this episode, we refer to working agreements and their importance in team formation.   Self-reflection Question: When you join a new team, do you first seek to understand their current ways of working, or do you immediately start suggesting improvements based on your past experience?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Comedian and actor Mike Bubbins welcomes one of Wales's most talented and mercurial players to the bar, Gavin Henson. For years, Gavin has avoided the spotlight, but now he enters Mike's bar to discuss his top five most admired players.

Today on the Show, Jerry and Manaia are joined by Joe wheeler and Acc's G Lane! Plus, if we get too boring, an ad plays? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Juliana Stepanova: Why "I'll Just Do It Myself" Is the Most Expensive PO Shortcut Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   In this episode, we refer to previous discussions about team collaboration and Product Owner patterns. The Great Product Owner: Opening Up to the Team for Solutions "The PO who's not sitting and saying 'I know how it's right, I will solve it by myself,' but coming and saying 'Hey, let's think all together'—that's what gives very, very speed-up development into becoming a great PO." - Juliana Stepanova   Juliana describes the Product Owners she considers truly great as those who bring their challenges to the team rather than solving everything alone. Her example features a PO who was invited to recurring release meetings that consumed one and a half to two hours every two weeks—30 people in a room, largely a waste of time. Instead of suffering in silence or trying to fix it alone, this PO approached the team: "Hey guys, I have these meetings, and they're useless for me. How can we deal with that?" The team collaborated with the Scrum Master to explore multiple options.  Together, they developed a streamlined, semi-automatic system that reduced the process to 10 minutes without requiring anyone to sit in a room. This solution was so effective that it was eventually adopted across the entire company, eliminating countless hours of wasted meetings. The key insight: great POs see themselves as part of the team, not above it. They're open to solutions from anyone and understand that collaboration—not individual genius—drives real improvements.   Self-reflection Question: When facing challenges that seem outside the team's domain, do you bring them to the team for collaborative problem-solving, or do you try to solve them alone? The Bad Product Owner: The Loner Who Does Everyone's Job "To make it quicker, I will skip asking the designer, I will directly put it by myself. I learned how to design five years ago. But afterwards, it's neglecting the whole team—you don't take into account the UX, and actually you need to rework." - Juliana Stepanova   The anti-pattern Juliana sees most frequently is the "loner" PO—someone who takes on other roles to move faster. The classic example: a PO who bypasses the UX/UI designer because "I learned design five years ago, I'll just do it myself." This behavior seems efficient in the moment but creates multiple problems. It disrespects the expertise of team members, undermines the collaborative nature of agile development, and almost inevitably leads to rework when the shortcuts create quality gaps.  Juliana points out this isn't unique to POs—developers sometimes bypass testers for the same "efficiency" reasons. The solution isn't punishment but cultural reinforcement: helping people see the value of professional work, encouraging communication and openness, and building respect for each role's contribution. The key principle: if someone hasn't asked for help, don't assume they need yours. Focus on your own job, and offer assistance only when invited or when you explicitly ask "Do you need help?"   Self-reflection Question: When have you taken on someone else's role because it seemed faster, and what was the real cost of that shortcut?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

What happens when you mix creative agency chaos with world-class engineering? You get teams that don't just write code—they own the product.In this episode, I'm talking with David Mitchell, CTO at VML, one of the biggest creative agencies on the planet. With thousands of engineers and global clients like Wendy's and United Airlines, David's teams are building things that most devs only dream of—and doing it without getting buried in bureaucracy.We break down what it really takes to foster creative engineering inside a massive org, how to keep engineers out of the ticket-taking trap, and how AI is reshaping what engineering leadership actually looks like.If you lead teams and want to stop micromanaging, or if you're just tired of pretending Agile is still helping... this one's for you.⏱️ Episode Breakdown[00:15] — What is a "creative engineer" and why don't we have more of them?[06:00] — Why software engineering should be creative work[07:40] — The evolution of engineering: From basement coders to business thinkers[11:20] — Ownership vs. ticket-taking: How VML trains teams to lead[13:30] — Journey-Driven Development and the myth of “API-first”[20:45] — Is AI changing how we build software—or just hyped?[24:00] — Hackathons, prototyping, and the rise of “vibe engineering”Links & ResourcesConnect with David on LinkedInProduct Driven - Get the BookSubscribe to the Product Driven NewsletterWhat Smart CTOs Are Doing Differently With Offshore Teams in 2025Subscribe to the Global Talent SprintFull Scale – Build your dev team quickly and affordablyIf you're trying to get your team out of the basement and into real product ownership, this episode is your playbook. Stop being a ticket factory. Build teams that think, create, and lead.Follow the show, rate it, and send this to someone who's still trying to do “real Scrum.” They need it more than you do.

Juliana Stepanova: When a Former Skeptic Calls to Say "Now I Know What You Did" — Defining Scrum Master Success Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "Juliana, now I know what you did that time. It was so amazing work. Sometimes the work of the Scrum Master, you cannot measure it in real numbers, because the work of the Scrum Master is dependent on the persons who are working with the team." - Juliana Stepanova   Juliana shares a story that captures the often invisible nature of Scrum Master success. For a year and a half, she worked with a distributed team across Europe, and one colleague in her office would repeatedly ask—half joking, half serious—"Juliana, what do you do here? Why are you getting a salary? I don't see any improvements."  Eight months after that colleague moved to another company, he called her with a revelation: working in a team without effective Scrum Mastering made him finally understand the value she had created. This delayed recognition highlights a fundamental challenge: Scrum Master success often can't be measured in real numbers because it depends on enabling others. Juliana's practical approach is to set three main focus areas every three months, aligned with team and company needs.  She tracks concrete progress—like implementing a Definition of Done across multiple teams—and measures whether specific goals are achieved. She even asks in job interviews: "How will you measure my success in three or six months?" Without this intentional focus and self-measurement, she says, "it's truly hard to see what you're really doing."   Self-reflection Question: What three focus areas would you choose for the next three months, and how would you know you've succeeded in each? Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Wedding Retro Juliana recommends the Wedding Retro format from Retromat, and when she mentions the name, people immediately smile—which is exactly the point. The format uses the traditional wedding saying "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" to structure reflection: Something Old represents practices that are working and should continue; Something New covers areas for improvement or experimentation; Something Borrowed invites the team to identify ideas from other teams or departments worth adopting; and Something Blue addresses blockers, risks, and issues.  Juliana loves this format because the playful framing creates positive emotions from the start, disarming tension and making people more open to genuine reflection. "If you laugh at the start of the retrospective," she explains, "you're ready for a much better retrospective than if you're tense and anxious." She uses this exercise "all over the time," even outside her Scrum Master work.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

How can Scrum improve something as complex—and personal—as parent-teacher conferences?In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, Dave West is joined by Andrew Nimmer, Assistant Head of the Carroll Upper School, part of The Carroll School, an independent Massachusetts school serving students with language-based learning differences. Together, they explore how a cross-functional team of educators and data specialists used Scrum to streamline and improve the parent-teacher conference experience across multiple campuses.Andrew shares what it's like to apply Scrum outside of technology, the shift from “one-and-done” projects to continuous product development, and the importance of clear goals, product ownership, and incremental improvement. The result? More aligned communication, better use of student data, and a conference experience that delivers greater value for families and teachers alike.This conversation offers practical insights for anyone curious about applying Scrum in education—or any non-traditional environment.

Juliana Stepanova: Trust Over Escalation — A Patient Approach to Difficult PO Relationships Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "The team still believes it could be solved with proper communication to the PO. My idea is to really try, in a supportive way, to build trust, to encourage communication, and to come to the solution as a team altogether. This is like a win-win situation." - Juliana Stepanova   Juliana brings a challenge that many Scrum Masters will recognize: a Product Owner who doesn't want to be coached and whose behaviors are undermining Scrum rituals. The situation is complicated by organizational structure—the Scrum Master reports to the people department while the PO reports to the product department, creating misaligned directions with no common leadership thread.  The PO arrives at refinement meetings unprepared, writing user stories on the spot while eight team members sit idle for hours. When Juliana explores the root cause, she discovers the PO is genuinely overwhelmed with responsibilities outside the team. But here's the twist: this newly promoted PO is proud of the role and resistant to accepting help, preferring to say "just wait, I will manage it."  Rather than escalating—which Juliana notes would damage trust for years or potentially lose the PO entirely—she advocates for a patient, collaborative approach. The experiment she designs focuses on engaging more deeply with the PO's activities to understand which tasks could be delegated or eliminated, while continuing to build trust through support rather than confrontation. The team maintains hope that the PO will eventually accept help, choosing persistence over escalation.   In this segment, we talk about coaching Product Owners and building trust.   Self-reflection Question: When facing a resistant stakeholder, do you default to escalation, or do you invest in building the trust that enables genuine collaboration?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Welcome to Botched: A D&D Podcast! Now that they have procured travel to God's Wrath, in pursuit of all the missing dragons, they decide they should be well armed. They head to the nearby city, run by Rabbit folk, in hopes of obtaining a “god gun.”They've heard a rumor that there exists a secret weapon strong enough to destroy a god. Of course, the group has to make travel arrangements, but that is no longer so easy now that one of the members is half donkey. You can't fit a donkey-taur in a carriage after all. Scrum gets to go back to his favorite place. The train!What is this supposed “god gun”? Will anyone die on the train this time? What is there to do in a town full of Rabbits? What exactly does a Junior Conductor do? Tune in and find out!We now have a PO Box! Wanna send us something? PO BOX 3178 Gettysburg, PA 17325All of our previous seasons can be found on our new channel!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Botched Archives⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!A special shout out and thank you to all of our supporters over on Patreon. You help us continue to churn out “quality” episodes. With your continued support we can take our show on the road! Check out our store over at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Botched Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ where you can find tshirts, stickers, pint glasses and more!Give us a 5 star review on Itunes. Doing so will help the show grow, but we will also read out whatever you write at the end of one of our episodes!Feel free to email us any questions, comments or suggestions at ⁠BotchedPodcast@gmail.com⁠Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, subscribe on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, like us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.You can watch the show live on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!Check out each of the hosts' Twitch streams! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dennis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Phil⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tristan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Hosts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dennis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Phil⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tristan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steve⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Editor: Philip D Keating And Dennis RobinsonProducer: Philip and DennisExecutive Producers: ⁠⁠⁠⁠James Thatcher⁠⁠⁠⁠, Chronic Ejac, Jim Beverly,Disgruntled Furniture, Chris Wisdom, ShinigamiSPQR,  Jayson Haiss, Toaster Bath and Scabby GoosePublisher: Phil and DennisArt by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Emily Swan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Gozer⁠

Juliana Stepanova: The Slippery Slope — How Small Compromises Lead Teams to Abandon Scrum Entirely Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "If you have it like once, you think it's okay. But it starts to change our mindset in the way that these rules, these frameworks could be changed. And with the small stuff that it's not correct, within half a year, Scrum will not work at all." - Juliana Stepanova   Juliana describes a pattern she witnessed in an experienced seven-person development team that had practiced Scrum for years. It began innocuously: the daily standup stretched from 15 to 30 minutes because the team was larger. Then came the skipped retrospectives during release phases—"we don't have time today." Each compromise seemed reasonable in isolation, but together they formed a slippery slope that eventually dismantled the entire framework. The root cause often lies outside the team: misaligned Scrum rituals across multiple teams, company-wide meetings that override sprint events, and pressure from management to prioritize immediate fires over process discipline. Once the brain accepts that "we can skip it for a good reason," finding the next good reason becomes easier and easier. Juliana emphasizes a crucial distinction: teams that actively choose Scrum—those who approach management saying "we want to try this"—naturally protect the framework. They understand its value from personal conviction. When Scrum is imposed rather than chosen, the team lacks the intrinsic motivation to defend it against organizational pressure, making the slippery slope almost inevitable.   In this segment, we talk about the challenges of organizational alignment and protecting Scrum events.   Self-reflection Question: What small compromises has your team made to the Scrum framework, and are they leading you toward a slippery slope where the entire process may eventually be abandoned? Featured Book of the Week: Startup, Scaleup, Screwup by Jurgen Appelo Juliana recommends Startup, Scaleup, Screwup by Jurgen Appelo as her go-to resource for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches. The book contains 42 tools designed to accelerate business growth, presented in accessible chapters that cover the most essential knowledge for agile practitioners. What sets this book apart for Juliana is its scope: it addresses not just team-level concerns but company-wide perspectives. "Sometimes Scrum Masters don't pay so much attention to the company level or between departments," she explains. "In this book, you'll find normal tools which you can apply all over the company, not only for the team." She uses it constantly for inspiration and recommends reading it at least once—though she returns to it repeatedly for reference.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Juliana Stepanova: The 90-Minute Retrospective Disaster That Taught Me Servant Leadership Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "It's not my job to find the points to improve. My job is to help the team find them, to interact their communication, to start thinking about the improvements, and not pushing them into my exercises." - Juliana Stepanova   Juliana shares a humbling experience from her first year as a Scrum Master that transformed how she approaches facilitation. She had meticulously prepared what she believed was a brilliant 90-minute retrospective—carefully designed exercises, content tailored to the sprint, everything by the book. Yet when she asked the team for feedback at the end, they delivered a crushing verdict: "It was the worst retro ever." The disconnect wasn't about the quality of preparation but about whose perspective drove the design. Juliana had crafted the session based on her observations and assumptions about what the team needed, rather than asking them what they actually wanted to discuss.  This experience crystallized a fundamental insight about servant leadership: the difference between leading and servant leading. Today, Juliana prepares at least twice as many tools and exercises as she needs for any workshop, ready to pivot based on the room's energy and the team's expressed needs. She opens sessions with questions about expectations, aligning with the team's mood while setting appropriate boundaries. The failure taught her that even the most carefully prepared facilitation can miss the mark when it doesn't serve what the team actually needs in that moment.   Self-reflection Question: When was the last time you asked your team what they wanted from a retrospective before you designed it, and how might their input change your approach?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

В этом выпуске «Scrum‑мастерской» Мария Дьякова встречается со Святославом Божухиным, руководителем направления по развитию проектного управления в Сбере. Он рассказал, как прошёл путь от классического руководителя проектов в банках до лидера продуктовой и Scrum‑компетенций. И как приобретённые скиллы помогли ему перейти в новую роль — сейчас Святослав отвечает за возвращение проектного подхода в экосистему Sbergile и увязку программ, проектов и продуктовых практик в единую систему.Этот выпуск поможет разобраться, чем проектное управление отличается от продуктового, и как элементы PMBoK органично встраиваются в Scrum‑события — от планирования и дейли до ретроспектив. Как всегда, всё на примерах: как агенты изменений могут использовать проектные техники для целеполагания, повышения предсказуемости, осознанной работы с зависимостями и коммуникациями, чтобы команда не просто «жила спринтами», а строила прозрачный и управляемый процесс для бизнеса и заказчиков.Слушайте выпуск на всех популярных платформах:  ⚪️ Apple: https://apple.co/467bc3C

42, not 67, is still the answer. We begin the end of a 20-year run today. SPaMCAST 884 will mark the planned end of new interview content. There are several pieces of content that we still have to publish. Still to come: An audio play written by David Herron and me. The SPaMCAST players provided the voice talent! A review of several podcasts that changed my professional life. A retrospective. Anthony's Bio Anthony coaches and trains Agile Leaders to help them understand Agile and Scrum and how to create an environment where people come first, productivity is high and teamwork is effective and enjoyable. He is also the author of two books, Agile Project Management and Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers. Website: https://www.vitalitychicago.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonymersino/ Mastering Work Intake sponsors SPaMCAST! Starting Everything Means Finishing Nothing One big thing: Poor work entry means delivering less. Why it matters: Work Intake controls what a team works on and when they work on it. Overloaded teams deliver less value. Poor prioritization leads to delivering the wrong work. Chaotic work intake costs organizations money and time. Zoom in: Mastering Work Intake by Jeremy Willets and Tom Cagley provides the reader with ideas, principles, actionable advice, worksheets, and examples to deliver more value. Buy a copy! JRoss Publishing: https://bit.ly/474ul6G Amazon: https://amzn.to/4236013 Next! We will have a short hiatus, 2 or 3 weeks, before the audio drama lands!

Agile in Construction: The Product Owner Role in Construction—Voice of the Customer Across Every Phase With Felipe Engineer-Manriquez Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. In this episode, we refer to Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal, as well as our Agile in Construction episodes. The Great Product Owner: Bringing the Voice of the Customer to Every Decision "I want you to think like the owner, and bring that to the team meetings, because we can't have the owner in the meetings with us." - Felipe Engineer-Manriquez   The Product Owner role in construction is radically different from software—and Felipe has learned to find it in unexpected places. When Jeff Sutherland told his class to "tear up your business cards" because only three roles exist (Developer, Scrum Master, Product Owner), construction people were confused. Felipe's approach: ask the team who can bring the voice of the customer. Sometimes it's the superintendent, interfacing daily with charge nurses and doctors in a working hospital. Sometimes it's a project executive. Rarely, it's the project manager. The key is that the PO role changes across phases because every day in construction is brand new—the building is physically taking shape. Felipe studied military leadership in Extreme Ownership and Team of Teams and found strong product owner culture—leaders who brought customer voice to cell-level teams against hierarchical norms. Great product owners speak in terms of what the customer wants, transforming how teams prioritize and align naturally.   Self-reflection Question: Who on your team currently embodies the voice of the customer, and how might you coach them to bring that perspective more explicitly to every team interaction? The Bad Product Owner: When Gut Decisions Override Value "Value is a beneficial transformation of materials, information, or a combination of both. Let's not do things that don't transform information or materials." - Felipe Engineer-Manriquez   Felipe shares a powerful anti-pattern: owners who make gut decisions based on past project trauma without checking if conditions are still true. On a $100 million project, an owner repeatedly introduces work that doesn't add value—reacting to bad things that happened on previous projects, even when those conditions no longer exist. The result? Teams waste time on activities that don't transform materials or information. Felipe teaches teams an industrial engineering definition of value: "a beneficial transformation of materials, information, or a combination of both." Status updates that don't change behavior are waste. Markings on metal decking that will be buried under 5 inches of concrete are waste. The fix? Make the backlog visible and ask: "Where should we zipper this in so it has the most impact on transforming materials or information?" For construction, prioritization always comes back to getting the right materials in place, one time, at the right time—not touching things twice.   Self-reflection Question: When stakeholders introduce work based on past experiences, how do you help them evaluate whether those conditions still apply to the current situation?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

SEASON 4 EPISODE 54: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: At this moment, the biggest threat to the future of democracy at this minute is Chuck Schumer. He and the other members of the milquetoast caucus of Senate Democrats are ready to give away their chance to turn MAGA's panic over the ICE murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti (and Keith Porter Jr) into a forced re-structure of the entire damnable structure. Instead of demanding a new organization with bipartisan control and a blanket ban on any activity near polling places or in fact in the week before an election, Schumer is willing to sell that for four trivial concessions. He's willing to forfeit the last chance to get these death squads off our streets in exchange for a "uniform code of conduct," the end of "roving patrols," the discontinuation of masks, and the use of body cameras. Because obviously the threat that ICE's next slaughter of an innocent bystander will be captured on video completely kept these Trump Death Squads from killing Alex Pretti. It's beyond Schumer's usual naiveté. It's criminally negligent. He shouldn't just be ousted as Minority Leader, he should be expelled from the Senate. Trump blames Bovino. Bovino blames Noem. Noem blames Miller. Miller blames Border Patrol. Roger Stone blames Lewandowski. Trump blames the 2nd Amendment. They're imploding, Chuck. Get out of their way, you moron. ROBERT FICO: Slovakia’s pro-Trump prime minister who last year spoke at CPAC (it's pronounced Fitso) was quoted by five Politico sources as having been shaken after a meeting with Trump on the 17th, alarmed by Trump's "psychological state" and convinced Trump was "out of his mind." Denials all around. (33:00) BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: If you didn't know, Saturday he wrote an ICE protest song. Uploaded it to social media yesterday. Calls 'em all out by name, including "King Trump." Chills. With Bruce's kind permission, we're playing it in the podcast. Superb stuff. I wish Bruce were Senate minority leader. B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A News Nation moron reduces the death of Alex Pretti to a "scrum." Melania doesn't know her icons from her iconoclasts. And Katie Miller insists all Conservative women are far more attractive than all Liberal women. You have to give her credit: who knew she had gotten this far with such devastatingly impaired vision? C-Block (50:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Just past the anniversary, now 45 years, since a famed New York morning disc jockey responded to something I said on the air one hour by threatening to kill me, and then responded to something I said on the air the next hour by trying to hire me full-time on his station. The Ted Brown Saga - revisited. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Agile in Construction: Team Happiness as the True Measure of Scrum Master Success in Construction With Felipe Engineer-Manriquez Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "The teams that are having fun and are light-hearted, making jokes—these are high-performing teams almost 99% of the time. But the teams that are overly sarcastic or too quiet? They're burning out." - Felipe Engineer-Manriquez   Felipe offers a refreshingly human definition of success for Scrum Masters: team happiness. After years of traumatic experiences in construction—days when he pounded his steering wheel in frustration during his commute—Felipe developed what he calls being a "human thermometer." He can sense a team's emotional state within 5 minutes of being with them. His proxy for success is a simple Likert scale of 1-5: 5 is Nirvana (working at Google with massages), and 1 is wanting to jump out the window. Felipe emphasizes that most people in construction internalize stress and push it down, so you have to ask directly. When he asked an estimator this question, the man quietly admitted he was at a 2—ready to walk away. Without asking, Felipe would never have known. The key insight: schedule improvements happen as teams move closer to a 5. And the foundation of it all? Understanding. "People do not have an overt need to be loved," Felipe shares from his Scrum training. "They have an overt need to be understood." A successful Scrum Master meddles appropriately, runs toward problems, and focuses on understanding teammates before trying to implement change.   Self-reflection Question: If you asked each of your team members to rate their happiness from 1-5 today, what do you think they would say, and what would you learn that you don't currently know? Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Start/Stop/Keep Felipe's favorite retrospective format is Start/Stop/Keep—but his approach to introducing it is what makes the difference. He connects it to something construction teams already know: the post-mortem. He explains the morbid origin of the term (surgeons standing around a dead patient discussing what went wrong) to emphasize the seriousness of learning. Then he reframes the retrospective as a recurring post-mortem—a "lessons learned" cycle. Start: What should we begin doing that will make things better? Stop: What should we no longer do that doesn't add value? Keep: What good things are we doing that we want to maintain? Felipe uses silent brainstorming so everyone has time to think, then makes responses visible on a whiteboard or digital display. The cadence scales with sprint length—45 minutes for a week, 2 hours for two weeks, half a day for a month. His current team committed to monthly retrospectives and pre-writes their Start/Stop/Keep items, making the facilitated session efficient and focused.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Agile in Construction: The DOWNTIME Strategy—Eliminating Waste Before Adding Process With Felipe Engineer-Manriquez Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "My first rule is that I will do no harm. And if something goes wrong, I will take full responsibility with leadership. My neck is literally on the line." - Felipe Engineer-Manriquez   Felipe shares his change strategy for introducing Lean and Agile into construction projects, and it starts with an unexpected principle borrowed from Hippocrates: do no harm. He explicitly tells teams this promise, putting his neck on the line to build trust. But the real magic happens in what comes next: instead of adding new processes, Felipe first helps teams stop doing things. Using the DOWNTIME acronym (Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Excess processing), he identifies wasteful activities that don't add value. In construction, 60-80% of every dollar doesn't add value from the customer's perspective—compared to manufacturing (above 50% value) or agriculture (90% value). Felipe's approach: eliminate waste first to create excess capacity, then introduce new processes. On a project that was 2 years behind schedule with lawyers already engaged, he spent just 5 minutes with the team defining a visible milestone goal on a whiteboard. Two weeks later, they met their schedule and improved by 4 days—the first time ever. The superintendent said, "Never in the entire time I've worked here have we ever met a schedule commitment." The secret? Free up capacity before adding anything new.   In this episode, we refer to the 8 wastes video by Orbus and WIP limits.   Self-reflection Question: Before introducing your next process improvement, what wasteful activity could you help your team stop doing to free up the capacity they need to embrace change?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Hiring for Scrum roles is harder than it looks. Making the wrong call can derail an Agile transformation before it even starts. In this episode, Brian and Cort unpack what to actually look for in Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and Developers—beyond the job title and shiny certifications.

Agile in Construction: Over-Commitment and Silence—The Deadly Duo Destroying Your Teams With Felipe Engineer-Manriquez Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "I don't think people are bad. They don't self-destruct because they're bad. What I do see is people getting crushed in terribly bad systems." - Felipe Engineer-Manriquez   Felipe shares a powerful insight about team dysfunction: teams don't self-destruct because of bad people—they get crushed by broken systems. On a hospital construction project, he witnessed a dangerous pattern: over-commitment coupled with silence. People would commit to pouring concrete on Thursday when there wasn't even rebar in place—a physical impossibility. But psychological safety was so low that no one could say the emperor had no clothes. Felipe's approach? Ask obvious questions that break the pattern. "Don't you need this so you can do that?" This simple question, framed with verb-noun phrases, surfaces what cannot be spoken. He positions himself as "just a simple, dumb general contractor" who doesn't understand—creating safety for others to speak truth. The turning point comes when you slow down, make work visible, and allow people to say no. As Felipe puts it: "For real accountability, if people are not allowed to say no, then they actually can't make a real promise." Silence is not alignment, and saying yes in low-trust environments is actually hiding from accountability.   In this segment, we talk about psychological safety and systems thinking in team dynamics.   Self-reflection Question: When you see a team over-committing to impossible deadlines, what question could you ask that surfaces the truth without putting individuals at risk? Featured Book of the Week: The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt Felipe chose The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt as the most transformative book of his early lean career. He describes it as "the number one game changer"—a fictional story that teaches the Theory of Constraints in a way you can internalize. The famous "Herbie story" within the book illustrates how helping the slowest part of a process speeds up the entire system. Felipe emphasizes that Theory of Constraints is often skipped in Scrum training when classes run out of time, leaving many credentialed Scrum Masters without this essential knowledge. He uses these principles daily with the Last Planner System in construction—creating visual boards that look like Gantt charts (because construction loves schedules) but function like Scrum boards with days of the week instead of "to do, doing, done."   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Story Point Estimations are failing your Team! - Here We Go Again...Story Pointing wasn't a completely novel idea. It evolved out of the Delphi method — a research technique that helped drive consensus and forecasting built on collective wisdom. In 1950s, RAND Corporation began using it as a way to forecast the effect of technology on warfare.So, it wasn't just an idea dreamed up by someone in the Agile community randomly — no. It's actually based on a scientific approach. Something that's been applied and true in other disciplines for many, many years.And, when Scrum needed a prescriptive technique to help the Teams estimate and measure the amount of work the Team could consistently deliver Sprint after Sprint, this became a recommended approach.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Agile in Construction: Stop Teaching and Start Doing—The Secret to Agile Adoption in Construction With Felipe Engineer-Manriquez Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "I forgot a couple key things. Number one, they don't have the enthusiasm and love for these new ways of working like I do because they didn't understand the problem that they were in." - Felipe Engineer-Manriquez   Felipe shares a powerful failure story from his early days adopting Lean and Agile in construction. After discovering Jeff Sutherland's "Red Book" and experiencing incredible results using Scrum with his 4-year-old son on a weekend project, he was eager to bring these methods to his construction team. The problem? He immediately went into teaching mode. His boss Nate and the rest of the team wanted nothing to do with Scrum—they Googled it, saw it was "a software thing," and shut down completely. This is what Felipe now calls the "Not Invented Here Syndrome"—people resist ideas that don't originate from their domain. The breakthrough came when Felipe stopped teaching and started doing. He calls it the "ninja Scrum approach"—embodying the processes and tools without labeling them, making work visible, and delivering results.  When he managed $25 million worth of scopes using these methods silently, one project manager named Tom stopped him and said, "We've never come to a project where people held their promises." Within a year, even his resistant boss Nate acknowledged the transformation in a post-mortem review. The lesson: don't teach until people pull for the teaching.   In this episode, we refer to NoEstimates and Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland.   Self-reflection Question: When you introduce new practices to a team, do you wait until they pull for the teaching, or do you default to explaining before they've seen the value?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Cristina Cranga: Coaching Product Owners From Output Obsession to Value Conversations Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   In this episode, we refer to the work of Esko Kilpi on conversations and episodes on Nonviolent Communication (NVC) on the podcast. The Great Product Owner: A People Person Who Clarifies Before Deciding   "He was comfortable saying 'I don't know yet. What do you think?' It was a bi-directional conversation, not just one-way." - Cristina Cranga   The best Product Owner Cristina worked with was fundamentally a people person and a leader—human skills, not just hard skills. What made him exceptional was his approach to conversation: he started by clarifying the problem first, then decided. By doing this, he separated requests from decisions and made trade-offs explicit.  He was comfortable admitting uncertainty, asking "What do you think?" and engaging the team in co-creation rather than issuing directives. Cristina emphasizes that between the PO and Scrum Master, there's a special bond—a strong leadership partnership that teams look to as a reference. She highlights the concept of "ask more, say less": when you ask questions, you collect information that leads to better, more validated decisions.  The communication process, as outlined in Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, has four components: observation, feelings, needs, and requests. Great POs embody this by treating uncertainty as part of their job, engaging teams more deeply, and connecting work to value rather than just output.   Self-reflection Question: How often does your Product Owner ask "What do you think?" and what would change if they separated requests from decisions more explicitly? The Bad Product Owner: Output Obsession and the Velocity Trap "Success is measured by how much is delivered, not what changes. Teams get faster, but not smarter." - Cristina Cranga   The worst Product Owner anti-pattern Cristina has witnessed is output obsession—measuring success by how much is delivered rather than what actually changes for users or the business. When velocity replaces outcomes as the primary metric, teams get faster but not smarter. Faster doesn't equal smarter. This anti-pattern is particularly dangerous in an AI-accelerated environment where delivery speed is no longer a constraint. The challenge for practitioners is shifting this mindset. The strongest POs make different choices: they own their decisions at the team level, make decisions explicit, treat uncertainty as part of the job, and connect work to value. When POs break free from output obsession, the results are powerful: faster alignment, no decision hallucinations, more engaged teams willing to experiment, and genuine connection between work and value.   In this segment, we refer to Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.   Self-reflection Question: If you removed velocity from your team's dashboard tomorrow, what conversations would emerge about actual value delivered?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Cristina Cranga: Decision Quality as the True Measure of Scrum Master Effectiveness Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "A Scrum Master is successful when teams make better decisions, faster, with clear trade-offs—everything else is a side effect, not the job." - Cristina Cranga   Cristina offers a refreshingly clear definition of Scrum Master success for 2026: increasing the team's decision quality under accelerating change. She emphasizes that success as a term changes over time, and what mattered in previous years may not be what matters now. It's not about ceremony fluency or even making yourself unnecessary—those are side effects. The core of success is helping teams navigate complexity and AI-driven acceleration by making better decisions faster with explicit trade-offs.  Cristina describes this as an evolution from a "mechanic" role—focused on ceremonies, flow, and structure—to a strategic role. The Scrum Master elevates into a leader of team systems and human behaviors, possibly even becoming an AI integration enabler. This requires reskilling and upskilling as the environment changes. Her prompt for self-reflection: How can you orient your execution of the Scrum Master role more towards strategic aspects, focusing on decision quality as the opposite of decision hallucination?   Self-reflection Question: What would change in your daily work if you measured your success by the quality of decisions your team makes rather than the smoothness of your ceremonies? Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Start/Stop/Continue Cristina advocates for simplicity in retrospectives, choosing the classic Start/Stop/Continue format. But she emphasizes that the format itself is secondary—what matters is the environment you create and the outcomes you achieve. Her two key conditions for any retrospective: an actionable plan and a simple conversational approach.  She challenges Scrum Masters to focus on the "how" rather than the "what"—how do you hold the space? How do you hold the silence? How do you approach disagreements? The power of Start/Stop/Continue lies in its simplicity, which frees facilitators to focus on creating psychological safety. Cristina also warns against the instinct to take ownership of action items yourself—instead, delegate to team members so they own their problems and become more committed to finding solutions.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Cristina Cranga: Why Speed Without Value Creates Chaos in AI-Accelerated Teams Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "When output becomes cheap, value becomes harder to see. AI is amplifying this risk." - Cristina Cranga   Cristina brings a timely challenge to the table: how do Scrum Masters stay focused on value when AI tools are accelerating delivery to unprecedented speeds? Teams are delivering faster than ever—AI provides code, tests, documentation, even backlog items—but speed is no longer the constraint. The real challenge is meaning. Teams struggle to explain why their work matters to users or the business.  Cristina frames this as a shift from "delivery" as the primary keyword to "value." She suggests that Scrum Masters are evolving from facilitators of flow to protectors of intent—what she playfully calls "strategic guardians of the value chain" or even "value masters." Together with Vasco, they explore experiment ideas around building clarity of value cycles with product owners, bringing signals of value into earlier backlog work, and helping teams validate faster, not just deliver more.  The key insight: in an AI-accelerated world, the Scrum Master's role becomes more strategic, focused on ensuring teams make better decisions with clear trade-offs rather than just executing ceremonies.   Self-reflection Question: How might you help your product owner build a "clarity of value" cycle that tests ideas before they reach the development team?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Cristina Cranga: Why Nice Teams Still Fail and the Power of Honest Conversations Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "Sometimes you can change people by only listening to them. Not giving advice—don't become an advice monster." - Cristina Cranga   Cristina shares her experience of sensing that something was off with a team but being unable to pinpoint exactly what it was. Instead of jumping to conclusions, she paused, reflected, and created an intervention plan centered on one thing: starting honest conversations. Through one-on-one discussions with team members, she discovered that the problem wasn't performance or process—it was something deeper.  Expectations weren't aligned with reality, and frustration stemmed from a company culture that didn't offer psychological safety. Cristina introduces the concept of the "advice monster"—someone who constantly tells others what they should do rather than simply listening. She emphasizes that as Scrum Masters, we need to recognize the three layers of our influence: control, influence, and no control.  Even when we can't solve problems, being present and listening can create profound change. The key is self-awareness of our own vulnerability as humans and compassion for others who might be at 80% or 10% of their mental health and energy on any given day.   In this segment, we talk about the importance of psychological safety and active listening in team dynamics.   Self-reflection Question: How often do you enter conversations with the intention of truly understanding rather than solving, and what might you discover if you listened more and advised less? Featured Book of the Week: The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson Cristina chose The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson as her most influential book because it explains what Scrum Masters see every day but struggle to name. The book provides a mental model for why teams don't speak up and how to influence behavior without forcing it. As Cristina puts it: "She explains why nice teams still fail. Silence is not always alignment and politeness—most of the time, it's distrust." The book repositions the Scrum Master role from someone focused on ceremonies to someone who creates the conditions for psychological safety. It also explains why process alone doesn't fix everything and helps Scrum Masters measure what really matters in a team.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]