Podcasts about scrum teams

In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, Patricia Kong talks with Professional Scrum Trainer Joanna Plaskonka about why psychological safety is critical for effective Scrum Teams. Joanna explains how it fuels openness, innovation, and accountability—while its absence leads to poor collaboration, low morale, and missed opportunities. Through real-world examples, she dispels common myths and shares how leaders can foster a culture where teams feel safe to take risks, challenge ideas, and grow. This conversation highlights that psychological safety isn't a “nice-to-have”—it's essential for delivering real value.

In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, guest host Lindsay Velecina is joined by Professional Scrum Trainer Joanna Plaskonka to answer lingering questions from her recent webinar on psychological safety in Scrum Teams. Joanna shares practical insights on measuring psychological safety using Amy Edmondson's model, handling micromanagement, and fostering safe environments even in challenging cultures. From using behavioral questions and action learning to creating psychologically safe retrospectives, this episode is packed with actionable ideas for Scrum Masters, leaders, and teams seeking high performance through trust and openness! 

Why Your Scrum Teams Are Failing - The Hard TruthAgile was presented to me as the ultimate project management approach — promising productivity, transparency, and value delivery in short bursts. However, many teams struggled to effectively implement and scale Scrum, missing the mark on its potential.Waterfall was declared a relic of the past — outdated, painfully inefficient, and completely incapable of keeping up with the demands of modern projects.The question wasn't which approach was better, but rather why teams were failing to embrace the very solutions meant to propel them forward.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/

Yuval Yeret, founder of Yeret Agility and OG Agile expert, joined me on Ditching Hourly to discuss the current state of Agile as a platform, how it has evolved over the years, and what practitioners should consider when pivoting their careers as the platform matures.About YuvalYuval Yeret is a Product/Scaling/Agility Coach focused on helping product/tech leaders scale their organizations without slowing down, improving outcomes by leveraging flow, agility, and product orientation. (while avoiding the dogma and process BS of Agile Theater). Yuval is a globally recognized expert on scaling w/ agility, a SAFe Fellow, a Professional Scrum Trainer, and a co-author of the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams. These days Yuval is focused on helping organizations evolve from Feature Factories to Empowered Product Organizations, as well as helping deeper tech organizations develop a pragmatic agility strategy. Yuval shares his insights on scaling w/ agility at https://yuvalyeret.com/scaling-with-agility-newsletter/Chapters(00:00) - Introduction and Guest Welcome (00:17) - Yuval's Background and Journey into Agile (01:35) - Early Days of Agile (03:56) - Transition to Consulting and Coaching (07:21) - Agile's Evolution and Current State (09:46) - Challenges and Criticisms of Agile (17:30) - Future of Agile and Role Adaptation (22:18) - Advice for Agile Practitioners (30:22) - Reflecting on Agile Leadership (31:24) - Anecdote: Transition from FileMaker to Web Development (34:57) - The Future of Agile and Product Operating Models (39:20) - Adapting Skills for New Opportunities (41:48) - Navigating Organizational Change (44:47) - Strategies for Career Pivoting (48:01) - The Role of Scrum Masters in Modern Organizations (52:00) - Consulting and Value Proposition (57:55) - Closing Thoughts and Resources Notable Quotes"What happened over the years is... agile has become mainstream for most of corporate America, technology organizations and product companies. And this created the reality where the people that are, the organizations that are currently adopting agile are the late adopters.""[Late adopters] are slapping names like Scrum Master and Sprint and User Story and Daily Scrum... on the way that they've been doing things already. And it's like lipstick on a pig. It's not really creating any impact other than a bad name for Agile and a bad name for people in these roles.""The biggest issue with Agile... is the over-reliance on specific roles in organizations.""We will have a significantly smaller number of people that dedicate their career to something like agile, whatever it's called. You will need to specialize. You will need to start to think like consultants need to start to think and build your content solar system."Yuval's Links and Other ResourcesYuval's article on "The Future of Agile Roles and Agility"Yuval's private podcast on navigating the landscape of Agile theater, feature factories, and product operating models"Crossing the Chasm" by Geoffrey Moore (book on technology adoption)Netflix culture book (featuring the "Netflix question")The career mini-course that Jonathan mentioned: Unblock Your Career by Shachar Meir ----Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like:Value pricing your work instead of billing for your time?Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space?Productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal?Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes to get ready for work in the morning.Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call, you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word, and I'll refund your purchase in full.To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to: https://jonathanstark.com/callI hope to see you there!

Alle, die Scrum Master oder Product Owner werden wollen und mehr über die Prüfung erfahren wollen, kommen in dieser Folge voll auf ihre Kosten. Ich bespreche mit Kim Berger über die verschiedenen Möglichkeiten der Scrum Zertifizierung und wir pauken mit euch ein bisschen. Perfekte Prüfungsvorbereitung für Selbstlerner, perfekter Einstieg für alle, die sich mal erkundigen wollen, was so ein Zertifikat denn genau ist. Viel Spaß beim Hören und beim Pauken :) Fragebogen zum Herunterladen: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ej8ugbzidef1ygjn0dez4/Scrum-Testfragen.pdf?rlkey=163fxef6erngr8hyt1n8lwmam&st=9s0jdbk4&dl=0 Probefragen, die wir besprechen: What are three ways Scum promotes self-management? (Choose the best three answers) A, B, D A - By removing titles from Scrum Team members. B - By being a lightweight framework. C - By having the Scrum Master protect the Scrum Team from interruptions. D - By the Scrum team deciding what work to do in a Sprint Several Sprints into a project, the Product Owner tells the Scrum Master that a key stakeholder just started using the product. The stakeholder is unhappy with the quality of the product, and the Product Owner agrees with the stakeholders assessment that the quality is low. How should the Scrum Master respond to the Product Owner? B, C A - Explain to the Product Owner that it is up to the Developers to decide on acceptable quality standards B - Encourage the Product Owner to include quality specifications in the Product Backlog and to communicate the stakeholders concerns to the developers C - Work with the Product Owner to understand their desired resolution and help formulate an approach for raising the concern with the Developers D - Bring the concern to the testers to improve how the Product is verified E - Tell the Product Owner they have noted the concern and will raise this issue at the Sprint Retrospective When does a Developer become accountable for an item in the Sprint Backlog? (Choose the best answer) C A - At Sprint Planning when all of the Sprint Backlog items are split evenly across the Developers B - During the Daily Scrum C - Never. All Developers on the Scrum Team share accountablility for items in the Sprint Backlog D - As soon as a Developer oh the Scrum Team can accommodate more work An increment must be released to customers or users at the end of each sprint True False

Fragestellungen aus der Unterhaltung mit Jan Fischbach: Welche Verbindung gibt es zwischen Scrum und Training Within Industry (TWI)? Was kann die Scrum-Community von TWI-Prinzipien lernen? Warum wird TWI als mögliche Blaupause für Scrum Master vorgeschlagen? Welche Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede bestehen zwischen Lean- und Scrum-Ausbildungen? Ist die Ausbildungsdauer für Scrum Master ausreichend? Warum gibt es im Scrum-Kontext oft keinen Konsens über methodische Standards? Wie können die Prinzipien von TWI (Job Instructions, Job Relations, Job Methods) auf Scrum übertragen werden? Wer trägt im Scrum-Kontext die Verantwortung für die Fähigkeiten und Befähigungen der Teammitglieder? Welche Rolle spielen Organisation und Führungskräfte im Zusammenhang mit Scrum Teams und deren Effektivität? Wie unterscheidet sich der Product Owner von einem Chief Engineer im Lean Product Development? Wie könnte ein stärkeres Mandat für Product Owner aussehen? Welche Herausforderungen entstehen durch duale Hierarchien im Scrum-Kontext? Warum gibt es Vorbehalte gegen Standards und Checklisten sowohl im Scrum- als auch im Lean-Kontext? Wie kann die effektive Nutzung von Standards zur Verbesserung der Arbeitsweise beitragen? Welche Synergien könnten sich aus einer engeren Zusammenarbeit zwischen Lean- und Scrum-Experten ergeben? Wie kann die Weisheit beider Methoden für Kunden effektiver genutzt werden?

In der Scrum.org „Ask A Professional Scrum Trainer“-Serie bietet sich die Möglichkeit, unmittelbar in einer Live-Session mit einem Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) in Kontakt zu treten. Dort bekommst du die drängendsten Fragen zu deinen Herausforderungen und Situationen, mit denen dein Scrum Team konfrontiert ist, beantwortet.Solltest du also dringende Fragen zu Scrum haben, dann ist diese Session für dich!  Triff PST Gregor Stuhldreier zu einer deutschen Ausgabe von “Ask a PST”. 

Someone wrote.... In 2017, Agile was presented to me as the ultimate project management approach — promising productivity, transparency, and value delivery in short bursts. However, many teams struggled to effectively implement and scale Scrum, missing the mark on its potential. 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/

In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, Jay Rahman and Darrell Fernandes join host Dave West to explore the integration of AI—specifically, Large Language Models (LLMs)—within Scrum Teams. Jay cautions against focusing solely on AI technology without factoring in the human element, underscoring the ongoing need for critical roles like Product Owners and Scrum Masters. Darrell highlights AI's potential to disrupt and accelerate but stresses the need for a structured approach that aligns with Agile values. Together, they discuss AI's impact on team dynamics, product ownership, and the holistic approach required—mission, management, and mechanics—to drive successful AI adoption.

Hassan Butt: How to Foster Leadership and Independence in Scrum 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. Hassan defines success for a Scrum Master as creating a team of leaders who support each other and work collaboratively. His goal is to make himself redundant by helping the team become self-sufficient. Hassan emphasizes the importance of building strong relationships with team members, understanding their passions, and continually checking in to ensure personal growth. His ultimate measure of success is when team members grow into leadership roles themselves. Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Simple, Contextual Retrospectives Hassan recommends using retrospective formats that suit the team's current context and culture. He highlights the value of keeping things simple when facilitating retrospectives, especially for teams from diverse backgrounds. Early in his career, he realized that fancy formats did not always work, but simple, straightforward retrospectives often led to the most productive conversations. Hassan reminds us that it's not about the format but about what the team needs in the moment. [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

What is Self-Management in Agile Teams? Self-managing teams are one of the foundational principles of Scrum. As Scrum Masters, we are trained to strive towards that idea. It embodies the first value in the Agile Manifesto: We put the individuals and the interactions first by giving the team autonomy on how to organise themselves to achieve the Sprint Goal. Only then do we give them tools and processes to support that specific way of organising themselves. Self-management is critical to succeeding as a Scrum Team because it leads to ownership and empowers the team. And it creates intrinsic motivation, which is such a powerful driver of team effectiveness. 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/

Join Brian and Marisa Smith as they dive into the world of developer advocacy, the challenges of agile methodologies in data engineering, and the vital role of open-source communities. Discover how to better support and communicate with your developers in this insightful episode! Overview In this episode, Brian Milner interviews developer relations expert Marisa Smith to explore the vital role of developer advocates in bridging the gap between companies and their users. Marisa shares her insights on the challenges of communicating with developers, emphasizing the need to create a welcoming environment for questions and feedback. She also discusses the unique difficulties developers face when implementing agile methodologies, particularly in the realm of data engineering. They highlight the significance of open-source communities in fostering innovation and collaboration and provide a preview of Marisa's upcoming talk at Agile 2024 on enhancing data pipelines with SQLMesh. Listen Now to Discover: [1:08] - Join Brian in an engaging conversation with Dr. Marisa Smith, PhD, Developer Relations Expert, Developer Advocate, and Speaker. [2:43] - Marisa Smith sheds light on the crucial role of a developer advocate, explaining how they bridge the gap between developers and the wider community. [3:49] - Brian digs into common mistakes in how we communicate with developers and poses the question: what are we getting wrong in our interactions? [5:57] - Marisa outlines the hurdles developers face in a Scrum team environment, shedding light on common obstacles. [12:00] - Marisa explores the hurdles in developer communication, offering insights into improving dialogue and understanding. [12:55] - Mountain Goat Software offers Working on a Scrum Team, a private class to help Scrum teams foster a team dynamic that supports the whole team, including bridging the gap in communicating with developer teams. [15:00] - Marisa discusses how SQLMesh has empowered data engineers to streamline their tasks, sparking a sense of 'Marie Kondoing' their work. [24:11] - Marisa emphasizes the vital importance of open-source developer communities for fostering innovation and teamwork. [26:51] - Brian shares a big thank you to Marisa for joining him on the show. [27:50] - We invite you to subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast. Do you have feedback or a great idea for an episode of the show? Great! Just send us an email. [27:54] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership into that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software, such as CSM or CSPO. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes, you can find the schedule here. References and resources mentioned in the show: Dr. Marisa Smith, PhD Join the SQLMesh Community Agile 2024 SQLMesh Working on a Scrum Team Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Mountain Goat Software’s Private Training Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community 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 SVP of coaching and 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. Marisa Smith is a Developer Relations expert who bridges the gap between the community and development teams, addressing problems and promoting open-source software. With a Ph.D. in Computational & Theoretical Physical Chemistry, she has a background in simulating radiation effects in water. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're here for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have the one, the only Marisa Smith with us. Welcome in Marisa. Marisa (00:13) Hi, thank you so much for having me. Brian (00:15) Very excited to have Marisa with us. If you're not familiar with Marisa, her title is Developer Relations Expert. So right there, that's an episode, right? We could talk just about that. And we'll get into that a little bit more, but there's a lot of really interesting stuff here about Marisa. She has her PhD in theoretical and computational physical chemistry. So... Marisa (00:41) Yeah. Brian (00:42) Again, wow, right? I mean, this is amazing stuff. She's worked at Streamlet. She was their very first developer advocate there. And she has since, Streamlet's been acquired by Snowflake. And you founded Tobacco Data, is that right? Marisa (01:07) Uh, no, I, um, I am their first developer advocate at Tupiqium data. Yeah. No words. Brian (01:11) OK, gotcha. Sorry about that. Messed that up. So very, very interesting background. And one of the things that caught our notice, Marisa spoke last year at Agile 2023 and is speaking again this year at Agile 2024. So again, if you're going to come out, I highly recommend you attend her talk. Her talk is called Marie Kondo. your data pipelines with SQLMesh, which I think is really, really interesting. But I'm talking too much, and I want to turn it over to Marisa here. Help us understand developer relations expert and developer advocate. What does that mean? Marisa (01:59) Yeah, so I am, what I always say is that I am the person that connects your company to the people who use your product. And it just so happens that the companies that I work for are companies that work in the tech industry. They're building some sort of piece of the tech stack. So the people that use it, their customers are other developer, developers essentially, or technical people. Brian (02:22) Yeah, so you're an expert in the... Marisa (02:27) in the art of, in the art of like, how do we communicate with other developers? How do we pass that information back and forth between the developers that are making a product and the developers that use a product. And how do we make sure that, you know, we're getting, we're, we're getting the best out of our, out of our users and that they're getting the best out of the technology that we're trying to build for them. Brian (02:49) That is so, so interesting. And so I'm sure product owners are listening going, yeah, help me. Help me. I want to understand. How do I talk to developers? So gosh, there's so many directions we can go with this. What do you think people misunderstand most when they try to communicate with developers? What do we get wrong? Marisa (02:55) hahahaha Oh, wow, that's a great question. Let me think about this for a second. I think, I think from, from, from my perspective, as somebody who spends a lot of time, like running different communities, especially open source communities, I think that people get the wrong idea in that. Yes, these developers are your customer, but a lot of the time they have very limited time. They come in, they look at, you know, maybe your open source product or, uh, you know, your free version or something that they're trying to see if they can integrate this in their own stack. And I think people can. or companies can come at them a little bit too quickly, a little bit too salesy, right? And then that ends up driving them away. They're like, no, no, no, I'm really not interested in any of this. I'm just trying to figure out if this is the right technology. A lot of developers like to iterate. They try things out, right? And so I think if you come at them too early with, oh, here's our sales process. Here's this, this is how much this costs. It's like, no, no, no, I'm like... way early, I'm MVP POC type of thing, trying to see if I can understand, or if this works with my team, my workflow, my current pipeline, the other technologies that we use, you know, that, that type of thing. I think that's one of the biggest mistakes that you can make, especially when you're talking about open source, which is kind of like my bread and butter. Brian (04:28) Right, right. Yeah. And you know, the communication, especially, I mean, because we talk about Scrum and Agile here on the podcast, you know, that relationship between the business side of the house and the developer side of the house, it's almost like, you know, Romeo and Juliet and the two houses, you know, they speak different languages. They want different things. They see the world in a very different way. Marisa (04:34) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Brian (04:58) And yet somehow these two groups have to figure out how are we going to work together to really deliver something that is valuable, right? So you work with a lot of developers. You talk with a lot of developers. And I know there's lots of different kind of practices and things that are out there that developers are using these days. Marisa (05:09) Yes. Yeah. Brian (05:26) When you talk to them about something like Scrum, or when that kind of process comes up, what are some of the chief complaints that you hear from developers when they talk about working on a Scrum team? What are they not like about it? Marisa (05:44) Ooh, interesting. Yeah, I would say. I would say, I mean, in the area that I'm working in right now, I'm working pretty deep in the data pipelines. So Tobico data runs these two open source projects, SQLMesh and SQL glot. And it's essentially your T of your ETL pipeline, right? We're using SQL, we understand SQL and we're transforming your SQL queries into these tables and we're helping you manage these pipelines as they evolve over time. And so, um, and so I think, you know, in this space, what happens is when you're talking about, you know, working with scrum teams and stuff like that, one of the pieces of agile is trying out new things and iterating. And that can actually be super difficult for a lot of like these data engineers and developers to do, because you have accountability at the end of the day, right? If you're changing up your data, you're mutating some, some SQL query that changes some model that changes your data pipeline downstream. And then all of a sudden. you know, you've pushed it to production and, uh -oh, this data is not what you expected. It's not what you had like originally tested for. And that's because, you know, teams have to work across many different, um, they have many different like iterations that they're working on and many different teams are, you know, making changes potentially simultaneously. And so I think that for, for developers, when you talk about scrum and you talk about agile, particularly if you're talking about like, adjusting tooling or trying out something new again, coming back to this fact that like, you know, they're just there to test things out. They have very limited time and that's because they get stressed out. It's like, well, I don't want to break production. We have to protect production, your production environment as much as possible. And, you know, part of agile and part of doing all these things is trying, trying these new tools, trying these new companies, trying these new methods. And you can get a lot of resistance from that because. they know this method works, they know that they have accountability and they know that production will be fine if they use this methodology that they've set up. Sometimes it can be a little bit of a matchstick thing in the back end. Brian (07:47) Yeah. Well, and I mean, just hearing you talk about that and thinking about it, I know one of the big friction points between the business side and the developer side is take SQLMesh. If that's something that my team has never worked with and I have someone on the team who is interested in that and wants to, thinks it might give us some benefits, There's friction there with the product side to say, product has all these things they want, and they want to push these things forward. But I think this bit of adding this to our stack is going to improve things. But how do I communicate that to the business to give us the time to do this? Because it's not directly leading to a feature, but it will improve things moving on. How do you? How do you balance it? How do you have that conversation with a product person or the business side of the house to really say, Hey, this is worthwhile. Marisa (08:50) Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, it's super difficult. And I think it's really a balance of, you know, having to have these engineers dedicate some time to new tooling and testing things out. And then once you have done that in their schedule, you know, I don't know how frequently you may want to do it like once a month or something like that, where they, you know, take a day and just review what new is out there. What else should we be looking at? What other tools, what other... You know, with, especially with the emergence of AI and all of that recently, that changes a mile a minute, I think. So, you know, keeping on top of that is, is, is a huge burden on these engineering teams. And so time needs to be dedicated for actually getting that kind of stuff done and the freedom to actually try these things out and do like just a minimum viable product, right? Just a tiny POC with like a little Tinkit data set. And then on, I think there's some. Brian (09:23) Ha ha. Marisa (09:45) there's some weight of this on the company that's developing these open source products or new tooling, that they have to start communicating and figuring out their business value as well. Because those developers cannot, with this little example, show all of the benefits that you would get. What cost savings do you get? What efficiency savings? What increase in productivity? All of that has to be done by the company and you need to have that ready. so that you can back up your developers that are trying out your product and your open source projects so that they have something to go off of. They're like, hey, look, I made this. It took one week or something like that. And I got it to a place where it's really good and look at all these cool features. And this will make us so much faster in our pipeline. And then here is the company's documentation or case study or whatever it is that says this should increase our productivity approximately this much. And... that these other big companies that are similar to us have this sort of success with it. And, you know, it, I think those two combined can really help alleviate these pressure that the developers feel and give them the time to actually try out new tools, which in many cases they love to do. They love to try new things. They love open source, right. And they will be your best advocates. If you spend the time talking to them, communicating with them and giving them the things that they need to be successful. Brian (11:12) Yeah, I would think that's kind of a, there's a duality to, I would imagine your role in speaking with them about your product, because in one case you have to sell them on, hey, look how beneficial this is. This is, you should add this to your stack. But on the other hand, you've got to equip them with the, the, uh, the sales pitch, I guess, that they can then make to their business to say, hey, you should allow us to do this. You should give us the, whether it's finances to do this or the time or the resources to do this, that, you know, it does benefit you as well. So that's gotta be a really difficult part of that communication is kind of, you know, getting people who are not really salespeople, you know, having been a developer, I know I kind of get, you know, the personality type. Uh, and you know, we, we don't want to have to talk to people. We want to be able to put our headphones on and get our work done. Uh, but now, now I'm in the position where if I want to do this thing, I know it is the right thing to do. I've got to convince others and that's not really my strong point. So how do you, how do you help them with that? Marisa (12:24) Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely a long road. I would say, you know, it's not done in a split second, especially when you're talking about larger companies, like any sort of fan company. They will take a lot of time to make this decision. So you have to be really committed, I think, to each person that you're talking to and each person that you're trying to help get moving with your product to really make them successful. And... For us, what we've been doing recently is we go in and we help them with that communication point, right? Like our developers know our tool the best. And so if there needs be, like we'll stop and we will actually go in and do a presentation to the wider team and be like, okay, you guys have set up this POC. You've tried it out. You really like it. Here are the benefits. Here are, you know, here's how we describe it. Here's how, you know, We have seen other companies succeed with this and we have some decks that are basically ready to go. So we can go in and actually help them with that communication stage as well. Brian (13:34) Yeah, that's awesome. Well, then let's, because this is fascinating, and I really enjoy kind of the idea of trying to be an advocate for the developers. But I'm curious as well, with your upcoming talk at Agile 2024, by the way, just I don't think I've said the date, but July 22nd through 26th in Dallas, Texas, go to. AgileAlliance .org. You can find out more information about it. I think I've told everyone here on the podcast, I'm speaking there as well. So come and see both of us in my hometown in Dallas. So Marie Kondo, your data pipelines with SQLMesh. Tell us what was the idea behind this, where you got the idea for this talk, and what it is you're trying to get across in it. Marisa (14:18) Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Well, here's the story. One of our users, I was doing case studies for our, for us, because we need to understand our business value. We need to show people that like they can get this, these, you know, these cost savings, these productivity savings and things like that. So I've been doing interviews with some of the companies that currently use SQLMesh. And one of the, one of the interviewees, we were just chatting and he was like, oh, You know, he brought Marie Kondo up and he was like, yeah, like SQLMesh just brings me joy. It brings joy back to my data engineering. And I'm like, well, wait a minute. What, wait a minute. What do you mean? mean? like, oh yeah. Well, I mean, you know, we spend all of this time. Fretting Fretting about these data pipelines, getting the correct data down the pipeline, getting the business needs on the timeline that they need them, you know, updating your production value or your production environments with, with anything new that's been requested. And. Brian (15:01) you Marisa (15:21) there isn't really a proper process for data deployments, right? Like for code, you know, we have GitHub, we have Git, we have all these things, right? You make some changes, you save it, you test it out, you make some more changes, you save that, you test that out, right? Like all of these iterations, they create all these versions and these checkpoints. But on the data side of that, there is nothing. It's just like match disks and toothpicks that hold up some of these. Brian (15:30) Yeah. Hahaha. Marisa (15:49) some of these pipelines, right? And that's become the standard. I'm not saying that this is particular companies that are doing this or something like that. It's pretty much everybody. And all of this falls on top of your DevOps engineers or your data engineers that are a very small percentage of your company. And they're treading through this escalating technical debt, right? Every time you add a new table, every time you add a new dashboard, that's a new backend that they are managing, right? It becomes very stressful for them. And... This individual was saying that he had lost a lot of the joy out of his work and you spend how many hours a day working, right? This is a huge chunk of your life that it's just like, oh my God, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to make that change because the pipeline currently works. It's not broken. It's not broken. Don't change that type of thing, right? But this isn't what business is. This isn't what agile is. You're supposed to iterate. You're supposed to make these changes. You're supposed to investigate. Brian (16:24) Yeah. Right. Marisa (16:42) find new things and find new insights. And you can't do that unless you start changing things. And so he had said that once they started implementing SQLMesh with the different features that it has with this virtual data environments and these data versionings, and we have these data contracts that essentially allow you to turn, have checkpoints for your data and have essentially unit tests for your data. He was like, oh my gosh, now I can not have to worry about it. I can just try something, see if it works. And then if it doesn't, it doesn't matter because I can roll it back super easily and things like that. So that's really where the inspiration came from. Brian (17:21) That's awesome. Yeah, that's such a huge hole and it's such a needed kind of component to the stack, as you said, because, you know, I mean, you're right in kind of a programmer world. And, you know, if you're outside of the database world, there's all these tools you can use and put in place and test and see how things are going. But that fear that you have when you work in the database world where if I make the wrong error here, It could mess up all our data. It's not just that it's going to present it in the wrong way, but it could actually damage, which is a valuable asset. It's a hugely valuable asset, the data that the company has, maybe one of their most valuable assets. So yeah, that's an amazing tool. And... Marisa (18:10) Yeah. Cool. And these days, yeah. Brian (18:16) So this is also an open source project, right? So tell me how that's been interacting with the community on this and working in a corporate environment, but also it's an open source environment on this product that you're a developer advocate for. Marisa (18:19) Mm -hmm. Yep. Yeah. Well, I love it. I love open source. As I mentioned before, open source is kind of my bread and butter because Streamlit, you know, was essentially the other end. I've gone from the dashboard side, which Streamlit is basically a free open source dashboarding tool that's built just in Python, to the side of the tables that make that, and the SQL that makes those dashboards possible in the backend. And so this, it's something that I really love about my job because... I've been lucky enough to work with a bunch of tools that are super useful and that people really love, uh, and that they have that they, you know, people who co -founded it, that there are co -founders all came from huge fang companies, right? SQLMesh was basically born out of these data problems specifically to solve them because they had been literally experiencing them at these companies themselves. And they, you know, went out and were like, okay, what's the solution out there? And, you know, uh, Brian (19:21) Yeah. Marisa (19:31) There's this, there's another company called dbt. They were pretty much the first one on the scene. They've been around for like, I want to say like 10 or 15 years and they changed the space. Like they really did make some huge advancements. But the thing is, is they came at it from a completely different angle than we're trying to come at it because they came at it from the almost like the data science and data analytics side. And they weren't necessarily thinking about future, how big these data sets were going to get with. Brian (19:52) Yeah. Marisa (19:58) these different like Netflix, Airbnb and stuff like that, right? Their data sets are huge. They're parsing huge amounts of data. And, you know, in the current tools, the systems that you have, you have to refresh your entire data warehouse every time you want to make a change to production. If you have a terabyte worth of data that you're trying to refresh every single time you make a change, that literally, you're just, you're twiddling your thumbs. Your analysts are just like sitting around waiting anxiously to find out. Brian (20:03) Yeah. Marisa (20:27) you know, if those changes they just made to the sequel is actually viable and good, right? So, sorry, I think I lost. I think they lost the train of the question I got all passionate about. Brian (20:32) Yeah. No, no, no, that's fine. That's fine. No, I mean, I was just, I was asking about, you know, kind of the interactivity with the community on that and working with, you know, these open source projects, you know, you have volunteers, you have people who are giving up their time for free, basically to improve your product. That's got to come with a whole just mess of other considerations and concerns and how has that been? Marisa (21:07) Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's been good. And where I had been going with that point was that I've been lucky enough to work with companies and tools that are super useful, that were developed out of pain points that other people have experienced. So that side of things has been really great. When you're trying to develop a community, I just try to make the most welcoming space so that people feel comfortable in asking any sorts of questions. Right? Because that is the only way that you kind of surface some of these things that might've been otherwise hiding. Right? If people are nervous to ask questions, then you're not going to really have a proper conversation around, Oh, well, wait a minute. How did you get to that point? Like what led you to use it this way or to do it this way or something like that. Um, and so, yeah, there's lots of considerations, but we've been lucky enough that the, you know, a lot of our users are very happy with it, but also are. Brian (21:38) Yeah. Marisa (22:01) because of that, they're very vocal and they are very happy to, you know, take that five, 10 minutes, fill that survey in or meet with me and talk through, you know, a case study or like how they found SQLMesh and how it's going and stuff like that. So I think that the real balance comes in as to how much time do you want to dedicate my time? Do you want to dedicate to doing these interviews and getting this feedback versus Like, oh, we've already got like a pretty large signal that the next feature they need is this. Like, let's just run and do that feature and get that out for them, as opposed to continuing to bog up their time with interview questions or survey questions and bog up my time with it as well. So I think that's more the balancing point is when do you start acting on the signals that you're starting to see from your community versus like just constantly collecting data? Brian (22:56) Yeah. And I love your point there about kind of creating that welcoming environment. It's very similar to what we talk about with just teams of the whole psychological safety kind of aspect of it. And if I feel like I can't say something without being made fun of or feel like I'm made to look stupid for my question, then you're right. I don't surface the things that I should, even if it's, you know, just, hey, I'm not sure how to do this and getting help for that kind of thing. Marisa (23:22) Mm -hmm. Yeah. And I mean, I feel like with open source communities as well, they're all online. And this is a, I like that psychological safety and I like to try and promote this friendly environment because there's no guarantee that the person on the other end even speaks English. They might be running it through a translator, right? Like you have no idea. So they need to have like that safe place that they can just be like, oh, Hey, I tried this, but I couldn't get it to work. Right. And then that's when you can start to expand and be like, Oh, okay. Well, actually this person is from. Brian (23:39) Yep. Marisa (23:54) I don't know, like France, they speak French, right? So you're trying to translate kind of back and forth, either in your head or with a tool. And it's kind of like, okay, well, what else can I do to help them? Right? It's like, oh, well, what they need is a more in -depth, like getting started guide, right? We need to add these steps in or put this little note in there that's like, hey, if you get tripped up and you get this error, that's because of this and this is how you fix it type of thing, right? So that you just kind of like fill in those gaps of knowledge. Brian (24:23) Yeah. I mean, there's probably so much that we could extract just from the remoteness of the team that you work with, because open source is an area where there is no office. It's not like we all come into the same place. And yet, it works. So for people who think it can't work if you're remote, well, open source is proof that it can. Yeah. Marisa (24:37) Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And not because of that, our team is a hundred percent remote as well. Right. Like our entire Tobacco team works async, right. And we're only able to do that because of different tools and processes that we have put in place and, and that we do have this community and our community is a, is a Slack community. We actually, we could put a link in or something so that people can check it out if they were interested. But, but yeah. And, and that community isn't just about. Brian (25:11) Sure, sure, sure. Marisa (25:16) that specific tool. And I think that's also another thing that you want to surface when you're talking to developers is that this isn't just a space to ask questions about SQLMesh or SQLGlot, it's a space to talk in general. What are some of the best practices around evolving your data pipelines? What, you know, do you have any questions about your DevOps? Like, you know, what, what are people using for their cloud service provider? Why? Like, you know, did you switch from this to this and, you know, What was your thoughts around that? And, you know, what do people do with a dataset that is, you know, 300 rows and, and like 700 columns, like, how do you deal with this size of data? How do you want to, like, how do others mutate it? Like, do you incrementally load it? So just like try and load in the newest data. Do you only re when do you refresh these, like all these questions and all of this conversation needs to happen because we need to start deciding on a proper process and. DBT had started doing that and we're trying to continue this conversation. Brian (26:16) Yeah, I would imagine that's working with the product as well, that that's very beneficial to even product development. Because you can hear from them, even if it's not part of your product, but if you hear those questions about, hey, well, how have you handled this, or what do you do in this kind of scenario, I can imagine that would lead you to maybe new product ideas based off of some of those conversations. Yeah. Marisa (26:43) Oh, absolutely. 100%. I don't have like a specific example at the top of my head, but I definitely... Brian (26:48) Right. No, no, no. Yeah. Yeah, it could come from this. So it's community, right? I mean, it's just the importance of having that community and not just being, no, we can only talk about this one product here, but no, we're a supportive community and we help each other here. Yeah. Awesome. Well, this is fascinating. And I could talk with you about this for a long, long time. I'm looking forward to your talk. Marisa (26:55) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Brian (27:16) So I haven't checked the schedule yet, but I'm gonna, hopefully it's not on one of those times when like, normally, I don't know if you find this as well, but it's like the ones that I start and think, oh, that's the one I really wanna go to, turns out to be the one where you're speaking or somebody who's a lifelong friend is talking at that time. You're like, I can't miss that person's. So I'm hoping that's not the case, cause I really wanna come and hear this talk and hear more about it. Marisa (27:17) Great, thank you. Yeah. Brian (27:45) Thank you for giving us your time and helping us to understand this, Marisa. I really appreciate you coming on. Marisa (27:49) What? Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

#5amMesterScrum Lightning Talk 1,197 Live -Scrum Framework Built to Optimize both Individual and Team team Time (We Team & HR Wednesdays) - Today's topics: (1) Finding that balance between team and individual time and Scrum tries to frame that balance Please like and subscribe and share 5amMesterScrum.  Please send me your topics.   You are are doing Great Please Keep on Sharing. 5am Mester Scrum 5am Mester Scrum Show 1,197 went live on Youtube, LinkedIn and Facebook We Team & HR Wednesday 6/12/2024 from Philadelphia, PA  Happy Scrumming, Please Don't forget to sign up to our 5amMesterScrum newsletter for freebies.  Definitely a free copy of Change Volume 20 in PDF form  https://5ammesterscrum.com/free-the-change-volume-20-pdf-book-copy-for-joining-our-weekly-newsletter/  Watch the video in our YouTube Library Social Media: - search 5amMesterScrum or #5amMesterScrum  and you should find us and if not please let us know LinkedIn, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok     Podcasts: (search 5amMesterScrum)

Rebecca Cyr: Motivating Scrum Teams with User-Centric Approaches, Product Owner Best Practices 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: Motivating Teams with User-Centric Approaches, PO Best Practices In this segment, Rebecca shares an inspiring example of a Product Owner (PO) who excelled by focusing on the end-users' needs and facilitating direct communication between the team and users. Through live interviews and feedback sessions, the PO enabled the team to achieve quick wins and foster innovation. This approach created a motivated and empowered team.  The Bad Product Owner: Directive POs and Team Demotivation In this segment, Rebecca discusses common anti-patterns of Product Owners (POs), such as being overly technical or directive, which can demotivate and disempower teams. She shares a story of a friction-filled relationship between a PO and a team, emphasizing the importance of POs agreeing on the problem to be solved and allowing the team to develop solutions.    [IMAGE HERE] Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We've put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO's collaborate.   About Rebecca Cyr Rebecca Cyr is an experienced agile coach and scrum master, passionate about helping teams deliver value through agile principles and practices while learning, growing, and having fun together. Connecting people through deft facilitation is her superpower, as is storytelling as the language of learning. You can link with https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccacyr/.

Kate and Ryan dig in on the Scrum Team.  Who is on it, what the right mix of members might look like, and challenges the team can face.

This week, Dan Neumann and Justin Thatil are joined by Mike Guiler to discuss the journey of a Project Manager shifting to fill the Scrum Master accountability. This episode mainly focuses on those Scrum Masters who are newer to this accountability and have a Project Management background. In this episode, they explore what happens when a Project Manager is assigned Scrum Master's accountabilities which can develop differently depending on the person's expertise and ability to learn and embrace Agile principles.   Listen to this episode to learn about the main aspects of a successful transformation.   Key Takeaways It is common for the Project Manager (PM) to assume the role of the Scrum Master. Scrum Masters who come from Product Management can incorporate their expertise in the process of shifting to Agility. Product Managers often know a lot about the business domain. PMs often have good relationships with the Team, which are crucial to initiating a transformation towards Agile. You can't easily hire for the business domain knowledge or the relationships. It is often easier to have current staff learn a new way of delivering value. A plan must be set in order to manage expectations between the development Team and stakeholders. Many non-Agile do not know who the stakeholders are Effective Scrum Masters will connect the team to the Stakeholders The Scrum Master must ensure that the entire Scrum Team is engaged with its stakeholders, showing the development of software and articulating the plan.  The Scrum Master does not need to take ownership of the relationship with its stakeholders but should empower the Team How do we create more and better channels of communication with stakeholders? Project Managers often see success as being on time and on budget. As a Scrum Master, being on time and on budget is not enough; the most important thing is delivering the business outcome. Status reporting is another area where PMs must work in transitioning to Scrum Masters. When an Agile Team operates well, progress should be transparent. Even status reports could become less valuable if the entire Team works together and is aligned, working with Sprint Reviews and information radiators.   Mentioned in this Episode: Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (Silicon Valley Product Group), by Marty Cagan Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews, by Norman L. Kerth   Want to Learn More or Get in Touch? Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com! Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!  

Paul Jarvis: Unlocking Scrum Team Potential, The High-performance Tree Tool  Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. In this episode, we explore the dynamics of two high-performing teams hindered by a single member's reluctance to seek help. This episode explores the critical lesson, such as leveraging the "power of the team", and introduces the high-performance tree metaphor, illustrating the foundational values and desired behaviors in effective Scrum teams. How does one individual's challenge affect team performance, and what strategies can encourage collective problem-solving and support? Paul discusses his approach and insights, and refers to a video from Lyssa Adkins about the high-performance tree. Featured Book of the Week: Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo Paul recommends the book "Management 3.0" by Jurgen Appelo. He shares the book's profound impact on understanding Agile. Paul also shares other key references for Scrum Masters such as "Coaching Agile Teams" by Lyssa Adkins, "Radical Candor" by Kim Scott, "Nonviolent Communication" by Marshal Rosenberg, "Think Again" by Adam Grant, and Patrick Lencioni's contributions. Each book offers a unique perspective on Agile principles, from fostering constructive disagreements and navigating conflicts to reevaluating our knowledge and embracing humility. Find out about Paul's lightbulb moments and the collective wisdom these authors bring to the Agile table.   [IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM's that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!     About Paul Jarvis Paul is a seasoned Enterprise Lean Agile Coach, Trainer, RTE, and Scrum Master with a decade of experience in the FinTech sector, focusing on banking, payments, and e-commerce. Recently, he completed a 3.5-year tenure at a key player in investment banking. You can link with Paul Jarvis on LinkedIn and connect with Paul Jarvis on Twitter.

Joe Scherler: The Self-Driving Team, Signs of a Self-Sufficient Scrum Team Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. In this episode, we discuss how important it is to help a team evolve to the point where they no longer need direct guidance. But what are the signs of such a transformation? This episode explores possible indicators of a team's growing autonomy, from self-initiated process improvements to a shift from seeking solutions to seeking opinions. How can discussing value over output and engaging with the team on waste reduction contribute to this evolution? Discover the key questions and approaches Joe recommends for Scrum Masters aiming to foster truly self-sustaining teams. Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: A Dialogue-Based Timeline In this segment, Joe introduces a reflective and dialogue-rich retrospective format that begins with understanding the current state of the team and tracing back through the events of the last Sprint. By drawing a timeline and encouraging team members to share their personal experiences and impacts, this format fosters a deeper understanding of the team's dynamics. How can incorporating personal experiences into retrospectives enhance team empathy and collaboration? Learn how this approach helps teams transition from identifying events to interpreting their significance and planning actionable improvements, ultimately strengthening the team's ability to navigate challenges together.   [IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he's learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!    About Joe Scherler Having experienced Scrum and Agile in various roles, Joe's mission is to unlock the hidden potential of teams and those who work with them to create a work environment that is as enjoyable as it is effective. He loves working on both soft and hard skills with the teams. You can link with Joe Scherler on LinkedIn.

Dave Smith: The Nanny McPhee Approach in Fostering Scrum Team Independence Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. In this episode, we discuss the Nanny McPhee approach to Scrum Mastery, where the ultimate goal is for teams to become independent and capable. Dave challenges the notion of necessity versus want in the context of a Scrum Master's presence. And we explore how to foster independence in Scrum teams. Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: 6 Thinking Hats   Dave shares his preference for the 6 Thinking Hats format to structure discussions during retrospectives, emphasizing the shift from problems to solutions. In this discussion we explore bringing in different perspectives to enhance the process improvement journey.   [IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he's learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!    About Dave Smith Dave, has over 20 years in training and consulting, having taught Scrum he continues to be active in the agile community, mentoring and helping others who are joining the agile community. You can link with Dave Smith on LinkedIn.

In this special episode of the Scrum.org Community podcast Leslie Morse guest hosts and interviews Professional Scrum Trainer Johannes Geske about his work with Sto, a building materials company. He shares Sto's success story and covers how they worked with the Plug & Play Scrum Team from Amazing Outcomes. In just six weeks, using Scrum, they developed a mobile app 'Sto Online' based on customer feedback. This approach increased user engagement and ROI, demonstrating the benefits of agile development for digital solutions. Listen in and get some great Product Ownership advice as well! Read Case Study

Stephanie Cully: How A Misunderstanding Created The Opportunity For Collaboration Between A Scrum Team And Their Product Owner 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. Stephanie recounts the challenges faced by a team transitioning to a new application project, marked by tension between developers and the product owner (PO), who micromanaged interface details without clearly conveying customer goals. Initially, separating the team from the PO led to communication issues and misunderstandings. A turning point occurred when a design misunderstanding prompted a shift in strategy: apologies were made, and collaborative design sessions were initiated. This improved communication and understanding, eventually leading the PO to facilitate direct developer-customer interactions, fostering a more integrated and effective team dynamic. Featured Book of the Week: How To Think Like A Monk by Jay Shetty Stephanie was deeply inspired by Jay Shetty's "How to Think Like a Monk" in her career as a Scrum Master. The book emphasizes the importance of consistent practice, showing up authentically, and contributing equally within a team. Its teachings resonate with the Scrum Master role, highlighting the significance of not solving problems for others but facilitating their ability to solve problems themselves. This approach fosters self-reliance and growth within the team, aligning with the core principles of effective scrum mastery.   [IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM's that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!     About Stephanie Cully Stephanie Cully is a Scrum Master, and CEO of Scrum Life Consulting. Stephanie founded Scrum Life with a mission to help Scrum Masters overcome self-doubt and land the role. You can link with Stephanie Cully on LinkedIn.  

Johannes Andersen: Autonomy as an Achievement, Empowering Self-Sufficient Scrum 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. When it comes to being a successful Agile Coach and Scrum Master, Johannes emphasises the goal of becoming unnecessary as the team matures. For Johannes, success is evident when the team autonomously conducts check-ins, engages in constructive debates, and effectively self-organizes while maintaining good relationships. The ability to request help and independently run retrospectives are signs of a well-functioning team that continuously challenges its own processes. Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Timeline Retrospective With a Twist Johannes shares a favorite retrospective format, focusing on flexibility and open dialogue. Starting with a timeline to objectively list events, the process encourages a shared understanding of recent activities. The team then categorizes experiences into "Well," "Not Well," and "Makes Me Wonder," before voting on action points. As familiarity grows, discussions evolve to directly address improvement areas. Johannes emphasizes the value of natural conversation over strict adherence to structured methods, suggesting that effective retrospectives can thrive on organic interaction.   [IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he's learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!    About Johannes Andersen Johannes comes from a finance and fintech background, and is now an enterprise agility maestro at a leading telco in Copenhagen! He focuses on optimizing the flow from strategy to execution, championing portfolio management with a keen eye on doing the right things, even if imperfectly. Johannes is an international speaker on product development topics. You can link with Johannes Andersen on LinkedIn.

This week, Dan Neumann and Justin Thatil are joined by Rich Hundhausen for the second part of a deep conversation about Nexus. Rich is a software developer, Professional Scrum Trainer, and co-creator of the Nexus Framework for scaling Scrum.   In this episode, they dive deep into how to deliver value in the form of a working integrated increment of product, the role of the Integration Team, and the characteristics of each Nexus Event. They share valuable stories exemplifying how Nexus works for an improved scaling experience.   Key Takeaways Scale Scrum is still Scrum (plus additional features). The Nexus Integration Team is not in the original Scrum framework. The Integration Team is actually the Nexus's Scrum Master. This team is responsible for ensuring that Scrum is followed as established in the Scrum Guide and that its work is effective. The Integration Team works in a Scrum way by coaching, facilitating, teaching, and mentoring, but not hands-on (unless absolutely necessary). The Scrum Team's Developers do the work. The Integration Team does not do the integration, but it is accountable for it. Integration can mean lots of different things. Integration means solving any kind of dependency. The Nexus Integration Team does not have to meet daily but only when required. Everyone on the Integration Nexus Team has a daily job on the Scrum Teams and/or is the Product Owner, so when something does not go as planned, they bring it to the attention of the Integration Team when possible. The Nexus Events: First Event: Nexus Sprint Planning. This event aims to take another look at the upcoming work to ensure the organization of Teams and consider any last-minute changes. Big Room Planning takes place during this stage. All the planning at this moment is only for the current sprint (never beyond that). The output for the Nexus Sprint Planning is the Nexus Sprint Backlog for each Team, and the goal is to make any dependencies transparent to mitigate them daily. Scrum of Scrums: Scrum Team members are allowed to talk at any given moment. Second Event: The Nexus Daily Scrum. It is a Scrum of Scrums that occurs before the Daily Scrum. At this mandatory event, dependencies and integration issues are discussed. Third Event: The Nexus Sprint Review is where Stakeholders give feedback on the done increment but in a big room event. This event is the time to share feedback on potential cross-team work. The Last Event: The Nexus Sprint Retrospective. This event is an opportunity for the Scrum Team to inspect and adapt how they work, first through a pre-meeting with the representatives, then Teams have their individual retrospectives, and after, representatives meet again to make transparent any new experiments or improvements so the bottom-up intelligence can then be shared with the other Teams. There are around 60 complementary practices to Nexus (but none are new). Mentioned in this Episode: The Nexus Guide Listen to “Continuous Learning: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Training with Patricia Kong” and “The Nexus Framework for Scaling Scrum with the Scrum.org Team”   Want to Learn More or Get in Touch? Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com! Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!  

This week, your hosts, Dan Neumann, and Justin Thatil, welcome an external guest, Rich Hundhausen, software developer, Professional Scrum Trainer, and co-creator of the Nexus Framewokr for scaling Scrum. This episode is the first of two parts, in which they discuss the features of Nexus and when and how to implement it.   Listen to this episode for a description of Nexus, how it started, and why it was developed. Rich, Dan, and Justin also dive deep into the definition of scaling, what is considered done, and the Nexus goal. Stay tuned for part two!   Key Takeaways Why do we have a Nexus Scaling Framework? Rich started working with Ken Schwaber, co-creator of Scrum, in 2009. Together, they created Scrum.org, “The home of professionals.” They later became interested in Scaling according to the Scale Agile framework. Are you really in a situation where you need to scale? Rule number one when scaling is “Don't.” Let your Team tackle the problems first. Always start small and add as needed. What is Scaling? Scaling is simply one product owner and backlog and multiple Scrum Teams. Everything you learned about Scrum for a single Team still applies at Scale with the Nexus. Additional features, such as the exoskeleton, are required for scaling. The number one reason to build Nexus was for dependencies on different areas (not only technical). Refinement has been a proof practice at single-team Scrum, and at Nexus, it has become a required event called Cross Team Refinement. What is the definition of Done? Everyone at Nexus is a creative person, and these people are motivated when they have space to implement their creativity. All Teams should have autonomy, purpose, and the ability to master their actions. Each Scrum Team can have its definition of done, but it has to stay on top of the unified set of items that the other teams share. The Nexus Goal: Do everything you committed to in the product backlogs.   Mentioned in this Episode: “Shu, Ha, Ri” Episode of The Agile Coaches Corner. Dan Pink's books and TedTalks   Want to Learn More or Get in Touch? Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com! Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!  

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer, Arunvignesh Ramakrishnan based in Malaysia answered the audience's burning questions about Scrum and their challenges including the accountabilities of a Scrum Master, being new on a Scrum Team, how to handle a PO leaving an organization, Sprint Retrospective ideas and more!

Why work in an Agile Way? This has been a question I first asked myself as a team member in a Scrum Team. Over the years, I've reserved my right to add to, refine and change my answers. The question can be approached from multiple angles. Say from the perspective of being responsive to customers' needs: “We work in an Agile Way to respond to customer needs, release frequently, get feedback quickly and course correct as required.” Or, from the perspective of optimising a team: “We work in an Agile Way to bring individuals together in a high-performing team.” Or, from the perspective of flow: “We work in an Agile Way to maximise flow and get stuff done” Or, from a commercial perspective: “We work in an Agile way to maximise profit” More recently, I helped a team define this as their reason during their inception: “We work in an Agile way to deliver reliably (we do what we say), predictably (we finish when we say we will) and sustainably (we care for ourselves whilst doing it).” 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/

Jean Coetzee: Unpacking Ownership, Accountability, and Responsibility in Scrum 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, Jean shares a pivotal moment in his role as a Scrum Master with a newly formed team. With limited experience in Scrum, the team struggled to grasp the concepts of ownership, accountability, and responsibility. Jean recognized the need for experimentation and introduced the idea of pushing a car from point A to B, emphasizing that the task was about getting the car to its destination, not just pushing it. Through this analogy and patient guidance, Jean successfully shifted the team's focus from tasks to delivering true value in their Agile practices.   [IMAGE HERE] Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story - How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.   About Jean Coetzee Jean is passionate about humans, and how they work together from a psychology and neuroscience perspective. Jean, credits the early ScrumMaster podcasts for shaping his Agile career. These insightful episodes provided vital guidance during the early days, boosting confidence in serving others effectively. Jean learned to navigate uncertainties and gain confidence in their Scrum Master role, all thanks to this and other podcast contributors. You can link with Jean Coetze on LinkedIn. 

Aria Omidvar: Friendship or Performance, The Hard Dilemma Scrum Teams Sometimes Face 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. Aria shares a common team pitfall: sacrificing trust, transparency, and courage for camaraderie. In this case, a team's cohesion eroded as they prioritized friendliness over addressing performance issues. One underperforming developer strained the team's efforts, despite trying to help that team member. The team's hesitancy to confront the issue led to a painful breakdown. Aria emphasizes proactive communication and recommends 'The Hard Thing about Hard Things' as a resource. He underscores the importance of clear warnings and transparent discussions to salvage a struggling team. Featured Book of the Week: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by DeMarco and Lister Aria discusses the profound impact of the book "Peopleware," which predates the modern Agile movement. He notes its timeless relevance, emphasizing its focus not only on software but also on the crucial element of 'peopleware.' Despite lacking current Agile terminology, the book remains remarkably insightful. Aria also references Fred Brooks' "Mythical Man-Month" in his exploration of timeless books that have influenced the Agile movement.   [IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM's that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!     About Aria Omidvar Aria has 4+ years of experience serving as Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Agile Coach (CSM, A-CSM, CSPO) from single teams to multiple teams and the whole software organization. He's a Software Engineer turned Software Developer turned Peopleware Developer and Agilist. You can link with Aria Omidvar on LinkedIn and connect with Aria Omidvar on Twitter. 

Aria Omidvar: Rebuilding Trust In Your Scrum Team, After A Big Disappointment 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. Aria, a Scrum Master, recounts a challenging situation where his team faced significant changes, including losing key members and transitioning to remote work. He attempted to address the issues through a retrospective but faced resistance in setting up follow-up sessions. This led to a team member deeming the retro "useless," which left Aria feeling disheartened. As a developer and Scrum Master, Aria reflects on the importance of open communication and acknowledges his loss of faith in the team at that time. Ultimately, he grapples with regaining faith in his team, highlighting the complexity of his role in this critical juncture.   [IMAGE HERE] Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story - How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.   About Aria Omidvar Aria has 4+ years of experience serving as Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Agile Coach (CSM, A-CSM, CSPO) from single teams to multiple teams and the whole software organization. He's a Software Engineer turned Software Developer turned Peopleware Developer and Agilist. You can link with Aria Omidvar on LinkedIn and connect with Aria Omidvar on Twitter.

Chris Garvey: When Agile Alone Can't Save the Day, Avoiding The Temptation To “Save” A Scrum Team In this episode, Chris recounts a challenging experience as a Scrum Master in emergency services product development. Faced with exploding software development and delayed deliveries, the team turned to Agile for a solution. The immense pressure led Chris to take the role too seriously, causing a detrimental shift in focus. To top it all, three team members were experiencing burnout. Chris emphasizes the importance of coaching by invitation and avoiding the temptation to micromanage the team. Ultimately, this episode raises questions about leadership's openness to change in such high-pressure situations. In this episode, we refer to the book Shift From Product To People, a book that explores the need to focus on working with people first, before being able to work with the product.   [IMAGE HERE] Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story - How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.   About Chris Garvey Chris is passionate about people, and creating empowering spaces where people can thrive. He is a coach at heart having been a Life Coach before becoming an Agile Coach. For close to 10 years he has been working in the agile space as a Scrum Master, then Agile Coach, then trainer, and now as an Enterprise Agile Coach. You can link with Chris Garvey on LinkedIn.

During the height of the pandemic, many teams learned how to work from home. As people start heading back to the office, many teams are in this weird in-between space where things aren't always what they need to be to get the most out of your team. In this short podcast, Dave and Vic explore how hybrid teams are impacting your ability to do Scrum successfully, and discuss some tips and tricks to get the most out of your Scrum team while ensuring you're also getting what you need to do your best work. Contacting Vic Bonacci If you'd like to contact Vic you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/victor-bonacci LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/ Email: Victor.Bonacci@leadingagile.com Contacting Dave Prior If you'd like to contact Dave, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: twitter.com/mrsungo Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com If you have a question you'd like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com Interested in CSM or CSPO Training? You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/  

Anna Mbengam: Strategies for Navigating Difficult Conversations, Solving Conflicts, And Coaching Scrum 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, Anna shares a scenario where a team grappled with a fear of conflict. She emphasizes the need to step back and listen attentively, advising against cornering teams during discussions on sensitive topics. Anna highlights how team members confided in her privately, often about cultural disparities. She offers practical tips, such as gauging comfort levels for public discussions and maintaining confidentiality. Anna advocates for transparency, suggesting collaboration with the Product Owner to demonstrate openness and acknowledge mistakes. Additional advice includes fostering trust, utilizing icebreakers to bridge diverse perspectives, and encouraging active leadership within the team. Featured Book For The Week: Coaching for Success: Integrating 'The Five Dysfunctions' and 'Agile Coaching' In this episode, Anna delves into the influential book 'The Five Dysfunctions of a Team', emphasizing its role in recognizing and mitigating detrimental behavioral patterns within teams. She highlights the fear of conflict as a particularly crucial aspect. Anna stresses the importance of active listening and avoiding cornering teams during discussions on challenging topics. Additionally, she introduces 'Agile Coaching' by Rachel Davies as another valuable resource for enhancing team dynamics and performance in agile environments.   [IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM's that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!     About Anna Mbengam Anna, an accomplished Scrum Master and SAFe Coach since 2018, thrives in diverse industries like Personal Investments, Healthcare, Food & beverage, and Banking. She's authored 5 self-published guides aiding aspiring Scrum Masters, and her mentoring has transformed 200+ professionals into highly effective individuals for any organization. You can link with Anna Mbengam on LinkedIn and read Anna's books.  

Anna Mbengam: Rising From Disruption, After The Departure Of A Key Scrum Team Member 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, Anna discusses a critical juncture at a startup where a key developer left, disrupting the team's dynamics. The team struggled to self-organize and lacked expertise after that senior developer left. Stakeholder expectations were high, making the situation even worse for the team. Anna implemented smaller group discussions, fostering a sense of ownership for specific development areas. This led to knowledge-sharing and a collaborative approach to improve performance. The team also sought stakeholder support in hiring. The episode highlights the importance of adaptability, stakeholder collaboration, and teamwork in agile development, especially in the face of unexpected departures.   [IMAGE HERE] Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story - How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.   About Anna Mbengam Anna, an accomplished Scrum Master and SAFe Coach since 2018, thrives in diverse industries like Personal Investments, Healthcare, Food & beverage, and Banking. She's authored 5 self-published guides aiding aspiring Scrum Masters, and her mentoring has transformed 200+ professionals into highly effective individuals for any organization. You can link with Anna Mbengam on LinkedIn and read Anna's books.  

Top 5 Mistakes That Block Teams From Delivering High Business Value Misunderstanding of Scrum: some teams forget Scrum is a means to an end, where the goal is to maximize the business value. Misunderstanding of value: until everyone doesn't have a common understanding of what business value means, there will be confusion, which will prevent the teams from maximizing the business value. No Focus: increasing the business value requires saying NO to everything that is not the priority. Not removing low-feature value: all products have low-value features or even no-value ones, yet, such features remain available instead of being removed. The Team is not inspecting & adapting the work dynamics: the Scrum Team should become a better version of itself Sprint by Sprint. If the Team is not inspecting & adapting, the Team may become a worse version of itself Sprint by Sprint. 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/⁠

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by Erica Menendez and Phillip Lisenba to explore the Product Owner's accountabilities, especially when they are filled by a highly technical professional, and how this can impact the Team's work in positive and negative ways. They share their own Agile experiences dealing with mature Product Owners and what the Agile and the Scrum framework proposes for these cases.   Key Takeaways Challenges and opportunities of dealing with a highly technical Product Owner: The Product Owner's relationship with the Team will determine the extent of the accountabilities on each side. A strong Scrum Master can help balance the Team out due to the collaboration of a technical Product Owner who has brought a lot to the table and helped the Team create a solution. The Team and Product Owner working in a psychologically safe environment grow together in constant intercommunication. A mature Product Owner helps maintain the balance. A very technical Product Owner can be highly prescriptive and fall into the mistake of making highly predictive sprint plans, and, as a result, developers turn more into coders. The Product Owner has to be able to transfer some of their knowledge to the Team since they won't always be there to help them. The Scrum Guide remarks that the Product Owner is the “what” person, and the Team is the “how.” The entire Scrum Team is accountable for creating a valuable, helpful increment every sprint. The Product Owner is responsible for a backlog that optimizes value, and there could be a dysfunction if the Product Owner is disconnected and can't contribute as a partner for a valuable sprint plan. When the Product Owner and the Team can communicate directly, they can take advantage of everyone's skills; that way, they can leverage everything the Team brings. Everything depends on relationships and communication.   Mentioned in this Episode: Listen to Podcast Ep 197. Approaching Vacations with an Agile Perspective Get SAFe certified!   Want to Learn More or Get in Touch? Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com! Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!  

Konstantin Ribel: Rebuilding Scrum Team Dynamics To Overcome Remote Work Anti-Patterns 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. Konstantin recounts a team's struggle rooted in prioritizing individual tasks over collective effort. Daily meetings centered on status updates fostered a fragmented and siloed work environment. The team working remote made the issue even worse, making it hard to have face-to-face interaction and pair-working. All of these patterns resulted in underperformance. Konstantin advises regular team gatherings, emphasizing the importance of on-site collaboration. He underscores the human element, urging teams to function cohesively as people. Featured Book Of The Week: The Miracle Morning by Hal Erold In this segment, Konstantin delves into how his morning routine, inspired by "The Miracle Morning," by Hal Erold has profoundly influenced his role as a Scrum Master. He emphasizes the critical link between personal and professional development, crediting the book "Extreme Programming Explained" for its condensed wisdom. Konstantin highlights Kent Beck's mantra of "do more of what works" and expresses a preference for pair working, acknowledging its occasional impracticality. He consistently applies the insights gained from this book, advocating against the anti-pattern of delayed feedback in his work with teams.   [IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM's that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!     About Konstantin Ribel Konstantin drives organizational success through innovative thinking, simplifying processes, and building high-performing teams. With a strong track record in change management and process optimization, he leads agile transformations and applies systems thinking for adaptable, thriving businesses in dynamic industries. You can link with Konstantin Ribel on LinkedIn. 

Who Gets Blamed When Agile Goes Wrong? When something goes wrong with a project, who gets blamed? If you are the Product Owner, Scrum Master or Project Manager, you're probably saying that the leader gets the blame. If you're a Scrum Team or development team member, you're probably saying, “We always get blamed.” What if the reality of the situation is it's a bit of both, and both failures could be solved by a purposeful application of skilled follower-ship? Rob Asghar wrote about this recently in his Forbes article “Why Followership Is Now More Important Than Leadership.” He makes a strong point that “Good, skilled followers are able to nurture good leadership.” He adds that “It's a lost art in our narcissistic times.” The article, which is worth reading, provides enough information to see that following Scrum principles and practices can — and already do — produce skilled followers who nurture their fellow coworkers and even their bosses. 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/

In 2020, the Scrum Guide introduced the idea of the Product Goal, but left out anything about Vision. Was this move better or worse for Scrum teams?In this short podcast, Vic Bonacci and Dave Prior, our two resident CSTs, sit down to discuss the difference between product goals and vision and the impact this change is making on Scrum Teams. Contacting Vic Bonacci If you'd like to contact Vic you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/victor-bonacci LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vbonacci/ Email: Victor.Bonacci@leadingagile.com Contacting Dave Prior If you'd like to contact Dave, you can reach him at: LeadingAgile: www.leadingagile.com/guides/dave-prior/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mrsungo Twitter: twitter.com/mrsungo Email: dave.prior@leadingagile.com If you have a question you'd like to submit for an upcoming podcast, please send them to dave.prior@leadingagile.com Interested in CSM or CSPO Training? You can find all the details at www.leadingagile.com/scrum-training/

Aki Salmi: Learning Decision-Making without Explicit Leadership, A Key Skill For Scrum 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, Aki reflects on a highly effective team, drawing inspiration from Google's Project Aristotle on high-performing teams. He recounts the story of a team that operated without a designated leader, relying on consensus-based decision-making. However, this approach often hindered progress and experimentation. Aki highlights the importance of bringing up such systemic issues in retrospectives. He advises teams to step back and critically evaluate their working methods and their implications. Aki also touches on concepts like "double loop learning" and emphasizes the significance of considering core tasks, emotional climate, and effective structures in the work environment. Featured Book For The Week: Dare to Lead by Brene Brown In this segment, Aki talks about Brene Brown's book "Dare to Lead," emphasizing its transformative impact on authentic self-expression in the workplace. He highlights the value of embracing one's humanity, including emotions, and underscores the importance of vulnerability and visibility. Aki also references books like "Agile Retrospectives" by Larsen and Derby, and "Atlas of the Heart" by Brene Brown. He discusses trust-building, echoing the idea that trust is built in small moments. The episode encourages listeners to prioritize trust and genuine self-presentation in professional environments.   [IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM's that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!     About Aki Salmi Aki is a software crafter and shares the joy of coding and the value of empathy at work. That is, Aki works on ones and zeros (code) and everything else (humans). You can link with Aki Salmi on LinkedIn. 

Lorraine Chambers: Dismantling Silos, A Critical Aspect Of Helping Scrum Teams Succeed Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. In this episode, Lorraine explores the story of a midsized team within a larger organization. Operating in silos, the team members juggled disconnected tasks, leading to significant carryover between sprints, and an inability to fulfill sprint commitments. The silos led to limited collaboration which, in time, further hindered progress. Lorraine addressed concerns with the Product Owner and manager, but changes were deemed unfeasible at the time. This situation impeded the team's ability to self-organize. As reflection for Scrum Masters, Lorraine advises reflecting on the organizational team model and strategizing how to foster collective participation in sprint planning, shared goals, and self-organization within the team. Featured Book of the Week: Radical Candor by Kim Scott Lorraine discusses a pivotal book in her career: "Radical Candor" by Kim Scott, emphasizing its guidance on effective communication and feedback provision for coaches. The book advocates candidness in delivering both praise and criticism, underscoring the significance of nurturing relationships. Lorraine recounts an illustrative story from the book where a lack of candor led to performance issues. The lesson: timely, candid feedback is crucial.   [IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM's that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!     About Lorraine Chambers Lorraine's vision of excellence is summed up in the words of philosopher, Lao Tzu -- “A leader is best when people barely know he exists ... " She's held several roles in the Fintech industry, including Product Owner and Quality Assurance. She's a native New Yorker that loves travel, music and museums. You can link with Lorraine Chambers on LinkedIn and connect with Lorraine Chambers on Instagram. 

What Are Sprint Goals & Do They Work? Sprint goal represents what you as Scrum Team want to achieve during the sprint. It must be the focus of the iteration. Years ago, we were doing waterfall project management. We were spending a tremendous amount of time in requirements and trying to reach a state of the art product. The products were lasting longer. With the digital revolution, speed matters. Nowadays, businesses cannot afford to invest in the perfect requirements. Here is where Agile helps teams to deliver quicker and learn quicker. You create better products by getting direct feedback and not by creating the best specifications. 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/⁠

Tom Siebeneicher: Are The Scrum Team Members Honest And Critical When Needed? A Scrum Master Success reflection Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. In this episode, we explore Tom's thoughts on the factors for Scrum Master success. He emphasizes the importance of team members feeling safe to share impediments and the prompt resolution of such issues. Tom encourages actions that promote collaboration and the consistent identification of impediments. He advises a perpetual drive for improvement and stresses the necessity of measuring progress. Tom underlines the need for a space where honesty and constructive criticism can be part of the team dynamics to ensure continuous growth and success in the Scrum Master role. Featured Retrospective Format For The Week: Creating Connection Through A People Focused Agile Retrospective Format Tom shares his preferred Agile retrospective format, emphasizing the increased impact of being physically together in one room. He advocates for a simple start/stop/continue approach, focusing not only on the retro itself but also on the moments leading up to it. Tom underscores the importance of observing non-verbal cues to gauge team dynamics and potential pressure points. For remote retrospectives, he advises a thorough check-in with each participant. He stresses the significance of verbally setting the scene, considering it a critical aspect of a successful retrospective.   [IMAGE HERE] Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he's learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!    About Tom Siebeneicher Tom is an engaging speaker, who has delivered presentations at conferences like the Atos DREAM Conference, the Agile Leadership Day, and TED XKE by Xebia. Their enthusiasm for discussing Agile is evident in those talks. You can link with Tom Siebeneicher on LinkedIn. 

Seye Kuyinu: Agile Re-Teaming For Scale, Restructuring Scrum Teams Along Value Streams Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. In this episode, Seye discusses an organization's journey towards creating value streams and aligning teams accordingly. They adopted the approach of taking teams to the work rather than the reverse. This involved setting up teams for new features, but the structure changed after a few months, leading to reassigning team members. Seye refers to the Tuckman's stages of group development to highlight the transitional nature of teams. In this episode, we also discuss how important it is to focus on setting up a robust infrastructure to make it possible to dynamically reconfigure teams, underlining the importance of adaptability in Agile environments. Featured Book of the Week: The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship by David Whyte Seye's recommended book for Scrum Masters is "The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship" by David Whyte. The book explores reimagining work and relationships, emphasizing the need for a holistic view rather than strict work-life balance. Another impactful read is “Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond” by Bob Galen, which transformed Seye's coaching approach. He suggests adapting language to the audience, shifting from software development jargon to business terminology. Seye advocates speaking the language of those being served, aligning communication for more effective collaboration.   [IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM's that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!     About Seye Kuyinu Seye has been a Scrum Master for about a decade now. He first connected to Agile, frustrated with the lack of adequate communication that plagues traditional complex projects. He finds People and Interactions over Processes & Tools cannot be overstated, while seeing that everything is a fractal- our individual, team, organization and societal challenges are the very same. The solution in every layer is the same- an understanding of ONENESS! You can link with Seye Kuyinu on LinkedIn and connect with Seye Kuyinu on Twitter. 

Khwezi Mputa: Breaking Down Dysfunctional Dynamics between a Scrum team and their Product Owner 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, Khwezi discusses a challenging team scenario where great individuals struggled due to high-pressure dynamics and dysfunctional patterns. The Product Owner lacked decision-making authority, leading to delayed information and a proxy PO situation. This pressure caused scope creep and hindered technical debt management. Khwezi highlighted the importance of empowering the team to push back against excessive demands, coaching the PO to engage stakeholders effectively, and ensuring the right person fills the PO role. Addressing these issues was crucial for improving the product and fostering a healthier team dynamic. If you need to support your Product Owner, we've created a course for you. You can access the Coach Your PO e-course here.  Featured Book of the Week: Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins In this segment, Khwezi shares her recommended book, "Coaching Agile Teams" by Lyssa Adkins, which played a pivotal role in her self-improvement journey as a scrum master. This book provided valuable insights into guiding teams toward high performance. Khwezi emphasized using the Agile coaching competency framework and suggested self-assessment based on it. This framework led her to discover additional paths for growth. The book also highlighted the importance of exploring diverse topics to enhance skills. She mentioned the "Periodic Table of Scrum Master's Competencies" as a useful resource for understanding various skills enhancement facets.   [IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM's that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!     About Khwezi Mputa Khwezi is an experienced Agile coach, trainer, and IT professional since 2008. With diverse roles like Scrum Master, Agile Project Manager, and Business Analyst, she's active in the Agile community, promoting diversity. Passionate about teaching, she empowers individuals and organizations to reach their full potential through coaching and mentoring.

The Daily Scrum Defined - What does the Scrum Guide say about the daily Scrum? The purpose of the Daily Scrum is to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog as necessary, adjusting the upcoming planned work. The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute event for the Developers of the Scrum Team. To reduce complexity, it is held at the same time and place every working day of the Sprint. If the Product Owner or Scrum Master are actively working on items in the Sprint Backlog, they participate as Developers. The Developers can select whatever structure and techniques they want, as long as their Daily Scrum focuses on progress toward the Sprint Goal and produces an actionable plan for the next day of work. This creates focus and improves self-management. Daily Scrums improve communications, identify impediments, promote quick decision-making, and consequently eliminate the need for other meetings. The Daily Scrum is not the only time Developers are allowed to adjust their plan. They often meet throughout the day for more detailed discussions about adapting or re-planning the rest of the Sprint's work. 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/⁠

Is There Ever a Good Time For Multiple Product Owners? According to the scrum guide, there should be one product owner who is in charge of the product vision and decides what to do, to create a better product (Not how to do it!) The Scrum Guide states: “The Product Owner is one person, not a committee.” Yet, in some environments companies build products that are so complex and big that they need multiple teams to get the job done. For these situations the Scrum Guide states: “If Scrum Teams become too large, they should consider reorganizing into multiple cohesive Scrum Teams, each focused on the same product. Therefore, they should share the same Product Goal, Product Backlog, and Product Owner.” Contradictory to these suggestions, I observe that several companies feel the urgency to have multiple product owners for these situations. (They often argue that they “inspected and adapted” and in their case it is a necessary step to make Scrum work.) Let me share my thoughts on that. 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/⁠

Rohit Ratan Mani: The Power of Perspective in Unveiling the Meaning Behind Back-End Work for a Scrum Team 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. Rohit discusses his experience as a Scrum Master working with a back-end team suffering from high attrition rates. He realizes that the team members feel undervalued and that the monotonous work is affecting their motivation. To address this, he arranged a workshop with the team and leaders, where the team gained new insights into their importance to the organization. The workshop helped the team see the bigger picture and meaning behind their work, revitalizing their motivation. The key takeaway is the significance of creating opportunities for teams to understand their value and fostering open communication to prevent attrition. Featured Book of the Week: The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team by Lencioni Rohit discusses "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Lencioni, which provides valuable insights into team dynamics. The book helped him understand the hidden dynamics within teams and enabled him to observe and analyze their functioning. It particularly highlighted the significance of trust and conflict in team success. Rohit emphasizes the need for adaptability when working with different teams, as each team is unique and requires a tailored approach. Overall, the book enhanced his understanding of how teams work together and his role within them, emphasizing the importance of trust and conflict resolution.   [IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM's that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!     About Rohit Ratan Mani Rohit is an Enterprise Agile Coach, helping Leaders, individuals and teams to develop a growth mindset to be top achievers in their respective work area and  in personal life. You can link with Rohit Ratan Mani on LinkedIn and connect with Rohit Ratan Mani on Twitter.

Andrew Mitchell: Lessons in Change Management from Story Points to Flow Metrics in a Scrum Team 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, Andrew discusses his change process of transitioning from traditional story point refinement to flow-based metrics and #NoEstimates. He faced resistance at the team and organizational levels. Andrew conducted an experiment using two years' worth of data, showing that story points were not superior to throughput. He presented the results to leadership and the teams, emphasizing the importance of holistic metrics and their impact on predictability and team dynamics. Andrew introduced t-shirt sizing for simpler estimation conversations and highlighted that counting stories was more predictive than relying solely on story points. The episode emphasizes lessons in change management, including metric selection and fostering collaboration and predictability. [IMAGE HERE] As Scrum Master we work with change continuously! Do you have your own change framework that provides the guidance, and queues you need when working with change? The Lean Change Management framework is a fully defined, lean-startup inspired change framework that can be used as the backbone of any change process! You can buy Lean Change Management the book at Amazon. Also available in French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.   About Andrew Mitchell Andrew prioritizes people when building products, aiming for happy and engaged employees who create great products and serve customers well. He emphasizes trust, psychological safety, servant leadership, and believes Scrum is the best framework to achieve these goals. He was also a host of the Product Owner Summit 2023, where we collaborated. You can link with Andrew Mitchell on LinkedIn.

Andrew Mitchell: Shared Accountability and Problem-Solving, A Practical Way To Help Scrum 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, Andrew discusses a team that struggled with excessive time spent on refining stories and engaging in arguments during daily scrums. The organization was in the early stages of its agile transformation, and the team had difficulty transitioning from detailed requirements. Engineers felt judged by bugs, leading to a fear of making mistakes. To address these issues, Andrew introduced the concept of shared accountability, shifted the team's focus to problem-solving, and encouraged smaller work slices. He also emphasized the importance of prioritizing helping people over solely delivering software. These changes aimed to foster collaboration and a supportive team environment. In this episode, we refer to the book NoEstimates, and the method it describes that served as inspiration for Andrew's work. Featured Book of the Week: Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek In this segment, Andrew recommends the book "Leaders Eat Last" by Simon Sinek as required reading for Scrum Masters. The principle of the book originates from the US Marines, where leaders eat their meals after the soldiers. Andrew highlights the key tip of "They would do it for me," emphasizing the importance of leaders who prioritize the well-being and needs of their team members. He describes the book as wonderful, implying that it offers valuable insights and lessons for Scrum Masters.   [IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM's that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!     About Andrew Mitchell Andrew prioritizes people when building products, aiming for happy and engaged employees who create great products and serve customers well. He emphasizes trust, psychological safety, servant leadership, and believes Scrum is the best framework to achieve these goals. He was also a host of the Product Owner Summit 2023, where we collaborated. You can link with Andrew Mitchell on LinkedIn.

Eliza Gregory: Addressing Communication Issues by Building Trust and Safety With The Scrum Team 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, Eliza shares a story about an international team that faced trouble with communication and escalation issues. The team initially attempted to create team agreements using a shared whiteboard. However, Eliza later discovered that team members were escalating concerns directly to management without involving her. This raised concerns about whether the team felt safe communicating with her. Eliza offers the tip of addressing this issue through one-on-one conversations, emphasizing the importance of creating a safe space for team members to express themselves. She found that these coaching conversations had the most significant impact. Eliza advises making it clear to team members that you are there to listen and understand their concerns. Additionally, she recommends setting up one-on-one meetings and allowing individuals to define the cadence that suits them best. Eliza also suggests conducting more workshops, especially for teams that are not yet mature, to facilitate better communication and collaboration. Featured Book of the Week: Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Grenny et al. In this segment, Eliza describes the book "Crucial Conversations." She highlights that the book is dense and cannot be read in one sitting. Although it is not specifically focused on Agile or Scrum, it delves into conversations that occur when emotions are high and people feel unsafe or threatened. The book emphasizes the importance of creating a safe space and presents essential skills for effective communication with one's team and others. Eliza emphasizes the significance of recognizing within oneself when entering a crucial conversation.   [IMAGE HERE] Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches - Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM's that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!     About Eliza Gregory Eliza Gregory has worked as a Project Manager, Scrum Master, and Agile Coach for U.S. Defense and the German automotive industry. She uses teachings from Agile to hone her writing process, and has a new novel out this May about an IT Project Manager coping with burnout and work stress. Originally from Virginia, she now resides in Bavaria, Germany. You can link with Eliza Gregory on LinkedIn and connect with Eliza Gregory on Twitter, and you can read about her novel Painting the Whiskey Blue.