As Cosima started her Scrum Master journey, she decided to invest and study psychology. That would open up new ways to look at her work in the role of the Scrum Master. The search for a more science-based approach to her work led her to study psychology, which later helped her understand that she couldn’t be a developer and a Scrum Master anymore.
Remote teams, and quick tips for facilitating #Remote Lean Coffee
In this episode, we also discuss a facilitation technique that helps teams working #Remote (check our free #Remote resources page). Cosima shares her experience in preparing for, and hosting a #Remote Lean Coffee (check our Lean Coffee episodes) event for an online meetup. Using Google Jamboards for a shared whiteboard, and Zoom video conferencing, Cosima helped a larger group of people discuss and learn from Agile topics in this very interactive format.
As we work with #Remote teams, Lean Coffee is a very flexible format that can easily be adapted to facilitate remote Agile Retrospectives for example.
Virtual or #Remote co-working, an experience that helps us be in touch with our community
As many of us, and our team members work more often from home, the distance may cause problems in the way the teams collaborate. Being away from each other has a negative impact on the information we share, and creates possible conflicts due to text-heavy communication.
In this segment, we talk about the concept of virtual or #Remote co-working, and how that can help us feel closer to our team, even if we are not interrupting them. Cosima explains how this method of co-working can be set up and some of the tips she found help her increase her focus and commitment to the work.
Virtual or #Remote co-working is an approach that some teams might benefit from while #Remote.
Sustainable Pace, a challenge for Agile teams, that Scrum Masters must help with
Cosima shares the story of a team that was starting to feel overwhelmed. The challenge for Scrum Masters is to find the right balance between pushing the team forward and letting the team define the pace themselves. On one hand, if teams are left alone, they might stop evolving, and improving. But on the other hand, when Scrum Masters try to help teams, they might bring more chaos, and overwhelm than the team can handle.
In this segment, we talk about the story of a team that was starting to feel overwhelmed, and what practices Cosima used to help the team find their right pace, a pace that would help them to evolve quickly enough, but also sustain that evolution over time.
We talk about when Retrospectives are too much, and what to do when that happens. We also discuss how the Scrum Masters can assess the level of the pace for their team, and help dial it up or down when necessary.
About Cosima Laube
Cosima is a co-author of the Agile Short Stories book: Change Willingness and Change Capacity and an international speaker on the topics related to Agile. She is a product and people’s coach with Agile-Living.com and Respectandadapt.rocks.
You can link with Cosima Laube on LinkedIn and connect with Cosima Laube on Twitter.