The Scrum Master Journey (SMJ) is a program designed to help you succeed as Scrum Master. Marc joins us to explain what that SMJ program includes, and share some first-hand stories of how this program has already helped many Scrum Masters in practice.
If you want to know more, you can visit the Scrum Master Journey at https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/SMJ.
For the full show notes on this episode, please visit the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
This is episode 2 of a series of episodes dedicated to the content, and the steps of the Scrum Master Journey, a program hosted by our guest: Marc Löffler.
In the previous episode, we shared what were the top 2 challenges that Scrum Masters face in their role. We start this episode by sharing ideas on how to solve those problems, and what Scrum Masters can do to learn more about what is behind those challenges.
Helping Scrum teams self-organize, a practical how-to
Marc shares what he calls “the goldfish problem”, a funny way to illustrate how team members, and Scrum Masters can be overwhelmed with the challenge of applying Agile in an organization or team that are not ready for it.
Team members and stakeholders look towards the Scrum Masters to solve all the problems, but is that realistic? Especially when some underlying enabling conditions are missing, it is very hard for Scrum Masters to help the team towards self-organization. We discuss what are some of those underlying conditions, and focus on Psychological Safety as one of the enabling conditions that Scrum Masters have influence over.
How can Scrum Masters foster psychological safety?
We review the steps we can take, and some tools to apply when trying to foster psychological safety in your team. We talk about how to identify the current level of psychological safety, and then discuss some tools we can use to increase the feeling of safety in the team.
In this segment, we talk about Personal Maps, and the book Crucial Conversations. We also refer to our FREE course on Creating A Compelling Product Vision.
How to recognize the team/organizational culture and how to change it
When Scrum Masters join a team or an organization, it’s critical to understand what are the critical cultural defining traits they need to work with.
This is the first step in preparing to influence and ultimately change the culture in the team or organization. However, there’s a lot more to take into account. In this segment, we discuss the second most important challenge Scrum Masters will face according to Marc Löffler: how to recognize, and change the culture in your company or team.
In this segment, we refer to the book Business Culture Design by Sagmeister et al.
The blueprint to become a great Scrum Master: The Scrum Master Journey
In this series of episodes, we explore the Scrum Master Journey. A program that Marc Löffler created to help Scrum Masters grow within a safe community of peers that struggle with similar issues every day.
We share five (plus 1 BONUS!) modules that the Scrum Master Journey includes:
- Find and define yourself as a Scrum Master
- Understand and change culture in your team or organization
- The path to self-organized teams
- Enabling people’s potential, the focus on people for Scrum Masters
- Agile leadership for me as a Scrum Master
- BONUS: Hybrid teams, how to be in contact with the team, even when you are not there
Here’s what others say about the Scrum Master Journey program
Thank you very much for your fascinating Scrum Master Journey. I even bought a paper notebook for my own journey. I really like the flexible format that allows me to suspend my learning or repeat specific sessions. I already learned a lot about myself in my role as a Scrum Master in the first module. As a freshly baked Scrum Master, this program is the perfect fit to prepare me for my upcoming tasks and challenges.
Jacob Brügmann
Thank you very much for your fascinating Scrum Master Journey. I even bought a paper notebook for my own journey. I really like the flexible format that allows me to suspend my learning or repeat specific sessions. I already learned a lot about myself in my role as a Scrum Master in the first module. As a freshly baked Scrum Master, this program is the perfect fit to prepare me for my upcoming tasks and challenges.
Get the Scrum Master Journey’s guide to self-reflection, and learn more about the program here.
Bodo Runde
Already the first module got me stoked. In 2017 I got certified as a Scrum Master, but the Scrum Master journey taught me the essential lessons of being a Scrum Master. Especially how and what I can do to actively help my team. Marc created something that has the potential to become evergreen. The journey never really ends, and I will come back again and again.Get the Scrum Master Journey’s guide to self-reflection, and learn more about the program here.
About Marc Löffler
Marc’s a super active member of the Agile community. In his spare time from consulting, speaking and training he’s found the time to start a blog, a podcast and write two books!
Marc is also the host of the Scrum Master journey!
You can link with Marc Löffler on LinkedIn and connect with Marc Löffler on Twitter.
One thought on “BONUS: Two common Scrum Master challenges and how to solve them. With Marc Loeffler”
Comments are closed.