Tag: agile adoption

SPECIAL XMAS BONUS: Agile Transformation and Business Agility in the Large with Peter Lam

Agile is necessary by not sufficient for Agility

When teams start adopting Scrum, it’s easy to think that when they are proficient in Scrum, the work is done. However, that’s not nearly enough to help the organization achieve its goals. What are the outcomes that the team is aiming for? Are those outcomes part of the team’s Vision, and Mission? 

Peter suggests that we should start our work by defining together with the team and stakeholders what success means. That becomes the first question to ask before we start our work with the team.

Bing bang approaches are sometimes necessary, but not sufficient for the momentum of change that is needed

Continue reading SPECIAL XMAS BONUS: Agile Transformation and Business Agility in the Large with Peter Lam

Alex Gbaguidi: When preparing for the Scrum daily goes overboard

Getting a good, collaborative conversation in the daily standup is key to help teams deliver. However, when we put too much emphasis on preparing for the daily standup we may be creating more problems for the team. In this episode, we hear the story of a super well prepared daily standup that was actually worse for the team. 

About Alex Gbaguidi

Alex is an experienced agile practitioner, coach and trainer with twenty years of experience in IT consulting. He is passionate about helping teams discover the best ways of working adapted to their context. He’s worked in many different types of industries (Telecoms, Energy, Finance or Aeronautics) and provides training on many agile frameworks and practices all around the world in French & English.

You can link with Alex Gbaguidi on LinkedIn and connect with Alex Gbaguidi on Twitter. 

You can join Alex Gbaguidi’s Agile Africa community. 

Gonçalo Valverde: How (not) to deliver bad news as a Scrum Master!

Sometimes things go wrong. And it is at that time that we need our senses to be sharp, and our communication to be on point. In this episode, we learn the story of a project that was about to go bad, but no one was willing to deliver the bad news. When should the Scrum Master be the messenger? Listen in to learn how Gonçalo handled this situation and what he learned for the future. 

In this episode, we refer to Monte Carlo simulation and Troy Magennis’ work. 

About Gonçalo Valverde

Gonçalo is an Agile Coach from Portugal working with teams and organizations in their continuous improvement journey. As a keen amateur photographer, he learned that less is more and how constraints help one focus on the outcomes. He’s also a co-organizer of Agile Coach Camp Portugal. 

You can link with Gonçalo Valverde on LinkedIn and connect with Gonçalo Valverde on Twitter.

Kim Hinsch: How to recover from an Epic fail during a workshop you had prepared for!

When working with this team, Kim heard a predictable and unsettling question: “what does the Scrum Master do?” Many of us have faced this question from all kinds of directions. However, when Kim started digging into the question, she found that what the team needed was not to know what the Scrum Master did, but rather something else that is critical for any team. They had projected their lack of clarity on the role of the Scrum Master, even if what they needed as something else.

About Kim Hinsch

Kim is an agile enthusiast, that has been stung by the power of games, communication, and psychology. Kim practices every day the fine art of making magic happen the agile way. And what makes her heart beat faster is supporting teams and organizations on their magical journey across the hills of excellence and effectiveness.

You can link with Kim Hinsch on LinkedIn.

Priyanka Keswani: How to recover from the siloed-expert anti-pattern in a Scrum team

When the organization started moving to Agile, Priyanka was a lead for a QA team. As the transformation progressed, Priyanka took on the role of Scrum Master and started to face “resistance” in the team she was helping. The anti-pattern she was observing was a common one: some team members overworked, while others didn’t have enough to do. Listen in to learn how Priyanka helped the team recover from the first pain of transition, as well as the siloed-expert anti-pattern. 

About Priyanka Keswani

Priyanka is a seasoned Agile Coach with a firm belief in innovation, continuous improvement, and a focus on Agile transformation in the organization. With 14+ years of experience, she has worked across various domains- Content Delivery Network, Travel, CRM, and Storage. She started as a QA Manager, then became Scrum Master and Agile Coach. Outside of work, she enjoys listening to music, dancing, traveling, and networking with people.

You can link with Priyanka Keswani on LinkedIn and connect with Priyanka Keswani on Twitter.

Lena Löfdahl: Hiring for culture fit is even more important than you thought, in a Scrum team

In a growing team, hiring a super qualified person is often a great achievement. A senior person can help the team grow, bring in the knowledge that would otherwise take a long time to acquire, and more! However, it does not always happen like that. In this story, we hear about a senior team member that created conflict and demoralized the team. Listen in to learn about the critical lessons Lena learned about onboarding and integrating senior team members in an existing team.

About Lena Löfdahl

Lena is a senior agile coach with a specialty in learning and psychological safety. Successfully coached over 200+ teams and taught courses for 8000+ hours, mostly in agile but also project management. She gets a lot of energy from building teams and colleagues, watching people grow is rewarding work. 

You can link with Lena Löfdahl on LinkedIn. 

Inderdip Vraich: Why pushing changes to a Scrum team can easily backfire, and what to do instead

When we start with a new team or organization, and especially if we are experienced Scrum Masters, we often have the temptation to push changes, to help the teams move quickly to a state we can already see in our minds. But is that the best approach? Listen to this story of how “pushing” changes to a team made things worse.

About Inderdip Vraich

Inderdip is an Agile Coach and a Scrum Master based in New Zealand. She has been working in the agile space with IT teams since 2007. She believes in lifelong learning and derives deep satisfaction from working with teams & individuals and see them grow in their journey.

You can link with Inderdip Vraich on LinkedIn and connect with Inderdip Vraich on Twitter. 

David Wallace: Working with Agile skeptics in a Scrum team

David was working with a team that had just started its Agile journey. And while most of the team seemed enthusiastic, the tester/QA in the team was not happy about the new way of working. Listen in to learn how to prepare for team members that might not be keen on adopting an Agile way of working. 

About David Wallace

David Wallace is an agile coach with 25 years of experience in the IT industry. He’s a passionate Agilist and the cohost of the Heart of Agile – Boulder meetup group. He’s currently based in Denver as a Product Delivery Coach at Xero, a New Zealand-based cloud accounting software company. 

You can link with David Wallace on LinkedIn and connect with David Wallace on Twitter. 

Richard Lizama: Tips on getting started with a new Scrum team

Richard’s first week on the job as a Scrum Master started with a realization that helped Richard change his stance. But not before he went through an important lesson for all newly minted Scrum Masters. Read on to learn about what you should consider in your first week, and when working with teams that have been at it for a long time!

About Richard Lizama

Before becoming a Scrum Master, Richard spent time as a college counselor, then a small business owner, then a tech support rep. Once he found Scrum and Agile, he knew it was where he needed to be.

You can link with Richard Lizama on LinkedIn. 

Mark Metze: When a simple format is the right format for an Agile Retrospective

Mark reached his Scrum Master role by preparing his path from line manager to Scrum Master. He knew that Scrum Master was the position for him, and in that position, he tried to help teams get value out of their retrospectives, however… When preparing the retrospective, Mark ended up finding a format that he loved, but the team didn’t! Listen in to learn about why sometimes the easiest, most boring format is the best format for an Agile Retrospective.

About Mark Metze

Following the pattern of all good Computer Science majors, Mark began his career as a programmer and devoted the first 2 decades of his career to the craft of writing code. His next decade was spent in a managerial role for a software team. And then recently he pivoted once again to the role of Scrum Master. Mark has a heart for leading through service and has enthusiastically embraced the role of Scrum Master.

You can link with Mark Metze on LinkedIn.