Elly Griffith-Ward: The impediment that kills Agile adoption in many organizations, and what to do about it

Many Scrum Masters will recognize the impediment to Agile adoption that Elly mentions in this episode: there are other, interdependent parts of the organization that are not using Agile! However, the way in which this impediment expresses itself is very diverse between organizations. In this episode, we explore one of the anti-patterns that comes from trying to implement Agile in a previously waterfall organization. Listen in to learn to recognize the signs of problems, and how to help your organization despite this “glass ceiling”.

About Elly Griffith-Ward

Elly is an Agile Coach at a major e-commerce company. Previously in user research (and a royal food historian). She aims to 1) improve the experience of work through reducing mental load, improving communication and forming strong teams 2) shift the focus from managing the worker to managing the work by focusing on flow and waste.

You can link with Elly Griffith-Ward on LinkedIn and connect with Elly Griffith-Ward on Twitter.

Ricardo Ribeiro: Waterfall to Scrum, a change process starting with the basics

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.

Although it may be obvious for Scrum Masters that Scrum is a better alternative to Waterfall, the fact is that organizations take their time to accept even that seemingly obvious conclusion. In this episode, we explore Ricardo’s change adventure in a company that went from Waterfall to Scrum.

About Ricardo Ribeiro

Ricardo is a Scrum Master (PSM) and certified Professional Scrum Product Owner™ (PSPO) with over 10 years of experience leading high-performing teams and delivering complex Transformational Programmes within the Banking, IT, Computer Hardware and Oil & Gas companies.

You can link with Ricardo Ribeiro on LinkedIn.

Ricardo Ribeiro: Hands on with a Scrum team moving from Waterfall to Scrum

Ricardo was working with a team in transition from Waterfall to Scrum. This team tried to manage their Scrum process as if it was a Waterfall process, and added gates between Sprints as if they were phases in a Waterfall process. On top of that, the Product Owner – himself with a Waterfall background – wanted the team to have all the requirements defined first before starting to develop. Ricardo needed to find a way to help the team get out of the sequential, phase-based thinking. He needed to help the team evolve, but not become the “scrum cop”! In this episode, we explore how to support teams in transition from Waterfall to Scrum.

Featured Book of the Week: Fixing Your Scrum by Ripley et al

In Fixing Your Scrum by Ryan Ripley (Ryan Ripley has been a previous podcast guest) and Todd Miller, Ricardo found a book that helped him understand common challenges many teams go through, and how to overcome the problems that come with those challenges.

How can Angela (the Agile Coach) quickly build healthy relationships with the teams she’s supposed to help? What were the steps she followed to help the Breeze App team fight off the competition? Find out how Angela helped Naomi and the team go from “behind” to being ahead of Intuition Bank, by focusing on the people! Download the first 4 chapters of the BOOK for FREE while it is in Beta!

About Ricardo Ribeiro

You can link with Ricardo Ribeiro on LinkedIn.

Ricardo Ribeiro: A lesson learned for all teams moving from Waterfall to Scrum

Ricardo started as a traditional project manager trying to deliver projects using waterfall. With experience, he understood that the project management approach of putting the most critical decisions at the start of the project was not the right approach. However, as he started to try out Scrum with a new team, he realized that Scrum was not the solution for all the problems. He shares a very important lesson for teams in transition from waterfall to Scrum.

In this episode, we refer to the Scrum Guide, a short description of the rules of Scrum.

About Ricardo Ribeiro

You can link with Ricardo Ribeiro on LinkedIn.

Miguel Moro: Leading change in an organization, without mentioning Scrum

Miguel, and a team of coaches were working with an organization in an Agile transformation process. When discussing how to start helping the teams, and the organization in general, they came to the decision that they would start with knowledge sharing, and helping team members understand each other better. Through small, but deliberate activities, the team of coaches helped the teams take ownership of their own practices, and proposed concrete ways in which the teams could improve their way of working. Throughout this process, the team of coaches was able to help the organization, and the teams move towards Agile, without ever pushing “the Agile change”.

About Miguel Moro

As an Agile practitioner, Miguel’s passion is to delight customers using Agile practices and Lean methodologies in development teams, to explore the best alternatives to deliver in an iterative and incremental way, with a continuous value of flow, as fast as possible, and with innovative solutions. He does that by focusing on high performance teams and happiness at work.

You can link with Miguel Moro on LinkedIn and connect with Miguel Moro on Twitter.