anti-pattern Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Isshai Kamara: Collaboration as a Cure, Helping Agile Teams Overcome The Missing Product Owner Anti-Pattern

In this segment, Isshai discusses challenges faced by her two mobile teams lacking Product Owners (POs). This led to uncertainty about requirements and a sparse backlog. Instead of hiring new POs, Isshai initiated collaboration with existing POs from other teams. She shares tips like integrating tech leads with other POs, setting up meetings for better communication, and considering tech leads as potential POs. Isshai emphasizes transparency about these issues with her teams and stresses the importance of showing them that there is ongoing work and focus on detailing tasks, marking a significant culture shift within the organization.

Featured Book of the Week: Project To Product by Mik Kersten

In this segment, Isshai discusses the transformative impact of Project To Product by Mik Kersten on her journey from a project manager to a more product-focused person. She credits the book for enhancing her understanding of team metrics and providing deeper insights into software development processes. Emphasizing the importance of motivated teams, the book also introduces a unique tool developed by the author, designed specifically for teams concentrating on product development. This tool has been instrumental in Isshai’s ability to effectively guide her development teams.

Transform Your Agile Teams with Hard-Earned Lessons from Super-Experienced Scrum Masters

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 Isshai Kamara

Isshai Kamara is a seasoned IT professional with over 12 years of experience, specializing in Agile delivery roles and Scrum implementation. Initially a Technologist, he later transitioned into Project and Engineering Management. With 8 years in Agile delivery, Isshai has become an advocate for IT careers, aiding professionals in transitions and conducting bootcamps for tech roles. His extensive experience in Agile methodologies and commitment to IT career development make him a distinguished figure in the tech community.

You can link with Isshai Kamara on LinkedIn and connect with Isshai Kamara on Instagram.

Manuele Piastra: Fighting Against Your Team, The Danger of Blindly Implementing Scrum

In this episode, Manuele discusses his experience working with a mobile team in a scrum environment. He points out that while scrum is a great methodology because it provides structure, teams may sometimes just go through the motions. As time goes by, teams may begin to drop aspects of scrum, leading to the loss of the entire process.

Manuele identifies two ANTI-PATTERNS in which the leadership hires a scrum master without explaining the importance of Agile or Scrum to the team, and in which scrum or agile are superimposed on something else without that thing going away. Manuele failed to recognize the context of the team and was given specific goals to put the team on the path of scrum, leading to a fight between him and the team. He offers some tips for addressing this situation, including stopping the show and having an honest conversation with the team and stakeholders. Finally, he suggests doing personal reflection to determine if you are the right fit for the team.

The inspiring story of how a failing hospital turned things around with Agile and Lean

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 Manuele Piastra

Manuele Piastra moved to London in 2014, which was a life-changing experience for him. He gained access to more sources of learning, worked in fast-paced companies with complex technology stacks and ambitious goals, and developed open-mindedness, patience, and autonomy.

You can link with Manuele Piastra on LinkedIn and connect with Manuele Piastra on Twitter.

Harri Tunturivuori: Communicating the Product Vision, A Key Skill for Scrum Product Owners

The Great Product Owner: Communicating the Product Vision, A Key Skill for PO’s

According to Harri, the best Product Owners have a clear and compelling vision for the product, and they are able to communicate this vision effectively to the team. They are also collaborative and include the team in decision making, and are not afraid to talk to customers and stakeholders to get their input. In addition, they are able to give a lot of feedback to the team and use personas to communicate the ultimate user and customer for the product. Finally, they communicate the roadmap to the team so that everyone is on the same page. All of these skills combine to create a strong, effective Product Owner who can help the team deliver a successful product.

We provide, FREE, an e-course that can help you facilitate a Vision workshop with your PO. You can our Create A Compelling Product Vision e-course here..

The Bad Product Owner: From Task Managers to Product Owners, Breaking the Anti-pattern

In the episode, Harri discussed the anti-pattern of Product Owners who act more as task managers rather than empowered decision-makers. When POs become overly focused on task lists and assigning work to team members, they lose sight of the bigger picture and fail to understand the product as a whole. In many cases, the actual PO is someone else, leaving the task manager PO without the necessary knowledge to answer questions from the team. This lack of empowerment and understanding causes agility to disappear and ultimately hinders the progress of the product. To avoid this anti-pattern, Harri emphasizes the importance of empowering POs and ensuring they are motivated to push the product forward.

The Ultimate Guide to Supporting Product Owners as a Scrum Master

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 Harri Tunturivuori

Harri is an experienced leader, Scrum Master, and Agile Coach who was introduced to the world of agile software development in 2010. Since then, Harri has had the pleasure of leading great agile teams in various forms.

Harri enjoys working in a fun environment where there is room for innovation, and Harri is driven by the challenge of growing a group of good people into a great team.

You can link with Harri Tunturivuori on LinkedIn.

Andreas Plattner: how to overcome the finger pointing anti-pattern

When working with multiple teams, in a multi-team Scrum project, we may face what Andreas faced: the finger pointing anti-pattern. This is especially common in environments where no one wants to “be wrong” or take risks.

Even if learning and growing requires taking risks and sometimes “being wrong”, the fact is that no one wants to be that team that delays the project, so the finger pointing starts.

But how can a Scrum Master overcome that problem? How can the Scrum Master help the teams collaborate? That’s the topic of this episode.

Featured Book of the Week: Succeeding with Agile by Mike Cohn

Andreas read Succeeding with Agile by Mike Cohn early in his Agile journey and it influenced his thinking and how that affects and is affected by the local contexts.

In this episode we also refer to The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.

About Andreas Plattner

Andreas is an Agile Coach @ Daimler. He is has been a passionate Agilist and Scrum Master for over 10 years. He works on and cares for organizational health.

You can link with Andreas Plattner on LinkedIn and connect with Andreas Plattner on XING.

Mark Cruth on how to overcome the micro-managing Architect anti-pattern

Teams need to take ownership of their own work, so that they can effectively focus on delivering running, working software every Sprint. However, sometimes there are strong personalities in the team. We may want to ignore that anti-pattern, but it won’t ignore us. In this episode we talk about one such story, where the Architect in the team wanted to overrule the team members, and even escalated the issue to the team’s manager. Listen in to learn about Mark’s role in that story, and how we, as Scrum Masters, can handle similar situations.

Featured Book of the Week: 10% happier by Dan Harris

The book 10% happier by Dan Harris is a true story of how Dan found a way to keep focused, but lose the stress and self-doubt. For Mark however, this was a book about learning to focus on the events in front of him. The “now” that must be our focus as Scrum Masters.

About Mark Cruth

Mark has been playing in the Agile space since 2009, helping multiple organizations move towards a more Agile perspective on work across several industries, including manufacturing, eCommerce, and FinTech. Today Mark works as an Agile Coach for Quicken Loans, as well as operates his own Consulting company called Teal Mavericks.

You can link with Mark Cruth on LinkedIn and connect with Mark Cruth on Twitter.