Bola Adesope Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Bola Adesope: 3 patterns that make great Product Owners!

Lists are useful because they help us mentally review where we might need to pay attention as a Scrum Master. In this episode, we have 2 lists. We present 4 PO anti-patterns and 3 patterns that you can help your PO with and make sure they excel at their job!

The Great Product Owner: 3 patterns that make great PO’s

Just as there are many ways for a Product Owner to enter a negative spiral, there are also some things that are the hallmark of good Product owners. In this segment, we discuss 3 different patterns that, if you can help your PO follow them, will improve greatly the collaboration between team and PO, and will help the PO excel at their job!

The Bad Product Owner: 4 different, and critical PO anti-patterns

In this segment, we discuss 4 different Product Owners anti-patterns and dive into possible solutions that we can implement as Scrum Masters. We talk about defining working agreements with the team and the PO (not only the team) and discuss why it is critical for Scrum Masters to create a productive collaborative relationship with the Product Owner.

In this segment, we refer to the Coach Your Product Owner course produced by Vasco Duarte, the host of the podcast.

Are you having trouble helping the team working 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 Bola Adesope

Bola is an experienced Business and Agile Transformation Consultant, Speaker and Coach with in-depth knowledge and experience working with businesses in implementing best practice frameworks, driving changes and solving complex business problems. Bola has worked on several transformation initiatives, coached teams and Scrum Masters. He’s an Agile Coach based in Toronto.

You can link with Bola Adesope on LinkedIn and connect with Bola Adesope on Twitter.

Bola Adesope: The Mad/Sad/Glad Retrospective Exercise

There are many aspects that we must consider when evaluating our success as Scrum Masters. Bola reminds us that the way the team acts and behaves is a clear indicator of our influence on their progress as a team. We talk about how our different stances affect the team’s performance, and how we must deliberately move from one stance to the other when the team’s evolution so requires. Listen in to learn how Bola assesses and decides to move to the right stance as a Scrum Master.

Featured Retrospective Format of the Week: Mad/Sad/Glad technique

The Mad/Sad/Glad exercise from Core Protocols helps the team find out about problems that may not yet be obvious by focusing them on the feelings and the triggers for those feelings. For more on Core Protocols, listen to this episode on the Core Protocols with Richard Kasperowski.

About Bola Adesope

You can link with Bola Adesope on LinkedIn and connect with Bola Adesope on Twitter.

Bola Adesope: Kickstarting a cultural change for Scrum teams

We often hear about “cultural change”, and how important it is when adopting Agile. But how do we get that cultural change started? In this episode, we talk about 2 teams that needed to learn to apply Agile in a way that would foster collaboration and talk about how to get that change started. We discuss some of the steps that Bola followed and what he learned from that experience.

About Bola Adesope

You can link with Bola Adesope on LinkedIn and connect with Bola Adesope on Twitter.

Bola Adesope: When lack of conflict in Scrum teams is a problem

When teams work well together, you won’t find much conflict. But when you don’t see any conflict in a team, that should make you wonder whether the work is so clear, or if the team is actively avoiding conflict. In this episode, we explore the story of a team that was actively avoiding conflict, and discuss why that is a problem for the team’s progress and performance.

In this episode, we refer to The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Lencioni, and the book Crucial Conversations by Patterson et al.

Featured Book for the Week: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny

In The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma, Bola found an inspiring story about why he works, and what motivates him as a Scrum Master. In that book, Bola found many different lessons that inspire him as a Scrum Master.

About Bola Adesope

You can link with Bola Adesope on LinkedIn and connect with Bola Adesope on Twitter.

Bola Adesope: When being a super motivated Scrum Master is a problem

Many Scrum Masters will be incredibly motivated to adopt and apply Scrum when they start. We often start because we want to help teams, and want to improve how they work. This motivation can be a huge resource, but can also be a problem. In this episode, we explore what happens when our motivation takes the better of us, and makes us forget simple rules like “always get buy-in before any change”. Listen in to hear about what Bola tried, and what he changed in his approach to the Scrum Master role as a result of that experience.

About Bola Adesope

You can link with Bola Adesope on LinkedIn and connect with Bola Adesope on Twitter.