co-creation Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Mukhtar Kadiri: Merging Three Companies Into One Platform — When Founders Can’t Let Go and Leaders Won’t Decide

“A lot of times, conflict arises because people don’t understand each other. The first thing you need to do is make sure they understand each other.” – Mukhtar Kadiri

Mukhtar brings us a challenge from a merger and acquisition program where a dominant software company acquired two competitors simultaneously — both solving the same market gap, each with their own platform, their own founders still in place, and their own fierce loyalties.

The mission: merge three platforms into one. But the technical challenge was the easy part. The real complexity was human — founders who’d built their companies from scratch watching their babies potentially get retired, teams losing people to low morale and uncertainty, and leadership paralyzed by the knowledge that every decision would make somebody unhappy.

Together, Mukhtar and Vasco explore a four-step approach to navigating these high-stakes disagreements:

1. First, create a feeling of time abundance — never rush a decision that requires buy-in.
2. Second, get each side to present their perspective with only clarifying questions, no judgment.
3. Third, name the disagreement explicitly — turn emotions into concrete, debatable statements.
4. And fourth, co-create an alternative solution that doesn’t come from either original position, because co-creation builds commitment.

Mukhtar adds a critical fifth element: steel-manning — having each side articulate the other’s argument as if defending it. When people feel genuinely understood, even “disagree and commit” becomes possible.

In this episode, we refer to steel-manning and the concept of disagree and commit.

Self-reflection Question: When you’re facilitating a disagreement between two strong positions, do you rush toward a decision — or do you invest the time to make sure both sides can articulate each other’s argument before you even think about next steps?

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About Mukhtar Kadiri

Mukhtar Kadiri is a PM career coach with 15+ years in project management. He specializes in helping project and program managers land $100–300K roles. He’s been named the #1 PM in Canada. He also has a LinkedIn following of 67K+ professionals. He shares practical insights for FREE on LinkedIn, where he talks about job search, career growth, and thriving as a PM.

You can link with Mukhtar Kadiri on LinkedIn.

Efe Gümüs: Why Enforcing a Framework on Your Organization Will Never Be a Real Agile Transformation

“Honor the wisdom of the group — they are more wise than any management, than any agile coach, because they are in the whole process themselves.” – Efe Gümüs

Efe brings a challenge he’s seen repeated across every company he’s worked with: transformation itself. Organizations adopt the Spotify model or launch Agile DevOps transformations expecting that applying a structure will produce results. But as Efe puts it, bringing developers and operations together does not make DevOps for you.

The real question most organizations skip is: what makes sense for our business, our products, our clients, our architecture? The transformation that works is the one you co-create with the people doing the work, not the one imposed from above. Efe points out that traditional management needs numbers and progress reports — and when transformations can’t deliver those in familiar formats, managers feel uneasy.

His approach: include managers in the transformation activities so they see the small gears of execution firsthand. When they experience the complexity directly, they stop expecting a webinar to change behavior. The key insight is the difference between telling people and people realizing it themselves — self-discovery always generates higher buy-in than directives. Set the direction, let people own the path, and build a system that functions without single-person dependencies.

Self-reflection Question: In the last transformation you were part of, was it designed as something done with the organization or to the organization — and what would you change if you could do it again?

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

About Efe Gümüs

Efe is an out-of-the-box Agile Coach and Scrum Master who brings fresh perspectives to Agile by connecting it with everyday life. He uses metaphors to reveal mindset patterns and applies continuous feedback loops beyond work, including music production and gym training, constantly refining performance, creativity, and personal growth and resilience.

You can link with Efe Gümüs on LinkedIn.

Bhavin Shukla: The Adaptable Product Owner — How Progress Over Perfection Drives Real Value in Scrum

In this episode, we refer to story mapping as a key tool for maintaining focus and alignment.

The Great Product Owner: Embedding Prioritization as a Daily Discipline

“She had this section called ‘Not Required Anymore.’ Every time, it was a very subtle and a very respectful way of saying to the team: great idea, but the goals changed. We don’t need it anymore.” – Bhavin Shukla

Bhavin describes a Product Owner who turned prioritization into a living discipline. She built a culture of co-creation where everyone contributed ideas to the backlog, but she also saw the biggest risk coming early: misalignment from siloed ideas. Her approach was to use story maps extensively in refinements and planning, communicating weekly with customers to collect feedback.

When the direction changed — and it regularly did — she articulated the shift clearly: “Goals changed, here’s what we’re doing now.” Her stroke of genius was a section on the story map called “Not Required Anymore,” where deprioritized ideas landed respectfully. Nobody felt offended; they understood customers’ needs had shifted.

This created a culture where people kept contributing ideas courageously, knowing that even if priorities changed, their input was valued. The result was a team that could adapt without chaos, maintaining focus while embracing change.

Self-reflection Question: How does your Product Owner communicate changes in direction? Is there a respectful, transparent mechanism for showing the team what’s no longer needed — and why?

The Bad Product Owner: The No-Feedback Product Owner

“I was looking for those keywords — a change in priorities, a change in the roadmap. Those conversations were missing. And when I asked about the roadmap, I got crickets.” – Bhavin Shukla

Bhavin shares the story of a Product Owner who was brilliant at articulating value in the backlog — customer-centric stories, well-structured work. On the surface, everything looked great: goals were being met, the team was delivering. But something subtle was wrong. The roadmap never changed. Priorities never shifted.

There were no conversations about customer feedback changing direction. When Bhavin got curious and asked to see the roadmap, he realized it was a static delivery plan, not a living document. The Product Owner wasn’t collecting feedback from customers, so there was never a reason to adapt.

The team was essentially building in a vacuum — shipping features nobody was validating. It’s an anti-pattern that’s easy to miss when the team is performing well on internal metrics but disconnected from real customer value.

Self-reflection Question: Is your team’s roadmap a living document that changes based on customer feedback, or has it become a static delivery plan? When was the last time a priority genuinely shifted based on what you learned from users?

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About Bhavin Shukla

Bhavin joins us from Australia. Bhavin is driven by unlocking potential and helping people thrive in ambiguity through clarity, honesty, and discipline. He believes growth comes from truthful conversations, thoughtful experimentation, and learning from failure. Guided by ownership, confidence, kindness, and purpose, he focuses on what matters most to build meaningful progress for himself and others.

You can link with Bhavin Shukla on LinkedIn.

Cristina Cranga: Coaching Product Owners From Output Obsession to Value Conversations

In this episode, we refer to the work of Esko Kilpi on conversations and episodes on Nonviolent Communication (NVC) on the podcast.

The Great Product Owner: A People Person Who Clarifies Before Deciding

“He was comfortable saying ‘I don’t know yet. What do you think?’ It was a bi-directional conversation, not just one-way.” – Cristina Cranga

The best Product Owner Cristina worked with was fundamentally a people person and a leader—human skills, not just hard skills. What made him exceptional was his approach to conversation: he started by clarifying the problem first, then decided. By doing this, he separated requests from decisions and made trade-offs explicit.

He was comfortable admitting uncertainty, asking “What do you think?” and engaging the team in co-creation rather than issuing directives. Cristina emphasizes that between the PO and Scrum Master, there’s a special bond—a strong leadership partnership that teams look to as a reference. She highlights the concept of “ask more, say less”: when you ask questions, you collect information that leads to better, more validated decisions.

The communication process, as outlined in Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, has four components: observation, feelings, needs, and requests. Great POs embody this by treating uncertainty as part of their job, engaging teams more deeply, and connecting work to value rather than just output.

Self-reflection Question: How often does your Product Owner ask “What do you think?” and what would change if they separated requests from decisions more explicitly?

The Bad Product Owner: Output Obsession and the Velocity Trap

“Success is measured by how much is delivered, not what changes. Teams get faster, but not smarter.” – Cristina Cranga

The worst Product Owner anti-pattern Cristina has witnessed is output obsession—measuring success by how much is delivered rather than what actually changes for users or the business. When velocity replaces outcomes as the primary metric, teams get faster but not smarter. Faster doesn’t equal smarter. This anti-pattern is particularly dangerous in an AI-accelerated environment where delivery speed is no longer a constraint. The challenge for practitioners is shifting this mindset. The strongest POs make different choices: they own their decisions at the team level, make decisions explicit, treat uncertainty as part of the job, and connect work to value. When POs break free from output obsession, the results are powerful: faster alignment, no decision hallucinations, more engaged teams willing to experiment, and genuine connection between work and value.

In this segment, we refer to Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.

Self-reflection Question: If you removed velocity from your team’s dashboard tomorrow, what conversations would emerge about actual value delivered?

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

About Cristina Cranga

Human, Innovation enthusiast with a curious mind always learning new things. Sometimes a dreamer and a restless soul. Her mission in life is helping People thrive. She has a background in psychology and an experience in supporting the implementation of multiple IT software projects in complex digital eco-systems with different technologies at international level. How these two worlds can shape a professional? Let’s discover it …

You can link with Cristina Cranga on LinkedIn.

Carmen Jurado: Lean Change Management, How to Design Change with Those Affected

Carmen discusses the critical mistakes organizations make when implementing change without adequate communication and employee involvement. She highlights how employees are often simply informed of new methods without any prior communication, creating resistance and disengagement. Carmen advocates for involving employees early in the change process, suggesting that representatives participate in the design phase and provide feedback on change plans. She emphasizes that Scrum Masters can grow by facilitating this involvement, encouraging co-creation of change through approaches like Lean Change Management. Carmen also shares a practical tip: involve your biggest critics in the change design, transforming them from obstacles into co-creators of the solution.

Self-reflection Question: How might you better involve team members in designing change processes rather than simply announcing changes to them?

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About Carmen Jurado

Carmen describes herself as an “agile storyteller” and has spoken at multiple agile conferences, covering topics such as psychological safety and imposter syndrome. Known for her enthusiasm and creativity, Carmen enjoys designing her own gamified retrospectives. She is an agile coach and business agility trainer, and is also active in the non-profit organization Women in Agile.

You can link with Carmen on LinkedIn.