collaboration Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Mike Salogub: Learning to measure success as a Scrum Master, focusing on team behaviors

In this segment, we discuss how to measure the success of a scrum master. Mike mentions several questions that can help determine the effectiveness of a scrum master, including whether the team will continue to meet for sprint planning in their absence, or whether team members are actively participating and solving problems together. The goal is to assess whether the team is thriving and hitting their own ambitions even when the scrum master is not present.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Sailboat retrospective, as a conversation catalyst for Agile teams

In this segment, Mike shares his favorite retrospective format, which is the “Sailboat” format. He explains that this format involves visualizing a sailboat and discussing its different aspects, such as the wind, anchor, and rocks. This visualization helps the team reflect on their work and start conversations that they may not have had otherwise. The sailboat format also helps introverted team members share more and encourages those who tend to dominate discussions to listen more. Mike offers tips for facilitating this retrospective format, including knowing your team and finding ways to encourage everyone to participate.

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About Mike Salogub

Mike’s an accomplished, committed and creative Scrum Master with over 10+ years of expanding horizons in the healthcare technology industry. Focused on continuous improvement using data to inform business decisions, and driving innovation to meet the needs of patients.

You can link with Mike Salogub on LinkedIn and connect with Mike Salogub on Twitter.

Kirill Golubev: How the Scrum Master’s Role Contributes to Team Success

In this episode, Kirill discusses the difficulty of measuring the value of a Scrum Master and how success is ultimately tied to the success of the team. He emphasizes the importance of paying attention to retrospective preparation and capturing concerns expressed by the team. Kirill measures his own success and that of the team by the value delivered to a satisfied customer.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Making Agile Accessible and Using User-Friendly Retro Formats

In this segment, Kirill discusses the importance of using different retrospective formats depending on what the team wants to achieve and the inputs involved. He mentions examples such as the hot air balloon and sailboat retrospectives, which can visually illustrate the key principles of Agile and help the team reflect on how they implement those. Kirill emphasizes the importance of avoiding the use of hard vocabulary in retrospectives, and making sure that everyone, including those unfamiliar with Agile, can actively participate and benefit from the session.

About Kirill Golubev

Kirill considers himself an Agile and common-sense apologist. He wants to see simple processes in place, when people self-organize and manage themselves without constant push from management.

You can link with Kirill Golubev on LinkedIn.

Kirill Golubev: The Challenges with Scaling and Product Ownership for a Growing Scrum Team

In the podcast episode, Kirill Golubev shares a story of a team he was working with, which had grown larger. As they grew larger, they added a second and a third product manager. However, this led to constant fighting for priorities among the product managers. What was worse, the product managers were organized around components, rather than features, which caused even more conflicts, and delays in delivery for the team.

In this episode, we talk about the importance of having only one Product Owner working on the backlog. In that situation, the team adopted the Nexus framework to scale their approach to Scrum and created three different teams for the three different components. This was not optimal, but helped to avoid the biggest PO anti-patterns.

Finally, Kirill emphasizes the importance of building agreements between teams and Product Owners to ensure a successful outcome. Overall, Kirill’s story highlights the challenges that can arise when a team grows too large and the importance of effective communication and collaboration between Product Owners, Scrum Master, and teams.

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About Kirill Golubev

Kirill considers himself an Agile and common-sense apologist. He wants to see simple processes in place, when people self-organize and manage themselves without constant push from management.

You can link with Kirill Golubev on LinkedIn.

BONUS: The Collaboration Equation, Fostering Effective Collaboration in Agile Software Development with Jim Benson

In this episode, we explore Jim Benson’s latest book: The Collaboration Equation. Scrum Masters should read this book because it offers a systematic approach to building the right environment for Agile software development. Having been involved in Agile since 1997, Jim has seen many projects start with excitement, only to fall apart over time. His book offers an approach to avoid the Agile adoption decay, and a way to make changes stick by helping professionals learn to act with agency in an environment that supports their efforts. Jim has applied this approach in many different organizations, and shares some aspects of those stories in this episode.

According to Jim, every Scrum master and product owner is a change agent, responsible for bringing opportunities for change to humans. However, these change agents can become frustrated when others don’t see the clarity that Agile methodologies are supposed to bring. This is where his book comes in, helping change agents to identify the right environment for their organization by considering factors such as how work flows and what culture they want to create. By providing this systematic approach to Agile software development, Jim’s book offers a valuable resource to anyone involved in the process of change within an organization.

Discovering Agile: A Story of Continuous Improvement and Paying Attention to End-Users

Continue reading BONUS: The Collaboration Equation, Fostering Effective Collaboration in Agile Software Development with Jim Benson

Alina Thapliyal: Key Traits of an Exceptional Product Owner in Agile Teams

The Great Product Owner: Key Traits of an Exceptional Product Owner in Agile Teams

A great product owner, according to Alina, is someone who is knowledgeable and confident about the product they are overseeing. They build trust within the team by being respectful and involving everyone in decision-making processes. The ability to move the team forward is an important characteristic of a great PO. In order to support a PO, Alina suggests having open communication and avoiding assumptions. A great PO opens the door for discussion and finding ways to help the team succeed.

The Bad Product Owner: Overcoming Challenges with a Bossy Product Owner

In this segment, Alina describes a conversation with a scrum team about their Product Owner. The team agreed that their product owner was very bossy, dictating decisions and pushing the team. This kind of behavior from a product owner can create conflict, as the team is not involved in decision making and the product owner is not considering the needs of the team.

The relationship between the product owner and the team, as well as the relationship between the product owner and the scrum master, is critical to the success of a project. Alina offered tips on how to address this issue, such as talking with the product owner to understand their role and finding ways to support them in finding their potential. She also recommended resources such as the Product Owner Summit and the book “Scrum Product Ownership” by Bob Galen to help better understand the leadership roles of both the product owner and 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 Alina Thapliyal

Alina is the Scrum Master for a team within the public sector. Her aspiration is to become an agile coach. She grew up in Romania and has been living in Germany for 13 years. She loves jogging, reading and actively listening to people’s life stories.

You can link with Alina Thapliyal on LinkedIn.