conflict management Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Matthias Kostwein: Solving conflicts as a Scrum Product Owner, what great PO’s do!

Matthias joined, as a Product Owner, a project that was in trouble. A former Product Owner had quit, the team was having trouble predicting what they could deliver. On top of that, the Scrum Master and the Tech Lead did not see eye-to-eye. In this messy situation, Matthias had to help out the team and the Scrum Master recover! Luckly, Matthias had enough experience as a Scrum Master to help mediate the conflict! Listen in to learn how Product Owners can be critical partners to the Scrum Master when things aren’t working well!

About Matthias Kostwein

Matthias is a Project Manager, turned Programmer, turned PO, turned Client Service Director with a varied background in different industries from Mechanical Engineering to IT Agencies. Throughout all of his journey, Agile has been part of his work life, even before he knew what Scrum was.

You can link with Matthias Kostwein on LinkedIn.

BONUS: Psychological safety for teams, an interview with Stephan Wiedner

Psychological Safety is a commonly discussed topic in Agile circles. We’re frequently reminded how important it is for team performance. But how do we, as Scrum Masters, help our teams achieve that state, where they are free to express their thoughts on the challenges they face as a team without the fear of being overruled, ridiculed, or chastised for having a non-standard opinion?

In this episode, we explore Psychological Safety with Stephan Wiedner, and discuss what we can do to help create an environment where each individual can excel and help the team perform.

A personal lesson learned about the critical importance of Psychological Safety

Continue reading BONUS: Psychological safety for teams, an interview with Stephan Wiedner

Franziska Moenster: The missing ingredient for a Scrum team to be able to work remote!

This is the story of a team that, even if they had a long history of working together, was faced with a new reality: remote work! During the pandemic years, many teams had to change from co-located work to remote work, and that change had big impacts on their work, and relationships. We discuss the lessons learned by Franny about teams that made that transition, and what is usually missing that leads to problems!

Featured Book of the Week: The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team by Lencioni

In The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team by Lencioni, Franny found a reminder that conflict is a necessary, and – if managed correctly – productive part of the team’s development. We discuss how everyone in the team has a different relationship with conflict, and why Scrum Masters should take that into account when observing, and intervening in team conflicts.

In this segment, we also talk about the book New Work needs Inner Work: Ein Handbuch für Unternehmen auf dem Weg zur Selbstorganisation, a German language book that helped Franny understand that the inner structures we have as Scrum Masters also need some work for us to be able to adapt ourselves to Agile.

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 Franziska Moenster

Franny (short for Franziska) loves seeing the power of building strong performing teams that build products in a customer centric way. She’s been working as a Scrum Master/Agile Coach for over 5 years. Profiting from her hands-on experience on scaling agile across teams and her joy of trying out new things she is always inspecting and adapting on an organizational level as well! On a personal note, she has recently moved to Tenerife to follow her passion of freediving.

You can link with Franziska Moenster on LinkedIn.

Juan Rodriguez: The unavoidable explosive team conflict, lessons learned for Scrum Masters

This story starts with what was supposed to be a normal, routine daily standup. However, that was not to happen. Two team members started a shouting match that left Juan confused, and surprised. Listen in to learn what happened next, and how to prepare for those, unexpected, but eventually unavoidable conflicts that Scrum Masters will face!

About Juan Rodriguez

Juan started his career as a Drafter. He then transitioned to Engineering IT support, eventually landing in software development. His first introduction to agile-like practices was in 2014, which did not go that well. A few years later, Juan was introduced to Scrum, where he now enjoys being a Scrum Master.

You can link with Juan Rodriguez on LinkedIn.

BONUS: Karin Tenelius on how Self-organization can have a major positive business impact

Karin has a long experience helping teams and businesses to use self-organization as a way to drive business success. She’s worked as an interim-CEO in several companies where she helped drive major changes and positive business results using the principles and ideas behind self-organization.

Self-organization is not only for small teams. Karin shares with us the stories of the businesses where she worked, and how some fundamental changes enabled not only self-organization but also major business changes.

Read on for the detailed insights from this episode.

Continue reading BONUS: Karin Tenelius on how Self-organization can have a major positive business impact