death march Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Ali Asl: Learning to set boundaries, a must-have skill for Scrum Masters and Agile teams

This team was stuck in a pattern where they used over-time and holidays to work on releasing their software. Ali was puzzled as to how to help the team. Over time he learned what was needed to help that team establish healthy boundaries to the demands their manager and Product Owner wanted to put on them!

About Ali Asl

Ali is an experienced and accomplished Independent Agile Coach, Trainer and Scrum Master focused on supporting organizations and teams in the application of Agile values and principles to deliver quality and value.

You can link with Ali Asl on LinkedIn.

Nousheen Manzoor: Helping an Agile team recover from de-motivation and resignation in a death march project

Nousheen started working with this team in the middle of the project. At the time, the team had one month to go live. However, Nousheen noticed that the team was demotivated, and there was a lot of blaming behavior happening in the team meetings. In this episode, we discuss how teams can sometimes push themselves beyond what’s acceptable, and forget about self-care and sustainability.

In this segment we talk about the Three Amigos meeting, a method to help teams prepare the requirements/User Stories in time, and with the right perspectives.

Featured Book of the Week: Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

The book Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer tells the story of how very experienced people can fail. The book explores the disaster that occurred in Mount Everest on 10–11 May 1996, and how good intentions, and the desire to “achieve the summit” (literally) created a complex set of factors that ultimately led great people to make some very bad decisions. It’s a book filled with lessons for Scrum Masters, even those that work with great teams!

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 Nousheen Manzoor

Nousheen believes that the future of leadership is kindness and empathy, and the same goes for any role which involves individuals and teams, like the Scrum Master role!

You can link with Nousheen Manzoor on LinkedIn.

Nousheen Manzoor: A death march project, from a Scrum Master perspective

In this project, there were several teams working on different aspects of the project: UI, Data, etc. The Project Manager pushed the different teams to “deliver”, even if that was done at the expense of quality. Nousheen, wanting to help, started to push the team as well, leaving some of the critical aspects of being a Scrum Master behind. Listen in to learn how the “push to deliver” created a negative spiral for the project, and learn some of the key lessons Nousheen got from that project.

About Nousheen Manzoor

Nousheen believes that the future of leadership is kindness and empathy, and the same goes for any role which involves individuals and teams, like the Scrum Master role!

You can link with Nousheen Manzoor on LinkedIn.