deming Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Rayyan Karim: The importance of team design and backlog structure in an Agile adoption process

In this episode, Rayyan discusses their experience working with IBM at a Brazilian bank. The teams were facing serious problems with delivery, despite having agreed on a strategy. Rayyan discovered that the root of the problem was organizational design. Although the program consisted of 300 people, the teams were organized functionally, which was hindering their success. Rayyan emphasizes the importance of considering the team’s design, the backlog design, and clear measurements of success when implementing Agile. They also stress the importance of addressing beliefs and providing an alternative identity for those who may not be sold on the ideas of agility.

Featured Book for the Week: “System of Profound Knowledge” on Deming’s work

In this segment, Rayyan recommends the resource “System of Profound Knowledge” about Deming’s work to help in understanding the true intent and start of agility. The article explores adaptive systems and helps readers understand the change that is happening in the workplace, as well as what a system is and how leaders think. The article also explains the concept of “tamper.”

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

Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches – Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM’s that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!

About Rayyan Karim

Rayyan is and Agile Coach & Trainer and the founder of Design Your Future with presence in the UK and the UAE. Rayyan is known for supporting leading executives of FTSE100 and NASDAQ corporations to create transformational results quickly.

You can link with Rayyan Karim on LinkedIn and connect with Rayyan Karim on Twitter.

Daniel Westermayr: The Group Mentality vs. Creating Real Agile Product Teams

In this episode, Daniel discusses the overuse of the word “team” and the importance of true teams in product development. He highlights the need for preconditions for a team, and notes that sometimes teams don’t even have a shared goal. Daniel also warns against the “it’s done, just needs to be tested” anti-pattern and explains how it can lead to problems with team collaboration. We discuss the use of Causal Loop Diagram to find hypotheses, and mention a talk by Jeff Patton on the client-vendor anti-pattern. Finally, Daniel emphasizes the need to remove the notion that one party needs to own the game in the client-vendor relationship.

Featured Book of the Week: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

In this segment, Daniel Westermayr discusses the importance of data-driven decision making in product development. He references the book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, which highlights the biases and faulty intuitions that can arise in decision making. Daniel emphasizes the need to use data to inform decisions and cites the book “Out of the Crisis” by W. Edwards Deming as an important resource. He also provides a link to a talk by Russell Ackoff about Deming’s approach.

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

About Daniel Westermayr

Daniel is a Kanban Trainer with a knack for all things Lean and Theory of Constraints. He wants to help teams achieve and measure their continuous improvements.

You can link with Daniel Westermayr on LinkedIn.

Omar Perez: Escaping death-march projects in Agile teams, a breakthrough!

Omar was working with a team that had been assigned a project with a fixed schedule, fixed scope, and a fixed price! The team was struggling with the assignment, and the mood was somber. There was little motivation, and conflict was everywhere… until there was a breakthrough that helped the team overcome all the anti-patterns! Listen in to learn how to escape the death-march that fixed projects can become!

Featured Book of the Week: Audiobook Beyond The Phoenix Project by Kim and Willis

In the Audiobook Beyond The Phoenix Project by Kim and Willis, Omar found a book that helps clarify and describe the foundations on which devOps and Agile stand. As Omar describes it: these are the Newtonian Physics of our work with teams and software organizations. In this episode, we also refer to Out Of the Crisis by Deming, and Deming’s work in general.

About Omar Perez

Omar is an Agile Coach from Barcelona who currently supports distributed teams that build data products to enable their company to be genuinely data-driven. He has had many previous lives as a design thinker, market analyst, communication consultant, project manager and startup founder. He aspires to become a “peopleware” expert.

You can link with Omar Perez on LinkedIn.

BONUS: Learning what makes a great place to work with Woody Zuill and Yves Hanoulle

The idea for this episode started with a conversation with Yves and Woody when recording one chapter for the Tips from the Trenches Audiobook (check out the audiobook). In this episode, we talk about, and try to define what makes a great place to work, or as Woody calls them: wonderful places to work!

Woody starts by describing two different workplaces, one that was “wonderful”, and one that was not. We explore what the differences were between those two places, and what we can learn from those stories as Scrum Masters.

As Scrum Masters, our role is to help our teams, and our organizations move towards a better place to work, therefore these lessons are critical for us to act on.

In this segment, we refer to MobProgramming, an approach to teamwork that Woody has been talking and writing about for some years; and Cynefin, a model that tries to describe the differences between different levels of complexity, and defines certain strategies for managing different types of work.

“Turn up the good” a heuristic to build great places to work

Continue reading BONUS: Learning what makes a great place to work with Woody Zuill and Yves Hanoulle

Ebenezer Ikonne warns us that helping the team is not enough

The team is the center point of the Scrum Master’s attention. But this is not enough for us to be successful as Scrum Masters. We must focus on the system the team is part of. In this episode we cover how to view the team within that system and how to help the team, and beyond.
We discuss the PDCA cycle which was popularized by Deming, and discuss the role of management within a system.

About Ebenezer Ikonne

Technology enthusiast. Change artist. Culture hacker. People focused. Helping organizations provide their employees with the most meaningful and fulfilling experience they could have while delivering solutions that change the world. Ebenezer is also a Tech Director at Mannheim.
You can link with Ebenezer Ikonne on LinkedIn, and contact Ebenezer Ikonne on Twitter. You can also read his thoughts on Agile on his blog.