distributed Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Sofi Simonyan: From Silos to Synergy: Building Remote Relationships With Distributed Agile Teams

Sofi assumed connecting with her remote team would be easy since she had prior experience in a distributed team environment. However, as she was starting a new job in a new country during the pandemic, Sofi quickly learned it wasn’t that simple. She faced unexpected challenges, like team silos and surprising escalations during retrospectives. Sofi realized she needed to invest more in personal connections and understanding cultural backgrounds. Her journey underscores the importance of building relationships and fostering team collaboration, especially in remote settings.

The inspiring story of how a failing hospital turned things around with Agile and Lean

Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story – How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.

About Sofi Simonyan

Sofi is a Scrum Master with 6 years of experience in tech startups and a diverse work background. Passionate about people, her mission is to build teams where active listening and growth mindset are essential values. Currently on maternity leave, Sofi practices agility in a completely different dimension.

You can link with Sofi Simonyan on LinkedIn and connect with Sofi Simonyan on Twitter.

Kevin Hoey: Fostering Agile Team Collaboration in Remote Settings

Kevin describes a team struggling with collaboration, where members worked in isolation and did not work towards a sprint goal. This led to over-the-wall work handoffs and blame in the team. Kevin emphasizes the importance of having cameras on during remote meetings to foster team connection. He shares that effective scrum masters unlock team productivity by focusing on people first, ensuring everyone is aligned and engaged in their work.

Featured Book of the Week: Drive by Dan Pink

Kevin shares that his greatest influence isn’t a book, but the Agile podcasts such as this one and others. As a new scrum master, it was the insights from experienced professionals that shaped his journey. However, he recommends “Drive” by Dan Pink, which emphasizes intrinsic motivation through mastery, purpose, and autonomy. Kevin’s company has long embraced autonomy, helping him reflect on his role in fostering these qualities within his teams. He highlights the importance of enabling autonomy, purpose, and mastery to drive motivation and success in the teams we work with.

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 Kevin Hoey

Kevin is the lead scrum master at Domestic and General, with 10 years’ experience in project management before moving into scrum mastery. He now heads up a team of scrum masters, whilst continuing to support his own squads. Kevin believes scrum masters need to focus on self-improvement to turbocharge their ability to better support teams and the wider business on the journey to effectiveness.

You can link with Kevin Hoey on LinkedIn.

Takunda Noha: From Ego to Collaboration, Embracing Scrum and Overcoming Resistance

In this episode, Takunda shares his journey from being a project assistant to becoming an assistant project manager in an Agile transformation process. He discusses how a coach introduced scrum to his organization, challenging the traditional ways of working. Takunda emphasizes the importance of managing ego and addressing failure openly. He recounts joining a new team just before the COVID-19 pandemic and discovering that team members were scattered throughout the building. He tried to bring them together physically but faced resistance. The team seemed uncomfortable during stand-up meetings and quickly returned to their previous locations. Takunda advises talking to line managers to explain the situation and meeting the team where they are. He also shares the challenges of justifying his decisions and negotiating with managers. It is essential to understand what aspects might upset others to avoid unnecessary conflicts.

The inspiring story of how a failing hospital turned things around with Agile and Lean

About Takunda Noha

Takunda is a seasoned change agent. He specializes in turning dysfunctional teams into high performing teams.

You can link with Takunda Noha on LinkedIn.

Paula Dunne: Adapting Scrum to the new world remote work, an Agile learning journey

When Paula joined this team, she noticed the team was not sharing the good (or bad) things that were happening. We discuss how teams in the new “remote world” become passive and do not follow-up on their agreements, and let things drop because the other person is not there, present by their side. In this segment, we talk about how important it is to work on the relationships between team members as well as between team members and stakeholders, especially in this remote work world!

Featured Book of the Week: The Art of Being Brilliant by Cope and Whittaker

In The Art of Being Brilliant: Transform Your Life by Doing What Works For You by Cope and Whittaker, is a book that helped Paula orient her career and learn about positive psychology which helped her feel and help others feel more confident in themselves. In this segment, we refer to Woody Zuill, a previous guest on the podcast and his mantra “turn up the good”.

About Paula Dunne

Paula is an Agile Coach with experience in large organization Agile adoption as well as in coaching product owners.

You can link with Paula Dunne on LinkedIn.

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.