hiring Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Yousef T. Fahoum: Scrum Master job descriptions tell you a lot about the company hiring

When applying to a Scrum Master position, you should pay attention to the job description. Does it describe the job as you see it? Yousef shares a story of a Scrum Master job that did not go as expected. The manager wanted to be in all the meetings, and asked the Scrum Master to record and share of the Retrospective sessions. This was not looking good! Listen in to learn how Yousef got out of this tricky situation.

About Yousef T. Fahoum

When starting out as a ScrumMaster and BA years ago Yousef passionately followed the ScrumMaster Podcast. Yousef is a SAFe Enterprise Coach at Elabor8 with experience implementing Agile and SAFe at some of the largest and most recognized brand leaders across industry domains in the U.S. and Australia.

You can link with Yousef T. Fahoum on LinkedIn and connect with Yousef T. Fahoum on Twitter.

Niko Kortelainen: don’t hire, instead grow Scrum Masters

Hiring good Scrum Masters is never an easy task, Niko suggests that we look elsewhere. He suggests we consider the team as the source of the future Scrum Masters. Listen while Niko explains his experience in growing Scrum Masters from the team itself.

About Niko Kortelainen

Niko Kortelainen is a Scrum Master at Digia, which among other things commercializes the cross-platform Open Source framework Qt. In his journey he discovered that the most challenging problems in software industry are not technical problems and ever since then, he has been focusing on how to make everyday work more fun.
You can link up with Niko Kortelainen on LinkedIn and connect with Niko Kortelainen on Twitter.
You can read Niko Kortelainen blog, where he wrote about his experience with adopting Scrum.

Alex Fürstenau on taking ownership of the recruitment process

It is not easy to find the right candidates for Scrum Master positions, and it becomes even harder when no other Scrum Masters are involved in the recruiting. Alex explains how he and his colleagues have changed the recruiting process to once again be able to control the recruiting process.

About Alex Fürstenau

When he was 12, his father bought him his first computer, a C64. The moment he saw characters appearing on the television was the moment when he knew he would do something with computers. Several years and a computer science study later that “dream” became true.
Alex quickly realized that the customers were not happy with our product. The first approach was to fix more of the requirements but it made things worse. During that time (around 2002) he thought “There has to be a better way” and he found several, among which was Agile.

You can link with Alex Füsternau on Linkedin, or connect with Alex Füsternau on Twitter. Alex also facilitates a regular meetup in Hamburg on the topic of Liberating Structures, for more on the meetup visit their meetup page.

Cliff Hazel asks us to not look for unicorns when hiring

It is very easy to give in to the temptation of creating a “shopping list” of skills and then look for the “perfect candidate”. To avoid this common anti-pattern Cliff creates a list of 3 (or so) things that he wants to see in a candidate, but then gets to work. He describes Spotify’s hiring and onboarding process, which will definitely give you some good ideas to put in practice today.

About Cliff Hazel

Cliff Hazel is a coach at Spotify who is trying to learn about how to build effective teams, and how we can create the conditions for them to thrive. His main interests are: Complexity and Systems, Visualisation and Information Radiators, Curiosity and Continuous Learning
You can link with Cliff Hazel on LinkedIn, connect with Cliff Hazel on Twitter and catch him in some conference near you.

Sean Dunn on the community of practice applied to recruiting

Recruiting is a key skill that organizations must develop if they are to grow in a healthy manner. Sean shares with us the story of a community of practice with the goal of improving the recruitment process and results.

About About Sean Dunn

Sean is an Enterprise Agile Coach with IHS Global. He has been involved with agile development for 8 years as a developer, product owner, and agile coach. Prior to his exposure to agile development Sean spent 13 years in the Canadian Army. In fact, Sean is known to point out that the Army is far more agile than most people think.
That background in the Canadian Army influenced his view of Leadership and the role of Leadership in creating and developing great teams.
You can connect with Sean Dunn on LinkedIn, check out Sean Dunn on the Scrum Alliance or email him at sean.dunn@ihs.com .
Check out Sean Dunn’s blog on leadership.