Jacy Ong Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Jacy Ong: Challenge the team, and accept the team’s challenges to be a better Scrum Product Owner

How the team acts when the PO is present is a great hint about the PO’s ability to work in Scrum. We talk about two different stances, one that makes the team feel safe, and the other that uses fear instead.

The Great Product Owner: Challenge the team, and accept the team’s challenges to be a better PO

This Product Owner was the classic persona of a great PO, they understood the product, why it existed, and what value it brought to the customers. Furthermore, this PO was available to the team, and responsive to their needs and requests. Perhaps even more important, this PO knew how to give feedback, but help the team feel safe in those moments. In the end the dynamic created between team and PO, helped both challenge each other to be even better.

The Bad Product Owner: The absent and fearful PO

When the PO is absent, things are never easy. When, on top of that, the PO scares the team into submission, the conditions are set for a disaster. In this segment, we talk about how to work with PO’s so that they understand their contribution to the team, and help the teams engage productively with the PO.

In this segment, we refer to a tool that helps Scrum Masters and PO’s talk about being available and cooperating within the schedule restrictions that invariably hit PO’s: The Prodcut Owner Sprint Checklist.

Are you having trouble helping the team working well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at: bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.

About Jacy Ong

Jacy is a big anime fan! And she has found a strong connection between sports anime and her work as a scrum master. As she puts it: “nothing feels more rewarding than to watch your teams grow and achieve goals they never thought they could possibly achieve. :)”

You can link with Jacy Ong on LinkedIn.

Jacy Ong: Defining Scrum team agreements with the Sailboat Retrospective format

“As a team you level up together”, and “the work of a Scrum Master is never finished”, are some of the critical realizations that Jacy shares with us on this episode. We discuss the signs that the team is “leveling up”, and explore how we might know that the teams start to be self-suficient.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Sailboat Retrospective

The Sailboat Retrospective is a popular format for the guests of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast. However, Jacy’s take on that format is different from previous guests. She talks about the role of that retrospective format in helping teams define working norms, and in surfacing “lurking feelings” within the team. Finally, she talks about how the Sailboat format can help in dealing with teams that are new.

Use the Sailboat retrospective to boost the production of new improvement ideas by using the “rocks” that the sailboat has to navigate around.

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About Jacy Ong

You can link with Jacy Ong on LinkedIn.

Jacy Ong: How to help non-software teams adopt Scrum

In this episode, we talk about a legal team that was adopting Scrum. Adopting Scrum in non-software teams can be a challenge, and we talk about the challenges that Jacy faced when working this team. We share some of the most important lessons about understanding the different situation those teams are in, and learning to adapt to their needs, instead of pushing the software perspective on them.

About Jacy Ong

You can link with Jacy Ong on LinkedIn.

Jacy Ong: Dealing with deadline-pressure in Scrum teams

A team member told Jacy: “we pushed to production without testing”. That was only one of the anti-patterns that developed in the team because of deadline pressure, but there are more! In this episode, we explore the deadline-pressure anti-patterns, and we share some tips on how to help teams that are under the schedule “gun”.

Featured Book for the Week: Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins

Jacy heard about Coaching Agile teams by Lyssa Adkins from a colleague, and while reading it, she learned a lot of important lessons about coaching, and being a coach. And from those lessons, one of the most important for Scrum Masters: believe in the team you are working with.

About Jacy Ong

You can link with Jacy Ong on LinkedIn.

Jacy Ong: As a Scrum Master, be helpful, not compliant

When we get started in our Scrum Master journey it is easy to try and comply with other people’s expectations, and end up betraying the original ideas for the Scrum Master role. In this story, Jacy describes one such moment. We walk through the problems that come from trying to please, instead of trying to help and share some tips for Scrum Masters facing pressure to comply and ignore some of the basic Scrum rules.

About Jacy Ong

You can link with Jacy Ong on LinkedIn.