Jakub Jurkiewicz Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Jakub Jurkiewicz: How PO’s can help Scrum teams better understand the users

From a user-centric PO, to the PO that could not make decisions. We talk about the Product Owner interaction with the team, and how certain approaches can destroy the team’s ability to deliver value.

The Great Product Owner: How PO’s can help teams better understand the users

The team was so focused on developing the technology that they forgot to listen to the users’ needs. Luckily the PO was on top of the situation and was able to help the team understand where they were failing to consider the user needs. The PO was focused on serving the stakeholders and users, and through that was able to bring the team along. In this segment, we also talk about the importance of defining clear and concise Sprint Goals.

The Bad Product Owner: How to engage and create alignment with stakeholders

Jakub wants to help PO’smake decisions and to engage the stakeholders. For that, he developed an approach based on a game where both PO and stakeholders participate, which helps build a common understanding of value, risks, and opportunities.

Listen in to learn about the game, and how it helps create stakeholder alignement.

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 Jakub Jurkiewicz

Jakub is a kaizen practice lead who participated in his first standup in 2005 and facilitated his first retrospective in 2007. Previously a software developer, team leader, Scrum Master and Agile consultant, Jakub is also, a podcaster and trainer at Agile Coaching Lab. Loves wine, bicycles and his wife (in the reverse order).

You can link with Jakub Jurkiewicz on LinkedIn and connect with Jakub Jurkiewicz on Twitter.

Jakub Jurkiewicz: How to nudge a Scrum team towards self-organization, an Agile retrospective format

Jakub’s focus as a Scrum Master is to help teams be effective. However, “effective” is not necessarily easy to define. So Jakub helps his teams work on their own definition of effective, so that they reflect on, and start working towards being effective.

In this episode, we refer to the Scrum Guide, where the Scrum framework is defined.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Nudging a team towards self-organization

In this segment, we talk about the importance of tailoring the retrospective format to the needs of the team. Jakub describes how this simple format around a discussion about topics the team already wanted to discuss, created the energy and motivation for the team to start their journey to self-organization.

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About Jakub Jurkiewicz

You can link with Jakub Jurkiewicz on LinkedIn and connect with Jakub Jurkiewicz on Twitter.

Jakub Jurkiewicz: Working with culture change, a practical guide for Scrum Masters

Jakub was working in an organization that needed a culture change. At first, the difficulty was how to address the topic. Culture is a fuzzy enough idea that even talking about it isn’t easy. Jakub and the team at that organization decided to setup a conversation about emotions. Using a card-facilitation technique they helped the teams co-create the Vision for where they wanted the culture of that organization to go.

Jakub shares the aspects they focused on to be able to define, and later change the culture of that organization.

About Jakub Jurkiewicz

You can link with Jakub Jurkiewicz on LinkedIn and connect with Jakub Jurkiewicz on Twitter.

Jakub Jurkiewicz: How to help a Scrum team to handle conflict, without a blow-up

This team had a conflict that no one wanted to address. The team behaved as if they just hoped things would go back to normal. It was wishful thinking, though. Things got so bad, that the team members started to fake agreement, just to avoid facing the conflict. Jakub wasn’t happy with the situation, and started working on how to resolve that conflict, and learned key lessons on how to prepare to handle the conflict.

Featured Book of the Week: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey

In the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Jakub discovered a guide on how he could live his life to the full potential. In the book, which he still re-reads, he finds something new every time he picks it up. It’s a book that reminds him of what an Agile life could look like.

About Jakub Jurkiewicz

You can link with Jakub Jurkiewicz on LinkedIn and connect with Jakub Jurkiewicz on Twitter.

Jakub Jurkiewicz: When Scrum becomes the outcome, the Scrum Master has failed

As Jakub took on the challenging role of being a Scrum Master for 7 teams, he started facing the problems that come with over-committing (as a Scrum Master). The typical running around just to be present at the teams’ meetings started to take its toll. Jakub did not know how to handle that many teams, and that led to a reflection and learning that stayed with him forever: he had turned Scrum into the outcome that he was pushing teams towards, instead of the tool that helps them succeed.

About Jakub Jurkiewicz

You can link with Jakub Jurkiewicz on LinkedIn and connect with Jakub Jurkiewicz on Twitter.