large scale scrum Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Thorben Pantring: The Team That Learned How To Collaborate, and Avoid the “It’s Not My Job” Anti-Pattern

In a revealing episode, Thorben shares lessons from a team in trouble. The team members worked in isolation, often saying “It’s not my job” and addressing each other by their roles, not by their names. Thorben tried 2 experiments to help the team: a Work in Progress limit of 1 to foster collaboration and a workshop on the “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” Model (inspired by the book by Lencioni) highlighting the need for commitment and accountability. Emphasizing a shared sprint goal, Thorben recommends assessing progress collectively. Eventually, a cultural shift occurred—team members adopted the motto “it’s our job,” fostering collaboration and breaking down role-based barriers.

Featured Book of the Week: “Large Scale Scrum” by Bas Vodde and Craig Larman

Thorben recommends “Large Scale Scrum” by Bas Vodde and Craig Larman as key book for Scrum Masters. Highlighting its practicality, he emphasizes its value in expanding Scrum beyond a single team. The book guides not just development but also incorporates management involvement for successful large-scale Scrum implementation. Thorben praises its emphasis on customer-centric development, making it an essential read for those striving to make agile magic happen.

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About Thorben Pantring

Thorben is an experienced Scrum Master & Team Lead in the eCommerce space, showcasing expertise in leadership, LeSS, Scrum, team management, and engineering. With an insatiable desire for learning and a relentless pursuit of progress, Thorben embodies a fervent passion for leadership, agility, and technology.

You can link with Thorben Pantring on LinkedIn.

Leland Newson: Skills Matrix, a tool to visualize the skill siloes in your Scrum team

In a new team, Leland noticed that the skill silo (everyone sticking only to their skill specialty) was affecting the team’s ability to deliver. The team was working as if they were doing several sequential waterfalls instead of acting like a unit. Every time one team member was absent, the team couldn’t make enough progress to deliver.

In this episode, we talk about how to remove the skill silo, and avoid the mini-waterfalls anti-pattern.

In this episode, we also mention the Skills Matrix as a tool to visualize the skill silo.

Featured Book of the Week: The Lean Software Agile Development Toolkit by Poppendieck

In The Lean Software Agile Development Toolkit by Poppendieck, Leland found a new perspective on what it means to improve an organization. This eye-opening book is a regular read for Leland, and reminds him of the importance of looking at the flow of work (Flow Efficiency), rather than trying to optimize activities that may ultimately be wasteful.

About Leland Newson

Leland is a SAFe Release Train Engineer and servant leader who is passionate about helping improve the work environment and helping teams uncover better ways to development software. He focuses on collaboration, shortening feedback loops, improving the flow of work through the system and increasing the team’s adaptability so they can quickly respond to changes and satisfy customers through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

You can link with Leland Newson on LinkedIn and connect with Leland Newson on Twitter.

Ronny Deicke: What happens when we leave a Scrum team behind?

When working with a team, Ronny noticed that the team was making progress. He was satisfied with the progress, and when asked to move to help another team he readily accepted. However, there was a bad surprise about to happen. Listen in to learn about what happened to those teams and what was the lesson that Ronny learned from this experience.

Featured Book of the Week: Start with Why by Simon Sinek

In Start with Why by Simon Sinek, Ronny found an insightful explanation of why we should help discover their purpose or reason to deliver on those User Stories. When reading the book, Ronny also understood how to ask the questions that lead to the team and the stakeholders discovering the answer to the “why?” question.

About Ronny Deicke

Ronny is a Scrum Master and Agile coach with a developer and team lead background. Currently working as a part-time Scrum Master and in the rest of the time giving (agile) workshops, supporting people as a coach and Agile Coach. Video game enthusiast and Indie developer on the side.

You can link with Ronny Deicke on LinkedIn and connect with Ronny Deicke on Twitter.

Pieter Verbaarschott: What happens when Scrum teams work harder, but lose their improvement focus

When teams are pressured or pushed to work harder, or longer hours, the easy solution is to just say yes, and carry with it. However, the role of Scrum Masters is to help teams understand and prevent those cases when the “work harder” mantra is disconnected from the goals of the company. In this episode, we discuss one such example, where the team was not able to say “no” to the PO, and was, therefore, pushed to do more, and more work and forgetting to focus on improving as a team.

Featured Book of the Week: Leading Teams by Richard Hackman

In Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances by Richard Hackman, Pieter found the results of a long research process that lead to defining some of the conditions and patterns that exist in successful teams. One such aspect was the definition of goals for the team. We explore what that means in practice and how to apply it as a Scrum Master.

About Pieter Verbaarschott

Pieter is a hands-on generalist with a background in software development. A passion for helping teams work together better. Agile aficionado since his first endeavors in Extreme Programming. Happened to be among Agile Manifesto authors when the discussion was hot. And he refuses to work the traditional way.

You can link with Pieter Verbaarschott on LinkedIn and connect with Pieter Verbaarschott on Twitter.

Rachel Macasek: Detecting toxic cultural anti-patterns in Agile organizations

That there are projects where teams feel under pressure is no news. In fact, stress-related to pressure is a very common problem in software teams. However, sometimes the situation goes too far and turns into a toxic culture. In this episode, we explore what are the signs that the normal “pressure” teams feel is turning into a much more impactful and negative set of patterns.

Featured Book of the Week: Co-Active Coaching by Henry Kimsey-House et al.

As Rachel grew in the coaching role, she felt frustrated by the reactive mindset she saw in leadership. That led her to explore other approaches to help executives understand and benefit from Agile Values and principles.

In Co-Active Coaching: Changing Business, Transforming Lives, Rachel found a good guide to help her focus her work on helping the individual team members and executives she worked with.

About Rachel Macasek

Rachel is passionate about individual and team growth. She has fostered an environment of collaboration and continuous improvement in the manufacturing, biotech, and software industries. Currently, Rachel is focused on the power of an individual and recently acquired her Leadership and Performance Coaching certification.

You can link with Rachel Macasek on LinkedIn and connect with Rachel Macasek on Twitter.