management 3.0 Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Mirco Gerling: When the Scrum Guide Isn’t the Rulebook — A Scrum Master’s First Conflict with Management

“I had to learn that the organization didn’t know the Scrum Guide well.” – Mirco Gerling

In his first Scrum Master role — running hybrid as both developer and Scrum Master — Mirco walked in believing the Scrum Guide was the rulebook everyone played by. The team thought so too: they were self-managing now, so they would decide. Management hadn’t read the same memo.

When Mirco called time on a meeting, a manager said “It’s my decision when the meeting is over.” When Mirco asked the team if they were happy in a retrospective, the manager saw the flip chart afterward — and from that day on, Mirco started destroying anything from retrospectives that could attract attention.

The conflict wasn’t about Scrum.

It was about who gets to decide what. Without an explicit conversation about the limits of self-management, the team and management each assumed authority the other thought was theirs. Mirco eventually found Management 3.0’s Delegation Poker — a tool that makes those invisible boundaries visible and gives teams and managers a structured way to negotiate them. The lesson: raise the topic with management before the conflict, not after.

Self-reflection Question: Where in your team’s work are the limits of self-management still unspoken — and what would change if you put them on the table this week?

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About Mirco Gerling

Mirco is an experienced Scrum Master in the public sector. With a strong IT background, he has spent 25 years developing software and driving agile transformations. Passionate about innovation and teamwork, Mirco brings expertise and dedication to every project.

You can link with Mirco Gerling on LinkedIn.

BONUS: AI-Driven Agile, Speeding Up Feedback Cycles for Better Product Iteration, And More AI Transformations with Jurgen Appelo

In this BONUS episode, leadership expert and entrepreneur Jurgen Appelo joins us to dive into the transformative power of AI in today’s workplaces. Creator of the unFIX model and author of Management 3.0, Jurgen shares his insights on how AI is revolutionizing team collaboration, creativity, and innovation. This engaging conversation covers practical examples, personal stories, and thought-provoking ideas for anyone interested in leveraging AI to thrive in their career and business.

AI and the Future of Collaboration

“AI gives me more time to focus on the things I really enjoy.”

Jurgen kicks off by discussing the major changes AI is bringing to how teams collaborate and get work done. He highlights how AI tools like ChatGPT are enhancing feedback loops in product development, allowing teams to gain insights faster and more efficiently. Jurgen shares how he’s used AI to improve his own writing, helping his editor focus more on storytelling rather than grammar corrections. For teams, AI is already making client interactions smoother and boosting productivity.

“AI gives teams more time to focus on creativity and innovation by automating repetitive tasks and improving workflow efficiency.”

AI as an Assistant or Creative Partner?

Continue reading BONUS: AI-Driven Agile, Speeding Up Feedback Cycles for Better Product Iteration, And More AI Transformations with Jurgen Appelo

BONUS Episode: Luca Minudel on the coaching role of Scrum Masters

Luca, who’s coached at the fast paced environment of the Ferrari F1 team surely knows what “speed” and “time-to-market” mean in the extreme cases. However, independently of all of that pressure Luca has been able to develop his coaching approach without focusing on pushing, forcing or manipulating people to do “the right thing”. How did he do that? We discuss his career and his learnings in this special episode about coaching.

Luca, just like all of us, tried to help people that did not want help, but that only led to his frustration as a professional and very little results. So he embarked on a journey to become a more effective coach. One of the key lessons Luca shares is about the commitment that is expected from the coach, as well as the team or individuals in the team.

Establish commitment and check often

As coaches, we need to ensure that we have the commitment of the people involved or risk failure and frustration. Luca shares his approach for how we can reach a mutual commitment with the people we work with in a way that supports their goals as well as the role we play as coaches and Scrum Masters.

Beyond the agreement between coach and team, we also need to learn to become better Scrum Masters. Luca shares his insights and the actions he took to learn to become a better Scrum Master and coach over his career. One simple tip he shares is: learn to facilitate key ceremonies in the process. The better you are at facilitating the ceremonies, the better the results will be with the team.

The information we need to learn our craft

On top of the work we must do to learn the facilitation role, we must strive to learn and improve ourselves at all times. For that we share in this episode several sources of knowledge and tools that can help us understand better organizations and people we work with. In short, if we are not improving on a regular basis, we are regressing in our knowledge.

Some of the knowledge areas we discuss in this episode are:

Radical Management by Steven Denning
Cynefin, the complexity framework
Management 3.0, a series of tools and a model for modern management.

The challenges we must be aware of in an Agile adoption

As change agents, we face many challenges, and Luca shares the most common ones he has faced in his career. From the negotiated agreement on the role of the Scrum Master or coach (e.g using the GROW model as a basis for those conversations) to the support network we need to establish to support our work and the continued adoption (e.g. using the communities of practice pattern).

Do we need a Scrum Master when the team is working well?

The final question we tackle is: when is our job done? Luca shares a pattern from his previous employer (ThoughtWorks) that covers aspects that support the team in their efforts, but is not a Scrum Master role. We discuss the “Iteration Manager” role and what that might mean for Scrum Masters that want to continue to work with a team that has reached a certain maturity level.

About Luca Minudel

Luca Minudel is a Lean-Agile Coach & Trainer with 14 years of experience in Lean/Agile and 20+ in professional software delivery. He is passionate about agility, lean, complexity science, and collaboration.

He contributed to the adoption of lean and agile practices at Ferrari’s F1 racing team. For ThoughtWorks he has delivered training, coaching, assessments and organisational transformations in top-tier organisations in Europe and the United States. He worked as Head of Agility in 4Finance and he is working as coach for a top bank in Canary Wharf.

Luca is founder and CEO at SmHarter.com, a company that helps organisations turn their way of working into their competitive advantage.

You can link with Luca Mindel on LinkedIn and connect with Luca Mindel on Twitter.

Amitai Schlair on the 3 levels of depth of learning

We all make mistakes at some point. Making mistakes is part of the learning process. However, the learning only starts with the mistake. In order for the learning to happen, we must go through a process. Amity shares with us the process he went through in this case, and we discuss why that process is so important.

In this Episode we play one of Amitai’s Agile in 3 Minutes podcast episodes. Today’s episode of Agile in 3 Minutes episode #23, titled “Vary”.

About Amitai Schlair

Amitai is a Software development coach, and legacy code wrestler, non-award-winning musician, award-winning bad poet, and creator of Agile in 3 Minutes, which is a great podcast about what Agile really is about. A must listen for anyone interested in Agile Software Development.
You can link with Amitai Schlair on LinkedIn and connect with Amitai Schlair on Twitter.

Daniel Hommel talks about building trust in the team

Building trust in the team is a key challenge for all Scrum Masters. We have many tools we can use to build that trust and Daniel suggest some concrete tools.
Start by reviewing The 5 Dysfunctions of a team by Lencioni, then try other exercises like the Moving Motivators, Personal Maps or other Management 3.0 Workout.

About Daniel Hommel

Daniel is a ScrumMaster and Agile Coach with a strong background in Software Engineering. His first touch point with Agility was starting to use the Extreme Programming practices in 2007. After some years of working more on the technical side in recent years his interest has shifted to facilitation, coaching, guiding continuous improvement and working with people in general. You can connect with Daniel Hommel on Twitter.