management Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Chris Garvey: A Tale of Two Agile Teams, A Key Lesson on The Impact of Leadership on Team Self-organization

In this episode, Chris shares a pivotal experience managing two teams as a Scrum Master. While one team was granted time to embark on their own agile journey, the other team faced time constraints. Despite having the same coach, manager, and product owner, the teams significantly diverged. A key insight emerged when one tech lead allowed the team space for self-organization, while the other did not. This distinction played a crucial role in team performance. Chris emphasizes the importance of providing support for teams to take ownership and grow, as it doesn’t happen naturally without guidance.

Featured Book of the Week: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle

Chris delves into the profound impact of The Power Of Now By Eckhart Tolle on his Scrum Master journey, emphasizing its focus on presence and challenging thought patterns. He highlights the gift of being fully present as a coach, offering a unique perspective on trust and conditioning in our thinking processes. The book’s influence lies in its ability to open minds to diverse thinking, ultimately shaping Chris’s approach as a Scrum Master.

Transform Your Agile Teams with Hard-Earned Lessons from Super-Experienced Scrum Masters

Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches – Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM’s that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!

About Chris Garvey

Chris is passionate about people, and creating empowering spaces where people can thrive. He is a coach at heart having been a Life Coach before becoming an Agile Coach. For close to 10 years he has been working in the agile space as a Scrum Master, then Agile Coach, then trainer, and now as an Enterprise Agile Coach.

You can link with Chris Garvey on LinkedIn.

Aki Salmi: Agile Problem-Solving in Action, Helping Developers Take Ownership Of Their Decisions

In this episode with Aki Salmi, he emphasizes the importance of involving the most knowledgeable team members in design discussions. Aki recounts a pivotal moment when the Scrum Master introduced a coin toss method to answer design questions asked by the developers. This gave the developers a clear sign that they had the power to decide for themselves!

This episode highlights a scenario where the business set ambitious targets, leading to a massive estimation process. Despite initial setbacks, open communication with the business led to surpassing the 500 user story-point goal management had arbitrarily set. This story also emphasizes the need for Agile practices to extend beyond the team and serve the broader organizational objectives, or we risk failing to get value out of Agile.

The inspiring story of how a failing hospital turned things around with Agile and Lean

Recovering from failure, or difficult moments is a critical skill for Scrum Masters. Not only because of us, but also because the teams, and stakeholders we work with will also face these moments! We need inspiring stories to help them, and ourselves! The Bungsu Story, is an inspiring story by Marcus Hammarberg which shows how a Coach can help organizations recover even from the most disastrous situations! Learn how Marcus helped The Bungsu, a hospital in Indonesia, recover from near-bankruptcy, twice! Using Lean and Agile methods to rebuild an organization and a team! An inspiring story you need to know about! Buy the book on Amazon: The Bungsu Story – How Lean and Kanban Saved a Small Hospital in Indonesia. Twice. and Can Help You Reshape Work in Your Company.

About Aki Salmi

Aki is a software crafter and shares the joy of coding and the value of empathy at work. That is, Aki works on ones and zeros (code) and everything else (humans).

You can link with Aki Salmi on LinkedIn.

Harri Tunturivuori: When Suggestions Sound Like Orders, The Cost of Micro-Management in Agile Teams

In this episode, Harri recounts a challenging experience he had while working with a team that had a new manager. The manager was promoted from within the team and was a high-performing team member, but lacked good leadership skills. He couldn’t let go of the technical skills and ended up micro-managing the team.

The manager would step in and give suggestions to the team members, but it came out as an order. He even wrote the solution in the user stories, which resulted in the team disengaging because the manager was bossing them.

Some team members quit their jobs, and others became demotivated. Harri felt helpless in the situation and eventually came up with tips to deal with it, including having a conversation with the manager, preparing for the conversation, and being understanding. The team’s feedback was collected, and facts were presented to the manager on how this behavior was affecting the team.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone dealing with anti-patterns in their team dynamics.

Featured Book of the Week: Scrum Mastery by Geoff Watts

Harri’s most influential book is Scrum Mastery by Geoff Watts, who has been a past guest on the podcast. The book offers many practical tips and advice for Scrum Masters, emphasizing the importance of being a servant leader. Harri found the book funny, which made it a pleasant read. He appreciated the tips provided in the book, which can help Scrum Masters go from being good to great. Geoff Watts is a well-known author in the field of Scrum and agile software development, and his book has been highly recommended by professionals in the industry. If you are a Scrum Master looking for practical advice to improve your leadership skills, Scrum Mastery is definitely worth checking out.

Transform Your Agile Teams with Hard-Earned Lessons from Super-Experienced Scrum Masters

About Harri Tunturivuori

Harri is an experienced leader, Scrum Master, and Agile Coach who was introduced to the world of agile software development in 2010. Since then, Harri has had the pleasure of leading great agile teams in various forms.

Harri enjoys working in a fun environment where there is room for innovation, and Harri is driven by the challenge of growing a group of good people into a great team.

You can link with Harri Tunturivuori on LinkedIn.

Caterina Palmiotto: Address conflicts in your Agile Team, or else…

In this segment, Caterina Palmiotto discusses the story of a software development team that was self-destructing due to conflicts and a blame culture. When Caterina joined the team, she heard blame, resentment, and conflicts among the developers. The team struggled to resolve bugs, and one developer was causing the majority of the conflicts. Caterina tried to address the conflicts and had some success, but it took a difficult decision to remove the person causing the conflicts for the team to work better. Caterina emphasizes the importance of addressing conflicts and the impact of culture on the success of a team.

Featured Book of the Week: Legacy, by James Kerr

In this segment, Caterina Palmiotto discusses the book Legacy by James Kerr, which is a collection of leadership stories about the All Blacks rugby team from New Zealand. As a scrum master, Caterina noticed similarities in leadership between sports and software development. The book connected all the dots in her mind and emphasized the importance of a strong team culture. According to Caterina, if you focus on the team, the results will follow. The book highlights the idea that strong leadership is essential to building a strong team culture.

About Caterina Palmiotto

Caterina started as a software developer but soon realized that she was passionate about team dynamics and communication, and embraced agility from the moment she saw it.

Caterina believes a team can be more than the sum of its parts and that growing the right culture is essential. When people are surrounded by good examples they will be motivated to do their best. So the first step is doing your best to be a good example of the culture you want to nurture.

You can link with Caterina Palmiotto on LinkedIn.

Kirill Golubev: A Scrum Master’s Insights on Being a Change Agent in the Pharmaceutical Industry

In this episode, Kirill shares the story of when he was a Scrum Master in the pharmaceutical industry, and learned some important lessons about being a change agent in an organization. He highlights the importance of having the team’s support and readiness when implementing any change. Kirill also emphasizes the value of training management to showcase the benefits of Agile to them.

Kirill believes that Scrum Masters have a revolutionary role in bringing change to the workplace and that it’s essential to define a Scrum Master vision and have a mentor to understand critical things that are necessary for success in the role.

As Scrum Master we work with change continuously! Do you have your own change framework that provides the guidance, and queues you need when working with change? The Lean Change Management framework is a fully defined, lean-startup inspired change framework that can be used as the backbone of any change process! You can buy Lean Change Management the book at Amazon. Also available in French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.

About Kirill Golubev

Kirill considers himself an Agile and common-sense apologist. He wants to see simple processes in place, when people self-organize and manage themselves without constant push from management.

You can link with Kirill Golubev on LinkedIn.