“We have to focus not on individual tasks, but the team goals. Shared goals.” – Pankaj Kumar
Pankaj describes a team that had all the ingredients for friction: senior people with deep experience, junior people who needed support, and a Sprint Goal that required everyone to move together. The weak signal showed up in the retrospective. The junior team members were quiet, and the seniors were implicitly treating mentoring as work that did not help them. Pankaj started with one-on-one conversations to understand what was behind the silence. Then he reframed mentoring around the team outcome.
The senior people were not being asked to “lose time” helping juniors. They were being asked to build the capability the whole team needed to deliver. He also pointed out that learning flows both ways: junior team members often bring fresh technical knowledge that experienced people have not yet seen. By pairing senior and junior people on shared tasks, the team started to build trust, empathy, and confidence.
The result was visible outside the team too. Stakeholders could see the difference in sprint reviews when the team showed up with more alignment.
In this segment, we talk about team dynamics, psychological safety, and mentoring.
Self-reflection Question: Where is your team still optimizing for individual tasks when the real need is a shared outcome?
Featured Book of the Week: Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch
Pankaj mentions a leadership book that stayed with him mos: Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch.
What connected the book to his Scrum Master work was the push against bureaucracy and the image of building a speedboat instead of a large, slow ship. For Pankaj, that linked directly to empowered teams, fast learning, and the Scrum Master responsibility to help people move from hierarchy into ownership.
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 Pankaj Kumar
Pankaj Kumar is an experienced Scrum Master and Agile Coach with over 18 years in IT. He helps teams adopt Agile ways of working, improve collaboration, remove impediments, and deliver value consistently. He facilitates Scrum ceremonies, coaches teams and stakeholders, and supports Agile transformation across organizations.
You can link with Pankaj Kumar on LinkedIn.
Havva is a people-focused organizational development expert with a Master’s in Business Administration and certification as a Scrum Master. She empowers teams and leaders through agile methodologies, modern leadership, and a strong feedback culture, fostering psychological safety and collaboration. Passionate about HR initiatives, Havva shapes people strategies, enhances employee experience, and drives inclusive, high-performing workplaces built on trust and engagement.
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? 
Anita is a neurodiversity advocate and considers herself European, not bound to one single country. Anita is passionate about Agile but is losing hope in corporate organizations and their adaptation of Scrum.
Avipaul is a seasoned Agile Coach with extensive experience helping teams and organizations implement Agile practices effectively. His expertise spans various domains, and he is passionate about fostering collaboration and continuous improvement.