mentoring Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Stephanie Cully: Leading Teams Through Agile Adoption, and Mindset Transformation

Stephanie shares a story about helping a team to move from a waterfall to an agile framework. Despite initial resistance to abandoning familiar practices, she guided the team through the change by clarifying the goals of agile processes and introducing tools like the velocity chart in JIRA to help teams understand how some of the older concepts (tracking progress) could be achieved with the Agile approach.

Her approach focused on understanding the purpose behind practices, encouraging continuous conversation, and providing direct feedback. By repeatedly explaining the benefits and purposes of Scrum practices, Stephanie helped the team grasp the value of agile methods, leading to a more effective and adaptive development process.

Want to Improve Your Change Management Results? Discover the Lean Change Management Approach Today!

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 Stephanie Cully

Stephanie Cully is a Scrum Master, and CEO of Scrum Life Consulting. Stephanie founded Scrum Life with a mission to help Scrum Masters overcome self-doubt and land the role.

You can link with Stephanie Cully on LinkedIn.

Freddie Brown Jr: From Assessment to Action, How Scrum Masters Can Start Their Engagement With A New Team

In this episode, Freddie shares a story from his role as a change agent in a team engagement. He begins with ‘CCC’ – coffee, conversation, and candidness – to understand the team’s dynamics. Following this, he conducts a thorough team and technical assessment to identify gaps. In one case, while noticing a lack of SAFe knowledge, Freddie designed a Scaled Scrum Master workshop and implemented a skill improvement plan. The process concluded with a retrospective on the training, emphasizing the importance of celebrating changes and achievements, guided by metrics.

Want to Improve Your Change Management Results? Discover the Lean Change Management Approach Today!

About Freddie Brown Jr.

Meet Freddie Brown Jr, the Agile Genie! With a magic brain that grants your corporate wishes faster than Aladdin’s lamp, he transforms chaos into strategic brilliance. He’s the genie you never knew you needed, making agile dreams come true – all with a sprinkle of humor that’s truly magical! 🪔🚀😄

You can link with Freddie Brown Jr. on LinkedIn and connect with Freddie Brown Jr. on Twitter.

Omar Perez: Learning to be a coach for Scrum teams, and Agile organizations

As Scrum Masters, we operate at different levels. From the individual, to the team, to the organizational level and others! That means, Scrum Masters must be able to switch between the different levels, and keep different goals and methods in mind. In this episode, we discuss how we can acknowledge, and prepare for the different demands put on us. We discuss coaching, non-directive coaching, journaling as a technique to sharpen our senses, and the need to have a sparring partner, or even a coach to help us be more aware and deliberate in our work.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The 6 Thinking Hats retrospective

The 6 thinking hats by De Bono, is a book that explains that we have different ways to look at work, and problems we face. The 6 thinking hats retrospective helps us take advantage of the different types of thinking that we have in the team, and focus the team on what they can influence, rather than trying to solve all kinds of problems, many of which are outside the influence of the team.

Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he’s learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!

About Omar Perez

Omar is an Agile Coach from Barcelona who currently supports distributed teams that build data products to enable their company to be genuinely data-driven. He has had many previous lives as a design thinker, market analyst, communication consultant, project manager and startup founder. He aspires to become a “peopleware” expert.

You can link with Omar Perez on LinkedIn.

Fred Deichler: The opposite of “too dogmatic” isn’t “less dogmatic” for Scrum Masters! Lessons learned in helping teams

Fred had just started his first assignment as a Scrum Master. As he joined the team, he was told that the previous Scrum Master had been too dogmatic. Fred took that as a hint, and focused on being less strict in his Scrum training/mentoring, however as he started to work with the team, things started to unravel. The team was not really working well together, and there was tension between the team and their management/leadership. This brings us to a discussion on how to set up teams, and how to help the team members take responsibility for their participation in the distribution of work by taking on “T-Shape” skill development.

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 Fred Deichler

Always leaning on the Scrum values and Agile principles (even before he knew about them), Fred has guided numerous teams through their Agile Journeys over his 20-year career in Technology leadership. Driven by a passion for continual improvement and finding a balance between people, process, and tools. And Fred knows his own journey is just as important.

You can link with Fred Deichler on LinkedIn.

Natalie Warnert explains why Scrum Masters must have partners in the organization

When we start working in a new organization we must face a new environment, new people, and must therefore start building our support network. Natalie suggests you seek out a partner in the new organization that can support your work. We also discuss why the role of leadership is so critical for the success of the team.

About Natalie Warnert

As a developer turned Agile coach, Natalie Warnert understands and embraces what it takes to build great products. Natalie focuses teams on embracing Agile values to build the right product and build the product right. Natalie is currently coaching the Cart/Checkout teams for Best Buy Dotcom and recently earned her Master of Arts degree in Organizational Leadership and Strategic Management.
You can link with Natalie Warnert on LinkedIn, connect with Natalie Warnert on Twitter, read her blog at nataliewarnert.com, and visit her project page Women in Agile.