Miguel Santos Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Miguel Santos: Anti-pattern of repeating the same approach with every new team

If something worked in the past, it must work with new teams in the future. Or must it? In this episode we explore how the system around the team significantly affect what works in practice. The same daily meeting format may have worked in some teams before, but how is this new team’s context affecting the format of the daily meeting? As Scrum Masters we must be aware of the team culture, the management culture, the technical tools and other critical system conditions. Only then can we know what might work, and what will not work in that team’s context.

About Miguel Santos

Miguel is a Brazilian living in Germany and currently Scrum Master for two teams at NewStore. He believes that there is no single methodology (agile or not) to lead projects and teams to success. Because of that, he would like Scrum Masters to be less biased when working with their teams.

You can link with Miguel Santos on LinkedIn and connect with Miguel Santos on Twitter.

Miguel Santos uses metrics to define and reach success as a Scrum Master

Miguel shares with us his approach to define and reach a successful outcome of his work. We explore the role of metrics in defining what we should focus on and improve. After all, without data to backup your ideas, you are just another person with an opinion.

Featured Retrospective format for the week: Start-Stop-Continue

When looking at what to improve, what to amplify in our teams, the start-stop-continue retrospective format helps the team identify not only what they want to change or improve, but also those things that are working well. When we find what is working well, we can then amplify that. Select items from the Continue section of the retrospective and ask: how can we benefit even more from this technique?

About Miguel Santos

You can link with Miguel Santos on LinkedIn and connect with Miguel Santos on Twitter.

Miguel Santos: Change management in the small

Agile at scale is all the rage, but is that what we should be focus on? Miguel shares a story of how change management is hard even in the small things that need to improve. As Scrum Masters we need to learn to deal with change in the small, with the team, only then are we ready to take it further and apply what we learn to larger problems and eventually to larger organizations. Just like in software development, let’s ask the question: what’s the smallest change that could work to get us towards our goal?

About Miguel Santos

You can link with Miguel Santos on LinkedIn and connect with Miguel Santos on Twitter.

Miguel Santos on how to help teams tackle their problems head-on

When teams face problems they have a choice: avoid, or confront. Which of these patterns does your team adopt when faced with problems? This can make the difference for the teams that want to grow and improve. In this episode we review the story, and the consequences that teams face when they can’t face the problems they are going through.

In this episode we discuss the Retrospectives’ Prime Directive, a rule we can follow to ensure that Retrospectives stay focused on improvements, rather than blame.

Featured book of the week: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

This is a book that we’ve covered often here on the podcast. So often that we even included it in a bundle offer we had for our listeners: 4 books every Scrum Master should read! In this book Patrick Lencioni walks us through a process of building a team that is not able to collaborate, where trust isn’t present. The goal: a functioning high-performance team.

About Miguel Santos

You can link with Miguel Santos on LinkedIn and connect with Miguel Santos on Twitter.

Miguel Santos: in Agile there’s NO one-size-fits-all solution

There are plenty of available frameworks, processes, models and other “processed” Agile packages. So many that the distracted Scrum Master can be forgiven for thinking that one of those will work for his team. Unfortunately that’s not the case. Listen to this episode, where Miguel explains how he came to the realization that Agile adoption is just the start of the Agile journey, and what you can do about it as a Scrum Master.

About Miguel Santos

You can link with Miguel Santos on LinkedIn and connect with Miguel Santos on Twitter.