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Omar McNeil: Helping Product Owners develop their relationship with the Scrum team

The availability of the PO is a critical aspect of the dynamic between team and PO. Through our work, we can help the PO establish a powerful collaboration with the team.

The Great Product Owner: Developing the team’s relationship with the PO

A great PO is available for the team to ask questions, and through that presence helps create a positive and energizing relationship with the team. Thanks to this presence, the team and the PO had a constant and quick feedback cycle established that helped them create a working collaboration.

The Bad Product Owner: Working with an absent PO

The background of what is going on with the Product Owner outside the work with our team can give us critical clues as to why they might be absent from the team’s ceremonies. In this segment, we talk about a specific type of “absent” PO, the PO that was involved in multiple projects. 

If you want to know how to help scale up the Product Owner role, check the e-course that helps you Coach Your PO, which includes a module specifically to handle this anti-pattern: bit.ly/coachyourpo.

Are you having trouble helping the team working well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at: bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.

About Omar McNeil

Omar is a Principal Agile Practitioner at Red Hat. Prior to Red Hat, Omar worked in the Federal Government space as an Agile Practitioner Consultant, Project Manager, and Scrum Master. He has a passion for helping teams create a collaborative and safe environment, participating in Agile Communities, and coaching. 

You can link with Omar McNeil on LinkedIn and connect with Omar McNeil on Twitter

Omar McNeil: When to call? When to email? Tips for Scrum Masters

Omar discusses some of the questions he asks himself to assess his work as a Scrum Master. He also shares some top tips on how to work with a distributed team, and when to use email vs. setting up a call with the people you need to collaborate with.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The “Oscars” Agile Retrospective

Omar shares the “Oscars” retrospective, a format that helps build a fun atmosphere around discussing the tough topics that the team needs to tackle. Omar also shares with us some more formats that might increase the fun and the value team members get out of the retrospective moment. In this episode, we refer to the ‘The Force Awakens’ retrospective and the ‘Fast and Furious’ retrospective.

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. Omar McNeill: When to call? When to email? Tips for Scrum Masters 

About Omar McNeil

Omar is a Principal Agile Practitioner at Red Hat. Prior to Red Hat, Omar worked in the Federal Government space as an Agile Practitioner Consultant, Project Manager, and Scrum Master. He has a passion for helping teams create a collaborative and safe environment, participating in Agile Communities, and coaching. 

You can link with Omar McNeil on LinkedIn and connect with Omar McNeil on Twitter.

Omar McNeil: Leading change across multiple Scrum teams

In this organization, the teams were getting stuck at different steps in the process. There were several processes that prevented the work from flowing. While trying to sort out these issues Omar learned some important lessons about effecting change across multiple teams.

About Omar McNeil

Omar is a Principal Agile Practitioner at Red Hat. Prior to Red Hat, Omar worked in the Federal Government space as an Agile Practitioner Consultant, Project Manager, and Scrum Master. He has a passion for helping teams create a collaborative and safe environment, participating in Agile Communities, and coaching. 

You can link with Omar McNeil on LinkedIn and connect with Omar McNeil on Twitter.

Omar McNeil: Helping Scrum teams deal with unplanned work during a Sprint

In this team, the manager had developed the habit of overcommitting the team for side projects. Seeing this pattern, Omar worked with the team to understand how to deal with these “interruptions” that were bound to come from the manager. This story helps us understand how to plan for “unplanned” work in a team.

Featured Book of the Week: The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim

In The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Omar found a description of something that was happening in his company. From that, he took lessons that helped him develop an approach to help his teams lower the work-in-process, improve flow and adopt a focus on experimentation.

How can Angela (the Agile Coach) quickly build healthy relationships with the teams she’s supposed to help? What were the steps she followed to help the Breeze App team fight off the competition? Find out how Angela helped Naomi and the team go from “behind” to being ahead of Intuition Bank, by focusing on the people! Download the first 4 chapters of the BOOK for FREE while it is in Beta!

About Omar McNeil

Omar is a Principal Agile Practitioner at Red Hat. Prior to Red Hat, Omar worked in the Federal Government space as an Agile Practitioner Consultant, Project Manager, and Scrum Master. He has a passion for helping teams create a collaborative and safe environment, participating in Agile Communities, and coaching. 

You can link with Omar McNeil on LinkedIn and connect with Omar McNeil on Twitter.

Omar McNeil: What happens when the Scrum Master does not protect the team?

Omar was working with a team that was constantly interrupted by their manager. As Scrum Masters, we need to be able to help the team overcome, and even eliminate constant interruptions. In this story, we hear what can happen when the Scrum Master isn’t ready to step in at the right time and protect the team.

In this episode, we refer to the book How To Manage Your Manager by Milo Denison.

About Omar McNeil

Omar is a Principal Agile Practitioner at Red Hat. Prior to Red Hat, Omar worked in the Federal Government space as an Agile Practitioner Consultant, Project Manager, and Scrum Master. He has a passion for helping teams create a collaborative and safe environment, participating in Agile Communities, and coaching. 

You can link with Omar McNeil on LinkedIn and connect with Omar McNeil on Twitter.

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Get These Valuable Lessons Today!
Down-to-earth, hard-earned Scrum Masters lessons and the Tips from the Trenches e-book table of contents, delivered by email
Enter e-mail to download a clickable PO Cheat Sheet
This handy Coach Your PO cheat-sheet includes questions to help you define the problem, and links to handy, easy techniques to help you coach your Product Owner
Enter e-mail to download a clickable PO Cheat Sheet
This handy Coach Your PO cheat-sheet includes questions to help you define the problem, and links to handy, easy techniques to help you coach your Product Owner
Enter e-mail to download a checklist to help your PO manage their time
This simple checklist and calendar handout, with a coaching article will help you define the minimum enagement your PO must have with the team
Enter e-mail to download a checklist to help your PO manage their time
This simple checklist and calendar handout, with a coaching article will help you define the minimum enagement your PO must have with the team
Internal Conference
Checklist
Internal Conference
Checklist
Download a detailed How-To to help measure success for your team
Motivate your team with the right metrics, and the right way to visualize and track them. Marcus presents a detailed How-To document based on his experience at The Bungsu Hospital
Download a detailed How-To to help measure success for your team
Read about Visualization and TRANSFORM The way your team works
A moving story of how work at the Bungsu Hospital was transformed by a simple tool that you can use to help your team.
Read about Visualization and TRANSFORM The way your team works