Omar Perez Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Omar Perez: Acing the Product Owner role even without Agile or Scrum background!

The Great Product Owner: Technical background is not necessary to be a great Product Owner!

This PO had never been exposed to Agile, however this person wanted the product to be successful, and understood that software development was a team’s sport! This PO, even without software development background was able to be open-minded enough to learn what was necessary, to collaborate with the team, and was open to getting help from the Scrum Master!

The Bad Product Owner: Helping PO’s that didn’t want to be PO’s in the first place

Sometimes, we work with PO’s that did not want to be given that responsibility. When the PO is forced to take that role and work with the team, the conditions are rife for problems. There might be many reasons for this, including that PO is the next “logical” step for a technical person’s career. In this segment, we talk about how Scrum Masters can help do “damage control” and help the team and the PO work together.

Are you having trouble helping the team work 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 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.

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

You can link with Omar Perez on LinkedIn.

Omar Perez: Learning what we can change, and working to implement it within the Scrum team

When working as a change agent, or change leader, we must be able to focus on what we have influence on. It’s no use trying to focus on the things we don’t, or can’t influence. In this episode, we talk about a big change that Omar was able to bring to a team that did not work with users. He explains how he introduced the idea, trained, prepared and helped the team being the user voice to their work.

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 Omar Perez

You can link with Omar Perez on LinkedIn.

Omar Perez: Escaping death-march projects in Agile teams, a breakthrough!

Omar was working with a team that had been assigned a project with a fixed schedule, fixed scope, and a fixed price! The team was struggling with the assignment, and the mood was somber. There was little motivation, and conflict was everywhere… until there was a breakthrough that helped the team overcome all the anti-patterns! Listen in to learn how to escape the death-march that fixed projects can become!

Featured Book of the Week: Audiobook Beyond The Phoenix Project by Kim and Willis

In the Audiobook Beyond The Phoenix Project by Kim and Willis, Omar found a book that helps clarify and describe the foundations on which devOps and Agile stand. As Omar describes it: these are the Newtonian Physics of our work with teams and software organizations. In this episode, we also refer to Out Of the Crisis by Deming, and Deming’s work in general.

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 Omar Perez

You can link with Omar Perez on LinkedIn.

Omar Perez: Peopleware, the most important ingredient in Agile software development

Omar was working with a team that had been working with a remote team, in another office, and country. Over the time those teams worked together there were some problems in communication and collaboration. Because the collaboration between the teams had been difficult, Omar thought it best to organize a retrospective. And then things got even worse! Listen in to learn what caused the problems, and what Omar did when the retrospective failed!

In this episode, we refer to Peopleware by DeMarco and Lister, a very important book for Scrum Masters.

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 Omar Perez

You can link with Omar Perez on LinkedIn.