organizational culture Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Mike Salogub: How to help a team go from waterfall to Scrum in 3 sprints, the challenges to expect

In this episode, Mike talks about his experience with change leadership when his team transitioned from waterfall to Agile. The transition happened overnight, and Mike had to learn a new role quickly. After attending Scrum workshops, the team began working on their first sprint, but developers were eager to work on future projects and underestimated the amount of work to be done in the current sprint. This led to a pile-up of work and failure to meet sprint goals in the second sprint.

However, by the third sprint, team members started to understand the benefits of Agile, and by the fifth sprint, they were delivering more than expected. Mike shared three tips for successful change leadership: involve the boss in meetings, regularly remind team members of the mission, and have a leader who is committed to making the project a success. In this case, Mike’s boss acted as a Release Train Engineer (RTE), helping to steer the team towards success.

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 Mike Salogub

Mike’s an accomplished, committed and creative Scrum Master with over 10+ years of expanding horizons in the healthcare technology industry. Focused on continuous improvement using data to inform business decisions, and driving innovation to meet the needs of patients.

You can link with Mike Salogub on LinkedIn and connect with Mike Salogub on Twitter.

Caterina Palmiotto: Lessons from an Agile Transformation in a Manufacturing Company

In this episode, Caterina discusses a large-scale Agile transformation she was involved in at a manufacturing company. The transformation was initiated after a successful pilot with a few software development teams. The company adopted a top-down approach, hiring many Agile coaches and implementing a model that combined the Spotify Model and a big-bang change. Despite its success, the transformation was risky due to its size, and Caterina suggests starting the Agile adoption with a single Value Stream and measuring the impact on the business. In this case, the company’s culture was also key in integrating the many different backgrounds and expectations from the different regional offices.

The success factors Caterina identified were: team coaching, focus on effective communication, and constant respect for each other.

About Caterina Palmiotto

Caterina started as a software developer but soon realized that she was passionate about team dynamics and communication, and embraced agility from the moment she saw it.

Caterina believes a team can be more than the sum of its parts and that growing the right culture is essential. When people are surrounded by good examples they will be motivated to do their best. So the first step is doing your best to be a good example of the culture you want to nurture.

You can link with Caterina Palmiotto on LinkedIn.

Caterina Palmiotto: A Scrum Master anti-pattern, introducing Agile in a “bubble”

In this episode, Caterina shares her experience as a Scrum Master in the IT department of a big company. Caterina and her colleague were responsible for two teams developing an in-house software, but no one in the company knew about Scrum. Despite initial difficulties and blaming, after 18 months, Caterina and her colleague were able to create an “agile bubble” where the teams and product owners were able to work together. They protected the teams from negative aspects happening elsewhere in the company.

However, after Caterina left the company, the agile environment fell apart since the decision-makers in the company were not aware of the agile methodology. Caterina realized that she failed to spread agile practices elsewhere in the company and suggested inviting more people into sprint reviews and demos, organizing open sessions, and creating curiosity in other departments. In this episode, Caterina emphasizes the importance of finding allies to continue agile practices even after leaving the company.

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 Caterina Palmiotto

Caterina started as a software developer but soon realized that she was passionate about team dynamics and communication, and embraced agility from the moment she saw it.

You can link with Caterina Palmiotto on LinkedIn.

Jon Eversett explains how the way you define work, defines team culture

Team culture is affected by the organizational culture, as well as individual culture. It is therefore important for us, as Scrum Masters to realize that the way we allow work to be defined will directly affect the culture of the team. Jon explains how the deep gap between skills makes agile adoption harder, and affects how the team tackles the work they need to deliver.

About Jon Eversett

Former Business Analyst, Product Owner wannabe, currently a Scrum Master. Jon works with teams with different maturity levels and some relatively new Product Owners. You can find Jon Eversett on LinkedIn, or interact with Jon Eversett on Twitter. You can read Jon Eversett’s blog to find out more about his ideas on the role of the scrum master and all things agile.