planning Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Eliza Gregory: Unlocking Team Autonomy, and Achieving Success through Difficult Conversations

In this episode, Eliza explores success for Scrum Masters and discusses a situation where success was achieved when her team no longer relied on her. She describes an anti-pattern where teams still ask for permission as if she were their boss, indicating a lack of autonomy. Eliza shares an experience with a team that was initially closed off to change. A manager’s demoralizing comment caused the entire team to shut down. However, during a retrospective, Eliza was able to facilitate a discussion by getting one team member to open up, leading to the team collectively sharing their feelings about the manager’s comment. This retrospective proved to be a success as it allowed for an open conversation about a difficult topic with a little prompting from Eliza. The team then took the initiative to address the issue themselves. Eliza provides tips, noting that when the entire team realizes they are on the same page, they gain the courage to bring up important topics. She also highlights the significance of shared experiences within the team, as it contributes to their overall growth and effectiveness.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Letter From the Future, predicting the future in your Agile Retrospective

In this segment, Eliza introduces the concept of the “Letter From the Future” and shares her experience of implementing it for the first time. She advises that it may require explaining the concept multiple times before being able to successfully conduct it. The retrospective follows a specific format, beginning with setting up a digital whiteboard. Eliza then assigns a postcard to each developer. To engage the team, she appeals to their culture. The main activity involves writing a letter to oneself from the future. Eliza highlights that the different format of this retrospective helps the team think differently and encourages fresh perspectives.

How can I, as a Scrum Master, supercharge my facilitation?

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 Eliza Gregory

Eliza Gregory has worked as a Project Manager, Scrum Master, and Agile Coach for U.S. Defense and the German automotive industry. She uses teachings from Agile to hone her writing process, and has a new novel out this May about an IT Project Manager coping with burnout and work stress. Originally from Virginia, she now resides in Bavaria, Germany.

You can link with Eliza Gregory on LinkedIn and connect with Eliza Gregory on Twitter, and you can read about her novel Painting the Whiskey Blue.

Takunda Noha: From Paper to Practice, Addressing Accountability and Discipline Issues in Agile Projects

In this episode, Takunda shares his experience as the scrum master for a team that supported the HR department and developed an HR platform. While the team seemed successful on paper, they struggled with discipline and frequently missed their sprint goals. Takunda attributes these challenges to a lack of accountability for not delivering on promises. He recommends the book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, which helped him understand and address these issues, emphasizing the team’s avoidance of conflict and lack of focus on results. He highlights the importance of ensuring that the team feels alive and engaged.

Featured Book of the Week: The Servant Leader, How to Build a Creative Team, Develop Great Morale, and Improve Bottom-Line Performance by James Autry

In this segment, Takunda discusses his transition from being a project management professional (PMP) to a scrum master, which he describes as a significant change. He recommends the book The Servant Leader by James Autry, highlighting its impact on his understanding of the scrum master role. The book emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence in building connections and unlocking influence. Takunda shares that this book helped him develop a deeper understanding of how to effectively serve his team. In this segment, we also mention another recommended book, How to Win Friends, And Influence People by Dale Carnegie, which provides insights into building relationships and fostering positive interactions with the Scrum Master’s critical stakeholders.

Transform Your Agile Teams with Hard-Earned Lessons from Super-Experienced Scrum Masters

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 Takunda Noha

Takunda is a seasoned change agent. He specializes in turning dysfunctional teams into high performing teams.

You can link with Takunda Noha on LinkedIn.

Oguz Ozyurt: Liberating Structures and Wise Crowds, Strategies for Facilitating Effective PI Planning in Agile Teams

In this episode, Oz discusses the challenges of leading change and shares some tips for Scrum Masters to enable effective planning and team participation. Oz describes a scenario where the team was struggling to commit to the goals of the next PI and how it was discovered that the teams were not self-organizing and did not understand the “why” behind their work. The planning process was already defined before the teams came into the PI planning session, which was an anti-pattern of using agile terms but applying waterfall practices.

Oz suggests that effective facilitation is critical for Scrum Masters and advises creating a planning process that involves the team in defining the plan. Oz also recommends observing the meeting first to understand what the team is trying to accomplish and encourages enabling the team to speak up. Oz shares some links to resources that can be useful in planning and facilitating team participation, such as the wise crowds liberating structure. Additionally, Oz suggests using break out rooms to help the team talk about goals/user stories in private and to find problems in the plan using the 1-2-4-all Liberating Structure.

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 Oguz Ozyurt

Oz came from a technical background, and has worked across multiple industries, applying agile practices toward the technical and non-technical areas. He is passionate about agile, he has leveraged his passion for delivery value and agile practices by coaching, teaching, mentoring many teams to transform from traditional software development life cycle to Agile principles and practices.

You can link with Oguz Ozyurt on LinkedIn.

Gemma Murray: Small Commitments for Large Organizational Change, A Practical Approach for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches

In this episode, Gemma discussed the concept of organizational change and how to approach it in an effective and practical way. She emphasized the importance of starting with small commitments, using the example of a team struggling with capacity and carrying issues from sprint to sprint. Gemma suggested asking for a commitment from the team to try a new approach for three sprints, as the first sprint may feel clunky, the second sprint will have less cognitive load, and the third sprint will provide empirical data to assess the impact.

She also shared her approach to making changes in large organizations, by seeking a small set of volunteer teams to try out the change and give feedback. This method helps to make the change practical, removes resistance, and gives empirical data for reassessment. Overall, Gemma emphasized the importance of giving change a chance by committing to trying it for three sprints before making a final decision. This “give it 3 sprints” mantra Gemma shares with us is not only helpful when collecting data but also energizes the team and removes resistance.

About Gemma Murray

Gemma works as an Agile Coach for MOO, a branding company whose vision is to provide ‘Great design for everyone’. Having worked in various change roles using both waterfall and agile approaches throughout her career, Gemma believes in the diversity of teams to unlock innovation, creativity and delivering value.

You can link with Gemma Murray on LinkedIn.

Tinatin Tabidze: Mastering Agile as a Non-Technical Scrum Master – Insights and Tips for Success

Tinatin, a non-technical scrum master, faced challenges in her role due to unfamiliar terminology and the desire to contribute actively, and from the start. She faced a tough learning curve while implementing an authentication and authorization system for a fintech company. At the same time, her team was unable to deliver at the end of each sprint. For her own learning as well as to help the team, she helped the team create a roadmap with an emphasis on visualization. This roadmap was used by the team to communicate deliveries to stakeholders and understand project delays.

As junior scrum masters, we may face situations like this. Tinatin suggests that, at the start, technical knowledge is not necessary, but over time it is important to be adaptable and participate in technical discussions as scrum masters change from team to team, and participate in different technical domains.

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 Tinatin Tabidze

Tinatin Tabidze is a Scrum Master currently working in Stuttgart, Germany. Originally she started out as a project manager. She has experience with multiple scrum and kanban teams, working with scaled agile frameworks.

You can link with Tinatin Tabidze on LinkedIn.