Priyanka Gorai Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Priyanka Gorai: The PO that burned out, and created a big problem for themselves and the team

The Great Product Owner: Available and part of the team, the key aspects of a great PO

This particular PO helped Priyanka learn her role as a Scrum Master. But that wasn’t all. This PO knew and understood well the business and product they owned. They would quickly answer the team’s questions and make themselves available to the team. The PO also knew, and was able to put time aside to listen to the team’s ideas and was always prepared with a Plan B in case some idea was not possible. Finally, the PO felt they were part of the team, and were there to enable the team to succeed!

The Bad Product Owner: The PO that burned out, and created a big problem for themselves and the team

This PO was not only a Product Owner, but they also played the Scrum Master role in the team. It was easy to see that the PO was overloaded, but in this case the PO also was involved in “everything else”. Over time, the PO burned out and the team suffered. This taught an important lesson to Priyanka: we must help the PO’s understand their role, and when to step back. The wrong expectations can create huge problems for the team and the PO themselves!

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 Priyanka Gorai

Priyanka started her journey as a Software Test Engineer in 2014 and has more than 7 years in the software industry. Priyanka was thrilled by the concept of servant leadership in agile software development, and started supporting her team and then became a full-time Scrum Master. She is very passionate about agile development and wants to share that passion with others. She’s also learned that while improving individuals or a team, one can improve themselves.

You can link with Priyanka Gorai on LinkedIn.

Priyanka Gorai: Motivating new teams with the Superpowers retrospective format

The definition of success can change based on the context of the team, however there are certain questions that Priyanka likes to ask for every team she works with. Priyanka shares those questions with us, as well as some self-assessment questions for Scrum Masters to help them fine tune their approach to the team they work with.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Superpowers retrospective format

Priyanka prefers to experiment with multiple retrospective formats. This helps her maintain the team’s energy high in every retrospective. However, when starting with a new team, she prefers to use the Superpowers format, where the team can talk about the “enemies” (challenges) as well as share what each team member can contribute to the team to overcome the challenges they expect to face.

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About Priyanka Gorai

You can link with Priyanka Gorai on LinkedIn.

Priyanka Gorai: Creating a support community for Scrum Masters as a change leadership action!

This is a story of how the Scrum Masters in an organization came together to learn and practice coaching with each other. The community of practice they created helped the Agile adoption change progress in that company, but also supported the Scrum Masters in learning and improving their craft.

In this episode, we refer to the GROW and OSCAR coaching models, as well as Liberating Structures.

About Priyanka Gorai

You can link with Priyanka Gorai on LinkedIn.

Priyanka Gorai: Helping a Scrum team get unstuck, and stop complaining

Priyanka joined a small team that already felt they were following Scrum. However, as she started to understand better what was going on, she noticed the team followed the motions, but did not understand what Scrum was all about. To add to the challenge, the team did not have a good experience with the previous Scrum Master. They were not happy, and showed it with regular complaining. Listen in to learn how Priyanka solved the situation by working with the team.

Featured Book of the Week: Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time, by Sutherland et al.

In Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time, by Sutherland et al. Priyanka found many examples of the challenges that Scrum Masters can expect to face, and how Scrum helps them solve those challenges.

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 Priyanka Gorai

You can link with Priyanka Gorai on LinkedIn.

Priyanka Gorai: Surviving and thriving in a Scrum team that doesn’t want a Scrum Master

Priyanka joined a team where not all were happy to receive a new Scrum Master. As she started to interact with the team, she noticed that some of the team members would contradict her regularly. She had to overcome this resistance to her presence in a constructive way, and that’s what we explore in this episode.

In this episode, we refer to the GROW and OSCAR coaching models.

About Priyanka Gorai

You can link with Priyanka Gorai on LinkedIn.