Kaisa Martiskainen: Product Owner collaboration, and the importance of building relationships in Scrum

In this episode of the podcast, Kaisa shares her experience as a rotating scrum master at the start of her journey. She was eager to be a good scrum master and saw every problem as an impediment she had to remove, which led her to act as a messenger between the Product Owner and the team. Also because the team was not comfortable with the Product Owner’s communication style. Kaisa provides some tips for handling such situations, such as pausing and asking questions instead of immediately rescuing the team, and asking who is in the best position to solve the issue when the team asks for help. She emphasizes that in many cases, the scrum master is not the best person to solve the issues the team is facing.

Kaisa also suggests building a relationship between the team and the Product Owner, such as by organizing a happy hour. She highlights the anti-pattern of communicating only asynchronously and recommends the use of synchronous communication methods to build better relationships within the team.

The inspiring story of how a failing hospital turned things around with Agile and Lean

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 Kaisa Martiskainen

Kaisa is an Agile coach working for a large multinational software company. Originally from Finland, her thirst for learning new things and passion for languages led her to live in Sweden, and Scotland before settling in Montreal, Canada. She is an avid Redditor who spends her free time reading, knitting, investing and playing with her two daughters.

You can link with Kaisa Martiskainen on LinkedIn.

Matthias Seul tells us that relationships is the KPI for Scrum Masters

What are the KPI’ for us as Scrum Masters? Matthias mentions several KPI’s he looks at to evaluate his work as a Scrum Master. One stands out: Relationships. How do you measure relationships and their quality? That’s what we discuss today.

About Matthias Seul

Matthias worked 10+ years as software developer and gravitated towards coaching in recent years. He is a tech enthusiast, board gamer, inventor and wild duck. Matthias believes in intrinsic motivation – thus he believes in Agile. He says that “together we can make projects a more fulfilling and successful work environment for all involved”.
You can link up with Matthias Seul on LinkedIn, and reach Matthias Seul on twitter.

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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
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This simple checklist and calendar handout, with a coaching article will help you define the minimum enagement your PO must have with the team
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This simple checklist and calendar handout, with a coaching article will help you define the minimum enagement your PO must have with the team
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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
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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