“I always try to ask the team first, what is your problem? Or what is the next step, do you think? Having their input, having my input, bundle it and share it.”
Tom defines success for Scrum Masters through three essential pillars: purpose (achieving the team’s product goals), process (effective Agile practices), and people (team maturity and collaboration). When joining new teams, he uses a structured approach combining observation with surveys to get a 360-degree view of team performance. Rather than immediately implementing his own improvement ideas, Tom prioritizes asking teams what problems they want to solve and finding common ground for a “handshake moment” on what needs to be addressed.
Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Creative Drawing of the Sprint
Tom’s favorite retrospective format involves having team members draw their subjective experience of the sprint, then asking others to interpret each other’s drawings. This creative approach brings people back to their childhood, encourages laughter and fun, and helps team members tap into each other’s experiences in ways that traditional verbal retrospectives cannot achieve. The exercise stimulates understanding between team members and often reveals important topics for improvement while building connection through shared interpretation of creative expressions.
Example activity you can use to “draw the sprint”.
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About Tom Molenaar
Tom is a team coach with a background in social psychology and behavioral influence. He is passionate about fostering collaboration, and helping teams flourish and achieve their potential. His approach blends insight, empathy, and strategy to cultivate lasting team success.
You can link with Tom Molenaar on LinkedIn.
Terry is an international Author, Speaker, Conference Host, Trainer, Facilitator, Mentor and Transformative Coach whose personal purpose is to help people see differently, so they find joy.
Pascal is an Agile & Professional Coach that wants to make a positive impact to the people working with. Coaching in Finnish, German and English language. Focus areas are human factors, outcomes, effectiveness, flow, decision making, clarity and constant improvement.
Robert has been working in IT for over 25 years, with the last decade spent deeply engaged in “messy” real-world Agile transformations. He documents his experiences in the Agile Drill Sergeant webcomic.
Eli Goodman has been working on software teams for 17 years. He’s been a full-stack developer and engineering manager at both large and small companies, including Etsy and Headspace. A few years ago, Eli transitioned to product management and is now the Head of Product at Tuple, a remote pair programming service used by companies such as Figma, Shopify, and many others in the software industry.