Samet Ulutas Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Samet Ulutas: The many anti-patterns that develop when people are forced to take on the PO role

The Great Product Owner: Developing great networks with stakeholders

Great Product Owners know their product backlog back and forth, and develop great networks within the organization that help solve the critical problems, and answer questions for themselves and the teams they work with. This particular PO also made a point of being available for the team when the teams needed them, and met regularly with stakeholders 1-on-1.

In this segment, we talk about User Story Mapping, and Impact Mapping.

The Bad Product Owner: The many anti-patterns that develop when people are forced to take on the PO role

This Product Owner did not want to take on that role, they were forced to take it, and acted mostly like a Backlog secretary. By stepping back due to other responsibilities, this PO left the team to their own devices, and was mostly absent when the team needed them.

And this was just the start, listen in to learn about the many anti-patterns that develop when people are forced to take on the PO role.

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 Samet Ulutas

Samet has been working as an Agile Coach for more than 3 years and coached 35+ different teams until now. Samet has plenty of experience dealing with difficulties of an Agile Transformation, including being to witness the Agile Transformation of the largest private bank in Turkey from the beginning. Samet is also the co-owner of “Be Agile Stay Agile” YouTube channel.

You can link with Samet Ulutas on LinkedIn and connect with Samet Ulutas on Twitter.

Samet Ulutas: Check-in, a critical aspect for successful retrospectives

There are 3 factors that Samet reviews regularly to assess his own work as a Scrum Master. We discuss those 3 factors, as well as some of the questions to take into account for a possible survey that documents the progress of the team over time.

Featured Retrospective Format For The Week: Helping teams warm up to the retrospective

Samet shares Retromat.Org, a tool that helps Scrum Masters come up with new formats for every retrospective. When preparing for the retrospective, Samet puts special focus on the warm-up/check-in part, to help teams get ready to discuss the really important topics. Samet shares with us some tips on how to help teams get ready for the retrospective with some warm-up/check-in exercises.

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About Samet Ulutas

You can link with Samet Ulutas on LinkedIn and connect with Samet Ulutas on Twitter.

Samet Ulutas: How to start an Agile transformation without having to “push” teams

The organization was going through an Agile transformation, when Samet joined the Agile Coaching office in that organization. As the Agile Coaching office developed they were tasked with helping the teams adopt Agile, but that would require more than just “coaching”. Together with the rest of the team, Samet developed an “Agile Mirror” that would help the teams assess their own performance and progress. Listen in to learn how they deployed that Agile assessment to help the team, and the organization adopt Agile.

About Samet Ulutas

You can link with Samet Ulutas on LinkedIn and connect with Samet Ulutas on Twitter.

Samet Ulutas: Helping a team willingly adopt Agile, even when they start by saying “no”!

Samet was working with a team that was new to Agile. This team had been successful in the past, so they did not see any need to change, or move to a new process. As Samet tried to organize the Scrum ceremonies for the team, he was met with their absence. The team did not participate. Through this experience, Samet learned that trying to push Agile on a team that is not ready is not a good idea, but there are certain activities that are helpful even for teams that are not yet ready for Agile. Listen in to learn how Samet turned this situation around.

Featured Book of the Week: Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great by Larsen and Derby

In Agile Retrospectives by Diana Larsen and Esther Derby, Samet learned about the retrospective standard format, and started believing that retrospectives could have a great impact on the team’s performance over time. This is a book that Samet now recommends to all Agile leaders, not only Scrum Masters.

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 Samet Ulutas

You can link with Samet Ulutas on LinkedIn and connect with Samet Ulutas on Twitter.

Samet Ulutas: How Scrum Masters can help Agile teams develop ownership of their process

In our eagerness to help, often we try to come up with solutions for the teams. When we do so, we amplify an anti-pattern of disengagement and lack of ownership. In this episode, we explore that anti-pattern, and discuss how Scrum Masters can avoid, or get out of that behavior, so that we may help the teams grow and take ownership of their process!

About Samet Ulutas

You can link with Samet Ulutas on LinkedIn and connect with Samet Ulutas on Twitter.