Shaun Bradshaw Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Shaun Bradshaw: Two Scrum Product Owner anti-patterns to look out for!

The Great Product Owner: Enthusiastic Product Owners, and how they behave when working with Scrum teams

Great Product Owners are enthusiastic about what they do, they have a clear Vision, but are able to stay curious and listen to the team, stakeholders, and customers. In this segment, we look at some of the behaviors that Product Owners like this have when interacting with the team and the Scrum master.

The Bad Product Owner: Two Anti-Patterns to look out for!

In this segment, we explore two Product Owner anti-patterns that illustrate how the PO role is not only critical, but can be actively destructive for a Scrum team. The first story features a Product Owner that preferred to focus on the hardware side of the product, and through their command-and-control personality tried to bully the Scrum Master into submission!

The second story is about the Product Owner that was absent, a very frequent anti-pattern for the PO role.

In this segment, we refer to our Coach Your Product Owner e-course, which helps you tackle some of these anti-patterns proactively in your role as a Scrum Master!

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 Shaun Bradshaw

Shaun is a founder and principal of Zenergy Technologies, a modern software delivery solutions firm that specializes in Agile, DevOps, Quality, and Automation. Shaun’s background in QA, testing, and metrics has played an important role in his work as an Agile consultant since he joined the community in 2008.

You can link with Shaun Bradshaw on LinkedIn and connect with Shaun Bradshaw on Twitter. You can also follow Shaun Bradshaw’s blog at the Zenergy Technologies site.

Shaun Bradshaw: Exploring emotions in our Scrum teams with the Mad/Sad/Glad Agile Retrospective format

When looking out for his own success in working with a Scrum team, Shaun pays special attention to how team members speak with each other, and the stance they take regarding collaboration as a team. In this segment, we also explore what we can do when our teams are remote, and the observations that we need to make are no longer that easy because team members are not right there, in front of us.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Exploring emotions with the Mad/Sad/Glad format

Emotions are very powerful influencers in a team. If we can’t talk about them, we miss what might be the key influencer in some patterns we notice in teams and between teams and stakeholders. Shaun invites us to explore emotions with the Mad/Sad/Glad retrospective format.

In this segment, we refer to the Core Protocols (of which Mad/Sad/Glad is part), which has been a topic in our podcast before.

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About Shaun Bradshaw

You can link with Shaun Bradshaw on LinkedIn and connect with Shaun Bradshaw on Twitter. You can also follow Shaun Bradshaw’s blog at the Zenergy Technologies site.

Shaun Bradshaw: How to recover from a “VP swooping” anti-pattern in a Scrum team

As Shaun started to work with this team, he observed that a particular, frequent pattern was disturbing the team’s ability to deliver their work: a VP would “swoop in” and distract the team, by directing them to an “urgent” request. As he investigated further, he learned that the anti-pattern had been there for a while. So the question was: what can be done differently to help the team move on from that anti-pattern?

Listen in to learn how to tackle this specific interruption anti-pattern that affects many teams!

About Shaun Bradshaw

You can link with Shaun Bradshaw on LinkedIn and connect with Shaun Bradshaw on Twitter. You can also follow Shaun Bradshaw’s blog at the Zenergy Technologies site.

Shaun Bradshaw: The technique that quickly moves a Scrum team from mini-waterfall, to true Scrum

Shaun was working with a team that was consistently failing to meet their Sprint commitments. At first glance, the team was doing everything right, the Product Owner was present and supportive. After a few failed attempts, Shaun decided to “visualize” how the team worked, by asking them to plan out a Sprint on the board. Through this technique, Shaun finally realized that the team was working as if they used Waterfall, even if they were just planning the Sprint. That insight changed the team, and changed Shaun’s approach to coaching that team! Listen in to learn how!

Featured Book of the Week: Predictably irrational by Dan Ariely

In Predictably irrational by Dan Ariely, Shaun found an explanation for some of the confusing observations he had made as a Scrum Master. It helped him understand that, even if some behaviors appear irrational, they can be predictable once we have the right models in mind.

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 Shaun Bradshaw

You can link with Shaun Bradshaw on LinkedIn and connect with Shaun Bradshaw on Twitter. You can also follow Shaun Bradshaw’s blog at the Zenergy Technologies site.

Shaun Bradshaw: When the Scrum Master finds that Agile and Scrum are different things, and what that means in practice

Many have, at some point, thought that the framework they used was “the Agile”. Particularly, with Scrum, many still use Scrum as a synonym to Agile. However, when we start to deepen our knowledge we learn that there are different ways to put in practice the Agile Values and Agile Principles. In this story, we explore the story where shaun finally realized that Scrum and Agile are different in critical aspects, and how that changed his stance as a Scrum Master.

About Shaun Bradshaw

You can link with Shaun Bradshaw on LinkedIn and connect with Shaun Bradshaw on Twitter. You can also follow Shaun Bradshaw’s blog at the Zenergy Technologies site.