Simon Flossmann Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

BONUS: The Nexus Framework For Scaling Up Scrum with Simon Flossmann

The Nexus Framework has been a topic on the podcast before. In this episode, we explore critical lessons for Scrum Masters that need to work with multiple teams and large organizations with the help of the Nexus Framework.

To know more about Nexus and how it can help your organization, visit Simon’s Nexus course.

Organizing A Multi-Team Retrospective: A Key Scaling Tool

One of the aspects that gets shortchanged in the “scaling” frameworks and approaches is the aspect of learning as a whole organization. It is not enough that each individual team learns how to improve. We also need to help the wider organization learn, and for that, we need to be able to organize multi-team retrospectives.

Simon introduces the idea of the “sandwich retrospective”, and highlights that we must ensure that there is a product level and an organizational level learning loop.

In this segment, we refer to the Nexus Framework Guide and the concept of Double-Loop Learning.

Facilitating Multi-Team Planning Efforts: The Key Steps

Knowing how to help a single team is not enough when it comes to helping a set of teams succeed with planning the next increment. The “Nexus” (a group of teams working on a product) planning requires different tools to help eliminate and account for possible dependencies. One of the tips Simon shares is that of ensuring that refinement is done together with multiple teams and before a big room planning event, where multiple teams come together to plan their product increment.

In this segment, we talk about what works when helping multiple teams plan and sprint together, and how to facilitate the refinement when multiple teams are involved.

Focusing on Product Development, not Organizational Development

Every scaling framework has a different focus. In this episode, we talk about what is the reason behind Nexus’ approach to scaling Agile and differentiate Nexus from other frameworks that may focus on organizational changes, while Nexus focuses on the Product Development aspects, not on the organization.

About Simon Flossmann

Simon helps teams effectively use Scrum and an agile mindset to deliver products and services that matter! As a Scrum Master and Professional Scrum Trainer, licensed by Scrum.org, he supports teams and organizations of varying sizes in a wide range of business domains, like automotive, home appliance, energy sector, federal government agency, and insurance.

You can link with Simon Flossmann on LinkedIn and connect with Simon Flossmann on Twitter.

You can follow Simon Flossmann’s writings on this home page.

Simon Flossmann: The Proxy PO that worked for a team of Product Owners

In this episode, we talk about collaboration with customers, and how that can help the team and PO to work well together. And we discuss what happens when the PO is only a proxy to multiple other PO’s.

The Great Product Owner: The Great Collaborator

Great Product Owners are able to collaborate closely with the stakeholders and customers. In this segment, we talk about the PO that was able to communicate with the customers in a way that helped him bring insights and knowl3edgte to the team so that the team could understand better the problems the customers were facing, and come up with innovative solutions.

The Bad Product Owner: The Proxy PO that worked for a team of Product Owners

When the PO is nothing but a proxy for another decision-maker, the team will suffer. In this segment, we talk about a PO proxy that had several big obstacles in their way: there were multiple PO’s to work with (a team of PO’s), and on top of that a “chief PO”. How can a PO succeed when they are unable to make decisions? How can the Scrum Master help that PO? Listen in to learn about Simon’s approach in that situation.

Are you having trouble helping the team working 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 Simon Flossmann

You can link with Simon Flossmann on LinkedIn and connect with Simon Flossmann on Twitter.

You can follow Simon Flossmann’s writings on this home page.

Simon Flossmann: Defining success from Scrum Masters with the customer in mind

Many of our guests start by defining their success in relation to the work they do with the team. Simon takes a different approach. In this episode, we talk about the success aspects for Scrum Masters that are not linked only to the work with the team, but focus more on the value delivered to the end customers.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Simplifying the Retrospective format

Sometimes, the topics to discuss are so clear that the format can get in the way. For those times, Simon describes his approach based on a simple format that focuses on the conversation and enables self-organization at the team level.

Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches – Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM’s that have decades of experiences: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!

About Simon Flossmann

You can link with Simon Flossmann on LinkedIn and connect with Simon Flossmann on Twitter.

You can follow Simon Flossmann’s writings on this home page.

Simon Flossmann: Scaling Scrum while adopting it, a cautionary tale

When Simon started in this department, the order was simple: make the department adopt and practice Scrum. In that process, Simon learned some critical lessons about the difference between introducing Scrum to a team, or a group of teams. In the process, he learned about how critical clear goals can ben when adopting Agile and Scrum.

About Simon Flossmann

You can link with Simon Flossmann on LinkedIn and connect with Simon Flossmann on Twitter.

You can follow Simon Flossmann’s writings on this home page.

Simon Flossmann: Teams, the secret sauce of Scrum

Sometimes, the quickest way to get a product out the door is to create a team of contractors and focus on building a product quickly. Or is it? In this episode, we talk about the consequences that can come from building a team of contractors, focusing mostly on speed, but forgetting that a team is much more than a group of individuals. And teams, are really the secret sauce of Scrum

Featured Book of the Week: Scrum: A Pocket Guide by Gunther Verheyen

In Scrum: A Pocket Guide by Gunther Verheyen (who’s been a guest on the podcast), Simon found a good guide for his journey to improve and professionalize his role as a Scrum Master. In this segment, we also talk about Lean Startup by Eric Ries, a book that helped Simon improve his focus on empiricism as a tool to help teams.

About Simon Flossmann

You can link with Simon Flossmann on LinkedIn and connect with Simon Flossmann on Twitter.

You can follow Simon Flossmann’s writings on this home page.