Sjoerd Nijland Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Julio de Lima: The QA perspective on the way Agile teams work

This week’s guest – Julio de Lima – is a quality and testing engineer that shares his views on Agile teams. The testing/quality perspective is critical for Scrum teams. In this episode, we talk about how test engineers can sometimes try to do everything themselves and prevent the team from taking ownership of the quality work. Julio shares his lessons learned and how he learned to help the whole team feel responsible for the quality of their work.

In this episode, we talk about Acceptance Test-Driven Development, a holistic quality approach that can involve the whole team.

About Julio de Lima

Julio is a Principal QA Engineer working for Capco that believes in the Culture of QA. He has been sharing professional insights and experiences on a daily basis and has more than 4500 students in his 4 online courses. In 2020, he was elected the Brazilian Testing reference practitioner.

You can link with Julio de Lima on LinkedIn and connect with Julio de Lima on Twitter.

Sjoerd Nijland: The PO that lives and breathes Product Vision

From estimation to Vision, the contrasting performance of PO’s that focus on those two different items in their work.

The Great Product Owner: The PO that lives and breathes Product Vision

As Sjoerd describes it, the great PO lives and breathes the Product Vision. With that Product Vision in mind, the PO is able to make decisions as the product emerges thanks to the actions by the team. In this segment, we also talk about how Roadmaps can sometimes negatively impact the team’s ability to execute and the PO’s ability to make decisions.

In this segment, we refer to the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast episodes with Maarten Dalmijn.

The Bad Product Owner: The Estimation-driven PO

PO’s that focus on estimation, are often trying to cover their own backs and managing expectations with stakeholders at the expense of the Scrum team’s work. In this segment, we also talk about how the estimation focus by PO’s is more of a “scarcity mindset” perspective that drives teams to be afraid and always lacking in time to do the right things.

For more on how to work without estimates as a Product Owner, check out the NoEstimates Book.

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 Sjoerd Nijland

Sjoerd is a founder of Serious Scrum, and creator of the Road to Mastery co-creative online training. Previously E-commerce manager at Bugaboo, and then Manager of Operations at Digital Agency Triggerfish.

You can link with Sjoerd Nijland on LinkedIn and connect with Sjoerd Nijland on Twitter.

Sjoerd Nijland: The success mindset for Scrum Masters

We start the success discussion with a poem by Kipling: “If”. We then discuss what is the real motivation Scrum Masters have to look at their success in the role. Sjoerd explains what is critical for him in that role, and the mindset that helps him when working with teams.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The SWOT Canvas

The SWOT canvas is a technique that helps teams reflect on what are the aspects they can build on (strengths), what they need to either avoid or fix (weaknesses), what are the aspects they can take advantage of (opportunities) and finally what are the dark clouds that threaten their ability to execute (threats). In this segment, we also discuss how that same canvas can be used in the context of product, organization, individual or even product increment to help the team reflect and evolve.

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About Sjoerd Nijland

You can link with Sjoerd Nijland on LinkedIn and connect with Sjoerd Nijland on Twitter.

Sjoerd Nijland: Large Scrum adoption how to

As this story starts, Sjoerd had just joined a team that was helping an organization move from Waterfall to Scrum. The team decided to start with a large training effort and applied the “training from the back of the room” ideas. This is an approach that tries to maximize the learning in a classroom training setting, but also has critical insights for the role of the Scrum Master as a facilitator.

But the transformation did not stop there, there were many other activities and approaches that Sjoerd and team used in that process. Listen in to learn the most important ones, and the critical lessons Sjoerd learned from that process.

About Sjoerd Nijland

You can link with Sjoerd Nijland on LinkedIn and connect with Sjoerd Nijland on Twitter.

Sjoerd Nijland: Removing the “bus factor” with a Scrum team

In this organization, each developer was assigned an application or component. The catch? Each of those applications was critical for the company’s business. Soon enough, this became a problem. Sjoerd shares with us how he tried to help this company eliminate their “bus factor”, and the important lessons he learned about how not to do it.

Featured Book of the Week: The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

In The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle, Sjoerd learned how important non-work related aspects are for forming a great team. The book shares what are the aspects that are associated with great teams, and highlights how culture and team-culture are critical for the success of a team.

About Sjoerd Nijland

You can link with Sjoerd Nijland on LinkedIn and connect with Sjoerd Nijland on Twitter.