Steve Jaccaud Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Steve Jaccaud: The PO who threw the team under the bus

In this episode, we discuss a particularly negative side of some PO’s approach, and how to help them get out of that negative spiral.

The Great Product Owner: Working on all sides of the PO role

When it comes to a great Product Owner, Steve shares the story of a PO that worked all the angles of the PO job and understood that PO’s are not only Backlog managers, but there are a lot more sides to that role which will, in the end, help the team and the product succeed.

The Bad Product Owner: The PO who threw the team under the bus

The company had a great product, that helped the company succeed in the market. To try and make it even better, the company hired one of their most vocal customers to drive the product forward. This customer became the PO, but the change they hoped for wasn’t going to happen. This PO would throw the team under the bus at Sprint Reviews. This was when Steve decided to intervene, but very quickly he found out that the best way to work with this PO was to meet him where he was and connect on a personal level. Listen in to learn how Steve helped this PO change his approach, without forcing any change.

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 Steve Jaccaud

Steve is an Enterprise Agile Coach, Volunteer, Speaker, and Musician in Boston, Massachusetts. When he’s not leading workshops with creative software organizations, he’s probably working on an album or deep in meditation!

You can link with Steve Jaccaud on LinkedIn and connect with Steve Jaccaud on Twitter.

Steve Jaccaud: The signs of a great Scrum team

When a great Scrum Master works with a team, you don’t see the Scrum Master, you see the team succeeding and moving beyond their previously usual level of performance. In this segment, we discuss a few signs that we can use – as Scrum Masters – to assess if the team is starting the journey from good to a great Scrum team!

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The 4 L’s, I Long for, I Learned, I Liked, I Lacked

Steve tries to focus his work and his retrospectives on the aspects of continuous improvement. Because of that, he tries to find formats that don’t get in the way of the conversations that he wants to foster in the team. In this segment, we also discuss a tip to help teams be creative but keep the retrospective to the right topics without long rabbit-hole discussions.

About Steve Jaccaud

You can link with Steve Jaccaud on LinkedIn and connect with Steve Jaccaud on Twitter.

Steve Jaccaud: How to be Agile, even when adopting SAFe

In this episode, we explore a story that many of us have faced. When someone in the organization gets interested in one of the many scaling frameworks for Agile, and their focus shifts away from the work, and into the framework itself. We discuss possible anti-patterns that emerge when adopting SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), and what Scrum Masters in the organization can to together to help move the teams, and the leadership to a more Agile approach to their scaling efforts.

About Steve Jaccaud

You can link with Steve Jaccaud on LinkedIn and connect with Steve Jaccaud on Twitter.

Steve Jaccaud: Critical warnings Scrum Masters should look out for when joining a new organization

Steve was hired to help the teams go “faster”. However, when he started to see the Product Owners throw their teams under the bus at Sprint Demos he understood that something else was going on. It wasn’t only about helping teams be faster anymore. As he started to dig deeper, he found a culture of fear in the organization and many other anti-patterns that he shares with us. A great story, with lots of warnings for us to keep an eye out for.

Featured Book of the Week: The #NoEstimates Book by Vasco Duarte

In The #NoEstimates Book by Vasco Duarte, Steve found a book that helped him understand what empirical process control is about, and put some things in place on how he approaches teams and their process.

In this segment, we also refer to The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, Drive!, Coaching Agile Teams, Agile Game Development with Scrum, and Suzuki’s Zen Mind.

About Steve Jaccaud

You can link with Steve Jaccaud on LinkedIn and connect with Steve Jaccaud on Twitter.

Steve Jaccaud: How a Coach helped me become a better Scrum Master

Steve shares a critical part of his Scrum Master journey in this episode. We discuss how he went from a Scrum Master focused on the ceremonies, and process details, to a Scrum Master that focused on the needs of the team and constantly helped them adapt the process to the challenges they were facing. A great story, that shows how a simple perspective change for the Scrum Master can have a very large impact on their success with the team.

About Steve Jaccaud

You can link with Steve Jaccaud on LinkedIn and connect with Steve Jaccaud on Twitter.