Manuele Piastra: The road to success for Scrum Masters includes defining success with your Agile team

In this episode, Manuele shares his perspective on making oneself redundant as an Agile coach or Scrum Master. He disagrees with the idea of completely making oneself redundant, just like a winning coach in football is not fired. Instead, he suggests creating a maturity assessment for the team and involving them in defining success criteria. He emphasizes the importance of not having creating a dependency on the Scrum Master and encourages the team to ask for help in areas they need it. Additionally, he recommends experimenting with different ways to measure success and finding other Scrum Masters to share learning and get feedback.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Appreciation Retrospective

In this episode, Manuele states that the favorite format depends on various factors, such as the team’s mood and recent events. He expresses a dislike for the overly simplistic “what is good? What was bad?” retrospectives, which can feel like a checkbox exercise. Instead, Manuele prefers to vary the format and sometimes run an appreciation retrospective, where only positives are discussed. Manuele believes it’s important to regularly remind the team of their strengths and focus on improvement while also acknowledging their successes.

How can I, as a Scrum Master, supercharge my facilitation?

Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he’s learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!

About Manuele Piastra

Manuele Piastra moved to London in 2014, which was a life-changing experience for him. He gained access to more sources of learning, worked in fast-paced companies with complex technology stacks and ambitious goals, and developed open-mindedness, patience, and autonomy.

You can link with Manuele Piastra on LinkedIn and connect with Manuele Piastra on Twitter.

Cynthia Kracmer: When is a Scrum Master No Longer Needed? Tips for Measuring Agile Team Self-Sufficiency

In this episode, Cynthia discusses the need to assess whether a Scrum Master is still necessary for a team that has become self-sufficient. She discusses several contributing factors to determine if a team is ready to work without a Scrum Master, such as clarity of purpose and roles, the ability to articulate value delivered to clients, readiness to address risks, and the team’s commitment to reflection and learning. The importance of observing team behavior and identifying patterns of self-sufficiency is emphasized. The episode also provides tips to identify if the team is ready, such as observing how team members act during meetings and if everyone is part of the conversation.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Being mindful of people, a key skill for Scrum Masters facilitating Agile Retrospectives

In this segment, Cynthia emphasizes the importance of starting by recognizing people and their contributions to the team. Ice breakers can be especially useful for new teams. The retrospective should include a gratefulness theme, a discussion on what is working well, what is not working, and what actions the team will take moving forward. Cynthia suggests making the retrospective a ritual and helping team members disconnect from other priorities and their busy schedules.

As a scrum master, it’s important to show there is a process with several questions planned for the session, while also keeping track of time to ensure the retro finishes on time. It’s crucial to create a psychologically safe space and be mindful of what topics are appropriate to discuss with the team.

How can I, as a Scrum Master, supercharge my facilitation?

Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he’s learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!

About Cynthia Kracmer

Cynthia Kracmer is a Business Transformation & Human Capital Managing Consultant passionate about creating innovative, stimulating and ‘healthy’ organizations for people. She is Agile agnostic, and has worked as a Scrum master, agile coach and agile transformation lead in the Life Sciences area. She loves singing, traveling (she’s been to 63 countries), cycling and running.

Connect with Cynthia Kracmer on LinkedIn.

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