team goals Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Jeroen de Jong: Keeping a list of the small successes to gain energy and keep focus

When looking to have an impact in the teams we work with, Jeroen suggests that it’s very easy to get lost in the many lofty goals we have, and sometimes feel discouraged by not achieving them for a long time. He suggests we focus on celebrating the small successes as a way to keep our focus, but also our energy high at all times!

In this segment, we refer to the Getting Things Done method, which we also talked about in the Tuesday episode with Jeroen.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The M&M’s retrospective

Jeroen shares a fun retrospective that combines our love for sweets with some more serious aspects like asking important questions in certain categories (the colors of the M&M’s) from the team: The M&M’s retrospective!

Jeroen also shares other, less sugar-intensive, options for the same effect. And we also discuss the Agile Monopoly game.

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About Jeroen de Jong

Jeroen started his career as a self-employed jack-of-all-trades in IT and is passionate about Agile. He is determined to keep learning and to share his knowledge with others.

You can link with Jeroen de Jong on LinkedIn and connect with Jeroen de Jong on Twitter.

Luís Santos Silva: Focusing Scrum teams on outcome-based goals

We must look at the team’s goals when defining team’s success, a key measure of our own success as Scrum Masters. Being Agile, or adopting Scrum are not goals in themselves, so that should not be the focus for the team, even if it needs to be our own. Luís shares some tips on how to help teams define their own goals.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The 4L’s format, simple and effective

Luís shares his approach to the 4L’s format, and how its simplicity enables him to focus the team on the outcomes and actionable items we want the retrospectives to yield.

About Luís Santos Silva

Luís is not your typical Agile Coach as he doesn’t have an IT background. He worked his way from a contact center up to Lean and Agile Coach and is now a Agile Coach team lead at OutSystems.

You can link with Luís Santos Silva on LinkedIn.

Henrik Mårtensson on how to deal with sociopaths at work

Sometimes we will face even sociopaths at work. People who are willing to sacrifice everything and everybody in support of their own individual goals. How do we tackle those cases? And how do we recognize those cases? Henrik describes a story of how a sociopath destroyed a project – and lived to pretend it didn’t happen.

About Henrik Mårtensson

If there is one word summing up Henrik Mårtensson, it is “curious”. Henrik is a systems thinker, strategy methodologist, process improvement consultant, project manager, author, and trick photographer. In 2014 he built a network organisation for photography and media production from scratch, to more than 200 people. He is kind to strangers, but has made friends dive off cliffs.
You can follow Henrik Mårtensson on Twitter and read Henrik Måretensson’s blog where he shares his ideas and breakthroughs in the field of Agile, Theory of Constraints and management in general.