In this episode, Johannes Lindman shares a story about a small team he worked with for a few months leading up to a major release. The team was focused on delivery and even had checklists to ensure that they were well-prepared. However, they encountered a problem that they had not anticipated and had to stop and acknowledge their failure. The team was surprised because they believed they had prepared well and were not sure how they missed the issue.
The team started to point fingers and look at one person who did not talk much. They realized that they were not talking about the problems they were afraid of and needed to be super honest with each other. Johannes notes that the team trusted each other as individuals, but they did not pick up on each other’s signs. In the end, the team learned the importance of communication, honesty, and trust. They realized that they needed to work on their communication skills and ensure that everyone felt comfortable speaking up when there was an issue.
Featured Book of the Week: Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck
In this segment, Johannes shares the impact that the book “Extreme Programming Explained” by Kent Beck had on his career. Johannes explains that the book helped him in many ways, and he found so many valuable ideas in it. He recalls the mantra “make it work, make it right, make it fast,” which he believes summarizes the essence of the book’s philosophy.
He credits the book with helping him to become a better developer and to embrace a growth mindset.
Transform Your Agile Teams with Hard-Earned Lessons from Super-Experienced Scrum Masters
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 experience: 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 Johannes Lindman
Despite many years of experience Johannes still learns new things every day in order to stay relevant. This aligns with his curiosity on life and people.
How can Angela (the Agile Coach) quickly build healthy relationships with the teams she’s supposed to help? What were the steps she followed to help the Breeze App team fight off the competition? 
Shaun is a founder and principal of Zenergy Technologies, a modern software delivery solutions firm that specializes in Agile, DevOps, Quality, and Automation. Shaun’s background in QA, testing, and metrics has played an important role in his work as an Agile consultant since he joined the community in 2008.
Emilia is a natural-born Agile thinker who managed to swim out of the PMI waterfall almost a decade ago. As the head of the PMO at a major non profit she is constantly looking for new ways to build better software and make the world a better place.