teams Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Mike Salogub: Overcoming Team Conflict in Remote Work Environments, lessons learned as a Scrum Master

In this segment, Mike recounted a situation where he was brought in to help a team where there was conflict between two team members who fought about roles and responsibilities. Despite being excellent people individually, when they were together in the same room, they would undermine each other and interrupt each other. Mike took the initiative to understand what was going on and went through every single issue with them.

Upon reflection, Mike realized that remote work was the reason for the misunderstandings and conflict. When the team members first came into the same physical room, they started to mellow out, and this face-to-face presence helped them to accept each other as humans. Mike noted that the team members had projected their problems onto each other, and when they met in person, those problems dissipated. Mike shared two tips based on this experience: first, to meet in person if possible, and second, to have cameras on for retrospectives.

Featured Book of the Week: Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink

Mike recommended two books related to agile software development and leadership in the podcast. The first book is “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willink, which Mike described as agile in a nutshell. The book emphasizes values that can be thought of as the core values for Scrum Masters and explains the key characteristics of a team player. It also helps readers understand what it means to be a servant leader. Mike highlighted the importance of transparency, ownership, and teamwork, which are critical components of agile methodologies. Overall, “Extreme Ownership” provides practical insights into how to become an effective leader and team player.

The second book that Mike recommended is “Trillion Dollar Coach” by Bill Campbell. The book follows the life and work of Bill Campbell, a legendary coach who worked with Google leaders and other leaders in Silicon Valley. Mike noted that the book explains many ideas that are equally applicable to being a Scrum Master and emphasizes the importance of transparency, ownership, and teamwork. Mike explained that the Scrum Master’s role is to help team members shine and facilitate effective collaboration. Overall, “Trillion Dollar Coach” provides valuable insights into leadership, team building, and helps understand why agile methodologies actually work.

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 Mike Salogub

Mike’s an accomplished, committed and creative Scrum Master with over 10+ years of expanding horizons in the healthcare technology industry. Focused on continuous improvement using data to inform business decisions, and driving innovation to meet the needs of patients.

You can link with Mike Salogub on LinkedIn and connect with Mike Salogub on Twitter.

Caterina Palmiotto: Address conflicts in your Agile Team, or else…

In this segment, Caterina Palmiotto discusses the story of a software development team that was self-destructing due to conflicts and a blame culture. When Caterina joined the team, she heard blame, resentment, and conflicts among the developers. The team struggled to resolve bugs, and one developer was causing the majority of the conflicts. Caterina tried to address the conflicts and had some success, but it took a difficult decision to remove the person causing the conflicts for the team to work better. Caterina emphasizes the importance of addressing conflicts and the impact of culture on the success of a team.

Featured Book of the Week: Legacy, by James Kerr

In this segment, Caterina Palmiotto discusses the book Legacy by James Kerr, which is a collection of leadership stories about the All Blacks rugby team from New Zealand. As a scrum master, Caterina noticed similarities in leadership between sports and software development. The book connected all the dots in her mind and emphasized the importance of a strong team culture. According to Caterina, if you focus on the team, the results will follow. The book highlights the idea that strong leadership is essential to building a strong team culture.

About Caterina Palmiotto

Caterina started as a software developer but soon realized that she was passionate about team dynamics and communication, and embraced agility from the moment she saw it.

Caterina believes a team can be more than the sum of its parts and that growing the right culture is essential. When people are surrounded by good examples they will be motivated to do their best. So the first step is doing your best to be a good example of the culture you want to nurture.

You can link with Caterina Palmiotto on LinkedIn.

Kirill Golubev: When Conflicts Escalate, Lessons Learned from a Scrum Master’s Story of an Agile Team’s Self-Destruction

In this episode, Kirill Golubev shares the story of a team that entered an unresolvable conflict. It all started small, with discussions on what framework and technology to use for the front-end. One person suggested that the decision was not optimal, but this person was not the lead developer. The team had other developers who had been together for a while and felt very united, and they started to push back against this developer’s comments and disagreement.

Unfortunately, the situation escalated, and it led to nearly-physical confrontation. Kirill was not prepared to see the conflict grow that big, although there were other conflicts in the team that were positive and constructive. Even when he tried to address the topic in the team retrospectives, there were no specific action steps to address the conflict issue. Overall, Kirill’s story highlights the importance of addressing conflicts proactively, especially when there are disagreements among team members. It’s essential to have clear action steps to resolve conflicts and prevent them from escalating.

Featured Book of the Week: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

Kirill Golubev mentioned “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” by Mark Manson as the book that most influenced him. He highlighted the Pareto rule, which states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes, and in that context, he stressed the importance of being selective in daily work and identifying which actions bring the most value, which is similar to prioritizing the backlog for Product Owners.

In addition, Kirill emphasized the need to take the smallest step possible to deliver the most value, which is crucial in Agile. Overall, the book helped Kirill understand the importance of prioritizing and identifying the most valuable tasks, which is essential for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches.

About Kirill Golubev

Kirill considers himself an Agile and common-sense apologist. He wants to see simple processes in place, when people self-organize and manage themselves without constant push from management.

You can link with Kirill Golubev on LinkedIn.

Alina Thapliyal: From Frustration to Faster Document Creation, The Journey of a Scrum Master in an Infrastructure Team

Alina was a scrum master for a platform team responsible for building infrastructure. The team faced a challenge when delivering an increment of their product, which happened to be a document. The team struggled with stories that would just take too long to complete, and the associated problems that arose in the PI event and the retrospectives. Alina felt frustrated with the long stories, but eventually found a training that taught the team how to write a concept more efficiently.

By focusing on the success factors from that training, and documenting what helped them write the concept more quickly, the team was able to find a new perspective on the problem they were facing. They applied the “double loop learning” concept by focusing on why a problem exists rather than how to solve it. The team used a quadrant to gain an overview of the concept document, which helped them progress. Alina’s tip is to find a way to get a different perspective on the problem you are facing, which can lead to positive outcomes.

Featured Book of the Week: Make Your Bed, by William McRaven

In Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World by Amiral William McRaven, Alina found a book that reminded her that small habits, small gestures can have a very large impact on ourselves and the people we work with. The book shares 10 things you can do to change the world, or yourself, and helps the reader learn the impact of learning to face our own fears.

About Alina Thapliyal

Alina is the Scrum Master for a team within the public sector. Her aspiration is to become an agile coach. She grew up in Romania and has been living in Germany for 13 years. She loves jogging, reading and actively listening to people’s life stories.

You can link with Alina Thapliyal on LinkedIn.

Gemma Murray: Avoiding Burnout in Agile Teams, The Importance of Seeking Outside Perspectives as a Scrum Master

In this episode, Gemma discusses a project where the team was building a database of customer data and a UI to interact with that data. The team was highly motivated and excited about the solution they had come up with, but slowly started to conflate the solution with the outcome. They became so focused on the “one big idea” that they struggled to let go, which resulted in burnout for some team members. The team was great at inspection but not at adaptation.

To avoid this type of situation, Gemma suggests seeking outside perspectives and speaking with your peers. As a Scrum Master, she fell victim to the team’s energy in the beginning, but realized something was wrong and sought insights from an Agile Coach. It is important not to get too focused on the work without thinking about the process, and seeking outside perspectives can help to prevent this. To get different perspectives, and get out of the day-to-day work focus, why not join our podcast community to network and seek additional perspectives? Join us here.

Featured Book of the Week: Scrum Mastery by Geoff Watts

In Scrum Mastery By Geoff Watts (Geoff was a previous guest on the podcast), Gemma found a reminder that, even if the Scrum Master role can sometimes be seen as “the facilitator”, in practice it is much more than that. In this segment, we also talk about the book Right to Left: The digital leader’s guide to Lean and Agile by Mike Burrows, that helps Scrum Masters understand how they contribute to the production of value in their role.

In this segment, we also refer to the book Lean UX, whose authors were previous guests on the podcast: Jeff Gothelf, and Josh Seiden, and about Lean in general, an approach that can inspire how we implement Scrum in practice.

About Gemma Murray

Gemma works as an Agile Coach for MOO, a branding company whose vision is to provide ‘Great design for everyone’. Having worked in various change roles using both waterfall and agile approaches throughout her career, Gemma believes in the diversity of teams to unlock innovation, creativity and delivering value.

You can link with Gemma Murray on LinkedIn.