teams Archives - Page 82 of 82 - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Ebenezer Ikonne on the 5 conditions for great teams

What are the conditions for great teams to emerge? And what are the obstacles? These are some of the questions we cover in this episode. We mention also two very important books about teams, and how to build great teams: Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances by Richard Hackman and The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization by Katzenbach and Smith.

About Ebenezer Ikonne

Technology enthusiast. Change artist. Culture hacker. People focused. Helping organizations provide their employees with the most meaningful and fulfilling experience they could have while delivering solutions that change the world. Ebenezer is also a Tech Director at Mannheim.
You can link with Ebenezer Ikonne on LinkedIn, and contact Ebenezer Ikonne on Twitter. You can also read his thoughts on Agile on his blog.

Sebastian Schürmann stays away from judgment and discusses sabotage techniques

Talking about self-destructive behaviours may make people feel they are being judged, and Sebastian prefers to stay away from judgements. Instead, he wants to focus on behaviours that affect the team and must be addressed. Sebastian also shares with us a sabotage technique that is sometimes used by team members and teams in their work.
The sabotage technique is also available in the Simple Sabotage Field Manual a document used by a precursor to the CIA to explain how individuals could sabotage countries, factories and other potential targets. Are you aware of all the sabotage behaviors your team can perform on itself?

About Sebastian Schürmann

Sebastian has an extremely strong work ethic, a great passion to his work, unwavering desire for excellence, and unabated willingness to share his rich knowledge.
Driven by his strong work ethic, he takes several key roles: as scrum master, agile coach, mentor, as protector of the young development teams, after all, a humble leader who takes risks and responsibilities at extremely critical moments, creates a vision which the other follow by heart – with excellent outcome.
You can find Sebastian Schürmann on twitter, and link with Sebastian Schürmann on LinkedIn.
You can find Sebastian Schürmann’s website, and his blog.

Stephen Thomas explains how he helps a scrum teams get out of the negativity pattern

What can you do, as a Scrum Master when the team is stuck in a pattern of negativity and self-destruction? Stephen explains the situation of a team that was in that situation, and what were the symptoms that characterized the problems the teams were facing. He discusses how communication suffers, how the us versus them dynamic emerged and how hard it was to help the team in that situation. We also discuss the techniques you can use to help the team get out of that pattern of self-destruction.

About Stephen Thomas

Stephen has been managing digital projects since 2004. Initially specialising in e-learning, he now looks after multiple projects that range from rapidly produced native apps to large-scale social networks. Based in Oxford, he is also one of the founders of the DOPM meetup.
You can connect with Stephen Thomas in LinkedIn, and follow Stephen Thomas on Twitter.

Peter Hilton describes one of the self-destructive habits of Scrum teams

The team’s self-destructive habit

Being a slave to the backlog, and just going through the motions without interacting with the other team members or stakeholders. This is further amplified in Death-march like projects.

About Peter Hilton

Peter is a software developer and technical project manager who has experienced every point on the agility spectrum, in the course of 18 years of development projects. Peter has performed several variations of the Scrum Master role, and learned what the books dont tell you: whats easy and whats hard.
You can reach Peter Hilton on twitter and read his blog at Hilton.org.uk.