Tom Molenaar Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Tom Molenaar: When Product Owners “Eat the Grass” for Their Teams

The Great Product Owner: The Vision Catalyst

“This PO had the ability to communicate the vision and enthusiasm about the product, even I felt inspired.”

Tom describes an exceptional Product Owner who could communicate vision and enthusiasm so effectively that even he, as the Scrum Master, felt inspired about the product. This PO excelled at engaging teams in product discovery techniques, helping them move from merely delivering features to taking outcome responsibility. The PO introduced validation techniques, brought customers directly to the office for interviews, and consistently showed the team the impact of their work, creating a strong connection between engineers and end users.

The Bad Product Owner: The Micromanager

“This PO was basically managing the team with micro-managing approach, this blocked the team from self-organizing.”

Tom encountered a Product Owner who was too controlling, essentially micromanaging the team instead of empowering them. This PO hosted daily stand-ups, assigned individual tasks, and didn’t give the team space for self-organization. When Tom investigated the underlying motivation, he discovered the PO believed that without tight control, the team would underperform. Tom helped the PO understand the benefits of trusting the team and worked with both sides to clarify roles and responsibilities, moving from micromanagement to empowerment.

In this segment, we refer to the book “Empowered” by Marty Cagan.

Self-reflection Question: How do you help Product Owners find the balance between providing clear direction and allowing team autonomy?

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About Tom Molenaar
Tom is a team coach with a background in social psychology and behavioral influence. He is passionate about fostering collaboration, and helping teams flourish and achieve their potential. His approach blends insight, empathy, and strategy to cultivate lasting team success.

You can link with Tom Molenaar on LinkedIn.

Tom Molenaar: Purpose, Process, and People—The Three Pillars of Scrum Master Success

“I always try to ask the team first, what is your problem? Or what is the next step, do you think? Having their input, having my input, bundle it and share it.”

Tom defines success for Scrum Masters through three essential pillars: purpose (achieving the team’s product goals), process (effective Agile practices), and people (team maturity and collaboration). When joining new teams, he uses a structured approach combining observation with surveys to get a 360-degree view of team performance. Rather than immediately implementing his own improvement ideas, Tom prioritizes asking teams what problems they want to solve and finding common ground for a “handshake moment” on what needs to be addressed.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Creative Drawing of the Sprint

Tom’s favorite retrospective format involves having team members draw their subjective experience of the sprint, then asking others to interpret each other’s drawings. This creative approach brings people back to their childhood, encourages laughter and fun, and helps team members tap into each other’s experiences in ways that traditional verbal retrospectives cannot achieve. The exercise stimulates understanding between team members and often reveals important topics for improvement while building connection through shared interpretation of creative expressions.

Example activity you can use to “draw the sprint”.

Transform Your Agile Teams with Hard-Earned Lessons from Super-Experienced Scrum Masters

You can link with Tom Molenaar on LinkedIn.

Tom Molenaar: Systemic Change Management—Making the Emotional Side of Change Visible

“We tend to skip the phase where we just give the person the space to grieve, to not know, instead of that, we tend to move to solutions maybe too quick.”

Tom faces a significant challenge as he prepares to start with new teams transitioning between value streams in a SAFe environment. The teams will experience multiple changes simultaneously – new physical locations, new team dependencies, and organizational restructuring. Tom applies systemic change management principles, outlining five critical phases: sense of urgency, letting go, not knowing, creation, and new beginning. He emphasizes the importance of making the emotional “understream” visible, giving teams space to grieve their losses, and helping them verbalize their feelings before moving toward solutions.

In this episode, we refer to Systemic Change Management, an approach that views organizations as complex, interconnected systems—rather than collections of independent parts. Instead of focusing only on individual skills, isolated processes, or top-down directives, SCM works with the whole system (people, structures, culture, and external environment) to create sustainable transformation.

Self-reflection Question: How comfortable are you with sitting in uncertainty and allowing teams to process change without immediately jumping to solutions?

Transform Your Agile Teams with Hard-Earned Lessons from Super-Experienced Scrum Masters

You can link with Tom Molenaar on LinkedIn.

Tom Molenaar: How to Spot and Fix Lack of Trust in Scrum Teams

“When people don’t speak up, it’s because there’s no trust. The team showed that they did not feel free to express their opinions.”

Tom describes working with a team that appeared to be performing well on the surface – they were reaching their goals and had processes in place. However, deeper observation revealed a troubling dynamic: a few dominant voices controlled discussions while half the team remained silent during ceremonies. Through one-on-ones, Tom discovered team members felt judged and unsafe to express their ideas. Using the Lencioni Pyramid as a framework, he helped the team address the fundamental lack of trust that was preventing constructive conflict and genuine collaboration.

Featured Book of the Week: Empowered by Marty Cagan

Tom recommends “Empowered” by Marty Cagan as a book that significantly influenced his approach to team coaching. The book focuses on empowering teams and organizations to deliver great products while developing ordinary people into extraordinary performing teams. Tom appreciates its well-structured approach that covers all necessary elements without getting lost in details. The book provides practical tools for effective coaching, including techniques for regular one-on-ones, active listening, constructive feedback, setting clear expectations, celebrating success, and creating a culture of learning from failure.

Transform Your Agile Teams with Hard-Earned Lessons from Super-Experienced Scrum Masters

You can link with Tom Molenaar on LinkedIn.

Tom Molenaar: When To Stop Helping Agile Teams To Change—A Real Life Story

“Instead of slowing down and meeting the team in their resistance, I started to try and drag them because I saw the vision of the possible improvement, but they did not see it.”

Tom shares a powerful failure story about a team that didn’t feel the urgency to improve their way of working. Despite management wanting the team to become more effective, Tom found himself pushing improvements that the team actively resisted. Instead of slowing down to understand their resistance, he tried to drag them forward, leading to exhaustion and ultimately his decision to leave the assignment. This episode explores the critical lesson that it’s not our job to save teams that don’t want to be saved, and the importance of recognizing when to step back.

Self-reflection Question: When you encounter team resistance to change, how do you distinguish between healthy skepticism that needs addressing and fundamental unwillingness to improve?

Transform Your Agile Teams with Hard-Earned Lessons from Super-Experienced Scrum Masters

You can link with Tom Molenaar on LinkedIn.