transformation Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Rayyan Karim: The importance of team design and backlog structure in an Agile adoption process

In this episode, Rayyan discusses their experience working with IBM at a Brazilian bank. The teams were facing serious problems with delivery, despite having agreed on a strategy. Rayyan discovered that the root of the problem was organizational design. Although the program consisted of 300 people, the teams were organized functionally, which was hindering their success. Rayyan emphasizes the importance of considering the team’s design, the backlog design, and clear measurements of success when implementing Agile. They also stress the importance of addressing beliefs and providing an alternative identity for those who may not be sold on the ideas of agility.

Featured Book for the Week: “System of Profound Knowledge” on Deming’s work

In this segment, Rayyan recommends the resource “System of Profound Knowledge” about Deming’s work to help in understanding the true intent and start of agility. The article explores adaptive systems and helps readers understand the change that is happening in the workplace, as well as what a system is and how leaders think. The article also explains the concept of “tamper.”

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 Rayyan Karim

Rayyan is and Agile Coach & Trainer and the founder of Design Your Future with presence in the UK and the UAE. Rayyan is known for supporting leading executives of FTSE100 and NASDAQ corporations to create transformational results quickly.

You can link with Rayyan Karim on LinkedIn and connect with Rayyan Karim on Twitter.

Shahin Sheidaei: How to setup an organization transformation with the leadership team, a Scrum Master how-to!

Shahin joined a company to work with teams. However, when he joined, he quickly realized that the issues the teams were facing were not caused by the teams themselves. When Shahin tried to work with leadership, he realized that he would not be very successful if he continued to push in that direction, so he backed out and looked for other ways to influence leadership. Listen in to learn how Shahin was able to help leaders understand what needed to be done, and how he setup the work with the leadership team.

About Shahin Sheidaei

Shahin Sheidaei is an Agile, Lean and Success Coach,International Speaker, Transformation Expert, and Entrepreneur.

Shahin is a passionate organizational designer focusing on organizational performance, and is also founder and principal coach at Elevate Change Inc.

You can link with Shahin Sheidaei on LinkedIn and connect with Shahin Sheidaei on Twitter.

BONUS: Plan to pivot, a book and many lessons for Agile non-IT organizations with Gerry Starsia

Gerry came across Agile while working as a project manager in a construction company. Motivated by his drive to provide a great service to his customers, he started to study how to make his own business more adaptable and Agile.

Working with new technologies, he started to improve certain aspects of his business. However, he quickly realized that the size of the projects and demands of the customers were making what once was an “easy” to manage service, into a complicated service with many moving parts.

The use of computers helped manage that complexity, but also brought even more complexity. This was when Gerry discovered Agile and what it could bring to a non-IT business.

Agile applied to non-IT industries

Continue reading BONUS: Plan to pivot, a book and many lessons for Agile non-IT organizations with Gerry Starsia

BONUS: Applying Agile to Sales and in Sales teams with Brad Jeavons

When it comes to applying Agile and Scrum to a sales team and organization, the first things we need to be aware of are the key differences to product/software development teams. And there are quite a few! In this segment, we talk about those key differences and the process that Brad developed over time to help sales teams benefit from Agile and Scrum in their work.

We talk about the 3 step process to defining what is the focus of the work, and how to measure the progress of the team. Listen in to learn what those 3 steps are, and also how to align the team’s work around improving the key metrics.

The key challenges to Agile adoption in sales teams

As we learn more about how sales teams work, the next big question is: what are the challenges we often face when adopting Agile in sales teams? We dive into some of the challenges that Brad has seen in his work and learn about his approach to bringing a goal-centric way of working, by starting to work with the sales leader.

We mention Eduscrum (an application of Scrum to education), and learn how sales teams were already remote Agile teams before the covid19 pandemic. The remote work aspect of sales brings with it a set of challenges that astute Scrum Masters will be ready to tackle. Brad explains his approach to getting sales teams to collaborate effectively, even when they are constantly remote.

Adapting the cycle of Scrum to the rhythm of sales teams

The adoption of Scrum can’t be complete without adapting the Scrum ceremonies to the reality of the sales work. Brad walks us through his ideas on how we can take advantage of what is already there (the natural sales meetings and cycle), and slowly build in the ideas of planning, follow-up, “live” demonstration, and retrospectives into sales teams. In this segment, we also discuss how important visualizing the work, and the results is when bringing a set of – usually – independent-minded folks to work tightly together as an agile team.

About Brad Jeavons

Brad Jeavons is the author of the book Agile Sales and the host of the Enterprise Excellence Podcast and the Enterprise Excellence Youtube Channel. Brad is passionate about helping create a better future economically, socially and environmentally. He does this by sharing knowledge and supporting organizations to create cultures of continuous improvement and innovation at all levels.

You can link with Brad Jeavons on LinkedIn and connect with Brad Jeavons on Twitter.

BONUS: How to setup Agile and DevOps teams, Team Topologies interview with Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais

Setting up teams to work collaboratively is one of the challenges that organizations go through when adopting Agile. The functional team setup (all DBAs, all testers, all windows devs together, etc.) is not acceptable for teams that want to quickly develop and deliver products and services to the market. But neither is it possible to have all possible skills (sometimes 10’s of skills) in one team because organizations simply don’t have that many people with certain skills.

In this episode, we talk about the possible team topologies, and how each of those affects our ability to deliver in different organizations.

How we set up teams directly affects the quality of the software teams deliver

Continue reading BONUS: How to setup Agile and DevOps teams, Team Topologies interview with Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais