Meena Venkataraman: Building Psychological Safety, lessons from helping an Agile team to share interpersonal feedback

In this segment, Meena shares her experience coaching a team that struggled to take off and was stuck in a cycle. Despite being nice to each other during scrum events, team members were not sharing feedback with each other, and psychological safety was not present in the team. Meena stresses the importance of having hard conversations and discussing the interpersonal topics in the team, and she suggests that teams should have the necessary tools to talk about difficult topics.

By highlighting the value that a team coach can bring to a team, Meena emphasizes the importance of psychological safety and how it plays a crucial role in team dynamics. She suggests that teams should be aware of the small things that can become big things and make sure that they are having hard conversations to address interpersonal issues. Ultimately, Meena’s experience coaching this team shows that building a successful team is not just about being nice to each other but also about creating a culture of openness, trust, and psychological safety.

We also discuss how using approaches such as non-violent communication can help the Scrum Master create an open environment that is also psychologically safe.

Featured Book of the Week: Sooner Safer Happier, by Jonathan Smart

In this segment, Meena Venkataraman recommends the book “Sooner Safer Happier: Antipatterns and Patterns for Business Agility” by Jonathan Smart as a valuable resource for scrum masters. She notes that as a scrum master, it’s important to have a holistic view of agile and to be “T-Shaped” – understanding the various facets of product development. Meena highlights that the book brings the 12 principles of agile to life and is a resource she refers to often.

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 Meena Venkataraman

Meena is an Agile & Lean coach who helps organizations and teams transition to Agile ways of working. She is passionate about the neuroscience behind team dynamics and is interested in organizational design and the application of Agile principles across different business domains. Meena enjoys speaking at conferences and is an avid learner.

You can link with Meena Venkataraman on LinkedIn.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

Jeremia Riedel: Helping a Scrum team that was lacking direction, and feedback

Jeremia was working with a new team that was dedicated to collecting and analyzing data. As he started working with the team, he noticed the team lacked direction. Even if they were using Scrum, they did not understand the need to collect/gather feedback early. In this episode, we talk about the lack-of-feedback anti-pattern and how the Product Owner is a critical role to help the team define a direction / goal for their work.

Featured Book of the Week: Momo by Michael Ende

In Momo by Michael Ende (a German language novel), we learn about the power of listening, and how it can transform our outlook on things. Jeremia shares how this novel helped him understand the Scrum Master role better.

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? Find out how Angela helped Naomi and the team go from “behind” to being ahead of Intuition Bank, by focusing on the people! Download the first 4 chapters of the BOOK for FREE while it is in Beta!

About Jeremia Riedel

Jeremia is an Agile Coach that describes himself as an Explorer, Enthusiast and Challenger.

You can link with Jeremia Riedel on LinkedIn, and read Jeremia Riedel’s blog on Medium.

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