Wilson Govindji Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Wilson Govindji: How a Product Owner can take advantage of a technical background in the PO role

The Great Product Owner: Taking advantage of a technical background in the PO role

This PO had a product background, and a strong tech background, but that meant that the PO could communicate both with the team (technology people) and with the stakeholders (non-technology people). This background, instead of giving the PO overconfidence, helped with understanding the feedback, and look for more feedback. This PO was able to bring his past experience into the role, instead of replacing the responsibilities of a PO with the “fake” knowledge from his past experience.

The Bad Product Owner: When PO’s destroy the team’s ability to be productive

Product Owners are constantly faced with many problems, or challenges that they need to address. When they lack the ability to prioritize and learn from feedback, they stop being helpful for the team, and can create a lot of confusion. In this episode, we talk about yet another anti-pattern to add to the lack of ability to prioritize: when the PO is, at the same time over confident, and stops listening to feedback from users and stakeholders. Listen in, to learn how feedback, or lack thereof, can destroy the team’s ability to be productive.

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About Wilson Govindji

Wilson is a pragmatic Scrum Master, he has over 15 years in Software development and has worked in different roles, from Support Analyst, Developer to tech lead. Wilson is from Portugal, with Indian origins and currently living and working in the UK with his wife and two daughters.

You can link with Wilson Govindji on LinkedIn and follow Wilson Govindji’s blog on Medium, and follow Wilson Govindji on Instagram.

Wilson Govindji: A success model and framework for Scrum Masters

Wilson‘s framework to define and measure success for his own role as a Scrum Master is defined in detail in this article. In this episode, he describes the key aspects of his framework, and how he applies it to his work using the Impact Mapping technique.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The Modified Mad/Sad/Glad retrospective format

Wilson structures his retrospectives around the 5 steps described in Agile Retrospectives by Larsen and Derby, but he uses the Mad/Sad/Glad, or Stop/Start/Continue formats as a basis with some modifications that he explains in this episode. He also puts some focus on the icebreaker exercises to get the team started and energized. For that he uses Kudo cards, and asks the team to describe the Sprint in one picture or one word.

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About Wilson Govindji

You can link with Wilson Govindji on LinkedIn and follow Wilson Govindji’s blog on Medium, and follow Wilson Govindji on Instagram.

Wilson Govindji: How to be deliberate about the change that Agile transformation brings

Working through an Agile adoption change in our organizations is always a difficult process, as not everyone will feel the same excitement about the adoption of Agile or Scrum. In this organization, the company had put up posters about Agile, but Wilson quickly realized that the Agile mindset was missing in the teams he worked with. This realization started a process of going through the change and Agile adoption process in a deliberate manner, and Wilson describes the process they adopted for that deliberate change management process.

In this episode, we refer to John Kotter’s book on change management: Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions.

About Wilson Govindji

You can link with Wilson Govindji on LinkedIn and follow Wilson Govindji’s blog on Medium.

Wilson Govindji: How a new Scrum team struggled, and then learned what working as a team is about

Wilson was working with a team that was new to Scrum. It was the first time that many different roles were working together. Then he noticed a pattern: people were no longer speaking up during the Scrum ceremonies. The testers would challenge the behavior of the software, but the developers would just ignore them. This was the start of a longer process of self-destruction for this team. Listen in to learn what happened, and how Wilson helped this team turn the situation around.

In this segment, we refer to the Tuckman’s stages of group dynamics.

Featured Book of the Week: Extreme Ownership, How the U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win by Willink and Babin

In Extreme Ownership, How the U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win by Willink and Babin, Wilson found a reminder of how important it is to accept ownership of everything that happens. This is a leadership book from which Wilson learned some key lessons for him as a Scrum Master.

In this segment, we also talk about the book The People’s Scrum by Meyer.

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 Wilson Govindji

You can link with Wilson Govindji on LinkedIn and follow Wilson Govindji’s blog on Medium, and follow Wilson Govindji on Instagram.

Wilson Govindji: Why you must stop being a developer when you become a Scrum Master

Wilson fell into the Scrum Master role by accident. And even if this is not an unusual story for a Scrum Master, this journey brings with it an identity crisis that Wilson describes for us. Wilson was both a Scrum Master and a tech lead, a technical Product Owner and a developer. These many hats seemed to work well together, until the release time came. Listen in to learn about how these many roles can interfere with each other and cause problems for the Scrum Master and the team.

About Wilson Govindji

You can link with Wilson Govindji on LinkedIn and follow Wilson Govindji’s blog on Medium, and follow Wilson Govindji on Instagram.