Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. In this episode, we explore the story of a team that started to question the way they did estimates. The PO would use the estimations provided by the team to make a certain number of assumptions and reports that just did not correspond to reality. In the quest to solve that problem, the team started to experiment with different approaches, and naturally evolved to a #NoEstimates approach. Carsten explains the steps the team went through as well as the insights at each step. A self-organized change story on adopting #NoEstimates! In this episode, we refer to the #NoEstimates book.  About Carsten Lützen Carsten is an Agile Coach at the LEGO Group. Before that a Scrum Master for different teams. He has a deep love of graphical facilitation and professional coaching. Besides his full-time job, he shares weekly tips on YouTube and LinkedIn on Agile, Facilitation, and Coaching. You can link with Carsten Lützen on LinkedIn and connect with Carsten Lützen on Twitter.

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

A step by step journey to #NoEstimates | Carsten Lützen

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. When Carsten started as a Scrum Master, he worked with a team of brilliant developers. The team worked well, and all seemed to function. However, soon after that, Carsten started working with a second team, and the problems started. Carsten found that he had let the team to its own devices, and grew apart from the team that had been working so well. Listen in to learn what happens when Scrum Masters get too far from the teams they are supposed to help!  Featured Book of the Week: The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Coaching by Agile42 consulting In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Coaching, Carsten learned some important lessons about the coaching approach and why Scrum Masters must be aware of their different stances (teaching, mentoring, coaching, and more!) 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 Carsten Lützen Carsten is an Agile Coach at the LEGO Group. Before that a Scrum Master for different teams. He has a deep love of graphical facilitation and professional coaching. Besides his full-time job, he shares weekly tips on YouTube and LinkedIn on Agile, Facilitation, and Coaching. You can link with Carsten Lützen on LinkedIn and connect with Carsten Lützen on Twitter.

What happens when Scrum Masters get too far from the teams they support | Carsten Lützen

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. As this story starts, we hear about a common situation for many Scrum teams: the Sprint has just ended, and the team is “almost” ready, if they could extend the Sprint by one week they would be done. Or so they thought. In this episode, we explore the many nasty consequences that come from extending a Sprint beyond its timebox. Listen in to learn why that should never be an option for you!  About Carsten Lützen Carsten is an Agile Coach at the LEGO Group. Before that a Scrum Master for different teams. He has a deep love of graphical facilitation and professional coaching. Besides his full-time job, he shares weekly tips on YouTube and LinkedIn on Agile, Facilitation, and Coaching. You can link with Carsten Lützen on LinkedIn and connect with Carsten Lützen on Twitter

The surprising reason why you should never prolong a Sprint beyond its timebox | Carsten Lützen

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. From the Visionary PO to the PO that was down in the weeds of an overly long backlog, we discuss two contrasting examples of a sense of clarity and focus in the PO role.  The Great Product Owner: Speaking both technical and stakeholder language Great PO’s combine a great product Vision (and the ability to communicate it), with savvy stakeholder management and communication. Additionally, a great PO is able to work with the team to understand when it is time to “pay down” some technical debt, and makes the case towards the stakeholders.  In this segment, we refer to the Scrum Master Toolbox’s Compelling Product Vision e-course (FREE when you sign-up), and the Tetris game.  The Bad Product Owner: The anti-pattern of long backlogs One of the main tools for PO’s is the Backlog (both Sprint and Product Backlogs). However, many PO’s aren’t able to use that tool effectively. In this segment, we talk about the PO that was not able to keep the backlog short, and explore how Scrum Masters can help PO’s manage the Backlog effectively, as if it was a garden.    [IMAGE HERE] Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate. About Nancy Beers Nancy says she is here to change the world one game at a time. She plays with people to learn or unlearn things. This can either be hard skills or soft skills (aka. Human skills) You can link with Nancy Beers on LinkedIn and connect with Nancy Beers on Twitter.

The anti-pattern of long product backlogs | Nancy Beers

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. While retrospectives are a critical part of the Sprint, and the team’s evolution over time, there’s a problem when “everything” gets discussed only in the retrospective. Nancy shares her perspective on the importance of team conversations during the Sprint, right when the events to be analyzed take place.  Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: “Get out of your head” retrospectives Nancy is an avid gamer, and regularly adapts and creates games to help her in her work with teams. In this segment, we talk about how we can use certain games to help teams “get out of their head”, and learn to listen to the emotions caused by certain events in the sprint.  In this segment, we refer to Rory Story Cubes, a fun tool we can use to help teams be more creative in analysing the events of the Sprint.  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 Nancy Beers Nancy says she is here to change the world one game at a time. She plays with people to learn or unlearn things. This can either be hard skills or soft skills (aka. Human skills) You can link with Nancy Beers on LinkedIn and connect with Nancy Beers on Twitter.

Taking advantage of Agile Retrospectives BEFORE the retrospective takes place | Nancy Beers

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Nancy, and her colleagues were working with a team from the customer service and account management department. As they worked more with those teams, it was clear that the “vanilla” approach would not fit those teams’ needs, so they started adapting some ideas from Scrum to that local context. In that process, they created SCROP, Scrum for Operations. Listen in to learn how you can adapt Scrum to operational teams like sales teams or customer service teams. About Nancy Beers Nancy says she is here to change the world one game at a time. She plays with people to learn or unlearn things. This can either be hard skills or soft skills (aka. Human skills) You can link with Nancy Beers on LinkedIn and connect with Nancy Beers on Twitter.

Adapting Scrum for Operations, a real-life story | Nancy Beers

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Nancy was working with a team that was high-energy and focused on delivering value. Every sprint they tried to ship software, but there was always something that was preventing them from releasing. Over time, the team and Nancy tried to bring that up with stakeholders, but all they got was “blame” for not delivering to production. And then the team lost it… Listen in to learn how teams may react when external blockers are identified, talked about, but never solved. Featured Book of the Week: Three books to help you perfect the team’s routines and calendar In this segment, we talk about 3 books that, as Nancy puts it, bring together 3 important lessons for Scrum Masters that try to help their teams perform. The books are: Drive by Daniel Pink, When by Daniel Pink, and Deep Work by Cal Newport. These books helped Nancy reconsider the cycle she sets up for her teams with the aim to help them perform better. In this segment, we also refer to Ayurveda, and Team Coaching.  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 Nancy Beers Nancy says she is here to change the world one game at a time. She plays with people to learn or unlearn things. This can either be hard skills or soft skills (aka. Human skills) You can link with Nancy Beers on LinkedIn and connect with Nancy Beers on Twitter.

Why the Scrum Master work with stakeholders is critical for the teams’ success | Nancy Beers

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Nancy has a background as both a project manager, as well as an Open Source contributor. Through her career, she eventually realized that the Scrum Master role would be a better fit for her because, as she puts it, it is about working with technology and humans, together! In this episode, we focus on that human aspect, and we learn that - sometimes - being transparent can have negative consequences. Listen in to learn how and when transparency can hurt you in the role of the Scrum Master.   About Nancy Beers Nancy says she is here to change the world one game at a time. She plays with people to learn or unlearn things. This can either be hard skills or soft skills (aka. Human skills) You can link with Nancy Beers on LinkedIn and connect with Nancy Beers on Twitter.

When transparency is no longer an advantage for a Scrum Master | Nancy Beers

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. In this episode, we explore how the skill of asking questions is so critical for PO’s, and we learn from Dahm some exercises to show the importance of that skill.  The Great Product Owner: The Deep Listening PO Great Product Owners are good at listening to the team, and the stakeholders, but mostly to the customers and the market. In this segment, we talk about how PO’s can practice deep listening, and use that skill to improve their effectiveness in the role.  The Bad Product Owner: Learning to ask questions with empathy Bad Product Owners have many lacking features, but in this segment, we focus especially on the inability to ask questions from the team, and the customers. Dahm shares some of his signature workshops, and how he uses those controlled environments to help PO’s learn how to go deeper in the understanding of the team and the customer. Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate. About Dahm Hongchai Dahm Hongchai is an Agile coach, a Scrum Master, and a business consultant with 5 years experience in high-tech and Startup industries in Silicon Valley, Thailand, and Australia. He was the first Thai to become a Scrum Trainer (ST) with Scrum Inc. Dahm also has 10+ years of experience with other approaches such as Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. And he is an Agile trainer and helps people to understand Agile via, for example Agile Cooking. You can link with Dahm Hongchai on LinkedIn and connect with Dahm Hongchai on Twitter.

Learning to ask questions with empathy | Dahm Hongchai

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. As we dive into the definition of success, we learn about the skill of Deep Listening. Dahm walks us through how that skill can help Scrum Masters bring the team to understand each other better, and learn to collaborate effectively.  Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Continue / Stop / Start Dahm likes this simple format, because it helps people open up with the help of facilitation. The format is simple to explain and facilitate for Scrum MAsters, and can help them focus on helping the team members start, and continue their conversation.  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 Dahm Hongchai Dahm Hongchai is an Agile coach, a Scrum Master, and a business consultant with 5 years experience in high-tech and Startup industries in Silicon Valley, Thailand, and Australia. He was the first Thai to become a Scrum Trainer (ST) with Scrum Inc. Dahm also has 10+ years of experience with other approaches such as Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. And he is an Agile trainer and helps people to understand Agile via, for example Agile Cooking. You can link with Dahm Hongchai on LinkedIn and connect with Dahm Hongchai on Twitter.

Learning to listen deeply for Scrum Masters | Dahm Hongchai

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Dahm was working with an exec team, which was not able to collaborate. Scrum Masters are responsible for collaboration in the teams they work with, and executives are just as much a team as any other team. Dahm explains how we can help teams learn to collaborate, and create a trustful environment. In this segment, we refer to the book: The 5 Dysfunctions Of A Team by Lencioni.  About Dahm Hongchai Dahm Hongchai is an Agile coach, a Scrum Master, and a business consultant with 5 years experience in high-tech and Startup industries in Silicon Valley, Thailand, and Australia. He was the first Thai to become a Scrum Trainer (ST) with Scrum Inc. Dahm also has 10+ years of experience with other approaches such as Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. And he is an Agile trainer and helps people to understand Agile via, for example Agile Cooking. You can link with Dahm Hongchai on LinkedIn and connect with Dahm Hongchai on Twitter.

Helping (executive) teams improve their collaboration skills | Dahm Hongchai

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. In this episode, we discuss how teams are often unaware of what is going on around them. Their desire to perform and focus on their work, can lead them to ignore the dependencies around them. Dahm shares one such story, and we discuss what we can do as Scrum Masters to help teams be aware, and react to what other teams need around them.  Featured Book of the Week: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by DeMarco and Lister In Peopleware, by DeMarco and Lister, Dahm found a call to focus on people, which was missing in his experience. Many businesses are good at technology, but are not so good with co-workers and people in the business. The book covers many insights that help Scrum Masters understand and implement the people focus that is often missing. 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 Dahm Hongchai Dahm Hongchai is an Agile coach, a Scrum Master, and a business consultant with 5 years experience in high-tech and Startup industries in Silicon Valley, Thailand, and Australia. He was the first Thai to become a Scrum Trainer (ST) with Scrum Inc. Dahm also has 10+ years of experience with other approaches such as Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. And he is an Agile trainer and helps people to understand Agile via, for example Agile Cooking. You can link with Dahm Hongchai on LinkedIn and connect with Dahm Hongchai on Twitter.

Helping Scrum teams collaborate with other teams! | Dahm Hongchai

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Dahm shares a story from his own journey as a Scrum Master. When Dahm started, he felt comfortable being a facilitator, which is an important skillset for Scrum Masters. However, that’s not enough. When reflecting on that story, Dahm understood that as a facilitator he was missing a critical aspect for the team to succeed: he wanted to facilitate Scrum, but the team was not ready for that. Listen in, to learn how Dahm changed his approach away from a pure-facilitation focus to a more leadership and coaching focus!  About Dahm Hongchai Dahm Hongchai is an Agile coach, a Scrum Master, and a business consultant with 5 years experience in high-tech and Startup industries in Silicon Valley, Thailand, and Australia. He was the first Thai to become a Scrum Trainer (ST) with Scrum Inc. Dahm also has 10+ years of experience with other approaches such as Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. And he is an Agile trainer and helps people to understand Agile via, for example Agile Cooking. You can link with Dahm Hongchai on LinkedIn and connect with Dahm Hongchai on Twitter.

From facilitator to successful Scrum Master with the help of coaching and leadership skills | Dahm Hongchai

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Taking responsibility for the success of the product is one of the success characteristics we discuss in this episode, where we also explore what happens the PO thinks they can still code through the User Stories they write!  The Great Product Owner: The PO that took responsibility for the success of the product Raj introduces a PO that wanted to understand the product, and do the research. The PO worked to thoroughly understand the stories, and customer needs before putting the stories in front of the team. Another great PO characteristic was the PO’s ability to be patient, and explain the same ideas as many times as necessary.  The Bad Product Owner: The pseudo-coder PO This Product Owner missed important meetings, even if they were invited and told they were required. To top it off, this was a PO that wrote the User Stories as if they were pseudo-code. All of this led to the team knowing very little about “why” certain stories were being implemented.  Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate. About Raj Solanki Raj is a Manager, Technical program manager as well as Scrum master. He focuses on helping the teams learn about Agile, overcoming obstacles, foster a collaborative community, and more.  He constantly reads about agile and seeks out coaches when he feels stuck. He seeks constant feedback and helps teams be transparent and build trust. You can link with Raj Solanki on LinkedIn and connect with Raj Solanki on Twitter.

The PO that took responsibility for the success of the product | Raj Solanki

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Raj’s definition of success starts with the team. He defines what success looks like for the team, and how he focuses on helping teams reach that success. In this episode, we also discuss how team-velocity is a factor of many variables, not only the work that team does. Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The standard “what went well” format with a twist Raj starts by describing the “What went well/not so well” format and adds a twist, a set of practices to help the team get started with the discussion and ends with an appreciation exercise. Listen in, to learn how Raj improves on the standard retrospective format.  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 Raj Solanki Raj is a Manager, Technical program manager as well as Scrum master. He focuses on helping the teams learn about Agile, overcoming obstacles, foster a collaborative community, and more.  He constantly reads about agile and seeks out coaches when he feels stuck. He seeks constant feedback and helps teams be transparent and build trust. You can link with Raj Solanki on LinkedIn and connect with Raj Solanki on Twitter.

What is Scrum team success, and how it relates to the Scrum Master’s success | Raj Solanki

Every week day, Certified Scrum Master, Agile Coach and business consultant Vasco Duarte interviews Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches from all over the world to get you actionable advice, new tips and tricks, improve your craft as a Scrum Master with daily doses of inspiring conversations with Scrum Masters from the all over the world. Stay tuned for BONUS episodes when we interview Agile gurus and other thought leaders in the business space to bring you the Agile Business perspective you need to succeed as a Scrum Master. Some of the topics we discuss include: Agile Business, Agile Strategy, Retrospectives, Team motivation, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Backlog Refinement, Scaling Scrum, Lean Startup, Test Driven Development (TDD), Behavior Driven Development (BDD), Paper Prototyping, QA in Scrum, the role of agile managers, servant leadership, agile coaching, and more!

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Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

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