Aki Salmi: Indicators of a Thriving Agile Team When Uncertainty Rules

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, Aki emphasizes the importance of growth within a team, regardless of whether the path forward is uncertain. He provides insightful tips, such as tracking the effectiveness of retrospectives and monitoring the nature of discussions. Aki prompts reflection on whether the team is delving into systemic issues or getting stuck in "but" statements. He encourages listeners to observe where the team's focus lies and whether they exhibit curiosity towards their work, asking exploratory "what if" questions.

Featured Retrospective Format For The Week: The Empty Table Retrospective

In this segment, Aki shares his preferred retrospective format inspired by "Agile Retrospectives" by Larsen and Derby. He gives the tip that it’s a lot easier for Scrum Masters when we don’t run retrospectives for our own teams. Aki introduces the "Empty Table" retro, emphasizing the significance of a thorough check-in. Participants imagine an empty table to gather insights and events. He used to employ dot-voting extensively, but later decided there were better methods to select the topics for discussion. He suggests a different approach for topic selection to promote shared leadership. He stresses the importance of active listening and embraces silence as a valid contribution.

 

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About Aki Salmi

Aki is a software crafter and shares the joy of coding and the value of empathy at work. That is, Aki works on ones and zeros (code) and everything else (humans).

You can link with Aki Salmi on LinkedIn.