Being in a rush is a common anti-pattern in software development. When deadlines are tight, and there’s a lot to do people enter the “rush” mode. They start taking short-cuts, drop communication, and complain about meetings. In this episode we discuss the anti-patterns coming from being a hurry and what to do about them.

About Sebastian Hitzler

Sebastian works as a dedicated Scrum Master for two delivery teams at Fidor Solutions in Munich. The team members are from 10 different countries and spread into 3 different locations in Germany, Spain and Ukraine. Fidor enables clients to become digital banks based on their ecosystem. Sebastian also works with the wider organisation to help them transform with lean and agile.

You can link with Sebastian Hitzler on LinkedIn and connect with Sebastian Hitzler on XING.

Product Owner is a critical role in Scrum. When it is missing there’s many things that don’t work. Prioritization, answering questions about the product quickly, you name it. But what is a Scrum Master to do? Listen in and explore with us the many anti-patterns that emerge when the Product Owner is missing in a Scrum team.

In this episode we refer to the Oikosofy Story Mapping Workshop facilitation guide.

About Sebastian Hitzler

Sebastian works as a dedicated Scrum Master for two delivery teams at Fidor Solutions in Munich. The team members are from 10 different countries and spread into 3 different locations in Germany, Spain and Ukraine. Fidor enables clients to become digital banks based on their ecosystem. Sebastian also works with the wider organisation to help them transform with lean and agile.

You can link with Sebastian Hitzler on LinkedIn and connect with Sebastian Hitzler on XING.

Scrum Masters are familiar with the 3 pillars of Scrum or the values that are at the core of Scrum. In this episode we discuss how focusing on those 3 pillars of scrum, the Scrum Masters can help make the system conditions visible. The system conditions are the things we must focus on uncovering and help change to enable the adoption of Agile and Scrum in the organization. After all, Scrum and Agile transformation are not easy!

What is success for a Scrum Master? This is the #1 question Barry gets in his trainings. In this episode we talk about his answer to that question and how we can enable one of they key patterns in Scrum: team self-organization.

Barry shares his own success checklist so that you can use it yourself and assess your path to success.

Many organizations are stuck in the “let’s write a document, then a contract before we even get started” anti-pattern. Here’s the problem: no matter how careful you are with the original contract, there will be problems because the understanding of the contract will diverge over time. In this episode we talk about a different approach. And with Barry we review the steps he used to move from Big Upfront Contract to Co-creating with the Customer! A radical new approach enabled by the adoption of Scrum.

Scrum Masters are typically people committed to the success of the teams they work with. That’s great, but it can lead to problems. It may lead, for example, to the teams not making decisions on their own! In this episode we discuss anti-patterns that develop in teams where the Scrum Masters act more like a team captain than a servant leader. Most importantly, we discuss what we need to do to transition from captain to servant leader.

In this episode we talk about Scrum, a Pocket Guide by Gunther Verheyen, a previous guest of the podcast. We also talk about Scrum Mastery: From Good To Great Servant-Leadership by Geoff Watts.

There are many paths to the Scrum Master role. One that is quite common in the IT industry is that of moving from Project Management to being a Scrum Master. As you’d expect there are quite big differences. In this episode we talk about those differences and what Project Mangers must take into account when changing their role to Scrum Master.

In this episode we talk about a paper that Barry authored where he describes the 8 stances of a Scrum Master. A good list to have in mind, especially when transitioning from Project Management to Scrum Master.

If you are on your journey from Project Management to Scrum Master you might be interested on this episode with Danilo Tambone who made that transition himself!

“Culture eats process for breakfast” goes the quote. Culture is one of the big aspects of the system of work we interact with, so we need to be aware of what are the cultural trends in the organizations and teams we work with. What are those? Joe discusses with us methods and practices to identify the “cultural markers” that can help us, as Scrum Masters, understand the system we need to interact with.

About Joe Anderson

Joe is a Scrum Master at a small travel technology company with a passion for bringing out the best in people and building deep relationships. He works hard to foster an environment of safety, fun and learning with a focus on relentless improvement.

You can link with Joe Anderson on LinkedIn and connect with Joe Anderson on Twitter.

As Scrum Masters we are intimately familiar with Retrospectives. We plan, organize and facilitate retrospectives for our team members and even larger chunks of the organization. But when was the last time you did your own personal retrospective? Leading by example is a concrete path for success so do the same things you ask the team to do. In this episode we discuss concrete examples of “leading by example” with Joe Anderson.

About Joe Anderson

Joe is a Scrum Master at a small travel technology company with a passion for bringing out the best in people and building deep relationships. He works hard to foster an environment of safety, fun and learning with a focus on relentless improvement.

You can link with Joe Anderson on LinkedIn and connect with Joe Anderson on Twitter.

Many organizations adopting Agile as of today are in a transition. From the Project Management paradigm to the Agile paradigm. How can we engage with Project Management to help the organization evolve? This is the topic of today’s conversation with Joe Anderson: how do you engage with Project Management to help the organization move towards Agile?

About Joe Anderson

Joe is a Scrum Master at a small travel technology company with a passion for bringing out the best in people and building deep relationships. He works hard to foster an environment of safety, fun and learning with a focus on relentless improvement.

You can link with Joe Anderson on LinkedIn and connect with Joe Anderson on Twitter.