The Liberators Podcast

In today's episode, we talk about self-management and self-organization. How are those concepts related. And why are incredibly both valuable and important, even now that the Scrum Guide changed its language to emphasize "self-managing Scrum Teams" instead of "self-organizing Scrum Teams"?

Coincidentally, we dedicated a chapter in our book - the Zombie Scrum Survival Guide - to self-organization and self-management. In it, we make the case that the Scrum Guide always meant "self-managing" in the first place, and how those self-managing Scrum Teams enable self-organization on a larger level (the department, the organization).

In this episode, we give examples of what self-management and self-organization looks like. And more importantly, how self-managing Scrum Teams act as a crowbar to increase agility and responsiveness by driving self-organization on the level of the organization.

This episode features a part of one of the chapters from our book. You can get it at your favorite bookstore, or directly from us.

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

"Without good developers, Scrum is lipstick on a pig". Yet, a quick look on blogs, LinkedIn and popular podcasts makes it obvious that more attention goes to Scrum Masters, Product Owners and coaches than to developers. Why is that?

In this episode, we share a personal story about a what contributes to a "Developer Culture". This is a culture where software craftmanship is celebrated, and developers work hard to increase quality and their skills. Without this, it will be very hard to work empirically and overcome tough technical challenges that you're likely to face.

We explore eight factors that seem to contribute to a successful developer culture, at least based on our experience. If anything, it may inspire you with ideas for things to try or ways to create a similar culture in your organization.

This episode is based on this blogpost (which also contains the pictures):
https://medium.com/the-liberators/what-makes-a-developer-culture-e10232d0b40c

You can support the show on Patreon:
https://patreon.com/liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

Are you excited about the new Scrum Guide? We certainly are, if only because every version makes it more clear what Scrum is really about — which is also our mission.

In this episode, we take a look at the four most significant changes and why they were made. While it is tempting to talk about all the nitty-gritty linguistic changes, we believe it is more helpful to understand the underlying patterns and how they reinforce what Scrum has always been about.

You can find a transcript of this episode here:
https://bit.ly/32Nxfhl

The new Scrum Guide is available (as always) at:
https://scrumguides.org

You can download our updated Scrum Framework poster here:
https://bit.ly/33hE5uK

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

At its core, Scrum is a framework for learning. But learning is hard when what you learn remains superficial and never challenges existing rules and beliefs.

In this episode, we talk about the foundational work by theorist Chris Argyris on organizational learning. He developed a model for organizational learning that distinguishes between single- and double-loop learning. Where single-loop learning concerns itself with correcting mistakes in the actions that you take, double-loop learning takes it several steps deeper and challenges why you're even taking those actions.

In our own work, we recognize that Scrum doesn't work when there is only single-loop learning. For example, many Scrum Teams struggle to find the best way to estimate their work and experiment with story points, t-shirt sizing, or functional points. But the deeper question is; why are we estimating work that we know is inherently unpredictable? What existing beliefs are making us estimate our work, that we should revisit and change?

The Liberating Structure "Myth Turning" is all about double-loop learning:
http://bit.ly/2JOmr9P

We developed a deck of Powerful Questions to help you challenge existing beliefs:
https://bit.ly/3o6HaaS

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

It is easy to start new initiatives. And much harder to make them endure. Whether or it is a new team, a new community, or a new product, how do you create a foundation to build on?

Thankfully, the Liberating Structure "Purpose to Practice" is of great help here as it gives groups five essential elements to focus on: purpose, principles, participants, structure, and practices.

We've frequently used Purpose to Practice (P2P) to start new teams, communities of Scrum Masters, change initiatives, and even entire organizations. In this episode, we share how we've used P2P in our work, specifically for our growing community of patrons, and how you can use it in your own work.

Read a blog post we wrote about Purpose to Practice here:
http://bit.ly/2RSh65O

Or try this prepared string for a Purpose-to-Practice with your team.

Or download a free PDF canvas for Purpose to Practice.

And we happily invite you to join our growing community of patrons and work with us to refine our Purpose to Practice together: https://patreon.com/liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

"How is it a good idea to mirror this complexity in the product with complexity in the group of people that develop this product?"

Scaling Scrum is seriously hard, right? How do you work with many teams on one product? How many Product Owners should you have for one large product? How can many teams deliver a "Done" Increment every Sprint? How do you manage the increasing number of dependencies between teams? 

Honestly, we believe that -  in most cases -  scaling Scrum is tantamount to solving the wrong problem. And we say that irrespective of the framework you use, Nexus, LeSS, or SAFe: Scaling Scrum is a contradiction.

In this episode of our podcast, we explain why. And we offer you five strategies to avoid scaling.

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

Few teams start from a position where the Scrum Framework works like a charm from the start. Scrum is radically different from the way that teams have built products and worked with stakeholders in the past. Scrum Teams usually need to improve in many different areas, and overcome many barriers, in order to reach their goals of higher customer satisfaction.

Unfortunately, we’ve found that many Scrum Teams struggle to improve at all. And that easily leads to Zombie Scrum: something that may look like Scrum from a distance but lacks the beating heart. In this episode, we address one common reason for this: a lack of tangible improvements.

Read a transcript of this episode here:
https://bit.ly/2Nl8UaF

More about 15% Solutions can be found here:
http://bit.ly/2NXpIX0

You can pre-order the Zombie Scrum Survival Guide here:
https://zombiescrum.org

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

How do you sell Agile to your customer?

"One of our biggest customers preferred the traditional way of doing projects. This boiled down to writing a massive requirement document, estimating the hours the work, and translating that to a fixed budget. We would then set a deadline and get to work."

And this is understandable. From the perspective of the customer, this gives them the guarantees on budget, date, and scope they need to sell the work internally and to their own management, who in turn demand similar guarantees.

The irony of course is that, despite these guarantees, the scope inevitably changed during the work anyways. After all, those new ideas emerged if we wanted to or not. And in many cases, we simply made incorrect assumptions in the requirement document that we based our estimates on. So we had to move deadlines, request additional budget, and frequently covered overly optimistic hour estimates on our part with our own money.

As a wise person once told me after a feverish attempt to sell Scrum to them: “don’t sell me the hammer, sell me its benefits”. This was an important learning moment for me as I realized that I was explaining how it benefitted us, but not necessarily the customer. So what benefits does Agile offer to the customer?

A transcript is available here:
https://bit.ly/36IKBOB

Become a patron to support and participate in our work:
https://www.patreon.com/liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

Last year, we brought together 30 Scrum Masters to talk about what made their success possible. We used a string of Liberating Structures to include everyone's voice. In this episode we share the 5 most important contributors that the group identified. How are you investing in those contributors yourself?

We offer many strings to explore similar questions with your team, your meetup or your community of Scrum Masters.

This episode is based on this blog-post:
http://bit.ly/tl-scrummastersuccess

Become a patron to support and participate in our work:
https://www.patreon.com/liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

What if Scrum doesn't fit? If you work as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach, you have probably run into teams where Scrum just doesn’t take off. The various Scrum Events feel like a chore, motivation is low and people complain about Scrum.

One of the downsides of the popularity of the Scrum Framework is that organizations, teams, consultants, and coaches sometimes try to force Scrum onto problems it isn’t designed for. And the resulting tension is often experienced by the teams, making their perceived “resistance” very understandable.

In this episode of our podcast, we explore indicators of "bad fit". We also explore how "coherence" is central to the Scrum Framework. Without it, Scrum can easily feel artificial and forced. Even when that coherence isn't there now, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be there. In fact, you may find that creating more coherence makes your team many times more effective. Or you may conclude that it isn't feasible, and Scrum isn't going to fit.

This episode is based on this blog-post:
https://bit.ly/whenscrumdoesntfit

Become a patron to support and participate in our work:
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators

Support the show

We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com

Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com

The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.