The Liberators Podcast

This episode is about how unreliable, nonobjective, and biased your and my thinking is. As sociologists and psychologists have long pointed out, we should develop a more skeptical and nuanced view of our own opinions.

In this episode, we explore eight biases and explore how they influence our beliefs in the workplace. A bias called "regression to the mean" can easily lead management to conclude that punishment for mistakes is more effective at producing desired behavior than rewards for achievements. The "survival bias" can lead people to conclude that certain methodologies or best-practices are successful purely because they only see the successes, but never the failures. Or "illusory superiority" leads to frustration and resentment because people feel that they are contributing more than others - as we all tend to do.

This episode is part of our "In-Depth" series. This means that we don't offer easy answers, but instead invite you to build a deeper understanding of how things work. Furthermore, we made an effort to dig deep into on-going scientific research. With this episode in mind, I'm sure you understand why we like Liberating Structures and Scrum so much. Or why we distrust "best practices".

This extra-long episode is based on this blog-post (all references are there):
https://bit.ly/30Je2Ni

Donate to support 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.

This year has been challenging for all of us. It wasn't any different for our company, The Liberators. At the same time, seemingly insurmountable challenges are also drivers of innovation.

In this personal episode, we share how we are turning the ship around. Our purpose is to liberate teams from dehumanizing and ineffective ways of organizing work by putting them in control of shaping their future.

This change in direction also means saying goodbye to things that are dear to us, including the Professional Scrum Master II class, training in general, and our stewardship at Scrum.org. But we take our mission too seriously to work on it with anything less than 100% focus.

Yes, this is super scary for both of us, and cause for some sleepless nights. At the same time, we believe in our mission and our community to make this work. We may fail. We may succeed - the experience will be worth it.

This episode is based on this blog post:
https://bit.ly/3h4OoY3

Donate to support 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.

"Teams make people more than people make teams."

It may be a bold statement, but there is a surprising amount of scientific evidence that shows the overwhelming effect of our social environment on our behavior and performance. By understanding why it is easier to understand what makes change so difficult.

In this episode of our podcast, we explore a different way to understand organizations. Rather than the dominant perspective today - to understand them as "machines" - we look at organizations as social systems. We draw from five domains of scientific research to show just how useful this perspective is, what it teaches us about change and how we can do better.

This episode is part of our "In-depth"-series; a series that doesn't offer easy answers but aims to create deeper understanding. Our hope is this makes it easier to come up with your own answers, rather than having to rely on experts and consultants to tell you.

This episode is based on this blog post (which includes all the references too):
https://bit.ly/3lfEx4T

Donate to support 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.

Liberating Structures are easy-to-learn, easy-to-facilitate techniques that build real engagement and involvement in groups of any size. We’ve been using them for a while now. One thing we’ve learned is that coming up with good ‘invitations’ is 90% of the work. In this episode we share some of the lessons we’ve learned and are still learning.

This episode is based on this blogpost. In the episode, we also mention this document with helpful starting stems for your invitations. We also have many examples available of strings (and invitations) we've used with the Dutch LS User Group.

Donate to support 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.

There is a problem with traditional learning models where experts tell people what they need to know: it doesn't work. Scientific research tells us that people don't learn from being told what they need to learn.

In this episode, we explore an alternative approach called Visual Thinking Strategies. Although only one piece of the puzzle, it creates engaging learning environments by guiding groups in their own learning. And VTS is super simple; only 3 questions.

When you've listened to this episode, give it a try with your own team. We're eager to learn what happened!

This episode is based on this blogpost:
http://bit.ly/2Quic6q

Donate to support 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.

What creates Zombie Scrum? One clear theme we — and many others — have found is that people use the Scrum Framework for the wrong reasons. When you ask people in a Zombie Scrum organization what they are hoping to get out of Scrum, you’ll hear things like “more speed”, “more brains”, “more output” and “more efficiency”. That’s very different from the actual meaning of the word “agile”. It’s also very different from what the Scrum Framework is designed for. Where does this contradiction come from?

In this episode, which is an excerpt from our book "The Zombie Scrum Survival Guide", we explore how the "Efficiency Mindset" that is prevalent in so many organizations can easy mess-up your work with the Scrum Framework.

The blog-version is available here:
https://bit.ly/3g6vS2f

Sign up to be notified when the book becomes available:
http://bit.ly/2zrdywv

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.

"That doesn't work in the real world", "Our product is too complex" and "That works only for hip startups" are some of the reasons that people offer when we ask them why they don't ship faster.

In environments with Zombie Scrum, people don't understand why it's important to ship fast. When you ask them, they respond with a shrug. Or with a dismissive smile, because "that can't possibly work for a product or organization as complex as ours". For them, shipping fast is only possible for small and inconsequential products or for huge tech companies like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Etsy. Even if they'd want to, the investment would simply be too large. It's more convenient to keep batching many updates into large, infrequent releases. Honestly, this is not very different from seeing the appeal in a healthy lifestyle but refusing to do the frequent workouts to get there.

But ironically, the more complex the product or its environment is, the more important it is to use release small increments to reduce the risks that are inherent to that. The reasons that people often give why they can't ship faster are ironically *exactly* the reasons why they should.

In this episode, which is an excerpt from our book "The Zombie Scrum Survival Guide", we share one of the reasons why teams that suffer from Zombie Scrum often can't release as fast as they want.

The blog-version is available here:
 https://bit.ly/2BBNV0x

Sign up to be notified when the book becomes available:
http://bit.ly/2zrdywv

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.

In this episode, we take a birds-eye view of what is happening in and around us. Technological innovations are emerging rapidly and our work is increasingly globalized, inter-connected and dependent on technology. And it seems to be accelerating: welcome to the technological Supernova!

In this episode we capture two complementary perspectives on this supernova and how to survive it. We also connect it to the Scrum Framework, and how it helps us survive - and even thrive on - all this growing complexity.

The transcript for this episode is available here as a blogpost:
http://bit.ly/35tTsQ4

Donate to support 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.

“Self-organization is the process by which spontaneous order arises from something that is initially disorganized.”

That sounds very deep, but what does it mean in practice? For such a popular topic as "self-organization", its often remarkably unclear what it means or how to make it happen. In this episode, we explore how Liberating Structures are effectively instruments for self-organization in teams and organizations. We also offer five tips that worked for us.

The transcript for this episode is available here as a blogpost:
https://bit.ly/3chbkAR

Our next 2-day Immersion Workshop takes place on November 18 & 19 (Amsterdam):
http://bit.ly/2UMk6xY

Donate to support 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.

“Stakeholders are less satisfied, less value is delivered and team morale is markedly lower when management hardly interacts with the teams”

This is one finding from the 2.000+ teams that have participated to date in our Zombie Scrum Survey. In this episode, we explore the improvements we made to the survey based on the data we collected to data. We also shared other preliminary findings.

This episode is based on this blogpost:
https://bit.ly/2YaNimi

Donate to support 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.