Next time you need to reorganize, consider this:

  • Be super clear on why the reorg is needed and what you hope to achieve with it – it makes everyone more motivated
  • Be available for questions – it makes everyone more comfortable
  • Involve team members as much as possible, for example in a self-selection workshop – it makes everyone more committed

In this weeks episode of Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, me and Vasco Duarte discuss self-selection of teams, how I did it in a distributed team and what the benefits were.

Listen to the episode here:

scrum-master-toolbox.org/2019/05/podcast/catrine-bjorkegren-how-to-facilitate-a-scrum-team-self-selection-process-the-essence-of-self-organization/

 

You will find all the episodes here:

https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/tag/catrine-bjorkegren/

Have you ever heard someone in a team say:

“Nah, it’s not even worth it for me to look into that bug. Maria is back on Monday, she will fix it super fast then.”

In this weeks episode of Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, me and Vasco Duarte discuss the “hero” anti-pattern, how it works against being a team, how to recognize it and how to get rid of it.

Listen to the episode here:

https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/2019/04/podcast/catrine-bjorkegren-how-to-avoid-the-hero-anti-pattern-in-scrum-teams/

 

You will find all the episodes here:

https://scrum-master-toolbox.org/tag/catrine-bjorkegren/

The challenge

How do I do a retrospective that feels like a live meeting though we are distributed?

I have recently started working with a new team. We are distributed in two locations with a 7-hour time difference. We have not met in person (yet). We use slack for our daily communication, using it both for text communication and audio calls. In the retrospectives we always use video since it’s so much better to get the feeling of being closer to each other.

My team had a history of using the 4L retrospective technique every sprint for a long time. They used slack video call and confluence for documentation during the meeting.

I wanted to do something different, and I wanted the retro to be as much like a live meeting as possible.

The solution

I read about the Speedboat retro and really wanted to try it, but I was not sure how I could make it work with the team being distributed.

I had a vision of us using an online sticky tool and putting our stickies on the picture of the pirate ship.

(more…)

In our breakfast seminar ”Agile change management” the participants each get a deck of Pattern Cards and are asked to choose the pattern that is most challenging for them right now.

Over 100 people have been asked this question. These are the top 3 challenges:

  1. WIP – limit work in progress
  2. Optimize for flow
  3. Minimal bureaucracy

Wip limit pattern card

What is WIP?

WIP is an acronym for Work In Progress and basically means how many different things are being worked on at the same time.

Many agile methods, like Kanban, strives to limit WIP, to reduce the number of concurrent initiatives.

Why should I limit WIP?

When you have many concurrent initiatives, working on many different things at the same time, you might feel effective, but in truth you are not.

(more…)

Shopping basket
Related Trainings
Our Trainings
FREE EVENT: Insights on Transforming into Empowered Product Teams – Experiences from Insurello and Avanza
Target Group: Anyone interested in getting inspiration and learning how to successfully scale up product and development organizations to deliver customer value faster and more efficiently.