Using LEGO® to find the unspoken rules of engagement that affect poor performance in your teams
11 Sep 2019 Michael Bentein Agile & ScrumLeadership & Management

The best friendships are found when people share interests & values, have great communication and have aligned “rules” of engagement with the depth of friendship highly correlated to the match between the secret invisible criteria and drives of people.

In professional teams these “rules” of engagement and secret criteria also exist and are often not communicated. Often causing frustration,  poor performance, lack of teamwork and low morale.

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How to run multi-site Scrum events without tooling?
4 Sep 2019 Jurgen De Smet Agile & ScrumEngaging Workshops & MeetingsLess is More

Today I am frequently working with larger organisations and continually have to deal with people in different locations across the country or globe. This kind of context brings its own challenges and many people hope to find solutions in tooling and so did I, but hey, did I think wrong!

Before going into running multi-site events, a bit of context on team setup and the need for multi-site events.

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An Effective Sprint Planning? Do it the Fish!y way!
21 Aug 2019 Steven Deneir Agile & ScrumEngaging Workshops & MeetingsInnovation Games & GamestormingLeadership & ManagementWork is Play

Choosing how you will walk through your day, having fun with your colleagues and clients, actively listen and participating in collaborations, and ensuring others also have a great day. I have written a short story a while ago about the basics of the Fish! Philosophy for being an outstanding team member.

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An Effective Sprint Retrospective? Do it the Fish!y way!
1 Aug 2019 Steven Deneir Agile & ScrumEngaging Workshops & MeetingsInnovation Games & GamestormingWork is Play

Choosing how you will walk through your day, having fun with your colleagues and clients, actively listen and participating in collaborations, and ensuring others also have a great day. I have written a short story a while ago about the basics of the Fish! Philosophy for being an outstanding team member.

Now let’s have a look at how this could fit within a Scrum Team. Even more specific: during the different Scrum Events. Today I chose to pick the Sprint Retrospective.

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Race day! - passing your Professional Scrum Master level III
24 Jul 2019 Steven Deneir Agile & Scrum

 

You have read every book referenced in the PSM training and on the Scrum.org website...
You have read every single blog post on Scrum.org...
You have watched hours of webcasts and videos by and with Professional Scrum Trainers...
You have followed both the PSM and PSM II training...
And more...
You have passed with ease the PSM levels I and II...
You have years of experience as a Scrum Master...
You are ready for PSM III.
Be sure the day itself you are in top condition - it's race day!

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Fishing for Flow and Peak performance
17 Jul 2019 Michael Bentein Agile & ScrumLeadership & Management
Fishing for Flow and Peak performance

Does flow exist in teams? Can it lead to peak performances in teams? 

My first realisation of ‘Flow’ at work was as a developer. I was deeply engrossed in trying to fine tune an optimization method when I started to realise something was ‘wrong’. I felt a prickly feeling in my neck and shoulders that seemed to want to get my attention. 

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Professional Scrum - Professional meaning what…?
12 Jun 2019 Steven Deneir Agile & ScrumLeadership & Management

In my pursuit of raising my understanding of Scrum in order to serve my partners better, I recently attended both Professional Scrum Master I and II trainings and a Professional Scrum Master Train-the-trainer.
One of the many A-HA moments I experienced during these very intense days was the deeper meaning behind “professional” in the title of the training. Before that moment it was just a title as any other. Professional, or Certified, hey, what’s in a name…

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Go Fish! A philosophy for being an outstanding team member.
22 May 2019 Steven Deneir Engaging Workshops & MeetingsLeadership & ManagementWork is Play

Tuesday morning. 5AM. Alarm clock goes off. Some clouds in the sky. Driving my son to the swimming pool so he can start his training at 5:45 sharp. Continuing the drive towards a client to facilitate a training. 6:45 Traffic jam. Drizzle. 7:45 arrived. 9:00 Training to be started. Not all participants arrived. Waiting for another 5 minutes. Kick-off.

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Is it Sales or your Product Strategy that isn’t great?
8 May 2019 Jurgen De Smet Agile & ScrumLeadership & Management

Is it Sales or your Product Strategy that isn’t great?

You hear things like “sales is just selling anything as long as they get their bonus”, “we have to comply to everything sold and have no say in it” within many product development departments. The other way around from within sales departments comes the remark “they never deliver what has been promised”, “we can’t trust what they say they will do anyhow” and other remarks. Both are right and wrong at the same time.

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What if you would Ask Your Team? Invitation based change
17 Apr 2019 Steven Deneir Agile & ScrumEngaging Workshops & MeetingsWork is Play

Senior management announces “we go agile”, and nobody in your team has any clue why or how. Sounds familiar?

Of course they are right. They are the leaders. They should know the way forward. No?

Probably they have heard from another company X, probably even of one of their colleagues/friends in their (LinkedIN) network, that framework Y works - Spotify is very popular these days so it seems...  

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