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If you are an aspiring or new Scrum Master, Business Analyst, Product Owner, or Product Manager; you will take away a lot from these conversations!
Copyright: © Vivek Khattri
Today, we feature the best moments of our conversation with Richard Seroter, Director of Developer Relations and Outbound Product Management at Google Cloud. He discusses what it means to be a product owner and how to work with engineers, end users, and everyone in between.
Richard shares how to exercise leadership as a product owner and work with stakeholders not as a boss but as a member of the team. He also talks about using data points to prioritize feature decisions, instilling self-governance and accountability, and promoting continuous improvement in the team.
HIGHLIGHT QUOTES
A product owner leads through influence - Richard: "A good product owner leads through influence. They don't have direct authority. They don't have a management staff of people. The engineers don't report to them. But you are leading often by showing that you have their back. And, for me again, that was a very underrated aspect that if you're a good product owner, the engineers think you are covering for them in a good way."
Don't procrastinate and always ship at the end of each release - Richard: "I don't think you're going to have a good time if you don't force your team to ship after the end of each release, each sprint, because if you don't ship, what's really easy to do? Let's just roll it into the next one. If you have that failsafe, you're going to use it versus like nope, we ship at the end of each release."
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Today, The Agile Coach looks back on our conversation with Banu Raghuraman who is now a Course Instructor with The Agile Coach and Digital Project Manager at EY. In order to lead, you need empathy, and being an emphatic leader has positive implications for how well you resonate with team members and stakeholders alike.
Banu provides tips on relationship building and digs into the actual ways to communicate with stakeholders. She gives tips on influential leadership which informs how to negotiate with other people, how to open to new ways of thinking to resolve unprecedented problems, and how to be upfront about risk.
HIGHLIGHT QUOTES
Create trust by following through with promises - Banu: "Trust comes from how much of what I say lines up with what I do. It's a massive input of integrity that you have to show because obviously when you're coming in and talking to a person for the first time, we can all be nice. There are plenty of internet articles out there that tell you how to make a good first impression. But after that, how much you follow through is what's important, and that sense of integrity is what people need to understand."
Document when decisions are made so everyone understands the why - Banu: "If you don't understand the why behind a specific decision, then it really becomes a political game. And there are different ways of dealing with the political side of things, but if there was a rational decision that was being made and generally in product management, I've been fortunate enough not to get into the political side of things but really understand why a certain decision was made. Document that and make sure everyone understands the why."
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Today, we speak again with Joe Ziadeh, the Chief Story Teller and Innovation Artist at Balanced Agility. He knows how estimation is done best by pinning it relative against the size of another thing and determining if it is bigger or smaller than that. Joe also talks about story points and how to relatively size them and use the Fibonacci sequence because it is simply what worked for many people a long time ago.
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Today, we speak again with Joe Ziadeh, the Chief Story Teller and Innovation Artist at Balanced Agility. He discusses the differences between ideas and insights and how to perform a root cause analysis like the 5 Why's. This strategy reveals the insights hidden in the data and opens up possible experiments the team can perform to address the root cause of the issue.
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Today, we feature the most impactful, thought-provoking, and actionable tips from our conversation with Joe Ziadeh, the Chief Story Teller and Innovation Artist at Balanced Agility. He shares how to facilitate team retrospectives by creating trust within the team first and using games and improv to actually brainstorm. These games can be used to overcome power plays in a team and create a space where it is safe to address problems and find solutions for them.
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What roles does the product manager actually take in the company? Neha believes that, more than the job description, product managers play a huge role in enabling teams in overall processes even if we don't see it directly. In this episode of The Agile Coach, Vivek and Neha dive deep into the skills that are unnecessary and those that are important in order to become an effective product manager.
AGILE HIGHLIGHTS
AGILE MOMENTS
On what made Neha choose the path of product management:
“Ultimately, it all came down to the impact that product managers have on decision-making within the company. You hear a lot of the time “product and CEO of the company” and I don't believe that as true. It's really that product people are enablers for their team.”
Neha's on critical thinking as a core skill:
“I think one skill that's also very important for a product manager is having critical thinking skills. So, really look at what the problem is at hand and work collaboratively with your teams to come up with the solution that balances need of the customer, the business, and why it's technically feasible.”
Neha on how data can best back you up:
“Everything that we mentioned, stakeholder management, all of that I think is basically the cherry on top if you have this to back you up which is data-driven. I think it's really important to use whatever data you have at hand to make the right decisions”
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Welcome to another episode of The Agile Coach! We have a special episode for you today as we bring back some of the best moments of our amazing guest, Parth Detroja, Product Manager at Facebook and author of Swipe to Unlock.
Tune in for some of the best insights and highlights in our previous interview with Parth!
HIGHLIGHTS
“Showing that you've helped tangibly shape real products is the biggest thing that will open doors for you. Take any elite university, there are thousands of students at that same university so it's kind of hard to stand out in that regard.”-Parth on where the college degree adds value
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In this episode of The Agile Coach, Pabitra talks about assessing Agile teams in the sense of a Japanese martial arts concept which is the Su Ha Ri. She dives deep into each of the three stages, how scrum masters can work most effectively in each stage, and how you can also assess yourself and identify which stage you're in.
AGILE HIGHLIGHTS
AGILE MOMENTS
Pabitra - When the team reaches the Ri stage:
“This is a beautiful stage to be in and for a coach to see the team get to this stage is amazing to witness. If these are true and your team is at a Ri stage, you really need to let them go in a way.”
Pabitra - Seeing the team become a high-performing team:
“There are always different approaches to get the same results. So at this stage, the team can come up with their own solutions, they just need a coach to help them find different ways to achieve what they need.”
Pabitra - Moving between the three stages as a scrum master:
“Am I showing up as a teacher? A coach? An advisor? And that is what a true coach does is consistently evaluating and uncovering better ways of helping the team at the end of the day.
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Welcome to another episode of The Agile Coach! We have a special episode for you today as we bring some of the best moments of our amazing guest, Diana Larsen, President and Leadership Agility Advisor at Eos House Consulting and author of Agile Retrospectives.
Tune in for some of the most notable highlights and learning points in our previous interview with Diana!
HIGHLIGHTS
“It's not about individual performance. It's about how we work together to create a system where we can make sure that people's best is good enough for what we need. ”
-Diana on being able to push your team to their best
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In this episode of The Agile Coach, Pabitra continues the talk about identifying the anti-patterns for the different roles in a scrum team. This time, she discusses specifically about common anti-patterns of a scrum master. Tune in to find out and avoid these anti-patterns early on in your journey as a scrum master or improve if you've already been one for a long time.
AGILE HIGHLIGHTS
AGILE MOMENTS
Pabitra - Believe in Agile in order to bring the necessary change:
“If somebody is a scrum master or Agile practitioner, I believe that the person has to be passionate about Agile because it's so much about you uncovering yourself. ”
Pabitra - On why prioritizing connection is important:
“As a scrum master or change agent, when you come into an organization you have to understand that change is hard. There is a lot of fear when a lot of changes are happening in an organization.”
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