The Liberators Podcast

Great Scrum Teams know that refinement is one of the best ways to optimize the flow of work and deliver more value to stakeholders. Refinement is the act of breaking down and clarifying work for this and upcoming Sprints. We also know this from our research with 1.200 Scrum Teams; teams that actively refine also release more frequently. And they have more satisfied stakeholders and higher morale....

"Professionals don't need psychological safety" is what someone recently told us. Perhaps you are on the fence about the need for psychological safety too. Or you get the point, but always struggle to make it practical. In this podcast, we explore psychological safety from a scientific perspective. And we offer many practical recommendations for what psychological safety looks like...

Does refinement in your team feel like a slog? Do developers go there with lead in their shoes? Many Scrum Teams struggle with refinement, and understandably so. Yet, in many ways, this is where some of the most important work happens. And some of the hardest work.   In this episode, we offer a reflection on the purpose of refinement. And we offer recommendations to make the process more enjoyable...

The biggest challenge in Product Development is to distinguish between what the product can become one day , and what it should incrementally become first to validate critical assumptions that clear the way towards that future.  This presents a major struggle for Product Owners, customers, users, and developers as they are all inclined to spend most of their time thinking about the “Largest Potent...

How does "team cognition" make some Scrum teams more effective than others? In this podcast, we explore scientific research into team cognition and mental models. And we translate it into actionable improvements you can make to make your Scrum teams more effective. By the end of the episode, you will have learned: How team cognition is essentially the "mind of a team", with its...

When we started as #ScrumMaster, the thing that scared us the most was how to translate those lofty ideals into actual down-to-earth behavior. While it sounded great that #Scrum is about #empiricism”, we had no idea what that should look like with our teams, how we should behave to support that and how flexible we could be with the framework of Scrum. In this episode of our #podcast, we collected...

Even when we don't want to admit it, the Covid-19 pandemic changed how we work. Even after the pandemic ends, it is likely that many Scrum Teams will continue to work from home. Or at least, more often than before the pandemic hit. What is the impact of working from home on productivity and personal well-being? How can organizations support it well? And what can Scrum Masters do? We invited D...

This episode is all about what is impossible when you work with Scrum. Deliver a new and working version of the product every Sprint? Impossible! Give a Product Owner mandate over how to spend the product budget? Impossible! Have only one Product Owner for several Scrum Teams? Impossible! But is it really impossible ? In this episode we look at how self-limiting beliefs can impede potential improv...

This episode is all about that dreaded question: "When is it done and what will it cost?". Its also one of the most natural questions for customers and managers to ask. After all, they're either investing their own money or they will be held accountable when the product fails to return on its investment. So what can you do? In this episode, we draw from personal experience and what...

We often talk about how "Zombie Scrum" lacks frequently releases. Teams are not shipping fast. And while people often easily recognize this in their own team, what does it actually look like on the other side? In this episode, we take a close look at shipping fast. Why is it important? And how can it be turned into the competitive advantage - or asset - that it really is? We also offer s...

The Scrum framework exists to deliver value to stakeholders sooner. Sounds good, right? But when is something “valuable”? For something that seems so central to Scrum, it is remarkably hard for many Scrum Teams to determine what the value of the work on their Product Backlog actually us. In this episode, we offer a more fine-grained approach to understand what “value” means to your product and the...

How do you know that you're actually delivering value to your stakeholders? That you're responsive to their needs? And that the quality of your work is what they expect? This episode is all about value and stakeholders. We introduce a new feature for the Scrum Team Survey that allows team invite their stakeholders for their perspective. And we share a great way to involve your stakeholde...

In today's episode, we make the connection between the Scrum Framework and continuous improvement. Few Scrum Teams start from a position where everything works smoothly. Often, you initially don't know very well who your stakeholders are, you don't have access to them or you can't release as frequently as you'd want to. So there's a lot to improve and to learn. And if...

Paul Klipp and Justyna Pindel recently reviewed our new book "The Zombie Scrum Survival Guide". They also graciously invited us to talk about our book with them. The ensuing conversation was so nice, that we asked them if we could also publish it as part of our podcast. So here it is :) In it, we talk about how we've seen Zombie Scrum happen around us, how we wrote the book to help...

We often talk about "resistance", and how to overcome it in others. But ironically, we often create resistance ourselves. In this episode of our podcast, Christiaan shares one of his biggest lessons about change and resistance. With this in mind, we also explore how group dynamics helps us explain how we can easily create and amplify resistance through our own behavior. If you like this...

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...

"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 cele...

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 patte...

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...

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 learnin...

"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 numbe...

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 Scr...

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 guarant...

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 c...

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...