Explore every episode of the podcast Two Scrums Up
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
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| Unlocking Flow State on Teams | 08 Jun 2021 | 00:49:48 | |
It’s the Season 2 finale, we’re at the top of the mountain, and Sarah Rose and John are here to show you the view. Accompanied by multidisciplinary designer and founder of /ayd, Charis Alexander, they explore the question of what is really at the heart of driving ourselves and our teams towards more meaningful achievement? Together, they’ll guide you through the ways in which cultivating psychologically safe, equity-minded teams is a precursor to Flow State which, in turn, is the foundation of peak performance. In fact, the entanglement between these concepts is such that one experience may not be possible without the other.
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| FeedForward: Feedback Models for Growth | 25 May 2021 | 00:40:40 | |
What is the right way to engage in feedback conversations? In this episode, John and Sarah Rose challenge traditional, default modes of feedback, including telling it how it is, blaming, and constructive criticism—all of which are unidirectional and assume one “right” answer. Instead, your intrepid hosts guide you out of the binary realm of one truth and walk you step by step through alternative models that contribute to building a feedback culture for growth. _____
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| SEASON TWO IS COMING.... | 05 Jan 2021 | 00:09:51 | |
A quick(ish) update on the show -- enjoy! | |||
| Psychological Safety | 29 Dec 2020 | 00:38:30 | |
There's a huge difference between being told this is a safe space and a space actually being safe. In this episode, Sarah Rose Belok unpacks how psychological safety can be fostered, honored, and maintained on a team. | |||
| User Story Mapping | 22 Dec 2020 | 00:47:20 | |
All the agility in a project isn't worth its salt unless the end result is usable. User Story Mapping can help. Friend of the show, Jaimie Olmstead, explains how to navigate a team through their product user's journey to build a backlog, identify any missing items, and paint a complete picture of a project plan. | |||
| Delivering Delight: Going Beyond the MVP | 15 Dec 2020 | 00:46:19 | |
Scrum champions the MVP: deliver the minimum rapidly so you can iterate as soon as possible. But what about those moments when we find enough time to not only deliver an MVP but throw in a little extra delight to boot. Learn how Alley's Director of Development Operations Ben Bolton manages to deliver maximum value in an MVP package. | |||
| What to Know When You're New to Scrum | 08 Dec 2020 | 00:33:48 | |
Standups. Backlogs. Fibonacci numbers? Getting up to speed with Scrum can be a challenge. This week, Senior UX Developer Kaitlin Bolling shares her tips and shortcuts to going from a Scrum zero to a Scrum hero! | |||
| Closing Time: What to Do at Sprint's End | 01 Dec 2020 | 00:34:29 | |
Projects are full of many big decision points, but what about the small decisions we make every day. In this episode, Ken and John discuss the choices we make to fully close out a sprint. | |||
| Contracts & Scrum | 24 Nov 2020 | 00:27:09 | |
How can you navigate the natural tension between scoped bodies of work and the agility of Scrum? Alley Partner and Chief Strategy Officer, Brad Campeau-Laurion, discusses the nuts and bolts of contracts in an Agile environment. | |||
| Ruthless Prioritization | 17 Nov 2020 | 00:33:11 | |
Scrum relies on doing the most important work first, but how can you prioritize two competing deliverables for a single team? In this episode, D. Scott DiPerna walks us through ways to make tough decisions less daunting and how to more courageously deliver on our product backlog. | |||
| Emergency Procedure | 10 Nov 2020 | 00:33:45 | |
Delivering Agile projects isn't about having an emergency-free experience - far from it. But, by taking the time to develop and document emergency procedures on your team will guarantee that when the fire drills start, everyone will know what to do and how to quickly move beyond them. | |||
| The Power of Spikes | 03 Nov 2020 | 00:37:33 | |
Sometimes, the best way to move fast is to go slow. Taking a breather to more closely research or investigate a stakeholder request before doing the work can help a project in the long run. On this episode, Pattie Reaves and Allan Collins walk us through how to best map out the way forward before charging headlong into code. | |||
| Powerful Praise and The Pitfalls of Prizes | 11 May 2021 | 00:34:58 | |
Beware the default mode of prizes and back-pats lest you drain the power from praise. Trite and nonspecific praise can at best offer minimal value, and at worst create a system of winners and losers. We know it’s common to under-communicate genuinely positive, appreciative, and admiring regard for our coworkers in a powerful way. That's why Sarah Rose and John are jumping into the deep end of the praise pool and focusing this episode on sharing 3 tactical checkpoints to examine, reform, and transform your team’s practice of praise.
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| Spooky Scrum Stories | 27 Oct 2020 | 00:22:18 | |
A bit of spooky fun this week. Instead of our normal show sharing our scrum successes and missteps, we give you three scary stories with an agile tinge to them. 100% fiction. 100% fun. Enjoy! | |||
| Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools | 20 Oct 2020 | 00:27:56 | |
A team with the best tools and smoothest processes won't deliver success if they aren't working together. In this episode, we discuss one of the core tenets of the Agile Manifesto: value Individuals and Interactions most. Learn how communication, caring, and clarity leads to project success. | |||
| T-shaped Team Time | 13 Oct 2020 | 00:29:45 | |
Scrum doesn't have time for "that's not my job" silos. 100% clarity and collaboration delivers the best results. In this episode, we discuss what being T-shaped means, and how any member of a team can help unblock a colleague, regardless of specialization. | |||
| Swarming | 06 Oct 2020 | 00:37:46 | |
Team, team, team - we say all the time how Scrum focuses on the power of teams over individuals. Swarming - working together on a shared problem - is one example of how a Scrum team is stronger together. | |||
| Using Scrum for Marketing | 29 Sep 2020 | 00:31:00 | |
Along with special guest Daniel Gale-Rosen, Alley's Director of Marketing, Ken and John unpack how Scrum's framework can be applied to marketing. Hear how Scrum makes the work to "make work visible" visible. | |||
| Sprint Reviews / Sprint Demos | 22 Sep 2020 | 00:29:59 | |
Call it a Sprint Review or a Sprint Demo, but this Scrum ritual is all about transparency and iteration. Join special guest Michael Muniz as he helps us unpack the benefits of regularly sharing what the team has accomplished. | |||
| Scrum in a Remote Agency Environment | 15 Sep 2020 | 00:31:49 | |
We say it every week: this show is about "practicing scrum in an agency environment." To kick it up a notch, we're also a fully remote agency. How does Scrum - a framework that advises teams to share the same physical space - work when team members can be a few miles, often a few timezones, apart? Listen and find out! | |||
| Hunting for Impediments | 08 Sep 2020 | 00:40:04 | |
A good scrum master removes impediments for the team but a great scrum master removes impediments before the team is ever aware of them. Check out this episode where John and Ken share some stories and talk all things impediment removal. | |||
| Scrum Metrics and Performance Tracking | 01 Sep 2020 | 00:49:54 | |
STOP — data time! On this episode, Alley's VP of Product Strategy and resident data aficionado, Jeff Stanger, shares tips and tricks on how to gather and analyze Scrum metrics for single teams as well as entire organizations running Scrum@Scale. Come for the data; stay for the OG remix at the end of the episode. | |||
| Backlog Refinement | 25 Aug 2020 | 00:43:57 | |
Adding items to a Product Backlog is easy. How do you keep what can become an overwhelming list of half-formed ideas in check? Refine it! In this episode, Certified Product Owner Rebecca Viser shares practical advice on ensuring a backlog delivers the most valuable value every Sprint. | |||
| Team Autonomy: A Necessity, Not Just a Nicety | 27 Apr 2021 | 00:50:02 | |
Scrum teams perform at their best when given the trust to be self-managing, the freedom to decide how their work gets done, and clear goals for the sprint ahead. But what are the limitations on autonomy and what does it look like to protect it in the face of pressure from different stakeholders? In this episode, Sarah Rose and John discuss autonomy’s nemeses—like the micromanager and the illusion of democracy—in order to finally set the record straight: Scrum team members are not order-takers, overtime heroes, or planning poker lobbyists. There are clear ways to support team autonomy and obstacles that can be removed right away IF you know where to look!
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| No Bosses | 18 Aug 2020 | 00:44:18 | |
Let's dig into the concept of Coaching: a purposeful departure from top-down management. How does this relationship work in a flat organization? Find out with special guests Pattie Reaves and Owen Stowe. | |||
| Scrum Roles | 11 Aug 2020 | 00:29:37 | |
The first bit of the oft-referenced 3-5-3 of Scrum, the three Scrum Roles provide clarity to teams by identifying primary owners of various project needs. What are they and how can they be best used? Find out more in this episode. | |||
| Scrum at Home | 04 Aug 2020 | 00:35:07 | |
You've heard it said that Scrum works across a variety of industries, but what about the largest one: Homelife! Alley's Chief Operating Officer, Bridget McNulty, educates John and Ken on how to use Scrum at home. That Honey-do list won't know what hit it. | |||
| Make Work Visible | 28 Jul 2020 | 00:42:21 | |
Foster transparency and ownership on your Scrum team by making work (both in-progress and completed) visible. Learn how ticketing hidden work, getting up close and personal with manual burndown charts, and supporting a full-team demoing will increase both productivity and team happiness. | |||
| I Love It When Sprint Planning Comes Together | 21 Jul 2020 | 00:35:40 | |
A man! A plan! A canal! Panama! Paige Campbell joins Ken and John to help demystify Sprint Planning. Learn how proper planning leads to productive sprints. | |||
| Sprint Goals | 14 Jul 2020 | 00:21:50 | |
How did your last sprint go? If you only judge sprints based on velocity, your team is only seeing the tip of the iceberg! Learn how Sprint Goals can enhance team happiness and productivity. | |||
| LIVE SHOW: Rethinking the Daily Standup | 07 Jul 2020 | 00:23:03 | |
Ken, John, and 60 of their closest coworkers & friends got together on a Zoom to talk about the Daily Standup. Find out how to get twice the benefits in half the time with some tips and tricks on this Scrum ritual. | |||
| Story Points | 30 Jun 2020 | 00:43:11 | |
John and Ken take a deep dive into story points and discuss how to use them, their benefits over time-only estimates, and share some examples! Find out why estimating is CUTER with story points! | |||
| Agile Design | 23 Jun 2020 | 00:41:41 | |
How do the cadence and depth of user experience research and design thinking map to Scrum? Alley's VP of UX, Susan Finkelpearl, explains it all (in the name of the Pittsburgh Steelers). | |||
| Continuous Improvement with Kaizen | 16 Jun 2020 | 00:40:15 | |
A Scrum team should be continuously working to improve their output, their process, and themselves. One way to foster this progress is through Kaizen tickets each sprint. Ken and John welcome Taylor Fargo Strachan to discuss ways to empower Scrum teams to always be improving. | |||
| An Equitable Seat at the Scrum Team Table | 13 Apr 2021 | 00:37:44 | |
We could talk about the core Scrum values ‘til the cows come home — Focus, Openness, Commitment, Courage, and Respect! HOWEVER, what does it look like to reflect and act on those core values from the perspective of an ally? Sarah Rose and John share their own experiences as allies and times they wished they had an ally. Through those experiences, they analyze the critical impact of recognizing different voices on a team as a way to make sure no team member remains invisible.
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| Bring a Buffer | 09 Jun 2020 | 00:23:48 | |
How can you gracefully handle the inevitable interruptions and urgencies that crop up for your Scrum team sprint? By bringing a buffer to every sprint! Find out what a Scrum buffer is and how it can help your team better serve your stakeholders in real-time! | |||
| Sprint Retros | 02 Jun 2020 | 00:38:58 | |
One of the ways to drive continuous improvement on a Scrum team is with the Sprint Retrospective. Listen to Ken, John, and special guest Jaimie Olmstead share how they maximize team growth and process improvement with this Scrum ritual. | |||
| Product Backlog | 26 May 2020 | 00:34:10 | |
Scrum has two backlogs. This episode is about the Product Backlog, which contains all the work we might do in a project. Learn how to use it and conceptualize it throughout the life of a project from this episode. | |||
| Interview with JJ Sutherland | 19 May 2020 | 00:36:44 | |
Q&A with JJ Sutherland, the CEO of Scrum Inc and author of Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time and The Scrum Fieldbook. | |||
| Is Scrum too rigid? | 12 May 2020 | 00:28:39 | |
Do the foundational rules of Scrum interfere with project productivity and flow? Let's find out in this episode! | |||
| Why Scrum? | 29 Apr 2020 | 00:31:09 | |
We work at Alley: a fully remote web agency. Back in 2018, we put the entire agency through an Agile transformation, and now are a dedicated Scrum@Scale shop. Why did we go all-in with Scrum? Find out in this episode! | |||
| Protocols: Our Highway to the Comfort, Risk, and Danger Zones | 30 Mar 2021 | 00:52:14 | |
Making the most of collaborative time is challenging. Whether it's designing, brainstorming, planning, or learning, discussion protocols offer structured processes to support focused and productive conversations, build collective understanding, and drive equitable team improvement. In this episode, Sarah Rose and John divulge the secret sauce of protocols and, as a treat, try out a long-time favorite that you can take back to your team: Zones of Comfort, Risk, and Danger!
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| Participation, Power dynamics, and Engaging diverse perspectives, with Linda Rosenbury | 16 Mar 2021 | 00:33:03 | |
How might we practice what we know to be true in theory: in SCRUM, the more team members who are able to exercise their voice, the better the final product will be. In this episode, we learn from Linda Rosenbury— superintendent of schools in Washington State and Doctoral Student at Harvard's Educational Leadership Program. Linda's experience working with adults from diverse racial, socio-economic and linguistic backgrounds crystallizes specific strategies for engaging all voices to participate so teams talk during meetings instead of later at the Slack water cooler. ----
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| Vulnerability, Making Mistakes, and Being Wrong | 02 Mar 2021 | 00:47:58 | |
Vulnerability, making mistakes, and being wrong are critical to our teams’ success! As leaders across Scrum roles, in modeling our own vulnerability through seeking help, sharing fears, admitting mistakes, or admitting failure we invite the same in our team. In this episode, we reflect on our mistakes, argue about the separation of work and home, and discuss how an atmosphere of vulnerability opens the door to creativity, learning, and growth.
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| Overcoming Scrum Team Silence | 16 Feb 2021 | 00:42:07 | |
When silence becomes a pattern on a Scrum team — mayday! — we have a problem. Identifying different types of employee silence and understanding how to address them is the first step towards reviving team voice. Whether it’s fear, embarrassment, a narrow sense of ethical responsibility, or lacking room to speak up, learn how silence can be destructive and how to work with your team to move past it. ----
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| New Season; New Norms | 02 Feb 2021 | 00:39:39 | |
Season 2 begins with an exuberant welcome to new co-host, Sarah Rose Belok! Learn why clear and upheld norms can steer teams beyond unproductive behaviors to do their BEST work (even teams of two!). John and Sarah Rose model how to identify and finalize a set of norms, by working through their own norms for the podcast.
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