The Liberators Podcast

Is your Product Owner the only person who can make changes to the Product Backlog? Is your Development Team asking your Product Owner to write and order items on the Product Backlog? Is the Product Owner the only person with write-access to a Product Backlog in a digital tool like Jira?
In this episode, we tackle the myth in Scrum that the Product Backlog is maintained exclusively by the Product Owner.
We love to share our materials. Please help us by supporting our work. You can do so by giving us a thumbs-up on the platform you're listening on. Or follow us on Twitter, Medium or LinkedIn (Barry & Christiaan).
This podcast is an audio recording of this blogpost on Medium:
http://bit.ly/2I9zaol
Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators
Or check out upcoming events, workshops and (Scrum.org) classes at:
https://theliberators.com/events
Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Support the show

Support the show, our research, and community offerings via Patreon:
https://patreon.com/liberators
We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com
Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com
The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

On November 22, we had the huge pleasure of hosting a 1-day workshop on navigating tension and conflict in groups with Julie Huffaker, Karen Dawson, and Daniel Steinhöfer. Attended by 55 participants, we explored how instead of ‘resolving’ conflict — which often isn’t possible — we can navigate conflict and tension more productively instead. Rather than making this a very theoretical workshop, we opted for a hugely interactive and experiential experience.
In this episode, we capture the five biggest insights we took from the workshop.
This podcast is an audio recording of this post on Medium:
http://bit.ly/2rmhtKF
The string for the workshop can be found here:
http://bit.ly/2OCa2H5
You can sign up for the next workshop, on October 27, 2020 here:
http://bit.ly/2JVSHcg

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators
Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Support the show

Support the show, our research, and community offerings via Patreon:
https://patreon.com/liberators
We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com
Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com
The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

In many organizations and teams, Scrum is certainly not a lightweight process. All the items in JIRA must be in the form of User Stories. Every Sprint features at least one or two sessions where people pull out their planning poker cards to spend an hour estimating items. And there's a Definition of Ready that must be adhered to in order to pull something into a Sprint.
Over time, and with good intentions, many practitioners of Scrum have burdened it with practices, tools and techniques that may be helpful to some teams, but are not for others. And for most teams, these techniques do not help them work empirically. We've been guilty of this as much as the next Scrum Master or Agile Coaches.
In this episode, recorded after day 1 of a Professional Scrum Master II-class, we talk about how this happened. And what you can do to stop burdening Scrum, and return back to its simple and clear purpose: to work empirically in the face of complexity.
We love to share our materials. Please help us by supporting our work. You can do so by giving us a thumbs-up on the platform you're listening on. Or follow us on Twitter, Medium or LinkedIn (Barry & Christiaan).
Find out how to do an Ecocycle here:
http://bit.ly/2wMgbHZ
Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators
Or check out our upcoming events at:
https://theliberators.com/events
Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Support the show

Support the show, our research, and community offerings via Patreon:
https://patreon.com/liberators
We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com
Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com
The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

Conflicts are fascinating. They are a natural part of working with other people and can drain significant amounts of energy way from our work together.
Yet, for something that is so natural, we're often pretty bad at recognizing conflicts when they happen. For most us, 'conflicts' are those moments when people throw with doors, raise their voices or openly express their disagreement. But more often than not, conflict happens entirely below the surface. These are the "Elephants" that need to be addressed.
In this episode, we explore different types of "elephants" and our beliefs about conflict in general. We also share some of our own experiences, as well as what scientific research tells us.
Read the blogpost here:
http://bit.ly/2LSD99g
Sign up for the next 'Addressing the Elephant'-workshop here:
http://bit.ly/2JVSHcg
Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators
Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Support the show

Support the show, our research, and community offerings via Patreon:
https://patreon.com/liberators
We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com
Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com
The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.

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 and effective — many of which originate from a discussion we had with experienced Scrum Masters on the Discord server that is accessible to our patrons.
Check out the transcript here:
https://medium.com/the-liberators/refinement-the-mise-en-place-of-great-scrum-teams-78d7556a7952
The paper we wrote with Daniel Russo is available here:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.12439
Download the free cheatsheet with 10 breakdown strategies here:
https://shop.theliberators.com/products/canvas-10-powerful-strategies-to-break-down-product-backlog-items
Or try this fully prepared do-it-yourself workshop for refinement:
https://shop.theliberators.com/products/workshop-refine-tough-or-unclear-product-backlog-items-with-stakeholders

Support the show

Support the show, our research, and community offerings via Patreon:
https://patreon.com/liberators
We're building Columinity to help teams improve continuously based on scientific insights:
https://columinity.com
Check out our webshop for tons of powerful exercises and workshops to run with your team(s):
https://shop.theliberators.com
The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.