Systemic Change Management—Making the Emotional Side of Change Visible | Tom Molenaar
Tom Molenaar: Systemic Change Management—Making the Emotional Side of Change Visible Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. "We tend to skip the phase where we just give the person the space to grieve, to not know, instead of that, we tend to move to solutions maybe too quick." Tom faces a significant challenge as he prepares to start with new teams transitioning between value streams in a SAFe environment. The teams will experience multiple changes simultaneously - new physical locations, new team dependencies, and organizational restructuring. Tom applies systemic change management principles, outlining five critical phases: sense of urgency, letting go, not knowing, creation, and new beginning. He emphasizes the importance of making the emotional "understream" visible, giving teams space to grieve their losses, and helping them verbalize their feelings before moving toward solutions. In this episode, we refer to Systemic Change Management, an approach that views organizations as complex, interconnected systems—rather than collections of independent parts. Instead of focusing only on individual skills, isolated processes, or top-down directives, SCM works with the whole system (people, structures, culture, and external environment) to create sustainable transformation. Self-reflection Question: How comfortable are you with sitting in uncertainty and allowing teams to process change without immediately jumping to solutions? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] 🔥In the ruthless world of fintech, success isn't just about innovation—it's about coaching!🔥 Angela thought she was just there to coach a team. But now, she's caught in the middle of a corporate espionage drama that could make or break the future of digital banking. Can she help the team regain their mojo and outwit their rivals, or will the competition crush their ambitions? As alliances shift and the pressure builds, one thing becomes clear: this isn't just about the product—it's about the people. 🚨 Will Angela's coaching be enough? Find out in Shift: From Product to People—the gripping story of high-stakes innovation and corporate intrigue. Buy Now on Amazon [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] About Tom Molenaar Tom is a team coach with a background in social psychology and behavioral influence. He is passionate about fostering collaboration, and helping teams flourish and achieve their potential. His approach blends insight, empathy, and strategy to cultivate lasting team success. You can link with Tom Molenaar on LinkedIn.
1 Okt 18min
Building Trust in Teams - The Foundation of Self-Organization | Tom Molenaar
Tom Molenaar: How to Spot and Fix Lack of Trust in Scrum Teams Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. "When people don't speak up, it's because there's no trust. The team showed that they did not feel free to express their opinions." Tom describes working with a team that appeared to be performing well on the surface - they were reaching their goals and had processes in place. However, deeper observation revealed a troubling dynamic: a few dominant voices controlled discussions while half the team remained silent during ceremonies. Through one-on-ones, Tom discovered team members felt judged and unsafe to express their ideas. Using the Lencioni Pyramid as a framework, he helped the team address the fundamental lack of trust that was preventing constructive conflict and genuine collaboration. Featured Book of the Week: Empowered by Marty Cagan Tom recommends "Empowered" by Marty Cagan as a book that significantly influenced his approach to team coaching. The book focuses on empowering teams and organizations to deliver great products while developing ordinary people into extraordinary performing teams. Tom appreciates its well-structured approach that covers all necessary elements without getting lost in details. The book provides practical tools for effective coaching, including techniques for regular one-on-ones, active listening, constructive feedback, setting clear expectations, celebrating success, and creating a culture of learning from failure. [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] 🔥In the ruthless world of fintech, success isn't just about innovation—it's about coaching!🔥 Angela thought she was just there to coach a team. But now, she's caught in the middle of a corporate espionage drama that could make or break the future of digital banking. Can she help the team regain their mojo and outwit their rivals, or will the competition crush their ambitions? As alliances shift and the pressure builds, one thing becomes clear: this isn't just about the product—it's about the people. 🚨 Will Angela's coaching be enough? Find out in Shift: From Product to People—the gripping story of high-stakes innovation and corporate intrigue. Buy Now on Amazon [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] About Tom Molenaar Tom is a team coach with a background in social psychology and behavioral influence. He is passionate about fostering collaboration, and helping teams flourish and achieve their potential. His approach blends insight, empathy, and strategy to cultivate lasting team success. You can link with Tom Molenaar on LinkedIn.
30 Sep 12min
When To Stop Helping Agile Teams To Change—A Real Life Story | Tom Molenaar
Tom Molenaar: When To Stop Helping Agile Teams To Change—A Real Life Story Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. "Instead of slowing down and meeting the team in their resistance, I started to try and drag them because I saw the vision of the possible improvement, but they did not see it." Tom shares a powerful failure story about a team that didn't feel the urgency to improve their way of working. Despite management wanting the team to become more effective, Tom found himself pushing improvements that the team actively resisted. Instead of slowing down to understand their resistance, he tried to drag them forward, leading to exhaustion and ultimately his decision to leave the assignment. This episode explores the critical lesson that it's not our job to save teams that don't want to be saved, and the importance of recognizing when to step back. Self-reflection Question: When you encounter team resistance to change, how do you distinguish between healthy skepticism that needs addressing and fundamental unwillingness to improve? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] 🔥In the ruthless world of fintech, success isn't just about innovation—it's about coaching!🔥 Angela thought she was just there to coach a team. But now, she's caught in the middle of a corporate espionage drama that could make or break the future of digital banking. Can she help the team regain their mojo and outwit their rivals, or will the competition crush their ambitions? As alliances shift and the pressure builds, one thing becomes clear: this isn't just about the product—it's about the people. 🚨 Will Angela's coaching be enough? Find out in Shift: From Product to People—the gripping story of high-stakes innovation and corporate intrigue. Buy Now on Amazon [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] About Tom Molenaar Tom is a team coach with a background in social psychology and behavioral influence. He is passionate about fostering collaboration, and helping teams flourish and achieve their potential. His approach blends insight, empathy, and strategy to cultivate lasting team success. You can link with Tom Molenaar on LinkedIn.
29 Sep 17min
BONUS Product Delight - How to make your product stand out with emotional connection With Nesrine Changuel
BONUS: Nesrine Changuel shares how to create product delight through emotional connection! In this BONUS episode we explore the book by Nesrine Changuel: 'Product Delight - How to make your product stand out with emotional connection.' In this conversation, we explore Nesrine's journey from research to product management, share lessons from her experiences at Google, Spotify, and Microsoft, and unpack the key strategies for building emotionally resonant products that connect with users beyond mere functionality. The Genesis of Product Delight "I quickly realized that there is something that is quite intense while building Skype... it's not just that communication tool, but it was iconic, with its blue, with ringtones, with emojis. So it was clear that it's not just for making calls, but also to make you feel connected, relaxed, and part of it." Nesrine's journey into product delight began during her transition from research to product management at Skype. Working on products at major companies like Skype, Spotify, and Google Meet, she discovered that successful products don't just function well—they create emotional connections. Her role as "Delight PM" at Google Meet during the pandemic crystallized her understanding that products must address both functional and emotional user needs to truly stand out in the market. Understanding Customer Delight in Practice "The delight is about creating two dimensions and combining these two dimensions altogether, it's about creating products that function well, but also that help with the emotional connection." Customer delight manifests when products exceed expectations and anticipate user needs. Nesrine explains that delight combines surprise and joy—creating positive surprises that go beyond basic functionality. She illustrates this with Microsoft Edge's coupon feature, which proactively suggests discounts during online shopping without users requesting it. This anticipation of needs creates memorable peak moments that strengthen emotional connections with products. Segmenting Users by Motivators "We can discover that users are using your product for different reasons. I mean, we tend to think that users are using the product for the same reason." Traditional user segmentation focuses on demographics (who users are) or behavior (what they do). Nesrine advocates for motivational segmentation—understanding why users engage with products. Using Spotify as an example, she demonstrates how users might seek music for specific songs, inspiration, nostalgia, or emotional regulation. This approach reveals both functional motivators (practical needs) and emotional motivators (feelings users want to experience), enabling teams to build features aligned with user desires rather than assumptions. In this segment, we refer to Spotify Wrapped. The Distinction from Jobs To Be Done "There's no contrast. I mean to be honest, it's quite aligned, and I'm a big fan of the job to be done framework." While aligned with Clayton Christensen's Jobs To Be Done framework, Nesrine's approach extends beyond identifying triggers to practical implementation. She acknowledges that Jobs To Be Done provides the foundational theory, distinguishing between personal emotional motivators (how users want to feel) and social emotional motivators (how they want others to perceive them). However, many teams struggle to translate these insights into actual product features—a gap her Product Delight framework addresses through actionable methodologies. Navigating the Line Between Delight and Addiction "Building for delight is about creating products that are aligned with users' values. It's about aligning with what people really want themselves to feel. They want to feel themselves, to feel a better version of themselves." The critical distinction between delight and addiction lies in value alignment. Delightful products help users become better versions of themselves and align with their personal values. Nesrine contrasts this with addictive design that creates dependencies contrary to user wellbeing. Using Spotify Wrapped as an example, she explains how reflecting positive achievements (skills learned, personal growth) creates healthy engagement, while raw usage data (hours spent) might trigger negative self-reflection and potential addictive patterns. Getting Started with Product Delight "If you only focus on the functional motivators, you will create products that function, but they will not create that emotional connection. If you take into consideration the emotional motivators in addition to the functional motivators, you create perfect products that connect with users emotionally." Teams beginning their delight journey should start by identifying both functional and emotional user motivators through direct user conversations. The first step involves listing what users want to accomplish (functional) alongside how they want to feel (emotional). This dual understanding enables feature development that serves practical needs while creating positive emotional experiences, leading to products that users remember and recommend. Product Delight and Human-Centered Design "Making products feel as if it was done by a human being... how can you make your product feel as close as possible to a human version of the product." Nesrine positions product delight within the broader human-centered design movement, but focuses specifically on humanization at the product feature level rather than just visual design. She shares examples from Google Meet, where the team compared remote meetings to in-person experiences, and Dyson, which benchmarks vacuum cleaners against human cleaning services. This approach identifies missing human elements and guides feature development toward more natural, intuitive interactions. In this segment we refer to the books Emotional Design by Don Norman, and Design for Emotion by Aarron Walter.. AI's Role in Future Product Delight "AI is a tool, and as every tool we're using, it can be used in a good way, or could be used in a bad way. And it is extremely possible to use AI in a very good way to make your product feel more human and more empathetic and more emotionally engaging." AI presents opportunities to enhance emotional connections through empathetic interactions and personalized experiences. Nesrine cites ChatGPT's conversational style—including apologies and collaborative language—as creating companionship feelings during work. The key lies in using AI to identify and honor emotional motivators rather than exploit them, focusing on making users feel supported and understood rather than manipulated or dependent. Developer Experience as Product Delight "If the user of your products are human beings... whether business consumer engineers, they deserve their emotions to be honored, so I usually don't distinguish between B2B or B2C... I say like B2H, which is business to human." Developer experience exemplifies product delight in B2B contexts. Companies like GitHub have created metrics specifically measuring developer delight, recognizing that technical users also have emotional needs. Tools like Jira, Miro, and GitHub succeed by making users feel more competent and productive. Nesrine advocates for "B2H" (business to human) thinking, emphasizing that any product used by humans should consider emotional impact alongside functional requirements. About Nesrine Changuel Nesrine is a product coach, trainer, and author with experience at Google, Spotify, and Microsoft. Holding a PhD from Bell Labs and UCLA, she blends research and practice to guide teams in building emotionally resonant products. Based in Paris, she teaches and speaks globally on human-centered design. You can connect with Nesrine Changuel on LinkedIn.
27 Sep 40min
The Product Owner Who Made Retros Unsafe (And How We Fixed It) | Terry Haayema
Terry Haayema: The Product Owner Who Made Retros Unsafe (And How We Fixed It) Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. "The biggest anti-pattern was that he made the retro unsafe... he would come to the retro and called people out for things that had not been done." The Bad Product Owner: The PO Who Made Retros Unsafe Terry describes a product owner who came from a management background focused on widgets and KPIs, completely unprepared for the collaborative nature of the product owner role. This person's biggest anti-pattern was making retrospectives unsafe by calling out individual team members for things not completed or not done to his satisfaction. When gentle coaching interventions failed, Terry took the dramatic step of excluding the PO from retrospectives entirely. Surprisingly, this shock treatment worked - when the PO asked why he wasn't invited, Terry used SBI feedback (Situation, Behavior, Impact) to help him understand how his actions were destroying team dynamics. The story has a positive ending, with the PO eventually understanding and changing his approach. In this segment, we refer to the Retrospective Prime Directive, and the SBI feedback framework. The Great Product Owner: The Customer Connector Terry's best product owner example saw their role not just as the voice of the customer, but as the connector between team and customers. Instead of relying solely on user stories and personas, this PO organized regular informal events where real customers and team members could meet, share pizza and beer, and have genuine conversations. These social connections led to deep customer understanding and resulted in their best feature ever - a simple addition that showed customers their last six orders for easy reordering. This feature increased both order frequency and size while dramatically improving the team's ability to empathize with their users. Self-reflection Question: How might you help your product owner move from being the voice of the customer to being the bridge that connects your team directly with real users? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] 🔥In the ruthless world of fintech, success isn't just about innovation—it's about coaching!🔥 Angela thought she was just there to coach a team. But now, she's caught in the middle of a corporate espionage drama that could make or break the future of digital banking. Can she help the team regain their mojo and outwit their rivals, or will the competition crush their ambitions? As alliances shift and the pressure builds, one thing becomes clear: this isn't just about the product—it's about the people. 🚨 Will Angela's coaching be enough? Find out in Shift: From Product to People—the gripping story of high-stakes innovation and corporate intrigue. Buy Now on Amazon [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] About Terry Haayema Terry is an international Author, Speaker, Conference Host, Trainer, Facilitator, Mentor and Transformative Coach whose personal purpose is to help people see differently, so they find joy. You can link with Terry Haayema on LinkedIn, or visit his website to learn more about his book.
26 Sep 16min
Why "Working Myself Out of a Job" Is Wrong for Scrum Masters | Terry Haayema
Terry Haayema: Why "Working Myself Out of a Job" Is Wrong for Scrum Masters Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. "Success for a Scrum Master is to do myself out of a job... which I don't buy into at all, because a team will always need a coach." Terry challenges the common belief that Scrum Masters succeed by working themselves out of a job, arguing instead that teams always need coaching as they continuously improve. He emphasizes the importance of separating his outcomes from the team's success to avoid becoming part of the system he's trying to help. For Terry, success is measured by the visible joy he can create in people - when leaders approach him with happiness, when team members are excited to see him, when absenteeism drops because people actually want to come to work. He shares a powerful story of how helping teams find joy not only improved their performance but reduced their stress-related sick days from the highest to the lowest in their division. Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Drawing Retrospectives Terry loves retrospective formats that use drawings and visual metaphors, like Draw Your Feelings, or the Sailboat retrospective. He explains that when teams draw pictures instead of immediately processing thoughts through language, they generate much richer and deeper insights. The approach works by having people first draw their thoughts, then asking "What led you to draw that picture?" This method bypasses the analytical mind and taps into more intuitive understanding. For longer-term retrospectives, Terry recommends Open Space Technology, which allows groups to self-organize around the most important questions they need to answer. Self-reflection Question: How do you measure your own success as a Scrum Master, and does that measurement inspire you to do your best work? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] 🔥In the ruthless world of fintech, success isn't just about innovation—it's about coaching!🔥 Angela thought she was just there to coach a team. But now, she's caught in the middle of a corporate espionage drama that could make or break the future of digital banking. Can she help the team regain their mojo and outwit their rivals, or will the competition crush their ambitions? As alliances shift and the pressure builds, one thing becomes clear: this isn't just about the product—it's about the people. 🚨 Will Angela's coaching be enough? Find out in Shift: From Product to People—the gripping story of high-stakes innovation and corporate intrigue. Buy Now on Amazon [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] About Terry Haayema Terry is an international Author, Speaker, Conference Host, Trainer, Facilitator, Mentor and Transformative Coach whose personal purpose is to help people see differently, so they find joy. You can link with Terry Haayema on LinkedIn, or visit his website to learn more about his book.
25 Sep 15min
When Consensus Becomes Paralysis—The Nemawashi Challenge For Agile Software Development | Terry Haayema
Terry Haayema: When Consensus Becomes Paralysis—The Nemawashi Challenge For Agile Software Development Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. "The problem I'm facing is 'too much consensus'... we talk, bounce ideas, but we don't get going." Terry shares his current coaching challenge in a Japanese company where their cultural practice of Nemawashi (consensus building) has become a barrier to progress. While working across the entire organization, he's discovered that quality is suffering because teams aren't clear about desired outcomes before starting work. The excessive focus on building consensus means initiatives bounce between stakeholders without ever gaining momentum. Terry explains how he's experimenting with delaying detailed refinement to build shared understanding as teams progress, rather than trying to achieve perfect consensus upfront. He uses the metaphor of flying a plane - pilots don't stick rigidly to flight plans but constantly make small course corrections based on real-time feedback. Self-reflection Question: In your organization, what well-intentioned practices have become obstacles to the very outcomes they were designed to achieve? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] 🔥In the ruthless world of fintech, success isn't just about innovation—it's about coaching!🔥 Angela thought she was just there to coach a team. But now, she's caught in the middle of a corporate espionage drama that could make or break the future of digital banking. Can she help the team regain their mojo and outwit their rivals, or will the competition crush their ambitions? As alliances shift and the pressure builds, one thing becomes clear: this isn't just about the product—it's about the people. 🚨 Will Angela's coaching be enough? Find out in Shift: From Product to People—the gripping story of high-stakes innovation and corporate intrigue. Buy Now on Amazon [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] About Terry Haayema Terry is an international Author, Speaker, Conference Host, Trainer, Facilitator, Mentor and Transformative Coach whose personal purpose is to help people see differently, so they find joy. You can link with Terry Haayema on LinkedIn, or visit his website to learn more about his book.
24 Sep 17min
The High Cost of Unsafe Agile Retrospectives | Terry Haayema
Terry Haayema: The High Cost of Unsafe Agile Retrospectives Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. "She was kind of like the mum for the team... she was actually the glue that held the team together." Terry tells the story of a team that was functioning like a feature factory until a business analyst became their champion and "team mom." This BA supported everyone through agile transformation and helped build trust and healthy conflict. However, when she mentioned something in a retrospective that led to her being put on performance management and eventually leaving, the team rapidly self-destructed. They lost their sense of belonging and teamness, retreating back to working as independent professionals rather than collaborating. The story illustrates how leadership actions can instantly destroy weeks or months of trust-building work, and how critical psychological safety is for sustainable team performance. For more critical points on how to be a great leader, check this episode with Captain David Marquet, a thought leader in the leadership space who wrote Turn the Ship Around! Featured Book of the Week: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni Terry credits The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni as massively influential in his career, particularly praising how Lencioni demonstrates that without trust as a foundation, teams cannot achieve anything else. The book's framework shows how lack of trust prevents healthy conflict, which prevents commitment, which prevents accountability, which prevents results. Terry found the way Lencioni illustrates these dysfunctions and their cascading effects to be incredibly valuable for understanding team dynamics and what's needed to build high-performing teams. In this segment, we also refer to Agile Software Development with Scrum, by Schwaber and Beedle. Self-reflection Question: What would happen to your team's dynamics if your most supportive, trust-building team member suddenly left tomorrow? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] 🔥In the ruthless world of fintech, success isn't just about innovation—it's about coaching!🔥 Angela thought she was just there to coach a team. But now, she's caught in the middle of a corporate espionage drama that could make or break the future of digital banking. Can she help the team regain their mojo and outwit their rivals, or will the competition crush their ambitions? As alliances shift and the pressure builds, one thing becomes clear: this isn't just about the product—it's about the people. 🚨 Will Angela's coaching be enough? Find out in Shift: From Product to People—the gripping story of high-stakes innovation and corporate intrigue. Buy Now on Amazon [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends] About Terry Haayema Terry is an international Author, Speaker, Conference Host, Trainer, Facilitator, Mentor and Transformative Coach whose personal purpose is to help people see differently, so they find joy. You can link with Terry Haayema on LinkedIn, or visit his website to learn more about his book.
23 Sep 18min
