Episodios

  • Facilitating Deeper Retrospectives—When to Step In and When to Step Back | Sara Di Gregorio

    Facilitating Deeper Retrospectives—When to Step In and When to Step Back | Sara Di Gregorio
    Nov 19 2025
    Sara Di Gregorio: Facilitating Deeper Retrospectives—When to Step In and When to Step Back

    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 they start connecting and having an interesting discussion, I go to the corner, and I'm only trying to listen." - Sara Di Gregorio

    Sara faces a challenge that many Scrum Masters encounter: teams that want to discuss too many topics during retrospectives without going deep on any of them. The team had plenty to talk about, but conversations stayed surface-level, never reaching the insights that drive real improvement. Sara recognized that the aim of the retrospective isn't to talk about everything—it's to go deeper on topics the team genuinely cares about.

    So she started coaching teams to select just three main topics they wanted to discuss, helping them understand why prioritization matters and making explicit which topics are most important. But her real skill emerged in how she facilitated the discussions. When she saw communication starting to flow and team members becoming deeply connected to the topic, she moved to the corner and listened. She didn't abandon the team—she remained present, ready to help shy or quiet members speak up, watching the clock to respect timeboxes.

    But she understood that when teams connect authentically, the Scrum Master's job is to create space, not fill it. Sara learned to ask better questions too. Instead of repeatedly asking "Why? Why? Why?"—which can feel accusatory—she reformulated: "How did you approach it? What happens?" When teams started blaming other teams, she redirected: "What can we influence? What can we do from our side?" She used visual tools like white paper, sharpies, and sticky notes to help teams visualize their discussion steps and create structured moments for questions.

    Sometimes, when teams discussed complex technical topics beyond her understanding, she empowered them: "You are the main expert of this topic. Please, when someone sees that we're going out of topic or getting too detailed, raise your hand and help me bring the communication back to what we've chosen to talk about."

    This balance—knowing when to step in with structure and when to step back and listen—is what transforms retrospectives from checkbox events into genuine opportunities for team growth.

    Self-reflection Question: In your facilitation, are you creating space for deep team connection, or are you inadvertently filling the space that teams need to discover insights for themselves?

    [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 Sara Di Gregorio

    Sara is a people-centered Scrum Master who champions trust, collaboration, and real value over rigid frameworks. With experience introducing Agile practices, she fosters empathy, inclusion, and clarity in every team. As an Advanced Scrum Master, she helps teams grow, perform, and deliver with enthusiasm and purpose.

    You can link with Sara Di Gregorio on LinkedIn.
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    16 m
  • Rebuilding Agile Team Connection in the Remote Work Era | Sara Di Gregorio

    Rebuilding Agile Team Connection in the Remote Work Era | Sara Di Gregorio
    Nov 18 2025
    Sara Di Gregorio: Rebuilding Agile Team Connection in the Remote Work Era 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 book helped me to shift from reacting to connecting, which completely changed the quality of conversation." - Sara Di Gregorio When COVID forced Sara's team into full remote work, she noticed something troubling—the team was losing real connection. Replicating in-office meetings online simply didn't work. People attended meetings but weren't truly present. The spontaneous coffee machine conversations that built relationships and surfaced important information had vanished. So Sara started experimenting. She introduced 5-minute chit-chat sessions at the start of every meeting: "Guys, how are you today? What happened yesterday?" She created "coffee all together" moments—10-minute virtual breaks where the team could drink coffee or have aperitivos together, sometimes three times per week. She established weekly feedback sessions every Friday morning—30 minutes to recap the week and understand what could improve. These weren't just social niceties; they were deliberate efforts to recreate the human connections that remote work had stripped away. Sara recognized that mechanized interactions—"here are the things I need you to do, let's talk next steps"—kill team dynamics. Teams need moments where they relate to each other as people, not just as functions. The experiments worked because they created space for genuine connection, allowing the team to maintain the trust and collaboration that makes effective teamwork possible, even when working remotely. In this episode, we refer to Non-Violent Communication concepts and practices. Self-reflection Question: How are you creating moments for your remote or hybrid team to connect as people, not just as colleagues executing tasks? Featured Book of the Week: Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg Sara credits Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg (translated in Italian as "Words are Windows, or They are Walls") as having a deep impact on her career. The book explores how to listen without judging, how to ask the right questions, and how to observe people to understand their real needs. But above all, it teaches how to communicate in a way that builds connection rather than creating barriers. For Sara, the book was remarkably practical—she didn't just read it, she experimented with the techniques afterward. She explains: "I think that without this mindset, it's easy to fall into reactive communication, trying to defend, justify, or give quick answers. But that often blocks real understanding." The book helped her shift from reacting to connecting, which completely changed the quality of her conversations. As a Scrum Master working with people every day—facilitating meetings, mediating conflicts, supporting teams—the way we communicate determines whether we open dialogue or close it. Sara found that taking time to reflect instead of giving quick answers transformed her ability to help teams discover dependencies, improve dialogue, and address communication issues. For anyone in the Scrum Master role, this book provides essential skills for building the kind of connection that makes true collaboration possible. In this segment, we also refer to the NVC episodes we have on the podcast. Check those out to learn more about Nonviolent Communication [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 Sara Di Gregorio Sara is a people-centered Scrum Master who champions trust, collaboration, and real value over rigid frameworks. With experience introducing Agile practices, she fosters empathy, inclusion, and clarity in every team. As an Advanced Scrum Master, she helps teams grow, perform, and deliver with enthusiasm and purpose. You can link with Sara Di Gregorio on LinkedIn.
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    17 m
  • When Teams Lose Trust—How Scrum Masters Rebuild It One Small Change at a Time | Sara Di Gregorio

    When Teams Lose Trust—How Scrum Masters Rebuild It One Small Change at a Time | Sara Di Gregorio
    Nov 17 2025
    Sara Di Gregorio: When Teams Lose Trust—How Scrum Masters Rebuild It One Small Change at a Time

    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.

    "I continue to approach this situation with openness, positivity, and trust, because I truly believe that even the smallest changes can make a difference over time." - Sara Di Gregorio

    Sara faced one of the most challenging situations a Scrum Master can encounter—a team member who had lost all trust in change, creating a negative atmosphere that weighed heavily on the entire team. She remembers the heaviness on her shoulders, feeling personally responsible for the team's wellbeing. The negativity was palpable during every meeting, and it threatened to undermine the team's progress.

    But Sara refused to give up. She started experimenting with different approaches: one-to-one conversations to understand what was happening, bringing intentional energy to meetings, and trying new facilitation techniques in retrospectives. She added personal check-ins, asking "How are you today?" at the start of stand-ups, consciously bringing positive energy even on days when she didn't feel it herself.

    She discovered that listening—truly listening, not just hearing—means understanding how people feel, not just what they're saying. Sara learned that the energy you bring to interactions matters deeply. Starting the day with genuine interest, asking about the team's wellbeing, and even making small comments about the weather could create tiny shifts—a small smile that signaled something had changed.

    Her approach was rooted in persistence and belief: she continued approaching the situation with openness, positivity, and trust, knowing that even the smallest changes can make a difference over time. For Sara, reestablishing a good environment wasn't about quick fixes—it was about showing up every day with the right energy and never giving up on her team.

    Self-reflection Question: What energy are you bringing to your interactions with the team today, and how might that be shaping the team's atmosphere?

    [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 Sara Di Gregorio

    Sara is a people-centered Scrum Master who champions trust, collaboration, and real value over rigid frameworks. With experience introducing Agile practices, she fosters empathy, inclusion, and clarity in every team. As an Advanced Scrum Master, she helps teams grow, perform, and deliver with enthusiasm and purpose.

    You can link with Sara Di Gregorio on LinkedIn.
    Más Menos
    15 m
  • BONUS: Flawless Execution — Translating Fighter Pilot Precision to Business Results | Christian "Boo" Boucousis

    BONUS: Flawless Execution — Translating Fighter Pilot Precision to Business Results | Christian "Boo" Boucousis
    Nov 15 2025
    BONUS: Flawless Execution — Translating Fighter Pilot Precision to Business Results In this powerful conversation, former fighter pilot Christian "Boo" Boucousis reveals how military precision translates into agile business leadership. We explore the FLEX model (Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief), the critical difference between control-based and awareness-based leadership, and why most organizations fail to truly embrace iterative thinking. From Cockpit to Boardroom: An Unexpected Journey "I learned over time that it doesn't matter what you do if you're always curious, and you're always intentional, and you're always asking questions." — Christian "Boo" Boucousis Christian's path from fighter pilot to leadership consultant wasn't planned—it was driven by necessity and curiosity. After 11 years as a fighter pilot (7 in Australia, 4 in the UK), an autoimmune condition ended his flying career at age 30. Rather than accepting a comfy job flying politicians around, he chose entrepreneurship. He moved to Afghanistan with a friend and built a reconstruction company that grew to a quarter billion dollars in four years. The secret? The debrief skills he learned as a fighter pilot. By constantly asking "What are you trying to achieve? How's it going? Why is there a gap?" he approached business with an agile mindset before he even knew what agile was. This curiosity-driven, question-focused approach became the foundation for everything that followed. The FLEX Model: Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief "Agile and scrum were co-created by John Sutherland, who was a fighter pilot, and its origins sit in the OODA loop and iteration. Which is why it's a circle." — Christian "Boo" Boucousis The FLEX model isn't new—fighter pilots have used this Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief cycle for 60 years. It's the ultimate simple agile model, designed to help teams accelerate toward goals using the same accelerated learning curve the Air Force uses to train fighter pilots. The key insight: everything in this model is iterative, not linear. Every mission has a start, middle, and end, and every stage involves constant adaptation. Afterburner (the company Christian now leads as CEO) has worked with nearly 3,800 companies and 2.8 million people over 30 years, teaching this model. What's fascinating is that the DNA of agile is baked into fighter pilot thinking—John Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum, wrote the foreword for Christian's book "The Afterburner Advantage" because they share the same roots in the OODA loop and iterative thinking. Why Iterative Thinking Doesn't Come Naturally "Iterative thinking is not a natural human model. Most of the time we learn from mistakes. We don't learn as a habit." — Christian "Boo" Boucousis Here's the hard truth: agile as a way of working is very different from the way human beings naturally think. Business leadership models still hark back to Frederick Winslow Taylor's 1911 book on scientific management—industrial era leadership designed for building buildings, not creating software. Time is always linear (foundation, then structure, then finishing), and this shapes how we think about planning. Humans also tend to organize like villages with chiefs, warriors, and gatherers—hierarchical and political. Fighter pilots created a parallel system where politics exist outside missions, but during execution, personality clashes can't interfere. The challenge for business isn't the method—it's getting human minds to embrace iteration as a habit, not just a process they follow when forced. Planning: Building Collective Consciousness, Not Task Lists "Planning isn't all about sequencing actions—that's not planning. That's the byproduct of planning, which is collectively agreeing what good looks like at the end." — Christian "Boo" Boucousis Most people plan in their head or in front of a spreadsheet by themselves. That's not planning—that's collecting thoughts. Real planning means bringing everyone on the team together to build collective consciousness about what's possible. The plan is always "the best idea based on what we know now." Once airborne, everything changes because the enemy doesn't cooperate with your plan. Planning is about the destination, not the work to get there. Think about airline pilots: they don't tell you about traffic delays on their commute or maintenance issues. They say "Welcome aboard, our destination is Amsterdam, there's weather on the way, we'll land 5 minutes early." That's a brief—just the effect on you based on all their work. Most business meetings waste 55 minutes on backstory and 5 minutes deciding to have another meeting. Fighter pilots focus entirely on: What are we trying to achieve? What might get in the way? Let's go. Briefing: The 25-Minute Focus Window "You need 25 minutes of focus before your brain really focuses on the task. You program your brain for the mission at hand." — Christian "Boo" Boucousis The brief is the ...
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    43 m
  • When Product Owners Facilitate Vision Instead of Owning It | Alidad Hamidi

    When Product Owners Facilitate Vision Instead of Owning It | Alidad Hamidi
    Nov 14 2025
    Alidad Hamidi: When Product Owners Facilitate Vision Instead of Owning 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 Great Product Owner: Co-Creating Vision Through Discovery "The best product owner I worked with was not a product owner, but a project manager. And she didn't realize that she's acting as a product owner." - Alidad Hamidi The irony wasn't lost on Alidad. The best Product Owner he ever worked with didn't have "Product Owner" in her title—she was a project manager who didn't even realize she was acting in that capacity. The team was working on a strategic project worth millions, but confusion reigned about what value they were creating. Alidad planned an inception workshop to create alignment among stakeholders, marketing, operations, advisors, and the team. Twenty minutes into the session, Alidad asked a simple question: "How do we know the customer has this problem, and they're gonna pay for it?" Silence. No one knew. To her immense credit, the project manager didn't retreat or deflect. Instead, she jumped in: "What do we need to do?" Alidad suggested assumptions mapping, and two days later, the entire team and stakeholders gathered for the workshop. What happened next was magic. "She didn't become a proxy," Alidad emphasizes. She didn't say, "I'll go find out and come back to you." Instead, she brought everyone together—team, stakeholders, and customers—into the same room. The results were dramatic. The team was about to invest millions integrating with an external vendor. Through the assumption mapping workshop, they uncovered huge risks and realized customers didn't actually want that solution. "We need to pivot," she declared. Instead of the expensive integration, they developed educational modules and scripts for customer support and advisors. The team sat with advisors, listening to actual customer calls, creating solutions based on real needs rather than assumptions. The insight transformed not just the project but the project manager herself. She took these discovery practices across the entire organization, teaching everyone how to conduct proper discovery and fundamentally shifting the product development paradigm. One person, willing to facilitate rather than dictate, made this impact. "Product owner can facilitate creation of that [vision]," Alidad explains. "It's not just product owner or a team. It's the broader stakeholder and customer community that need to co-create that." Self-reflection Question: Are you facilitating the creation of vision with your stakeholders and customers, or are you becoming a proxy between the team and the real sources of insight? The Bad Product Owner: Creating Barriers Instead of Connections "He did the opposite, just creating barriers between the team and the environment." - Alidad Hamidi The Product Owner was new to the organization, technically skilled, and genuinely well-intentioned. The team was developing solutions for clinicians—complex healthcare work requiring deep domain understanding. Being new, the PO naturally leaned into his strength: technical expertise. He spent enormous amounts of time with the team, drilling into details, specifying exactly how everything should look, and giving the team ready-made solutions instead of problems to solve. Alidad kept telling him: "Mate, you need to spend more time with our stakeholder, you need to understand their perspective." But the PO didn't engage with users or stakeholders. He stayed comfortable in his technical wheelhouse, designing solutions in isolation. The results were predictable and painful. Halfway through work, the PO would realize, "Oh, we really don't need that." Or worse, the team would complete something and deliver it to crickets—no one used it because no one wanted it. "Great person, but it created a really bad dynamic," Alidad reflects. What should have been the PO's job—understanding the environment, stakeholder needs, and market trends—never happened. Instead of putting people in front of the environment to learn and adapt, he created barriers between the team and reality. Years later, Alidad's perspective has matured. He initially resented this PO but came to realize: "He was just being human, and he didn't have the right support and the environment for him." Sometimes people learn only after making mistakes. The coaching opportunity isn't to shame or blame but to focus on reflection from failures and supporting learning. Alidad encouraged forums with stakeholders where the PO and team could interact directly, seeing each other's work and constraints. The goal isn't perfection—it's creating conditions where Product Owners can connect teams to customers rather than standing between them. Self-reflection Question: What barriers might you be unintentionally creating between your...
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    15 m
  • Maximizing Human Potential as the Measure of Success | Alidad Hamidi

    Maximizing Human Potential as the Measure of Success | Alidad Hamidi
    Nov 13 2025
    Alidad Hamidi: Maximizing Human Potential as the Measure of Success 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. "Does my work lead into maximizing human potential? Maximizing the ability of the human to use their potential and freedom." - Alidal Hamidi Alidad calls himself a "recovering agility coach," and for good reason. For years, he struggled to define success in his work. As an enterprise coach, he plants seeds but never sees the trees grow. By the time transformation takes root, he's moved on to the next challenge. This distance from outcomes forced him to develop a more philosophical definition of success—one rooted not in deliverables or velocity charts, but in human potential and freedom. His measure of success centers on three interconnected questions. First, are customers happy with what the teams create? Notice he says "create," not "deliver"—a deliberate choice. "I really hate the term product delivery, because delivery means you have a feature factory," he explains. Creating value requires genuine interaction between people who solve problems and people who have problems, with zero distance between them. Second, what's the team's wellbeing? Do they have psychological safety, trust, and space for innovation? And third, is the team growing—and by "team," Alidad means the entire organization, not just the squad level. There's a fourth element he acknowledges: business sustainability. A bank could make customers ecstatic by giving away free money, but that's not viable long-term. The art lies in balance. "There's always a balance, sometimes one grows more than the other, and that's okay," Alidad notes. "As long as you have the awareness of why, and is that the right thing at the right time." This definition of success requires patience with the messy reality of organizations and faith that when humans have the freedom to use their full potential, both people and businesses thrive. Self-reflection Question: If you measured your success solely by whether you're maximizing human potential and freedom in your organization, what would you start doing differently tomorrow? Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Six Intrinsic Motivators Alidad's favorite retrospective format comes from Open Systems Theory—the Six Intrinsic Motivators. This approach uses the OODA Loop philosophy: understanding reality and reflecting on actions. "Let's see what actually happened in reality, rather than our perception," Alidad explains. The format assesses six elements. Three are personal and can have too much or too little (rated -10 to +10): autonomy in decision making, continuous learning and feedback, and variety in work. Three are team environment factors that you can't have too much of (rated 0 to 10): mutual support and respect, meaningfulness (both socially useful work and seeing the whole product), and desirable futures (seeing development opportunities ahead). The process is elegantly simple. Bring the team together and ask each person to assess themselves on each criterion. When individuals share their numbers, fascinating conversations emerge. One person's 8 on autonomy might surprise a teammate who rated themselves a 3. These differences spark natural dialogue, and teams begin to balance and adjust organically. "If these six elements don't exist in the team, you can never have productive human teams," Alidad states. He recommends running this at least every six months, or every three months for teams experiencing significant change. The beauty? No intervention from outside is needed—the team naturally self-organizes around what they discover together. [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 Alidad Hamidi Alidad is a strategic advisor in human-centred transformation, focused on organisational design for autonomy, ownership, and impact. A recovering Agility Coach, he draws on years across delivery and coaching roles to help build organisations truly fit for humans—resilient, adaptive, and designed for people, not just processes. You can link with Alidad Hamidi on ...
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    13 m
  • The Tax Teams Pay for Organizational Standards | Alidad Hamidi

    The Tax Teams Pay for Organizational Standards | Alidad Hamidi
    Nov 12 2025
    Alidad Hamidi: The Tax Agile Teams Pay for Organizational Standards

    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.

    "If you set targets for people, they will achieve the target, even if that means destroying the system around them." - W. Edwards Deming (quoted by Alidad)

    The tension is familiar to every Scrum Master working in large organizations: leadership demands standard operating models, flow time metrics below specific numbers, and reporting structures that fit neat boxes. Meanwhile, teams struggle under the weight of context-insensitive measurements that ignore the nuanced reality of their work. Alidad faces this challenge daily—creating balance between organizational demands and what teams actually need to transform and thrive.

    His approach starts with a simple but powerful question to leaders: "What is it that you want to achieve with these metrics?" Going beyond corporate-speak to have real conversations reveals that most leaders want outcomes, not just numbers. Alidad then involves teams in defining strategies to achieve those outcomes, framing metrics as "the tax we pay" or "the license to play." When teams understand the intent and participate in the strategy, something surprising happens—most metrics naturally improve because teams are delivering genuine value, customers are happy, and team dynamics are healthy.

    But context sensitivity remains critical. Alidad uses a vivid analogy: "If you apply lean metrics to Pixar Studio, you're gonna kill Pixar Studio. If you apply approaches of Pixar Studio to production line, they will go bankrupt in less than a month." Toyota's production line and Pixar's creative studio both need different approaches based on their context, team evolution, organizational maturity, and market environment. He advocates aligning teams to value delivery with end-to-end metrics rather than individual team measurements, recognizing that organizations operate in ecosystem models beyond simple product paradigms.

    Perhaps most important is patience. "Try to not drink coffee for a week," Alidad challenges. "Even for a single person, one practice, it's very hard to change your behavior. Imagine for organization of hundreds of thousands of people." Organizations move through learning cycles at their own rhythm. Our job isn't to force change at the speed we prefer—it's to take responsibility for our freedom and find ways to move the system, accepting that systems have their own speed.

    Self-reflection Question: Which metrics are you applying to your teams without considering their specific context, and what conversation do you need to have with leadership about the outcomes those metrics are meant 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 Alidad Hamidi

    Alidad is a strategic advisor in human-centred transformation, focused on organisational design for autonomy, ownership, and impact. A recovering Agility Coach, he draws on years across delivery and coaching roles to help build organisations truly fit for humans—resilient, adaptive, and designed for people, not just processes.

    You can link with Alidad Hamidi on LinkedIn. You can also visit his website at desirablefutures.group.
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    19 m
  • When a Billion-Dollar Team Becomes Invisible | Alidad Hamidi

    When a Billion-Dollar Team Becomes Invisible | Alidad Hamidi
    Nov 11 2025
    Alidad Hamidi: When a Billion-Dollar Team Becomes Invisible 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. "Most of the times, it's not teams that are self-destructive or anything... Simple analogy is when a flower is not blooming, you don't fix the flower, you fix the soil." - Alidad Hamidi The team sat on the sidelines, maintaining a large portfolio of systems while the organization buzzed with excitement about replatforming initiatives. Nobody seemed to care about them. Morale was low. Whenever technical challenges arose, everyone pointed to the same person for help. Alidad tried the standard playbook—team-building activities, bonding exercises—but the impact was minimal. Something deeper was broken, and it wasn't the team. Then Alidad shifted his lens to systems thinking. Instead of fixing the flower, he examined the soil. Using the Viable Systems Model, he started with System 5—identity. Who were they? What value did they create? He worked with stakeholders to map the revenue impact of the systems this "forgotten" team maintained. The number shocked everyone: one billion dollars. These weren't legacy systems gathering dust—they were revenue-generating engines critical to the business. Alidad asked the team to run training series for each other, teaching colleagues about the ten different systems they managed. They created self-assessments of skill sets, making visible what had been invisible for too long. When Alidad made their value explicit to the organization, everything shifted. The team's perspective transformed. Later, when asked what made the difference, their answer was unanimous: "You made us visible. That's it." People have agency to change their environment, but sometimes they need someone to help the system see what it's been missing. Ninety percent of the time, when teams struggle, it's not the team that needs fixing—it's the soil they're planted in. Self-reflection Question: What teams in your organization are maintaining critical systems but remain invisible to leadership, and what would happen if you made their value explicit? Featured Book of the Week: More Time to Think by Nancy Kline Alidad describes Nancy Kline's More Time to Think as transformative for his facilitation practice. While many Scrum Masters focus on filling space and driving conversations forward, this book teaches the opposite—how to create space and listen deeply. "It teaches you to create a space, not to fill it," Alidad explains. The book explores how to design containers—meetings, workshops, retrospectives—that allow deeper thinking to emerge naturally among team members. For Alidad, the book answered a fundamental question: "How do you help people to find the solution among themselves?" It transformed his approach from facilitation to liberation, helping teams slow down so they can think more clearly. He first encountered the audiobook and was so impacted that he explored both "Time to Think" and this follow-up. While both are valuable, "More Time to Think" resonated more deeply with his coaching philosophy. The book pairs beautifully with systems thinking, helping Scrum Masters understand that creating the right conditions for thinking is often more powerful than providing the right answers. In this segment, we also refer to the book Confronting our freedom, by Peter Block et al. [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 Alidad Hamidi Alidad is a strategic advisor in human-centred transformation, focused on organisational design for autonomy, ownership, and impact. A recovering Agility Coach, he draws on years across delivery and coaching roles to help build organisations truly fit for humans—resilient, adaptive, and designed for people, not just processes. You can link with Alidad Hamidi on LinkedIn. You can also visit his website at desirablefutures.group.
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    16 m