The Liberators Podcast

In-Depth: What Is The Optimal Size For A Scrum Team?

07 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How many members did the best Scrum teams you worked with have? It’s an age-old question amongst practitioners who are new to Agile methodologies: “...

5 Effective Ways To Increase Management Support For Agile

03 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In our workshops and classes, participants often lament how difficult it is to get “management to do their part”. And my experience in this area h...

In-Depth: Is SAFe® Really That Bad?

06 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The mere mention of SAFe® often results in groans among Agilists. It isn't hard to find skeptical views of SAFe® and similar large-scale Agile ...

In-Depth: How To Make Pair Programming More Effective

01 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How can we make pair programming more effective? We know that some developers love it, and others hate it. Pair programming is a common practice in Ag...

In-Depth: The Costs And Benefits Of Pair Programming

04 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We are fans of pair programming. There is something very satisfying about passing the keyboard back and forth and sharing the mind space for a problem...

Scrum Is Just A Recipe

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Scrum is great. We love it. And it's also just a recipe. It needs a lot more to result in a flavorful, delicious, and nutritious meal.Understandi...

In-Depth: How Does Working From Home Influence Teamwork?

02 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How does working from home influence teamwork? This question came to the forefront during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Most companies switched from fully ...

The Church Of Scrum

05 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever noticed the many parallels between organized religion and Scrum? Or with Agile methodologies more broadly? It's been a recurring jo...

In-Depth: The Evidence-Based Business Case For Agile (Or Why Agile Isn't Dead)

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"Agile is dead" is a contrarian opinion that gets thrown around a lot on social media. While it's a nice way to get attention, what doe...

In-Depth: How To Prevent High-Performing Teams From Burning Out

03 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

“How do I prevent my high-performing team from burning out?” is a question that recently came up in a community meetup. It's an intriguing qu...

In-Depth: The Double-Edged Sword Of Diversity In Teams

05 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're back!How diverse is your team? Do you have members from different age groups, different genders, different roles, and different cultural ba...

In-Depth: How Scrum Motivates Through Shared Goals And High Autonomy

04 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The first thing people tend to see when they look at the Scrum framework are the roles, the artifacts, and the events. But that is only structure. The...

In-Depth: The Fine Art Of Making Your Improvements Actionable

07 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

“We consistently observe that teams struggle with continuous improvement. Instead of keeping it small, simple, and practical, teams go for ambitious...

In-Depth: What Makes A Good Product Owner?

02 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What makes a good Product Owner? How much time should they spend with their team or with stakeholders? Or writing items for the Product Backlog? Do Pr...

Why Doesn't The Agile Community Practice Empiricism?

05 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"SAFe destroys autonomy", "estimation is a waste of time" and "Scrum Masters can't also be Product Owners" are just...

Liberating Structures Should Be Everywhere People Interact

07 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"It slowly started to dawn on me that something else was happening during these gatherings. Something I hadn’t seen before so clearly in my pre...

In-Depth: Does Scrum Only Work In Small Organizations?

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A common belief among Agile practitioners is that Scrum works best in smaller organizations. Things are simpler there, and you don't have all tho...

In-Depth: Are Scrum Masters Sufficiently Focused On Valuable Outcomes?

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Are Scrum Masters perhaps too focused on the process, and too little on whether or not that process actually delivers valuable outcomes? How is that f...

How Work On The Scrum Team Survey Taught Us 10 Lessons About Agile

03 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We are creating the Scrum Team Survey to help Scrum teams and Agile teams to diagnose their process. We also give tons of evidence-based feedback. One...

In-Depth: How Coherence And Cohesion Are Critical To Scrum

06 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Do your Daily Scrums feel like a pointless ritual where everyone just lists what they’ve done yesterday, and what they do will do today? Does Sprint...

Is Blue-print Thinking Limiting The Potential Of The Agile Community?

02 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Do you start a new Scrum team by explaining the roles, artifacts, and events? Do you rarely consider how to build coalitions and persuade people in po...

In-Depth: Stable Or Fluid Teams? What Does The Science Say?

04 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Recently, the concept of “fluid teams”, “dynamic reteaming” or “ad-hoc teaming” has gained traction in the Agile community. Although the c...

In-Depth: How To Create Better Work Agreements For Your Team

07 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Do high-performing teams communicate more than low-performing teams? 🤔If you think "Yes!", you may want to reconsider. Scientific studies...

In-Depth: What Scientific Research Has To Say About Technical Debt And Code Smells

02 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why is code quality so often an issue? Why do software teams — despite their best initial intentions — often end up fighting a codebase that is ha...

Agility And Business Agility Are The Same

12 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

There is a growing trend in our industry to distinguish between “Agility” and “Business Agility”. The idea here is that Agile is limited only ...

10 Powerful Strategies To Break Down Product Backlog Items

17 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Why Psychological Safety Improves The Effectiveness Of Your Team

03 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

"Professionals don't need psychological safety" is what someone recently told us. Perhaps you are on the fence about the need for psych...

Refinement: The Mise en Place of Great Scrum Teams

16 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 underst...

From Largest Potential Product To Smallest Valuable Products

18 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The biggest challenge in Product Development is to distinguish between what the product can become one day, and what it should incrementally become fi...

Why Great (Scrum) Teams Have A Mind Of Their Own

14 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How does "team cognition" make some Scrum teams more effective than others? In this podcast, we explore scientific research into team cognit...

Five Tips Every Starting Scrum Master Should Know

23 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 i...

How To Remain Productive While Working From Home In A Pandemic (with Daniel Russo)

03 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

“That’s Impossible!”: Self-Limiting Beliefs in Scrum and how to deal with them as a Scrum Master

26 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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...

So, When Will It Be Done? And How Much Will It Cost?

12 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 cu...

What Shipping Fast Looks Like In Healthy Scrum

22 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We often talk about how "Zombie Scrum" lacks frequently releases. Teams are not shipping fast. And while people often easily recognize this ...

Five Types Of Value

05 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Scrum framework exists to deliver value to stakeholders sooner. Sounds good, right? But when is something “valuable”? For something that seems...

How To Involve Your Stakeholders

29 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 y...

On Continuous Improvement And Agile Transformations

21 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we make the connection between the Scrum Framework and continuous improvement. Few Scrum Teams start from a position where ev...

A Conversation About The Zombie Scrum Survival Guide

08 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Klipp and Justyna Pindel recently reviewed our new book "The Zombie Scrum Survival Guide". They also graciously invited us to talk abou...

How Group Dynamics Explain How We Often Create Our Own Resistance

02 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We often talk about "resistance", and how to overcome it in others. But ironically, we often create resistance ourselves.In this episode of ...

Self-Organization As A Survival Skill (And How Self-Managing Teams Get You There)

18 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we talk about self-management and self-organization. How are those concepts related. And why are incredibly both valuable and...

What Makes A Developer Culture: A Personal Story

11 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

"Without good developers, Scrum is lipstick on a pig". Yet, a quick look on blogs, LinkedIn and popular podcasts makes it obvious that more ...

What 4 Key Changes To The Scrum Guide Tell Us About Scrum

20 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Organizational Learning; Why Single-Loop Learning Isn't Enough In Scrum

13 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 b...

About "Purpose to Practice"

13 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 c...

Don't Scale Up. Scale Your Product Down!

30 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

"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 Sc...

Why Zombie Scrum Teams Struggle To Improve Continuously

23 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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...

How To Sell Agile To Your Customers

16 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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...

What Makes Scrum Masters Successful? (According To Scrum Masters)

09 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 e...

When Scrum Doesn’t Fit ...

01 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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. Th...

How Biases Distort Our Beliefs (In The Workplace)

25 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is about how unreliable, nonobjective, and biased your and my thinking is. As sociologists and psychologists have long pointed out, we sh...

Turning The Ship Around for The Liberators

11 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This year has been challenging for all of us. It wasn't any different for our company, The Liberators. At the same time, seemingly insurmountable...

In-Depth: What a Social Systems Perspective Teaches us About Change

04 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

"Teams make people more than people make teams."It may be a bold statement, but there is a surprising amount of scientific evidence that sho...

Crafting Powerful Invitations for Liberating Structures

14 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Liberating Structures are easy-to-learn, easy-to-facilitate techniques that build real engagement and involvement in groups of any size. We’ve been ...

A Better Way To Learn In Organizations: Visual Thinking Strategies

07 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

There is a problem with traditional learning models where experts tell people what they need to know: it doesn't work. Scientific research tells ...

How the Efficiency Mindset Leads to Zombie Scrum

17 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What creates Zombie Scrum? One clear theme we — and many others — have found is that people use the Scrum Framework for the wrong reasons. When yo...

Why Zombie Scrum Teams Don't Ship Fast: Become Stronger By Doing It More Often

10 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

"That doesn't work in the real world", "Our product is too complex" and "That works only for hip startups" are some...

Surviving the Supernova: How Scrum Can Help

03 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we take a birds-eye view of what is happening in and around us. Technological innovations are emerging rapidly and our work is increa...

Why Liberating Structures Are Instruments For Self-Organization

26 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

“Self-organization is the process by which spontaneous order arises from something that is initially disorganized.”That sounds very deep, but what...

How We Improved The Zombie Scrum Survey

19 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

“Stakeholders are less satisfied, less value is delivered and team morale is markedly lower when management hardly interacts with the teams”This i...

Scrum Mythbusters: Having A Sprint Goal Is Optional In Scrum

12 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Does your Scrum Team use Sprint Goals? If not, why? Perhaps your team finds it hard to identify a goal for the Sprint out of the patchwork of items on...

The Case of the Missing Customers in Scrum

05 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A simple way to understand Scrum would be to emphasize that its all about releasing faster and sooner. But what if everything that is released isn&apo...

How To Kickstart A Great Scrum Team (10 Practical Things To Do)

29 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A good start for a new Scrum Team is really half the work. This is where you can start building the psychological safety and self-organizing skills th...

Liberating Structures Are Skills To Be Learned By Users, Not Facilitators

22 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

"By indulging in their own desire to 'try new structures' or dazzle the group with amazing riffs and mashups of Liberating Structures, ...

10 Powerful Questions to Create Better Sprint Goals

15 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Almost everybody sees the value of Sprint Goals. But most teams struggle with them nonetheless. In this short episode, we offer 10 Powerful Questions ...

Conflict Styles: What Sciences Says & How Liberating Structures Can Help

08 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When you work in a team or with others, you'll recognize that conflict is a natural part of our work with others. Where some conflicts are visibl...

Addressing The Elephant: And how teams can learn to dance with (often invisible) conflict

01 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Scrum: A Framework for Empirical Process Control

24 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What is the Scrum Framework? How does it work? What is its purpose? And how do all these roles, events and artifacts work together?This episode of our...

How to Deal With Technical Debt in Scrum

17 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Technical debt, or the accumulation of low-quality code, seems to be inevitable when you create software. It is one of the biggest frustrations and de...

Troika Consulting: "Should my team use longer Sprints when they are unable to deliver an increment?"

10 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

One of our patrons, Chris Davies, shares with us a challenge that he and his team are facing. What should you do when your team is unable to deliver d...

Uncovering Better Ways to Develop Software: A Conversation Between Jeff Maleski, Jeff Bubolz, Barry Overeem & Christiaan Verwijs About the Learning Journey of Scrum

03 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Recently, we had the huge pleasure of participating in an hour-long episode of The Agile Wire by Jeff Bubolz and Jeff Maleski. Its basically just one ...

Zombie Scrum: The Curious Case of Stakeholder Distance

20 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Scrum Framework urges teams to involve stakeholders. But many Scrum Teams struggle to do so. For some, involving one or two internal stakeholders ...

Stop using separate environments for development, testing, and production (DTAP)

13 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we make a bold argument: stop using separate environments for development, testing, acceptance, and production - commonly called DTAP....

Scrum Mythbusters: You Can't Do Projects With Scrum

06 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the past, we often corrected how people spoke about work. Whenever someone mentioned “project”, we would correct it to “product”. With a pe...

Thinking by Sprinting

28 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Our brains have not evolved for complex work. Our memory is limited. We make decisions based on heuristics instead of a full rational analysis of all ...

A Conversation About Developer Culture (And What Makes It Possible)

21 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Scrum Framework doesn't work when developers don't take (or are not given) ownership of their craft. Without a developer culture that en...

Troika Consulting: "My team is unable to deliver Done increments because they are struggling to slice work vertically"

14 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we're using the Liberating Structure "Troika Consulting" to offer help to one of our listeners. Its an experiment, so l...

Stop Measuring The Pizzas And The Cooks

07 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What do pizzerias have in common with software development? Not much, right? But they do offer a useful perspective on what kind of metrics are really...

Our 14 Tips For Facilitating Liberating Structures

31 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

You can use Liberating Structures without any prior training or experience. At the same time, practice makes perfect. One example is to always start y...

How To Avoid Groupthink When Creating Strategy Together

24 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

These days, a lot of the work inside and outside organisations is done in groups. Like task forces, Scrum Teams, management teams or your local church...

Why Scrum Requires Completely “Done” Software Every Sprint

17 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the Scrum.org Headquarters there is a picture of Ken Schwaber — one of the founders of Scrum — pointing at a sticky saying “Done”. This pic...

What's Wrong With Maturity Models?

10 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A simple search on Google yields dozens of Maturity Models for Agile and Scrum. At first sight, they seem incredibly helpful. By flattening the comple...

Actual stakeholders? or just your audience?

03 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is an excerpt from the book that we’re writing, the ‘Zombie Scrum Survival Guide’. It’s our way of delivering small increments an...

Navigating Conflict: Five Big Insights from the workshop ‘Address the Elephant’

20 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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, a...

Scrum Mythbusters: In Scrum, We Spend Too Much Time In Meetings

13 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

"Scrum has too many meetings!" is a common complaint against the Scrum Framework. And we totally get where that is common from. But if you ...

Scrum Mythbusters: The Scrum Master Can't Remove People From The Team

07 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Scrum Masters can't remove someone from the team, right? That would harm trust, it would violate their self-organizing nature. But what if the dy...

Scrum Mythbusters: The Scrum Master Is A Junior Agile Coach

29 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Are you a Scrum Master and ready for the next step as Agile Coach? Do you need an Agile Coach to help facilitate organizational change while Scrum Mas...

Scrum Mythbusters: Story Points are required in Scrum

22 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Why do we estimate work in Scrum? Are Story Points the best way to do this? And what about #noestimates? In this episode we address the myth that Scru...

Scrum Mythbusters: Only The Product Owner Interacts With Stakeholders

15 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Is the Product Owner the only person who interacts with stakeholders? You may also recognize a Product Owner who claims exclusive responsibility for t...

Scrum Mythbusters: Refinement Is A Required Meeting For The Entire Scrum Team

08 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Does Refinement feel like a chore for your team? Is refinement taking place during required meetings during the Sprint? In this episode, we address th...

Scrum Mythbusters: The Sprint Backlog can’t change during the Sprint

25 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Do Development Teams commit to completing all the items on the Sprint Backlog? Or is it okay for the Sprint Backlog to change as new insights emerge. ...

Scrum Conversations: Barry and Christiaan talk about Scrum as a heavyweight framework

18 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Scrum Mythbusters: There Is No Planning In Scrum

11 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Should Scrum Teams revolt against creating "plans"? Are Scrum Teams supposed to not look further than their current Sprint? Is Scrum a &quot...

Scrum Conversations: Christiaan and Barry talk with Carsten Grønbjerg Lützen about his work at the LEGO Group and the importance of shared purpose

04 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

"I'm more of a Scrum Janitor" - Carsten Grønbjerg LützenIn this edition, Christiaan and Barry talk with Scrum Master Carsten Grønbje...

Scrum Conversations: Christiaan and Barry talk about Zombie Scrum and how to measure it with the Zombie Scrum Symptoms Checker

27 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Zombie Scrum is something that looks like Scrum, but isn't Scrum at all when you take a closer look. Usually, Zombie Scrum is marked by a complet...

Scrum Mythbusters: The Scrum Master Must Resolve Every Problem

20 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, it is all about how problems are resolved that are hindering a Development Team in their work. From a broken wifi router to a steady ...

Scrum Mythbusters: The Sprint Review is a Demo

13 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Are stakeholders present at your Sprint Review? Is this event called a 'Demo' in agenda's? Are stakeholders actively invited to offer f...

Scrum Conversations: Barry and Christiaan talk about why Sprint Goals are not optional in Scrum

06 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Sprint Goals are one of the more elusive parts of the Scrum Framework. Although most teams understand why they matter, there is usually this idea of &...

Scrum Mythbusters: The Product Backlog Has To Consists Out Of User Stories

30 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever come across User Stories like "As a designer, I want to set up a style guide so that all developers can do basic design themselves&...

Scrum Conversations: Barry and Christiaan talk about what helped them on their journey as Scrum Masters

23 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast, Barry and Christiaan explore what their journeys as Scrum Masters looked like. What helped? Where did they find support? They also ta...