In this post, Tricia Barnes shares her personal journey to an advanced Product Owner role. Using the analogy of regression testing, she encourages us to take time to learn new things and grow, but also, be OK with pushing the pause button. Go back to the basics, and spend time integrating the new with old. In time, you will see what you are building is far stronger than anticipated.

Scrum Masters, are you a natural Servant Leader, or do you struggle to be the inspiring coach that creates high-performing teams?

The following blog is inspired by the work of Scott Watson, an emotional intelligence speaker and trainer. I hope they will complement what you are already doing well and help you create a tactical plan to improve your own emotional intelligence and the emotional climate in your team. You might find that focusing on how your behavior is impacting others can change the emotional climate in your team – and positively impact your career. (Want more from the Product Owner lens? See my Emotional EQ for Product Owner’s article.)

A Product Owner is constantly balancing expectations from the business, the team, and users. It’s a tough job. You might feel you are doing all the right things, but your team is just not responding. If you feel you are not getting the best results from your team, or perhaps you sense they just don’t like working with you, you might benefit from improving your emotional EQ.

Do you want to create products your customers love? It’s not just a marketing gimmick. Take these 3 steps to grow your Product Mindset and change the world.

These four elements of Product Management create a basis for a Product Mindset. Learn how the Growth Mindset, the Agile Mindset, and the Product Mindset intersect. Explore how you can go further, and what courageous questions you might not be asking.

Motivational Interviewing is a goal-oriented way of having a collaborative conversation with a person or group, while paying particular attention to the language of change.

One of the values closely embraced when working in an agile environment is transparency. If we aren’t transparent then we may give obscure answers to questions or act with muddied behavior not clearly understood by anyone.

As agile coaches, if we don’t focus on making relationship management an integral part of our teachings, we are doing our team a major disservice.

Scrum Masters need to be willing to engage with an open mind while remaining focused on what they want to accomplish. Here are five tips that you can use to better position yourself to succeed as a new Scrum Master.