Andrei Gliga’s Post

“Why are we even following Scrum? It's slowing us down.” This one line from a senior stakeholder in a review meeting hit harder than I expected.I was barely 6 months into my Scrum Master role. New Role. New team. High expectations. And this was my first project with leadership visibility. Sprints were running. Stand-ups were happening. But somehow, the energy in the room (virtual room, actually) was low. Stories were getting rolled over. Stakeholders weren’t happy with the progress. And in every sprint review, the same question kept surfacing: “Where’s the impact?” I’ll be honest — I felt stuck. I knew we were “doing Scrum”, but something wasn’t clicking. That weekend, I sat with my notes, and ADKAR came to mind — a model I had learned during a change management training but hadn’t applied deeply yet. So I broke it down: 👉 Awareness – Did the team really know why we were building this tool? 👉 Desire – Were they emotionally invested? 👉 Knowledge – Did everyone know how to work in Scrum, or were we assuming? 👉 Ability – Were we enabling success, or just expecting it? 👉 Reinforcement – Were we celebrating anything at all? The honest answer? We were low on every front. So I changed my approach. First, I asked the Product Owner to run a story session — not about user stories, but real stories from the Stakeholders team. How delays were affecting deals. What workarounds they were doing every day. Suddenly, the “why” became clear for everyone. We made a visible ADKAR board. During retros, we checked how we were doing on each letter. We invited a sales rep to our demo — just one person — and their appreciation lit up the team. We also simplified our backlog. Fewer items, but clearer outcomes. Velocity didn’t shoot up overnight, but the ownership did. In 3 sprints, things turned. No more rolled-over stories. Stakeholders stopped asking “Why Scrum?” — they started asking, “What’s next?” The same senior leader pinged me saying: “I can see the shift. Whatever you did — it’s working.” Looking back, the lesson was simple: Change doesn’t start with a new process. It starts with people feeling connected to a purpose. As a Scrum Master, it’s easy to get caught in rituals. But the real impact comes when we listen, observe, and adapt — not just the process, but the mindset behind it. So if you're leading change — in a team, a project, or even in yourself — try reflecting through ADKAR. It’s not a checklist. It’s a conversation starter. And sometimes, that’s all it takes. #ScrumMaster #ADKAR #AgileIndia #CareerStory #Leadership #ScrumValues #ChangeManagement #LinkedInDiaries

“From Delivery Chaos to Predictable Value – Lessons from the Scrum Floor” - guess many teams experience it but don't talk about it enough to retrospect. From my experience : a short version of the STAR point of view: When I joined a cross-functional product development team in a regulated domain, the first retrospective I facilitated started with silence. Then one developer spoke up: “We’re doing sprints, but we don’t feel like we’re delivering anything meaningful.” Above sentence summarized the team’s biggest pain points: Features completed, but not connected to business outcomes. Too many dependencies delaying integration. Sprint goals defined, but not owned collectively. Pressure to deliver fast overshadowing sustainable pace and innovation. The result? Low morale, unpredictable delivery, and diminishing trust between teams and leadership. As Scrum Master, my first step wasn’t to “fix velocity.” It was to rebuild alignment and purpose — guided by Scrum values and SAFe principles. 🔹 Empiricism & Transparency: We introduced visual flow metrics — not to measure people, but to help the team see their system. Cycle time, blocked stories, and unplanned work were surfaced in every stand-up and ART Sync. 🔹 Systems Thinking (SAFe Principle #2): Mapped value streams end-to-end to uncover hidden bottlenecks between development, QA, and compliance. We restructured backlog priorities to reduce handoffs. 🔹 Relentless Improvement (Pillar of SAFe): Each retrospective closed with one improvement goal tracked as a backlog item — not a sticky note that fades away. 🔹 Built-in Quality (Pillar of SAFe): Reinforced the Definition of Done to include automated test coverage, peer reviews, and compliance acceptance early in the sprint. Post 2 Program Increments (PIs) analysis : ✅ Sprint predictability rose from 40% to 70%. ✅ Escaped defects dropped by 35%. ✅ Cross-team dependency aging improved by 30%, accelerating release readiness. ✅ Team engagement scores moved from “neutral” to “high” in our internal pulse survey. But what truly mattered — the Product Owner said: “For the first time, I can connect every team’s work to our business strategy — not just sprint tasks.” This was the turning point and eye opener for teams involved. When Scrum is practiced with purpose, and SAFe is applied with empathy, teams don’t just deliver faster — they deliver with clarity, confidence, and shared ownership. Share your thoughts and inputs about your experience, happy to learn from other fellow professionals! #ScrumMaster #AgileLeadership #SAFeTransformation #ContinuousImprovement #LeanAgile #BusinessAgility #ProductDevelopment

“When the Sprint Becomes a River Delta: How Scrum Masters Navigate Work That Refuses to Flow” In one of previous product development teams I handled, our sprint backlog looked perfectly planned — neat swimlanes, story points balanced, dependencies identified but needed review.   Yet halfway through, progress slowed…   Stories branched into subtasks, priorities split midstream, and conversations drifted in five directions. Velocity wasn’t the issue. Flow was.   That’s when it hit me — our sprint had become a river delta. You know how a river nears the ocean and suddenly fragments into multiple small channels? Each looks active, but the flow weakens because the current splits.   That’s exactly what happens in many Scrum teams: The sprint starts as a strong current with a clear direction — the Sprint Goal. But as the sprint unfolds, tiny “side channels” form: One dev gets pulled into production fixes. A designer chases a last-minute change. A tester supports another squad. Soon, the main current weakens. As a Scrum Master, my job wasn’t to dam the delta — it was to realign the flow. Here’s how I helped the team: ◾ Visualized Split Work: ◾ I created a “Delta Board” showing every side task that branched off from sprint goals. ◾ The team saw how scattered their flow had become. Awareness came before accountability. ◾ Introduced Flow Recovery Points: ◾ Twice a week, we ran a quick “flow pulse” : 20 minutes to ask if everyone is ok with flow (apart from Daily sync): “Are we still moving toward our main river — or drifting into streams?” This prevented silent drift. ◾ Negotiated Focus with Leadership: Instead of saying “we’re overloaded,” we presented flow metrics — number of branched tasks vs sprint commitments. Leadership saw the pattern and began shielding the team mid-sprint.   Result? - Cycle time gradually reduced by 25% in next 3 sprints, and the team felt lighter each sprint — like the current was one again and with flow of accountability, focus on valuable delivery improved significantly.   Scrum isn’t about containing chaos; it’s about restoring flow with focus. Every team faces deltas — what matters is whether we spot them early enough to rejoin the ocean and avoid Tsunami down the lane.   Welcome to learn from others thoughts : Whats your experience of realigning/restoring flow across Sprints? #Focus #Openess #Commitment

I was talking with my team this week, reminding them of our Retro coming up on Monday and giving a sneak peek into one of the topics I plan on discussing: Value. I was asked a question by a scrum master that gave me pause. I mean, I knew "what" I wanted to say but the "How" was not in my grasp in the moment. Yes, I felt a little like a Product Owner for a brief moment. I love our POs!!! The question? How does a Scrum Master really add value? Ahh, the timeless question... part philosophy, part group therapy for anyone who’s ever watched a “Daily Scrum” turn into a 45-minute status meeting with PowerPoint slides and despair... so much despair. A Scrum Master adds value not by standing above the team, but by leading from within. We don’t manage people, we amplify them. We teach organizations how to treat delivery teams like people, not resources (because creativity doesn’t clock in). We teach our teams to take ownership of what they deliver... not because management said so, but because pride in your own work just hits different when you’ve shaped it yourself. Our secret sauce? Empiricism. We don’t guess. We inspect, adapt, and measure what actually matters: > Flow efficiency & cycle time (not vanity velocity) > Engagement & safety (not attendance in ceremonies) > Sprint goals achieved (not story points tallied) Data is our mirror, not our weapon. We use it to illuminate, not intimidate... And when someone says, “That’s how we’ve always done it,” we smile like Obi-Wan Kenobi sensing a disturbance in the Force. That’s our cue people!! We’re not chaos agents, we’re change agents. We challenge the status quo, retire zombie processes, and ask ‘why’ until the eye-rolls turn into lightbulbs. Scrum Masters add value by making work human again. We turn friction into flow. We replace burnout with belonging. And yes, we sprinkle joy into the daily grind, because fun fuels focus more than fear ever could. We coach with empathy, lead with evidence, and keep it just irreverent enough to stay interesting. C'mon, let’s be honest... if scrum masters can’t make work a little more fun, what are we even inspecting and adapting for? What’s your favorite “that’s how we’ve always done it” moment? How'd you flip it into something better?

“Silence in Teams Is Like Fog on the Highway” (A Scrum Master’s reflection on what we don’t talk about enough.)   Have you ever driven through fog? You know the feeling — you’re moving, but not quite sure how fast or in which lane the others are.   You grip the wheel tighter, squint for signals, and pray the next turn doesn’t surprise you. That’s exactly what human silence feels like inside a Sprint.   Not the calm, reflective silence after a good retrospective, but the heavy, uncertain one — when cameras stay off, heads stay down, and decisions are met with quiet compliance.   As a Scrum Master, I’ve learned: ◽ Silence is rarely empty. It’s information waiting to be decoded. It tells you about fear, fatigue, or a loss of trust. ◽ Just like fog, it doesn’t arrive suddenly — it forms when conditions change: ◽ Deadlines replace dialogue. Metrics replace meaning. ◽ “Alignment” replaces authentic disagreement.   And then we wonder why our retros feel like monologues. I’ve made this mistake before — trying to “clear” the silence with more meetings or icebreakers. But you can’t chase fog away by honking louder. You clear it by creating warmth and movement — small, safe steps that make the invisible visible again. Here’s what’s worked for me: ◾ Warmth: Start with one honest check-in question: “What’s one thing unsaid in our last sprint that deserves space?” ◾ Movement: Shift the focus from status to stories. Ask, “What surprised you this sprint?” instead of “What blocked you?” ◾ Visibility: Use anonymous inputs sometimes. Not to hide people, but to reveal patterns safely. Silence in a team isn’t a signal of laziness. It’s a signal of caution. People stay quiet when they can’t predict the weather — will they be criticized, ignored, or genuinely heard? As leaders, coaches, and Scrum Masters, our role is to turn the fog lights on — not to blame the weather. When people start to feel safe to “see” and “be seen,” collaboration stops being a guessing game.   What do you do when your team goes quiet?   Do you wait for the fog to lift — or navigate through it slowly, steadily together? Let’s talk about it 👇 Because behind every silent sprint lies a story waiting for someone brave enough to listen. #ScrumMaster #Psychological Safety #Emotional Intelligence #Navigating through challenges

🌟 How a Senior Scrum Master Can Lead Differently — Beyond the Book 🌟 📖 We all know the textbook duties of a Scrum Master: coach the team, remove impediments, facilitate ceremonies. But the true impact comes when you lead in ways that make the team: ✅ Excited to collaborate ✅ Engaged in the process ✅ Inspired to innovate Here’s how I bring innovation, humanity, and fun into Scrum Mastery 👇 🔹 1. Facilitation as an Experience 🎤✨ 🟢 Apply Design Thinking in sprint events (empathy maps, rapid prototyping, ideation) 🟢 Switch formats: Silent Brainstorming, Round-Robin, Role-Play, Fishbowl 🟢 Try “Silent Start / Silent Close” → 2 minutes reflection before/after meetings 🔹 2. Treat the Process as a Living Experiment 🧪🔄 🟡 Run Experiment Sprints → try new tools/techniques risk-free 🟡 Hold Micro-Retrospectives mid-sprint on specific topics (collaboration, flow) 🟡 Rotate Meeting Ownership so everyone facilitates at least once 🔹 3. Learning, Growth & Cross-Pollination 📚🤝 🔵 Create Learning Missions → each member explores a new idea & shares back 🔵 Encourage Pairing Across Disciplines (Dev + QA, Designer + Backend) 🔵 Allow Shadowing → let stakeholders observe sprint ceremonies 🔹 4. Visibility, Gamification & Fun 🎲🏆 🟠 Make impediments visible as “quests / challenges” on a board 🟠 Build a Wall of Kudos → teammates post shout-outs & thanks 🟠 Turn Retros into team-building games instead of repetitive Q&A 🔹 5. AI as a Co-Scrum Assistant 🤖📊 🟣 Use Generative AI to: Suggest backlog prioritization Simulate sprint capacity scenarios Summarize meetings or extract actionables 🟣 Run AI Health Checks on sprint metrics → spot hidden trends 🔹 6. Psychological Safety & Trust 🛡️💙 ⚪ Reframe “failures” → call them experiments / attempts ⚪ Model vulnerability → admit mistakes, ask feedback openly ⚪ Shield the team from unrealistic expectations while enabling growth ✅ What Makes This Different? This isn’t just “facilitating by the book.” It’s leading with creativity, empathy, safety, and innovation ✨. A Scrum Master who becomes a catalyst for culture + transformation will always be remembered beyond ceremonies. 💬 Your Turn: 👉 What’s one innovative thing you’ve tried in your Scrum Master journey that made teams enjoy working together more? Drop your stories below ⬇️ #ScrumMaster #AgileLeadership #ServantLeadership #ProjectManagement #InnovationAtWork #AgileTransformation #Scrum #Leadership #FutureOfWork #GenerativeAI #ContinuousImprovement #AgileLeadership #ScrumMaster #AgileProjectManagement #SAFe #Kanban #GenerativeAI #ArtificialIntelligence #AgileCoach #ProjectManagement #Leadership #ServantLeadership #JobSearch #CareerOpportunities #JobOpening #NowHiring #JobSeekers #Recruitment #WorkOpportunities #PuneJobs #NoidaJobs #AhmedabadJobs #IndiaJobs #HyderabadJobs #DelhiNCRJobs #KualaLumpurJobs #SingaporeJobs #SingaporeHiring #MalaysiaHiring #SingaporeCareers #KualaLumpurHiring #LinkedInJobs #HRCommunty #TalentAcquisition

⚠️ 6 Mistakes Scrum Masters Make in Their First 30 Days Becoming a Scrum Master is exciting — but those first 30 days can make or break your credibility. Many new Scrum Masters fall into common traps that slow down team progress and dilute Agile adoption. Here are the 7 mistakes to avoid 👇 ❌ 1️⃣ Acting Like a Project Manager ➡️ Trying to assign tasks, track timelines, and control delivery is a legacy habit from traditional management. ✅ Instead: Empower your team to self-manage. Focus on facilitation and removing blockers, not task ownership. ❌ 2️⃣ Rushing to Change Everything ➡️ New Scrum Masters often start by overhauling processes, changing tools, or introducing too many Agile ceremonies. ✅ Instead: Observe first. Spend your first sprint understanding team dynamics, pain points, and existing culture. ❌ 3️⃣ Ignoring Relationships ➡️ Jumping into frameworks without building trust with the team and Product Owner leads to resistance. ✅ Instead: Invest time in 1:1 conversations. Listen actively. Build credibility through empathy and support. ❌ 4️⃣ Not Clarifying the “Why” Behind Scrum ➡️ Teams may see Scrum as a checklist rather than a mindset. ✅ Instead: Educate them on Agile values and principles — help them understand why Scrum matters, not just how it works. ❌ 5️⃣ Over-Facilitating Every Meeting ➡️ Taking too much control in ceremonies kills team ownership. ✅ Instead: Be a guide. Let team members lead stand-ups, planning, or retrospectives occasionally — you’ll build accountability. ❌ 6️⃣ Neglecting Stakeholder Management ➡️ Focusing only on the dev team while ignoring leadership, clients, or other departments leads to misalignment. ✅ Instead: Communicate progress, manage expectations, and educate stakeholders on Agile benefits and boundaries. ❌ 7️⃣ Avoiding Conflict ➡️ Many new Scrum Masters want to “keep peace” and avoid tough conversations. ✅ Instead: Address issues early — whether it’s unclear priorities, role confusion, or team tension. Healthy conflict drives improvement. 🌟 In Summary: Your first 30 days aren’t about proving you know Scrum — They’re about earning trust, observing patterns, and shaping culture. “A great Scrum Master doesn’t bring instant change — they build lasting transformation.” 💬 What was the biggest challenge you faced in your first month as a Scrum Master? Let’s discuss 👇 #ScrumMaster #AgileCoach #AgileLeadership #Scrum #ContinuousImprovement #AgileMindset #TeamCulture #Leadership #VikasHarale

Absolutely agree with this! The first 30 days as a Scrum Master are not about showcasing knowledge they’re about listening, observing, and building trust with the team. True transformation takes time, empathy, and consistent actions. #ScrumMaster #AgileLeadership #ServantLeadership #AgileMindset #TransformationJourney

🧭 “The Three Dimensions of a Scrum Master’s Responsibility: Team, Product, and Organization” As a Scrum Master, your impact extends beyond daily ceremonies. You are the servant leader, coach, and change agent — guiding your Scrum Team, Product Owner, and the Organization toward true Agile maturity. Let’s explore your responsibilities across these three dimensions: 🧩 1. Responsibility Toward the Scrum Team — “Empowering High Performance” Your primary mission is to build a self-managing, cross-functional, and high-performing team. Key responsibilities: ✅ Coach the team on Scrum values, principles, and best practices. ✅ Facilitate all Scrum events (Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Review, and Retrospective) effectively and purposefully. ✅ Remove impediments that slow progress and protect the team from external distractions. ✅ Promote collaboration and transparency through tools like Jira and Confluence. ✅ Encourage continuous improvement — help the team inspect and adapt through retrospectives and feedback loops. ✅ Build psychological safety so team members can openly share ideas, failures, and challenges. 📌 Outcome: The team becomes self-organized, motivated, and focused on delivering high-quality increments every sprint. 💡 2. Responsibility Toward the Product Owner — “Driving Product Value” You act as a bridge between the Product Owner and the Development Team, ensuring clarity, focus, and collaboration. Key responsibilities: ✅ Coach the Product Owner on effective backlog management, prioritization, and stakeholder communication. ✅ Ensure the product backlog is visible, refined, and understood by the entire Scrum Team. ✅ Facilitate alignment between business goals and technical execution. ✅ Support the PO in maximizing the product’s value by ensuring each Sprint delivers meaningful outcomes. ✅ Encourage data-driven decisions — using metrics like sprint velocity, lead time, and customer feedback. 📌 Outcome: The Product Owner focuses on value delivery instead of just feature delivery, with clear visibility on progress and business impact. 🏢 3. Responsibility Toward the Organization — “Championing Agile Culture” As a Scrum Master, you are also a change agent and Agile evangelist within the organization. Key responsibilities: ✅ Educate leadership and stakeholders about Agile mindset and Scrum principles. ✅ Promote inter-department collaboration by breaking silos and encouraging cross-functional teamwork. ✅ Lead Agile transformation initiatives, ensuring consistent adoption across teams. ✅ Measure and communicate progress through organizational Agile metrics. ✅ Foster a learning culture through communities of practice, workshops, and retrospectives at scale. 📌 Outcome: The organization shifts from command-and-control to empowerment and adaptability, enhancing business agility and responsiveness to market change.

📘 What I Really Learned from Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time Body: A few weeks ago, I finished Jeff Sutherland’s Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time. It’s not just a book — it’s a mirror that makes you question how you actually work, lead, and collaborate. What struck me most wasn’t the process itself — it was the philosophy behind it: Scrum isn’t about doing more tasks. It’s about creating value faster, through focus, teamwork, and feedback. Here are a few insights that really stayed with me 👇 1️⃣ “Work in small, cross-functional teams.” Sutherland explains that big teams move slowly because communication breaks down. When you have a small team with all the needed skills, alignment happens naturally. 💡 In my projects, I started applying this idea by forming micro-teams focused on single outcomes — like improving a Power BI dashboard or building a ClickHouse pipeline. The result? Fewer meetings, faster delivery, and stronger ownership. 2️⃣ “Fail fast to fix early.” One of the most powerful ideas in the book. Scrum sprints are designed to make failure visible sooner — not to avoid it. 💡 When we started doing weekly sprint reviews instead of monthly ones, we caught problems days earlier. It wasn’t about perfection — it was about learning faster and adjusting in real time. 3️⃣ “Inspect and Adapt.” Each sprint ends with reflection — what went right, what didn’t, and what to change. That rhythm of review builds a continuous improvement loop that keeps momentum alive. 💡 I even use this beyond project management: every Friday, I do a short personal retrospective — What did I learn this week? What will I change next week? It sounds simple, but it compounds over time. 4️⃣ “Transparency builds trust.” The book nails it — people don’t need control, they need clarity. When goals, blockers, and progress are visible, micromanagement becomes unnecessary. 💡 We applied this by building a simple shared task tracker. No fancy tools — just visibility. The whole team knew where things stood. And surprisingly, motivation went up. 📘 Favorite Quote: “Happiness is the secret ingredient to fast and successful teams.” That line hit hard — because when people feel trusted, supported, and fulfilled, they don’t just move faster — they care more deeply about the outcome. 🎯 My takeaway: Scrum isn’t just a management framework. It’s a mindset that teaches you to focus on value, not effort — on learning, not control — and on people, not processes. If you’ve read it, what was the moment that made you rethink how teams should really work ? 👇 #Scrum #Agile #ProjectManagement #Leadership #Teamwork #ContinuousImprovement #JeffSutherland#Productivity #DataAnalytics #LearningCulture