Building High-Performing Teams Through Three Essential Elements | Joelle Tegwen

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode: Building High-Performing Teams Through Three Essential Elements | Joelle Tegwen

Release Date: July 17, 2025

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte welcomes Joelle Tegwen, an experienced Agile Coach and Scrum Master. The conversation delves into the critical components that contribute to building high-performing teams, emphasizing psychological safety, collaboration, and cross-skilling. Joelle shares her practical experiences and strategies, providing listeners with actionable advice to enhance their Agile practices.

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Favorite Retrospective Format: Sailboat Retrospective

Joelle begins by discussing her preferred retrospective format—the sailboat retrospective. This method is particularly effective when she consults with new teams to quickly gauge their current dynamics.

Joelle [01:36]: "The sailboat retrospective really helps me get a good sense for where a team is at very quickly and it creates a space for identifying a change that the team can make early on."

How It Works:

• The Sailboat Metaphor: The team is represented as a sailboat navigating towards a destination (paradise).
• Elements Identified:
  • Wind: Represents things that are propelling the team forward.
  • Anchors: Symbolize obstacles holding the team back.
  • Rocks and Water: Indicate potential risks or challenges ahead.

This metaphorical approach allows teams to express their thoughts and concerns creatively, leading to deeper insights and fostering an environment where under-the-surface issues can surface organically.

Unknown Host [02:58]: "These metaphor style retrospectives allow the teams to tap into thoughts and experiences that they would not, if they engage their logical thinking, usually tap into."

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Three Essential Elements of High-Performing Teams

Joelle outlines three cornerstone elements essential for cultivating high-performing teams: Psychological Safety, Collaboration, and Cross-Skilling.

1. Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is the foundation of any effective team. It refers to an environment where team members feel safe to express their ideas, ask questions, and admit mistakes without fear of ridicule or retribution.

Joelle [04:17]: "Psychological safety, that ability to have conflict. If I can help a team move to a place where they can have those open conversations, that healthy conflict, I know that that's my first measure of success."

Key Points:

• Research Support: Cites Amy Edmondson's TED talk and Google's Project Aristotle, highlighting psychological safety as the most critical factor in team effectiveness.
• Impact: Facilitates open communication, honest feedback, and constructive conflict, all of which are vital for continuous improvement and innovation.

2. Collaboration

Effective collaboration ensures that team members work together seamlessly, leveraging each other’s strengths and compensating for weaknesses.

Joelle [04:17]: "Teams where they have like a person is like a story is for a particular person and only that story is worked on by that person... If I can get a team to the place where it's like, oh no, we're all working on this story together and we're trying to figure out how to solve these problems together."

Key Points:

• From Silos to Collective Ownership: Moving away from individual task ownership to collective responsibility for stories and outcomes.
• Benefits: Enhances problem-solving capabilities, fosters mutual support, and encourages knowledge sharing.

3. Cross-Skilling

Cross-skilling involves developing multiple skills within the team, enabling members to undertake various roles and tasks as needed.

Joelle [04:17]: "Cross skilling or role blurring... everyone should be able to go on vacation and leave their laptop at home... You get that vacation by cross skilling so that there are other people that can take that work while you're gone."

Key Points:

• Flexibility: Ensures that the team can maintain productivity even when specific members are unavailable.
• Employee Growth: Encourages continuous learning and professional development, increasing job satisfaction and reducing burnout.
• Operational Resilience: Enhances the team's ability to adapt to changing circumstances and workload fluctuations.

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Accountability as a Scrum Master

Joelle emphasizes the importance of accountability in her role as a Scrum Master, ensuring continuous progress in fostering psychological safety, collaboration, and cross-skilling within teams.

Joelle [06:45]: "Understand where they are at... pick one as like my primary goal... and a secondary one was psychological safety."

Strategies for Accountability:

1. Assessing the Current State:

   • Utilizes the sailboat retrospective to gain a comprehensive understanding of the team’s strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.

2. Setting Clear Goals:

   • Identifies primary and secondary objectives based on the team’s immediate needs. For instance, focusing on cross-skilling while also enhancing psychological safety.

3. Communicating Intentions:

   • Clearly articulates goals and strategies to team leaders and stakeholders to ensure alignment and transparency.

   Joelle [06:45]: "I try to make my intent known to others... I'm checking in with them and making sure that I'm delivering what they expect me to deliver."

4. Soliciting and Incorporating Feedback:

   • Regularly seeks feedback from team members and leaders to gauge progress and adjust approaches as necessary.

   Joelle [09:09]: "Checking in with them, making sure that they agree that I'm making progress on this area."

5. Modeling Desired Behaviors:

   • Demonstrates the importance of feedback and continuous improvement by embodying these practices herself, thereby encouraging teams to adopt similar habits.

Unknown Host [09:26]: "Collecting feedback is one of the core ideas we are trying to give the teams... by modeling that behavior, we're also teaching how to collect that feedback."

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Conclusion

Joelle Tegwen provides a comprehensive framework for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches aiming to build and sustain high-performing teams. By prioritizing psychological safety, fostering robust collaboration, and promoting cross-skilling, leaders can create environments where teams thrive. Additionally, Joelle’s emphasis on accountability and continuous feedback ensures that these practices are effectively integrated and sustained over time.

Her insights offer valuable guidance for anyone looking to enhance their Agile practices and drive meaningful improvements within their teams.

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Notable Quotes:

• Joelle [04:17]: "Psychological safety, that ability to have conflict... that's my first measure of success."
• Joelle [06:19]: "Everyone should be able to go on vacation and leave their laptop at home."
• Unknown Host [09:26]: "Collecting feedback is one of the core ideas we are trying to give the teams."

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For those seeking to deepen their understanding of Agile practices and connect with a community of like-minded professionals, consider exploring the Scrum Master Toolbox Membership for access to extensive resources and live interactions with Agile practitioners.

Transcript

[Vasco]

Hey there, agile adventurer, just a quick question. What if, for the price of a fancy coffee or half a pizza, you could unlock over 700 hours of the best agile content on the planet? That's audio, video, E courses, books, presentations, all that you can think of. But you can also join live calls with world class practitioners and hang out in a flame war free and AI slop clean slack with the sharpest minds in the game. Oh, and yes, you get direct access to me, Vasko, your Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. No, this is not a drill. It's this Scrum Master Toolbox membership. And it's your unfair advantage in the agile world. So if you want to know more, go check out scrummastertoolbox.org membership. That's scrummastertoolbox.org Membership. And check out all the goodies we have for you. Do it now. But if you're not doing it now, let's listen to the podcast.

[Unknown Host]

Hello everybody. Welcome to our success Thursday, the big question of the week this week with Joel Techben. Hey Joelle, welcome back.

[Joelle]

Thanks, Vasco. It's great to be here.

[Unknown Host]

So Thursday is of course success day here on the podcast. And before we jump into that though, we also want to hear Joelle, what's your favorite retrospective format and why?

[Joelle]

So as a consultant, I'm often coming in new for a team and trying to understand where they're at. And so my favorite retrospective in that situation is the sailboat retrospective. It really helps for those who don't know the team is the sailboat and, and you have the wind at their sails and the things that are going well for them. You have the anchor, the things holding them back. You have like the rocks and the water in front of them where they see the possible coming. And then you have paradise, someplace they're trying to go. And the team populates what all those things are. And it really helps me get a good sense for where a team is at very quickly and it creates a space for identifying a change that the team can make early on. And so it really helps me ground in the situation in the team and around the team right out of the gate so that I'm not trying to play catch up for months and months because as a consultant I don't usually have that luxury.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, and it's all about getting up and running quickly. Right. To get the team to open up. This metaphor style retrospectives allow the teams to tap into thoughts and experiences that they would not, if they engage their logical thinking, usually tap into. So it's really powerful in terms of bringing up topics that would otherwise perhaps remain under the surface. Right.

[Joelle]

And it also helps me know what to not change. So if they see something as a strength, then I need to make sure that I'm not running counter to that.

[Unknown Host]

That's a great point, by the way. Right. Like don't change the things that the team already thinks are working, focus on the things they think are not working and help them figure out what to do instead.

[Joelle]

That's right.

[Unknown Host]

Of course we do this retrospectives because we want to help teams be successful and we want to succeed as Scrum masters and agile coaches ourselves. So when you think about the scrum master role and when you go in and help teams and help organizations, how do you define success for yourself as a Scrum master? Joel?

[Joelle]

So there's three things that I think are essential in a team and the top is first is psychological safety. There has been a lot of research done. Amy Edmondson had that great TED talk where she introduced the concept of psychological safety and she's since gone on to make a lot of talk about that. And Google's project Aristotle, like that was the one thing they found was the most important thing in an effective team was psychological safety, that ability to have conflict. If I can help a team move to a place where they can't have conflict or they can't challenge each other and I can move them to a place where they can have those open conversations, that healthy conflict, I know that that's my first measure of success, increase collaboration. So teams where they have like a person is like a story is for a particular person and only that story is worked on by that person and then it's handed off to another person. If I can get a team to the place where it's like, oh no, we're all working on this story together and we're trying to figure out how to solve these problems together. So that's the second one. And then the third one is cross skilling or role blurring. And that's what I talked about yesterday. It's like, okay, how can we increase the level of skills across the team so that more people can do work? And, and I incentivize this by saying everyone should be able to go on vacation and leave their laptop at home and shut off their notifications for work on their phone. We all deserve that vacation. And you get that vacation by cross skilling that there are other people that can take that work while you're gone.

[Unknown Host]

So psychological safety, the level of collaboration and then cross skilling yes. So when you think about these three, how do you keep yourself accountable to yourself as a scrum master? Right. Like how do you, how do you make sure that you really are making progress in those three fronts when you come in new to a team and then start working on them?

[Joelle]

Well, so the first thing to do is to understand, you first have to start with where are they at? And that's how that sailboat retrospective helps to understand where a team is in terms of these things. And then, you know, generally on a team I'll usually pick one as like my primary goal. So in yesterday's case it was the cross skilling that was really important. But and then a secondary one was psychological safety. So it was the people who lived in India, they would not challenge as often. And so it was. There was a lot of relationship building to, on my part to encouraging them to challenge me and that it was okay and telling. And that was a kind of a sub, a sub piece of helping like a sub goal was, was increasing that psychological safety that they felt like they could speak up, that they could offer their opinions, that they didn't have to only wait for the leader to speak or the one who was most knowledgeable that we wanted those other opinions too. So one of the things I do around this is I try to make my intent known to others. So when I'm talking to leaders, I say these are the, this is what I'm trying to accomplish. This is, you know, we need to improve cross skilling on this team because we, because, you know, we've got this overloaded thing and actually kind of going back to what we talked about earlier this week, they're often telling me this is a problem that you need to fix. And so when I'm meeting with my, whoever I report to on the client side there, I'm checking in with them and making sure that I'm on the right track, that I'm. That I'm delivering what they expect me to deliver.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. So kind of requesting feedback on that area that you've agreed with them, that we are working on. Right, right.

[Joelle]

And reporting to them the progress that we're making and checking in to make sure that I'm on the same page with them.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. And that's actually.

[Joelle]

Checking in with them, making sure that they agree that I'm making progress on this, on this area.

[Unknown Host]

And that's actually a very good point because that aspect of collecting feedback is one of the core ideas we are trying to give the teams. Right. Whether it's about the product or any improvement. So we by the example we give modeling that behavior, we're also teaching how to collect that feedback. So I think that's a great insight. Thank you for sharing that, Joelle.

[Joelle]

You're welcome. Thanks Vasco.

[Vasco]

All right, I hope you liked this episode, but before you hit next episode, here's the deal. This podcast is powered by people like you, the members who wanted more than just inspiration. They wanted real tools and real connection to people who are practicing agile. Every day we're talking access to over 700 hours of agile Gold, CTO level Strategy talks, Summit keynotes, live workshops, E courses, Deep Dive Interviews, book, and if you're into no Estimates, we got the pioneers of no Estimates in those Deep Dive interviews as well. Agile Business Intelligence, creating Product Visions, coaching your product owner courses, you name it. You'll get invites to monthly live Q&As with agile pioneers and practitioners, plus a private Slack community which is free of all of that AI slop you see everywhere. And of course without the flame wars. It's a community of practitioners that want to learn and thrive together. It's the best place to connect with community and learn together. So if this podcast has helped you before, imagine what you will get from this podcast membership. So head on over to scrummastertoolbox.org membership and join the community that's shaping the future of Agile. We have so much for you, so check out all the [e-mail] membership because listening is great, it's important. But doing it together, that's next level. I'll see you in the community. Slack.

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