{"podcast":{"title":"Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches","slug":"scrum-master-toolbox-podcast-agile-storytelling-from-the-trenches-445588","podcast_index_feed_id":445588,"rss_url":"https://scrummastertoolbox.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"http://www.scrum-master-toolbox.org/","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/e/2/5/e/e25edab2a57e22f8/Scrummaster_toolbox_podcast_logo_v1.png","author":"Vasco Duarte","episode_count":200,"summary":"Every week day, Certified Scrum Master, Agile Coach and business consultant Vasco Duarte interviews Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches from all over the world to get you actionable advice, new tips and tricks, improve your craft as a Scrum Master with daily doses of inspiring conversations with Scrum Masters from the all over the world. Stay tuned for BONUS episodes when we interview Agile gurus and other thought leaders in the business space to bring you the Agile Business perspective you need to succeed as a Scrum Master. Some of the topics we discuss include: Agile Business, Agile Strategy, Retrospectives, Team motivation, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Backlog Refinement, Scaling Scrum, Lean Startup, Test Driven Development (TDD), Behavior Driven Development (BDD), Paper Prototyping, QA in Scrum, the role of agile managers, servant leadership, agile coaching, and more!","last_synced_at":"2026-07-27T20:18:41.285145+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scrum-master-toolbox-podcast-agile-storytelling-from-the-trenches-445588"},"episode":{"title":"How \"Fake Kanban\" Fooled the Metrics, And What This Agile Coach Did to Fix It | Christian Thordal","slug":"how-fake-kanban-fooled-the-metrics-and-what-this-agile-coach-did-to-fix-it-christian-thordal","published_at":"2026-05-19T10:05:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scrum-master-toolbox-podcast-agile-storytelling-from-the-trenches-445588/how-fake-kanban-fooled-the-metrics-and-what-this-agile-coach-did-to-fix-it-christian-thordal","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scrum-master-toolbox-podcast-agile-storytelling-from-the-trenches-445588","url":"https://scrummastertoolbox.libsyn.com/how-fake-kanban-fooled-the-metrics-and-what-this-agile-coach-did-to-fix-it-christian-thordal","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scrummastertoolbox/20260519_Christian_Thordal_Tue.mp3?dest-id=246429","summary":"Christian Thordal: How \"Fake Kanban\" Fooled the Metrics, And What This Agile Coach Did to Fix 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 team was like birds in a nest waiting to get fed — completely dependent on the PO for every piece of work.\" - Christian Thordal Christian tells us about a team that always appeared busy but was hiding serious dysfunction behind a single healthy metric. When he rated the system across his domain, he found the team scored low in process maturity, effectiveness, and learning — yet their cycle time looked good. The team claimed to practice Kanban, but in reality it meant \"we can do whatever we want.\" Daily standups had become social check-ins. The backlog held over 100 items to do and 50+ in progress, most of them just headlines with no descriptions. Real work assignments happened through 30-minute Slack huddles between the PO and individual developers — pure push, no prioritization. Despite having OKRs, the team could only plan a week ahead. Christian's fix was radical: he restarted the backlog entirely, cutting 150 items down to roughly 30, established WIP limits to create a pull-based system, and brought the team into the process as active participants rather than passive recipients. In this segment, we refer to Kanban and OKRs . Self-reflection Question: When was the last time you looked beyond a single \"green\" metric to understand what was really happening in your team's workflow? Featured Book of the Week: Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet Christian recommends Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet, a former U.S. Navy submarine commander who transformed his crew's performance by replac…","meta_description":"Christian Thordal: How \"Fake Kanban\" Fooled the Metrics, And What This Agile Coach Did to Fix It Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's l…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":784,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/scrum-master-toolbox-podcast-agile-storytelling-from-the-trenches-445588/episodes/how-fake-kanban-fooled-the-metrics-and-what-this-agile-coach-did-to-fix-it-christian-thordal/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scrum-master-toolbox-podcast-agile-storytelling-from-the-trenches-445588/how-fake-kanban-fooled-the-metrics-and-what-this-agile-coach-did-to-fix-it-christian-thordal.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}