{"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":"When Telling a Manager \"You Don't Have a Role\" Backfires — A Lesson in Agile Coaching Humility | Peter Merel","slug":"when-telling-a-manager-you-don-t-have-a-role-backfires-a-lesson-in-agile-coaching-humility-peter-merel","published_at":"2026-05-04T10:05:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scrum-master-toolbox-podcast-agile-storytelling-from-the-trenches-445588/when-telling-a-manager-you-don-t-have-a-role-backfires-a-lesson-in-agile-coaching-humility-peter-merel","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scrum-master-toolbox-podcast-agile-storytelling-from-the-trenches-445588","url":"https://scrummastertoolbox.libsyn.com/when-telling-a-manager-you-dont-have-a-role-backfires-a-lesson-in-agile-coaching-humility-peter-merel","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scrummastertoolbox/20260504_Peter_Merel_M.mp3?dest-id=246429","summary":"Peter Merel: When Telling a Manager \"You Don't Have a Role\" Backfires — A Lesson in Agile Coaching Humility 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 . \"A failure is not a failure. A failure is just the first step.\" - Peter Merel Peter Merel became a Scrum Master by stealth — long before the title existed. Credited in Kent Beck's first XP book and present at the first agile conference, Peter was practicing lightweight processes at Hewlett Packard in the late 1990s. When he took a role at GMAC, the residential finance arm of General Motors, he brought XP practices with him and found early success. After six months of strong results, the project manager, Mike Alakom, sat Peter down and asked the most dangerous management question: \"What do I do?\" Peter gave what he now calls the stupidest answer possible — \"You don't really have a role in this process.\" The next day, Mike called an all-hands meeting and calmly maneuvered Peter into crediting the entire way of working as Mike's idea. Peter stayed on for another six months, but at arm's length. In hindsight, Peter recognizes Mike did exactly what he should have done. The second failure came at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, where Peter was brought in to coach agile but was actually being set up to fail — a ripcord the organization could pull when it wasn't ready for change. The delivery manager, Des Webster, told Peter directly: \"You were set up to fail.\" Peter walked away, thinking he'd never return. But six years later, every person he had coached had moved up in the organization, and Peter came back as principal coach for 50,000 people. The CIO declared Agile one of the bank's five p…","meta_description":"Peter Merel: When Telling a Manager \"You Don't Have a Role\" Backfires — A Lesson in Agile Coaching Humility Read the full Show Notes and search through th…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1074,"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/when-telling-a-manager-you-don-t-have-a-role-backfires-a-lesson-in-agile-coaching-humility-peter-merel/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/when-telling-a-manager-you-don-t-have-a-role-backfires-a-lesson-in-agile-coaching-humility-peter-merel.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}