#157: What Teams Are Struggling With Right Now with Cort Sharp

Scrum isn’t new, but the questions teams are asking about it are evolving. In this episode, Brian and Cort Sharp compare notes on what they're hearing in class, in the community, and behind the scenes.

Overview

In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner welcomes Mountain Goat Software colleague and community manager Cort Sharp for a real-time pulse check on what’s top-of-mind for Scrum teams today.

From overloaded calendars to misunderstood metrics, Cort and Brian dig into the patterns and questions they’ve seen across classes and conversations lately. They unpack common friction points like meeting overload, velocity confusion, misused roles, and daily scrums that eat the whole morning, and offer grounded suggestions for handling each one. Whether you're a Scrum Master trying to protect team time or a developer wondering how to work more collaboratively, this episode offers helpful context (and practical nudges) to help your team work better, together.

References and resources mentioned in the show:

Cort Sharp
#143: What Still Makes Teams Work (and Win) with Jim York
#152: The Five Pillars of Real Agile Improvement with Mike Cohn
7 Advantages of Scrum (Plus 1 Hidden Disadvantage) by Mike Cohn
What Is a High-Performing Agile Team? by Mike Cohn
Mountain Goat Software’s Working on a Scrum Team Course
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This episode’s presenters are:

Brian Milner is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and host of the Agile Mentors Podcast training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work.

Cort Sharp is the Scrum Master of the producing team and the Agile Mentors Community Manager. In addition to his love for Agile, Cort is also a serious swimmer and has been coaching swimmers for five years.

Auto-generated Transcript:

Brian Milner
(00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm here as always, Brian Milner. And today we have Mr. Court Sharp with us. Welcome in Court.

Cort Sharp (00:10)
Hey Brian, thanks for having me on again. Brian Milner (00:13) Yeah, Court has been a frequent guest of our show. If you've been around for a while, you probably remember some episodes we've done with him. Court works with us here at Mountain Goat Software. He is a producer and other t