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Home > Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast > Breaking Knowledge Silos Through Strategic Skill Sharing | Joelle Tegwen
Podcast: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast
Episode:

Breaking Knowledge Silos Through Strategic Skill Sharing | Joelle Tegwen
Category: News & Politics
Duration: 00:12:20
Publish Date: 2025-07-16 10:05:00
Description: Joelle Tegwen: Breaking Knowledge Silos Through Strategic Skill Sharing

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.

Working as a Scrum Master on a team rewriting an old application, Joelle faced a significant challenge: experienced developers were located in India while new, experienced developers brought in locally lacked familiarity with the medical domain. Drawing inspiration from The Phoenix Project, she implemented a skills matrix to address the knowledge silos that were preventing new team members from contributing effectively. 

Using a teacher-student model, initially frustrated leaders who had to work with "students" discovered within 2-3 sprints that they were also learning new things and no longer carried the pressure of being the only ones with critical knowledge. The new team members brought fresh ideas that improved the codebase, and when the team eventually grew too large, the skills matrix facilitated smooth self-selection for team reorganization. What started as a solution to get new hires productive evolved into a comprehensive approach to knowledge sharing and team scalability.

Self-reflection Question: Where do knowledge silos exist in your current team or organization, and how could you implement structured knowledge sharing to transform those constraints into learning opportunities?

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