Shows
Roasting MarshmallowsAre you suffering from imposter syndrome? Are you very sensitive to even constructive criticism? Do you agonize over even the smallest mistakes or flaws in your work? Do you downplay your own expertise, even in areas where you are genuinely more skilled than others?The game “Among Us” is all about finding the imposter and throwing it out of the spaceship. When you play as imposter, your job is to sabotage the ship and kill the crew mates. Playing as either role is pretty fun, but it is always a little bit more exciting when you get to play as the imposter.While bein...
2022-03-2947 min
Roasting MarshmallowsThe power of the pairWay back in episode 13, we discussed mobbing, or ensemble programming, with Woody Zuill. While we think this topic deserves more widespread recognition and adoption, there’s no denying that pair programming is more well known, and is being done more.Of course, pairing is not limited to just programming. For example, studies have shown that kindergarteners sharing an iPad enables them to learn more and score better on certain tests, most likely due to forcing them to collaborate, which in turn emphasises communication and sharing alternative viewpoints.Collaboration and communication are the key words here, an...
2022-03-1551 min
Roasting MarshmallowsWorking on stuff that mattersNowadays, everyone wants to make an impact. Nobody wants to do meaningless work. What it means to make an impact is different for everyone, but it is the driving motivation why people do the work that they do, be it helping senior citizens out of their beds, or maximizing profit for multinationals.Indeed, some of the low points of my career as a software engineer is being part of a project that ends up in the bin. Sure, sometimes a project might fail, which in itself is ok, but if you spend a lot of time on...
2022-02-2241 min
Roasting MarshmallowsThe journey of a startup with Alex Cojocaru Is your startup interesting enough to find investors? What kind of effort does it take to have a startup?Start ups are usually considered pretty sexy. They bring about cool new apps that your friends insist you just have to get. They disrupt the market with innovative new goods and services. They display their awesome company culture in such a way that working there becomes a goal in itself.But what about the Business to Business startup? You don't hear a lot about those being the next hottest startup. Maybe not, but, because they cater to the...
2022-02-1645 min
Roasting MarshmallowsOffshoring to the kitchen table with Rini van Solingen How to stay engaged while working remote? What can offshoring teach us when working remote? What are Rini's laws?We are, when recording this podcast, in lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The omikron variant is running rampant, so this means most of us are working from the kitchen table, or if you have the room, the home office again.So, entire teams are working remote again, not physically meeting each other for an extended period of time. How do you make sure everything keeps running smooth? How do you make sure communication, coordination and control do n...
2022-01-251h 07
Roasting MarshmallowsThe struggle of public speaking with Thierry de Pauw Does the thought of doing a presentation make your stomach churn? Are you comfortable speaking up in front of a group of people? How do you deal with being the center of attention?Fear. We all know the feeling from a terrifying experience at some point in our lives. However, 75% of the people get fearful when having to speak in front of a group of people. Even the idea of doing it is sometimes enough for many people to get fearful.Yes, most of us — even those at the top — struggle with public-speaking anxiety. When people think abou...
2022-01-1858 min
Roasting MarshmallowsPermission to Feel with Marc Brackett Why is it that anxiety disorders are so prevalent? Why is it that depression is now the leading cause of disability? Why is that bullying is still really prevalent?Most people don’t grow up learning very much about their emotions — what they are, how they work, or how to manage them well.This means there are a lot of people out there with perfectly normal levels of academic or social intelligence, but surprisingly low emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence means the capacity to reflect on and understand your emotional life.Because the clearer you can be abou...
2021-12-281h 01
Roasting MarshmallowsPositive, Productive Change with Esther Derby Are you imposing change by decree? Is "the next big change" going to solve everything? Do your people see what is valuable about the future you propose?Even though the world around us is changing faster and faster, it proves challenging for companies and individuals to adapt to these changes. For these, change sometimes comes much slower and more painful than hoped. Changing, or adapting to change, is not simple on any level. Often, there is no right answer, and responding requires trial and error, learning and unlearning.Understanding that you don't have to push, prod, persuade...
2021-12-2156 min
Roasting MarshmallowsMaking sense of complexity with Dave SnowdenDifferent problems need different solutions. An approach that aids in decision making is The Cynefin framework, which was created in 1999 by Dave Snowden and was born with principles related to theories of how we perceive things. Cynefin (pronounced “kuh-nev-in”) is a word of Welsh origin that means habitat or place of many belongings.Cynefin is a model that can be used in different sectors, at different levels in an organization and in different contexts, in fact context is the key word for Cynefin. Its main use is for effective decision making based on the analysis of the cont...
2021-12-141h 08
Roasting MarshmallowsPunished by Rewards with Alfie Kohn Is the nobel peace prize actually a bad thing? What about that cum laude degree? Did your grades ruin you for the rest of your life?Do awards motivate people? Yes. They motivate people to get rewards. You can pretty much bribe anyone to make them do what you want them to.Consequently, the quality of the work or the learning suffers for it. This goes for children, students, but also in the work place, where reward structures might be in place that incentivize destructive behavior.The book "Punished by Rewards" details the trouble with go...
2021-12-0730 min
Roasting MarshmallowsBeyond Budgeting with Bjarte Bogsnes Does financial incentives promote commitment and motivation? Is your company really doing well when you make the budgeted revenue? Is your decision-making on hold while the numbers for the budgets are being negotiated?Creating a budget is one way to stay on top of your expenses. Most companies spend a lot of time analyzing past performance to come up with budgets for the next year, trying to stick to them as close as possible. However, due to todays rapid changing markets, traditional budgeting might not be the best fit for companies anymore.Beyond Budgeting is the idea...
2021-11-3059 min
Roasting MarshmallowsCan I elect my Boss? Sociocracy with John Buck What if you could elect your boss? Why aren't companies run as countries? How does sociocracy fit in with agile?In the age of liberated companies, there are different models of governance where individuals are responsible to undertake actions on behalf of their company.With a participatory decision making process and distributed leadership at its core, sociocratic governance is at odds with the traditional vertical management system.A sociocratic organization allows the individual to express oneself within a group, and allows the group to function in an autonomous and co-responsible manner.Sociocracy produces...
2021-11-231h 01
Roasting MarshmallowsPresidential product development with Jason Voiovich What did John F. Kennedy and Steve Jobs have in common? Would George Washington be a successful founder of a startup? Would we remember Herbert Hoover as the Jeff Bezos of his time had he been elected eight years earlier?The president of the United States is usually considered the most powerful person on the planet. Indeed, the US has the biggest economy, the most powerful military, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Hollywood and NASA.How did America become such a powerhouse? With a little imagination, you could compare America's lifecycle to that of a product or even...
2021-11-1655 min
Roasting MarshmallowsEscaping legacy and overcoming writer's block with Wouter Lagerweij Is it hard to write a book? Do product owners need to be aware of software development practices like Behavior Driven Development? How do you cope with writer's block? On the show, we have talked a lot about books, and we have even had a few guests that wrote one. It has crossed our minds to write a book of our own a few times as well.Today, we are roasting marshmallows with Wouter Lagerweij. Wouter is currently in the process of writing a book called: "A Product Owner's Guide to Escaping Legacy: how to get back i...
2021-11-091h 08
Roasting MarshmallowsDynamic Reteaming with Heidi Helfand How do you deal with team compositions during times of explosive growth? Are you looking to spread knowledge across teams? What metrics are out there to track team performance?Ever since the dawn of humanity people had to work together and form teams in order to achieve a common goal. These goals could be something as vital as survival, but also, as civilizations were growing to build great structures, or in modern times, building awesome apps on your phone!Like the times teams can and will, change as well. One would expect with all these years of...
2021-11-0255 min
Roasting MarshmallowsFearless Change with Linda Rising Have you ever had an opportunity to make a change, but you chose not to take it? Did you maybe respond with "What if it doesn't work?" Or maybe with "Are you sure that's a good idea?"Fear of change is subtle. It operates in your subconscious, convincing you that it's there to protect you. It will keep you safe.Or does it?Embracing change can help bring growth, and with that, fulfillment and ultimately success. Both for individuals, but also for organizations.Today we are roasting marshmallows with Linda Rising, author of se...
2021-10-261h 12
Roasting MarshmallowsKlarna organizational model with Mite Mitreski Are all your teams dependent on a few key persons calling the shots? Is your organization as transparent as it can be to both employees and customers?When serving millions of customers all over the world, a classic, top-down approach to decision making is not very scalable. This was the realization that the company our guest today works at made, and has since then reversed the chain of decision making to enable the teams to make the day to day decisions by themselves.For the last few years he has been working as Engineering Director at Klarna...
2021-10-1958 min
Roasting MarshmallowsLeadership is a language with L. David Marquet Is your organization relying on the decision making of one person? What kind of leadership model dos your organization use? Do you need someone else to empower you?Imagine being on a submarine with your colleagues, heading out to open waters, potentially being together in a cramped space for several months. If morale and performance amongst you and your fellow colleagues is low, you would probably be reluctant to go.Our guest today had to deal with this, being assigned command of the nuclear submarine, USS Santa Fe, the ship everyone joked about during their Prospective Commanding...
2021-10-1232 min
Roasting MarshmallowsMastering Modern Marketing with Ruth Plater When should you start selling your product? Is there a difference between Sales and Marketing? How do you stand out amongst the competition?Ask someone what marketing is, and they will often tell you "Advertisements and catchy slogans", and maybe they continue describing a scene they've recently seen on Mad Men.The truth is, the internet has changed how people look at the impact of interruption type marketing, like for example ads or a cold call.When we receive anything that looks like plain old, traditional marketing, it gets thrown before it gets read.
2021-10-0552 min
Roasting MarshmallowsHeuristics for effective software development with Allen HolubWhat if we said that there's a list that will help you with software development, or even with your company in general? It's called Heuristics for Effective Software Development Organisations: A continuously evolving list, and it contains as of this episode 27 nuggets of wisdom for your benefit. It started out as a way to present the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto in a clearer and more contemporary way, although the author, Allen Holub, has added a few things.Who is Allen Holub? Allen Holub is an internationally recognised software architect and Agile consultant/t...
2021-09-211h 19
Roasting MarshmallowsOpenSpace Agility with Daniel Mezick Are your employees engaged? Can your organization keep up with the rapid changing world? Would you like to know more about the power of OpenSpace Agility?There’s a crisis in most workplaces. The pace of change, driven by technology, is accelerating. Change is happening more frequently. And the impact of these changes is often big.The workforce also brings with them their distinct values, biases and opinions. And nowhere are these distinctions more striking than in the way they view leadership and “management.”Invitations from executive leaders to members of the workforce causes a small...
2021-09-141h 07
Roasting MarshmallowsLeSS is More with Viktor Grgic What is Large-Scale Scrum, aka LeSS? Which rules does LeSS require you to follow? Why should you adopt LeSS rather than plain old scrum for your teams?After an earlier episode about SAFe, we felt it is only fair to put LeSS in the spotlight! While you cannot really compare the two, much like apples and oranges, they both promise to bring agility to the enterprise. Being a certified LeSS instructor, Viktor will show us how and why LeSS works for his clients.Viktor is a Software developer, Agile Coach and Certified LeSS trainer with 17 years of...
2021-09-071h 02
Roasting MarshmallowsRetrospective on retrospectives: do you even need retros? What if your team would address issues immediately instead of waiting for a retro? How effective is it to identify action points that end up not being chased? When do you celebrate success?The old saying "hindsight is 20/20" is usually used when someone should've known better. It has a pretty negative or condescending tone to it, but for agile software development, it can be valuable to apply some hindsight when preparing for the next iteration of your product.Indeed, reflecting on past performance and analyzing what worked and what did not can enable you improve over time...
2021-08-3155 min
Roasting MarshmallowsThe right company for you Are you able to do your best work? Do you feel proud being an employee of your company? Are you enjoying the work you do? Do you feel like you fit in with the people? Are you expecting to work their for a long time?These might sound like a lot of different questions, but they all boil down to the same: are you happy at your work?Today we are roasting marshmallows about our company history: why did we choose to leave our previous companies, and why did we choose to stay at FourScouts? Finding the rig...
2021-08-2455 min
Roasting MarshmallowsWhen personal life influences work Is your work / life balance in a state of equilibrium? Do you keep your personal issues from spilling over into work? Are you able to talk about your problems with your colleagues?Everyone deals with their personal issues in a different way. At some point, your personal issues could affect your work: your concentration is affected, you might lash out at co-workers, or even worse, customers. Today, we are sharing our stories about how our personal life affected us at work, and how we dealt with them Poor work-life balance can have serious effects on you...
2021-08-1748 min
Roasting MarshmallowsManaging while being technical with Phil CalçadoThe legend says that when you promote a Senior Developer into a Manager, you end up with a subpar Manager and you lose a great Engineer. We have heard these stories of lose-lose outcomes over and over again. Then once in a blue moon we find that perfect blend of a skilled engineer who is competent, can clearly voice their ideas, understand the business domain, are tuned to the needs of the management as well as to the needs of the developers and can rally people towards a mutual goal. Then, we end up with an admirable Engineering Manager.
2021-08-101h 10
Roasting MarshmallowsStarting a start-up is a dumb idea with Erwin van der Koogh Are you prepared to sink your time, money and effort into something you believe in? How many features you think you need before you can start promoting your product? What strategy should you employ to find customers? Do you recognize your most important feature(s) and are you willing to kill other features?On this podcast we have talked about start-ups before, but the mystic qualities that get attributed to them are by no means rooted in reality. You have to work hard, recognize opportunities and leverage your network to be able to potentially solve your customers' problems.
2021-08-031h 07
Roasting MarshmallowsAchieve company wide agility by becoming a BOSSA Nova, with Jutta Eckstein Does copying agile practices of other successful companies work for your company? Are your teams doing a daily standup and calling themselves agile? Is your company flexible and both rapidly responsive and resilient to change? A book that can help companies achieve true agility is "Company-wide Agility with Beyond Budgeting, Open Space & Sociocracy". Today around the campfire we have one of the authors: Jutta Eckstein.Jutta Eckstein, works as an independent coach, consultant, trainer, author and speaker. She has helped many teams and organizations worldwide to make agile transitions. She is experienced in applying agile processes within m...
2021-07-2757 min
Roasting MarshmallowsThree software engineering coaches get coached by GeePaw HillHow much are you able to learn on your own? For some people, reading books, articles, and going to certain training courses are all they need to keep steadily growing their skillset.For teams however, things are a bit more challenging. Retrospectives are indeed a great help, but these are still from the team's own perspective. Sending a team to training could help as well, but how do you know what training to pick? Sometimes external help, in the form coaching, can be beneficial for you and your team.Someone who does such coaching is...
2021-07-201h 07
Roasting MarshmallowsWomen in tech with Maike Visschedijk and Ankita Sahni Why is it that it seems like there is a smaller presence of women in tech than men? What female role models are out there for the tech industry? Is there a gender stereotype that suggests that "boys are better with computers"? What difficulties do women face in tech focused teams? Can we attract more women to become engineers?As a first today on roasting marshmallows, we have two guests! Ankita Sahni and Maike Visschedijk, who are both software engineers, and they will share with you their experiences on being a women in the tech industry.
2021-07-131h 06
Roasting MarshmallowsContinuous Discovery Habits with Teresa Torres Are you wondering how to take your product to the next level? Do you want to seize the opportunities that are out there? Are you aware of what your customers really want?The days of gathering requirements from business stakeholders and documenting them in long product requirements documents are vanishing. Instead, high-performant teams are experimenting towards solutions that will lead to the outcomes they desire.Helping us doing just this is Teresa Torres. She recently published Continuous Discovery Habits, a book designed to guide you to a sustainable approach to continuous discovery.Teresa Torres is a...
2021-07-0656 min
Roasting MarshmallowsDo You (Really) Want Bleeding-Edge Technology?Will switching to the latest version of your libraries *really* make your development go faster?Is it worth investing a lot of time in research while there is a tried-and-true, production hardened solution readily available?How do new shiny things for developers help your product gain a competitive advantage?To be fair, even e-mail was considered bleeding edge at one point, which has of course become a staple in our means of communication. Some people would even argue that e-mail is old fashioned!To help us figure this out, we have...
2021-06-291h 03
Roasting MarshmallowsHave you heard of Systems Thinking? With Gerard JanssenWhen dealing with a big challenge, is it always good to break it up into small chunks?What if you cannot solve a problem by finding it's root cause?How can you get, and, more importantly: understand the bigger picture?W. Edwards Deming has said that 95% of variation in the performance of a system is caused by the system itself and only 5% is caused by the people.Organizations can be considered systems, so in a way it is amazing that a lot of time and effort is spent in improving individual performance, while...
2021-06-2258 min
Roasting MarshmallowsReady to finally Work the System? with Niels PflaegingDo you want to work in the system or work the system?Can you have leadership without leaders?Do you need annual plannings, budgets and individual bonuses?Are you ready to break the chains of command and control?There are two kinds of work. One is to Work in the System: you are a cog in the machine.Which is necessary, of course, but by itself not enough to sustain organizations in an ever-changing world. To make organizations fit for the present and the future, we must also Work the System. In...
2021-06-151h 25
Roasting MarshmallowsWhat does the future of education look like? With Darjan RadenkovicWhat does the future of education look like? Are students taught the right skillset to be able to make an impact on the job market?Some universities literally date back to the middle ages, such as Oxford university which has been teaching as far back as 1096. Naturally this means, in general, education is quite classic and slow to change. On contrary, especially in IT, things do change fairly rapidly and companies are looking for specific skillsets that might not match the educations on offer.Our guest, Darjan Radenkovic thinks this can be a lot better...
2021-06-0857 min
Roasting MarshmallowsWhy is it so hard to get basic functionality right? With Niels TalensWhy do teams always want to build the next best thing without focusing on the fundamentals like a simple address change or login page?Should you implement blockchain in your product or should you just improve the user experience?Are Product Owners managing a team, or are they part of the team? These questions and more are the focus of this episode of Roasting Marshmallows.Our guest is Niels Talens, Chief Product Owner at Simply Deliver A.I., and he will share his views, frustrations and best practices about being a product owner a...
2021-06-011h 01
Roasting MarshmallowsYou're invited to a Big Tech company interview! Now what? With Jordan PhillipsHow do you get hired by right company? More importantly, how do you prepare for such an interview? What about negotiations? And what do these companies have to do to reel you in?On this episode, a senior technical recruiter from a Big Tech company is willing to give up all secrets, tips and tricks for engineers and companies alike!His name is Jordan Philips, and he has spent 7 years working across larger big tech like Google, but also startups like Wayve autonomous driving. At Google, he acted as an ambassador for diversity and inclusion...
2021-05-251h 05
Roasting MarshmallowsFrom developer to CTO to having your own startup with Allard BuijzeHow do you develop a side project and transform it into your own startup?It is the dream of many software engineers to develop something, maybe as a side project, and then see that project gain traction. It gets adopted, downloaded a bunch of times, and maybe you even get to speak on it during conventions.For our guest today this has happened, and many more things since then as well. He built a framework which enables teams to develop applications using Domain Driven Design, Event Sourcing and CQRS.This framework lead to...
2021-05-181h 14
Roasting MarshmallowsFrom a fired teacher to a Product Owner with Clayton DeweyChange is good, but transitioning can be arduous. What do you do when you feel stuck at your current job? You have been trying to grow and develop but you get nowhere? Your job is not fulfilling? You know you can do better, and you know you can earn more. You are in a career that is not a good match or you have outgrown it? Or maybe, you have been fired and are forced to make a transition.Today we are talking with Clayton Dewey about his transitioning into IT. More often we see people from v...
2021-05-121h 10
Roasting MarshmallowsFrom a fired teacher to a Product Owner with Clayton DeweyChange is good, but transitioning can be arduous. What do you do when you feel stuck at your current job? You have been trying to grow and develop but you get nowhere? Your job is not fulfilling? You know you can do better, and you know you can earn more. You are in a career that is not a good match or you have outgrown it? Or maybe, you have been fired and are forced to make a transition.
Today we are talking with Clayton Dewey about his transitioning into IT. More often we see people...
2021-05-111h 10
Roasting MarshmallowsIt is never the problemDoes your IT-department not deliver?Are there always new bugs introduced with each release?Have you missed opportunities because your software is too old to support new features?If this sounds familiar, you are probably looking to fix your IT-department. Maybe you're looking to hire an extra manager to ensure all processes are being followed. Before you do that though, listen to this episode of scoutcast, where we discuss the pain points described above, and how to tackle those! Hint: Not by hiring more managersIT is never...
2021-05-0451 min
Roasting MarshmallowsIs it safe to use SAFe? with Jesse WierengaAre you feeling SAFe? What riches can you find when you crack the combination of SAFe?SAFe is a framework that empowers complex organizations to scale up agile practices across the enterprise.SAFe stands for Scaled Agile Framework, and it's being used by hundreds of the world’s largest organizations. It promises to sustain and drive faster time-to-market, dramatic increases in productivity and quality, and improvement in employee engagement.The experience we as FourScouts have with SAFe has not always been super stellar. Maybe it is because we have never been properly explained how to effectively employ SAFe by an expe...
2021-04-271h 08
Roasting MarshmallowsSuccessful Off-/Nearshoring: industry secrets revealedFor the longest time, more cost effective labor in other countries has always attracted companies to try and manufacture their products there for a more economic way of doing things.This is no different for software development. However, especially among developers, there was and still is some resistance with hiring outside help. But currently, due to corona, everyone is working remotely, so what does it matter if you are situated in a different country?And this is what we are talking about on this episode: Onshore, nearshore or offshore: Are you unsure which one is...
2021-04-201h 02
Roasting MarshmallowsFinding value in discomfortDo you feel satisfied with your accomplishments in life? Are you where you want to be?A surprising amount of people will say “no” to these questions — and you might be one of them. People who haven’t made satisfactory progress in life often fail to reach their goals — because they’re stuck inside their comfort zones.What are the good and bad things about being in the comfort zone? On this episode of roasting marshmallows, we will talk about how we sometimes find ourselves stuck in the comfort zone and what we do to...
2021-04-131h 06
Roasting MarshmallowsWhat does modern software development look like?Many teams that develop a product nowadays feel like it's a bit like building a space ship only for it to be launched in a black hole.All this work is done to build something awesome, but they never really know if it is of value to the customer. Are they building The Right Thing, and are they building it Right?What does a modern software development company look like and what do they do? Spoiler alert: it's not about the programming language, tabs versus spaces, or Subversion versus git: it's about people, t...
2021-04-071h 01
Roasting MarshmallowsNavigating the organizational clutter with Michiel ToesDo your people know what business your company really is into?What is it that you do? And who does what exactly? The answers might scare you.There are a lot of things that can (and frequently do) go wrong inside of a business. Sales fall through, products don't work, team members get frustrated, and clients get upset. Often, these things happen due to a single reason: lack of organizational clarity.In this episode of Roasting Marshmallows, we are navigating the organizational clutter with Michiel Toes, CEO of NetYCE, and how he g...
2021-03-291h 06
Roasting MarshmallowsBuilding a dream team: getting naked with eachotherEveryone wants their team to be high performant. The idea of one cohesive unit, working in harmony with one another, that are highly focused on their goals and deliver superior business value is of course very appealing.But what does it take to cultivate a high-performance team? One of the foundations is trust and respect. Today on Roasting Marshmallows, we will share with you our experiences in building this trust and respect with you. We do this, among other things, by getting naked with each other. This does not mean we regularly take showers as a...
2021-03-231h 03
Roasting MarshmallowsMob Programming with Woody ZuillHave you ever wondered why your team is taking so long delivering new features? They are all behind their screen, headphones on, wired in, focused, programming. Why are they taking so long?Turns out, parallelising the work that needs to be done might not be so productive at all.Enter mob programming: a software development approach where the whole team works on the same thing, at the same time, in the same space, and at the same computer. Today on Roasting Marshmallows, we are sitting down with Woody Zuill, co-author of the book o...
2021-03-091h 25
Roasting MarshmallowsMy culture is better than yoursWhat do you get when you put a Brazilian, Macedonian, Indian and Dutch person together and let them have a conversation about their cultures for an hour?Culture shock, culture clash but also melting pot material! Which culture is the best? Is there even such a thing? Surely one culture must have the best food!?At FourScouts we already have a diverse representation of different cultures, but for todays episode we have invited someone from India, currently living in Amsterdam. Anikta Sahni is joining us today to give you her background and experience living in...
2021-03-0257 min
Roasting MarshmallowsFreelancing vs. joining a companyHave you ever considered going freelancing? Or does being part of something greater than yourself sound more appealing? Today we roasting marshmallows with Michiel Rook, a passionate and pragmatic freelance IT consultant.In the past, Michiel has joined several companies, including FourScouts, so he has seen his fair share of both freelancing and working at a company. Today, we will discuss with him the pros and cons of being a freelancer, and why he chose freelancing over being part of a company. What is expected of you as a freelancer? How do you find (new) customers? Is...
2021-02-231h 06
Roasting MarshmallowsSame salary to everybody? We are doing itHave you ever wondered what it would be like if everyone working in a company were paid the same salary, regardless of position and level of experience?What if there's no envy, no competition, no stressful negotiations? Everyone, regardless of role, makes the same amount of money. This way, people can focus on their job rather than their compensation. At FourScouts, we decided to do an experiment and try just that! What do we think are the pros and cons? Does it actually matter? Find out on this tenth episode of ScoutCast - Ro...
2021-02-1547 min
Roasting MarshmallowsRecruitmentHow does one find the right person for the job? And once found, what other steps do you need to take, such as for example relocating this person and maybe his or her family?That is what we are talking about on this episode: recruitment, and we are roasting these marshmallows with Dominika Sawa.By day she's a Recruiter & Partner at Van Storm, a recruiting & contracting company founded by a group of like-minded enthusiasts who believe that recruitment can be stress-free and fun! She recruits engineers that help her clients build their new yacht.
2021-02-091h 06
Roasting MarshmallowsDigital Nomads 🌍with Paulo AlvesWhile this podcast is being recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic, many people are confined to their homes working remote.There has been a group of people who took this remote work to the next level, even before Covid-19, and they live the dream that many people may have: a nomadic lifestyle of traveling to beautiful parts of the world, earning their money online.These people are called digital nomads: someone who desires the freedom to work and live anywhere and uses technology to make this desire a reality.On todays podcast we have...
2021-02-0259 min
Roasting MarshmallowsSustainability and the new economyA few episodes ago, we had Patrick de Veer of Greenaumatic as our guest to talk about his view on sustainability and his throw at becoming the minister of New Economy in the Netherlands. Today we are talking the same subjects but with a different guest: Bart Joling.Bart Joling is a cofounder of TenStripes, a marketing agency in the Netherlands, specialised in providing strategy and execution for sustainable organisations. A committed believer in telling stories through data. Initiator of the Impact Project and promoter of Impact Marketing. How does he see the New Economy? What do...
2021-01-2848 minRoasting MarshmallowsStarting a startupAre you looking to make an impact? Disrupt the market with your product or service? Starting a startup is exciting, fun and maybe also a little bit scary. How do you go about starting a startup?On today's episode of Scoutcast - Roasting Marshmallows, we have invited Manuel Cayre of ParkNow (known in the Netherlands as Parkmobile), an app that helps people pay for parking, to share with you his experience on starting up a startup. In the past, Manuel has co-founded MobyPark, a peer2peer parking platform, but he also initiated TuRodeo with Henrique Santana de...
2021-01-2352 minRoasting Marshmallows#estimates 🆚 #noestimatesAre estimates a necessary evil? Is it just good business? Are you able to predict the future based on the past? Or is it just an enormous waste of time?The #noestimates movement started with the No Estimate Programming Series on Woody Zuill's blog. Since then the #noestimates hashtag on twitter has seen a vast amount of discussion, and today's episode of Roasting Marshmallows probably won't be an exception. We will talk about both sides of the discussion: Why estimates are important and how they lead to success, but also why estimates are a waste o...
2021-01-121h 02Roasting MarshmallowsSustainability in 2021 with Patrick de VeerOn this episode of Scoutcast - Roasting Marshmallows we are having an interview with Patrick de Veer of Greenaumatic about sustainability and the misuse and misunderstandings that revolve around this term. Has it become just a buzzword? We will also talk about how Greenaumatic can help companies gain insight about the environmental impact their spending has. This way companies will know if they are helping making the world a better place or if they are contributing to its destruction.🧠Are you looking to expand your mind? 🤺Do you like to challenge...
2021-01-0549 minRoasting MarshmallowsHow present should your boss be?Should your boss be very visible? Are the best bosses the ones that don't bother you? How much responsibility can you handle?On this episode of Scoutcast - Roasting marshmallows, we will try to answer these very questions, and who better to ask these questions then our own boss: Silvester van der Bijl, founder & CEO of FourScouts. How much feedback can he handle?At the end of the episode, the point is proven. Silvester does what bosses tend to do 😉 Take a listen! 🧠Are you looking to expand your mind? 🤺Do you like to challenge...
2020-12-2346 minRoasting MarshmallowsShould you speak Dutch?Should you speak Dutch in the Netherlands? Today we are talking about if you should speak Dutch for foreigners living and working in the Netherlands. Our guests today is an expat that has learned the language, and one that after 10 years still cannot speak Dutch. What are their insights about not speaking the native language? Did they encounter any embarrassing situations and missed business opportunities because of it? Find out today on Scoutcast - Roasting marshmallows! 🧠Are you looking to expand your mind? 🤺Do you like to challenge and be challenged? 🤝Do you want to improve yourself and share your...
2020-12-1145 minRoasting MarshmallowsMost common excuses in the workplace 🧠Are you looking to expand your mind? 🤺Do you like to challenge and be challenged? 🤝Do you want to improve yourself and share your experiences both personally and professionally?Today on Scoutcast - Roasting marshmellows we will discuss a list of most heard excuses we've encountered not only in our work as software engineers, but also in our day to day lives. More importantly, we discuss how to take away these excuses and actually move forward in a productive way. Join us in our journey for continuous improvement on everything!
2020-11-3039 min