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How does Agile fit into the fast-paced, high-stakes world of game development? Clinton Keith, author of Agile Game Development, spills the secrets from his time working with some of the top studios in the industry and explains why adapting Agile to gaming is both a challenge and a game-changer.
OverviewIn this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner and Clinton Keith dive into the unique dynamics of Agile in the gaming industry. Clinton shares stories from his decades-long career in game development, explaining how Agile methodologies have evolved in the industry and why traditional approaches often fail.
They discuss the impact of deadlines, the influence of digital distribution, and how finding the "fun" in games is crucial for successful development. Clinton also provides valuable insights into modifying Agile practices to better fit the gaming world and the critical role leadership plays in fostering a productive Agile culture.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Clinton Keith
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Agile Game Development: Build, Play, Repeat by Clinton Keith
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Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Clinton Keith is a seasoned game industry veteran turned Agile coach and author of Agile Game Development, 2nd Edition. With 25 years of experience as a programmer, CTO, and production director, Clinton now helps creative teams and studio leaders build better games through effective Scrum, Lean, and Kanban.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. Glad to have you back. We're here for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I am with you as always, Brian Milner. Today, have a very special guest. A very special guest was the word I was looking for, but somehow it came out wrong. A very special guest that I'm very excited about having with us, Mr. Clinton Keith is with us.Clinton Keith (00:17)
You got it right the first time.Brian (00:23)
Welcome in, Clinton.Clinton Keith (00:25)
Hey Brian, thank you so much for the invitation.Brian (00:27)
Yeah, very, very psyched, very excited to have Clinton on. Clinton is a CST, but more importantly, he's the author of a book called Agile Game Development. And he has been in the video game industry and working with different video game makers and production houses and things for a long, long time. And he told me he's been a video game maker since the seventies. So I said, well, that's great. Cause I've been a video game player since the seventies. So I'm sure we could cross. and have some overlapping stories here. Me from the consumer side. I wanted to have Clinton on because he's got this unique perspective of really how Agile has developed and how Agile is kind of implemented and works well in the gaming industry. So let me start with just asking you, Clinton, when you work with gaming companies and they are interested curious about Agile, what is sort of the main holdup or the main objection that they present to you when they first start working with you?Clinton Keith (01:37)
Well, it's changed. mean, I've been an independent trainer CST since 2008. And back then it was like, this agile stuff doesn't, know, this won't work for us or it won't work for our role playing game or massively multiplayer online game. might work for these small games. But I think since then, what you've seen is there's just such a lot of bad implementations. We call cargo cult implementations of Agile, where we think that standing around in a circle and answering three questions a day is going to result in some productivity fairy flying over our heads and sprinkling this methodology dust on us and wonderful things will happen, where there's a discipline and a change in culture. And so people have seen a lot of poor agile implementations. But at the same time, continuing on with more traditional approaches as games get larger, teams get larger, projects get bigger, that they're saving the worst failures on not adopting a more iterative approach to game development.Brian (02:54)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mentioned that there's probably a lot of objection. There's a lot of the companies that kind of take that fixed scope, fixed schedule kind of approach to doing work and kind of think maybe Agile doesn't align to what we do or our industry or how we do things. Hopefully I'm not putting you on the spot too much, but do have any interesting stories or examples of things like that where you've worked with a company that maybe was just very, very resistant that you kind of, that they kind of turned around in the time you worked with them?Clinton Keith (03:36)
Well, think one of the more clear examples and, and, know, I, being a project manager and someone who's a, started as a programmer and ran studios, you know, and we ended up shipping successful titles on schedule, on budget. that, when I work with teams that have true deadlines, you know, these are teams that, especially sports titles where. You know, if, you know, Madden football misses the launch of their next title at the beginning of the NFL season, they're going to lose half their sales as opposed to, you know, being told it's so called, have a deadline, but you know, that just to put pressure on the team. so when you have that kind of deadline, a do or die deadline, then it gets them serious about doing things like prioritizing scope.Brian (04:11)
Yeah. Yeah.Clinton Keith (04:30)
We're saying, it's like, hey, we have this new engine to render crowds in the stadium and this is going to be beautiful. And, and it's going to look like these are real stadiums filled with people. They're less willing to take that risk if it has to come out on that specific date. And so we prioritize scope by saying, Hey, we have 32 teams, you know, it be baseball or NFL or whatever. have so many stadiums, we have rosters, we have uniforms that have changed from year to year. Those are things that we have to get in. The things that are like a new technology for mud on the uniforms, well, we can take a different approach to that and say, those would be nice to have, but we're not going to bet our schedule on that. So those were the teams on what we call AAA games. They're games that have large staffs, huge budgets, hundreds of millions of dollars. They kind of learned those lessons early on and it really became proof that an agile approach of saying, prioritizing scope and managing scope and delivering things that work and that show increased value in terms of player fun on iteration, iteration basis was really the best approach to hitting those targets. Which again is really difficult for teams that really have those so -called hard deadlines. but was still with a fixed scope, that they want all those things and at the last minute, end up compromising quality, get those all the, to hit all those goals.Brian (06:06)
I'm kind of curious about kind of the teaming aspect within the gaming industry because it seems like, and maybe I'm wrong here, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like more than some of the other industries in software development that it's a little more of the mercenary kind of attitude of, you know, kind of have the gun for hire that you bring in or guns for hire that you bring in to do some project or some game and then... then when the project wraps, they're gone. People float from place to place. Is it tough to generate, have teams go through stages of formation in that kind of environment?Clinton Keith (06:46)
Right. Yeah, no, it's less so with now that we had mobile games, these mobile platforms come out where a lot of most of the effort actually is maintaining and building a live product and growing it over time, where it's like, instead of saying, you know, on traditional large games, we're going to spend two years with no customers, no feedback. We're going to build this huge game and then launch it all at once on a disc or on a cartridge. and then cross our fingers. And with that approach, usually with game development, the traditional approach is to have a documentation phase, a planning phase, a design phase, and then a pre -production phase where we build all the mechanics. And then a production phase where we create all the levels, build the storyline, something that people can play through 20, 30 hours. And then at the end of it, alpha beta phase where we fix all the bugs, make it run fast, find, know, make it fun and polish it and then get it out the door. and in terms of staffing, like what you described was very, yeah, it was the big challenge because in pre -production we, you know, we might want 50 people, 30 people. but then when we're building all this content and building the worlds, then we're growing to a couple hundred people and then you ship it on the disk. What do you do with those 200 people that are sitting around? And that's still on large games. You know, I work with some teams that are over a thousand people developing the game. And they're trying to address that problem by having, you know, large publishers or acquiring studios. And they'll have up to half a dozen studios in various locations around the world working on that, especially on building those worlds in that, that production phase. But then that introduces the problem of communication and overhead and time zones. And yeah, it's a very challenging problem that when I started in the game industry, know, a AAA game took less than 10 people, you know, sitting in a single room.Brian (08:53)
Yeah, kind of, it's such a different paradigm now than it was. And the industry has changed so much, it seems like to me because, well, like for instance, my oldest daughter is a pretty avid gamer now as well. And when we were helping her get settled for her second year of college, we had to replace her monitor, know, so she had something to play on. And we walked in the Best Buy and I tried to explain to her that, Best Buy used to be a mecca for gamers. I remember going there regularly to stroll through the shelves of the boxes and kind of see what was on sale. Now, I can't remember the last time that I bought a physical media for a game. It's all downloaded. How has that changed just the process of developing games? I'm sure that's, previously when you had to have the gold disk version or whatever that was released. I'm sure there was much tighter timeframes, right? Is it much different now with being able to update over longer periods of time?Clinton Keith (10:03)
Well, just from an Agile perspective, it's gotten much better. You know, we introduced Agile to our studio back 20 years ago, over 20 years ago. And, you know, back then, really, the retailers dominated the industry so much in terms of you had to sell Walmart on the game you were proposing to make, which meant that you had to write the 300 page document that they would approve.Brian (10:25)
Yeah.Clinton Keith (10:32)
before you even knew it was fun. It's even worse with some of the larger first party companies that own the consoles, that they would say, well, we have a slot for making this type of game, so you have to stay within that slot. And at the end of it, we will determine how many cartridges that we will manufacture for your first release. And so it's very restrictive in terms of how much change we could introduce into the game over the course of development and say, well, the game that we're making is kind of boring. But that's the agreement that we made with Target or Walmart. And so we have to kind of stick with that game. Whereas now you can get early versions, like in Steam, for example, early release. And you can start to get metrics or that if you're a a game that's already out on a platform like iPhone, you can introduce the idea of a new mechanic to a limited number of users to say, it's like, hey, let's release a version of this mechanic to people in the state of New York and see, observe how they're playing it, measure how they're playing it, how many times they come back to it, and then use that information to tweak the next two week iteration or release dozens of different versions of our game you know, to millions of people and see which version that's out there in the wild is getting more response. So we have the ability to, you know, be much more agile and actually measuring what our customers, our players are doing with our game.Brian (12:07)
That's so interesting. You spoke earlier about kind of like the AAA games with like sports games and how they have much tighter deadlines and they're, they kind of, there's a big, big hit to them if they miss that deadline. What about the opposite? What about the teams that don't have those harsh deadlines? And I would imagine there's an entirely different problem for the product owners of just good enough. how do you... How do those product owners determine, yeah, we have enough or this is in good enough shape that we can release it and we can patch things later?Clinton Keith (12:44)
think one of the biggest problems you see when you don't have a deadline is this. There's this famous quote, I forget the exact wording of it, is that really tight deadlines, know, kind of restricted, know, restricted, to call it use the word resources, but in terms of money and schedule and things like that, or how many people you have working on it, really focuses you on delivering. And this is something that is a problem for AAA games with no serious deadline is that to say it's the, get these incredibly vast ideas that take years to really show the benefit. And I had this big light bulb moment in my career. I was, I was, I did a lot of racing games really in my career and I was on a game. that had a racing mechanic is based on a movie like what some of the Bourne movies where you have like a 15 minute racing mechanic, know, chasing in the middle of the movie. So late in the development of the game, we had a little bit of extra time and our publisher said, hey, can you throw in like a very short 15 minute car chasing and with police chasing you through an open city. Now that mechanic, police chasing you through an open city, used to take us years to develop with artificial intelligence, know, with police chasing you through crowded traffic streets. And even after years of development, it didn't quite work right. The police would crash into everything and drive on walls and we couldn't get the physics right. You know, we're on a PlayStation or Xbox. You know, you couldn't spend a lot of AI effort, artificial intelligence, on getting that just right. So, but we only had like a month. And so we're sitting around thinking, what can we do? How can we get police chasing us? And so we started asking ourselves questions that we never did ask in the past. Like, why do we have police? You know, why do we have police chasing you? And the answer was that, well, it's to make you drive fast. You know, if you didn't have police chasing you, you know, it's a boring game. And so all we did was we just, instead we just hadBrian (14:47)
Mm. Right.Clinton Keith (15:02)
We just monitored how fast the player was driving. And if he was driving a little bit too slow, we'd start playing a siren sound. They kept driving slow. started playing flashing lights off the geometry of the buildings around you, blue and red. And then if you continue driving slow, we just played a video of you being arrested. And that took like a couple of days instead of a couple of years. And when we focus tested it, pretty much, half of everyone thought they were really being chased by the police. The other half said, I thought I was being chased by police, but when I looked in the rear view mirror, I didn't see any police. And so we just took out the rear view mirror, tested it the next night. Everyone thought they were being chased by police. And we're like, I guess, and it was actually a better result in the two years of trying to get artificial intelligence right. And so the big light bulb moment was, just like having,Brian (15:53)
Yeah.Clinton Keith (15:56)
a short deadline on showing something of value led to people making better choices from the player's perspective, not this challenge of, what can I do with artificial intelligence over the next two years? So I think that's part of the big challenge with these big, huge games of saying it's like, if there's not a payoff, if you can't see value, and this was an early lesson I learned,Brian (16:11)
Yeah.Clinton Keith (16:24)
working with Nintendo Japan was the guy that made Mario and Donkey Kong. We worked with him directly, Miyamoto. He always had this thing. It's like, find the fun fast, show the value of it. And it always stuck with me. And so when you have these short deadlines, you want to encourage the teams and the product owners is judge the game, not what you see inBrian (16:40)
Yeah.Clinton Keith (16:49)
with the potential in two years. Judge your vision of the two years against what you're seeing every other week and adjust your expectations. Don't fall in love with your vision.Brian (16:59)
That's so interesting. So I kind of want to dig into this. This is an agile podcast, obviously. And we have lots of people from different walks of life and that they're implementing agile in different ways. And it's always interesting, I think, for people to hear how things kind of fit in other realms, right? In other kind of industries and how that changes a little bit industry by industry. So I'm kind of curious when you are talking about agile and Scrum and in a gaming game development environment, what are some typical kind of modifications that you recommend or that you've seen that are needed or work well that are specific to the gaming industry?Clinton Keith (17:44)
So as I mentioned, a lot of teams, even Agile teams that are truly Agile, like the sports titles, we still have that separation of discovering what new mechanics we want to put into the game and then building all that content, your stadium. So let's use sports titles for example. Let's say we do alter how we draw or render the stadiums. And we're making much more beautiful, more detailed stadiums because we have a new platform that can draw 10 times as much like a next generation PlayStation or Xbox. So we still want to come out with the new sports title at the start of the season. So we'll, we'll do more of our risky exploration of stadiums and what it's going to take to, to render these stadiums. and how many polygons, how many triangles we're going to use to build these stadiums and how much it's going to cost. Because we do have 32 stadiums. We do have a budget. We do have so many artists that can build these stadiums. So we have to figure that out ahead of time. And then, you know, once we figure that out and say, all right, we have, you know, we've built an example stadium. This is an example of what we want to ship at the start of the season. Now we have to build all the other 31 stadiums to that quality. And we've judged the risk and the cost and the schedule and how many people we have to the artists to build those things. And then we go into that production pipeline with those studios. And that's where, you know, it's like the scrum every two weeks model doesn't quite work. know, a stadium might take. 21 .2 days to build. And it's a pipeline of handoffs of things. Somebody doing the concept art for the stadium and then building the geometry for the stadium and then lighting it, you know, and all the audio effects. And so it becomes more of a production factory pipeline where practices like Kanban and lean come into play. That still have those underlying values of getting things through the pipeline as quickly as possible, continually looking at how we can improve that pipeline. And then judging instead of how much we can get done every fixed time box is judging how long that stadium takes from concept to in -game and trying to refine that to get improvements in the quality of the stadiums and the productivity of that entire pipeline. which leads to, you know, things that we see in Scrum is disciplines talking to each other and improving how they work together.Brian (20:32)
Yeah. I would imagine the culture, like there's potential culture clash kind of things here with Agile in the gaming industry. Like one of the things I was thinking about is, you find it's a little tougher to get buy -in on a concept like working at a sustainable pace? Is that something that's in the gaming industry, people... Because I've seen a lot of... I've been around some small companies that are working on gaming, and they seem to work all the time. It's like late nights, weekends, it's just like it's non -stop. Is that kind of a difficult concept in the gaming industry?Clinton Keith (21:18)
Well, mean, the gaming industries had quite a few scandals in terms of crunch time. And a lot of that has to do with not seeing that actual game until the end. As I mentioned, it's like we have these in pre -agile development, still goes on quite a bit, is that, we write this big, huge document up front. We get the buy -off on the stakeholders. We go off and the engineers go off over here, the artists go off over here. And then towards the end of the game, when we finally get all the elements of a story together, we can first start to play it. Then we start to get it so instead of it crashing every two minutes, we're starting to get the game playable and we're out of time. We have to ship this game in three to six months. It's not fun. It's a disaster.Brian (22:06)
Yeah.Clinton Keith (22:13)
and then what, unfortunately what happens is we've, we put that accountability on the developers and say, well, now you, and, know, as, as a studio director, pre -agile, I was guilty of this as well as to say, Hey, we got it. We, we, we have no choice, but to come in here seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day. And, and as it, yeah, as a team we'll, we'll, you know, we'll, we'll get this thing done. And it destroyed. destroyed marriages, harmed families. I mean, I went through that. didn't see my, one of my newborns for the first three months of his life, pretty much, except when he was sleeping, when I came home late. And it simply doesn't, I mean, it's harmful primarily to the working life and these people that leave the game industry, but it's also harmful to the game is that, you do whatever it takes to get thisBrian (22:45)
HaClinton Keith (23:12)
terrible game across the deadline that you were very passionate about in this first couple years of development. And we've seen disasters, even in recent history of games being released that, you know, it's just unplayable, but they had to get out for a deadline and they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars. And they've just felt like, well, nowadays we can patch games, you know, and, and, and, you know, it, it, it, it kills them from a financial point of view.Brian (23:41)
Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting. you know, I think this, to me, this is where it kind of, it is so relatable to, to anyone who's, who's trying to do this kind of work. Because I think there that we've all had scenarios and situations where, know, as an agile coach or trainer that we've, we've, you know, we've been up against a constraint of some kind. We've been up against something that is not really the way we would. hope would be the way that the organization would operate or that the team would be run. And we've had to make those compromises in order to continue the work and continue trying to move that organization forward. So I'm kind of curious, I know there's probably lots of people listening who are in those situations and maybe even kind of some self -doubt there about, hey, am I really? Am I really doing this the right way? And am I kind of a sellout and that I'm giving in to the management and how they're making us do this? Would you have any advice or anything that you would say to people in that position that could maybe help them kind of navigate that?Clinton Keith (24:56)
I mean, yeah, think, I mean, a lot of it is, is, it's a tough question to answer because, you know, a lot of it is, I mean, I, I've been in that position myself where, yeah, I was promoted to studio director and my first studio. It's like, okay, now you're responsible for all these games, seven games in development. And, you know, I committed, I said, all right, we're going to stop doing stupid things. Which means like going to a team that's working very well and saying, this other team, they're in a bad place. So I'm going to take half of your team and move them over there. You know, the old Fred Brooks thing is just like, you know, it's like, Hey, you know, it's like, you know, we're going to double their staff, you know, which is going to make it even worse for them, but it's also going to harm you. We're going to stop doing those things because now I'm in charge. I've been through that. I've run individual games and I know the impact. of what that does. And so I wasn't in the job more than two weeks before the CEO came in and said, hey, we don't have enough money to pay payroll this Friday. And I went into a panic because I was like, I just got promoted to a studio that's going out of business. I go half the people are going to leave if they don't get paid this Friday. And he goes, well, just calm down, relax. You know, what we're going to do is we're going to get a loan becauseBrian (26:10)
Yeah.Clinton Keith (26:21)
but we have to accelerate this milestone payment. I need you to, we need to start a new team, an eighth game. And I was like, well, we don't have the people for it to start an eighth game. It says, well, you need to go out to the teams and take people from their teams and populate a whole new team so we can get this payment from this publisher who wants to start a game. And it was such a bad idea to do, but I couldn't go to the teams and say,Brian (26:46)
YouClinton Keith (26:49)
Hey, I need to take some of your staff so we don't go out of business. I just said, you know, it's like, Hey, we have to take some people off your team. And they're like, you very publicly said you weren't going to do stupid things and here you are. You know, so I think, you know, as part of it is it's, it's, it's the culture, it's the leadership. You know, I started about five, six years ago, starting to do leadership training. Yeah. And because it's like, you know what? I keep seeing these.Brian (26:55)
Yeah.Clinton Keith (27:19)
You know, the team's adopting these practices, but the leadership not knowing what to do with this transparency, with what to do when your game isn't fun early on, and how it's so hard to build an agile culture, but so easy to destroy overnight from leadership doing things like I did. So I built a leadership course that was like, I wish this was the training I had got. 20 years ago when I was put into this position to help navigate some of these issues and help these teams. I there's, I mean, there's, mean, occasionally see cultures that just kind of like beyond, you know, their, ability to recover just too late, you know, to make some of these, make some of these changes, because like I said, we have to get this title.Brian (27:49)
Right.Clinton Keith (28:15)
Out the door in three months. In fact, these days I just refuse to, I used, I refuse to train a team that's within six months of shipping a, having a big title to ship because it's like, yeah, that sounds great. You know, we'd love to do it, but you know, we're just in the trenches for the next six months.Brian (28:35)
Yeah, that kind of heads down and then can't, how do you learn a new process, you know, while you're in heads down mode, right? Well, this is fascinating. And I, you know, I'm tempted to take more of your time. I just don't want to, I want to be respectful of your time and in our listeners time. So it's probably a good place for us to stop. I want to just point out to people, again, your book, Agile Games Development, where you talk about a lot of this stuff. If I'm reading this correctly, it was originally out in 2020, right? Is that correct? Second edition, second edition was 2020. So you've added some new stories and some new elements to it in 2020, right?Clinton Keith (29:09)
The second edition, Well, I mean, it was between 2008 when the first edition came out, we had mobile. You know, it's like the iPhone came out and mobile came out and the entire industry turned upside down. So, and I just, we've just learned so much from working with all these studios and what they have discovered is just incredible. it's, mean, it's, I mean, the industry was very agile early on. You know, the console, the arcade developers used to like sneak out prototype versions andBrian (29:22)
Yeah.Clinton Keith (29:47)
count quarters they collected. When then the 90s and early 2000s, things got so huge, we went away from Agile. And so it was a difficult sell. But in the last, yeah, the last dozen years, it's been fantastic with all these platforms, all these new opportunities, all these new markets. It's almost as if we're not using the word Agile anymore. It's just the way to develop.Brian (30:14)
That's awesome. Yeah, that's what Mike said sometimes. Mike Cohn, when we talk about this, he's like, that was my goal initially was to not have Agile be something we even had to name. It just would be software development. And that's just the way that would be the default in doing things. So it's good to hear that at least in some places that is the case, right? It does feel like that's more of the default. That's great.Clinton Keith (30:38)
Well, it's no coincidence. Mike was our first coach 20 years ago and my mentor. And I think that I stole that quote from him and glad to see that it's, it's, it's coming true.Brian (30:41)
Yeah You That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, we'll put all these links in the show notes for everybody. But again, the book is called Agile Game Development. And Clinton, I really appreciate you coming on. Thanks for taking your time and chatting with us.Clinton Keith (31:02)
Thanks for the invite, Brian. Enjoyed it a lot. -
In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner chats with Murman about the value of attending Agile conferences, the importance of networking, and the impact of volunteering in the Agile community. They share personal stories, advice on making the most of conference experiences, and insights into how volunteering can open up new opportunities for personal and professional growth.
OverviewBrian Milner and Chris Murman dive into the world of Agile conferences, focusing on the upcoming Agile 2025 event and the benefits of attending. They discuss the evolving purpose of conferences, why networking and volunteering are crucial, and how approaching conferences with an open mind can lead to unexpected learning and connections.
Chris also shares his journey from attendee to conference chair, providing a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into creating a memorable conference experience. Whether you're a conference regular or considering attending your first one, this episode offers valuable perspectives on getting the most out of these unique events.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Agile 2025
Want to get involved?
Chris Murman
Connect with Chris on LinkedIn
Agile Alliance Speaker Submission Tips Webinar
#105: Scrum Conferences & Neurodiversity with Brian Milner
Special Episode Scrum Gathering Denver 2022
Mountain Goat Software’s Accurate Agile Planning Course
Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast
Join the Agile Mentors CommunityThis show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.
Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Chris Murman is the Agile 2025 Conference Chair with over 15 years of experience in product management and leadership, He has directed successful launches for top brands like Verizon, NBC Universal, and Chick-fil-A. As the Executive Director of Product at JP Morgan Chase, and leads 20 cross-functional teams, driving innovative financial solutions and spearheading AI/ML initiatives that save over 6,000 man-hours per quarter.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today, a very special friend is here with us, Mr. Chris Murman. Welcome in, Chris.Chris (00:11)
What's up, Brian? I don't know that I'm a mentor, but I'm here anyways.Brian (00:12)
You're definitely a mentor. In fact, we're going to explain to people why you are here in just a moment. Chris is an Agile coach extraordinaire. He has been in the community for quite a while. And he is a fellow Dallas native here with me. And we connect a little bit at the last year's Dallas conference here for Agile.Chris (00:19)
Okay, okay, sure. Sure, sure.Brian (00:40)
And one of the things that I noted in that conference was they announced the next one, which is coming up in Denver, end of July, beginning of August -ish, we'll put it that way. And he was announced as the chair of that conference. So Chris is actually going to be in charge or leading or behind the scenes for just about everything that's going to take place at that Agile 2025 conference in Denver. So I wanted to have Chris on to talk about that a little bit. Don't think of this as an ad. It's not an ad for it because what I wanted to kind of help people understand was kind of the why behind it. When I normally talk about the conference, it's maybe a month or two before. Well, now it's next summer. So you have some time to plan. And now is the right time to kind of put that kind of stuff in your calendar if it's something that you're thinking about doing. or even maybe thinking about maybe should you volunteer or something like that for it. So Chris, how did you get involved with this kind of thing? How did you get involved with helping out with the conferences? What made you decide to help out in any way, shape or form?Chris (01:54)
Well, like many, when I first started the work, I I fell into Agile backwards just like everybody else did. None of us did this on purpose. It just came along and we just started doing it and then it became something to do. in the 2010s when Agile was riding high and I... I saw these conferences as really cool learning opportunities and connection opportunities. People that I knew from the, that you and I both know from the local area, from meetups, would tell me about these conferences. I was attending DFW Scrum the last time that Agile 20XX was in Dallas. I did not go, but. cause I, was too late for me to find out and it was kind of pricey. And so I was like, so like conferences are where you just go and meet people and then they're like, yeah, you should just kind of go. So as, as with many of us who are like, well, how do I pay for these conferences to go? just said, well, I'll submit to speak. And, I don't know about you, but my first few submissions were not great. I, I, I. People always laugh when I say this, but I would literally copy and paste the headline and the entire copy of blog posts that I thought would be really cool to talk about. Because I started my blog, that was kind of how Chris Murman .com is kind of how people first started meeting me because I would promote it on platforms and stuff. Agile Twitter used to be really fun back in those days too. So I would just copy and paste the entire blog post as my abstract. And of course, now knowing what I know, like that was, that's just the worst thing to do in the world. but I didn't know what else to do. So I fell flat on my face the first few years and started getting some advice and feedback and such, and started getting accepted to speak around 2016. Spoke at. Spoke at several conferences that year, spoke at several conferences in 2017. 2018 comes along and they're like, and I'm like, hey, how do I help out? Like this is really cool. I connected with the Agile Alliance community, that specific conference community very, very well. And I'm like, well, how can I help? And they're like, here's three or four people, email them until they say yes. And I'm not.Brian (04:18)
Yeah. Hahaha.Chris (04:34)
I just was annoying and said, no, I'm not kidding. I want to help. And I got to chair a track. You know, I chaired all kinds of tracks for the next few years. coming out of COVID, I got asked to be on the program team. which is just when people are like, what's the difference between leading a track and leading like the entire program? Think of it as like, The track is like one tiny, tiny sliver in the program team has to go really very narrow across everything to know where everything is. Not that I know every set. I still, I'm like, that was that session was the conference that year. But, so we just have to be more broad in what are the themes that we want to talk about? What are the things that we want to do? and, and, you know, when you join the program team, you know, one of these years it's going to be your year. And then when you. when you're a conference chair, that's your final year on the program team. And then you just go back to civilian life, I guess. I don't know, which is, don't, I don't ask Dana. I don't know what civilian life is on the side of the conference just yet, but I will very soon. So I don't know. It's a, that's a rambling answer, but it's for the most part, that's really how I got going was just, I just wanted to go. You know what I mean? I just wanted to be there. And the only way I could do it was to get a free ticket.Brian (05:34)
Ha ha ha. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a, well, that's a great answer. I mean, I, I think I'm kind of, I mean, I probably have a little bit, there was probably a few more years I submitted before I got accepted to speak at the Agile Conference, but I probably submitted three or four years before I got something accepted. And that's even after reviewing a few years and seeing what good and bad submissions were like, you know, and trying to understand that.Chris (06:22)
ThankBrian (06:25)
But we were talking a little bit beforehand about just the concept of a conference in today's world. I know that we've seen sort of a decline in people who are attending conferences a little bit. And I'm not really sure whether this is a momentary thing or an economy -based thing or what. But when people ask you why attend a conference, what What do you tell people?Chris (06:55)
Well, there's many things that you can get out of a conference. That's the cool part about it is that you can attend the conference for many reasons. And I would say now in 2024, coming into next year, 25, I don't know that the reasons for attending the conference are the same as they used to be, right? Because when we first started coming, there's this like, I don't mean to sound pedantic or like over inflate myself, but there's a level of like fame in our community. We have a tiny, tiny community. So you can get agile famous a lot of different ways. Like now you can just be an influencer and write like Chris Stone is a perfect example of someone who just cranks out a ton of content that it's for the most part pretty good and get the following that way. And then people meet you that way.Brian (07:27)
You Yeah, yeah.Chris (07:53)
there were a lot of ways that you could meet people back then. you could really meet a ton of people there. You could make a ton of connections. So ultimately, I just really wanted to learn. I love learning and I love being connecting with other people. I did theater as a kid, was performing at church as a kid. I was just that person that was always on a stage. so speaking is just another extension of that. You being in a training room all the time, again, it's just a performance. You're just giving a performance where there's hopefully... a few nuggets of wisdom. When I realized that that's all that it was, well then I wanted to do it. You know, I don't think that, but I don't know that that's the same anymore. I don't, you know, I don't hear people say, I learned a ton at this conference every year, right? Because a lot of work, we're,Brian (08:39)
Right. Yeah. Hmm.Chris (08:59)
we're rehashing the ideas in a new way. We're trying to explore things in a new way, but we're really kind of taking many people feel like that we're just taking the same rock and turning it over and just getting seeing if we'll be surprised the next time we flip the rock over, right? Like there's only so many times you can flip that rock over before you don't find anything new anymore. So, I, it is interesting to think about why do we What is the purpose of a conference? You know, because do you want to be known so you can get paid, right? Or get a job? You know, there's a lot of people that want a job. So can you get a job by going to a conference? I don't know. I don't, there weren't a lot of jobs in 2023 to hand out. There were some to be had this year. If you attended the conference and were looking like there were several people that had things to talk about and interviews to be had.Brian (09:28)
Yeah.Chris (09:55)
some of the jobs are starting to come back. like, okay, well, do you go because you want a job or if you're learning, like, well, what do you want to learn that you can't just learn from watching YouTube or TikTok or, you know, attend like, as you know, training classes are also struggling in the community. like, what is what what is learning in 2024 2025 in the agile community? I think it's worth thinking about, you know what I mean?Brian (10:23)
Yeah, no, I agree. And I think, from my perspective, I think it's changed a little bit. It's shifted a little bit over time. I think when I first started to go, there was an idea of, yes, I wanted to network and I wanted to understand and meet other people in the community. But as an introvert, I, you know, that kind of scares the crap out of me. And, you know, I can only do a little bit of that before I just feel like my battery is completely depleted. But, you know, when I think when I first went, I did have the idea that I wanted to learn. wanted to kind of be on the cutting edge. I wanted to hear the cutting edge thoughts of people who were out there. And, you know, now I think I still have that mentality when I go, I still want to hear, you know, I want someone to challenge me, you know, like that's, what I really want to hear from, from a speaker is tell me something about this. don't know, or tell me something that, you know, would challenge my, my existing way of thinking about this. so that I can go back and examine it and think, huh, I never really thought of it that way, but maybe that's true and maybe I need to re -examine that. But you know, that's kind of rare. That's not something that you get from just a lot of talks. I know one of the things I try to do when I give a talk is I wanna end with something that I would say, hey, what's the one thing you commit to changing as a result of this? Like what's the one big idea? What's the one... If you left this room and don't remember anything else, what's the one thing that you wanna just star or circle in your notebook and say, I'm gonna go find out more about that or I'm gonna do something about that. And that's where I try to kind of drive toward the whole talk. But I've been in others that, like you said, maybe a little bit more of a rehash of something I've heard before. But I've never left a conference without feeling challenged in some way, even if it's not, even if it's just from a one -on -one conversation that I've had with people, you know, I've been challenged about ideas and had to go back and re -examine and think through things. I'd say it's more, you know, now my balance has shifted. It is more networking now for me than it is that challenging thought, but I still want to find that nugget somewhere in there in the conference time.Chris (12:41)
So what you said is really interesting and I want to hone in on the specific words you mentioned about challenged, right? the, I do want to, you know, before it sounds like I'm not poo -pooing the idea of conferences in any way, shape or form, but what Brian just mentioned is something that I tell the people all the time. I said it from the stage this year in Dallas, which is like, you get out of it, what you put into it. If you come in with a beginner's mind intending to be challenged, intending to have your assumptions questioned and said, maybe I didn't think about this the way that... I would say that that's probably the thing that I learned every time is that something that I thought was true or wasn't true may not, right?Brian (13:11)
Yeah, yeah.Chris (13:35)
You know that half of the conferences are new people every year, right? There's someone new to agile every every year there are there. Thousands of people new to it every year. That's the cool thing about it is that every year there are people that like I just got my CSM like holy cow. That's so like can you imagine showing up to a conference and everybody's like this sucks. I don't want to be here like you're not going to learn anything. I don't get anything out of it like what an awful experience for.Brian (13:35)
Yeah. YouChris (14:03)
someone that's new and excited and just wants to, like, there will be something you haven't heard before. But for the most part, the reason why I always get something is because I show up expecting to hear something I haven't heard before. The story won't come out exactly the way you think, right? Or,Brian (14:09)
Yeah.Chris (14:22)
the story that they tell, because a good conference is always a great idea plus you, right? It's your stories, your experiences, how this affected you that matters. So sharing your soul, bearing your soul requires the audience to kind of be like, want to be, I want to have someone, you know, kind of bear themselves to me. I want to hear someone be vulnerable.Brian (14:45)
Yeah.Chris (14:48)
And those are always the best sessions that you and I always have, is when someone is super vulnerable, super vulnerable with where they are. I thought this was the only way to do this. That's my favorite is when I hear a speaker say, I thought this was the only way to do this. There are so many roads up the mountain that we have for our work. There is not one way to do it. So find a new, come to find a new one. There's a technique that you've probably not tried before or done, or if you have, you didn't do it the way that they did before, that'll seem easier. that's the whole purpose of listening to these things, but it, it, it requires you to show up with more than just here's my tray, man. I have some agile, please. Right. Like that's, this is not a buffet, right? Like you have to like, go find it, right. Seeking positive intent means I have to go seek it. Right. I have to go seek information that I want to have.Brian (15:21)
Yeah. Hahaha.Chris (15:41)
and then go get it. Because if I don't, I'm just going to go, yeah, it's cool. I mean, I met some cool people, but I didn't really. OK, well, then you didn't show up with the mentality of being challenged. I challenge our friends, people that have been coming for years, I challenge them every year. You will get something if you want to. Right? If you don't get something, it's because you didn't want to get anything out of it.Brian (16:01)
Right. I mean, I think we're all kind of guilty sometimes of setting our conference path, choosing the sessions and things that we go to based on things that maybe we already have some familiarity with. And that sounds interesting. yeah, I researched that a little bit. Let me see what they have to say about that. I've tried to intentionally now try to find things that I have no background in. I have no experience in because those are the things that are really going to push me. Those are the things that I don't really have. any knowledge of or forethought on and I'm gonna be taken to a different place. I remember I used to be, I used to get this like really anxious, nervous feeling when I would find out I was wrong about something. You know, I'd be in a conversation at a dinner table with someone and they'd say, well, actually, you know, that's not the way to do it. They'd start to do something else and I'd start to feel kind of anxious about that. But now, now I've like, that's swapped for me. Now when I hear that, when someone says, no, actually there's another way to think about that.Chris (16:41)
youBrian (16:57)
I start to get excited. Like it's actually excitement in me because I start to feel like, great, wow, I didn't, this is something new. This is something I had never heard before. And now this is the point where I can grow and break through, you know.Chris (17:11)
Well, there's, I mean, and there's people that we all, if we've been in these communities before, we can all think of someone that always challenges us, right? Like I can't have a conversation with Michael Sahota without him challenging something that I thought, I just thought was true. And I'm like, no, it's not like, or it might be, but not always. So there's always someone that's just like,Brian (17:20)
Yeah. Yeah.Chris (17:37)
sit down so that I can break your mind real quick. And that's always fun. You know, another thing to think about is like, what we get out of the conference also dictates who's going to pay the bill, right? Because we hear in the community a lot, well, companies aren't paying for conferences anymore.Brian (17:41)
Yeah Mm, yeah, yeah.Chris (17:59)
That's not true for some aspects of IT. Like all the developer conferences, companies love footing the bill for that. The Microsoft conference, they love footing the bill for that because they send technologists there that come back smarter and can code better and more efficiently and whatever, right? Like better, faster, cheaper, all those things, right? Like they will get something out of it. So the... think the reason why we have to say what do you want at the conference is like, it's gonna kind of dictate who pays the bill. If the purpose of Brian and I who have been to this conference many times and have met so many of the cool people, that's the best part of me going every year is I get to see Matt Barkholm again. Like one of my favorite people in the world that I do not see other than over Zoom, right? Or any number of people, right? Any number of people.Brian (18:47)
Hahaha.Chris (18:56)
There's always someone new that I had spoken to online but never met in person. Someone that just, again, someone that just started the work and someone that's like, hey, I read something that you wrote about this years ago and it was really cool. That's cool, right? You won't get that if you don't go out and network and stuff. But here's the thing, if you're there for connections, companies aren't interested in footing the bill for connections. They're interested in footing the bill for...Brian (19:23)
Right.Chris (19:26)
learn something, improve something, come away with something. And if Agilent are going to the conferences and just like, I met some really cool people, what else? I met some cool people. All right, cool. I'm not paying next year for you to go to that, right? That's what a lot of companies are trying to do. So we have to sort of imagine like, if the goal is to get companies to pay for people to go again, well, then we need to... That's something that we've asked ourselves in the program team. Like what would get, like what is a program that companies will reimburse for? I think it's, and I don't know that we've got a strong answer either. Everybody's got, I think, there's a lot of I thinks and not a lot of I knows, right? I guess is a good way to think of it.Brian (20:00)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the other thing I wanted to kind of, because you are, you know, kind of the ultimate volunteer for this upcoming conferences as the chair, you know, I've tried to tell the audience here from time to time about the kind of the benefits of volunteering and why I do it as a speaker, why I've done it in the past as a reviewer. It seems like there's just so many different ways to get involved for something like this so that you don't have to just sit on the sidelines. You can actually be a part of this. And that's a, for me, that's an easy way to have a quick in with the community because you're interacting with people prior to it. So when you show up, it's like, hey, I know you and I know you, because we've been talking and working together on this stuff for a while. So. What kind of case do you make to people for volunteering for a conference like this, like a big conference?Chris (21:12)
It's so again, going back to like, what do want to get out of it? I think the purpose of volunteering is to kind of learn how the sausage is made to a degree. if someone's like, I'm not really interested in seeing how my sausage is made, then you don't belong in the agile community. Like this is the community of people that want to seeBrian (21:22)
Yeah.Chris (21:32)
Sausage being stuffed into its casing and just cranked out right like this is this is the community for that like I won't use any more sausage metaphors that although I The the The funny thing about how Volunteering works is that?Brian (21:41)
HahahaChris (21:50)
You can volunteer in the slightest of ways, just a few hours a week reviewing. When you're like, well, I want to review, that's fine, but I want to be a track chair. Because people always want to be a part of deciding the content. This is what I've always wanted to hear about. This is what I've always wanted to hear about. And of course, then I always ask the question of, OK, well, then someone has to submit that idea. all right, it's one thing to say, want to hear about this. It's another thing to say, how do I get that content out of a group of submissions every year, which we get thousands every year at the conference. And we got thousands, right? Like, you know, for all of the online hubbub over the conference every year over who gets accepted and who doesn't, like thousands of people submit wanting to speak every year. regardless of how they feel about whether they, when they get the rejection letter or the acceptance letter, like thousands of people want to speak at this conference. It's cool. Like it's a cool thing to do, but not everybody is a speaker, right? You can be a purple shirt and volunteer. In fact, some of my favorite people in the community are lifelong purple shirters that have done it multiple years. There are people that do it for a couple of years and meet people and then and they move on to another role. mean, there's just a bunch of different ways that you could be involved in doing something that doesn't involve speaking or deciding who speaks. And also, I will say, it's also really hard to cull thousands of submissions. into something that makes sense for everybody else. Because then you have to go find keynote speakers. There are people that are invited to speak who are luminaries in the industry. And how do you meet those people? So all of that is really like the fact that I can say I can email. any number of people, I won't use the name so I don't offend the people that I don't use, but like I can email any number of them and they're like, yeah, Chris, Agile, Agile 20XX guy. I, it would be cool if they're like, I just like Chris and I want to be friends with them, but you know, that's not the way the world works. so I, you know, networking in ways that don't always show up in a job or whatever is just, I'm, I'm just here to.Brian (24:00)
Hahaha Right. Right.Chris (24:25)
find good content and show the community that and the rest kind of takes care of itself, you know?Brian (24:32)
Yeah. I mean, I'll say to, you know, just to give people kind of an idea of my path with the agile conference, you know, I probably submitted four or five years before I got accepted. And a couple of those years spent as just a reviewer for, you know, a track or, you know, with a certain team, not as a chair, but just as a reviewer. there's a, there's a, if you want to do that, you can do that. Right? mean, it's pretty much, it's easy to get into that kind of a mode if that's something that you're interested in. And I tell people who want to speak like that to me was one of the biggest and best educations I could have had on learning about speaking was reviewing what other people wanted to speak about. Cause you know, there's kind of two parts to speaking. There's the... the marketing side of getting your thing selected, and then there's the actual talk. But the part of trying to come up with your idea of the talk and frame it and put it in an interesting way and learning how to structure your talk in a way that would be interesting for people to listen to, that's a skill in itself. And the best way I learned about that was just reading others, reading what other people were submitting to do and... Chris is right. mean, there's so many submissions that, you know, even as just a reviewer for one track, I was sad for all the ones that I knew would not get to be heard because there's so many good ideas. it's, know, Sophie's choice about how you try to decide which one of these two things or which one of these 10 things, you know, you've got one slot and 10 of them that are 10 or 20 that are just amazing. and you can only take one, you know? So it's difficult, but reading those submissions to me was a really great education.Chris (26:33)
Yeah, if you think about it this way, we always enter the room to build the schedule with, there's X amount of slots that we have plus X number of alternates and such. we always, you try to look at it like, like you look at the whole schedule and say, okay, is there an aspect of our work that we missed? Well, we didn't really get a, we haven't gotten a retro talk yet. okay, well there was one over here. So, cause you know, you're trying to balance it for like there's meat and potatoes kinds of sessions and then there's like the big idea sort of sessions. Then there's the workshops that are very engaging and meant to create something.Brian (27:16)
Yeah.Chris (27:26)
you know, there's a lot of, again, there's a lot of roads up that mountain. I would say that the joy of speaking now, if I could, anybody that wants to do it, the best advice I would say is like, you need to want to speak so that you can be a better presenter and organizer of your thoughts. Because,Brian (27:46)
Yeah.Chris (27:49)
Really, the abstract and the basic, there is essentially a formula to filling out a submission to a conference. I, with CP Richardson, who's now on the board, I did a webinar last November on what makes a good submission. It's something that I've gotten super passionate about. Again, it's recorded, it's on the Agile Alliance site if you wanna find it. There is a formula that anybody can follow and get selected, right? I had some, I had several people reach out and say, I watched your video and I follow what you said. And then I got accepted to speak, which for the record, watching what I say will not get you accepted to speak. You can follow the formula. You can, you can follow the formula exactly and still not get it because there's only so many slots and it's really hard to get in. but.Brian (28:26)
HaChris (28:41)
Once you follow the formula, then it's just down to like, does the idea resonate with the community? And I can't, I can't give you a formula for that because I'm not in anybody's brain, but, you know, I, again, it's always a great top, a great idea. Plus your stories and experiences is what really defines what a good submission is. And so you have to get that straight before you type a single word out. But then once you go through the submission process and there's edits, feedback, all that kind of stuff. Then you got to get accepted. Once you get accepted, then you got to build the session. And we find that a lot of times it's a rare breed of someone that knows how to write a good submission and can put on a good show. Not everybody can do that. And of course, a good show is a relative term, right? You don't got to be big and bombastic and loud to be good, right? Brian's not that and Brian's great in a room, right? So you can...Brian (29:16)
Yeah.Chris (29:35)
you have to kind of construct it in a way that makes sense. So, but again, the cool part is, that because I had people help me, mostly because I just annoyed the hell out of them and saying, please, please give me, please give me some help. I just want to keep passing it along. So I mean, I still get people at 12 months a year, I get people saying, I have an idea and I'd love to run it by you that they hit me up on LinkedIn or whatnot. So.Brian (30:04)
Yeah.Chris (30:05)
It's just something that I care about now. I got so much better with organizing my ideas and writing them and presenting them that it's a gift that I want to just keep passing on to people. I guess this is because I didn't intend this to be the cross that I bared, it is regardless.Brian (30:21)
Yeah Well, the only other advice I'd throw out to people, there was a shift that happened with me too, where I went from, I want to be a speaker, let me find a topic. There's a very big difference from having that attitude to living your life and saying, wow, I'm really passionate about this. I'd love to talk about this. If you find the topic first that you resonate with and connect with, then it's, you you're a little more personally connected when you submit. So it can be more painful if you don't get picked, you know, when that happens. But on the other hand, when you do get picked, man, you're so excited about giving that talk. It's not just that you got picked, but it's like, I can't wait to tell people about this, this thing. And to me, that's, that's the magic. Like when that happens, you, you, yeah, you can't, you're, you're, it's not even nervous. You're, just so excited to tell people what you've learned about.Chris (31:21)
Yeah, another piece of advice I tell people is as you're reading things, it doesn't have to be a book. It could just be an article or a video that you watch. As I always say, when I'm reading a book on something that has nothing to do, like I don't really buy a ton of agile books anymore. I buy a lot of social psychology, social economics, behavioral economics is a lot of my favorites. like Daniel Pink books is a tried and true. I met Daniel Pink once and he's like, what is it with you agile people that just love what I do? And I'm like, I don't know. I just, I don't know. I'm like, we just read it. So, but I read these books with looking for a lens into my world, right? I always read stuff that has nothing to do with IT.Brian (32:02)
Yeah Yeah.Chris (32:16)
that or leading teams or whatever it is your world, whatever you think it is. Find something that has nothing to do with your world and then say, how does that identify or how does that relate to my work? That's my favorite thing. I read a book on many years ago on, it was called The Control Heuristic. It was like where control comes from as an idea and psychology and why. We struggle with it. And I immediately turned that into a leadership talk on why we're all control freaks and here's, know, and what, what do we, what do we do about the fact that we're all control freaks? Like, again, I didn't read a book and say, I'm going to do a topic on a book. It's like, no, how does that tie into dealing with executives when I'm trying to get them to release the purse strings or release some of the control of their work, right? comes in handy, right? So you have to be looking for how does that idea sit in our world and then sort of play with that idea a little.Brian (33:22)
Yeah. Yeah, this has been awesome. I really appreciate you making the time for this, Chris. And for those people listening, just a quick little shout out again. Agile 2025 is happening in Denver. It is the week of July 28 through August 1. So mark your calendars. And if you're interested in volunteering, if you're interested in being a reviewer or one of the Purple Shirt people who help out, Purple Shirt people help out at the actual conference making it kind of flow, right? They make sure it actually works. Yeah, yeah, the talks would not happen without them. Actually, nothing would happen without them. Yeah.Chris (33:54)
They're the lifeblood of the conference. Yes. Nothing would happen without them. Nothing would happen without them. Yeah, if you hit me up on LinkedIn, my name is just how it appears here on LinkedIn. Toss me your idea. Yes, will, and I said, I shot my mouth off about mentoring people through their talks. That means you too. I... hit me up. Like there's no excuse for you to not because the worst thing that happens is you get to come to the conference. So, yeah.Brian (34:29)
There we go. So mark your calendars, make sure that you reserve those dates, like I said, just block it off. Even if you don't know whether you can get the money to do it right now, block the dates off, and you're gonna be much more likely to actually attend if you do that, because then you'll see it coming up, and they go, yeah, that's coming up, I should do that. So Chris, thanks again for coming on, I appreciate you making the time, and thanks for joining us.Chris (34:56)
Yeah, thanks for having me, Brian. -
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In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner and Mike Cohn reveal the keys to achieving lasting success with Agile methodologies. From embracing experimentation and fostering a culture of continuous improvement to improving communication with consistent vocabulary, they offer practical, relatable insights for Agile practitioners at all levels.
OverviewBrian and Mike discuss the essential ingredients to Agile success, touching on the power of experimentation, the need for flexible coaching, and building a culture of continuous improvement.
The conversation dives deep into the importance of effective communication within teams, especially through user stories and consistent vocabulary, ensuring that Agile teams stay aligned. With personal anecdotes and actionable tips, this episode provides a roadmap for anyone looking to excel with Agile.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Mike Cohn
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#85: Effectively Managing Dependencies with Ken Rubin
Dependencies Are Killing Your Agile Flow at Scale by Ken Rubin
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Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Mike Cohn, CEO of Mountain Goat Software, is a passionate advocate for agile methodologies. Co-founder of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance, he thrives on helping companies succeed with Agile and witnessing its transformative impact on individuals' careers. Mike resides in Northern Idaho with his family, two Havanese dogs, and an impressive hot sauce collection.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today we have our favorite back with us, Mike Cohn is here. Welcome back, Mike.Mike (00:12)
Thanks, Brian. It's good to be here. Hi, everybody.Brian (00:15)
So happy when Mike can make time and be with us here on the show. Obviously Mike has a lot of wisdom and experience to share with us. So we wanted to bring him in because we were talking about doing an episode titled The Secret Staggile Success. I remember back in the day in the 80s, was a movie called The Secret to My Success. There was a really obscure movie. was Michael J. Fox. Yes, it was Michael J. Fox.Mike (00:37)
Michael J. Fox? Yeah, so it's not that obscure.Brian (00:41)
But I still hear that theme song in my head. when we talked about this title, that's what I thought about. But we wanted to talk about maybe some hidden things or things that aren't as immediately apparent to people that are crucial to being successful when you go agile or if your teams are working in an agile way. So let's just open things up, Mike. What's one of the things you had thought about when we talked about this?Mike (01:10)
think the number one secret to Agile success for me is being willing to experiment, to try new things. And if you think back, Agile itself, Scrum itself, began as experiments. They were probably teams going, know, this waterfall stuff we've been doing doesn't work. Let's try something different. Somebody else went, yeah, let's do something unusual, and let's try iterating or something. And so Agile itself began as experiments. And yet I see teams kind of get stuck in the mud and not willing to experiment. And I think that's to their detriment. We want to try things out. And silly, trivial examples, try different sprint links. Don't do a one -week sprint link and go, Agile doesn't work. It's not for us. No.Brian (01:52)
Yeah.Mike (01:59)
Maybe one week sprints are for you. Try a three week iteration or I try something different. And I think the the idea of experimentation is how we come up with new ideas. It's how we learn. It's how we get better. And so if you're going to succeed, you better have that that focus on experimentation.Brian (02:19)
Yeah, there's a surprising number of Scrum Masters I've encountered that I'll hear stories about how they run the same exact retrospective, every single retrospective. And I just think, what are you doing? How can you be trying to communicate this and teach the team that this whole thing is based on doing little small experiments and seeing what the result is, when you're not willing to try something new in just how you run a retrospective? So yeah, I completely agree. I think the key there for me is demonstrate it. If you want them to pick up on that, then do it yourself.Mike (02:56)
worked with a company years ago that fired their scrum master for basically for being too rigid. He had read something in Ken Schwaber's second book, and I don't want to pick on Ken's book, but he has this wacky sentence in there, and there are wacky sentences in my books, right? So somebody can go find those, and I mean, I get it. But anyway, Ken wrote that the daily scrum must be conducted left to right, starting with the person on the left of the scrum master. And it's like, what? Why is this mandatory? It must be left to right. Anyway, this guy read that in the book and insisted that the Daily Scrum be left to right, starting with the person on left of the Scrum Master. And his team knew that was insane, right? It's just nuts. And so they would mess with him. They would do things like he would call on the person to his left and the person on the right would start talking. he would point to the person on the left to start and they were standing in a semi -circle. They would move, right? So the person on the left was no longer on the left. And they were just messing with him over this. And he would just get mad and insisted it had to be left right because the book said so. And I don't know what it was with him, but he was just stuck on this. Ultimately ended up getting fired for it. Yeah, I heard this story because I ran into him at a conference and I saw him there and heBrian (04:14)
Wow.Mike (04:20)
looked a little down. It's like, you know, said his name and how are you doing? And he told me this story. And he said, you know, he'd gotten better since then. But, you know, don't get stuck on things. It's just not the it's just not a very agile mindset.Brian (04:34)
Yeah. I mean, if you can't, no matter what it is too, I think that if you can't point to what you hope to achieve from doing it that way, or what's the purpose behind us doing it that way, that's questionable part of your process to just say, I can't point to any reason why this, any good that this thing does going left to right person by person, but. Ken said we should do it. I guess, no, I mean, if there's no reason, if you don't see the benefit in it, why would we do that?Mike (05:07)
Knowing Ken, I think he was just trying to make it easier for people. Here's one less thing you got to think about. Start on your left and go around the room. But the way it's written and the way this guy interpreted it was like, shalt go left to right. It's like you've got to be willing to, I think, out the way that a known proven way start out that way. So yeah, go ahead and start left to right. It says so. I don't know any different. Might as well go this way.Brian (05:17)
YouMike (05:35)
But then experiment, learn, figure it out for yourselves. I I can't think of a successful company or team that I've worked with that ever quoted this Scrum Guide at me, right? You know, they may start out exactly the way a Scrum Guide says, or my favorite is Ken Rubin's Essential Scrum Book, start out in a known proven way, but then experiment, make agile your own. Don't throw away the important stuff, and that's why you have to start in a known proven way, but as you get experience, experiment, throw things out.Brian (05:46)
Yeah. I love that. Yeah, I think that's a really good one. So a good one to start us off. Thanks for that.Mike (06:12)
Yeah, that's, that's what I'm buying. Brian, can I ask you for one of your secrets to agile success?Brian (06:17)
Sure. Well, and this one I know it's going to be a little, know, boy, it'd be nice if I could do that, but I, you know, we can't do that. And I understand that this is not going to be for everyone, but one of the things that I think is important is to have some kind of a coaching presence. Now, just to be clear about this, this doesn't mean that you have to, you know, fight tooth and nail to hire some outside consultant or anything like that. I understand budgets are tight and there may not be an ability to do that. But I think if I, you know, if you're a scrum master, then I think that having the ability to continue your learning journey and grow is really important and, and having someone you can go and bounce things off of. So if you can't have someone, if you, if you can't have someone on staff or someone there that's an outside consultant that can help you and coach you through the early stages, I think that could be really, really helpful. And to me, it's an accelerator. I think that kind of thing is something that can really, yes, we will go through training. We understand kind of the basics, but then the coach is sort of like pouring gasoline on that fire to say, now we're going to go from zero to 60 and I'm going to help you get there because I know the pitfalls to look out for and I know how to get you there. But if you don't have that ability, I think it's important to maintain some of those mentorship relationships that you can find through different community groups.Mike (07:18)
MmBrian (07:44)
Maybe you'd find some kind of a weekly meetup or a monthly meetup or something that you could go to. Even if it's just a meetup of peers, right? There's not someone that you would say, that person's been in this for 10 years. No, we're all kind of in the same place. But if we can meet up in their network of my peers and let's talk about what's going on at your place, I'll talk about what's going on at my place, and we can share with each other and... help each other find the best solutions. Even that level, I think of coaching is really imperative and can really make an impact on how successful your implementation is.Mike (08:25)
I think you're right. I think back to the earliest days of Agile, and at least of Agile training. And I'm thinking back to when I was teaching public courses on Agile in 2003, 2004, 2000, actually, the early days. One of the big benefits of the class, beyond whatever learning somebody had in the class, one of the big benefits was just feeling like you weren't alone in the world. And I remember people describing a problem, whatever it was. Like, my bosses aren't on board with this. and somebody would describe a problem and then somebody else in the class would just merely sympathize. Right. Yeah, mine too. I'm struggling with that too. That was like one level of support that was awesome. It was even better if there was somebody in the class who said something like, yeah, we had that problem and here's what we did. Right. But these were not people who were any smarter than each other. It wasn't like the person who'd worked through the problem was that much smarter. They probably just had a six month head start and Having that ability to go into a class and hear that you weren't alone and that your problems were not that unique was extremely valuable for people even way back then when there were not a lot of people doing this.Brian (09:32)
Yeah, and I've said this before, and I probably said this to you, Mike, but one of the things I think people love the most when they come to the advanced classes that we offer is really being able to get sympathy from others, the camaraderie of talking to somebody else and saying, yeah, I've gone through that. It's not, I tell people at beginning of the class, it'sMike (09:48)
Mm -hmm.Brian (09:59)
likely not going to be a teaching point that sticks with you as much as it's going to be hearing from your peers and actually getting to learn from each other that's going to stick with you as much through those classes. to me, I think that's one of the reasons why those classes are so much fun is because I learned from the people who come to them.Mike (10:20)
absolutely, absolutely. Some of what you're describing is why we set up our Agile mentors community years ago. Agile mentors community, not just the podcast, is a community we have where people who take one of our courses get a free membership. I hired a consultant to kind of give me advice on some business stuff years ago. he used the try. And I asked him, hey, we're thinking about starting this community. What do you think? I don't remember if he said do it or don't, but I do remember a term he used. He called it a continuity program. And it was a way to continue a relationship with people who taken our courses. And like I said, we give it away free to people who take classes because we know that a class isn't enough to get people successful, but it's a start. It gets people over some hurdles. It gives them the foundations of the education they need. But they're going to have ongoing questions. And our community has been wonderful because we have so many good people in there who helped each other out. And again, they're often somebody who's just six months ahead in their journey, helping somebody who's right behind them or, you know, there's somebody just in a similar industry and can sympathize or give advice on how they worked through a problem.Brian (11:29)
Yeah, that's awesome. So we talked about experimentation, we talked about coaching. Mike, what was another one that was on your list?Mike (11:36)
One for me is to focus more on practices than frameworks. The frameworks get all the attention. Should we do Scrum or should we do Kanban? Should we do extreme programming, going back a little bit more when that was extremely popular, still around, but not as popular? Should we do safe? And so people focus on their frameworks because they're these big, visible things. And I think what we want to do more is pick the right practices for us. Now, that's not to diminish frameworks. I think the frameworks are good. They're a good starting point. But I've said for years, if I have a team and they start with Scrum or if they start with Kanban, if they're doing the good old inspect and adapt thing, they're going to end up in the same place. They're going to invent the right Agile for them. And very likely, that's going to be some elements of Scrum, some elements of Kanban, perhaps some elements of Safe if it's big. I don't think it matters all that much where you start. I think it's worthy of some consideration. But if you're inspecting and adapting, you're going to end up in the same place. And that means that Agile needs to be thought of more as a set of practices rather than we do Scrum or we do Kanban.Brian (12:49)
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And, and, you know, we've talked about the kind of that concept before of, you know, trying to fit the right practices in place. I know when even on this podcast, when we talked about scaling and then couple of those episodes, we talked about how, you know, it may be better for you to, to, find the unique collection of practices that fits your situation. because, know, a lot of these frameworks, they're designed to handle everything. They're designed to handle any possible scenario and.Mike (13:14)
Mm -hmm.Brian (13:18)
You're not going to encounter every possible scenario. You're going to encounter the ones that are only particular to you. Yeah.Mike (13:24)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I've thought that there's I don't want to do this. I've never taken the time to really run this as an initiative. But I felt like there are a core set of practices that kind of everybody should do be iterative, right? know, inspect and adapt, right? Those type of things. But then there's a set of practices that are good for startups, let's say there's another set of practices that are good for people in the banking industry. Right. And that everybody in the banking industry should be doing a certain set of practices, and those will differ a little bit than perhaps every company in the game industry. And so there's these set of practices out there that can be grouped, but they do also need to be kind of tailored and hand -chosen for your particular organization.Brian (14:11)
Yeah, yeah, I like that kind of the idea like a template, right? I mean, like when you use the template on a software program, that's a starting place, but you're expected to kind of customize it a little bit to your specific needs. Yeah, I like that.Mike (14:25)
Yeah, wouldn't it be great if you're a startup and somebody said, here are the 20 practices you really got to do if you're to be successful as a startup. Here are the 10 you should think about, and then the rest, see if you like them. Same thing, bank. the bank, might have 30 practices you start with. Ivar Jakobson, who's the inventor of use cases, part of the unified method back with Bucin Rumba. He's had an initiative going on the last handful of years where he talks about method prisons and that the practices are all kind of locked up in these methodology prisons like Scrum and Kanban and everything else. And he talks about like free the practices, right? Let the practices loose of these method prisons and let people just more readily select the set of practices that are best for them.Brian (15:15)
Love it. Yeah, I love it. That's a great concept.Mike (15:17)
Yeah, I think it's a great, it's a great approach. It's got some traction, but it's something that more people need to hear and do.Brian (15:22)
Yeah, I think that there's also maybe some stuff mixed in there with what you were saying that I've heard from the heart of Agile people. There's a lot of good stuff that's overlapped there as well. So that's awesome.Mike (15:32)
Absolutely. What's another secret you can reveal Brian?Brian (15:37)
Sure. Now, this is a big one, but what I would say is maybe moving in a different direction, the idea of how important the culture is and just setting the right culture even more so than trying to get things like time boxes correct. I was talking with a friend of mine at a conference recently and one of the things we kind of discussed was that whole inspect and adapt process, how important that just getting that ingrained into the DNA of what the team does. And Mike, like you said earlier, if they have that inspect and adapt built into who they are, then the practices come. The practices will actually kind of coincide with those because they'll find the right things to do. Like you said, they'll end up at the same place, right? They'll end up at the things that really are important to them. But I've seen lots of places where they go straight to the rule book and want to implement all the rules as quickly and possibly as they can. If the teams don't understand, when something goes wrong, when something does not happen the way that we thought it should, then that's a target to inspect. and dig in and find out why it happened that way, and then find a new way of doing it. I've told the story in classes before that I've encountered multiple situations, scenarios where I've worked with teams where they'll be doing something that they've identified as a problem. They've said, hey, yeah, this is wrong, this doesn't work. well, that's what I'm saying.Mike (17:26)
Why are they doing it then?Brian (17:32)
They'll identify something and say, yeah, that's not good. We need to do something else. But then they'll stop and say, all right, so let's really, we want to find the right thing to do to replace that with. So let's take the next two months and really investigate, find, and then we'll come back and we'll change in two months over this new thing. And my advice to them is always, so you're gonna just intentionally do the wrong thing for two months? Right.Mike (17:59)
for two more months.Brian (18:01)
You know, like you should try one of the other possibilities because you could get lucky and that could be the first thing you try. You know, and oftentimes it is something that is better because your gut instinct is usually pretty good about that kind of stuff. So yeah, try it. Something's not going well, all right? Then we're not doing that again, right? We're gonna try something new, whatever that is, and we're gonna try something new and then we'll do the same thing at the end of the next sprint.Mike (18:27)
Mm -hmm. Yep. One of my favorite comedians, this guy named Bob Newhart died early, he was earlier this year. And he has this one comedy routine that he does where he's a psychiatrist and somebody walks into his office and she describes some problem he has. And he's like, okay, I'm going to give you the advice. It boils down to two words. And she goes like, should I take notes? Should I write the two words down? It's like, nope, you'll remember them. And he just looks her really like stern in the eye and says, stop it.Brian (18:54)
you YouMike (18:59)
She has a phone question. He's like, just stop it, right? Whatever you're doing, just stop it. And which is like just hilarious, right? Imagining, you know, some psychiatrist or therapist giving the advice of just stop doing whatever it is you're doing. But it's so reminiscent of what I've seen with agile teams, right? And with what you're describing here, you know, we're doing the wrong thing. We need to change, but we're going to stall looking for the perfect answer instead of just stopping and figuring out something, right? Just try something different.Brian (19:28)
Yeah. And if our culture is a culture of always inspecting and adapting, then like you said, we'll end up at the right place because when something's wrong, we'll change it. And we won't just sit on something that we, I don't know how many times I've seen the organizations where you talk to people and take them out for a beer and they'll say, well, here's the real problems. everyone knows what the problems are. So why not fix it? Why not change it?Mike (19:41)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. It's hard. It's hard in a lot of organizations. You and I both do sessions where we'll talk to executives, right? And to me, it's a really fun, like 90 minute training session that we have because the way we deliberately set that up was to talk about the benefits of agile. So we get people kind of interested, right? you know, those benefits. But then we tell them why it's going to be hard and what they're as executives, what was leaders, what they're going to have to change. And what I find is when we do that, if the leader starts arguing with me, because I tell them, look, here's going be hard. You're going to have to change this. You're going have to stop doing this. If they start arguing with me, we'll change that behavior if we get those benefits, then we know we've got them hooked and they want to be agile. But if I say agile's great, here are hard things you're going to have to change personally. And they're like, yeah, that'd be hard. We probably wouldn't make those changes. I don't want to go anywhere near working with that company. They're not going to succeed. They don't have a culture that's going to make those changes. And so I love doing those executive sessions because we hear it's just so instant, it's instant feedback on whether this company has a chance of being successful or not.Brian (21:06)
Love him. Is there another one on from your list,Mike (21:10)
One that I want to add is a little bit more about not just having one team be successful, but if you're working to get a set of teams, your department, your group, something like that. I think it's really important to have a consistent vocabulary across teams. Because we're talking about this idea of continuous improvement. And if your team and my team are using words differently, how do we share ideas back and forth? And that sharing of ideas is really important. if we don't have a consistent vocabulary, think it's hard to do. I worked with a team a couple years ago. I worked with this team, and I'm there for like two or three days. I think I'm there on the second day. And they've been using the words sprint and iteration interchangeably, just both words. And I'm sure you've encountered that. It's kind of normal. I think it kind of depends on if you grew up in the Scrum world, you call them sprints. If you grew up more generically agile, you call them iterations. They're using both words. And the second day I'm in a meeting and somebody says, well, yeah, that's how we do it in a sprint, but it's totally different when we're in an iteration. And I'm like, huh? What's the difference? And the guy had a really great answer. He said, a sprint is when we're working overtime and iteration is when we're going at a sustainable pace. That actually, there's a lot of logic to that. It's kind of a cool idea. I could see that.Brian (22:17)
Ha ha ha.Mike (22:37)
But I could tell by looking around the room that others were surprised as well. They'd been using the words interchangeably too. They didn't know there was this specific meaning that, I don't know, three Algel coaches had decided three years ago, this is how we use the words. But it wasn't part of, to your word, moment ago, culture. It wasn't part of their culture. And so some teams were calling them sprints, some teams were calling them iterations, and it was just creating a lot of confusion. when we found out that there were different meanings and different rules for whether you were in a sprint or iteration. So.Brian (23:08)
Yeah. It reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon I saw a while ago, or it's been several years now, it was about, were talking to their big dumb boss, right? And they were saying, yeah, we're in the middle of a project and we're about halfway through, but we need, you know, six more months to complete this. All right. What's the project you're working on? We're taking all of our website addresses and we are transforming them into URLs. Right. Yeah. It's yeah. Okay. Yeah. Obviously, the boss didn't know the difference, right?Mike (23:37)
That's a nice project, right? That's my assignment next month. Yeah, the vocabulary just creates confusion. like how Ken Rubin, I mentioned him earlier, the author of Essential Scrum, my favorite book on Scrum. You've had him as a guest before. I love how he writes his books. He starts out, I just start out, I just plunge in. just like, just start writing. And I have an outline, but I just start writing. Ken sits down for seriously months, I think it is.Brian (23:39)
Right. Right.Mike (24:07)
and defines a glossary, right? Here's how I'm gonna use certain words. then he, man, if he says a word means a certain thing, he uses it that way every single time. And he has a wonderful, agile glossary on his website, inolution .com. And so he's like defined every kind of agile word you could look for. He's got it defined there. But that's how he starts, right? So he defines all these words. And then if he writes a book and he...Brian (24:10)
Wow.Mike (24:33)
wants to use the term sprint, he knows exactly how he's going to use it. That's an easy one, but he will define all those words so they're clear up front. We do these working on a Scrum team classes for companies, which is a of a private whole team training class. And some of the feedback we get is that it really helped them get their vocabulary consistent. It allowed them to talk about ways to improve that were challenging until they had a common vocabulary. What is a Scrum master? What are the responsibilities of a Scrum Master? And that's not just defining the word sprint, but it's defining a more complex word and saying, what does it really mean? But if you don't have agreement on what a Scrum Master is or who is on the team or things like that, it's really hard to talk about that across a larger group. And so that, to me, is one of the secrets to Agile success is that consistent vocabulary.Brian (25:25)
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that class because one of the things that that that we do periodically when we are not here every time. One of things that we do when we have one of those classes is I'll meet with their with a company in advance and have a conversation about what is it that you really want to get out of this. And one of the most consistent things that I hear over and over again from companies that come to us is we want consistent vocabulary. We want a consistent language that people use across this so that When we say something, means the same thing across all our teams.Mike (25:58)
I think it's become more of an issue the last, I don't know, five, 10 years or whatever it is because we've got so many people that know Agile by now, right? But of course, they were trained by different people. They were trained in different ways. And so they'll be coming to it and using terms slightly differently. I'm going give a little example here. Velocity, right? Velocity can really mean two different things to people. Velocity can mean the amount of forward progress you made. in a sprint, right? How much forward progress did we get? Instead, velocity could mean capacity to do work. How much work did we get done in the last sprint? And forward progress, capacity to do work are slightly different things, right? And if we don't have agreement on that term, we're going to get into those fights about, bugs count towards velocity, right? Well, if you're using velocity to mean capacity to do work, yeah, bugs should count. If you're using velocity to mean forward progress, no. Bugs shouldn't count. And defining velocity, having that conversation with the team, once you get that figured out, a whole set of problems go away. All those discussions about what gets points, they all go away instantly. But most teams don't think to have that conversation. And they will have some team members using velocity one way, others another way. Important to get that defined. It's not hard, but it's important to get that consistency. Brian, do you have another secret, or have we revealed all the secrets?Brian (27:24)
Yeah, I got one more. I got one more. you might, you know, if you're listening this far, you may notice that I have a sickness. I picked all C words. I don't know why, but that's just what I had to do. But my last C word was communicate. And really just the idea here was, you know, if you've ever gone to see a youth sports team, you know, a kid's soccer, kids basketball, whatever, right? If you ever go to see any of those things, one of the things that you will hear over and over screamed from the sideline from the coaches is, talk to each other. And it's a really important part of learning how to play that sport is, hey, I've got a call for the ball. I've got to let everyone else know, hey, here's what I need. And I think that's an important part of Scrum as well. Scrum is a team sport. It's a...Mike (28:02)
Haha.Brian (28:19)
You know, I apologize to people in classes and say, apologize for the sports analogy, but scrum is a sports analogy. You know, it comes from rugby and, it's, it's intentionally there as a team sports so that people can, can recognize and look at that and say, yeah, we're not, we're not playing golf, right? We're, we're, playing this as a team altogether at the same time with the same goal. And so you got to talk to each other. You got to have communication. I know, you know,Mike (28:24)
Yeah, itself,Brian (28:47)
One of the main ways that we try to help that here at Mountain Goat is when we talk about things like user stories. That's a main tool that the teams will use in their communication back and forth between the business and the developers. And I know in your Better User Stories course, we go in detail about that. And we also have this thing that we do occasionally called a story writing workshop that's kind of more coaching, where we'll sit down with people and kind ofMike (29:01)
Mm -hmm.Brian (29:17)
actually work through stories that they're writing to help them effectively communicate what they're trying to get across to the developers. Any communication takes practice. Any relationship, the communication grows and gets better the more you do it.Mike (29:36)
I think it's a good point about using user stories as an example, because one of the user story mistakes people make is to think that user stories exist to document an agreement. They don't. They exist to facilitate a conversation. And then the conversation is where we're going to figure out the specific needs and things like that. Yeah, maybe we could document that. It's got to be documented for various reasons. in many organizations, but the story itself is there's a reminder to have a conversation, right? It's not there to document an agreement, which is different from things that came before, like a use case or IEEE 830 document, right? Those did document agreements. User stories, they're there to make sure we talk.Brian (30:13)
Right, right. Those were in essence contracts, right? I mean, they were, you shall do this, the system shall and whatever. But yeah, user stories, not that. I love the way that you put that and I've said that for years as well. It's a placeholder for the conversation.Mike (30:28)
Well, let's add one more C then. didn't realize you were on a C theme here. So let's add one more secret to Agile success with a C. Crack the whip, right? Yell at your team, make them work harder, right? That's the secret to Agile success. I shouldn't say that because you'll pull that out as a little clip. crack the whip on your Agile team. That's how you get them successful, right?Brian (30:30)
Hahaha! Hahaha. I can guarantee you that's gonna be the cold open here for our show. It's Mike Cone saying, the secret is cracking the whip. I love it. Well.Mike (30:59)
So there was a great book by a guy named Carl Weigers on culture. is like creating a software engineering culture. And he has these little gray boxes in there. There are things not to do, right? Don't do this. But the boxes don't say don't do this, right? You have to have read like the intro to like, hey, don't do the things in the gray boxes. But he also has like anti -patterns in there. And I just remember being a, a, I think it was a director, VP at the company. And I showed it to one of the directors. I'm like, man, look at this. He's got guys highlighted all the things to do in the boxes here. And he was like, really? We should do that? Okay. And he was like, ready to go do these things. I was like, no, no, no, these are the things not to do. So you gotta be careful with things like crack the whip, right? It's, you know, a direct quote. It sounds pretty horrible. It's a joke. It's like, hopefully people understand. So.Brian (31:42)
That's hilarious. Yeah, yeah, I think everyone who's, you know, listening to this would understand that, right? Would understand that that's a joke, but and just in case.Mike (31:56)
As a guy who had the whip cracked on me as a young developer, I've always been a very much do not crack the whip. I'd rather I'm always after people's energy rather than their time. Right. It's kind of like we do four day work weeks, right? I'd rather have energy than time. And so, don't think cracking the whip is the way to succeed.Brian (32:15)
Yeah, I'm in the same boat. remember having a boss once that used to take me into the server room to yell at me because he could raise his voice in there and nobody would hear it. So, that was fun. Right, right. Well, this has been great, Mike. I really appreciate you making time for this. And I think everyone's going to get a of good tips out of this.Mike (32:23)
You I gotta remember that. Great, thanks for having me, Brian. Bye. -
In this episode, Brian Milner and Lance Dacy dive into the evolving world of software development, exploring how AI and automation are reshaping the landscape. They discuss the essential skills developers need in this new era, from embracing AI as a tool to mastering emotional intelligence and continuous learning.
OverviewBrian and Lance discuss the transformative impact AI and automation are having on the software industry. They explore the importance of adaptability, continuous learning, and cross-functional expertise, emphasizing how developers can thrive by embracing AI as a tool rather than a threat.
The conversation highlights the growing need for soft skills like emotional intelligence, curiosity, and collaborative leadership, and encourages developers to be open to new technologies and ways of working to stay competitive in the ever-evolving tech landscape.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Lance Dacy
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Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant's heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. How's your week going? I hope everyone's week is going well. Yeah, I'm switching things up. I'm not saying things exactly as I did the past 100 episodes. But welcome in. I hope you guys are having a great week. We are back with you here at the Agile Mentors Podcast. And I have one of our favorites back with us. I have one of our repeat visitors, Lance Dacys with us. Welcome back, Lance.Lance Dacy (00:28)
Thank you, Brian. Great to be here.Brian (00:30)
Always excited to have Lance with us because we always have such great conversations. And I wanted to have Lance back because we were talking about something recently that I think might be a good topic for us, might be on a lot of people's minds. And that is really kind of getting into this, what we've loosely termed the new age of development. With the new tools and new kind of the way that AI has worked its way into things and automation. How is this going to change and affect our teams? How is it going to change and affect how we develop? How is it going to change and affect the software industry? Lance, I know you had some thoughts on this. I'm going to just open the floor for you and let you take it from there.Lance Dacy (01:15)
That's great, Brian. My heart is always with organizations and developers, just trying to help people get better. You and I shared that vision that I remember a long time ago, even at DFW Scrum, one of our vision statements was just trying to help you to do better today than you did yesterday. It's like, what are the things that we can help teams and organizations? And something's real heavy on my mind lately as I work with these teams. You know, we have these notions out there like Agile is dead and, you know, where is Agile headed? And that's not really what this is about here because I think what's happening, as a lot of people have already said, it's just become more of the mainstream. Let's quit labeling it. You know, like Mike always tells us, object -oriented programming won. We don't really call it that anymore. Objects won and off we went. So I'm not really focused so much on the agile type scenario, but we do work in Scrum and agile teams and I see plenty of organizations that need help with that. And I still encounter to this day, developers who are lagging behind on their skills, right? We get so focused in the day -to -day feature development of our roadmap and things like that. that I just fear that developers aren't setting enough time aside or not challenging the organization to help them do that, to learn new skills. And I started compiling this list of like, if I go in and start teaching teams how to do scrum and how to manage your backlog and how to do that, it doesn't matter if they don't have the skills because everything we talk about in Agile is based on reducing waste and the more of these skills gaps that we have. then I find the more handoffs and the more bottlenecks and you know that's one of the eight waste, you know, of lean. And so that's what I wanted to talk about today. And I love the topic like the new age of development. I'm not going to sit here in a spouse to claim to say, here's all the skills you're going to need. But as you and I work, I think we can find plenty of examples to help guide some of these people, even Scrum Masters that are coaching teams or agile coaches, you know, just kind of put some thoughts in their mind about. know, these skills and I have about a short list of five that I've seen growing and then thought we'd go from there.Brian (03:30)
That sounds great. I want to dive into one that I know is on your list and it's one we kind of talked about here beforehand, but that is kind of how AI is affecting teams and the skills needed to be relevant with that. Now, I want to preface this by just saying my own personal opinion here on this. I'm not a doom and gloom person when it comes to AI. don't really see it much different than...Lance Dacy (03:34)
Thank So, I'll see you.Brian (03:59)
how automation really changed things like testing. When automation entered the testing realm, we didn't lose all our testers. We still needed testing. It just was a tool that enhanced the way we did testing. And I think AI is sort of going to be that for how we program. don't think we're at a place where, or I don't know, things could change quickly, obviously, but I don't feel like we're within 10 years. of it completely replacing developers. I think we're still going to need to have expertise. We're still going to need to have that guidance. Maybe 10 years is too big of a window. don't know. Maybe five years? I don't know.Lance Dacy (04:42)
These days you don't know. I just thought yesterday something changed. No, I'm just kidding.Brian (04:46)
Right, right. But I don't see that happening in the near term window for sure, just because it does a lot of things well, but it doesn't create. It can do things based on what's already been done, but it can't really then go through and create something entirely new itself. So I think you still need human beings for that component of it.Lance Dacy (05:04)
Done.Brian (05:15)
And I think for developers, learning how to integrate that kind of tool set to help you reduce your errors, define bugs, AI is great at looking over a huge chunk of your code and finding potential issues that you can go back and look at. That can save you enormous amounts of time. So I think there's skill involved there for for the developers segment that I think is embracing it rather than kind of holding it at arm's length and saying, that's the enemy, that's gonna somehow replace me. No, think of it like automation. It's not to replace you, it's just another tool to enhance and give you time to do other things.Lance Dacy (06:02)
I think, you know, you mentioned, don't think you and I either would be convicted of being doom and gloom people. think we're pretty well optimistic, right? It is scary. mean, obviously these things that are changing, you're like, my gosh, I have to, the main word I keep thinking about is adaptability. You know, I've got four kids. I keep telling them the best skill they can do is learn how to learn, you know, and I think you just used a perfect example in development about test automation.Brian (06:10)
Yeah.Lance Dacy (06:30)
We weren't scared of that. The testers might have been because they're like, well, what do I do now? Well, you got to go learn a new skill, right? But it freed us up. Can you imagine still doing, there's companies out there that still do manual testing, and they have to wait until all the changes are in until they do testing, and you will never compete. in a good hyper competitive marketplace doing things like this. So the test automation freed us up and actually what I used to tell my teams is it gives you more confidence, right? So developers can make more radical changes in the code without feeling like, know, you. You blow on something and then it breaks. know, y 'all ever seen code like that before? And it's like, I think it builds their confidence that test automation helped them to be more efficient and more productive because they can experiment more. think that's the goal is I write this code and I can quickly test to see what happens. And I start building my confidence and I can make more radical changes to the system instead of tiptoeing or walking on eggshells. So I'll date myself a little bit. Your example is probably much better than mine. But can you believe I don't use a Maps Go anymore? Y 'all remember the days of trying to navigate a street address with a Maps Go or a real map? I mean, I'm kind of at that bridge where we started having online maps, but you still had to know where you're going and print it out before you left and then take it in your car. You're still trying to read it as you're driving. I mean, who does that anymore, right? So I get in my car these days and now I don't even have to plug CarPlay or Android or whatever you have. It's wireless. You just get in and I'm now a co -pilot in my car. And we kind of laughed about that. think the last episode we're on and I can just drive around in it. I just do what it tells me to do. But it'll never replace my experience, my opinions, and my knowledge of the world. So I can.Brian (08:05)
Right.Lance Dacy (08:20)
you know, sidestep any suggestions it has, but it helps me be more productive. It knows where traffic is. I don't know that. You know, I know the city I live in and I know five different ways to get somewhere, but I don't know if there's a road closed or anything like that. So I feel like with developers, we need to start embracing some of these tools to help you be more confident, help you. mean, goal of agility, right, is to go faster, go faster than our competitors. So I feel like that's the premise of what we're trying to accomplish here is optimism with these tools. AI is just one of them. But we all have that in our day -to -day lives. test automation is good. I've got the driving. What's another one you got, Brian, that's made you more efficient with AI?Brian (09:01)
Well, just before we move on, one thing I wanted to kind of throw out there because I heard this example recently for AI and I thought this was a kind of a really good practical example. If you've been a developer for any amount of time or if you've ever developed in the past, you've unlikely encountered a situation where you've had to go into somebody else's code. And when you do that and you have to enter, especially if it's like a rat's nest of code that you can't really make it out, it's been there for a long time. and it's fragile, no one wants to delve into it. Well, I read this article from a guy who basically had used this legacy code base and entered into AI and had AI go through and comment and help them learn what the different sections of the code did and how it was structured and organized. And it just saved them an enormous amount of time in trying to understand what had come before. Because you know, Like I said, we've all entered those places where we've had to come in behind someone else that is no longer there and try to figure out where we get started, even if it's not code, right? Even if it's something else, but we've all had to come behind someone else. And if we can take a folder full of documents, feed it into AI and then say, help me understand blah, blah, blah. Yeah, summarize this. Help me understand where would I go for this? That's just an enormous time saver. And that's what I think is really great about it isLance Dacy (10:17)
you summarize this.Brian (10:27)
So as far as skills are concerned, think prompt engineering is a good one. think coding, interacting with code with an AI agent so that you can create your own AI agents so that you can programmatically call that information. If you're a coder and you can do that, man, to me it's like it just exploded. And now the possibilities are endless of what you can do with that kind of stuff.Lance Dacy (10:57)
just dated myself with Cliff Notes too, right? Just think of it like on the fly Cliff Notes. And I heard Alastair Coburn, one of the thought leaders in our industry, been around for a very long time trying to help humans and machines interact better. And he kind of summarized really well about what it's doing in his life is saving him keystrokes.Brian (11:03)
Right!Lance Dacy (11:19)
And that's kind of like what I wanted to focus on with developers. Can you imagine if you got to spend more time being creative and less time writing on a keyboard to the computer, like you just talk to it. I'm getting to the point now, I used to text all the time and I used to laugh at people that hold the phone up to their voice and they talk into it. I fat finger things and misspelled things so much, all I do is just talk into it anymore. So I feel like coding, that's what it's, you're not even going to tell it the code to write. You're going to have to be... more problem solving design engineer, you less code writing, more problem solving and understanding the domain in which you're trying to automate and algorithm design and ethical considerations that go along with that. But the computer won't be able to do that, but it'll save you keystrokes. It'll save you time. And I think Alistair summed that up pretty good that way.Brian (12:07)
Yeah, it's architecture, right? We have to be better architects at what it is we're trying to develop. that way we can give the rough architecture and let AI do the dirty work of the small details to fill in.Lance Dacy (12:21)
Well, you mentioned something too about boundaries, right? So AI has to operate within boundaries of what you feed it to learn off of. It's very, I'm not going to say never always really, that's a hard thing to say these days, but it's going to be very surprising if AI can just generate new ideas. It'll probably generate new ideas, but from what? I was working with a client yesterday that comes from more of the manufacturing world and he's really struggling with leadership agility. Like how do I lead and build a culture in a world for people who do the kind of work that we normally focus on with software engineering and development? He said he's a mechanical engineer and I kept using the word knowledge work, right? So the people who do our kind of work, the reason it's so complex, risky, uncertain, unpredictable and all those things is because it's kind of like knowledge and critical thinking and creative work. And he goes, but how is that different? I'm a mechanical engineer. How does that differ from software engineer? And I said, you know, it's a really good point. It's nothing about who's smarter than who, right? So I'm not trying to put anybody down on that. But in the world of mechanical engineering, you are bound by physics. are like you work in the space industry. Yeah, you're doing some cool things and you got to come up with new ways of doing things, but you still have to operate with. physics and astrophysics within those boundaries that we know about with space. But in software, and I sit down and start writing something, there's no boundaries. Like I can use any technology I want, can come up with any, I'm limited by my own skills and abilities. So why not let AI go help me get ideas? I'm not saying you got to write it all for you, because hey, I told one of the AI tools to write me an e -commerce site in Ruby on Rails. and it gave me all the scaffolding and if I would have taken that and start putting it in, then I can start elaborate. But how much time does that save me? How am gonna construct the file? So it kind of handles that architecture, but then I gotta put my critical thinking on it. I just feel like it's gonna make us, if we embrace it correctly, it's just gonna make us more efficient in that way.Brian (14:22)
I agree. So what was one of the other skills that you had down that you thought of as being a new era kind of skill?Lance Dacy (14:29)
So I'll just go through the four left real quick. I was thinking about cross -functional expertise and we can dive into some of those a little bit. Most Scrum teams we say, hey, you got to have cross -functional teams. And that doesn't mean everybody knows everything. It just means we have all the skills on the team to bring something usable by the end of the iteration. But I feel like cross -functional these days is no longer about coding. Like I know a front -end developer, back -end developer, database person, tester, UI, UX, architecture. These are more like understanding what we call now DevOps, cloud infrastructure, hardware, software integration, particularly in fields like, I work with some defense people, some aerospace engineering, writing code is like bare minimum anymore. So if you can do that, celebrate that, but you've got to move beyond that and start understanding these machines hardware, which leads me to my next one, which is continuous learning and adaptability. because the rate of change in software frameworks and tools we just talked about has accelerated. And if we're not keeping up with that and learning from that, you're gonna be left behind. So be agile in that regard. The last two I had on my list, one I'm just gonna brand it as cybersecurity.Brian (15:47)
Yeah.Lance Dacy (15:47)
cryptography, like I got a, went to school and for data science, you know, got my master's degree when just after COVID started, I had no idea what I was thinking, but it actually was pretty good because it was all online anyway. But I had to take a lot of cryptography classes way over my head, but at least I understand the terminology and the nomenclature, but that's going to be the key. is, and I've read somewhere, I can't remember the article, but there's like a shortage of 79 ,000 jobs in cryptography. So if you're looking and you're scared for the future, go start learning cryptography and security because these, you know, specifically zero trust architecture, these things that a lot of blockchains have been pioneering in the last couple of years, we're going to have to start locking these things down because every time we find a better way to do security, a hacker undoes that. And this was the cat and mouse game forever and ever. I don't think that will go away. So cybersecurity and more like risk management, you need to understand coding practices for that, as well as how the hardware, the protocols, how do these things talk to one another? And then the last one I just branded is more like... collaborative leadership and communication. need a stronger, you know, used to we would think of software coders sitting in a dark basement, just leave them alone and let them code. And I think we're getting to the direct opposite of that. They need to be leaders out talking to the people who need these systems, going back to that cross -functional expertise. you need to do better communication to the non -technical people so you understand what you're trying to accomplish and automate for those people in the world of cybersecurity and how software tools are changing. People get tired of the buzzwords, right? The technology jargon. So you're going to have to learn how to do that. And I think data scientists are going to be, they're kind of the first group that I've seen this happen. Like when we talk about data science and analytics and AI and Scrum, We've done a couple of podcasts on that. The issue is not just, I'm going to demonstrate what I've shown you, but now I'm going to partner with you and say what I think we should do next. Like I can model a data system ad infinitum, but my theory is I think I've done the best we can do. You can spend two more million dollars and we'll get this much or spend a thousand dollars. do this. And you have to partner with them on that. So those are kind of the five here. You mentioned the first one. So AI and automation, integration, things like that, cross -functional expertise. continuous learning and adaptability, the cryptography, cybersecurity realm, whatever you want to call it, and then collaborative, more collaborative leadership and communication. So those were the five gaps that I think if developers are scared and want to shore up their skills, those are kind of the five that I'm telling my teams to go look for.Brian (18:38)
That's a great list. I throw a couple, I don't have a full list like you brought, but there's a couple of things that just popped in my head that I would throw into that list as well. One is what I'm just going to call teaming. Because I think there's a need, there's a real need in the marketplace today of people understanding how to do work in a team. Because regardless of what the work is, regardless of what the industry is or theLance Dacy (18:51)
Yeah.Brian (19:07)
backdrop is, you know, most, most jobs, you work together with a group of people to accomplish something in some way, shape or form. That's part of the reasons why shows like The Office or movies like Office Space are so funny is because it's so bad in so many places that people don't really, we laugh at it because we all painfully are aware of how bad it is. Right? Right.Lance Dacy (19:35)
It's real. We get it the mark.Brian (19:38)
So being able to understand how a group of people actually do work together well to accomplish something. And I'm not talking about hokey kind of motivational, hey everybody, let's make sure we put on our happy faces today. Right, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about just, we all go, know, the way I explained it in classes, do we think of teaming as sort of the way you would do golf on a team? where everybody goes and shoots their own 18 holes and then we total up the score? Or do you think of teaming more like it would be in football or basketball or soccer or something like that where everyone's on the field at the same time, we all have the same goal, we're all moving towards the same goal and we do whatever is needed to accomplish that goal. We have to work together. If you go to any youth sport in the world that's a team, what's the one thing that you'll hear people say, from a sideline over and over the coaches say to the team, you got to talk to each other. Right, communicate, talk to each other, call for the ball, right? And that's such an essential teaming kind of component of that, that I think that's one of the big things there is just being able to understand how to team.Lance Dacy (20:37)
Communicate, yeah. Well, and if you don't know what you're supposed to do, ask somebody. So that's the, you know, I'm not going into psychological safety, but how many people feel safe in an organization going, I don't know how to do this because then you're like, my gosh, if I don't know how to do it, I'll get fired. I lose my job. do this. so cultures have to change as well. I don't have that on my list because this was more specific to contributing it as a team. But I think that's a really important call out. know, professional sports get a bad rap when we use analogies. I love them. because I love sports and I know some people don't play sports and I get that, but you at least have seen them. But that's a great example of five people, 11 people, eight people, whoever it is on the field together with one goal. How important is that? And how often do organizations do a good job at centering people around a one goal? Terrible. We do a terrible job at that. But that's out of the, developers, when I say collaborative leadership, they need to start pushing on those things. So that's, I guess we could call those soft skills. What would you call those, Brian?Brian (21:53)
Well, actually that was gonna be my next thing was kind of more of these soft skills that I know a lot of people really hate that term and you can use whatever term you wanna. Right, I mean, that's one of them, right? But I mean, just being able to navigate conflict on a team.Lance Dacy (22:01)
emotional intelligence. I've heard that. Yeah, fill in gaps when you don't have a skill. Go learn it. Solve, work the problem. You know, remember Apollo 13 is like one of my favorite movies. It was a really well done one. And Ed Harris is a great example in that, as he plays Gene Crantz, know, as Apollo 13 was having its issues.Brian (22:17)
Yeah.Lance Dacy (22:27)
and work the problem people, they don't know what they're doing. They're all smart people getting together, but they need something. They have to talk and collaborate. So I think that's a huge one. how do you learn to do that? You gotta go do it. You can't read a book and say, how do I get more collaborative? You gotta have, I call it attitude, aptitude, and drive. If you don't have the right attitude or tone when you work with people, They're going to shy away from you and not tell you everything you think. So you want to be approachable. You want to be, hey, bring me any problem you have. Let's talk about it. Like you want to be, that's what I call the right attitude to succeed. Aptitude obviously is your ability to learn something new and get up to speed. And then the drive to succeed. How many people have you worked with where they just do the bare minimum getting by just collecting their paycheck, you know? developers face that, right? So if you're one of those people, if you really want to shore up your skill, go figure out how to change your attitude or maybe you're in the wrong business. But how would you, you know, that's a good one to think about. How would you help fine tune those as a person? What could you go do to shore up your attitude, aptitude and drive? I'll put you on the spot, Brian. I'm sorry. you've done a lot of good talks recently on the neurodivergent and I know you'veBrian (23:38)
What?Lance Dacy (23:44)
you know, the research that you've done on that, that's more of what I'm talking about here is finding your place in the world of every, you know, bring your gift and talent in whatever state it is, but how could you train yourself to be more approachable and have a better drive? What do you think?Brian (23:59)
Yeah, well, so my biggest advice there is, I'll quote Ted Lasso who's quoting someone else, but right, be curious, not judgmental, right? That old phrase, which is not his, I forget where it comes from, I think it was, I don't wanna get it wrong. Right, right.Lance Dacy (24:10)
We all knew something from Ted Lasso, right? You'll put it in the notes, I guess, later.Brian (24:27)
But that phrase I think should be kind of a hallmark for how we approach things is with curiosity. Like why is it this way? Why is it working this way? And what's behind that rather than that's wrong or that's bad or that's whatever. Right, right. You know, someone does things a different way. Well, that's curious. I wonder why they do that that way. Is that the best way to do things? Let's discuss it. Let's analyze it.Lance Dacy (24:42)
Or what are you making?Brian (24:56)
I just want to briefly say too, when you mentioned the sports analogies things and how we get in trouble sometimes for using sports analogies, I say this in my classes, at its core, I can't really completely get away from sports analogies because Scrum is a sports analogy.Lance Dacy (25:17)
In 1986, they used a professional example, team example, of how products were succeeding in 86. Sony, know, Honda, Canon, all of them, and that's what spawned that article for it, right?Brian (25:23)
Right. And that article says, you know, the relay race approach to doing things is not the right way. That's a sports analogy, right? It's talking about relay races and handing the baton off between one runner and the other runner. And, you know, that's a sports analogy. And think in teaming, there's an inherent kind of, all right, we don't have to get into all the rules and regulations of the different sports. You don't have to follow them. But I think we can, like you said, I think we can all understand. that when you have a team on the field at the same time, there's a big difference between that and, like I said, golf, where I'm just gonna go shoot my 18 holes, right? But what somebody else is doing doesn't affect me, right? I mean, it affects me at the end of the day with the score, but it doesn't affect, if I'm on the fifth hole, I don't really need to even know what anybody else is doing because I'm just, I'm shooting the best 18 holes I can shoot, right?Lance Dacy (26:08)
Do the best I can in my one skill. Yeah. And you do have a shared goal, right? We're trying to get the best score, but you're more limited. You can't help other people. Like what is the, it's the attitude I really think, I wish I had a better word for it, but when you walk out on the field, you either are there to do whatever you can to succeed within your capacity and have an attitude of, let's pick each other up. Everybody's going to have good and bad days. We know that. So somebody's going to show up on the team and be like, man, I'm sick or. I'm moving and I'm scattered all over the place and I'm going to be a little flighty this week. People pick each other up. Like, how do we learn to do that, Brian? How do we, how do we, how can we teach people, especially developers to contribute on their teams in that way? It's not about your skills. It's about your attitude, your aptitude and drive.Brian (27:12)
Yeah, and I think what's at the core of that for a lot of teams and I had several conversations with the different agile conferences I went to this year with people about this. There's this cultural aspect that is so much more important than any of the details that we get into as far as meeting length and who attends and all that. It's just at its core, do you inspect and adapt? Right? Do you actually take time when you...Lance Dacy (27:21)
Yep.Brian (27:42)
And it sounds so simple, right? But how many times have you been involved with something at work where everyone knows it's the wrong way to do it, right? Everyone knows that's a terrible thing that's happening in our work. And we all can just kind of shrug our shoulders and say, well, I guess that's the way it has to be. Why? Why don't we inspect and say, why are we doing it that way? Is there another way we could do things? And then we try something different.Lance Dacy (28:07)
Well, and pull it up because the other problem is the hierarchy of a traditional management driven organization is do I have the courage, you know, one of the scrum values courage to raise that flag and stand up for what's right or our fear of losing my job. And I'm going to encourage you developers out there. If you really want to do a great job, you're a great developer and you're not just trying to get by. I would challenge you like I had to learn a long time ago and say, if I do those things and I get fired, I don't want to work at that organization anyway. But that takes a lot more courage because you got a family and you got all this stuff. But you might have your answer if you start raising the flag. don't be an ass about it. Be an attitude, aptitude, and drive. But that's why I said number three on my list here was continuous learning and adaptability. You have to learn that.Brian (28:54)
Yeah. Yeah. And I'll give you kind of a practical example here. So if you're working on a team and let's say that you need to get approval to do something, okay? If you have to get that approval and you know that approval is going to cause a delay because I've got to go get approval to do this. Well, be curious, ask the question, why do I need to have this approval? What's the purpose behind getting this approval? And if the answer, if there is a good answer, right? Well, we have to do that because compliance is really important with us and our safety or whatever. And if we don't do that, then we can have a catastrophic event. All right, there's a good reason to get approval. But if the reason comes back, well, because that's the way it always has been, we've always had to ask four layers of approval to get something done. Maybe then question it and say, hey, is there a... Can you help me understand the purpose of getting these four layers of approval? Is there really a need to get four layers of approval for this? What's the downside if I don't get approval for this? Is it catastrophic if I make a decision that maybe one of those four layers of approval disagrees with? Can it still be changed later? What I try to tell people is the speed you get from not having to go through those four layers of approval is far outweighing any kind of small mistake that that person might make. So that's kind of a practical example to say, be curious about it. Try to inspect and adapt. Why is it this way? Does it need to be this way? Is there a reason why we're doing it this way? And if there's not a good answer as to why, then I think it's not bad to question it.Lance Dacy (30:39)
Yeah. And they're never going to say, well, we like ossified and calcified processes. Every time we have a problem, we add more checks and balances to them. We never remove them. And that's one of the bane of the team's existences these days is, yeah, we got to mitigate risk and we can't be haphazard, but that's why you got to shore up your skills on this automation and get better at problem solving, less coding and more problem solving. And I tell you what, Brian, we were going to wrap up at the end of the podcast with what I wanted to talk about is don't be scared about AI because I don't think, like I said, I don't want to use the word never or always, but I really think it's going to be hard for AI to learn and take our place in number one, emotional intelligence and empathy. you know, AI can certainly analyze patterns of what it's been for, but truly understanding emotions, nuance, and the complexities of human relationships, which is what we're talking about here. Tone AI don't, I don't think it'll ever really learn how to do that or well. All right. on top of that, be the ethical side of it, right? The cultural things and ethical, know, you could put boundaries on it. can give it rules. But I think humans have a really good, well, most humans have a good sense of that. So I think emotional intelligence and empathy, I creative problem solving and artistry. I kind of use the word artistry for developers as well, like writing code and architecting code and the hardware infrastructure and all that that goes into that. AI can generate the beginning, like AI can generate art. It can generate music if you heard some of these things. I mean, they're good. I see the art, I see the music, but it's all based on patterns. It lacks the ability to produce truly original works that stem from like live experiences and personal insights. So celebrate that and bring that to your job. And I think alongside that is complex thinking, know, strategic thinking, leadership, critical thinking, things like that. know, AI is effective at optimizing and analyzing data and helps us, you know, like COBOL used to read and write data faster than any other system. Humans can't keep up with that. Our processor is the bottleneck. So use that, offload that to something else. But your leadership requires abstract thinking and foresight and the ability to motivate people is something that AI really is not going to be able to do. So start shifting your focus from, you know, the things of data and analyzing. let the computer summarize that and then you put your critical thinking on it. And I think that's where you're going to find a better place for yourself as developers. You're going to be and need to be technologists, but that blurring of the line between DevOps and coding is coming and coming and coming. So you have to start learning the hardware that's running all this stuff and make higher level decisions and less of the lower level. So celebrate your emotional intelligence. your empathy, build those skills up, never lose sight of critical problem solving and artistry that you bring to the table and complex thinking and adaptability. Those are the things that you need to focus on, I think, as developers and embrace this AI to make you more efficient. That's my opinion.Brian (33:59)
Yeah. And I'd say, you know, I just tag one last thing on that and it's to say, you know, with the new tools, with the new kind of AI stuff and things that come along, be curious, not judgmental. Ask about how I could use that to my advantage. You you mentioned the music kind of software. I think I know musicians who are using that kind of software to help them, but they see it more as a tool, not as, and now it'll do the job for me. just like I wouldn't go and put in into chat GBT, write me a whole book on something, right? Right, right. I'm not gonna go, if I'm a musician, I'm not gonna go say write a whole song and I'm gonna just take that lock, second barrel, here's everything that that put out and I'm not gonna alter their change. No, but I can get an idea, I can get a melody or a hook or something that I could use and then I can build upon that. So.Lance Dacy (34:34)
And then just spin that over. Yeah. And those are always patterns, like every music you hear somebody, it could sound like another song. So you're not really violating ethics there. Like I used AI one time, you my son's learning how to do guitar and I play piano, but I was like, give me eight chord structures that are sad. I mean, there's a certain number of combinations and you listen to them and you're like, okay, now I can add a song under that. But I didn't have to sit around and pick forever and ever like they did, you know, in the old days, which I celebrate that. I think that's great. But why not have eight of them there? And I say, I like that one or don't give me eight more, you know, give me eight more.Brian (35:13)
Sure. Right, right, right. So think of it more as a tool, right? Well, this has been great. think this is, hopefully we've given everyone a lot to think about here. And if there's one thing I kind of sum up, I hope that people look at it, maybe we're a little too Pollyanna about this, if that's a dated reference too, but naive. But I would say,Lance Dacy (35:32)
Yeah.Brian (35:57)
try to be more hopeful about these tools and say, can I use them to my advantage rather than how can I, how is it going to destroy it?Lance Dacy (36:04)
Attitude, aptitude and drive. Have a great attitude, right? Say, hey, I'm going to embrace this stuff and not so much doom and gloom. Go figure out how you can use it to your advantage and you're going to separate yourself from everybody else. Totally agree with that.Brian (36:07)
There we go. Love it. Well, Lance, thanks for coming on again. I appreciate you taking time.Lance Dacy (36:21)
My pleasure. As always, I look forward to our next one, Brian. Y 'all have a great week. -
What do lizards have to do with product growth? In this episode, Gojko Adzic reveals how unusual user behaviors can unlock massive opportunities for product innovation. Discover the four steps to mastering "Lizard Optimization" and learn how you can turn strange user actions into game-changing insights.
OverviewIn this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, host Brian Milner chats with Gojko Adzic about his new book, Lizard Optimization. Gojko explains the concept of finding product growth signals in strange user behaviors, sharing examples where unexpected user actions led to product breakthroughs.
He outlines a four-step process for optimizing products by learning, zeroing in, removing obstacles, and double-checking. Gojko also discusses helpful tools like session recorders and observability tools that can enhance product development by uncovering and addressing unique user behaviors.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Gojko Adzic
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50% OFF Lizard Optimization by Gojko Adzic
Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design by Kat Holmes
Trustworthy Online Experiments by Ron Kohavi
Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner®
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Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Gojko Adzic is an award-winning software consultant and author, specializing in agile and lean quality improvement, with expertise in impact mapping, agile testing, and behavior-driven development. A frequent speaker at global software conferences, Gojko is also a co-creator of MindMup and Narakeet, and has helped companies worldwide enhance their software delivery, from large financial institutions to innovative startups.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today, very special guest we have with us. have Mr. Goiko Atshich with us. I hope I said that correctly. Did I say it correctly? Close enough. Okay. Well, welcome in, Goiko. Glad to have you here.Gojko (00:15)
Close enough, close enough.Brian (00:21)
Very, very, very happy to have Goiko with us. If you're not familiar with Goiko's name, you probably are familiar with some of his work. One of the things I was telling him that we teach in our advanced product owner class every time is impact mapping, which is a tool that Goiko has written about and kind of come up with on his own as well.Gojko (00:21)
Thank you very much for inviting me.Brian (00:47)
But today we're having him on because he has a new book coming out called Lizard Optimization, Unlock Product Growth by Engaging Long Tail Users. And I really wanted to talk to him about that and help him explain, have him explain to us a little bit about this idea, this new concept that his new book is about. So, Goiko, let's talk about it. Lizard Optimization, in a nutshell, what do you mean by that? What is it?Gojko (01:14)
We're going to jump into that, but I just need to correct one of the things you said. I think it's very, very important. You said I came up with impact mapping and I didn't. I just wrote a popular book about that. And it's very important to credit people who actually came up with that. It's kind of the in -use design agency in Sweden. And I think, you know, they should get the credit for it. I literally just wrote a popular book.Brian (01:19)
Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha. Apologies for that incorrect. Thank you for making that correction. So lizard optimization.Gojko (01:44)
So, lizard optimization. Good. So, lizard optimization is an idea to find signals for product ideas and product development ideas in strange user behaviors. When you meet somebody who does something you completely do not understand, why on earth somebody would do something like that?Brian (02:03)
Okay.Gojko (02:11)
and it looks like it's not done by humans, it looks like it's done by somebody who follows their own lizard logic, using stuff like that as signals to improve our products. Not just for lizards, but for everybody. So the idea came from a very explosive growth phase for one of the products I'm working on, where it... had lots of people doing crazy things I could never figure out why they were doing it. For example, one of the things the tool does is it helps people create videos from PowerPoints. You put some kind of your voiceover in the speaker notes, the tool creates a video by using text to speech engines to create voiceover from the speaker notes, aligns everything and it's all kind of for you. People kept creating blank videos and paying me for this. I was thinking about why on earth would somebody be creating blank videos and it must be a bug and if it's a bug then they want their money back and they'll complain. So I chased up a few of these people and I tried to kind of understand what's going on because I originally thought we have a bug in the development pipeline for the videos. So... I started asking like, you know, I'm using some, I don't know, Google slides or, you know, keynote or whatever to produce PowerPoints. Maybe there's a bug how we read that. And the person, no, no, we, know, official Microsoft PowerPoint. They said, well, can you please open the PowerPoint you uploaded? Do you see anything on the slides when you open it? And the person, no, it's blank. Right? Okay, so it's blank for you as well. I said, yeah. So.Brian (03:48)
Yeah.Gojko (03:54)
What's going on? so what I've done is through UX interviews and iterating with users and research, we've made it very, very easy to do advanced configuration on text -to -speech. And it was so much easier than the alternative things that people were creating blank PowerPoints just to use the text -to -speech engines so they can then extract the audio track from it.Brian (03:54)
Yeah, why?Gojko (04:23)
and then use that and it was this whole mess of obstacles I was putting in front of people to get the good audio. It wasn't the original intention of the tool. It wasn't the original value, but people were getting unintended value from it. And then I ended up building just a very simple screen for people to upload the Word document instead of PowerPoints. And it was much faster for users to do that. A month later, there was many audio files being built as videos. Two months later, audio... production overtook video production. then at the moment, people are building many, many more audio files than video files on the platform. So it was an incredible growth because of this kind of crazy insight of what people were doing. kind of usually, at least kind of in the products I worked on before, when you have somebody abusing the product, product management fight against it. There's a wonderful story about this in... Founders at work a book by Jessica Livingston and she talks about this kind of group of super smart people in late 90s who Came up with a very very efficient Cryptography algorithm and a way to compute the cryptography so they can run it on low -power devices like Paul pilots Paul pilots were you know like mobile phones, but in late 90s and Then they had to figure out, how do we monetize this? Why would anybody want to do this? So they came up with the idea to do money transfer pumping, Palm pilots, you know, why not? And kind of the built a website. This was the late nineties as a way of just demoing this software to people who didn't have a Palm pilot device next to them. The idea was that you'd kind of see it on the website, learn about it, then maybe download the Palm pilot app and use it in anger. People kept just using the website, they're not downloading the Palm Pilot app. So the product management really wasn't happy. And they were trying to push people from the website to the Palm Pilot app. were trying to, they were fighting against people using this for money transfer on the web and even prohibiting them from using the logo and advertising it. They had this whole thing where nobody could explain why users were using the website because it was a demo thing. It was not finished. It was not sexy. It was just silly. And Jessica kind of talks to one of these people who insists that it was totally inexplicable. Nobody could understand it. But then a bit later, they realized that the website had one and half million users and that the Pongpilot app had 12 ,000 users. So they kind of decided, well, that's where the product is really. And that's like today, people know them as PayPal. They're one of the biggest payment processes in the world because kind of, you know, they realized this is where the product is going. And I think in many, many companies, peopleBrian (07:03)
Ha ha.Gojko (07:18)
stumble upon these things as happy accidents. And I think there's a lot more to it. We can deliberately optimize products by looking for unintended usage and not fighting it, just not fighting it. just understand this is what people are getting as value. And I think for me as a solo product founder and developer and product manager on it, One of the really interesting things is when you have somebody engaging with your product in an unexpected way, most of the difficult work for that user is already done. That person knows about you, they're on your website or they're using your product, the marketing and acquisition work is done. But something's preventing them from achieving their goals or they're achieving some value that you did not really know that they're going to achieve. you know, that's something the product can do to help them and remove these obstacles to success. So that's kind of what lizard optimization is making this process more systematic rather than relying on happy accidents. And by making it more systematic, then we can help product management not fight it and skip this whole phase of trying to fight against our users and claim that users are stupid or non -technical or... They don't understand the product, but they're trying to figure out, well, that's what the real goals are. And then following that.Brian (08:47)
That's awesome. So the pivot, right? The pivot from here's what we thought our problem was we were solving to now here's what we're actually solving and we should organize around this actual problem, right?Gojko (09:02)
or here's what we're going to solve additionally. This is the problem we've solved, but hey, there's this problem as well. And then the product can grow by solving multiple problems for people and solving related problems and solving it for different groups of people, for example. And that's the really interesting thing because I think if you have a product that's already doing something well for your users and a subset of them are misusing it in some way, then kind of...Brian (09:04)
Yeah.Gojko (09:30)
The product might already be optimized for the majority of users, but there might be a new market somewhere else. So there might be a different market where we can help kind of a different group of users and then the product can grow.Brian (09:43)
Yeah, I like to focus on the user. There's an exercise that we'll do in one of our product owner classes where we have a fake product that is a smart refrigerator. And one of the exercises we try to get them to brainstorm the different kinds of users that they might have for it. And one of the things that always comes out in that class is as they're going through and trying to describe the types of users, they inevitably hit to this crossroads where they start to decide Well, yes, we're thinking of this as a home product, something for people to use in their homes. But then the idea crosses their mind, well, what about commercial kitchens? What about people who might use this in another setting? And it's always an interesting conversation to say, well, now you've got a strategic choice to make, because you can target both. You can target one. You can say, we're ignoring the other and we're only going in this direction. So to me, I think that's kind of one of the interesting crossroad points is to say, how do I know when it's time to not just say, great, we have this other customer segment that we didn't know about, but actually we should start to pivot towards that customer segment and start to really target them.Gojko (11:03)
Yeah, think that's a fundamental question of product development, isn't it? Do you keep true to your vision even if it's not coming out or if something else is there that's kind more important than I think? For me, there's a couple of aspects to that. One is, laser focus is really important to launch a product. You can't launch a product by targeting... the whole market and targeting a niche type, figuring out, you know, user personas, figuring out like really, really, this is the product who we think the product, this is the group who we think the product is for and giving them a hundred percent of what they need is much better than giving 2 % to everybody because then the product is irrelevant. But then to grow the product, we need to kind of grow the user base as well. And I think one of the things that... is interesting to look at and this comes from a book called Lean Analytics. It's one of my kind of favorite product management books is to look at the frequency and urgency of usage. If you have a group that's kind of using your product, a subgroup that's using your product very frequently compared to everybody else, that might be kind of the place where you want to go. The more frequently, the more urgently people reach for your product when they have this problem. the more likely they are going to be a good market for it. with kind of another product that I've launched in 2013, we originally thought it's going to be a product for professional users. And we aimed at the professional users. And then we found that a subcategory that we didn't really expect, were kind of teachers and children in schools. we're using it a lot more frequently than professional users. And then we started simplifying the user interface significantly so that it can be used by children. And it's a very, very popular tool in schools now. We are not fighting against other professional tools. We were kind of really one of the first in the education market there. And it's still a very popular tool in the education market because we figured a subgroup that's using it very frequently.Brian (13:14)
Hmm. Yeah, that's awesome. How do you know when, you know, what kind of threshold do you look for to determine that, this is, because, you know, in your book, you're talking about, you know, behaviors that are not normal, right? People using your product in a way that you didn't anticipate. And what kind of threshold do you look for to that says, hey, it's worth investigating this? You know, I've got this percentage or this number of people who are using it in this strange way. At what point do you chase that down?Gojko (13:49)
I think it's wrong to look at the percentages there. I think it's wrong to look at the percentages because then you get into the game of trying to justify economically helping 0 .1 % of the users. And that's never going to happen because what I like about this is an idea from Microsoft's Inclusive Design and the work of Kat Holmes who wrote a book called Mismatch onBrian (13:52)
Okay.Gojko (14:17)
assistive technologies and inclusive design for disabled people. And she talks about how it's never ever ever going to be economically justified to optimize a product to help certain disabilities because there's just not enough of them. And there's a lovely example from Microsoft where, Microsoft Inclusive Design Handbook where they talk about three types of,Brian (14:34)
Yeah.Gojko (14:44)
disabilities, one are permanent. So you have like people without an arm or something like that. And I'm going to kind of throw some numbers out now, order of magnitude stuff. I have these details in the book and there's kind of the micro -inclusive design handbook. Let's say at the moment, the 16 ,000 people in the U .S. without one arm or with a disabled arm. And then you have these kind of situational disabilities where because of an occupation like you have a bartender who needs to carry something all the time or a worker who does it, one arm is not available and they only have one arm to work on and this temporary like a mother carrying a child or something like that. So the other two groups are order of magnitude 20 -30 million. We're not, by making the software work well with one hand, we're not helping 16 ,000 people, we are helping 50 million people. But you don't know that you're helping 50 million people if you're just thinking about like 16 ,000. I think they have this kind of, one of the key ideas of inclusive design is solve for one, kind of help, design for one, but solve for many. So we are actually helping many, many people there. So think when you figure out that somebody is doing something really strange with your product, you're not helping just that one person.Brian (15:45)
Right, right. Hmm.Gojko (16:13)
you're helping a whole class of your users by making the software better, removing the obstacles to success. this is where I, you know, going back to the PowerPoint thing I mentioned, once we started removing obstacles for people to build the audios quickly, lots of other people started using the product and people started using the product in a different way. And I think this is a lovely example of what Bruce Torazzini talks about is the complexity paradox because He's a famous UX designer and he talks about how once you give people a product, their behavior changes as a result of having the product. So the UX research we've done before there is a product or there is a feature is not completely relevant, but it's a changed context because he talks about people have a certain amount of time to do a task. And then when they have a tool to complete the task faster, they can take on a more complicated task or they can take on an additional task or do something else. I think removing obstacles to use a success is really important. Not because we're helping 0 .1 % of people who we don't understand, but because we can then improve the product for everybody. And I think that's kind of the magic of lizard optimization in a sense, where if we find these things where somebody's really getting stuck. but if we help them not get stuck, then other people will use the product in a much better way. And I think this is, know, the name lizard optimization comes from this article by Scott Alexander, who talks about the lizard man's constant in research. And the article talks about his experiences with a survey that combined some demographic and psychological data. So they were looking at where you live and what your nationality is and what gender you are and then how you respond to certain psychological questions. he said, like there's about 4 % of the answers they could not account for. And one person wrote American is gender. Several people listed Martian as nationality and things like that. some of these, he says some of these things will be people who didn't really understand the question. they were distracted, they were doing something else, or they understood the question but they filled in the wrong box because, know, the thick thumbs and small screens, or they were kind of malicious and just, you know, wanted to see what happens. when you kind of add these people together, they're not an insignificant group. kind of, he says 4%. And if... we can help these people, at least some of these people, and say reduce churn by 1%. That can compound growth. Reducing churn, keeping people around for longer is an incredible way to kind of unlock growth. going back to what we were talking about, some people might be getting stuck because they don't understand the instructions. Some people might be getting stuck because they're using the product in a way you didn't expect. And some people might just like not have the mental capacity to use it the way you expected them to be used. But if we can help these people along, then normal users can use it much, easier. And you mentioned a smart fridge. I still remember there was this one wonderful bug report we had for my other product, which is a collaboration tool. we had a bug report a while ago. that the software doesn't work when it's loaded on a fridge. And it's like, well, it was never intended to be loaded on a fridge. I have no idea how you loaded it on a fridge. It's a mind mapping diagramming tool. It's intended to be used on large screens. Where does a fridge come in? And then we started talking to this person. This was before the whole kind of COVID and work from home disaster. The user was a busy mother and she was kind of trying to collaborate with her colleagues while making breakfast. breakfast for kids and kind of running around the kitchen she wasn't able to kind of pay attention to the laptop or a phone but her fridge had a screen so she loaded the software on the fridge and was able to kind of pay attention to collaboration there and you know we of course didn't optimize the software to run on fridges that's ridiculous but we realized that some people will be using it without a keyboard and without a mouse and then we kind of restructured the toolbar, we made it so that you can use it on devices that don't have a keyboard and then the whole tablet thing exploded and now you get completely different users that don't have keyboards and things like that. I think that's where I think is looking at percentages is a losing game because then you start saying, but 0 .1 % of people use this. But yeah, I think lizard optimization is about using these signals to improve the products for everybody.Brian (21:30)
That's a great example. I love that example because you're absolutely right. You're not trying to necessarily solve that one problem because you don't anticipate there's going to be a lot of people who are going to want to run that software on a fridge. However, the takeaway you had from that of, we can do this for people who don't have a keyboard or a mouse. There's another way that they might operate this that could apply to lots of different devices and lots of different scenarios. Now we're talking about a much bigger audience. Now we're talking about opening this up to larger segments of the population. I love that. I think that's a great example. I know you talk about that there's kind of a process for this. Help us understand. You don't have to give away the whole candy story here from the book, but help us kind of understand in broad, terms what kind of process people follow to try to chase these things down.Gojko (22:26)
So there's like a four step process that's crystallized for me. And the book is kind of more as a, like a proposal or a process. It's something that works for me and I'm hoping that other people will try it out like that. So it might not necessarily stay like that in a few years if we talk again. And I've narrowed it down to four steps and kind of the four steps start with letters L, Z, R and D. Lizard. And it's kind of so learn how people are misusing your products, zero in on one area, on one behavior change you want to improve, then remove obstacles to use a success and then double check that what you've done actually created the impact you expected to make. I think kind of when we look at people who follow their own logic or people who follow some lizard logic you don't really understand, by definition they're doing something strange. your idea of helping them might not necessarily be effective or it might not go all the way or it might. So double checking at the end that people are actually now doing what you expect them to do or doing something better is really, really, really important. And then using signals from that to improve the kind of feedback loop is critical. I had this one case where people were getting stuck on a payment format entering tax details and The form was reasonably well explained. There was an example in the forum how to enter your tax ID and people were constantly getting stuck. A small percentage of people was getting stuck on it. However, I don't want to lose a small percentage of people that want to pay me on the payment form. So I thought, well, how about if I remove that field from there? I speed it up for everybody and then I can guide them later into entering the tax details to generate an invoice. I thought that was a brilliant idea. tested it with a few users. Everybody loved it, so I released it. And then a week later, I realized that, yes, I've sold it for the people that were getting confused, but I've ended up confusing a totally different group of people that expects the tax fields there. So the net effect was negative. then I went back to the original form. so there's lots of these things where people don't necessarily behave the way you think they will.Brian (24:38)
Hahaha.Gojko (24:48)
Ron Kohavi has a wonderful book about that called Trustworthy Online Experiments. And he has data from Slack, from Microsoft, from Booking .com and... The numbers are depressive. on one hand, the numbers range from 10 to 30, 40 % success rate for people's ideas. And if leading companies like that do things that don't pan out two thirds of the time, then we have to be honest building our products and say, well, maybe this idea is going to work out, maybe not.Brian (25:03)
Hahaha. Wow.Gojko (25:30)
the more experimental the population is, the more risky that is. think monitoring and capturing weird user behaviors, capturing errors helps you understand that people are getting stuck. as you said, you don't want to follow everybody. There's going to be a lot of noise there. We need to extract signals from the noise. That's what the second step is about, focusing on one specific thing we want to improve. Then, try to remove obstacles and then double -checking that we've actually removed them. That's the four steps. And there's like a shorter version of all the four steps. It's easier to remember. It's listen alert, zooming, rescue them, and then double check at the end. that's again, LZRD.Brian (26:13)
That's awesome. Yeah, I love the process and I love the kind of steps there. Are there tools that you recommend for this that are easier to try to determine these things or chase them down or are there tools that you find are more helpful?Gojko (26:32)
So there's lots of tools today for things like A -B testing and looking at experiments and things that are very helpful to do this scale. And it's kind of especially useful for the last step. In terms of kind of focusing and things like that, the five stages of growth from the linear analytics are a good tool. Impact mapping is a good tool. Kind of any focusing product management technique that says, well, these are the business goals we're working on now, or these are the kind of user goals we're working on now. out of, know, 50 lizards we found last week, these three lizards seem to be kind of in that area. And for the first step, spotting when people are getting stuck, there's a bunch of tools that are interesting, like session recorders for web products. There's one from Microsoft called Clarity that's free. There's another called Full Story that's quite expensive. There's a couple of open source one, one is packaged within Matomo analytics application. There's a bunch of these other things. Any kind of observability or monitoring tool is also very useful for this because we can spot when people are getting stuck. One of the things I found particularly helpful is logging all user errors. When a user does something to cause an error condition in a product, the product of course tells them like, know, an error happened. But then... logging it and analyzing that information in the back is really critical. for something like that, people sometimes use web analytics tools or any kind of product analytics. I think what's going to be interesting in the next couple of years, and I think if people start doing this more, is we'll see. more like these technical exception analytics tracking tools mixed with this because most of the product analytics are showing people what they expect to see, not what they don't expect to see. And I'll just give you an example of this way. was really helpful. So I've mentioned the screen where people can upload the Word documents. Occasionally people would select weird file types. So they'll select images, they'll select, I don't know, what else.Brian (28:31)
Yeah.Gojko (28:49)
Sometimes I guess that's a result of, know, a fat finger press or somebody not selecting the right thing. I have a not insignificant percentage of users every day that try to upload Android package files into a text -to -speech reader. Android package files and application files, I don't know what the right way is to read out an Android application. My best guess is people are doing that. as a, you know, these things where you drop a USB in front of an office and somebody kind of mistakenly plugs it in. So maybe they're hoping that I'll know the Android application on my phone just because they've uploaded it. I don't know, but a small percentage of users was trying to upload files that had SRT and VTT extensions, which are subtitle files. And they were not supported, butBrian (29:31)
Yeah.Gojko (29:45)
I kept getting information that people are uploading those types of files. And then I said, well, this is interesting because it's a text to speech system. People are uploading subtitle files, there's text in, so why don't I just ignore the timestamps and read the text? I can do that. And I started supporting that. And then some people started complaining that, well, the voice is reading it slower than the subtitles. I said, well, yes, because...Brian (30:11)
HaGojko (30:12)
You know, you're uploading subtitles that were read by an actor in a movie. This is a voice that's reading it at their speed. And then we started talking and it turns out that these people were doing it for corporate educational videos where they have a video in English, they need it in French, German, Spanish and all the else, but they don't want to kind of re -edit the video. They just want an alternate audio track. Okay, I mean, I have the timestamps, we can speed up or slow down the audio, it's not a big deal. And we've done that and this was one of the most profitable features ever. Like a very small percentage of the users need it, but those that need it produce hundreds of thousands of audio files because they translate the corporate training videos. And now, you know, we're getting into that numbers game. If I said, you know, there's like 0 .1 % of people are uploading subtitle files.Brian (30:58)
Yeah.Gojko (31:07)
then it doesn't matter. if we start thinking about, this is potentially interesting use case, it creates growth on its own because then people find you. And I think my product was the first that was actually doing synchronous subtitles. Competitors are doing it now as well. But it opened the massive, massive market for us. And people, you know, I got there by monitoring user errors, by, you know, the fact that somebody uploaded a file that had an unsupported extension. That was our insight.Brian (31:38)
Wow, that's really cool. That's a great story. This is fascinating stuff. And it makes me want to dive deeper into the book and read through it again. But I really appreciate you coming on and sharing this with us, Goiko. This is good stuff. Again, the book is called, Lizard Optimization, Unlock Product Growth by Engaging Long Tail Users. And if I'm right, we talked about this a little bit before. We're going to offer a discount to to the listeners,Gojko (32:07)
Yes, we will give you a listen as a 50 % discount on the ebook. the ebook is available from Lean Pub. If you get it from the discount URL that I'll give you, then you'll get a 50 % discount immediately.Brian (32:24)
Awesome. So we'll put that in our show notes. If you're interested in that, you can find the show notes. That's a great deal, 50 % off the book and it's good stuff. well, I just, I can't thank you enough. Thanks for making time and coming on and talking this through your book.Gojko (32:40)
Thank you, it was lovely to chat to you. -
Join Brian and Dr. Tess Thompson as they delve into the complexities of scaling Agile, highlighting the challenges of aligning leadership priorities, fostering transparency, and applying system-level thinking for successful organizational transformations.
OverviewIn this insightful episode, Dr. Tess Thompson tackles the pressing challenges organizations face when scaling Agile, with a focus on the critical role of leadership alignment. Drawing from her extensive experience, she explains how misaligned priorities at the leadership level can stall progress and waste resources.
Dr. Thompson emphasizes the importance of system-level thinking, transparency, and communication between teams and leaders to resolve misalignments and ensure success. She also shares her holistic approach, blending practices from various Agile frameworks to meet the specific needs of different organizations.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Dr. Tess Thompson
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Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Dr. Tess Thompson is a visionary leader in Agile transformations, with over three decades of experience reshaping industries from energy to biotech across the globe. As a professor at St. Mary's University, her dedication to fostering Agile leaders has empowered countless individuals to embrace adaptability and forge their own path to success.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a very special guest with me. I have Dr. Tess Thompson with me. Welcome in Dr. Thompson.Tess Thompson (00:13)
Hi, I'm glad to be here.Brian (00:16)
I'm so happy to have Dr. Thompson with us. And just for people who aren't familiar, let me make sure that I introduce her and give you the background a little bit. First of all, she's been in this business for almost 40 years now. She's been doing stuff in IT since the 80s. She is a principal consultant and RST fellow with Scrum Inc. Scrum .inc, I should say. She is a PST as well with scrum .org. So two different organizations from two different founders of Scrum. She has been a professor at St. Mary's University. So has that kind of educational background as well. And I was asking her beforehand if there's anything else I needed to say. And she said, well, make sure you say I've got nine grandchildren. That's kind of my claim to fame. I love that. So. Nine grandchildren, very happy for that. So that's who we're talking with. And we wanted to have Dr. Thompson because there's a lot of experience here that she brings to the table in the realm of scaling, obviously being connected so closely with those two organizations. So with all that out of the way, let's talk about scaling a little bit. And Dr. Thompson, what I want to start with is justTess Thompson (01:27)
I'mBrian (01:40)
When you work with organizations today that have scaling issues, what are organizations really struggling with? What's kind of the main issues that you see organizations have with scaling today?Tess Thompson (01:55)
I would say there's a lot of things, but I would say still the biggest problem is getting everybody to align on what the priority is. So at some point, like you get alignment with maybe people that are doing Scrum and they're the people that are above them, but then the people above them are out of alignment. like, for example, one of the clients I have right now brought some consultants in to work on a project.Brian (01:59)
Yeah, right.Tess Thompson (02:24)
And those consultants have been stuck now for four weeks. And where the alignment problem is, is actually up at the C -suite with this client. Because one of them says, nope, we were supposed to help. That was a priority in 2023. And the other one's like, no, this is a priority in 2024. And they're not helping each other. So in the meantime, this project is stuck for four weeks. And we're spending money on people that are sitting there doing nothing.Brian (02:50)
So just when you say alignment, give us kind of a flavor. when leaders are misaligned, what kind of things are they, are there different ideas about priority or different ideas about why they're doing this? What are they misaligned on? Okay.Tess Thompson (03:09)
Both, both, I would say both. The, you know, especially as the companies get bigger and bigger, we have a CEO who's got some priorities, but then all the C -suite under them have their own priorities and they're not always, and then they break down to the next level and these priorities start to get out of alignment because people start bringing in their own objectives and their own priorities and they often don't match what somebody else is doing. So part of it is the different incentives and just the organizations being so big, they have to get even these priorities aligned at different levels.Brian (03:49)
So this is kind of an amazing thing, I think, for people to latch onto here, because I hear a lot of people in just regular base level classes talk about how there's a disconnect between them and the leadership on how they're going to do Scrum and how this fits into the overall structure of the organization. just understand, Dr. Thompson here is talking about organizations that The leadership has stated, at least in some way, or form, we're in alignment with this. We want to do this. We want to have Scrum throughout our organization. But even in those situations, we're seeing these misalignments of just priorities and what are the drivers really for what they're trying to do. So I find that fascinating that talking to so many people who just wish that their leadership could get on board. with what it is they're trying to do, that even in those organizations where they do, quote unquote, get on board, there's still these kind of fundamental disconnects.Tess Thompson (04:51)
Yep, absolutely. In fact, I do very little work anymore on scrum specific. is many organizations, I mean, almost every organization I go into anymore has some shape or form of scrum going on or people with experience with it. Some people, you know, they're not, it's something that they're trying to do anyway, something agile. And they're... They're getting things done quicker. They're delivering with higher quality. They have better communication at that level. But then as you go up the chain, things start to break down and then teams are stuck. So organizations can only get product out the door with high quality as quick as possible. The more the organ... We have to really think the system. So most of the work that I do today is around the system, which is scaling. It's system agility. Otherwise you start having, you just run into optimization in areas, that local optimization problem.Brian (05:58)
Yeah, yeah, not seeing the whole, right?Tess Thompson (06:02)
Right, absolutely. So I think that over the years that Agile has been around, we're seeing more and more of it, but then it's, like I said, almost all my work now is system level and not down at the team level. So often I'm not even using Scrum language when I'm talking. It is about alignment. It is about prioritization. So yes, at a Scrum level, your product owner is putting the order of the product backlog, and then the team can pull out off that backlog. based on value from all the different stakeholders that the product owner is working with. But in a big organization, those stakeholders can be a manager, can be a director, it can be another department, it can be, it's from all over the place. And then at some point, how does that work coming into the product owner roll up to the priority of the department or a higher level? And then how does that roll up to the higher level? And that's where we start running into messes.Brian (06:58)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. mean, it's like you said, with all these various priorities, with all these various drivers, I've always talked to product owners and say, it's a tough job. You're balancing the needs and desires of all these people into one product, and you're having to take them all into account. So yeah, it's not easy. It's not an easy job.Tess Thompson (07:08)
You.Brian (07:27)
Well, so I'm curious about, you say you don't really even use the Scrum language as much when you're talking to the leaders, because they're not really interested in that, right? They're not really interested in, we doing this exactly according to what the Scrum guide says? They're interested in the outcome, right? The results that you're getting from this. Yeah, so I'm kind of curious, especially since you're a fellow with Scrum Inc. And I know that the...Tess Thompson (07:37)
No. Absolutely.Brian (07:55)
a Scrum at Scale kind of strategy is very specific about how these things are implemented. There's practices and all sorts of stuff that Scrum at Scale kind of implements. Would you categorize yourself as sort of a Scrum at Scale implementation consultant? Or is it more of just, I take more of a holistic approach to the scaling.Tess Thompson (08:19)
Holistic, absolutely. So actually, I'm certified in Nexus, Scrummit Scale, Less, and Safe. I mean, I have all of them. So I always think you need to bring the best tool to the job. One of the things I like about Scrummit Scale and Nexus is they're just so simple. Like if, hey, if these two teams are not, if we need to coordinate, let's get these product owners together and work together to figure out what is really the order. So whether we call it a meta scrum or we call it something else, I don't think that language matters as much as seeing the need and then bringing in a tool to help meet that need. If these teams are interdependent and they need to be chatting to help get rid of those interdependencies, well, let's spin up a scrum of scrums here.Brian (08:58)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've had someone on before that we've talked through kind of the safe model a little bit and talked about how, you know, there's so much additional overhead, there's so much additional roles and events and all these other things that get added from the safe perspective, that it can be very, very overwhelming for a lot of organizations to look at that and say, well, gosh, how are we ever going to, I mean, we're barely hanging on with it, trying to understand what Scrum is. And now we're going to layer in all these other things and,Tess Thompson (09:22)
Thanks. Okay.Brian (09:38)
It just seems like a recipe for disaster to try to understand all these things. So I guess one of the things that I had in that previous conversation was this dialogue about how you match the problem to the practice. You find the problem that is going on in the organization and you find the right practice that solves that, but not necessarily implementing the whole smorgasbord of practices because you may be trying to solve problems you don't have. Do you see that as kind of your approach when you work with organizations or how do you match the practices to what's actually going on on the ground?Tess Thompson (10:18)
Yeah, I would say, you know, it's kind of similar to what happened with, so I'm also a PMP. So when we When we put together the PIMBOK over the years, it became this, know, it was supposed to be, these are best practices that you can have. And over time, it became very, big, thick book and people didn't understand they were only supposed to implement whatever tool from that book really helped solve the problems they were having. And started implementing the whole thing. And I think that's what happens too with like,Brian (10:50)
Ha ha.Tess Thompson (10:53)
safe or any of these agile practices, even though, know, Ken and Jeff went completely the opposite of PMI and said, hey, we're just going to roll out. This is the absolute minimum that you need for running, running a team or a project or product. And, but it's not enough. So you need to add in some more things to it. You got to bring in some additional tools to help depending on the organization, such as road mapping. I really believe that's one of the. I spend a lot of time helping organizations and product owners think about, we do need to plan ahead. And that is one of the pieces I do like about SAFE is that in their PI planning, have the getting some product owners and teams together to plan together to look out further, I think is pretty essential in most organizations. Now, do we need to do it on a regular cadence of every eight weeks? And do we need to have 200 teams together? I thinkBrian (11:23)
Yeah.Tess Thompson (11:49)
Sometimes it's, think organizations end up implementing all of SAFE, kind of like in the pin box, if you will, and it's way more than they need. So I think it's taking the elements of all of these and then using them to meet the need of the organization. I mean, if you're a 30 person organization, do you need a bunch of release trains and engineers and stuff? No.Brian (11:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting to me with your background that you have all of these different scaling frameworks in mind. How much of what you do do you feel is aligned to a specific framework and how much of it is just piecemeal across the different frameworks?Tess Thompson (12:34)
I would say I'm most aligned to, well, Scrum at Scale, never solely. It's always piecemeal. It is a piecemeal thing because I really do believe that teams do get to need to plan out in almost every company I go into. Teams do need to plan out more than one sprint.Brian (12:44)
Hmm.Tess Thompson (12:54)
Okay, we need to plan out and we're never delivering anything alone with one team. It seems like we're always need multiple teams. So we need that coordination and we need some of the scaling practices for sure. I really use a variation of safe of PI planning, but then I layer in, so we put together our plan for let's say the month, maybe we have a product goal for the month. And then I use the version of PI planning to get the teams together to plan out for sprints. weekly sprints to get to that product goal and try to get rid of the dependencies and problems that we see between the teams. And then we let it run. But then I pull in from Scrum at Scale, definitely the Metascrum. Like every sprint, let's still get the product owners together and revise our sprint plans because we've learned a lot in the last sprint or we learned a lot today. So we're not just going to let it ride for a month, for example, we're going to still get together at a regular cadence, like once per sprint. and realign our backlogs based on what we've just really happened. So it's using both, yeah.Brian (13:55)
I love that. Yeah, taking the best of what these different practices offer,Tess Thompson (14:04)
Absolutely.Brian (14:06)
I love that. Well, one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about as well is sort of in working with scaling practices, I'm sure you already talked a little bit about how leadership has different ideas than the team level does. And the team level is kind of struggling with a certain layer of complexity. The leaders are struggling with another.Tess Thompson (14:22)
Okay.Brian (14:33)
I know there often appears to be sort of a disconnect between these two groups. I've talked to people who feel like they're speaking a different language. It's sort of like the leaders are, especially when teams, the team level will look and see, there's people in leadership who just, they want us to do Scrum, but then they want a lot of things in the same way that they always have, which is really hard for us to translate and put back into that old language. I'm just kind of curious your thought about that. Do you see leaders, the leadership layer as sort of speaking a different language than the team layer and how do you help them understand each other?Tess Thompson (15:13)
Yeah, I mean, my most successful implementations is definitely when the leaders are on board. Leaders are really important to agility. We need their help and we need their support. What I always find super interesting is when I go into an engagement, I usually run an assessment, an agility assessment. And what I'm measuring is kind of where the organization is on culture, delivery, how well they're continuously improving or optimizing the system, how well they prioritize and how customer centric they are. Because I really believe agility is about those... It's those five dimensions, if you will, that you need to really focus on. And so I run this assessment and I always have them self -assess through a survey, interviews, and then observations. So often I see my assessments different than maybe how they self -assess and I'll compare both of them. But the leadership assesses so different than the teams do. And so at the end of the assessment, it's just interesting how different they are.Brian (16:13)
Yeah.Tess Thompson (16:21)
The teams are thinking they're delivering so well because they're getting all kinds of stuff done and leadership's like they're delivering, they're not delivering. And it's, like, how do we get so out of aligned it all the time at companies? Yeah.Brian (16:35)
Yeah, yeah, we will do an assessment to it mountain goat. And one of the things that like became clear to me very early in doing that is that self perception versus, you know, perception of others is very different. And, you know, it was amazing to me, just like you said, to see things like the leadership might think that you have one opinion of something and the teams might have another or, you know, the other thing that I saw was was You know, like the Scrum Masters might think, yeah, our practices are great or they're going really well. And then you ask the developers and developers would say, no, it's horrible. We don't like the way this is working. so, you know, it kind of became apparent to me that you have to factor that human personal perception, right? We tend to be maybe individually more critical on ourselves, butTess Thompson (17:18)
Okay.Brian (17:34)
you know, as a group, tend to give ourselves a little more grace in how we're performing, whereas others, when they look in from the outside, will kind of be more honest about it and say, it's not so great in this situation.Tess Thompson (17:49)
But what I often find is they are delivering. The thing is they're delivering a bunch of things that the leadership doesn't even know about. So the leadership will have their priority list in their head of projects or things they want the teams to be delivering. But the team is getting hit with all kinds of other stuff that the leadership doesn't know about. So they are working hard and they're delivering. So in their head, they're doing it. It's just this.Brian (17:56)
Yeah.Tess Thompson (18:12)
the leader maybe not attending to a sprint review and really understanding what the teams got on their plate.Brian (18:17)
Yeah, and that's kind of that transparency moment, right? mean, if they think they're not doing anything, they may be, they're just not seeing what they're doing and what they're actually spending their time on. And it's not that they aren't really working hard. As you said, they are working hard. It's just the work they're being asked to do is not really in align with what the leadership thinks the priorities should be.Tess Thompson (18:22)
Yes. Absolutely, that's it. Yep. And then should the people be working on the stuff that they're working on? You know, is it the right thing? And often it may not be.Brian (19:00)
Yeah. Yeah, I know I've had several instances where I've talked to people when I've been in working with teams where they will, the team level will say, you know, we have all the stuff that we're having to do in addition to the new work. And, you know, we know that that's just kind of a constraint we're under. The organization has asked us to do this as well. And, you know, my comment is always, well, Are you being really transparent about that when you get to something like a sprint review? Are you showing them where you're spending your time? Are you showing them kind of how much of this extra other work you're doing? And I've had situations where we've been in sprint reviews and we've shown them, for instance, like how much support time that they've had to spend. when the lead, right. And the leaders see that and think, my gosh, I didn't know they're spending 60 % of their time doing that kind of work. That's not good. We want them to do,Tess Thompson (19:32)
right. Yep, eye -opening.Brian (20:00)
new work. So I've had leaders who have actually spun up support teams when they've been confronted with that just because they didn't know what was going on.Tess Thompson (20:09)
Yeah, absolutely. That is one of the things I love about sprint reviews is that transparency. And I have seen teams also go into sprint reviews thinking that they just want to show like some progress they made on an increment for a project and not talk about the support work that they did or some of the other buckets of work that come in. And I'm like, you. Part of transparency is seeing, hey, and it doesn't have to be that you show all the support tickets or anything like that. It's talk about something like 50 % of our time, of our capacity was spent on support tickets. Just throwing that in there to make sure leaders are aware.Brian (20:45)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I want to go back to something you said earlier too, because you were talking about when we first started about how one of the biggest issues is alignment on priorities. And I want to just dig under the surface in that a little bit, because when we talk about that alignment of priorities, are we talking about more of the product area? Are we talking more about just a general overall? What's our company's priority? What kind of priorities are they misaligned on?Tess Thompson (21:08)
All, I would say all, all priorities are misaligned. So it's been an interesting move to, for me, to Scrum Inc. Because Scrum Inc's clientele is very muchBrian (21:21)
Right.Tess Thompson (21:35)
scrum mostly outside of IT. So it's been really fun for me because my career and background was all in IT. So I've been learning so much about all these other different domains out there. And we're doing full transformations of an entire company is doing a version of scrum, right? Or scrum at scale so that they're aligned on priorities. And anyway, so it's very... It's all, all the work tends to be a little out of alignment. And going back to the support, I really like to work companies to help them really understand that almost all support, whether it is support in a field that's doing some kind of drilling or it's or it's IT support or it's HR support, you know, taking phone calls from the employees that it tends to all be tech debt. All support is really some form of tech debt. And so getting that message out there, how much time we're spending on and how much money we're spending on support helps companies, leaders to agree to fund some of these.Brian (22:44)
Yeah.Tess Thompson (22:57)
projects around reducing tech debt.Brian (22:59)
Yeah. Yeah. And there's always the having to overcome the kind of more traditional viewpoint of projects and these things based around projects and scope schedule, that sort of thing. How do you help leaders understand kind of this is a new way of doing things and not that we can't talk about schedules, butTess Thompson (23:07)
Okay.Brian (23:29)
that we're kind of shifting our priorities a little bit, or we're trying to focus on what matters more than arbitrary dates. How do you have those conversations? How do leaders understand that?Tess Thompson (23:38)
In some organizations it's easier than others. It depends how much the leader above those leaders is on board, to tell you the truth. So I feel like fundamentally they understand. And if we bring up two different priorities and it's two vice presidents, for example, and they're getting bonuses or something based on their performance in their area, we can seeBrian (23:50)
Yeah.Tess Thompson (24:08)
They fundamentally will understand in a meeting together, they'll understand and then we'll leave and they'll still kind of do their own thing. But if I could get even though like the person, the CEO also, a person above them be like, nope, this is important. And for that person to see the two competing priorities and where there's a problem, I mean, it's really about if there's a problem, right? And then they'll agree and kind of one will give up a little bit on.Brian (24:30)
Yeah.Tess Thompson (24:37)
on their ambition towards getting their thing done, understanding that it's good for all of us, the whole company, we all, to get to work on maybe the other priority first.Brian (24:50)
So a lot of negotiation involved, right? A lot of negotiation skills.Tess Thompson (24:54)
Absolutely, and getting people in the same room so that they can have the conversation together. You know, it's not me talking to one and then going and talking to the other. I mean, there is some of that too, but then we have to get together here and decide. And yes, unfortunately, yeah, and yes, we will probably be working on these at the same time. However, if there comes into, you know, with an or,Brian (25:10)
Yeah, it's amazing how much easier that is, right?Tess Thompson (25:22)
With a large organization, when you've got hundreds of thousands of people, of course we're working on a ton of things at the same time. But when there is a conflict, like we need this skill set here and this, then we have to know which one is more important.Brian (25:37)
Yeah. Yeah, and someone has to make that call, right? Someone has to be given that authority at some point. Well, this is fascinating stuff. I'm really interested in hearing your perspective of working with these organizations in today's world. So last little question here. From what you just see, especially most recently,Tess Thompson (25:44)
Yep.Brian (26:07)
from what you've seen in the organizations you've worked with. If you could just blanket, have one thing fixed before they start working with you, or one thing that they were in alignment with that would really give them a boost in their scaling before they start working with you, what would that be? What would be the thing that you think is most often missing in organizations before you work with them?Tess Thompson (26:33)
Getting their goals, their strategy and starting to build out their backlog. based on those priorities. In fact, I usually do ask that. Start thinking about what are really your goals? What's your strategy to get there? And what kind of things are you doing to get there? What products are you creating? What services are you What projects you're creating for those products? Start thinking about that and start being a list together. And then when I get there, I'll help organize the list if you don't have it. But it's just starting to think about that ahead of time. Because what I see is leaders or people have multiple lists. They have a list over here of their projects. They have a list over here of stuff they're doing. They have all their emails that are coming in, their chats that are coming in, the phone that's coming in. And it's like, can we get it all kind of in one place so we can really look at it to make better decisions on really where we should be spending our time and our money?Brian (27:14)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. A friend of mine, David Hawks, used to say that organizations are swimming in a sea of opportunity. There's all these different things we could do and really trying to limit that scope and say, yeah, we could do all these things, but what makes the most sense for us to do? What's the most valuable thing for us to do?Tess Thompson (27:58)
Yep, absolutely. And getting in touch with and constant feedback with your customer helps you figure that out. So many companies don't even, the people are like, have no, I always love when I get a group and I said, hey, let's name our customers. And they're sort of out of the line on who their customer is.Brian (28:19)
Right, and if you don't know who it is you're trying to serve, how do you serve them? Yeah.Tess Thompson (28:25)
Yeah, yeah. That's usually one of the first things I ask is, hey, who's your customer? Is it the shareholder? Is it this? Is it that? Let's agree. Yes, you will have multiple customers. Let's get it together and understand who are our customers. Let's all agree on that. Maybe even a priority on some of those customers to some degree.Brian (28:30)
You Right, love that. Right. Yeah, yeah, this has been great. Well, I really appreciate you taking time out, Dr. Thompson, for coming on and helping us and to see things from your perspective. It's so great to talk to people that are, know, not just, you know, this isn't just theory or book learning. You're actually out there, you know, doing these in these large scale organizations and, you know, hearing from you what those real world problems are that you're seeing on a day to day basis.Tess Thompson (29:18)
And I'm having amazing, amazing results. tell you, I'm, that's why I only had three hours of sleep last night and I'm still.Brian (29:27)
Ha ha.Tess Thompson (29:28)
woke up full of joy to be here with you today is I love what I do because I'm constantly getting phone calls after the factor during it and it's like, wow, this stuff really works. I'm like, yeah, it does. It really does.Brian (29:41)
Amazing when that happens. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on and I just appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us.Tess Thompson (29:53)
Anytime. Thank you for having me. -
Is Agile really dead, or are we just doing it wrong? Tune in as Brian and Scott dive deep into the controversies and misconceptions surrounding Agile practices and what it really takes to make Agile work in today’s organizations.
OverviewIn this episode, Brian and Agile Mentors Podcast regular, Scott Dunn, tackle the provocative question: "Is Agile Dead?" sparked by recent claims of Agile's high failure rates.
They discuss the validity of these claims, the common pitfalls of bad Agile implementations, and the importance of continuous improvement and experimentation in Agile practices. The conversation explores the shortcomings of current training approaches, the crucial role of effective coaching and leadership support, and how to overcome the widespread misconceptions about Agile.
Brian and Scott emphasize the need to focus on outcomes and ongoing learning rather than getting bogged down by methodology debates and rigid terminologies.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Scott Dunn
Want to get involved?
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Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Scott Dunn is a Certified Enterprise Coach and Scrum Trainer with over 20 years of experience coaching and training companies like NASA, EMC/Dell Technologies, Yahoo!, Technicolor, and eBay to transition to an agile approach using Scrum.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. Welcome back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today, friend of the show, regular, you know him, you love him, Mr. Scott Dunn is with us. Welcome back, Scott.Scott (00:13)
That's my new favorite intro ever. So thank you, Brian. Always glad to be and then glad to talk shop. So I appreciate you making me some space so that I get to work with you again.Brian (00:16)
Ha ha ha. Yeah, we need like walkout music for you. know, like when the pitcher comes out to the mound, the relief pitcher or the wrestler comes out, you know, or whatever, they play the walkout music. We need walkout music. We wanted to have Scott back because there's a hot topic and this is your hot take alert because this show I'm sure is gonna be full of personal hot takes here on the subject.Scott (00:30)
Yeah yeah, there you go.Brian (00:50)
And that is, is Agile dead? There has been a lot of talk recently about this in the past few months. There's been a lot of blog posts written, a lot of armchair quarterbacks chiming in and trying to make sense of this. So before we dive in, Scott, I want to give a little bit of background to our listeners in case you're not aware of something that happened, where this came from, right? Because I think that there was In one sense, there's always an undercurrent. There's always people out there who are ready to say Agile's dead, right? And so they're waiting to pounce on anything that would back them up. And there was someone who was very happy to oblige about that. There was a company called Engprax, E -N -G -P -R -A -X. I couldn't find much out about them except they're a consulting company. And they put out an article that was announcing research they had done that said that 260 % higher failure rates for Agile software projects. That's what their study revealed. Yeah, 268%. So let's just start there, right? But the article is very thinly veiled in support. of another competing process, believe it or not, called Impact Engineering that is authored with a book that's just out, believe it or not, by a gentleman named Junade Ali. Now I have no idea, I have never crossed paths with this gentleman. I don't know his philosophy or his, much more about him. I did look him up on LinkedIn. He's been in the business for about 11 years. If I trace back to his first thing, it's about 11 years ago. He currently lists himself as the chief executive officer of a stealth startup. Well, I think I can remove the mask of what that stealth startup is because it is Ingeprax. So he is the head of that company. I found another article that did the research in support of his book.Scott (03:03)
HahahaBrian (03:12)
announcing his new process that is a competitor, of course, to Agile. Now, there's been a lot of back and forth. He's tried to defend this and say, you know, the research is solid, but here's the thing I always say, without data, it didn't happen. If you're not showing me the actual methodology, if you're not showing me the scientific research paper behind it that says, here's the methodology of the research, here's how we conducted it, here's the... There are some details that are in the article, one of which is that the research was done over a period of about five days. So it was research over about five days. was interviewing a set of, I'm trying to scroll through and find the numbers. I think it was like 250 or so engineers from the UK and 350 from the US. It's something around those numbers. But it was interviews with engineers over a period of about five days.Scott (03:50)
Wow.Brian (04:11)
And so the numbers are based on these engineers' recall of what their idea of success was in projects, whether it was an Agile project or not an Agile project, by their definition of whether it was an Agile project or not. He doesn't really describe in the article what success is. So saying that it's 268 % failure, what is a failure? It doesn't really state that plainly. So again, where's the data, right? I'm not going to go on and on about the research and the fact, but I just want to give the background before we dive into it because that article is what now you will see quite a few blog posts and things crossing your desk on LinkedIn that say, wow, look, this new study says 268 % failure rate for agile projects. Well, anytime you see something like that, check the source. You have to check the source. I try to do this in any conference talk I do. I put the links to the sources. And I try to only list data that comes from scientific studies, where you can find the actual research paper and dive into it and get into the nitty gritty of it if you really want to. Otherwise, as I said, it didn't happen. He says in the article, hey, we had PhD people that looked over our work, unnamed PhD people. So you can't even question whether that person was someone legitimate who did it. Just trust him that they were legitimate. So I set that up because I don't mean to take so much time here at start of the episode, but I just wanted to set the foundation. If you weren't aware of that kind of thing or where that came from, you may not even been aware of the background of where that study came from.Scott (05:46)
YouBrian (06:04)
And the fact that the person who kind of sponsored it is got an ulterior motive, right? They're trying to push their own methodology and they're publishing research that they collected, they are publishing, that just so happens to support their foregone conclusion that Agile's bad and their methodology is better. So, but Scott.Scott (06:31)
I'm just trying.Brian (06:32)
So let's get into the topic because what I really want to get into is, I'm sure you've seen people post things like this and there's been sort of this wave of things in the past year or so of people who are so quick and anxious to say Agile is dead. So what's your general impression there? What have you seen? What have you experienced and how do you respond if someone in class says, hey, is Agile dead?Scott (06:43)
Mm Mm I great, great question. So for those listening, I want to just want to affirm that probably a lot of you had experiences like, well, certainly wasn't going great or we're not seeing what we thought and all those things. So part of this, Brian, is I think the ethos of why those things take off like that is I do think there's a general feeling of is this really working for us or not? That's that's fair. So I'm not going to pretend like, it's always goes great. It's, you know, be Pollyanna about that. I remember actually this year. of a CEO, a company saying, Agile absolutely does not work. We're going to go all the way back to just full waterfall. Right. That to me is kind of that harbinger of like, wow, it's built up enough for someone to say that. So a couple of thoughts I have, and I'm going to be pragmatic like you for my friends that are hearing this or maybe thinking this or people at your company are pushing back a bit, is I'm to go back and say, well, okay, let's just say that Agile is dead. So what are you going to do? Are you really going to go back to waterfall? Well, we already know that story. whole reason, for those listening, consider this, whole reason Agile took off was the option A wasn't working and very clearly wasn't working for complex projects like software. Now for this person to come and recommend XYZ, of course, not surprising for all the listeners out there. Obviously, there's a marketplace, there's business. I get it that people are going to pitch and recommend what they do my classic one in our space Brian would be because obviously you I Mike within Mountain Goat are teaching the CSM CSPO and I'll see like 350 page books of get ready for the CSM exam like right the scrum guide itself is I mean how many pages so come onBrian (08:38)
YouScott (08:47)
And they'll even be like, you know, misrepresentation. So clearly people are doing things in their own self interest. get that. as you as people out there, hear information, I love what you're saying is to just like look into it and really be mindful of what's their angle for some of that. But back to your question, is Agile dead? I would argue that Agile partly done or halfway is dead in the sense that that doesn't work or what I would kind of call Agile theater. Agile hand waving, spread the agile pace. So I've been doing this 18 years, I think, since becoming a Scrum Master. And I was on project delivery before that and managing IT people. So I've seen all the things that weren't working well as a developer, et cetera. And I saw the results of what I got. And I've seen plenty of stories beyond that. But what I see more and more is people who are further away from the beginnings and what they're kind of doing is implementing what's comfortable. And I would agree that doesn't work. in that sense, that Agile is dead. In a follow on the idea of and really kind of putting together realizing is for those out there that your company is the one implementing Agile, who usually gets that? Well, it's probably going to be the PMO. And I'm going to poke a little bit here, certainly for my PMO friends, but as a former PMP working within the PMO, what's the PMO responsible for? So if I go to your typical company, say, hey, we're going to go Agile. That's under the purview of who it's a, it's a, there's going to be a group that's responsible for watching over execution delivery. Who is that? It's a PMO. Think about this. The PMO is not responsible for like learning continuous improvement innovation. They're responsible primarily for, for status reporting, managing to a given date, managing resources, escalating issues, but not necessarily for improving. So they bring in Agile sense of, what do we need to do without maybe understanding it fully and really. How do we just manage this process and not, hey, we're starting off from point A, but we're going to learn and get better as we go across. It's going to stop where they feel like, I think we have a new process that implemented. Does it get the results? You know, I don't know and I don't understand how it works to fix that. So they may not be getting results is what I commonly see. I'm seeing a slew. I can tell you the last several companies just in these last few months we've worked with. We've got to fix our process is not working. Are you agile? Yes. But you look at it and they'd miss a lot of fundamentals. And so now we're kind of resetting a lot of people that are struggling with the same issues everyone's talking about. Visibility, predictability, can we deliver this by the date we gave senior management? And they're not by and large. For those who say agile is dead, one of the other options, people have put together agile manifesto had lots of ideas, lots of other approaches besides scrum, but even if just take scrum. Look, scrum is based on lean. Is lean dead? And scrum is an empirical process. Is empiricism dead? Does that not work? So I kind of come back like, what are your options? Just think about the results you're getting. Whose fault is that? And what are we even basing what we're looking at? The roots of it are all very solid. So yeah, I'm going to push back quite a bit on that, what I've seen. And maybe see some of those same. Results or lack of results for organizations Brian because I know that it doesn't always go great out there and in the marketplace is coming. Try to roll this out.Brian (12:07)
Yeah, yeah, there's a, so I have a couple thoughts here. One is just in general, I think you're absolutely right that there's, know, well, just listeners, ask yourself, what percentage of Agile practices out there do you think are doing Agile the right way? Right? And I don't mean like a hundred percent. I just mean they are, they're all in on it. They're trying to do it the right way. I don't know what number you have in your head, I would say, don't know, Scott, what would you say?Scott (12:43)
They're doing it right?Brian (12:45)
Yeah, they're not perfect, right? But they're committed to doing it right. They're committed to doing it according to what the Agile Manifesto says, that sort of stuff.Scott (12:55)
Fairly Fairly smart, right? I'm guessing, my first number that came to mind, you asked, I'd say 10%. That's my, maybe less than that.Brian (13:02)
Okay. Yeah, I would bet it's a small thing, right? Now that right there, I think is something that we can talk about. Why is it that small? Right? Why is it that small? And I think that there's a discussion that's a legitimate discussion to be had about, well, maybe the structure that was put in place to spread this and train people up and get them, you know, situated to do this well. has failed. And if that's the case, that's the problem. It's not really that the methodology is bad. It's that we didn't do a good job of explaining it or training people for it. that's a separate discussion. But I think that there's a lot of bad agile out there. And I'll just put it to you this way. If you like to hike or camp or anything like that. If you are an aficionado of that stuff, right? If you occasionally go hiking or camping, I'm fairly certain that you've had some hikes or some camping trips that weren't that great, right? And you can probably recall them and think, wow, that was horrible. Well, imagine if that was your only experience, right? Imagine if that hike or that camping trip was your only experience. And you came back from that and someone said, you tried hiking or you tried camping. What did you think of hiking or camping? That sucked, it was horrible. I never wanna do that again. I don't know why these people are crazy, that do that stuff. I would never do that again. But if you really like it, you know that yeah, there could be some bad experiences, but there's some good experiences too. And if you plan a really nice hike and you've got good weather and everything else, it can be a really great experience. So to base someone's opinion on, well, my experience in one place was that it was terrible. Well, okay, come on, give it another shot, right? I mean, they're not all gonna be perfect. And if you see it in a couple of places, you'll probably understand, now I know what we were doing wrong in that other place because it's clear now, right? So that's one point here. And the other thing I wanted to say is one of the things that they talk about in theirScott (15:17)
Right.Brian (15:26)
268 % failure rate article where they announced their research, is they focus a lot on that their methodology does a better job with really clearly documenting requirements before development starts. So Scott already knows where I'm going with this, right? I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding before we even begin this, because what they're saying is,Scott (15:42)
boy.Brian (15:55)
Yeah, one of the things Agile fails at is clearly documenting all the requirements up front. And my response as an Agile trainer is, duh. Yeah, of course, because we don't try to do that. We actually look at that from a different standpoint and say, you're fooling yourself that you can document all the requirements up front. The example I use in class is, well, We're not manufacturing, right? We don't do manufacturing work. We're not churning out the same thing over and over again. If I was doing that, I could document all the requirements upfront, because I've done it before and I know what it takes to do it. We're closer to research and development. So let me take an extreme research and development situation for you. Imagine I'm inventing the cure to a certain kind of cancer, right? And you come to me before that and say, great. Well, we funded the project to cure that certain kind of cancer. Here's the budget. you know, let's get all the requirements documented upfront before you start inventing that cure to cancer. You'd look at me, I'd look at you like you were crazy because I don't know what all the requirements are going to be before I invent this new way of solving the cancer problem, right? I have to experiment. have to try, I have leads, I have ideas about things I would try and that I think have promise, but I've got to go through trials. I've got to go through tests. And the results of those experiments will then guide where I go next. So I think there's a fundamental fallacy in just the idea of trying to judge whether Agile is successful or not about whether it can capture requirements.Scott (17:34)
Yeah, right. And for those who've been around, I'm going to double down on that one, Brian, because I've seen this pushback to, hey, we've got to capture all the requirements up front. But every time I ask a company, things change. company priorities change all the time. If anything, we're suffering from just chaotic, inconsistent, random. I remember an executive once said, I love Agile. I can change my mind all the time now. He meant it. So, and even before Agile, there were statistics that showed that the majority of requirements never see the light of day or are to use. So we already know outside of Agile, it's a fool's game, the customer will know it when they see it. That's why it's complex. I think you're right. We're not doing something like manufacturing. We're trying to experiment and figure those things out. So the idea of bad Agile missing out on requirements, it feels good to say we've captured everything upfront. But I remember my first full Scrum project on my own with the whole company and the CEO saying, you know, I need to see this by October. I'm like, well, you'll see, you'll see something backed over, right? I wouldn't say that now, but this same CEO is so dead set, like, no, it needs to hit the state. He fully changed the look and feel of the whole website application we're building twice during that project. To me, it just tells me like, let's not play the game. Like I can still scope it, but let's accept it's going to change. The other part, when you say about just bad and sense of practices, there's a poll I put on my LinkedIn profile. Somebody might have seen this if you follow me on LinkedIn, but I asked.Brian (18:34)
HaScott (19:00)
You know, is the two day CSM enough to get you the results, your organization you want to see now for those who don't know CSM, obviously the standard, you know, training that people take to understand scrum from the scrum Alliance. there's certainly a lot of other courses, Brian, I know you do the advanced CSM CSP, advanced CSP. And there's more beyond that, but people by and large stop at the CSM. The percentage of it last time I checked was like 99 % of all people trained by the scrum Alliance. taking the CSM and it drops off. The percentage of people when I asked out there in the marketplace, is the CSM enough to get you the results? 95 % said no. So one, for my listeners, I'm to be a little bit of tough love on you. We ourselves might be the ones to blame for this. If we stopped our learning then, if we didn't encourage others at our org to learn and keep pressing in, you don't have the tools you need to be successful. The CSM was not all theirs. There's a slew of Equipping and training out there much less coaching and getting support. So I think there's also some miss on bad Agile. Like we never learned enough. Let's just take the basics of well, we have multiple teams. Well, but yes, the CSM doesn't cover multi team and scaling, so you got to figure that out and you're figuring out based on what you have. done it before you have valid experience and the number of companies who aren't getting coaching anymore. Now they end up just trying to figure out a methodology themselves and that's not their strength. The strength might be in -flight software for airlines. I don't know, it's not methodologies. And they're gonna take their best guess influenced by who? I'm gonna guess the PMO. And now you get this muddy version that yeah, doesn't get results. So I second that on the requirements issue and I second that just the fact that Bad Agile could be our own equipping. I do wanna add on the point about experimentation, encourage those.Brian (20:45)
Yeah.Scott (20:48)
The metaphor you give about camping is really great. I see a lot of out there in the world for those who are out in the scene, the whole dating scene, and you might be like, these dating apps are terrible. They don't work. Okay. I'm not going to argue they don't work depending on how you use them what's going on out there. But again, what are your options? The world's shifted and here's where we are right now. There's things we can do to do that better, but to simply throw that out, it's like, well, or dieting. Yeah, I tried that diet. It doesn't work. Dieting doesn't work. Well,Brian (20:59)
YouScott (21:16)
There's a mindset that goes with that. And did you follow up correctly? Did you look into the research underneath that? Even recently, I'm going through my own personal work around like sleep and health. I'm going through Peter Tia's Outlive, which is a fabulous read. But those are both like, here's some data and science, but you need to kind of hack everybody's different. Here's some ideas, try them out, see it works. Same with Scrum. Try these things out. It's not like, I did Scrum and we didn't get amazing results out of the gate. Well, you keep experimenting. It's simply empiricism. So those could be things for those listening, come back to that, look at your education level, look at options and keep learning and growing and try those things out. Cause could be, we didn't do our best to bring that or even on Mountain Good for their friends who listening who've gone through the Mountain Good courses and you have access to agile mentors. There's a community forum, there's a chance to interact, ask questions, there's lean coffee, bring your questions. How many of us actually go and take advantage of those resources? There's tons of knowledge, information, but most of us are just too busy. to get smarter and apply that. So that could be an action for people listening. What's your own next steps to grow and make sure you're doing the best agile out there that you can and you have case studies that you can reference. Could be an opportunity.Brian (22:24)
Yeah, such great points. I'll build on your analogy there, or what you talked about with sleep a little bit, and thinking about how, you know, this is one of things I love about Agile, because, you know, if it was, this will maybe highlight the difference between Agile and Scrum a little bit for everyone, if you don't really understand this, right? If I were to say to you, make sure you go to bed at 10, and get up at, you know, six every day, right? You get eight hours, that's eight hours, right? You get hours of sleep, but you gotta be in bed by 10 up at six. Well, some people would hear that go, well, that's ridiculous. That doesn't fit my schedule. I work better at late at night and I'm not an early morning person. And you probably just say that's terrible. That's a terrible idea. But if I said to you, make sure you get enough sleep, right? Then you can apply that and think, okay, well, for me, enough sleep is this. And I know what that means. I know what it means when I get enough sleep.Scott (22:53)
Thank you.Brian (23:23)
And for me, that means I'm going to bed by 11 or 12 or whatever. Like I know when I need to be in bed and I know when I need to wake up in the morning and that's enough sleep for me. Maybe it's seven hours for me. Maybe it's nine hours for me. Right. That's the difference to me between Agile and Scrum is that Agile, and that's why I take such offense at anything that would say, it's a failure. Well, it's a principle. And if you're going to take exception to it, which one? Which principle or value are you going to call out and say, this is the one I disagree with, this is one I don't think is valid? Because it's not telling you exactly how to do it. It's not telling you what a sustainable pace is, for example. It's not saying only work 40 hours a week. It's saying everyone should work at a sustainable pace, a pace they can maintain indefinitely. And if you disagree with that, if you're going to say, well, that's a failure,Scott (24:05)
Right? Mm -hmm.Brian (24:17)
I don't think people should be working at a sustainable pace. They should be working at an insustainable pace. Well, I'm going to have an issue with you, right? And I'm going to say, where's your research on that? Like, where would you say that that's, you know, how could you back that up? So that's why I take, I think I'm welcome to people with different ideas, but I want to see the data. I want to see you back it up. And even, you know, something like this project, I want to say, what questions did you ask? You know, if you're just taking a poll of software engineers, how did you phrase the questions? Were they leading in how you phrase them? That kind of stuff can be very, very important and make a big impact on your numbers. So without the data, it didn't happen.Scott (25:01)
Absolutely. I think that, well, and to that point, Brian, and I'm going to push a little bit. This word agile might be the most misunderstood word of the last decade or two. I guarantee you. You can ask 10 people and get 10 different versions of the answers. So like, what are we talking about? Let's take a step back and like, it's sense making to have a conversation around that. So for example, I remember this person who supposedly walked in, this is just this year, walked into theBrian (25:14)
I agree.Scott (25:31)
They're, you know, the head of the PMO, they've been doing agile. came from a large manufacturing company. Everyone recognized the name. Now there's other company that got brought in. Let's do this right. And, you know, has all this agile experience. And I'm actually having a conversation. We're talking about planning and predictability and how to get the teams where we need to. And I mentioned this about Velocity and she said, Velocity has nothing to do with planning. And for those who don't know, one, reach out and talk to us, because we can help you do that. The second thing is, in my mind, I didn't even know how to answer. That is the thing we use for planning is how much does your team get done, and we'll extrapolate what they're going to get done by the certain date. But I remember just feeling like, and you're saying you're walking out with all this Agile experience, and you're heading up the PMO on how we roll out Agile. Thank goodness that CTOs are like,Brian (25:56)
Right.Scott (26:16)
It has everything to do with planning. And I'm like, thank goodness you straightened that out because I didn't want to say anything. And I'm going to add to that at the leadership level and management level, because management statistically is going to be your biggest inhibitors to continued agility and growth. Management in terms of how we work around here, which is essentially a culture, how we do things around here. That's going to be seven of your 10 reasons you get stuck. When I've polled and asked numerous groups, how much does your leadership understand about Agile on a scale of one to 10? And the numbers I'm constantly getting back are right around 3 .5 to four on a scale of one to 10, right? Which is bad. But here's the flip side is I say, okay, how much does your leadership and management think they understand about Agile? Well, then it basically doubles, right? And even I've people say like on scale of one to 10, they think they're at 12, right? So we have groups who are large influences of how this is going and the stakeholders and what they're asking who.Brian (26:53)
Yeah.Scott (27:13)
not only don't understand it, but think that they do. So if you're listening to this out there and you're kind of like, yeah, I agree. Yeah, so what do we need to do about this? And again, you have a lot of options, but if you let that hang over us in terms of that's gonna be your constraints, the true agility here, what we're trying out. And we just kind of accept that, yeah, they don't know anymore. It's almost like this gallows humor, ha ha, they don't get it. Yeah, but they're the ones who are like. asking for fixed scope, fixed date, don't understand about iterating, don't understand MVP, don't understand, like show up to the demos and see what we've done to give us feedback. So those are things that undergird this problem that that lack of understanding can be pervasive and yet people think that they do. And I'll go back to another leader who said they understood Agile, but when we went through the survey feedback to help them and work through that, his comment was, I'm tired of this deadline optional culture. Deadline optional. I guarantee that people don't feel like it's optional. If anything, they're feeling a lot of pressure. But when we miss dates, how they interpret it several layers above is like, they just don't care. This is all deadline optional. So I think there's a disconnect from leadership and management side and the knowledge and even those heading up the project management office that we need to kind of check ourselves. Have they gone to training? Do they know? You'd be amazed what that can do when they get on board and really support this. It clears up a lot of stuff at the team level.Brian (28:26)
Yeah.Scott (28:36)
But back to what said earlier, if all you did was send a few people to the two day course and that's it, yeah, you're probably gonna struggle.Brian (28:44)
Yeah, and I support what you were saying about, need to take responsibility as trainers and as the Agile community that maybe this way was not the right way of doing this. And if there's one thing I might take a little bit of exception to now from how it's described in Scrum is, we talk about Scrum Masters being change agents. And I think that may have gotten a little overblown, right? Because I think in a lot of organizations, people look at it as these people who take a two day class are ready to lead our whole company in how we're doing this. And that was never the intention, right? I think the two day class is actually okay for someone to get kicked off and plugged in and being a scrum master on a team with support, right? If that's the only person, you only have two or three scrum masters that have all taken just a two day course and... no one has really a lot of experience, then it's probably not going to do very well. But if you have some base layer scrum masters who are new, and they have some coach layers that are more experienced, even if it's just one, even if you have that one senior person who hasn't just, you wouldn't do that with anything else. There's nowhere else in your company where you'd say, let's just hire a bunch of people who have never done this before and hope that it works.Scott (30:07)
youBrian (30:09)
You wouldn't do that with programmers, you wouldn't do with testers. You would have some, you want to have some senior people that can help guide and mentor and make sure that it's done the right way. But for some reason, you know, companies just kind of look at it as saying, no, I'll just hire a couple of scrum masters that are brand new and that'll solve it.Scott (30:27)
Woo, I mean, can you imagine getting on a plane like, by the way, everyone, welcome on board. Our pilot's never flown before. I could do that, course. And not only that, we're trying to save money around here. So he's actually going to be concurrently helping fly three other planes at the same time, like while they're doing this work.Brian (30:32)
But I passed the two day class. Yeah, because most of the flight, you're not doing anything, right? You're just sitting there. So we want to make sure they're still productive so he can fly three planes at once.Scott (30:50)
That's a hard one be, exactly. That's yeah, which it's, it's, people might be laughing, but it's similar. Like we're trying to get pointy to point people, things change on that flight. And I see these teams, know, scrum master spread around. I remember a company scrum master on seven teams. Nevermind organizational change agent. This poor soul can't even have the meetings run. and someone bested me like, no, I know someone's on 12 teams as the scrum master. So if management doesn't understand the value of this person, and I like what you're saying. It's a tall order organization changes. And I like the idea of like lead improvement, but we kind of cut it at the knees. had one company this year and sadly we'd helped them get started. When we came back, kind of had some back -channel conversations with people that were disgruntled on the team. So thank goodness they had a safe place to come and ask questions. But the person rolling out Agile, it was kind of knighted to help do this. And she had been through the two day training, I think, but literally as they're giving feedback on what's working, not working, she basically said like, Stop complaining. This is the way we're doing things around here. I'm here to just kind of write the playbook. I think you're the person that should be spearheading how to improve every single sprint. And you're saying, we're done talking. We're complaining. I'm trying to formalize our process here. But basically, booted them out of the working group committee that was how we implement Agile. Now, those are two of the key Agilists there. So think we missed some of that when those examples happened. So my friends are listening. expect that people don't get it, expect that they're optimizing for their own concerns. And that's fine, but we don't stop there. We have to kind of work top down bottoms up on that. And there's lots of options and case studies and stories you can see. And certainly I'll just point again to a resource. If you look at Agile Mentors, there's plenty of experts who gonna, they've been on the interviews, been recorded, take a listen to those and hear some stories, help champion this. As a side note, Brian, just gonna add this in real quick. When we talk about Agile being dead or not, I think if we lead this company, like, I totally agree with Brian Scott, especially Scott. He really is very articulate and well -spoken. I think he's probably one of the best podcast interviewees ever. And they might say something like that, but they might come back and say, I agree with Brian Scott. Agile's not dead. We're just not doing it right. So what can we do about that? We'll look back and say, how are we implementing it? Is there a plan? Are we nudging people along? Expect them to kind of play these things out, but keep in mind, It's most of this company's is a multi -year journey to get those kinds of results, but I'm not going to go back as a takeaway from listeners podcasts and tell my management or leadership, we're not doing Agile right. We should do Agile right. For those who don't already know, they don't care. They don't care that we're doing Agile right. They don't even know what it is. We already talked about their scores. They don't know anyways. I'm not going to pitch any kind of change to what we're doing in terms of Agile being right or wrong. That misses. almost every single time for me. What I will pitch is, hey, leadership, you're frustrated that we're not delivering predictably. You're frustrated we're not getting more innovation. You're frustrated our quality is not where it needs to be. Yes, and here's some things we can do to get it there. Under the covers, what we're doing is improving the way we're doing Agile for more visibility, more clarity, better tracking, all that stuff. Your Scrum Master, whoever's leading this, doggone it, they cannot be just glorified JIRA admins. That's not gonna get you there. So take it back as a thing and think about how you're taking it back to them in terms of what matters for them, what's in it for them in business value. Pitch it that way. And you'd be surprised when you're like, if that's tied to the results, I'm listening. But not this we're doing as a right or wrong. So that could be part of reason it falls on its face when we do try to address the agile being dead is how you're presenting and working with your stakeholders and leadership.Brian (34:37)
Yeah, and quite frankly, I don't care what you call it. If we need to make up a new name and your company has had such a bad experience with Agile, make up a new name for it. I mean, say, no, it's this new project. It's the, I don't know, tangerine process. And it's, yeah, you haven't heard of it? Well, boy, it's great. It's this tangerine thing. Right, it's the latest thing. Tomorrow there will be a book on it.Scott (34:59)
That's the way you were saying. Yes.Brian (35:07)
Amazon, the tangerine process as invented by. And here's my research study showing how it's better than Agile. Right, right, exactly. But you know, it's oftentimes there is kind of a problem with a name. And so like I said, I don't care what it's called. You know, I'll give a shout out here because I had some conversations at the know, couple of conferences that took place over this year. And I was talking with one of my friends, Michael Sahota. Scott (35:14) We interviewed three people and yes, we got the data.Brian (35:37)
So shout out Michael if you, if anyone kind of points out, I he's listening, but if he's listening, shout out to you for this. But we were talking about kind of the problem with the training courses and you know, how we fixed that and everything. And, one of the things we were talking about is, you know, if we could, if we could distill it down, if we could just have people lead with one thing, if they could walk away from those courses really embedded with the concept of I'm going to inspect and adapt. I'm going to inspect what I did. and adapt and when something doesn't go well, I'm not just gonna say, nah, I'll just keep doing it the wrong way. No, if it doesn't go the way it needs to, stop, figure out why and then change and try something new. If I could just get a team to do that without knowing all the practices, all the other, right, I don't care if you call each other, know, Scrum Masters or whatever, if you can just get that, then I think you will. naturally evolve into what you need to be for that company. But you got to have that underlying mentality, culture of it's not acceptable when something goes wrong. We have to figure out why and change.Scott (36:36)
Mm Absolutely, and I'm with you. I don't care what's called anyways. My reference is a colleague in Southern California, Ben Rodolitz, and he's very big. I just don't use those words anymore. to be honest, it could be actually confusing for people. If they don't know what Agile means and you're using words from Agile, they're going to think they're mapping to what reality is. They're misunderstanding. So maybe we do start with terminology. I'm with you. I'll see my friends. I don't care if you use agile scrum, whatever. I would just say, Hey, we're to try to do something, see how that goes. Well, we're visiting two weeks and take a look at what we got and get, we'd love some feedback. I mean, it's all the same stuff, but we're expecting to not do things right. And learn along the way and not stop. That's the whole process of it. So for some of you that are doing this and feeling like, I think agile's X, we're not seeing results. would, I would take a look and are you breaking any of those fundamentals to begin with? And I think we are quick to say, yeah, but we can't do X, Y, Z Scott. can't have dedicated teams.Brian (37:37)
Yeah, yeah.Scott (37:38)
We can't actually get the stakeholders into the sprint review. We don't got time for the retro. Well, then we're one, you're not doing that stuff right. But even if you just call it something else in the end, do something, inspect and adapt, right? Learn by experience, try something out. I hear too much of, I don't think that'll work here. Well, do some, find out, do something and see what you get from that. Worst case, you're going to learn. But a lot of people are like, you know, we can't do that. They won't go for that. And we never actually even tried. But I love what you're saying. Maybe. for those out there listening, try a refreshing thing of different words and then, or move away from the language that they think they know and don't fight that fight. Pick the fights you think you can win in advanced stuff to get results and get noticed. And Brian, you might've seen this too. I've seen company after company, when they actually see results, the stakeholders see results, business are real, they don't care what you're doing, do more of that. I've watched them just pivot and like rush in. So maybe we do step away from all these.Brian (38:28)
Yeah.Scott (38:34)
methodology wars and language issues and just get back to what gets results. Do more of that. Learn as you go and keep them learning, right? Like the brass tax.Brian (38:44)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm not surprised we went a little over, but I appreciate everyone. I hope we didn't eat into anyone's, know, screw up your walking schedule or anything if you're listening to this while you're walking. But, you know, when Scott and I get on a soapbox, you can just guarantee we're gonna be a little bit over. That's just how it goes.Scott (38:49)
Next. You would love it.Brian (39:09)
Well, Scott, I really appreciate you coming on, because I think this is a great episode. I really appreciate your views on this, and thank you for making the time.Scott (39:17)
Yeah, you bet. And for those listening, honestly, put some feedback. We'd love to see what you think in terms of Agile is dead and continue that conversation. I do think it's gonna be an ongoing conversation. But again, thank you, Brian. My pleasure. Always happy to jump on here. Great to work with you guys. -
Join Brian Milner as he talks with leadership expert Christopher DiBella about mastering the art of influencing without authority. Learn how to lead with respect, empathy, and compassion to inspire your team, even when you don’t hold the official title.
OverviewIn this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian interviews Christopher DiBella, an expert in leadership and organizational development, about the power of influencing without authority. They explore how Agile leaders, especially Scrum Masters, can effectively guide teams and influence organizational culture through respect, empathy, and compassion.
Chris shares practical strategies for building trust, navigating generational differences, and leading through relationships rather than formal authority. The discussion also emphasizes the critical importance of understanding the motivations and needs of others to achieve lasting influence.
Whether you're an Agile coach, Scrum Master, or organizational leader, this episode provides actionable advice for leading in a way that inspires collaboration and growth.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Christopher DiBella
Want to get involved?
The Leadership Survival Guide: A Blueprint for Leading with Purpose and Impact by Christopher DiBella, PH.D.
#37 Servant Leadership, Not Spineless Leadership with Brad Swanson
#70 The Role of a Leader in Agile with Mike Cohn
#109 Leadership and Culture in DevOps with Claire Clark
Short Answers to Big Questions About Agile Leaders by Mike Cohn
Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification
Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training
Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner®
Advanced Certified ScrumMaster®
Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Course
Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule
Join the Agile Mentors CommunityThis show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.
Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Christopher DiBella is a leadership coach dedicated to empowering aspiring leaders by teaching influential leadership practices that streamline processes and maximize potential. As the founder of the Institute of Leadership Coaching and Development, Chris is committed to helping others lead with respect, empathy, and compassion to build engaged, high-performing teams.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a very special guest with me. I have Mr. Chris DiBella with us. Welcome in, Chris.Chris (00:13)
Thanks so much, Brian. I appreciate you guys having me.Brian (00:15)
Absolutely. We're very excited to have Chris on. Chris, if you're not familiar with Chris and his work, just a brief little introduction here for you. Chris has an MBA in project management. has a PhD in organizational leadership. He's an author and speaker. He's the founder of something called, actually founder and president, excuse me, of the Institute of Leadership, Coaching and Development. And he has a book that should be out right about now while you're listening to this called the leadership survival guide quotes to keep you from going extinct as a leader. So very, very interesting title there. I can't wait to read that. That sounds amazing. But the reason we wanted to have Chris on was one of the topics that Chris focuses on and talks about from time to time is the topic of influencing without authority. And I thought that's really, really interesting in the Agile world and how that relates to things like Scrum Masters and how we work within the organization and stuff. So let's start there, Chris. Let's just talk about where that, what does that title mean to you influencing without authority? Where did that come from? How did that enter your sphere?Chris (01:27)
Well, I mean, for the last couple of years, it's a topic that's just been gaining a lot of momentum within the workplace. I guess the easiest way for me to describe the topic is to say that influencing without authority is simply the ability to motivate others to get them to take your direction. But we all know that the real world doesn't work that way. And it's not so easy to get people on board with our ideas and thought processes. So we just need to be more methodical in our approach. when it comes to influencing others. And it's more important now, particularly because when dealing with the different generational and personal generational differences and personalities in the workplace.Brian (02:06)
I'm kind of curious how you define that difference. What does influencing with authority look like? What does influencing without authority look like?Chris (02:18)
So they kind of both the same. think people sometimes fail to realize that influence is what actually provides power, right? And not authority. So they both kind of fall on the same lines for me. So when you're trying to influence others, you got to remember that with or without authority, you're trying to get somebody, you're persuading somebody, recently you're coercing them to try to get onto your thought process. So you just got to remember that. When you're dealing with them, that you have the capacity to impact what happens next in their lives. Their lives, sorry, not lives. like you have the ability to shape their actions and their behaviors and their opinions, but you also have the ability to have an effect on their character or their continued development. Right. And kind of adding a little bit more to that question is Ken Blanchard, said that the key to successful leadership in today's workplace is influence and not authority. So for someone to be an influential leader, they just need to learn the skills of confidence and clarity and communication. So that to me implies that even if you're not in a formal position of authority, you can still have an influence on those around you. So it's kind of just bouncing off. You know, there's a thin line of with or without authority. It's just understanding people and understanding how to get the best out of them. And you don't need to be called leader or manager to get that out of people.Brian (03:48)
I'm kind of curious because especially with your background in project management, kind of more traditional project management, how does that play in project management? I mean, I've gotten in trouble sometimes in talking in class about this issue because I've, know, in my work history, my experience with traditional project management was very much one of... authority. was very much that that person who was the project manager, basically there was a date, a set of work that we're trying to accomplish. it seemed as if the project manager's job was to kind of drive the team, push the team, be the parent of the team, and make sure that they come in on time, on scope, on budget. How does the project management community in today's environment see this dichotomy between leading with influence or with authority.Chris (04:50)
So that's a great question because I think, can I even touch on Scrum teams with this? Cause, cause I think they're, kind of go hand in hand for me. Right. and I, you know, from, if we use project management or Scrum teams as an example, right. No one, even as a project manager, right. No one has any real form of authority on the people side of things. Project managers really are just people put in place just to get things done. Right. They don't, they don't have an official title to get things done. Right. So it can be argued that.Brian (04:54)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, please.Chris (05:20)
while these individuals on a Scrum team or a project management team have no formal authority at all, that they're still ultimately responsible for project outcomes, right? Or it can be argued that an authority is inherently given to them based on their ability to act on behalf of all those objectives. Right. But the bigger point for me is that if there's no formal authority given, this could just limit the influence that someone has on the people in the processes side. Right. But that doesn't mean that you still can't be an effective leader who others look to. And this type of authority is based more on who you are as a person and how you treat others, as opposed to simply being viewed by that title that you possess. So I think there's there's a very strong connection there between Scrumteam and project managers.Brian (06:04)
Yeah, I mean, it's a tricky thing because I mean, I think about this, like a lot of things, I'll make sports analogies and how I think about these relationships. And when I think about like the coach of a team, the coach can't make the players perform better. It has to be their own personal decision to do what they need to do. But on the other hand, we definitely hold the coach accountable if the team isn't doing well. And it seems almost like slightly unfair, you know, to think about this, that I can't really, I don't really have the authority to make that person do something. I have to, as we said, influence them to do it.Chris (06:50)
So can I touch on that real quick? Cause you brought up a great analogy that I like to talk about from coaching perspective. So I used to coach soccer and if I start rambling, just tell me to shut up, but I'm licensed to coach up to a college level, right? But I always opted to coach at about the 12 and 13 year age group for boys and girls. And I chose this age group because I believe that this is just where I could have the most influence on them in their development and in their soccer growth, right?Brian (06:59)
YouChris (07:20)
The high school level and college level, they could still learn, but they've already got it in there at that age, right? They they've already established who they are on the field, their own identity, right? And they have a good enough skillset to go out there and play the game. But I wanted to be a part of getting them to that point. So I decided that coaching at a younger age group would just give me a better opportunity to mold those players into those high school and college athletes. And anyone listening to this with kids understands. how much influence we have on them at that age. But we also know how difficult it is to effectively influence them in a way that allows them to develop into their own person. So whether we're coaching 12 and 13 year olds, or if we're trying to coach and mentor our peers or our followers, there are just a lot of similar attributes that can be used to influence others to get them to achieve their goals and their successes and those outcomes.Brian (08:11)
Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. you know, it kind of, it kind of brings to mind the, mean, we've talked, we talked a little bit about project managers, but, and, and touched a little bit on Scrum teams, but you know, that, that relationship with a, a, a Scrum master, think is also really interesting to consider in light of this, because I know one of the phrases that we use as trainers a lot when we talk about the Scrum master is a Scrum master leads through influence, not authority. And that that's kind of a defining characteristic of what a scrum master does. What does that mean to you? Because I know you speak about scrum as well and you have a lot of knowledge in this area. So how does that translate into the role a scrum master would play?Chris (08:58)
So if you take it from a Scrum Master perspective, right? mean, that's kind of positional influence, right? So that can come from someone's job title or depending on the hierarchical level of that role, you know, that can have an effect on how influence is also portrayed, either positively or negatively. So whether you're a Scrum Master or some other form of positional leader, it just means that you're followed by other people. So how you choose to impact their life. from an influential aspect will determine the level of followership that you're able to acquire from them. Right. And then kind of going along with that, again, you know, there's really no formal authority in that role, but the influence can stem from expertise and just being competent. Right. That provides you with the background and the experience needed to be recognized for people to go to you for that advice, the leadership advice. But if you also have the available resources that your team needs and you know how to acquire them as well as deploy them, then you're going to have an impact on their success as well, right? If you have the necessary tools to provide them, that's also going to increase the likelihood of them trusting in you as those relationships are developed because that's really what influence is. It's about building relationships and developing those bonds, you know, and then influence. The biggest thing for me with influence is being direct and transparent in your approach. Whether you're a scrum master, project manager, anybody with or without authority, if you're direct and you're transparent and you seem genuine to people and you have a firm, a fair, and a professional tone, that's just going to let other people know that you can be counted on, right? And that you genuinely have their best interests at heart. So that's kind of where earned influence will begin to develop.Brian (10:50)
Yeah. You know, I, there's a, there's a kind of aspect of this I try to draw out too, when we talk about this in class and that influence, as you said, trust relationship, right? It takes, it takes investment. It's not, influence doesn't come instantaneously. When you think about just in general in your life, the people who influenced you. Right, to use that word influence, that's a shift, that's a big shift. And when you think about the people that influence you versus the people who tell you what to do. And from my perspective, most of the people I would say, yeah, I'm heavily influenced by this or by that. It generally comes from the fact that I have, even if they're a public figure, even if it's, know, you know, Simon Sinek or Gary Vanderchuck, you know, I would say they influenced me not because I just heard one quote, but because I've consistently heard what they speak on and consistently say, yeah, I'm aligned to that. And this is really influencing the way I think about stuff. So how would you advise, especially someone like a scrum master, you know, if they say, yeah, I want to lead through influence, not authority, but... I've got a job to do. How do they start paving that road so that the influence is invited?Chris (12:26)
Yeah. I love the Gary V shout out because I love Gary. He swears a lot like I do. So I'm actually being pretty good right now. I mean, I guess the first question to ask is, you know, when you think of the term influencer leadership, not for you, but in general, like when you think about it, what's the first thing that comes to mind, right? What are you hoping to get or achieve through that influence? Are you trying to get people on the same wavelength as you? Are you doing it only to get people to see things your way?Brian (12:28)
You Yeah.Chris (12:54)
Or are you doing it to expand their perceptions and their realizations? Right. And again, there's often the assumption that if someone doesn't have authority, then they don't, or they can't have any influence. Right. And this goes back to with or without authority, but even with formal authority, it's still possible not to have any influence. Right. Influencing without authority begins with first identifying where that influence comes from. And then looking at how others perceive your level of influence. So. regardless of where that influence comes from, you still just need to build those relationships on that platform of trust and respect if you want to have those successful results achieved. It's tricky though, because depending on where that influence comes from, that's what's going to help to guide and even determine how those relationships and those bonds progress.Brian (13:40)
So that kind of leads to the area of thinking about, if a Scrum Master is going to do that, we can kind of see how that fits in. And one of the things that I hear quite often with people in the classes is, especially when we come upon the section where we talk about Scrum Masters having an influence in the organization, that we have a responsibility to help the organization. understand Scrum and to get the benefits of Scrum. There's often a double take when that happens and the students in class think, well, I don't understand how can I do that? I'm not the CEO. I'm not a manager. I'm a Scrum master. How am I going to be able to change the culture? How am I going to be able to influence what the leadership thinks? about this stuff. What kind of advice would you give from that perspective?Chris (14:42)
Well, much like I kind of take the leadership perspective, there's no one size fits all, right? To this and influence the same way. Sorry. Influencing is the same way. So there's different approaches that you can take to influencing, right? There's rational approaches where you kind of legitimize the use of like fact -based logic to influence others, right? And you could use within that rational influencing, you could use exchanging, right? As a form of bartering or trading where you do something for someone and they gives you something in return, right? Give and take. And that builds trust levels, but it's also an effective approach since each party is still committed to achieving that common goal. In addition to the rational, right? Again, different, different approaches that you can take social approaches, right? Think about the breakfast club, right? The movie, the breakfast club. Sure. Everybody who's listening to that. to this has seen that movie, right? To me, this is the perfect analogy for trying to influence somebody from a social perspective, because that movie just embodies the epitome of social approaches to influencing. If you think about it, you got five high school kids in detention from completely different backgrounds, right? And they're trying to outsmart their lesson inspiring principle. So they're essentially forced to have to work with one another to achieve that common goal. So when you socialize, That's essential when it comes to building that relationship and that trust, but that also helps to appeal to those relationships as those bonds are developed. Right. And then you kind of use consulting, which helps just to deliver like a collaborative working relationship that not only produces those results, but that also improves the dynamic and the relationships and the culture of the team and the organization. Right. And then if you add onto that, like in the movie, you know, that's just going to lead to the Alliance building, which kind of is like the creation of a team structure that'll enhance the growth and development of everyone involved. So I don't, you know, then there's also emotional approaches. There's what I call the dark side approach, which I don't recommend because it's, always think Darth Vader, right? The dark side, you, you lead by avoiding issues with your followers or your teams, right? You want to manipulate and you want to intimidate and you want to threaten, but those only serve the need of the person trying to get what they want. Right now.Brian (16:42)
HahahaChris (17:00)
Kind of be an effective way to get results, to get results. Sure. To influence others and build relationships. Absolutely not.Brian (17:09)
Yeah, fear leads to anger, right? Right, exactly. Yeah, Chris, you are speaking my language, talking about breakfast club, 80s movies and Star Wars. I come on, this is my wheelhouse here. Yeah, no, I agree. it's, you have that great example. I'm gonna go into the analogy here.Chris (17:12)
It does, know, resentment, you know, it's... huh. Bye!Brian (17:38)
You have that great example with that principal or vice principal, whatever position he had, that he came in with the authority figure approach. I'm in charge, you are underneath me, you will do what I say during this time. And it wasn't, hey, let's get through this, let's figure out the best way to make the Saturday go by. It was very much, are in need of my My heavy -handed approach otherwise you're gonna go off the rails and You know, there was no respect there was no relationship there It was it was purely, you know prison guard kind of mentality and you know, there's a There's an example. I always think back to You know, I played football in my high school days. I didn't I played some football I didn't I didn't play all the way through high school, but I played some football. So if anyone happens to be from my high school, no, I did not play my whole high school career. I know that I'm admitting it. Okay. But I remember, you know, for most of my football career, which was very short, I had coaches that were all of one type, which was the screaming head, right? They were the person that would yell at you and chew you out and try to motivate you in that way.Chris (18:35)
youBrian (19:05)
but I had one coach and he was the last coach that I had who was the head coach of our team. And he was a very soft spoken, quiet man. And I remember him in one practice pulling me aside and saying, hey, look, you're gonna have to do it this way. You're not gonna be able to do it this way. It's not gonna work. If you wanna be successful with this, this is what you're gonna have to do. And I just remember in that moment that I... paid more attention in that moment to anything anyone had ever tried to coach me in the past. And I remember feeling earnestly this desire that I want to please this man. Like I really want this guy to think highly of me and I want to give him my best. over the years since that moment, I've thought back to it lot and thought, that's a clear contrast. since the majority are the other way, that that one person who took this different approach really had this different impression on me of, yeah, this is, and to me that was a great example of leadership.Chris (20:17)
Yeah. It's funny. Like you mentioned that when you had that cool, calm and collected approach, right? But that can also kind of be taken the other direction. And the first thing I think about with that kind of approach in a negative way is, Bill Lumberg office space, right? Right. Yeah. If you guys can just come in and come in on Saturday or Sunday, blah, blah, blah. Right. So again, so like that type of leader and, know, to stand on the negative, cause I like to focus on negative stuff because it kind of gets people thinking about what not to do.Brian (20:31)
Yeah. Okay? Yeah.Chris (20:45)
So like that type of leader, you know, they focused on that power, that title to impose their will on others. Right? So like you had what sounded like an influential kind of perspective from that cool, common, collected tone. Bill Longberg was cool, common, collected, but he was just a jerk. I'll say it without swearing. He was just a jerk. Right. But it's when we're at moving into a position of leadership or someone who wants to influence others. Right. It's we look at people like that and they, it's.Brian (21:02)
Yeah.Chris (21:15)
They look to lead from a place of authoritarian status, right? Again, the, my way or the highway approach, but this may stand from two different schools of thought, right? Because either it's the only way they've been taught to lead others or it's to intimidate others into submission. And I'll be completely honest with this by my own admission, I was that type of leader when I took on my first leadership role. Right. I'm Gen X. I had observed this leadership mentality throughout my early career. And I just assume that that was the attitude that got others to follow direction and achieve results. And it wasn't until that I realized this approach was not in fact effective and that there didn't need to be a brutish mentality, but I just needed to transform my mindset and adapt to the individual needs of each person on my team so that I could figure out how to get the best and the most out of them. So it's a learning curve. I mean, you're not going to get it the first time you get put into a position of leadership or the first time that you're tasked to influence people, right? You're not going to know what to do. But our leaders that we grew up with are going to be a huge inspiration. And I always tell anybody, no matter what, you can be an authoritarian leader or you can be a transformation leader. You are a person of influence, no matter what you do. And I always say that anybody in a company can be a person of influence. But if you're tasked with that, if you, you're given that role, whether you want it or not, you are a person of influence and you're going to have an effect on someone's character or continued development. whether that's good or bad. It's up to us as we evolve and we mature and we grow and we develop to figure out the good from the bad and figure out how to move forward in a positive, more positive direction to get the best out of the people that we're now influencing and that we're leading.Brian (22:54)
Yeah. Yeah. It's such an interesting dynamic because I think you're right. There's authority that people have sometimes that just is sort of a natural thing. This is a very loose analogy, but I know I've been involved with groups of people who are tasked with doing something kind of ad hoc things thrown together for volunteer things or whatever, kind of things where you're not really in an organizational structure. but a group of people come together to do something. Maybe it's in a class or whatever. you know, sometimes you have that one person in the group that, sort of starts a little bit to be the leader of the group. And I've been in the case where the person sort of takes leadership, right? Where they, kind of try to, to just grasp it and control it and tell people what to do. But I've also been in a situation where that person sort of just emerges and the rest of the team is not reluctant to follow them. They're actually thankful that they have someone that can lead and guide them. And there've been occasions when I've been in those situations where that one jerk in the group will speak and say, hey, well, who made you boss? again, I understand if the person really is being bossy. But I've been in situations where the person's not being bossy and someone has said that, and the rest of the group actually turns hostile on that person. Because they're like, what are you talking about? They're doing what we need someone to do. And they just naturally kind of float into that. So I always think about that when I think about when people ask, how am I going to influence this organization when I don't have any authority in the organization? Well, leadership isn't about a title. It's about a how you approach things, right?Chris (24:53)
Not anymore. used to be about a title, but it's not in today's workplace. It's just not, you know, again, I grew up in a different time where it was pull up your big boy pants, do your job. You know, my boss could talk to me any way they wanted. I wasn't going to take offense to it. wasn't going to take three days off to have a safe space. You can edit that out if you want, but I, you know, I just, you know, but it kind of speak adding onto what you just said about that, right? You had somebody who wanted to take that charge, but you had somebody else who wanted to.Brian (25:10)
Yep. No, no, no.Chris (25:23)
you know, who made you boss, right? So how do you influence through tension and conflict? Right? Because if you have somebody who wants to take the reins, but you have somebody combating them, now you're going to, it's going to create, somebody outwardly speaks against that person, that's going to create that tension. Right? So, you know, it comes down to like, how do you influence others when you don't agree with their choices or how they approach things in an influential. approach, right? Particularly when it comes again to those cultural and those generational differences. Right. And this is going to sound harsh, but how do you influence people when you just don't like them? Right. We don't like everybody that we work with. Right. And you're going to have to work with these people. And if you expect to be a person of influence, you got to suck it up and you just got to figure out how to get the best and the most out of them. Right. So again, it's during those times, right? It's just important to identify why it is that you want to influence people in the first place.Brian (25:59)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's why I'm glad that like a scrum value is not like everyone on your team, right? I mean, it's respect and you should have respect for people even if they have a difference of opinion with you, which we were talking about this a little bit before we started, just the idea that, you know, we can exchange ideas and we can have a difference of opinion on ideas. That's not a problem, right? That's just trying to figure out the best idea. We're challenging the idea to see which one is the best approach. It's only when that becomes a personal thing, when it starts to become about the person, not the idea, that's when it's, well, that's when it turns into a destructive conflict.Chris (27:04)
Yeah, it's, you I always like to say, think leadership or influence comes down to three simple words. Respect, empathy, compassion. If you can figure out how to master those three words, which I think it's virtually impossible to master them. But if you could figure out how to have some sort of ability to figure out how to use those words, you can lead anybody. Right? It doesn't matter. As long as you can have respect for them, show empathy, put yourself in their shoes for why they might be feeling a certain way. and have compassion for why they feel that way. Try to understand where they're coming from.Brian (27:37)
That's awesome. I love that. Respect, empathy, compassion. I think that's a great place to end it. So Chris, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts and wisdom with us on this. And just again, I'll mention this in the outro, but look for Chris's book that's out now, Leadership Survival Guide Quotes to Keep You from Going Extinct as a Leader. So Chris, thank you so much for coming on.Chris (28:03)
Awesome, man, I appreciate you having me. It was fun. -
Discover how recognizing and accommodating different collaboration styles can transform your Agile team dynamics. Join Brian Milner and Jessica Guistolise as they delve into the key to effective and inclusive collaboration.
OverviewIn this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian interviews Jessica Guistolise about the diverse collaboration styles that impact team dynamics. They explore the importance of recognizing and accommodating different collaboration styles—relational, expressive, and introspective—to create effective and inclusive collaborative environments.
Jessica provides practical tips for Scrum Masters and facilitators to cater to these styles during meetings and retrospectives. The discussion emphasizes the value of diversity in collaboration styles, which brings different perspectives and ideas to the table, fostering creativity and innovation.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Jessica Guistolise
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Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Jessica Guistolise is an Agile Evangelist and coach at Lucid who excels in helping organizations deliver continuous value to their customers. With a passion for people over process, she specializes in change adoption, gaining critical buy-in, and establishing trust in Agile methodologies across various industries.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a special guest with us. have Jessica Gastolis with us. Did I say that correctly?Jessica Guistolise (00:14)
You did. Thank you so much. It's a mouthful. I am so happy to be here. Thank you so much for invitingBrian (00:21)
Absolutely, incredibly excited to have you here. For those who aren't familiar with Jessica, she is an evangelist at Lucid. So I'm sure we'll hear a little bit about that as we talk. She is an agile coach and she has the credentials to back that up. She has from the Coaches Training Institute, a professional coach certification and also she's an ORSC coach, if you are familiar with that. I'm familiar with that. I know there's a lot that goes into getting those. So it's not just, you know, filling out a, sending in some box stops and, you know, getting it back in the mail. and, so the reason I wanted to have Jessica on is because she was speaking at, or she did speak at the scrum gathering that just took place, back in May. And, she had a couple of talks actually that she did with, Brian Stallings there. but one of them really caught my And I thought it would be interesting here to the audience. And that's about collaboration styles. So let's dive into that topic. When we talk about collaboration styles, Jessica, don't we all collaborate the same?Jessica Guistolise (01:33)
You know, it's funny, we don't actually. Though, although there is a kind of a misconception that we do because we collaborate in the way that we collaborate, but not everybody collaborates in the same way. And so for us to create really amazing collaborative environments, it's helpful to have an awareness of those different styles. And if we facilitate in such a way that cares to each one of those styles, you're gonna get so much more in the room than you would if you only stick with, well, here's how I collaborate. So obviously this is the way to do it.Brian (02:09)
Right. Yeah, I think this is such an important topic because I know one of the questions I'll get a lot in classes or just even in Q &A sessions when we talk about retrospectives is, I'm having a hard time facilitating my retrospective and my team doesn't want to talk or my team's quiet and shy. And to me, this is all kind of indicative of this concept of you're probably not recognizing that they have different collaboration styles than you do.Jessica Guistolise (02:41)
Yeah, absolutely. And it's so amazing because I think as Scrum Masters, as Agile Coaches, this is a really important piece to recognize because as the facilitator, you're really building the container. think of these events as like the containers and the folks who are doing the work, they're all the content. But if you build a container that's going to allow for that content to emerge in a healthy way, you just, I mean, Anything's possible.Brian (03:10)
Right, right. And you know, one of the things I love to say in classes is just that, you know, that facilitation, that's the root goes back to this phrase, it means to make easy. And you know, that's our job is to make whatever that thing is easy. And if we are, if we're not aware of our own personal preference and style and how we collaborate, then it's harder for us to even be empathetic or recognize that other people have different styles and much less how to accommodate them and be inclusive of them in those environments. So I just think it's a really importantJessica Guistolise (03:51)
Well, and the interesting thing too, besides easy, there's also an element of safety. Because if you're asking me to collaborate in a way that makes me really uncomfortable, then I'm spending all of that time in my discomfort and trying to put forth ideas. Those two things are so, they clash. And so there's also an element of just creating an environment of not just easy because this is the way that I collaborate, but I feel safe in collaborating in a that make sense to me. In fact, there's some, there are a couple of styles that are almost opposites. So if you're asking me to collaborate in that way, ooh, I am not sharing anything with you.Brian (04:31)
Right, right, you have that amygdala hijack going on. You're kind of, you're in that fight or flight mode of just, my gosh, I'm panicked. I don't want to do this. I feel highly uncomfortable. you know, it's, can, you know, literally it's blocking those neural pathways of actually being able to collaborate and access, you know, the parts of your brain that would allow you to, to contribute in that kind of environment.Jessica Guistolise (04:59)
Yeah, it's fascinating actually, right before the study that was done came out, I was in a collaboration with a group of people who were collaborating in a way that was wildly uncomfortable. And I came out of that meeting feeling dumb. Like I really was like, wow, I didn't, I just gave nothing. But then, you know, a little while later I was like, well, but I have this idea and this idea and this, wait a minute. I was just stuck because this isn't a way that's very comfortable for me.Brian (05:28)
Yeah. Well, you know, I know you probably know this, but for anyone else listening out there as well, I have definitely felt that way as well in sessions that were kind of contrary to, you know, opposite of what I prefer. And, you know, the way I always describe it is I don't, I'm not a person who thinks out loud. I think internally, I think quietly and then express it later. I need time to process and work through things. But I recognize there are others who are verbal processors who need to speak out loud and and You know if you're in a meeting with a bunch of those Types of people who have that collaboration style and and yours is a quiet one Then you know I've walked out of those rooms before feeling like gosh I'm the dumb one in this meeting because I didn't have anything to contributeJessica Guistolise (06:12)
Yeah, I didn't provide any value in that, but there is, there's so important to recognize that. And I think there's, there's, there are ways to create these containers and to create these collaboration sales that really help to make it so that everyone can feel comfortable collaborating in the way that is going to be comfortable for them. And it just, it's, you know, it's the facilitator work of being prepared.Brian (06:16)
Right, right.Jessica Guistolise (06:38)
preparing for the meeting or the event, creating the container in a way that's going to be safe, comfortable, and easy for everyone.Brian (06:45)
Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, let's get to the meat of that then, because I know there are a few, you kind of delineated these in the presentation that you had. So walk us through, what are the differences in these different kinds of collaboration styles?Jessica Guistolise (06:59)
Yeah, so the study was done, Lucid did a really interesting study. I was so excited by this. And what they found was over half of knowledge workers identify with one of three collaboration styles. And the other part of that is you may not land fully in one of the three and you may have kind of a blend of them, but these are the ones that we see most often. And one of the things that I always like to point out too is that none of these are Like it's just the way that you feel comfortable. They're all really helpful and healthy and really great ways of coming together. So I'll start with the one that I most identify with because it makes the most sense to me. That's we normally create collaboration is we see how do I collaborate and I'll collaborate with you. So the first is relational. And so relational collaborators really want that human connection. Like they want to be, they want to spend some time. How was your weekend? Or just if it's a brand new person, let's get to know each other a little bit before we dive into trying to solve problems. there's it's, it's almost like, for me, I just feel like I need to be in relation with, in relationship with someone before I'm comfortable collaborating. It's like, the metaphor I like to use is, is like baking bread. If I'm in relationship with you, I'm gonna bring you ingredients and recipes and stuff that I'm playing with and trying to figure out. But if I'm not in relationship with you, I will have that entire thing baked and then bring it out and see if you like it. But that's not collaboration, right? That's me by myself and how much better is the bread gonna be if somebody says, well, let's try this and let's try this and let's try this. So that's a relationalBrian (08:49)
So that sounds like that one in particular needs just a tremendous amount of trust to be effective.Jessica Guistolise (08:55)
It does. really does. And I actually, I'll tell you a story about this because, so I, I was working with, an individual who had an interesting problem to solve another agile coach. and he'd come up to me and he was like, I have this interesting problem. Do you have anything in your coaching toolbox or knapsack that you can pull out for me really quickly? And I was like, Hmm, you know what? actually don't. but let me think about And so I went, was doing some other things and sort of in the back of my brain. And then I had just an absolutely ridiculous idea. I mean, it was like, I, I felt silly even thinking it, let alone saying it out loud, but I was in really great relationship with this other individual. So I ran across the hall and I said, okay, I have a really dumb idea. And he goes, okay, let's hear it. And I told him, and he goes, wow, that's really dumb. Let's play with it. And so we played with it and got it into something and he took it back to the team and it worked spectacularly. And I think he's still using it today as an exercise that'll help with the team's collaboration. but if I hadn't been in relationship with him, I would have had that dumb idea and then I would have let it go.Brian (10:10)
Right, right, because you know, you don't want to get made fun of or you don't want to be made to feel dumb or anything. So yeah, absolutely. You got to have that trust and sense of safety with them to be able to bring it up. That's a greatJessica Guistolise (10:23)
Yeah. The second one is one that I wish I had more of and I just don't. So some people identify as expressives. If you're an expressive collaborator, you are ready to dive in at any moment. Like somebody can throw out a topic and you've got, you're the first voice in the room. You love using visuals and drawing out your ideas and throwing up sticky notes and emojis. You're one of those people that's I'm ready to, I'm just ready to share. I really wish I had more of that. Sometimes I think of them as blerters. Like they're just willing to blurt it out. Whatever is there on top of mind and a brainstorm. And I just, think that's so admirable and it's just not a skill that I have.Brian (11:09)
So less of that filter then. mean, it sounds like they don't necessarily need to have that basis of trust. They're just sort of always willing to say what's on the top of their mind and get it out in the open.Jessica Guistolise (11:22)
Yeah, yeah, I think it's a great way of expressing themselves. And they also have maybe a harder time spending that time getting into relationship and all of that ooey gooey stuff. And they're like, let's get to the work, you know. But if we have an awareness that I as an expressive am working with a relational collaborator, some of the work is getting into relationship. So now I feel more comfortable spending that time because I know that the work we're going to do after that is going to be greatlyBrian (11:57)
And correct me here if I'm wrong, because I'm just trying to make sure that we're understanding all speaking the same terminology here, but it sounds like the way you describe this, that expressives are not necessarily verbal expressives. Like you mentioned, someone who's more sketch note based or anything like that. So they may not feel comfortable speaking, but they're very comfortable with the concept of getting an idea out of their head quickly in one way, orJessica Guistolise (12:26)
Yes, exactly. It could be in visual form. think of like people who always have memes or GIFs at their fingertips. Like they're just ready to go and send out these their ideas into the world and not hold on to them tightly. know, they hold them on, hold on to them, Lucy, please, because they're coming out in the world.Brian (12:44)
Hold on loosely, but don't let go. Awesome, I love that. Okay, and then was there another one?Jessica Guistolise (12:52)
There is. So the last one is introspective. So an introspective collaborator, I dip my toe in introspective collaboration as well. Deep work is really, you love deep work. Spending time really processing, thinking through, chewing on an idea, tossing, playing with it a little bit yourself before beginning to share. It's the opportunity to do some research, do some brain writing, spend some time in ideation. And you might even feel comfortable having a conversation with one person rather than if you have a giant group of people sending them into breakouts to have individual conversations. sending out thoughts about what's going to happen before the meeting or the event so that they've got that time to themselves to say, here's what I'm thinking about this topic. before throwing them into a room with a whole bunch of people and expect them to just go.Brian (13:57)
Right, right. Yeah, no, I mean, of these three, yeah, that one sounds very close to what I would identify with for sure. And yeah, I mean, I think one of the characteristics I would kind of try to relay that home to everybody is I love when a collaboration session spills over across days because I love having the ability to go home and sleep on itJessica Guistolise (14:18)
Yes.Brian (14:24)
you know, when I'm walking my dog or getting ready in the morning and the shower or something that that's when the brilliant idea will strike is when my brain is actually distracted and thinking of something else. That's when I can really think about things. And I, I feel like I need that time to sort of let it percolate and kind of, you know, seep in a little bit before I can come back and really contribute.Jessica Guistolise (14:46)
Totally. One of the things that I really appreciate that we do at Lucid. So that meeting that I was talking about where I walked out and I went, I provided zero value in that meeting. We've got an open board for that for after. And there's an expectation that if you have ideas afterwards that you have the opportunity to come back to it the next day or the day after that. It's not, okay, we collaborated, close this. That's it, we're done. but you actually get the chance to do some of that asynchronous follow on day, day after kind of collaboration.Brian (15:20)
Love that. Well, and two, Scrum Masters out there, hear that, listen to that, right? Think about that from that kind of a meeting. This is just a normal meeting, right? But we sometimes can get so structured into the idea of a retrospective being only at this time and this confines, and we have our time boxes and everything else. But yeah, if we can have some spillover time as well, pre or post, right? Just having that abilityJessica Guistolise (15:30)
Hm.Brian (15:49)
let people think through and contribute after the fact, that can really deliver some great results and allow you to include all these different collaboration styles. So then relational, expressive, introspective, these are kind of the three styles that you guys highlighted in your talk. All right. So let's say I'm a Scrum Master and I might identify with one of these. How does that help me? How does that help me to do my work with myJessica Guistolise (16:23)
Yeah, fantastic. So Brian, you immediately recognize your own sort of tendencies or collaborative tendencies, collaboration styles. But if you think about those you work with, do think you could kind of identify what different styles other people you work with on a regular basis might have?Brian (16:43)
Yeah, I think so. mean, most people who are listening to this know my boss. I would, it's kind of funny. If I was going to try to pin Mike Cohn down in one of these three. Gosh, you know what's funny is I'm not sure because he sort of has a blend of all three.Jessica Guistolise (17:08)
Well, that's absolutely like I mentioned, I'm sort of I'm a relational with an introspective kind of toe in introspection. And so I think there's a lot of people who are a little bit of a mix. And so the easiest thing to way to find out is to ask, share what these styles are, and ask what find out what's going on with your team, if they were to self identify, because it's easier to self identify, obviously, And then now you've got a great understanding of what's going on with the rest of your group. It was so fascinating to me when we did the conference talk, we had everybody self -identify and then collect in your self -identified group. So all of the expressives were together, all of the relationals were together and all of the introspectives were together. And then we had them do some work together and they were describing what helps them. to collaborate best. And the expressives were loud and they were right away writing all over the sheets of paper that we had for them. were, you I mean, it was like, it was a boisterous part of the room. The relationals immediately, hi, I don't think we've met yet. Let's get to know one another very quickly. You know, what do you love about your collaboration style? I mean, they really spent that time getting to know one another. And they were kind of coming to consensus before,Brian (18:23)
HahahaJessica Guistolise (18:35)
before writing anything on their page, because they were making sure that everyone was relating and getting their voice in. The introspectives, quiet, quiet, quiet part of the room, and they all had sticky notes and they were writing their ideas and then they were putting the ideas next to each other that might be similar, and then they started having conversations. So as a scrum master, as a facilitator, to know what your team's style is, is again, going to help you create the experience of inviting each one of those styles to collaborate in ways that best work for them. I mentioned introspectives, send out the agenda beforehand, make sure that they know the topics, have some silent brain writing time, because expressives are going to start putting their stickies out anyway, but allow that quiet moment to be there to accommodate those styles. You may put them into breakout rooms or have them meet with one other person. Especially if you've got like a larger collaborative of that, where you've got a bunch of people together, one -on -one first, then maybe four -on -one, know, one, two, four -all kinds of experiences are going to help those introspectives be able to bring their voice forward. You'll also have a moment of connection. Nobody likes icebreakers, so I think of them more as like relationship activities. If we're going to have a relationship activity, that feels way better than an icebreaker.Brian (19:52)
HaJessica Guistolise (20:00)
And spending time really allowing for, how are we feeling today? Let's bring some awareness to what's going on collectively as a group. All of that is helpful because then your relations, they've gotten their relationship moment. They feel connected to the people that they're working with, which means they're going to feel connected to the work that they're doing. So that connection before content allows the contact to be significantly improved. and expressives, give them the space to do it. mean, really allow them to be that voice in the room that jumps in and gets everyone excited. They bring people along. So building your events in ways that allow people to bring, be their best collaborative self is so helpful. The other thing that I think is really helpful trying to make sure you've got diversity of collaboration styles on your team. I'm a huge proponent of DEI and diversity and bringing together wildly different perspectives and ideas. And I just think that all of these interesting and complicated human problems that we're trying to solve need interesting, complicated humans and interesting, complicated teams.Brian (21:20)
HahahaJessica Guistolise (21:22)
And if you've only got introspectives on your team, there's going to be these relation, relationship type thoughts that are going to be missed and same with expressives. And so I think as you're building out a team, or if you have a team, just thinking about like, Ooh, do we have a diversity of collaboration on our team? And am I making sure that each one of those styles are caredBrian (21:44)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like we, I know we talked about this quite a bit on our podcast. know, there are different neuro types, people think in different ways, people have different preferences and you're absolutely right. You know, what, what we need is people who see things from different angles. you know, if we all see things from the same perspective, then we're, don't have anything really to share. We all can just observe one thing and give our own perspective on it. But how much better is it if you have someone who's standing on the opposite side and says, wait a minute. There's actually another dimension to this that you guys aren't really able to see and bringing that to the table can make all the difference in theJessica Guistolise (22:20)
complete difference. And isn't it more fun? Everybody thought the same things that I did. Boy, the whole, it would just be boring. And it's a delight to see the ways in which other people see things and to go wander over and see their perspective. like you said, it brings more dimension to the things that we're working on.Brian (22:45)
Yeah, and at the end of the day, we need some of that conflict. It's not all conflict is bad conflict, If I have a different viewpoint than you, then you're challenging my way of thinking and I'm challenging yours. And hopefully we end up at an endpoint that is a better endpoint because it's been challenged, because we haven't just accepted as rote what somebody thought.Jessica Guistolise (23:14)
Absolutely. I'm totally agree. I think healthy conflict, healthy conflict and collaboration is, is helpful. I collab. I should have said in that moment, I don't collaborate like this. Can we get to know one another? And I probably would have met some folks in the organization that I, because it was, it was not people that I spend a lot of time with on a regular basis, I would have met people across the organization that I would have.Brian (23:28)
Right.Jessica Guistolise (23:43)
would have liked a number.Brian (23:45)
Well, and I think it's amazing how powerful it is to have a name for something and be able to just kind of say, hey, this is what this means and this is what this is behind this. And if I know I am relational, then I know kind of what I need to be successful. I know what's gonna set me off. I know what's gonna be difficult for me. And I have a much higher likelihood of being productive in that kind of environment because I'm aware of those sorts of things. I think I know the way that you guys started was to try to get people to understand a little bit about where they were first before thinking about others. And I think that that was a genius way to approach that because I think you're right. You kind of know where you are on the map a little So yeah, we've talked about this a little bit when I kind of did my research and work on neurodiversity and different neuro types and stuff and how these different things relate. yeah, it's just like we were saying, right? You need different perspectives. You need different kind of approaches to problems if you're going to solve them and think in different ways when you approach issues. All right. If we understand there's relational, there's expressive, there's introspective, we kind of can pin where we are. We're starting to see where others are. How do I put this into practice? If I'm designing a retrospective, let's just say, and I know my team is made up of, I got five people, I got, you know, of three introspectives and two relationals on my team and no expressives. How's that gonna change how I prepare myJessica Guistolise (25:36)
yeah. Well, probably don't just have them start talking about it. I mean, so, you know, as you're thinking through the as you're thinking through the five stages of a retrospective, what you might do is like, okay, so if I'm going to open the retrospective, how might I open the retrospective in a way that's going to cater to my relational? That's an easy one to grab on to, right? Let's let's talk aboutBrian (25:41)
No open discussion,Jessica Guistolise (26:04)
What's something interesting that's in your wallet or your purse or just something that's gonna help the group begin to be in relationship with one another? You'll wanna have some quiet time. Allow them to spend some time on their own thinking about what happened over the course of the last week before you even start throwing things up. You might have just a five minute, close your eyes walk yourself through the last sprint and think about what were the big things that happened before even going into the writing. There's some really nice introspective time to chew on what happened, what's going on. You may put them, like I said, in small groups of two or three instead of having them come together to try to come up with experiments as a whole wide group right off the bat. So when When you figure out, here's the things that we want, here's the topics, here's what the data is telling us, and here's what we want to run an experiment on. Again, allow for that time to go back and really chew on. So we have this thing that we want to work on in the next iteration. So I'm going to spend some time thinking about maybe 10 different ways that we might experiment on that instead of having the whole group have that conversation right off the bat. So there's a whole bunch of different things you could do. to kind of unlock the collaboration in all of your team members.Brian (27:37)
Yeah. Yeah. We were talking a little bit before our podcast about how we're music nuts and, you know, really get into that world. you know, the ideas crossed my mind. It's sort of like, you know, when you think about composing music or you think about a piece of music, right? If everything wasn't a major key, that would get boring. You know, we like to have minor keys on occasion or sometimes augments. augmented keys or different time signatures and different rhythms and things that kind of come to play in a piece of music. And sometimes we'll even shift those in the course of a single song. So if you think about a retrospective kind of in that or a facilitation session even larger than a retrospective, but just any facilitation session, right? You don't want it to get boring. You don't want to just cater to one thing. You want to be able to have some variety and that makes it interesting that keeps people's attention.Jessica Guistolise (28:32)
Please. It does. mean, think about just even how you might shift things up in a daily scrum. Every day come to it, okay, so today we're gonna do an expressive scrum. Warn your introspectives that that's coming. Today we're gonna do a relational scrum, daily scrum. Think about how you might add these elements into your planning session, because that's a deeply collaborative session, and you wanna make sure that there's space for each one of your collaborative. collaboration style team members to have the ability to you I think everybody would be surprised how much more information comes when we feel comfortable collaborating in these different styles and There's edges in each of us right so helping to kind of Walk those edges I've I have been working really hard on trying to be more expressive I asked expressives. How do you do that? And really a lot of it is I don't hold my expresses, the things that I express tightly. They're just ideas and I'm willing to just throw them out. And so for me, that's an edge for me that I can walk up to. And so you can help your team members because they're not always gonna be on a team that has an understanding all of these styles exist. Although as a team member, I might say, hey, let's all talk about our collaboration styles real quick as a part of our working agreement. But you may find yourself on a team that doesn't have that same understanding of the collaboration styles. And so if you work on kind of moving that edge further and further, you're stepping into it a bit, then you're going to be more comfortable collaborating in multitudes of environments. And ladies and gentlemen, and all of those in between, We want to hear your voice. so doing the self work in some of that I think is also really important.Brian (30:37)
Absolutely, yeah, I couldn't agree more. Well, I can't thank you enough, Jessica. Thank you for taking time out and coming in and explaining this to us. It's just, one of the joys of getting to do this kind of thing that I get to have these kinds of conversations with the Agile community and different members of our community. So thank you for making time and sharing your wisdom on this with everyone.Jessica Guistolise (31:00)
Yeah, thanks, Brian. This has been an absolutely delightful conversation. And if people want more information on the collaboration styles, there is a report out there. And with the report, there is also a quiz you could take that says, wait a minute, what is my collaboration style? And you could have your whole team take the collaboration style quiz. And then you'd really have an understanding of where is everybody at? And how can we make sure that their voice is in the system?Brian (31:22)
That's an awesome suggestion. We'll definitely put that in our show notes, too. So we'll make sure everyone can just find that in our show notes and not have to hunt for it or anything. But that's an awesome suggestion. Well, again, thanks, Jessica. I appreciate you coming on and speaking with us.Jessica Guistolise (31:39)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's been a delight. -
Explore the dynamic future of work with Brian Milner and Heather McGowan as they discuss the essential shifts in mindset and culture needed to thrive in the augmented era.
OverviewIn this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner interviews Heather McGowan, a renowned future of work strategist, about the rapidly changing landscape of work in the augmented era.
Heather emphasizes the importance of adaptation, empathy, and human connection in response to technological, societal, and cultural shifts. They discuss the pervasive issue of loneliness in the workplace and the critical role of leaders in fostering a culture of trust, agency, and high expectations to drive performance and productivity.
Heather also shares insights on finding personal purpose and intrinsic motivation to excel in the future of work. This conversation provides valuable strategies for individuals and leaders to navigate the evolving work environment successfully.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Heather McGowan
Want to get involved?
Heather’s Website
The Adaptation Advantage by Heather McGowan & Chris Shipley
The Empathy Advantage by Heather McGowan & Chris Shipley
The UpSwing by Robert Putnam
Agile Training for Teams & Leaders
Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast
Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule
Join the Agile Mentors CommunityThis show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.
Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Heather McGowan is a leading strategist and keynote speaker on the Future of Work, known for transforming mindsets and organizations with her insights on continuous learning, leadership, and culture. Her groundbreaking approach has empowered employees, enhanced leaders' effectiveness through empathy, and driven businesses to achieve their goals in a rapidly evolving market.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back with you for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today we have someone I'm very, very excited to have on. She was the keynote speaker that kicked off our Scrum Gathering in New Orleans this year. It's Ms. Heather McGowan. So welcome in, Heather.Heather (00:20)
Hey there, thanks so much for havingBrian (00:23)
I'm so excited to have Heather in. If you're not familiar with Heather's work, she has, think, the best job title I think I've ever heard. She is the future of work strategist. And like I said, that's awesome. I love that. But beyond that, there's a lot that I could say about Heather to introduce her to you. But I'll give you a couple of things just so you kind of understand the perspective of her coming home. First, She was named one of the top 50 female futurists by Forbes. So let that sink in. She also has two incredible books out there. One called The Adaptation Advantage. has more than two books, two recent books. The Adaptation Advantage, Let Go, Learn Fast, and Thrive in the Future of Work. That's one. And her latest one that just came out recently, it's called The Empathy Advantage. leading the empowered workforce. And I'm very, excited to have her on because her talk at the Scrum Gathering really captured my imagination. And I think everyone's imagination there. so let's just dive in, Heather. Let's talk about this whole concept of the future of work. And I think one of the ways you started in the presentation, I think, was really important to try to understand where we are on the timeline of the work. the way we have progressed through ways of working. So where are we? Where would you put us on the timeline?Heather (01:57)
Yeah, so first of all, the title, Future Work Strategist, was not something I applied for. It's a title.Brian (02:03)
Really? Because I want to fill out that job application.Heather (02:07)
It's a title I created because I felt like there was a need for many of us to be working in looking at the future work, which is something that will never be done. It often gets conflated with being about where we work or DEI issues, but really it is about those things. But for me, it's about leadership, it's about workforce, it's about learning, it's about adaptation, it's about purpose. It's about adapting right now pretty rapid changes that are not only technological, but societal and cultural and demographic and generational. And we're wrestling with just a lot of change at once. one of the things I say to folks is sometimes I think that the majority of what we're going to be doing in the near term is helping each other adapt. Because we're to have to adapt at a clip we've never had to adapt to before. Prior generations had maybe one paradigm shifting change in a generation. Now we might have three or four.Brian (03:02)
Yeah.Heather (03:03)
So in terms of where we are, we had the agricultural era and the industrial era and the information era. Well, we're now in the augmented era. So we're dealing with technology consuming tasks that we do at a faster and faster clip. And a lot of people kind of catastrophize it about technology taking away jobs. We're the only species that would invent things to make ourselves irrelevant. that's how what people, but it doesn't make any sense. What we're really doing is inventing technologies that augment our potential. And it requires us to not only learn and adapt and think about differently about who we are, which is what the adaptation advantage was really about, but how do we relate to each other? How do we get the best out of each other? And that's really what the empathy advantage was about. So we're in the augmented era. Technology is going to continue to come at a faster and faster clip. But it's more important for us to think about how we learn and adapt and how we lean into our uniquely human skills. Because... The technology can provide the answers, but it's up to us to find the questions.Brian (04:04)
That's awesome. Yeah. I think that's such an excellent point that, you know, just trying to think about the fact that, yes, in previous generations, there may have been one paradigm shifting kind of change that comes through a lifetime in the way that we work. But in our lifetimes, we've dealt with the Internet coming on board and we've dealt with multiple revolutions since then, mobile and AI. And these things happen. it's such a greater clip that it really does shift even even things like COVID changing, a lot of places working from home previously was always in the office. It seems like change is the constant now and that change is kind of the thing that we need to get good at is being adaptive and able to change. Why do you feel like, I'm just kind of curious of your opinion on this, why do feel like we're so resistant as humans to just change in general?Heather (05:00)
I think we have a fear of obsolescence. then in times like right now, I delve into this sometimes in some of my talks, is we're going through some pretty significant division and polarization. It's really acute in the US, but it's happening all over the world. You look at the elections in France and the UK recently. I think it's important to understand how that happened because a lot of people think that's just social media. And technology did come into play, but if you look back in the US anyway in the 70s and 80s, that's when we started to see a real erosion in our social fabric. We started having fewer people over for dinner and being part of fewer fewer clubs, talking to our neighbors less. So we got more and more isolated. And then we had a loneliness epidemic that's been around for at least a decade or so, which, and when you're lonely, your amygdala, the kind of reptilian part of your brain goes into overdrive. So you go into fight or flight mode. So you have a lot of change, isolation, fight or flight mode, and then you throw in social media that kind of catastrophizes things. And we're all in this us versus them mode. And we've stopped seeing, hearing each other. And one of my messages in almost all my talks is we have so much more in common than we have in difference. They show lots of studies from it. So if we just could start talking to each other again, we may not vote for the same candidate. We don't vote for the same teams, but we both love the sport. And that's what we need to get back to is understanding how much we have in common because so much of the work we're going to be doing, especially when technology comes in, is communication, collaboration, exploration. And all of those things require us to relate to each other because you're going to see something that I don't see. And if I only hired people who think like me, it would be tragic because I wouldn't see the entirety of the opportunity. So if you want to really drive profitable growth in your company, you want those diversities of inputs and you want to set a culture that has people see and hear each other so you can see optimally the opportunity space. And because that's what we're going to be doing. It's most of the work we're going be doing.Brian (06:55)
Yeah, yeah, this is a fascinating fact to me because I, one of the things I start in your presentation is just this idea about loneliness. And I absolutely agree. You know, there's, I think we all can kind of recognize that even though we've tried to create these social media companies that to try to, you know, get a, gain a stronger sense of connection in some ways it's driven the opposite of this sort of loneliness factor. But I'm curious from from some sort of a sociological perspective, that has, it seems, transferred into our workplace. And I know one of your stats there was about how we feel more lonely at work. And I'm just curious, what do you think is driving that, the kind of sense of loneliness that we have while atHeather (07:48)
Yeah, know, some folks will point that to being about where we work. That's not my area of expertise. There plenty of people who look at where we work. That may be a factor for some folks if you're working remotely and you don't see other people, certainly a factor. But what I think what's really happening is we've outsized what work is in our lives. So community used to consist of social interactions, religious affiliations. clubs and groups we belong to, all of those kind of, if you think of them as circles, because everything's visual to me, all those circles shrank and work became bigger. So now part of it's generational change, but more and more people are looking for work to provide their purpose, work to provide most of their relationships, work to fill these. So it's a little bit in terms of how we're interacting with each other that's causing the loneliness, but it's also an outsize expectation we have around work. So now it becomes table stakes for a lot of organizations for work to be my self -expression, work to be my sense of purpose, work to be where I think about my values. And it wasn't like that a few decades ago.Brian (08:49)
Yeah. Yeah, that's, I just, I love that point. think you're absolutely hitting the nail on the head with that. And, and, know, just so everyone listening doesn't, doesn't misinterpret this in any way, you know, we're not, we're not saying in any way that those other kinds of organizations like churches or community groups or anything are bad or that you shouldn't see community and those kinds of things. It's just that our society has sort of moved away from those as being the foundational, places where we get community and you're I absolutely agree. is, work has sort of filled that. Sort of analogous, I think, to the way that police have become the front line of our mental health,Heather (09:27)
Mental health, yeah, exactly. Exactly, and that's not fair to the police and they're not prepared to do that and, you know, we suffer. I think the point with work is that that is where we are. So if you're leading an organization today, that is a reality. I hope that changes. I'm a big fan of Robert Putnam. He wrote Bullying Alone in the late 90s and he pointed out the sort of phrase we're having in ourselves, of fabric. He had another book that came out in, I think it was 2020 or 2021, in the middle of pandemic where he... which was called the upswing, where he says we go through these kind of, you you think about it like a pendulum, we go through periods of high collectivism, you know, the kind of the eye to the we. And we're at the highest, you know, the lowest level of the we and the highest level of the eye in terms of being isolated and all that we do. And we're primed to go back into a we phase. So I'll be interested to see what forms of community start to emerge because we're primed to have that happen. Soon, like I notice is a, live most of the time in Florida, part of the time in Massachusetts. It's a restaurant I go to in Florida. And I was like, why do we love that restaurant so much? I do like the food. It's very good. But it has a situation that an empty seat is is a, is anywhere you could sit. So if I come in by myself or with one other person, they would sit me at the table with one other person or two or 300 people. It's community seating. So you end up sitting with people that you don't know having conversations. It's kind of like a forced community. It's fantastic.Brian (10:53)
Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. I mean, I will say, you know, the introvert part of me is like, I don't want to sit down. Right. Yeah. I identify with that. Yeah. Awesome. Well, so if we have this problem, right, we're dealing with, with a fear of change. We're dealing with a work in place that is lonelier than it's ever been. And we were dealing with a population that's seeking belongings, sinking.Heather (10:59)
I'm an introvert too, but when I'm forced, it's good for me.Brian (11:23)
connection and community while at work. I think you're right that that has a profound impact on the way we work even. And I know you talked a little bit about just kind of the main drivers of productivity, the main drivers of being successful. And I think that this is maybe counterintuitive to what some people think. Help us, talk us through that a little bit about what you found as far as what really drives productivity.Heather (11:58)
Sure, so just to give you a little background on me that relates to this point. So I spent the last, prior to when I started speaking full time, which is about 10 years ago, I spent 10 to 15 years working on the corporate side, industrial design, product design, design strategy, so new innovation stuff. And every organization I went into, I felt people really weren't equipped. to propositionally think. They could reiterate on the existing solutions. If they had a product, they could make another version of that product, but they couldn't jump entirely to a white space and think of something where we didn't have a contextual reference. And then I found myself working in higher ed because I had a mentor who became president of university and he said, I want to create a new college focused on innovation. And I think you understand it better than anybody else. So I built a new college focused on innovation. From those two sides, I saw the supply and the demand side of talent. And what I saw happening, and this is what kind of led to my speaking career, is we're not preparing people to do the kind of work we need people to do. We're hiring people based on past skills and experience degrees. We've now like edged all the way up to skills -based hiring. But what that really is, is hiring somebody who can demonstrate that they can do something you need them to do. What happens when they get there three or four months later and you need them to do something that's never been done before? So we need to prepare more people to do work that's never been done before. And how do you do that? I think you look more at behaviors. And then how do you activate those behaviors? So what you look for in people is some level of skill, but also behaviors that will tell you what they'll do when they don't know what to do. And that is basically what culture is. Culture is collective behaviors. So that's how you screen for people. And then how do you set the conditions to activate those behaviors? What we've done in the past is hire the skills and exert some hustle culture. And that's going to rev the engine of productivity. We did that until we hit burnout and we're still hitting burnout and we're still hitting burnout and unhappiness and disengagement. So we went from hustle culture to going, we need more engagement. we need shared purpose. we need psychological safety. Well, what's behind all of that is we need humans who feel seen and heard. Somebody cares about me. I trust my leader. You set those conditions to people who have agency and they'll activate those behaviors for which you hired them. And so they have some of the skills you need. They're going to have to acquire so many more because you don't know the work they're going to be doing. So we got to focus on what I say is culture and then people who want to build their capacity.Brian (14:29)
Yeah, yeah, I love that point. And I think you're absolutely right. I'm kind of so we've been building towards skill based kind of hiring instead of behavior based hiring. And we should be looking more at building people who have the right behaviors to learn and grow and change and adapt. So I'm kind of curious your take on this, because I know that in the past few years, especially, I don't know if you've seen this, think I've noticed this in multiple sections, but there seems to have been sort of this segment of management that has returned a little bit, kind of tried to turn the clock back and gone back to a little bit of Taylorism and kind of the idea of, you you need to push and drive your employees to work harder. And I even see that in some job postings and things about how, you know, there's sort of a rise more traditional project management, is really more based on pushing and driving than enabling. I'm just curious, what's your take? Why do you think that's resurfaced?Heather (15:41)
I think we got a lot of fatigue coming out of COVID. I remember us doing the sort of the press tour and everything for the Empty Advantage last spring. one, I was talking to a group of CEOs and they said to me, you know what, we're just tired of caring. And because they were being honest with me. And I said, well, explain to what you mean. And they said, well, I get it. We have to be empathetic and we have to feel bad for people and expect less of them. And I said, there's compassion and you should have that instances. And there's empathy and they are not the same thing. When I'm talking about empathy, it's about understanding the people that you're hiring and what motivates them so you can help them become what I call self -propelled. Because you cannot get people to learn and adapt at the speed, scale and scope we're gonna need through just extrinsic pressure. And there's a return to that right now. I think it's some COVID fatigue of just, you know, exhausted because people did have to care a lot for their people. But you know what, we had higher levels We had higher levels of engagement. had higher levels of productivity at the height of the pandemic because we were caring. And that was a little care fatigue. so the care fatigue hits a little economic uncertainty. We've been waiting for a recession. Inflation's been sticky. It's harder to run your business tomorrow than it was yesterday. Again, all those things. But a return to kind of the beatings will continue until the morale improves has never worked. But there is certainly a push to try that now. And I get But you're not going to get the performance out of people that way. just don't believe it. A very small percentage of people that works on most of us work best when we feel like we can trust our boss. We have agency. We have high expectations. I mean, all the studies that I've seen, the best jobs people had with the highest level of performance were when they challenged themselves, they had respect, they had autonomy, and they had agency.Brian (17:33)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely agree. It just, it fascinated me when I saw that kind of return and rear its ugly head again and think, and my thought was, we've tried this, you know, like this is, it's not that this hasn't been tested and tried, we've run this experiment and it failed and we've progressed into this new era. And I think sometimes there's a leadership kind of misunderstanding that we're just trying to be nice. Like people just want us to be nice. And it's just about being kind of more friendly and kind. And that's what all these management consultants want us to be. there's a purpose behind it. It's because it works. It's not because it just makes you a better person, though it does. But it actually is better for your business to doHeather (18:21)
Yeah, I think what happened is we had such a long stretch of Taylorism that we presume that that is the model that works. had four years of caring and we had good performance. And that gets sort of conflated with where we work, which I think is a completely separate thing. I think we've got to return to, not return to, we've got to go forward and to say, what did we learn in those four years? What are the things that really worked? How did we really better performance out of people. Because at the end of the day, it's what you're to do. It's why you run your organization. We are in a capitalist society. You're going to run your organization getting the highest level of performance. Highest level of performance and productivity is getting the highest level of performance out of your people. Highest level of performance out of your people comes when you trust them, they have agency, you hire for the right behaviors, you set the right conditions, and you encourage them to do things they never thought they could do. And that's what comes out of all the studies.Brian (19:11)
Yeah. Yeah. And I know you, you, you drawn kind of this, this really interesting connection, I think between performance and, and mental health and sort of the idea of, you know, that we, again, building on what we've said, right? If our organizations are where we're seeking community and we're feeling lonely, then that this does impact how we work. so it shouldn't be that far of a leap for people to understand how, Hey, if, if, our work environments are damaging people's mental health, that directly impacts performance.Heather (19:47)
Yeah, and you just look at the studies like, know, the companies that are ranked best places to work, they're ranked best places to work by the employees, because the employees are happy there. And you know what? Their performance is something like 16 % higher than the companies that are on the list. So it's pretty clear. You're getting the performance when people are happy, not you're going to get the performance. You're going to be happy when you get the performance. It's the other way around. We're looking at it backwards.Brian (20:12)
Yeah, I agree. And one of the stats that jumped out at me in your presentation was this stat about how big of a role your direct manager or leader has on your mental health, just in general and overall in life. So tell us a little bit aboutHeather (20:32)
Yeah, there were three different studies I think I cited in the piece you're talking about. First, the employer has a greater influence on your mental health than your spouse, partner, or therapist if you have one.Brian (20:46)
That's so, I just got a full stop there. Like that is so amazing to me. Your boss has more impact on your mental health than your spouse. That just blows my mind, sorry.Heather (20:57)
And the greatest source of stress in your life is your job. And then there was another study, which I thought was fascinating, and it was looking at lower paid workers generally not highly educated. The relationship, this was a longitudinal study, and it was only like four or 500 people, but they looked at your relationship with your direct supervisor. If your direct supervisor treated you with respect, gave you agency, gave you autonomy, you trusted them, you went home and raised your children such that they had higher levels of economic, social, and financial success. So not only is your boss influencing your life, you're influencing the next generation and thereby the next workforce. So there's a lot more we should be doing preparing these leaders for having this what is now an awesome responsibility. It's a really profound responsibility. And it's because I think work has become so outsized in our lives. And it's going to be. It's going to continue to be.Brian (21:58)
Yeah. Yeah. So no pressure, leaders, right? I mean, no pressure on the fact that not only are you concerned with your business and your employees, but the future generation of workers. Right.Heather (22:09)
And we need to help those leaders. We need to help them put on a gas mask before they try to help anybody else.Brian (22:14)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, you know, we're in this, first of all, I think this is this huge dichotomy of, you know, as we said, we're in the age of people feeling lonely at work. While when we look at our process kind of evolution, we're in a teaming phase of process. We value, especially here, you know, an Agilist and people who practice Scrum. We're all about teamwork. It's all about working together as a team. So I'm curious, kind of your take on that. Why do you feel like we still have this sense of loneliness, even though we're trying to move more and more of our process towards being collaborative and team -based?Heather (22:58)
I think we forgot to know how to connect to each other. And we can't get it all from work, but since we're looking to get so much of it from work, we need to figure it out there. I mean, how many, you know, they found these studies that, you know, you're happier at work if you have a best friend at work. It used to be that people met their spouse or partner through church work, or I can't remember the third one. Now it's mostly online. So even though we're in work, we're not. forming our social circles around work as much anymore. And it's not really, because this started long before the pandemic, so it's not just that we're working remotely and that's why our social circles aren't happening there. I think we forgot how to connect with each other. We forgot to say, how are you and mean it, instead of just waiting for fine. We forgot to have conversations that had something other than to do than what we're doing. We just forgot how to be human and have meaningful connections. And I think when you start having conversations with people about that, like I was just in Prague last month for a talk, and there was another speaker. And we connected beforehand, we sort of knew each other, and his talk was on human connection, my talk was on the future work as human, because all my talks are bespoke to the audience and what they need. And so we coordinated our two talks. And then while I was there, in his talk, he talked about how both of his parents died suddenly, within like three months of each other. And it was a really impactful part of his talk and an impactful part of the most important conversations you have in his life, in your life, et cetera. And then when I was in Prague, I got a call that said my father was dying and I had to leave. And I messaged him. And now we message each other every single day to check in with each other. It was a catalyst for a human connection you don't normally have when you share a stage with someone for five minutes. But I'm noticing more and more that people are trying to do They're trying to make more meaningful and lasting connections that are, you know, we talk about speaking, but really we talk about how are you? What are you going through? How's your breathing going today? What do you have on store for the weekend? And I've done that with a number of speakers who've become close friends. And I think more and more folks need to be, feel comfortable just reaching out and doing that and having a real connection with folks that doesn't have to do with a product that's due or a deadline or a financial goal or what have you, but has to do with. What we all want is humans, which is ultimately connection.Brian (25:14)
Yeah, boy, I can't agree more. Well, we're getting towards the end of our time. before we wrap, one thing I wanted to ask is, we have listeners here that are leaders. We have listeners that are involved in Scrum teams. We may have some Scrum masters and product owners that are listening. And they're hearing this, probably agreeing a lot with what they're hearing from you. So my question for you then is if you were to talk to that group, if there were some advice you could give them, tips you could give them to better prepare them for the future of work, for where we're headed, what kind of advice would you give people currently working on Teams?Heather (26:02)
I think the most important thing to figure out, and some people take a lifetime doing it, some people are born doing it, is what do you really care about? What kind of impact do you want to have on the world? How do you like to work? What kind of problems do you like to work on or find or frame? Where do you like to work in the process? Because more self -awareness you have about what really drives you, because that's really your fuel source, the better you're going to be in whatever you do. We tend to tell people, funnel people into careers based on what they're told they're good at, or more likely what they're told they're not good instead of focusing on what gives them energy. Because if we're going to have to learn and adapt, and we are, then we ought to be learning adapting around something we're intrinsically motivated to do.Brian (26:46)
That's awesome. Yeah, I agree. It sounds very close to, you know, Simon Sinek's kind of find your why basis there of just, you know, that being so important in what drives us. So couldn't agree more. That's that's awesome. Well, I want to be respectful of your time and our listeners time. So, Heather, I can't thank you enough. Every time I hear you talk, I feel like I've taken another leap and have more stuff to go research and and study based off of it. So.Heather (26:53)
Sure.Brian (27:15)
Thank you so much for taking some time here to talk with us on the podcast.Heather (27:19)
Thank you. And I just want to close with one thing because I'm a belligerent optimist. So we have some hard problems ahead of us. We've got division, we've got technology, et cetera. But we have done more in one human lifetime to improve the human condition than all of human history. We've more people out of poverty. We've almost solved literacy. We've connected the globe. It's time for us, in the words of JFK, take longer strides and do hard things. We are up to and we are more than capable of this. So I'm really optimistic about the future that's ahead of us. I think we just have to face some of our challenges. So thank you very much for having me.Brian (27:53)
Amen, amen. All right. Thanks so much, Heather. I appreciate you coming on.Heather (27:58)
Thanks a lot for having me. Take care. -
Explore the hidden barriers to successful Scrum adoption as Brian Milner and Lucy O'Keefe dive into organizational dysfunctions and cultural impediments in this insightful episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast.
OverviewIn this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner sits down with Lucy O’Keefe to unpack the organizational dysfunctions highlighted in their talk at the Scrum Gathering.
They delve into how culture can significantly hinder Scrum adoption and discuss other common impediments like resistance to change, command and control leadership, and siloed teams. Emphasizing the importance of transparency, inspection, and adaptation, Brian and Lucy offer actionable insights to help organizations overcome these challenges.
Listeners will also learn why leadership understanding and stakeholder participation are crucial for successful Agile adoption and the necessity of training in Agile values and principles for true organizational change.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Lucy O’Keefe
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Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Lucy O'Keefe has over 28 years of IT experience and has worn multiple hats in the Agile world - developer, Product Owner, Scrum Master, and now, Certified Scrum Trainer® (CST) where she uses her experience to ensure each student has a great training experience.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner, and we have a favorite back with us today. We have Ms. Lucy O 'Keefe with us. Welcome in Lucy.Lucy O'Keefe (00:12)
Thank you so much, Brian. Happy to be here again.Brian (00:14)
Very happy to have Lucy back with us. Lucy and I saw each other recently. Actually, I think it was the first time we saw each other in person, right? Yeah. We finally saw each other in person at the Scrum Gathering that took place recently in New Orleans. And I had the pleasure of getting to see Lucy's talk that she had there at the Scrum Gathering. And...Lucy O'Keefe (00:22)
It was the first time, yep. Finally.Brian (00:41)
She gave a talk with Joe Miller called, Scrum Unmasked, Unveiling the Dysfunctions Within Our Organizations. And I thought it would be a good opportunity to bring Lucy back and talk a little bit about this topic, because this is an important topic. And it was a packed room, it was full of people that wanted to know about this as well. So I thought it'd be a good chance for us to share this with the audience. But to start this, actually, before I even begin, I get ahead of myself. myself here a little bit. For those who maybe haven't heard Lucy on the podcast before, Lucy is a CST. She has a CTC. Her company is called Dart Frog Consulting. And she also has started recently this mentoring program with a new smally that is kind of a really interesting concept. It's a CTC mentoring cohort. So if that's something you're interested in, We'll put links into our show notes that you can get in contact with her about that. But if you're interested in pursuing certified team coach certification with the Scrum Alliance, that's a really great way to do that. You get a group of people around it and kind of go on that journey together. But let's talk about this topic. And I thought a good way to start was actually to be a little bit meta about this. I want to go behind the scenes a little bit. and think about where this topic came from, what's the genesis of where this came from and how you and Joe hooked up on this. So give us a little bit of the backstory of where this idea came from.Lucy O'Keefe (02:20)
So to start, Joe and I have worked together. We worked at a consulting firm together. And funny enough, we actually were both speakers at a virtual conference a few years ago. He was on the panel and I was an actual speaker, but we never met. Back then we met actually when we started working in the same consulting firm. And of course I left the consulting firm a few years ago to go independent, but we just kept in touch and we always wanted to do something together. so when, when I was trying to figure out topics for the scrum gathering in New Orleans, I reached out to him and I asked if he would want to do a talk with me. A lot of times it's much easier to do it with somebody else. And I thought it would be fun because he and I see eye to eye on a lot of stuff. And I think we, we complement each other pretty well. But when we were talking about what topics we'd want to talk about, I kind of always go back to the things that I've experienced when I've been in organizations. And I think, I think a lot of us have experienced kind of something, something similar where people are going to say, scrum just doesn't work for us. Right. I actually, it was actually one of my first blogs that I wrote probably six, seven years ago was about that, about people saying, it just doesn't work for us. There, you know, it's not something that we can do. So I kind of got this idea that this is what we should be talking about. And I always go back to. Ken Trebers quote, and I said this during the talk, you may recall, you know, scrum is like your mother -in -law, it points out all your faults. So this idea that scrum is holding up this mirror, you know, to the organization is something that I always talk about. And I think it's important for scrum masters and others in organizations to understand that, no, it's not scrum that's the issue. It's that we have all this stuff that's not, going well in our organizations and we're just putting Scrum on top of it without fixing the issues, right? So we're trying to put a band -aid on what's going on in our organization instead of looking at the root cause. So I just thought that that would be a great topic to talk about.Brian (04:27)
I love that. And I think that's a great way to look at it because you're right. It's not something that's going to fix everything, but it does make it very revealing. I remember the phrase I've always heard people use is it's not a silver bullet, it's a silver mirror. You know, like it's going to reflect back very honestly to you what's going on. Awesome. Well, that's that. Thank you for the backstory. I really appreciate that because I know a lot of people, you know, if you're listening to this, you may be considering, you know, do I want to submit and try to speak at a conference? So.Lucy O'Keefe (04:41)
Yep.Brian (04:57)
just to give a little background to where those kind of ideas come from. I thought that would be interesting little sideline there. So let's get into our topic. Let's talk about some of these dysfunctions because I know the main point of this was talking about organizational dysfunctions, kind of some common problem. So hit us up. Give us a few of these big organizational dysfunctions that you guys talked about.Lucy O'Keefe (05:22)
So I think the main one and one that's probably going to resonate with a lot of people is culture. For me, culture is always the biggest issue. People are the biggest issue, right? You know, as you know, you probably remember this, right? In the previous Scrum guide, it would say, Scrum is simple to understand, but difficult to master, right? Or difficult to implement because it involves people. So culture is the biggest issue and culture encompasses... quite a few things, right? It could be resistance to change within an organization. It could be a lack of empowerment. It could be command and control, which I'm sure you've seen in plenty of organizations. I've seen plenty of organizations, even though we know that we are hiring the best people, a lot of leaders or managers actually I'll call them, you know, still want to be in control, still want to be the people telling people what to do. And it's very hard to go to... to a way of working where it's like, okay, I need to remove myself from the equation and trust that these people are gonna do what they should be doing. So I think culture encompasses a lot of the other things that we talk about when we're talking about organizational impediments. Another thing is organizational structure. Are we highly hierarchical? Are we a matrixed organization? Do we still have these silo teams, right? That work on just specific skills? And I'm sure you've seen this. I'm sure you've worked in waterfall just like I have in the past, right? You have your business analysts on one side. You have your designers on another side and then your developers and then your testers, right? And they're all reporting into a business analyst or tester or developer or anything like that. So there is no cohesive team that has one. focus or one objective. You know, we're matric, you know, getting these people out of that matrix and putting them into a team. But they're all just interested in their own thing, right? It's a very siloed way of working. So it's very hard to make that transition into, okay, we are a product team and we work together. And we have to be dedicated and stable. Because we're not used to seeing that in a lot of organizations, people are not dedicated to teams. And we're talking about waterfall. I have barely seen any of that. I used to have a team where, and there was already a scrum team, but we had three BAs on the team and they were each 33%. And that's something that is very normal. And even when I'm teaching my classes and I'm sure you have the same questions or comments, a lot of people are like, well, this is very hard for us because we have John Doe here who, you know, he's in five different teams. How is he going to go to all these events? So that's definitely another organizational impediment, which for me kind of goes back to culture as well. Right? So those things are big things. Leadership not understanding. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, no, go ahead.Brian (08:10)
Yes. Yeah. I was thinking, I was thinking, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I was just, I was thinking the same thing that when you said that, that just, yeah, it is very, the hierarchy of the organization is very cultural. And if you, you know, if we're, we're trying to empower teams and instill in them this idea that, Hey, you need to, in order to move fast, you've got to have autonomy and you've got to have the ability to go and make decisions. that's, that's very. much ingrained in how we structure our organization. If I have to get approval for everything I do, that's going to run counter to what we're trying to do in a Scrum environment. So I love that you made that connection. I absolutely agree with you. It's a very cultural thing.Lucy O'Keefe (08:59)
It is, it is. Yeah. And as I said before, I think a lot of the impediments we see go back to culture, leadership, understanding leadership participation, a lot of organizations when they're thinking about agile, they're thinking about scrum. It's like, okay, the teams need to do that. All right. Let's, let's start in IT and our IT teams are going to start doing scrum and who cares about the rest of the organization. We're going to keep thinking the way that, that we've always been thinking. We're going to keep budgeting the way we've always budgeted. And then we have. We have a lot more resistance, a lot more conflict because we have a team that's trying to work in a certain way. And then you have stakeholders and leadership that are expecting things to be the way that they always were. So stakeholder participation, for example, you know, a lot of stakeholders are going to be like, well, I already told you what I want. Why are you coming to me every two weeks or, you know, however long our sprints are, you know, for to get feedback. You know what I want. I shouldn't have to talk to you about it. Right. So there's that lack of understanding of what's in it for them. So back to culture again, right, understanding that this is a whole cultural shift. It's not just a team shift. So leadership needs to understand that. And of course, as you know, you know, we have, you know, certified agile leadership programs that I'm trying not trying to do a plug here for those classes. I don't even teach them. But.Brian (10:03)
Yeah. Ha ha ha.Lucy O'Keefe (10:22)
it's so important that leadership understands what it means to be an agile organization and what it means to lead in an agile organization. And I think when they do that, when they're able to get that understanding, it's going to make it a lot easier for everybody to succeed. So once again, that is another big impediment that I've seen is the lack of leadership and stakeholder understanding.Brian (10:46)
Yeah, absolutely agree. I mean, it's almost like the concept seems to be more, like you said, we'll start from the team and build up when really it should be more of a from a top down or even not even kind of whole, right. Right, it's kind of, it's a whole organization thing. And if we try to compartmentalize it and say, no, we're just gonna do this group.Lucy O'Keefe (10:57)
up and down. Or even from both extremes and meet in the middle. Right? Yeah.Brian (11:13)
then we're already kind of setting ourselves up to fail a little bit because I can't change the culture of just one segment of my organization. If I do that and they have a different culture than the rest of the organization, then we have cultures at odds with each other and they're set to fail. The more dominant one's gonna overtake the lesser one, which is usually gonna be the scrum side of things. So yeah, I completely agree. Yeah, yeah, frustration.Lucy O'Keefe (11:37)
Exactly. Yeah. And it causes a lot of frustration. Yeah. It causes a lot of frustration for the team. Right. So I was actually at a, I was contracting at an agricultural manufacturing company. I may have brought this up before, but like the, the stakeholders didn't understand why they had to come to sprint and review, why, why they had to talk to the product owner instead of just talking to the engineers themselves. And it wasn't until I had. the lunch and learn with the stakeholders and help them understand what's in it for them because that's what's so important. How am I going to, how is it going to improve things for me if I abide by what you're trying to do? It wasn't until we did that, that they were like, I understand now why I need to talk to the product owner. I understand now why I shouldn't be dealing with the developers or the engineers themselves. I understand now why my feedback's needed. Yeah, it's great that now I have a say in the process. I have a say in the outcome. So it's not like people are trying to just be difficult. They just don't know any better, which brings us to one of the other organizational impediments, which is lack of training and understanding. Cause we can't just train the team. We have to, yeah, I mean, we don't have to train everyone in, you know, a CSM or anything like that. That's, that's not it. Right. But they need to understand the basics of how, how agile works. What are the values? What are the principles? What, what are the benefits of working in this manner? Right. It's, it's not about doing the thing, but it's how is this going to impact who is and how, how are things going to be better after you start working this way?Brian (12:52)
Yeah. I've had a lot of conversations about this in the CSM class of just talking to different people and saying, you look at these agile manifesto values and principles and if we can't get an alignment on these things, right? If we can't look at these things and say, yeah, I agree. My philosophy is one of that's responding to change over following a plan. I believe that you should be more. able to respond to change, then you should be about following a plan. That's a fundamental kind of core value. And if my organization or if leaders in my organization, that's kind of the key here, right? If the leaders in the organization think, no, no, no, it's about following the plan. We have to establish this amazing plan and then follow the plan. Well, it doesn't really matter what we do at the team level because... somewhere up the chain of command, we're going to have to have that perfect plan that we try to execute on and the leadership is driving that. So we have a mismatch on just our core kind of understanding.Lucy O'Keefe (14:26)
Exactly, exactly. So when I go into a new organization, one of the first things I do during my assessment phase, I actually go through every single one of the values and principles with leadership and with the teams. And I ask, which one of these are you doing well? And then we talk about that it's the minority usually. And then it's like, okay, what do we need to do to ensure that we are responding to change or following a plan or that we are... you know, focusing on working software instead of measuring something different. So we go through every single one of those because, as you said, that's where the value is. Understanding those values and principles, it's not about doing scrum, kanban, whatever it is. But if we are following those values and principles, then that's when we're truly going to be algebra and that's when we're going to see the benefits of working in this manner. It's not about the practice, but it's about your beliefs as an organization.Brian (15:24)
Yeah, yeah, there's no practice that we're gonna put in place that's gonna solve it all, right? I mean, there's practices that can assist and help us, but the practice isn't the cure, right? The practice is just something that can assist. It's like having crutches, you know? The crutches aren't gonna heal you.Lucy O'Keefe (15:30)
Not at all. A way to get there. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The practice just a vehicle, but you have to do the work to get there for sure.Brian (15:51)
Yeah, that's a great point.Lucy O'Keefe (15:53)
Yeah, so I think those were the main ones that we talked about there. You know, of course, we only had an hour, so it wasn't, there wasn't a lot of time to talk about every single one. But I think that, you know, and you were there, of course, but a lot of people came up with their own impediments that they were seeing in their organizations. And I think a lot of them aligned to what we had to say as well, because I think it is pretty standard in organizations that are just starting out.Brian (16:02)
Sure. Yeah.Lucy O'Keefe (16:22)
that you are seeing a lot. I mean, not just starting out actually. I mean, I've seen an organization that they say they've been agile for years and they still have a lot of these issues. So it's pretty clear that the culture again is the biggest issue with being able to adopt Scrum correctly or adopt an agile way of working correctly.Brian (16:43)
Yeah, and I think you hit the nail on the head with the fact that it's just, there's not the time always spent to try to get to the root cause. We're a culture of quick fixes. We want to find something that's going to put in place and take this pill, do whatever, and then it's just going to be solved and everything's going to be fine. But you know, it... For instance, we've used this analogy quite often, the idea of weight loss. There are things that can assist you with that. There are things that can give you help along the way, but there's not a silver bullet to do that other than changing the way that your lifestyle is. You have to change. And please, anyone who's listening, don't think I'm saying this because I have this perfect, because I don't. I'm very bad at this. But I know that the way that I change You know, my overall health is by changing the lifestyle, changing what I eat, changing, you know, my exercise patterns. And that's hard work. It's hard to change that kind of core value in my life, but that's what actually makes the impact. The other things are dressing around it. Right.Lucy O'Keefe (17:58)
Yeah, that's what's gonna make you change. Exactly. I mean, think about people who go for, and just staying with the same topic, right? For some bariatric surgery, right? So a lot of times, like the doctor will say, I used to watch my 600 pound life, don't judge me, a little bit, just because it's kind of, it's interesting. And yeah, I mean, they'd have to lose weight before they had the surgery.Brian (18:06)
Yeah, yeah. Hahaha.Lucy O'Keefe (18:25)
And the majority of people after they had the surgery and kind of lost weight, they just went back and balloon back up because they didn't change their lifestyle. So as you said, yeah, it's great that these band -aids exist, but if you're not going to do the work yourself, then it's really not going to work. So what is the root cause in this case, right? We're eating badly and we're not exercising. So that's what we need to change and not just, you know, take a pill or do a fad diet or get a surgery that... It's not gonna work if we don't change our ways.Brian (18:55)
Right, and just for the listeners too, I mean, Lucy and I are not medical professionals in any way. So, you know, we do not mean in any way to try to belittle, you know, treatments and therapies that people use for legitimate purposes and all that stuff. Please understand, right? Gotta make that disclaimer. But I think you're right. You know, like I know in my life, there's been times when I thought, there's some diet supplement or there's something else that, you know, is gonna...Lucy O'Keefe (19:01)
No. No, no, no.Brian (19:25)
be the thing that really cures this and changes it. But what I've experienced time after time is, no, you really just got to do the hard work. You got to go to the gym and you got to get up and you got to change what you eat and that kind of stuff. And that's what really makes the impact. Well, the same thing here with our organizations. There are practices and the things we can put in place. And there's always hot ones that will be the hot one of the day. I remember when DevOps was kind of the... And we just talked about DevOps in our last episode. It is an important thing. It is a very important thing, and it can give you a lot of boost. But it's a set of practices. And our last guest, when we talked about this, talked about how it's really more of a mindset. It really is more about how we have to change the way we see things. So even there, when we approach things like DevOps, yes, there are practices, there are tools we can put in place. But if we don't change kind of our approach to how we do things, then it won't matter. It's just another thing that we have to learn and put into the workflow.Lucy O'Keefe (20:32)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over and over again and getting the same results because that's what happens if you just keep putting band -aids on things, you're going to end up, you know, encountering the same issues over and over again. So if we don't have that mindset that we are going to make the change and the foundational change to ensure that everything works out, then, you know, then it's we're going to keep having the same issues and we're going to keep hearing this crime just doesn't work for us. Right.Brian (20:37)
Ha ha ha.Lucy O'Keefe (21:02)
So, yeah.Brian (21:04)
There's something that also comes up in classes sometimes that I think one of the things that I found is that getting back to that transparency inspection adaptation, that if we as an organization really value that process and value the idea that, hey, we're going to be transparent about how we do things. We're going to not just ignore when there's a problem, but we're going to inspect it and get to the root cause. And then we're going to find a new way of doing things. that we can just latch onto that. That's a huge cultural change, right? And just kind of buying into those concepts. And what I found is in a lot of instances, I talked about this in the ACSM, a lot of instances, you can directly relate it back to a lack of one of those three things. Are we not being transparent? Are we not actually inspecting? Are we not actually adapting?Lucy O'Keefe (21:57)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, those three pillars are definitely important. And I think that they're the foundation of what we are trying to do. And you're right, if we're not being transparent, inspecting and adapting, then we're not being agile, first of all, but that's something that needs to exist throughout the organization, not just within our work, within our teams, but are we being transparent in our relationships? Are we inspecting and adapting how we are dealing with our employees? Are we inspecting and adapting how we are budgeting? I mean, everything, right? We need to be... using that empiricism on a daily basis to ensure that we are headed in that direction. And if we do that, as you just said, the culture will shift organically when we're employing those three pillars, for sure.Brian (22:42)
Yeah, absolutely agree. Well, let's, I want to meta this a little bit more here at the end, because I want to know kind of how it, how the fallout from this happened. So, so you, you have this idea, you work with Joe, you, you come up with this topic, you go, you present this. What kind of a follow -up did you get from this? Did you get a lot of good questions from people afterwards? How did the talk go? What did you, what, what, what kind of learnings did you take away from it after you gave the talk?Lucy O'Keefe (22:47)
Yep. So I think it was received very well. There were quite a few people that came up to us afterwards and started asking questions to the point that I was actually late to a meeting after that. But anyway, I've had quite a few people reach out to me on LinkedIn, you know, talking about, we really loved your topic. And I actually, I got my reviews from it. And I think a lot of people appreciated that we had action items at the end.Brian (23:22)
Hahaha.Lucy O'Keefe (23:38)
So for those of you who are listening, we actually had an action plan where people could create an action plan on how they are going to start dealing with the organizational impediments in their organization. So a few people appreciated that. So it was pretty good, you know, pretty good feedback, I think, that we got from that. I would have loved for it to have been a little longer, so we could have gone a little deeper because it is, there is a lot that we can unpack. when we're talking about organizational impediments, one hour just isn't enough time for that, especially when you're trying to make it a more engaging session and not just talking at people. But I think if I had to do this again, I would probably try to do a little less and maybe go a little deeper instead of trying to talk about maybe so many things and barely touching the surface. But I think it was...Brian (24:28)
Yeah.Lucy O'Keefe (24:36)
I think it was pretty good. I know you're there, so you let me know.Brian (24:38)
It was great. Yeah, no, it was great. And so, yeah, I hope you're encouraged by that. But yeah, it was a great talk. And like I said, I heard a lot of good comments from people afterwards. And I think that's pretty natural for us as speakers to kind of rethink afterward and say, maybe I could have done this a little bit different or I could have done this a different way. But, you know, it's tough. Like you said, you've got an hour. And within that hour, you're trying to work in some... interactivity, so it's not just you talking the whole time and you're trying to keep the group engaged. But then you get a lot of information and you just, I got to share all this stuff and I only have an hour to do it. Especially, as CSTs, we're used to talking for two days at a time. So, yeah, an hour is like, you know.Lucy O'Keefe (25:26)
Exactly. So an hour is nothing. Yeah. Yeah.Brian (25:32)
the break or something, but yeah, you're not used to trying to fit all that information down into a one hour stretch.Lucy O'Keefe (25:40)
Yeah, and for me it's like I love answering questions. Like if I could do a talk and then do an hour of just answering questions, I think I'd be like really, really happy because I mean, even when I've, you know, taught with Mountain Goat and all that, you know, being able to answer questions at the end of class, that's like my favorite and I do that in my classes as well. So not being able to give time to actually answer, you know,Brian (25:47)
Yeah.Lucy O'Keefe (26:04)
questions from the people who are having the issues for me was very difficult not being able to do that because that's something that I enjoy. And, you know, but at the end of the day, I do love speaking. You know, I just, it's one of my passions now, which is kind of funny because I used to be really introverted. But yeah, I think, I know it was a really good experience. It was my first time speaking at the Scrum Gallery. I've spoken at smaller conferences before, but that was my first big one. So it was, it was great.Brian (26:19)
Ha ha. Awesome.Lucy O'Keefe (26:34)
I hope I'm able to do it again.Brian (26:36)
Awesome. Well, it was great. It was a great talk. And I appreciate you coming on and sharing this information with us, because not everyone can come to the Scrum Gathering. And that's one of the reasons why we try to have some people come on that do speak at it, so we can share some of that information in these small little podcast windows. So. Well, Lucy, thank you again for coming on. I appreciate you sharing your talk with us and kind of the behind the scenes of it. And hopefully we can have you on again soon.Lucy O'Keefe (27:11)
Thank you, Brian. -
Join Brian as he chats with DevOps expert Claire Clark about the cultural and mindset shifts needed for successful DevOps adoption, the concept of 'shift left,' and the crucial role of leadership support.
OverviewIn this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian and Claire Clark, founder of Sienso, winner of the The Great British Business Woman Award, and freelance software development executive, delve into the world of DevOps.
Claire explains that DevOps is far more than just tools and processes—it's about fostering the right mindset and cultural shifts within the team. They discuss the 'shift left' approach, emphasizing the importance of considering end stages of software development early on.
Claire highlights the critical role of leadership in supporting DevOps principles and aligning team goals. She also shares strategies for measuring success through a maturity matrix and underscores the importance of continuous improvement. This conversation provides a holistic view of DevOps, integrating both technical and cultural aspects.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Claire Clark
Want to get involved?
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Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Claire Clark is a multi-award-winning transformational leader and Chartered Engineer with over 20 years of experience in Software Engineering. Specializing in leading high-performing teams, Agile transformation, and DevOps, Claire has successfully managed complex projects across various industries, including cybersecurity, logistics, and financial services.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. And today we have a very special guest with us, someone I've been trying to get on for a while. We have Ms. Claire Clark with us. Welcome in, Claire. Glad you're here. Claire has been in our world for a while here at Mountain Goat. And she's had lots of interactions with us and Mike and over the years.Claire Clark (00:13)
Hi, hi, good to meet you.Brian (00:29)
And just for people who aren't familiar with Claire and her work, she is, I guess the best way to describe it is kind of a freelance software development executive. She kind of comes in in high level, kind of more temporary positions, would you say, Claire? Okay. Yeah, kind of coming in on the spot positions to help get people over the hump and get them situated and set up the way they need to be from an executive level.Claire Clark (00:44)
Yeah. Yeah.Brian (00:56)
Her company is called Cienso and she's won numerous awards over the years, but most recently she had a really huge honor. She was the winner in the engineering category of the Great British Businesswoman Awards. So first of all, congratulations on that. That's awesome. And the reason that we wanted to have Claire on was...Claire Clark (01:15)
Thank you.Brian (01:22)
just to share a little bit of her knowledge with us, and particularly the area of DevOps. She's done a lot of work with teams and building the teams. And we've had some really interesting discussions offline about this area. So let's start and just set the table a little bit here, Claire, for everyone. When we're talking about DevOps, first of all, let's just kind of explain what that means for people who aren't familiar with it.Claire Clark (01:47)
Yeah. So I tend to describe it as it's a way that teams collaborate for the continuous delivery of a product from end to end, to get the value of the product to a customer. So it, it's not a specific process, a specific tool. It's a little bit around the mindset and approach to things. And how you get that continuous development and delivery of a software product, for example, to a customer. So yeah, I think people often tend to see it as possibly it's a tool thing or it's a process thing. And it's not quite that, it's all elements of that and a mindset side of it as well.Brian (02:42)
Awesome. Yeah. That was the thing that I found really interesting in our conversation. And some of the things I've seen you write about this online, it's just the concept here that DevOps is really kind of a mindset. It's kind of a cultural thing. It's kind of culture first. And a lot of times we think of this as a set of practices. So let's get into that a little bit. How does the adoption of DevOps kind of change the culture?Claire Clark (03:03)
Yeah.Brian (03:11)
in an organization.Claire Clark (03:12)
Yeah, I think in terms of changing the culture, it taps quite a lot into the agile side of culture, I guess, in that it promotes that collaboration and the continuous delivery of an integration of software, of a software product to a customer. So what I found is that, for example, with agile, That brought together a big collaboration with development and test and your product function. And then the DevOps kind of movement, I'll call it, sort of come to life a bit more. And that's where it then changed the culture again in terms of extending, I guess, the kind of agile side of things, but embedding the continuous integration and delivery into what the software engineering team does. So the operational aspects of the software. become more forefront into the, into like the team's thinking. They become like shift left. Do you think about this earlier? How are you going to maintain and deploy systems and how are they going to integrate? And I think that's where it's really shifted the culture quite a lot where instead of it being the, you know, we create, create the software and now there's an operational aspect of how we then deploy and integrate some of the dev op development and test aspects. into that. So I feel like it's really got into the mind, a lot of people's minds that we need to think of the full end to end when we're talking about building and delivering a product. It's everything and it's how you can make that pipeline that chain through that development team more of a continuous approach. So teams that have succeeded with Agile tend to be able to approach. embedding that DevOps mindset that bit more because there's a lot of overlap between some of the principles and the mindset needed between the two. So.Brian (05:16)
Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. And you mentioned a term there that I've always loved in the DevOps community. And just in case people there aren't familiar with it, when you talk about shift left, what does that mean to you? What do you mean by shift left?Claire Clark (05:32)
So for me, it means if you took a typical software development lifecycle and there's requirements, development and test and so on, it's very sequential and it typically follows the order. And what the mindset brings with DevOps and shift left, and you see this a lot with testing the term shift left is think about the latter stages up front. So the more you can think about some of those end, stages of software development and deployment and integration to customer systems, the more you think about them upfront, the more you start to design the way of working in what you're doing through agile and your continuous approaches, you start to embed that earlier. So it becomes a thought right at the front instead of being an add -on at the end. So shift left in essence being... what normally you would have done in a sequential manner and ends up far down the chain, you start trying to identify how could we do, how could we bring this earlier? What, you know, you start thinking about earlier, start looking at the practices and tooling and all those processes that people are doing in the software team. You start then to identify that can change the test, your test and your design. That can change then what you've. product functionality and non -functional requirements need to be. It's always about making sure that them later stages, what traditionally were later, are thought about upfront at the start, designed, planned in, and continuous efforts all the way along the software development lifecycle to embed them. So it becomes an easier stream from end to end and more automated and more, I guess, more constant flow through the system. So yeah, shift left is think about the end at the start as much as you can.Brian (07:37)
I love that. Think about the end of the start. Yeah, that's a great way to phrase it. I love that. So when you we've talked about kind of the mindset behind this, the culture behind it. So when you when you come in and work with a new group, do you start with kind of a more culture approach and work on mindset first or you kind of go right into practices and let it kind of flow along the way? How do you approach that kind of shift when you start to work with a new New team.Claire Clark (08:07)
Yeah, it's interesting because it's the balance because when you're introducing any of these practices, it means typically it would mean there's some form of change for a team and change itself is difficult for people to go through at times. And in terms of embedding some of the success of the frameworks and the processes, you can only really succeed if people are coming at that with the right mindset. because otherwise you can get people who say, I don't want to change. I don't understand why I need to change. So you can explain the kind of value in why to do some of these things. But fundamentally, what underpins that in all of this is a mindset. And in Agile, I've talked before on some presentations about how important an Agile mindset is. So being able to sort of... accept that, you know, change will happen, you know, change is the only constant that happens and the more that people can start to understand, I guess, appreciate that and then come up a new thing, a new challenge, start coming at that with how can I make that work and it's then subtleties that if you don't challenge the two together,Brian (09:11)
Right.Claire Clark (09:34)
you won't succeed in getting the benefits from Agile and DevOps. You could have the best processes in the world, but if the mindset's not there, you're never going to reap the benefits of what you're trying to achieve. So I try to work with teams on both fronts at the same time, because like I say, you can have the right mindset, but they might not understand the process or the right process. If the mindset's not there, the implementation won't come to fruition.Brian (10:02)
Yeah, we actually just had another episode that was, I think it was our last episode actually, looking at the order of this. But when we were talking, we were talking with Ken Ricard about the overlap between change groups and the lean change overlapping with Agile and how really that ability to shift and adjust and change is really at the central core of it. What other kind of key cultural shifts do you feel like are necessary when a group starts to adopt DevOps practices that they really need to get a handle on?Claire Clark (10:43)
Yeah, I found that some teams really struggle with the concept of the shift left side of it. So it tends to be, we've always done it this way. And because it's become second nature to do certain aspects, you know, certain aspects of the software delivery and development in a certain manner, that trying to open up people's minds to say there is another way and it's different.Brian (10:52)
Yeah.Claire Clark (11:13)
And it will feel different, but you've got to be open to trying that. And here's why. So I think the cultural side of it is I still see at times some teams that are really focused on DevOps tooling. And it's, I think the mind set shift, the cultural shift is it's not, that's a part of it. Part of DevOps is the tooling you have to do that. And same as when people struggled on the agile journey initially is, you know, thinking agile was, you know, user stories and Jira and yeah, Jira and things like that. And that's, that's a tool that facilitates you to work in that way. But having a tool like that, a Camman board it or so on, doesn't make you agile. And it is that.Brian (11:50)
Sure. Right. Right.Claire Clark (12:08)
It's that same thing with DevOps. There's some brilliant tools out there now and we are getting that shift left approach and using them tools to integrate at different stages of the software development more of the operational aspects and getting that continuous integration. But I think with Agile, people, a lot of teams have gone over time now and through the great work like what Mike does, helping people understand how to. to really come on board and get the best out of an agile way of working. It feels like with DevOps, we're in a similar spot where some people have really got it. They get that mindset, they live and breathe the kind of DevOps side of it. But there are still a lot of teams that you come across and DevOps is still a tool. It's still a thing. And maybe they get that tool in place and hey, presto, we're DevOps. And it's like... Some of the subtleties that you don't see, it's not in a process, it's not in a tool. That behavior and that mindset is what I think there's still a bit more of a journey to go on across the industry with that DevOps side of it. It just feels so similar to when Agile sort of come out and the challenges people were facing there and what we believed Agile is and what Agile really is.Brian (13:29)
Yeah, that's a great analogy. I love thinking about it that way. I mean, it's like if you have a boat that's in a garage, you can get in the boat, you can turn it on, you've got a fantastic tool, but if you don't ever put it in the water, it's not going to really live up to its purpose. And that's kind of the way people, I think, sometimes look at some of these tools is, well, we got the tool, so we're sailors now, right? We can... We know how to drive our boat because we have a boat. No, you got to put it in the water, right? You got to actually know where to use it.Claire Clark (14:01)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One example I always think of is it's a bit like having a scenario where there's a driver and there's a really fancy, you know, car, but it's got no engine. So you can have all of these elements and you could say, I'm a racing car driver, I've got this really fancy car.Brian (14:18)
Mmm.Claire Clark (14:25)
It looks great and you know, it's got all the features on it and all of the buttons you can press, but, but underneath the core of that is the engine. And I liken it to like with Agile and DevOps, the core underneath this is the mindset. And it's that, it's that hearts and minds of the principles behind DevOps principles behind Agile that if people buy into that, the rest is a bit easier to implement. But often people can have tooling shoved at them or a nice fancy car in that scenario. But it doesn't come with the fundamental, the heartbeat, so to speak, inside that really embraces the principles behind some of these things. And it's that where the cultural side comes in that people really do not just read the words and say collaboration. They act it. They do it. They...Brian (14:54)
Yeah.Claire Clark (15:21)
you see them behaviors and I think sometimes with Agile and DevOps some of the principles or the value that you get out of them once people describe them they love it, they say it sounds great yeah we should do at DevOps we should do Agile but if they're missing that connection to the heart underneath the value is the principles. even if they sound great, if they don't exhibit the behaviors, that will affect the culture. And you often can see that in teams where, you know, the quote processes, quote tools, but then the behaviors are almost opposite to some of the values that underpin agile and underpin DevOps. And then, yeah, for me, I would say you've got to try to tackle both together.Brian (16:08)
Yeah.Claire Clark (16:13)
And you just won't really get the success and the team won't enjoy it. Yeah.Brian (16:19)
Yeah. So I think one of the things I've seen too, when people implement DevOps is they kind of miss, it seems like they miss the heart of it, the point. If you had to sum it up, what would you say is the purpose? Why do we need DevOps? What is the purpose that the DevOps, a good DevOps team, what's really their driving purpose?Claire Clark (16:29)
Yeah. You see it work really well with teams, the successful teams, when their focus is about continuous integration and delivery of functionality to customers as quick as they can, not, but without, you know, still with the quality and the stabilization. But they, they focus quite a lot on that optimizing that, you know, how soon can we break something down, prove it, test it. And get that out to the customer so the customer can realize the value. So for me in the, in the DevOps, it's where the teams really focused on making that, that channel of that functionality is seamless as possible and making it as efficient as possible so that, you know, it is from end to end, create the product and it's good to go as soon as possible. So. It's less about when you hear people talk about tooling. It's more when you hear them, the thinking shines through in what they're saying. In how can we get that sooner? How can we, how can we use the principles to get value to customers and prove what we're doing is right along the way.Brian (18:05)
Yeah, and it overlaps perfectly with what we're trying to do in Agile with delivering value. And I love that kind of marriage that it seems to have there. How about from a leader's standpoint, what is important for leaders to understand? How can leaders better support DevOps in their organizations?Claire Clark (18:28)
found that from a leadership perspective, and I've supported teams on this, is being open about how different it might feel and how different that might be in terms of where we're working. And having an initial discussion to check with people, their understanding of what DevOps is before you start going on that journey. So one exercise I did once was, just simply to ask everybody in the room before we started going on that kind of DevOps journey. What is DevOps? What do you believe it is? And the responses in one team alone was incredibly different. How they described it, someone said, it's someone's job over there. It's to do with, it's like that way. And then, yeah, described it as it.Brian (19:18)
It's Jenkins.Claire Clark (19:24)
It's nothing to do with me. I'm software engineer or I'm tester. It's more business and support type things. And I think doing that exercise at the start was really good to sort of understand and appreciate where we're actually starting on that journey and where even misconceptions have come in or where people have not had the opportunity to somebody to share and explain to them what. What in essence is DevOps? And, you know, same response again, a lot of names of toolings come up and, you know, there's this tool, this tool, this tool. And so with Agile, I tend to talk about things like there's the principles, the values, frameworks, and, you know, when we started to describe DevOps in a similar way to the team, they were able to relate that to that structure that you get with Agile. where I was saying, in essence, there's some principles behind this. There's some aims, some aspirations, some goals that we're going for. Just put the tooling aside for the moment. We can change the tools, whatever tool we want, but if we just focus on that. So I've sent her a lot of the discussion around that initially. And from there, that's when as a leader, you can start to then move on to some of the processing tooling. But I think you've got to really listen to the team. understand the challenges they've got in how they work now and what would it mean on a change management perspective to migrate to that kind of more DevOps way of working. So you've got to listen to your team. You've got to understand the products at hand that you're working with and support the team as much as you can on that, both from process tooling, but on that mindset. because of us, if you don't, what you end up with is a lot of friction in a team and a lot of friction against the thing like DevOps and pretty much what I think you saw in the industry when a lot of organizations moved from waterfall to agile. There was some people who, you know, they read about it. They loved it. They're on the journey. Let's try it. Let's go. I get it. And then there was some people where they just had that struggle that, that.Brian (21:26)
Yeah.Claire Clark (21:48)
What do you mean? So if I'm in traditional way of working, how does that translate to the new way? And you've got to take that time as a leader to allow people to have that open debate around it and support one another to really understand that fundamental side of it. And I think often a lot of organizations hear about DevOps or hear about Agile. And within a couple of months, that's it. The one agile in DevOps in get all the benefits. It sounds great. But as a leader of a software team where you're trying to introduce that you have to appreciate that every team's journey is different and approach it as needed. And that it might not be a quick five minute. If it definitely isn't to turn that around. And, and you can start getting some of the benefits incrementally along the way. I was like agile, I would say. And eventually you'll get the full benefits that people buy into when they hear about these amazing ways of working that will bring them so much better opportunity.Brian (22:59)
Yeah, I think it's such a great point too, because like you said, if you have a misconception about what this is and what our purpose is, where our point is, we talk about individuals and interactions over processes and tools, and we look at that and we actually dissect it and start to think about it as an organization and decide, you know what? No, we really are more process than tools over individuals and interactions, then that's going to be a problem.Claire Clark (23:26)
Yeah. Yeah.Brian (23:28)
You know, that's gonna be, we're not gonna be successful because we don't have that cultural value that underpins kind of why we're doing things the way we are.Claire Clark (23:40)
Yeah. Yeah. And, and exactly that, when you say about the, the interactions and then behaviors and so on in, in a team and then over, you know, processes and tools, it's, it's often that side of it. What in some organizations is the afterthought and you know, the tooling space, just get this tool and it'll help us with this. Then get the process on the tool so we can get the benefit from the tool. And then afterwards it's, let's help the people who are not on the journey with this, are struggling with the journey and so on. And, and I tend to think it's, focus on, on what their understanding is, the alignment, get that shared understanding. like what we do through our job as working, get the shared understanding. And then once you've got that alignment as to what it actually means in principle and. everybody can feels they can understand and appreciate that. That to me is where all the other aspects just become easier. But naturally it tends to be focused the other way around on get the benefit. We need to get the tool, we need to then get a process for the tool and then let's work out where everyone's happy or not.Brian (25:01)
Right. So you've done these kind of transformations in multiple places. How have you traditionally tried to measure success? How do you know where you are in your journey of this DevOps transformation and what are you aiming for as a successful endpoint?Claire Clark (25:20)
Yes, I often, I sort of built, maturity matrix on a lot of these things. So from agile and DevOps, and in there, I cover that human side of it. There'll be heavy side. And from a maturity perspective, I kind of benchmark it at the basics and then eventually it gets more mature and eventually it becomes self kind of, I guess, running and organizing and. There's certain behaviors and process, maturity that you expect to see at each kind of stage of that journey. So you might start off at the beginning, it's chaotic, there's that misalignment on what everyone thinks this is. and you know, you build on that over time and you just keep rechecking on that maturity kind of this and that score. Where are we at across all of those different things? And it's quite easy then to assess and say, was, was, was, we're getting better, but we're not a kind of self sufficient, systems running. Everything's quite independent kind of model. And then obviously you get to the point of utopia where it's smooth, it's running. We're constantly looking at how we can improve this. and we take action, self -action to do that. So I tend to like look across the horizon of agile and DevOps and team culture. and behaviors. And at that, that's where I kind of understand then what level we are at the moment, where, which areas in particular do we need the most support? And that then kind of shapes how I approach things with that team, the speed at which you maybe then try and bring some of that change in. But importantly, what actions I need to do to, to support that team on that journey of maturity. And like I said, each team different and some it's easier to move up through that maturity across all those pieces than it is for others. But you've just got constantly like with Agile and DevOps looking at how can you improve what you're doing now? And it is a journey you can always improve. And to get there, you've got to have that goal. You've got to have something to aim for. What does good look like? and have that as a common goal across the team. So we know what the North Star is, we know what we're aiming for, we know that, you know, we really, really are agile, really are doing boxing, getting benefits out of this. And then really be honest about where you are as a team and then work with that team to support them on listening to if they've got ideas and perhaps, and best practices in there that they've maybe done somewhere else before they want to apply. But... For me as a leader, the biggest thing I can do is all those learnings that I've got from all the different experiences is to bring that to that team, share that and say, I've seen an example like this before. This is what we've tried. How would we want to try that here? Because along my journey to success and like you said earlier, winning these awards and so on, it... It's been a challenge, you know, without doubt it's, it's, it's software development can be difficult. Developing teams and bringing changes into business is not easy. And along the way I've learned, you know, some really good practices. And I think as a leader, you've got to really be able to come in, appreciate the team and the scenario that you're in and work out the best path forward. And every path of every organization is different. but you can use your experience to work out how to navigate through that journey. I think the key thing to do as a leader is to appreciate that every team, every organization you work with has a different journey. But what you have learned along the way as a leader is where the wrong turns are, where you can get the most efficiency, where common problems are, but importantly, how you've managed to overcome them. How... You know, learning that is difficult, but using that and having that appreciation with the team to impart your experience and share that with them. Listen to them. And the biggest thing I ever says, I'm on this journey with you. I'm not here to do this journey at you. I'm here to help you on that journey. I can show you what a kind of good Northstar looks like, but I'm in this with you. I will support. We're in this together.Brian (29:52)
Yeah.Claire Clark (30:05)
And as a leader, I'll do what I can to help you on that journey with the experience I've got. I'll make it as easy as, as it can be. And so, yeah, I think that that's the key thing that I've kind of led from, I guess, in my leadership side of things is it's not you come into an organization and take them on an agile journey, take them on a DevOps journey. You're going on that journey with them.Brian (30:32)
I love that. Yeah, that's a great point. That's such a great leadership point. Well, Claire, I can't thank you enough. This has been so eye opening and there's so much great information here. And easily could go on for another hour talking about this stuff. But thank you for taking your time and sharing your wisdom with us and with the group here at Agile Mentors.Claire Clark (30:55)
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. Yeah, I've really enjoyed it. -
Join Brian and Ken Rickard as they delve into why agile transformations get stuck and uncover strategies for creating adaptive, resilient organizations and people.
OverviewIn this episode, Brian sits down with coach, author, and Lean Change agent, Ken Rickard to explore the common pitfalls of agile transformations and the commodification of agile practices.
Ken emphasizes the need to focus on people rather than processes and introduces the art of change, which includes self-awareness and adaptability. And shares the six big ideas of adaptive organizations, such as sense-making strategies and leadership agility.
Tune in to learn how to navigate transformation challenges and create an environment that fosters resilience and adaptability.
References and resources mentioned in the show:Ken Rickard
Want to get involved?
Insight
The Six Big Ideas of Adaptive Organizations: From Frameworks to Sensemaking by Ken Rickard and Jason Little
Agile Manifesto For Software Development
Lean Change
Mountain Goat Software’s Agile for Leaders Training
Join the Agile Mentors Community
Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule
Subscribe to the Agile Mentors PodcastThis show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.
Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Ken Rickard is a spark for transformative good — a change alchemist, deep thinker, and a catalyst for personal growth and organizational evolution. With over 15 years in the agile community, he's honed the art of navigating change and embracing adaptation as the true essence of agility.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a really special guest with us. I have Mr. Ken Ricard with us. Welcome in, Ken.Ken Rickard (00:12)
Thank you. Nice to be here.Brian (00:14)
Glad to have Ken here with us. Ken recently spoke at the the global Scrum Gathering, in New Orleans that I was at as well and had a really interesting, actually had a workshop slot there for a workshop titled Humans Agile and Change, How to Get Your Transformation Unstuck. And wanted to have Ken on to kind of talk through that a little bit. But before we do, for those people who aren't familiar with Ken, let me give you a little bit of an introduction here. Ken is an enterprise coach and change alchemist. I love that. At a company called Insight, he co -authored a book called The Six Big Ideas of Adaptive Organizations, which I know we're going to get into here in this conversation. He's a licensed facilitator of Lean Change. He's an IC Agile authorized instructor. So he's got just a load of credentials and a load of experience to bring to the table here with this. So Ken, let's get into this. Let's talk about humans agile and change and how to get transformations unstuck. What do you think is the main cause of transformations getting stuck?Ken Rickard (01:31)
Yeah. So I think, you know, we're all feeling the effects of the high of agile. And I think now we're, we're starting to come down a little bit in the industry. I think everyone's feeling that effect. I mean, I see so many agile coaches on LinkedIn that are still looking for roles and whatnot, scrum masters, you know, a good bit of that, though, I think it's a blowback from the industry and just companies in general who, when they need to tighten the belt, they're actually beginning to look at the roles they've got and figure out which ones that they can do without for now. Or maybe they can do with roles they've already got. And so the effect of that, I think is coming from this idea that, you know, the agile industry, let's even narrow that a little bit more and talk about scrum specifically, has really kind of in the industry has become commodified around this idea that it's a process. And that we just like, we used to do this thing over here and we can just go to the shelf and purchase like scrum in a way. And then like. take that and just drop it into the spot and the practices we used to do. And so when it was only viewed as a process replacement for what they're doing now, it's very easy when, things get rough or tough in the industry as they've been over the past year, year and a half, two years, that our natural, you know, kind of inclination is to kind of hunker down and that hunkering down is to go back to what's comfortable to us, which is typically non -agile, non edge. things because that edge is actually kind of uncomfortable. And so we want to kind of go back and go back into our hole and actually like do the things that we're most comfortable with as an organization or as leaders. And so, yeah, I think that's been kind of what's been happening. And it's just, you know, the follow up from that, I think it's just now hitting the industry, I think in the current times now.Brian (03:10)
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I mean, you talk about it being a commodity and I can definitely see that across the different organizations that do certifications with this, and we're both trainers, we both do trainings. The hard part for me as a trainer is that I don't wanna... discourage people from getting training because I think the training is an important step, right? I think it's you know, you got to know the basics before you can play a sport and You know, if this is the team sport, but it's it's so much easier for me to tell someone all right Well, there's these roles these events and these artifactsKen Rickard (03:49)
Mm -hmm.Brian (04:05)
and they can just go, you know, start putting it into their schedule. Here's the events we're going to do, and we have these meetings at this time. It's easy to do that, but it's hard to say, all right, what is openness? And how do we operate in an open environment, you know, or how do we treat each other with respect as we go through this kind of thing? That's hard to train, you know?Ken Rickard (04:10)
Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And coming from the, you know, I've spent a three and a half, almost four years now, I think with lean change and Jason little, and, and obviously we co -wrote co -wrote the, the book together, but the, I think the thing that I've learned from all that is, I mean, I want to say that at the beginning, the intention of the folks that created the agile manifesto for software development, their intention was really to help the industry change, but from a software development and probably an adjacent request would have been that the project management kind of behavioral patterns that were there and existing already. They could have actually kind of caused that trajectory to start to shift. And they obviously did over time. I think the one thing, if I had a time machine and I could go back and I could just plant a little seed with those 17 folks, it would be to not look so narrowly at the organization, like just the software development part. Because I think that's what's caused agile and scrum to become that thing that those IT developers do. And it's actually in a way done a disservice, I believe, to the industry at large and then just kind of the trajectory over time and where we kind of landed over these past few years. And it's why with lean change, what I'm trying to do, and I'm not the only one trying to do this. There's a number of folks out there trying to do this as well. But I think Jason and I, what we're trying to do and all the lean change facilitators is to get people to realize. that at the end of the day, everything is really about change. So scrum is just a process. It has all these, like behavioral patterns that come along with it. You're going to need to change, but those things aren't laid out necessarily exactly explicitly in the scrum guide. So you can read through that with your current understanding and your current lens of the world. And you can go, okay, I got this. And okay, all I need to do is go and create a scrum master position and I need a product owner and we need to do these events and then we need to set up these artifacts. And, and that can very easily lead to that kind of mechanical approach to scrum because that's kind of the world they've come from, right? If they've come from kind of project management world where everything is very laid out, very kind of straightforward and linear and then sequentially executed. And I think what we would all probably agree is that what's really missing is that mentality shift and. and the perspective shift. And to get there, we got to really focus on people change. Like, and I don't mean just like, Hey, we're doing a new process. So what do I need to do differently? Or, Hey, we put, we installed this new piece of governance software. So what buttons do I need to push differently? I'm talking about like actual evolution of the individual, their beliefs, their behavioral patterns, and the rituals that match up to those behaviors and beliefs that set underneath them as a person.Brian (06:52)
Yeah. Yeah.Ken Rickard (07:14)
And so that's what we're really trying to focus on from Lean Change is we're really trying to help people understand that, that to do those things well, to do things like Scrum well, you really have to focus not just on the process change or the technology change, but actually on the people change. You may even have to focus on structures and strategies as well.Brian (07:31)
So I'm trying to channel my inner listener and try to think of what they might be asking or thinking about in hearing this. And I mean, what I think about is, all right, well, let's say I'm an organization and I buy an end to all this stuff. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've tried that. We've tried to implement this stuff and it's all about process and we'd rather not do that. We want to do it the right way. Where do you start? How do you start to...Ken Rickard (07:38)
Yeah. That's it. Yeah.Brian (08:00)
you come in and just say, hey everybody, we're gonna change how you think and how you, how do you start to get the organization to shift like that?Ken Rickard (08:06)
Yeah, that's tough. Yeah. Yeah. And I would actually, I would point the finger right back at ourselves first. I mean, this is the journey I've been on for the past five years. You know, I mean, I, I actually talked about this in the session at the global scrum, scrum gathering. I told the crowd there. I was like, like five years ago, Ken, like if anybody challenged anything or didn't understand how scrum worked, I would essentially kind of like,Brian (08:14)
Ha ha ha.Ken Rickard (08:34)
just picture this idea of Ken taking them by the arm and leading them over to the Scrum Guide and being like, look, here's what the Scrum Guide says. And that was kind of my go -to thing in a way, variations on that, obviously. But at that time, it was mentality -wise, I was just like, okay, well, we just need to do Scrum. If we just do it well and we do it like it says we're supposed to do it, then it'll fix all the things. And that didn't really get the best response out of it. everyone. You know, it wasn't until I started to shift myself and my own perspective and start to really understand that, okay, I'm not the snake oil salesperson that they probably think I am. I'm actually somebody who's trying to help them change. And so if I look at it from that perspective, now it becomes less about the process or the framework and all the specifics of the framework. And it becomes more about, okay, where are they now?Brian (09:18)
Yeah.Ken Rickard (09:29)
What mentality do they have now? What are the attitudes that they have about the things that I would hope to put in front of them? Like, are they, are they like, yeah, this is great. Let's do it. Or are they like, no, I don't know. Not so sure. Or are they like, no, that's a stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Like we would never do that here. so better understanding them as an individual and then being able to better show up in a way that is going to be conducive for them to see the need to change is actually the very first.Brian (09:42)
Yeah.Ken Rickard (09:55)
best thing that I ever did in the way that I shifted my own perspective and how I showed up. And then that started to actually unlock them and their ability to actually pay attention and realize how they needed to change. And then therefore the change started to go. It's a much slower route because you can just go take stuff off the shelf and be like, Hey, we need to do it like this. And you probably will get some traction with some folks, but you're probably going to miss a good bit of them too. So.Brian (10:20)
Well, let me, let me ask you this because this is something I've kind of been wrestling with with some other guests on the podcast as well. It's just this, this concept that, you know, partly, I think what's behind some of the problems with this is, is also the short kind of nature of, of how we view change in organizations. And, you know, we want quick results. We, you know, we have a change initiative to do something and we want to see that, that, that benefit of that change in the next three months.Ken Rickard (10:42)
Sure.Brian (10:49)
And all of a sudden things are going to be completely turned around and we're going to do things differently. But that's driven a lot from this short -sighted nature of, you know, we got to increase our profits quarter by quarter. We got to, you know, please our shareholders and they don't have the long vision that we used to have in companies of, you know, 10 years or something.Ken Rickard (10:54)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to say something and I'm going to meet it in a completely different way. Planning. Let me explain what I mean by this. all right. And I don't want to make this into the lean change show either, but I'm going to talk about a concept, from lean change real quick. so bear with me, but, so there's this idea that has been created in lean change. It's called, we, we, we refer to it as a big next now. Really what it is is it's like.Brian (11:17)
Okay? Hahaha.Ken Rickard (11:42)
Think of like an overarching rainbow at the top of like, Hey, what's the largest, biggest thing we're trying to accomplish? And what's the strategy around that? And if we can define a high level strategy around that, it will help us be, get like an orientation towards what outcomes are trying to seek it at the grandiose level. Let's say it's an agile transformation. All right. Underneath there are like a series of smaller humps that are like, okay, what are the goals we might want to actually achieve? Let's make sure those are really loose. except for the ones that are in the very beginning. Does this sound familiar? I'm basically describing breaking down and iterating incrementally changing the organization, right? So, underneath that you'd have like what's referred to as like the lean change cycle. This idea that we go out and actually look at the organization and get data back on what might need to change instead of actually telling people what needs to change. Like, Hey, we're becoming a scrum team, or this is what scrum is, and this is how it works.Brian (12:21)
Yeah, yeah.Ken Rickard (12:41)
well, what if they just start where they are and maybe the first thing I add is like a daily, you know, maybe they don't have any kind of coordination events at all right now. And then their tolerance level to change is just minimal. So, okay. So as a coach or as a less even a scrum master, the first thing I might help them do is to actually just put in some frequency of a regular sink. That could wind up turning into something that we would recognize as a daily scrum or a daily standup, but. In the beginning, maybe they don't have the tolerance to go right directly to the thing. Maybe they'll reject that or resist that. So as, as a coach or as a scrum master who's focused on change and not the process of the framework, I would go in and actually help them figure out what the best changes for them right now. And that's the approach I've been using and it just works. It works pretty well. versus coming in and being like, Hey, here's what scrum is. Here's how it works. Let's go through this training. You know, we got to get all these things set up. We need, here's what perfect looks like.Brian (13:14)
Yeah.Ken Rickard (13:39)
guess what we can't get there. So yeah.Brian (13:43)
Yeah, I mean, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, you know, it's a difference of listening versus telling, you know, like there's a, there's kind of a telling mindset of going in for a lot of coaching of, you know, what we would typically frame more as a consulting approach. You know, I have answers. Here's the answers for you. Just do the way that I've always done it and everything will be fine versus let's actually hear what your situation is. And.Ken Rickard (13:59)
Yeah.Brian (14:10)
what your needs are and what you're seeing going wrong and how can we address those issues? I love that. Yeah, yeah, exactly.Ken Rickard (14:14)
Yeah, and experimenting through it and honestly showing up, showing up as, or knowing when to show up in a coaching stance, who is going to be more empathetic and more understanding and not going to give them all the answers and it's going to let them explore and figure it out. And it's going to shine the light in the dark corners of the room versus the consultant stance, which is going to show up in more of an advisory. Hey, If I see you all struggling, I'm going to kind of tell you what to do or show you what to do. And they may not be ready for that. So it's about knowing when to actually do one stance or the other and be able to be very fluid in those things.Brian (14:47)
Yeah. Yeah, there's a, there's a phrase I'll use often in class when I talk about the coaching kind of mindset to say, you know, what we're trying to do is not build knowledge, but build capability. And if you build the capability, then people can then adapt and change when, when something similar comes along or something in the same realm, they can say, yeah, I remember last time when we had something like this, here's how I responded. So that, that ability, I think to. deal with change like you're saying. And if we have it ingrained in our mindset that, hey, we identify problems, we inspect them and we adapt as we go along, to me, that's so much more important to build into how we do things than it is to know, we got these four meetings or five meetings that we're gonna make sure we hold at a certain time. Awesome. Well, you know, I'd like to hear a little bit because I know, you know, your talk is somewhat loosely based on your book as well. And, you know, with a title like the six big ideas, help us understand. We may not have time for all six, but give us some of these big ideas.Ken Rickard (16:00)
Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I'm also still, I think Jason and I are still trying to figure out if, how the word or the phrase big ideas is resonating with folks too, because in the agile community, you know, big, big is not a word that I think people will gravitate to very quickly, but, we're also trying to straddle the fence on the change community and the agile community. Honestly, what we're trying to do is I was joking around and I think we, I'm.Brian (16:21)
Yeah. Yeah.Ken Rickard (16:31)
might've wrote this either in the book that's out now or the bigger book that we're working on for later this fall. But I wrote somewhere that really the change community and the agile community should really go on a blind date because they never should have really been two separate communities in my opinion. And I think Jason would hold the same opinions and a lot of our lean change facilitators, I think would hold the same opinions. So yeah, so the book is really about trying to get Agilist to understand that their role is really about change.Brian (16:47)
Yeah.Ken Rickard (17:02)
They already know the agile bits and the iterative incremental and all that kind of stuff. And that the change community really needs to better understand the agility community and take some of those practices and apply it to the change. And if both sides do those things, we're going to wind up in the middle and everybody's going to be the same type of person or the same type of thing. Because at the end of the day, getting to agility, like this idea of the characteristics of being nimble and being able to adapt to what's going on with a certain grace and resilience.Brian (17:25)
Yeah.Ken Rickard (17:31)
that set of characteristics is really, I think what the agile industry is hoping to go for. And yet a lot of the folks that find these things come to it with their current understanding and they don't really, aren't really looking to change themselves and how they see things, their perspective. And so that's how we get into this commodified kind of off the shelf version of it. And so I think we're just trying to get people to realize that. Look, if you look at these big, these six big ideas, which are really just sense making strategies. At the end of the day, that's what they are. You should be able to sense your way through what your context, your organization, given the changes that are going on. you know, what are those circumstances? How well do you know those circumstances? If you can understand those things in a sense making way, you'll be able to show up in a way that it actually be conducive to help that organization change, no matter what the scope of the changes. Let's say you're a store master. It could be your scope of your change is essentially your team or teams.Brian (18:25)
Yeah.Ken Rickard (18:29)
And the product that they're building, let's say you're an agile coach. Okay. Maybe it's somewhat wider than that. I don't know. I'm still on the fence about what the difference between agile coaching and scrum master is. That's another podcast though. I think, or let's say you're somewhere higher up in the organization. So whatever your purview is, whatever your scope is, that context is really what we're trying to do. We're trying to help you and the others around you understand what it is that you're not paying attention to, what it is that you don't understand.Brian (18:39)
Yeah.Ken Rickard (18:58)
or that you might think you understand about your organization. So it's really six ideas to help people kind of unravel that about their organization and themselves. Because like, for instance, one of the six big ideas is something that Jason had created quite a long time ago called the four dimensions of change. And what it says is that there's four things that you really probably need to focus on as, as a agent of change. And that is yourself. So like,Brian (19:07)
Yeah.Ken Rickard (19:26)
Your set of beliefs about things, you know, how you show up because how you show up actually affects how others receive or perceive you. And then that impacts your ability to influence others and actually help them change. And then it goes on to say there's, the big ideas or strategies that you can deploy from, from a change perspective, typically minimally viable practices, or strategies. And then the last bucket in that four dimensions is, tools and practices. You know, the things that we have the most affinity for and tend to go to first, and kind of ignore the other three things. So it's, so that particular big idea is trying to get people to recognize that, no, there's like a bigger kind of art and science here to helping people change. It's not just about the science, like the strategy and the tools and practices to be good at those things. Most likely you got to focus on the art of change, which is yourself and your stance or how you show up.Brian (19:59)
Right. Right. Yeah, I'm gonna share one of my geeky subdivisions here in making this quote, but it reminds me of in the musical Hamilton, there's a line in there that George Washington says to Hamilton where he's talking about, you know, Hamilton has these visions of going off and dying like a martyr and George Washington says, dying is easy young man, living is harder. And.Ken Rickard (20:30)
Yeah. Yeah.Brian (20:51)
That's kind of how I see this. I'm not saying we're dying or making a choice between dying or not, but I am saying that the practices side of thing, practice is easy young man, culture is harder. It's just harder to try to implement those things. And I think a lot of times, I don't know if it's, I think individually sometimes as coaches we can get lazy.Ken Rickard (20:55)
Yeah.Brian (21:18)
and go to the things that's easier to tell people about. But I also think that it's an institutional thing because it's much easier for me to certify somebody or give them a credential saying that, hey, this person knows their stuff when I can test them on facts and figures and how long is that meeting and that sort of stuff versus.Ken Rickard (21:20)
Mm -hmm. somebody. Yeah. Please.Brian (21:41)
you know, how do you change the mindset of the culture of the organization when they're really into quick solutions and they're into trying to get things out the door as fast as possible and not focus on quality. It's harder, right? It's just, it's more difficult.Ken Rickard (21:55)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're hitting on one of the other six big ideas right now. Actually two of them, but we can start out with the explain the one. So there's another one that we made called the, the two change strategies of effective organizations. And so what this one says is that there's two ways that you can probably improve or change your organization. And that's a fractal statement in an organization because again, we're only talking about whatever context you have.Brian (22:06)
Hahaha.Ken Rickard (22:27)
Cause if you're a SCAR master, we're talking about the context you have of the teams you're working with. Agile coach or something higher up than that, whatever context you have. So, okay. So within your context, you probably have two ways to think about and try to help your organization change. And those two ways are either optimizing what they already do to make it better, faster, cheaper, or evolving the way they think about what they do so that they can actually succeed in ways that they never have before. And I'd be, I'll go out on a limb and say that every, at the very least, every single company I've come across that's doing agile and whatever way they call it, is really trying to do it from the purpose of the optimization, better, faster, cheaper. I think there are very few companies around the world that are actually taking it seriously enough to do the evolution part to actually change the way they think about how they do things in such ways that they're actually elevating. their set of beliefs and behavioral patterns, not just as individuals, sorry, as individuals, but as a collective and then ultimately as an organization. And so it's really trying to get you to, to focus on what is it that we actually are trying to improve? Is it just that we're trying to optimize what we're doing now? Cause that's a take scram off the shelf and just drop it in, you know, or that's send people to training and like come back and be like, cool, you're certified.Brian (23:33)
Chief.Ken Rickard (23:49)
But if we don't ask the hard questions around, okay, well, what are you gonna change about your behaviors? Then they're likely not focusing on evolution. And if we're not coaching them through that, yeah, not really going anywhere.Brian (24:01)
Yeah, do you think organizations just don't know what they don't know? I mean, because I know you're right, they do want better, faster, cheaper. And that's sort of the end goal that they're coming at a lot of this stuff with. They just not recognize that it's really the change capability that they should prioritize.Ken Rickard (24:05)
It's like. Well, I think it's because they focus. So what's really easy for a lot of organizations to change. There's a, we're going to keep tying these five, sorry, these six big ideas together, I guess, because there's another one called the five levers of change. And what that one is, is a, it's a circle of five things with people being the biggest circle in the center. And then on the four corners of it, it's basically process and technology strategies and structures.Brian (24:32)
No, that's great.Ken Rickard (24:48)
And so if we look at that as a systems approach to changing an organization, the reason why it's called the five levers is because they can pull any levers in any combination they want in order to try to change their organization. But the easiest levers to pull are process and technology. So, Hey, let's do scrum and we need to install Jira or Azure DevOps. Right. And that's generally where these kinds of things start because it's within the control of the teams oftentimes to make those changes. It doesn't impact a larger organization to, well, it can, but probably to a lesser extent initially. So the teams have some level of autonomy or local control to start making those changes. They don't run into problems or impediments or just kind of organizational dysfunction until a little bit down the road so they can kick that can down the road. And so I think it's, I think it's that that causes us to gravitate towards a process and then just pull that lever pretty easily. And, and that's an optimization lever. So if you tie those two ideas together, it takes the other side of those five levers, the structure and the strategies, which are all built on beliefs. You know, like if I'm a leader in a hierarchy who's worked 20 years to get to my lofty management position, I'm going to be a lot less likely to take a empathetic kind of delegated approach to my management style because I put in a lot of hard work to get to where I am now. And there's no way you're going to tell me now.Brian (25:48)
Yeah.Ken Rickard (26:18)
20 years that I now have to change the way I operate? Like, no, I'm in control here. So I think we're also battling that a little bit too.Brian (26:20)
Right. Yeah, what I've done got me here. So why would I do something different now? Right?Ken Rickard (26:32)
Right. Exactly.Brian (26:34)
Yeah, I've battled that in multiple occasions, for sure. One of the places I worked was a newspaper. And if you want to talk about people not wanting to change their mindsets of, hey, what do you mean that people don't want to have delivery of their newspaper on their front doorstep every day like they've done their whole life? Yeah, it's crazy. Well, this is great stuff. I'm really enjoying this.Ken Rickard (26:49)
Yeah. Yeah.Brian (27:03)
Do you have one last big thought, big idea to leave us with here? Because we're almost out of time, but what have we missed in these big ideas?Ken Rickard (27:13)
Yeah, probably the other big one that comes up a lot. one of the other six that I haven't talked about yet is the, what I call the three agilities. And we'll tend to focus on the delivery agility, which is like, Hey, we, we can help you team better and people better at the team level where you're delivering. And we can help you become more product led. And we can also help you with your technical excellence, you know, like DevOps types things, right?Brian (27:21)
Okay?Ken Rickard (27:38)
And I think we could probably draw a circle around those three things and go, you know what, for the vast majority of the agile industry, this is what they think agile is. But in my opinion, that's only one of the agilities an organization needs in order to actually possess the characteristics of agility. And the other two would be change agility. The idea that we are adaptable to the change that we cannot control and that we actually can adapt well in a resilient way to the change we can control within our organization. And that we're constantly evolving to get better at that so that we can sustain change in a graceful way over time. So that's change agility. And then the third one is probably possibly the most important one. And that is leadership agility. This idea that if we don't create the environment for change to take place in a conducive way that is productive and adaptable. then we won't change and we'll stay stagnant and we'll stick to our standardized approaches in a stagnant way. And then delivery will suffer even though we can put new things on top of it and we can call things new words, it won't actually change. And the leadership agility is really about not just trying to teach leaders to be more competent. That's generally what management consulting and a lot of other folks are focused on. It's really about trying to help leaders address their ability. to actually have a consciousness about themselves, that they can show up in ways that are actually enabling and empowering the organization to be adaptable and flexible and to be able to deliver and change in ways that are graceful and resilient. And so in my opinion, it kind of starts there even though a lot of them don't start.Brian (29:14)
I love that. No, I love that. I think that's great because, you know, a lot of times you hear the complaints of people who come through classes that are kind of more team level in the organization. And it's, there's a lot of complaints about how management just doesn't understand, or we're bumping up against the glass ceiling, you know, kind of in our organization, we can't really Institute change or make the change permanent because, you know, leadership still wants things exactly in the old way. They haven't actually shifted. how they think about things. So I love that, I love that concept. I would agree there. Well, this is great stuff. And obviously, like I said, the workshop that Ken did at the Scrum Gathering was an hour and a half. And this is just a short little taste in half an hour. So there's no way we're gonna be able to cover it all here. I strongly encourage people, if they're really interested in this topic, if they're really interested in what Ken is saying,Ken Rickard (29:53)
Thank you. Yeah.Brian (30:15)
Check out the book the six big ideas of adaptive organizations. It's a great book And it'll go into detail on all of these these six big ideas that we talked about here And what we're gonna put lots of the links in our show notes here so if you want to just head on over our show notes you'll find links over not only that but to to Ken's organization the six big ideas network and you can find the website there and find the theKen Rickard (30:24)
Mm -hmm.Brian (30:44)
classes and trainings that Ken is doing in this area. So we'll make sure that everybody can get to that. Ken, I can't thank you enough. Thanks for coming on and sharing your knowledge with us today. Yeah.Ken Rickard (30:54)
Yeah, thanks for having me. It was fun. -
Join Brian and Bernie Maloney as they explore the transformative power of mental models, emphasizing the shift from a mechanistic to an organic mindset in Agile organizations.
OverviewIn this episode, Brian and Bernie Maloney discuss the profound impact of mental models on organizational culture. Bernie delves into how our beliefs and assumptions shape our thinking and behavior, particularly within Agile environments.
He discusses the importance of transitioning from a mechanistic to an organic mindset, focusing on problem-solving rather than merely delivering solutions. The conversation also highlights the role of psychological safety in fostering a culture of experimentation and learning.
Bernie shares valuable resources, including Amy Edmondson's 'The Right Kind of Wrong,' to further explore these concepts. Tune in for insightful strategies for enhancing your organization's agility and effectiveness.
Listen Now to Discover:[1:03] - Brian welcomes Certified Scrum Trainer® and Principal at Power By Teams, Bernie Maloney, to the show.
References and resources mentioned in the show:
[2:15] - Bernie delves into the concept of mental models, sharing the origins of his philosophy of "making new mistakes" developed during his time at Hewlett Packard.
[5:55] - Bernie illustrates the power of mental models and belief by sharing a compelling example that brings these concepts to life.
[13:46] - Join us for a Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training, where a year of coaching and development with Mike Cohn, Brian, and the Agile Mentors Community of Agile leaders is included with your training.
[14:39] - Bernie discusses how applying mental models can enhance the effectiveness of Agile transformations, creating a naturally adaptive and innovative climate.
[18:12] - Bernie offers language as a powerful tool to support the shift to a new Mental Model.
[23:30] - Bernie demonstrates the use of mental models for product owners through the Mobius Loop, providing actionable guidance and examples
[26:27] - Brian shares a big thank you to Bernie for joining him on the show.
[26:59] - If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend, and like and subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast so you never miss a new episode.
[27:27] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership to that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software, such as CSM, CSPO, or Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Course. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes. You can find the schedule here.Bernie Maloney
Want to get involved?
Power By Teams
Mobius Loop
The Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well by Amy Edmondson
Agile Teams Learn From Spikes: Time Boxed Research Activities by Mike Cohn
Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training
Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification
Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Course
Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule
Join the Agile Mentors Community
Subscribe to the Agile Mentors PodcastThis show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.
Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Bernie Maloney is an Agile leadership coach and international speaker, leverages his 25 years of engineering and leadership experience to help teams and organizations unlock their full potential. Known for his engaging workshops and impactful coaching, Bernie believes in making performance breakthroughs both achievable and enjoyable.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I am with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a very special guest with me. I have Mr. Bernie Maloney with me. Welcome in, Bernie. I am.Bernie Maloney (00:14)
Thanks, Brian. Happy to be here.Brian (00:16)
Great. I'm so excited to have Bernie here. Bernie and I have touched base for years over conferences. We've run into each other and had chats and shared our shared passion for Hawaii and other things. But Bernie was speaking at the recent conference and we've gotten into some conversations. I wanted him to come on because I wanted him to, first of all, if you're not familiar with Bernie, sorry, I see, I just want to jump right into it. If you're not familiar with Bernie, Bernie is a CST. He works at a company called Powered by Teams. He teaches classes, Scrum Master product owner classes and leadership classes and other things as well. But he is a principal at Powered by Teams. So just wanted to give you the basics there before we dive into anything. But the topic that we started to talk about that just as a jumping off place for us is a topic. the topic of mental models. So Bernie, why don't you explain to everyone how you define that, mental models.Bernie Maloney (01:23)
So, Brian, this is a great topic. I find myself talking about it all the time. And y 'all, I warned Brian, like, he can press play on this, and it might be 15 minutes before he gets a word in edgewise here. It touches on mindset. It touches on a lot of topics. My talk that Brian was referencing at the recent Scrum gathering in New Orleans was make new mistakes, leadership lessons from an Agile success. which goes back to where I really kind of cut my teeth in Agile at Hewlett Packard. See, I'm a mechanical engineer by training. And I cut my teeth in Agile in the consumer PC division at HP about, this is scary to say y 'all, okay, about 27 years ago starting at this point. And some of the fun stuff, it was a bang up enterprise. It was the fastest business in HP's history to hit a billion dollars. And it was just...Brian (02:05)
Yeah.Bernie Maloney (02:18)
a great proving ground. We had hardware, we had software, we had distributed teams where volume manufacturing was in Asia, engineering was here where I am in Silicon Valley. Go -to -market for Europe was in Grenoble, France. We had high volume. Some of our products had 100 ,000 units in a single model run, with like 200 models in Europe on a quarterly basis at times. So high volume, high mix, tight margins from a business perspective. A lot of technology products want to have 20 % to 30 % gross margins. That's before you start taking off deductions like expenses and salaries and things like that. On a good day, we had 8 % gross margins for Christmas products, maybe 2 % gross margins. We used to refer to it as we were shipping rotting bananas. And like I said, I was there. When I started, we were shipping six products a quarter. We grew to 20. By the time I left after eight years, we were doing 200 products a quarter in Europe alone.Brian (03:04)
Ha ha.Bernie Maloney (03:16)
hardware, software, distributed teams, high volume, high mix. And we did all that with weekly iterations of a plan. At one point in my career, I was tactically responsible for the delivery of 2 % of HP's top line revenue with zero direct reports. And part of the secret sauce of success in that organization was really that mental model of make new mistakes. So that's where the talk title comes from. And in fact, makenewmistakes .com will point to poweredbyteams .com because I own that domain too. But that mental model really helped the organization thrive and not just survive. We went from like a number one to a number five share. Sorry, from a number five to a number one the other way around. Because the founding executives recognized that in that tide of a market, mistakes were probably going to happen. And so what they did is they established the psychological safety. Wow, look, there's another great topic. Make new mistakes. You knew that if it was an honest mistake, it would be forgiven. Just don't make it again. Get the lesson is one of the things that they said. I can even tell you the story about the weekend I blew a million dollars of HP's money and I was forgiven, but you'll have to come to a conference talk for that. So that was just like a great experience. And...Brian (04:32)
Wow.Bernie Maloney (04:39)
After that experience, I went on to TVs. Another part of my background is I shipped the very first internet connected TVs. Look it up, the Media Smart 3760 from HP. It shipped even before Apple TV. It bombed. Okay, it was way ahead of its time. But I recognized that that had been such a joyride. And then I recognized some other stuff that really gets into the psychological, the mental aspects of leadership, high performing teams. And I could, Brian, I could talk about that too, but okay. But that kind of got me to recognize that with those skills, the success that I had experienced at HP could probably be replicated. That's kind of been the path that I've been on for the past 15 years is really helping organizations go along that path. So mental models can be really big. Let me give everybody here an example. And so Brian, I'm going to speak to you as a way of illustrating mental models. So imagine you are physically where you are right now.Brian (05:24)
Yeah.Bernie Maloney (05:37)
but it is 150 years ago, okay? Imagine you're physically where you are right now, but it's 150 years ago. Now, Brian, let me ask you, can man fly?Brian (05:47)
boy, you're testing my history knowledge.Bernie Maloney (05:52)
Okay, make it 200 years ago, okay? That makes it easier. Okay, cool. Great, now fast forward to the present. Brian, let me ask you, can man fly?Brian (05:54)
No, yeah, no. Yes.Bernie Maloney (06:02)
What changed? Nothing about the laws of physical reality. It was just your mental model of what for man to fly means. That's the power of belief, okay? And belief limits a whole bunch of stuff in the way that people behave. So you'll hear Agilent talk all the time about, this is all about changing mindset. I'm probably, Brian, gonna give your listeners some ways of.Brian (06:06)
invention.Bernie Maloney (06:30)
changing mindset as we go through this, but that's going to illustrate the power of mental models. Now, a big one that I like to use that's specific to Agile comes from Gabby Benefield. She's an Agilist out of the UK, and it's called the Mobius Loop. And I think she's got the domain mobiusloop .com. So everybody can imagine a Mobius Loop. Okay. And what I really like about this model for her...Brian (06:32)
Sure, yeah, please. Yeah.Bernie Maloney (06:56) i
s the right -hand half is what a lot of organizations think Agile is. Build, measure, learn, build, measure, learn. The whole idea of the build trap that we talk about in Agile. It's all about the delivery of a solution. Okay? But the left -hand half is all about the discovery of the problem. Okay? And the discovery of the customer. And that's a part of Agile too that most organizations overlook. So you got to ask why. And it comes down to kind of mental models. So when I was at Persistent, if you go look me up on LinkedIn, you'll find some of my employment history. I was at Persistent for a while. They had a really good mental model. And it's something I still use when I go into a client. And they would talk about there's kind of three eras of a company culture. And so culture is really the environment that an organization lives within. And there's an era. where cultures were formed before the internet. So things like finance and government and mining and manufacturing and oil and gas field developed. I mean, I've had clients in all of these areas. And in that sort of an environment, okay, it was, well, an era. One of the things I'll ask, and Brian, I'll kind of like let you represent the audience. Would you say in general, the people that you work with, the markets that they serve, Are they moving faster and all up into a thumbs up, slower, thumbs down, or about the same, thumbs sideways? Are the markets moving faster, slower, or about the same as they were, say, five or 10 years ago?Brian (08:32)
I think everything's moving faster, yeah.Bernie Maloney (08:34)
Cool. Okay. Now, how about the technology that your clients use to solve problems for that market? You know, moving faster, thumbs up, slower, thumbs down, or about the same as it was, say, five or 10 years ago. Faster. Yeah, cool. Okay. Now, when things are moving faster, thumbs up for yes, thumbs down for no. Do they always move in a straight line?Brian (08:46)
No, faster. No, not always.Bernie Maloney (08:56)
Okay, cool. So now things are moving faster, but they're not moving in a straight line. So let me ask you, do most organizations try and plan and predict? Is it possible for you to plan and predict when things are moving faster and they're not moving in a straight line? Is it easier or harder to plan and predict?Brian (09:19)
I think it's definitely harder.Bernie Maloney (09:21)
Yeah, but organizations are trying to do that, aren't they? And it's because their mental model is as a machine. So organizations born before the internet have a mental model of the entire organizational system being a machine, the industrial age, which you can plan and predict. They treat people like cogs in a machine. In fact, the thing that us Agilists will say is, when you say resources, did you mean people? See, that's...Brian (09:35)
Yeah.Bernie Maloney (09:50)
That's kind of now we're starting to get into some of the culture aspects of this because language actually forms culture. And so you'll hear Angela say, did you mean people? Like when that whole word of resources comes up. But organizations born before the internet, they've got one culture. Okay, they were born in an era of plan and predict. They've got a mental model of the system being a machine. And your listeners would probably agree most of them struggle with Agile. Okay, now there's another era born in the internet but not the cloud. So some examples like here in Silicon Valley, Cisco, PayPal, okay, lots of us have had exposure to them and lots of us recognize they still struggle with agile because agile wasn't really fully formed and articulated. Then there are organizations that were born in the cloud and so places like Striper Square and I use payments because I've had... clients in finance across all three of these eras. So Stripe or Square, they were born in the cloud where things were almost natively agile because the Agile Manifesto had been published by that point. They just inherently get agile. So these mental models of your organizational system being a machine get reflected in the language. So things like people or resources, it turns them into objects. It enables something I've heard called pencil management. Wear them down to a nub, go get a new one. In fact, if you do the research on where the word resources was first applied to human beings, it might shock some people. So I don't talk about that openly. They'll have to find me privately. I'll be happy to point you out the reference. And once I do, it's like, ooh. But one of the jokes I'll crack. And this is one of the ways that you can start to shift the language. If people call you resources, because you know that turns you into an object, start calling them overhead.Brian (11:23)
Yeah. Ha ha ha.Bernie Maloney (11:48)
Okay, it can kind of make the difference there. Okay, so, but you know, if things are moving faster and they're harder to plan and predict, that mental model needs to shift. In fact, in agile, we talk about you need to move to sense and respond. When things are moving faster, it's kind of like Gretzky, skate to where the puck is going. You need to sense and respond to the situation. So a better mental model instead of a mechanism is an organism. Because think about organisms, like cut yourself, it heals, okay? It senses and responds. Or like a forest fire comes in, wipes things out, and nature always kind of fills things back in. Sense and respond. This gets reflected in the language. So Brian, do your clients talk about metrics?Brian (12:37)
Of course, yes.Bernie Maloney (12:38)
Okay, cool. So do they talk about efficiency?Brian (12:41)
I would say a lot of businesses will talk about that. Yeah, sure.Bernie Maloney (12:44)
Yeah, cool. That's the language of machines. Probably better language is diagnostics instead of metrics. That invokes some of the curiosity. And probably instead of efficiency is effectiveness. One of the things I'll say is scrum is not efficient. It's not about utilization of capacity. It's about the production of value, which is all about effectiveness. See, efficiency or effective. Do you go to your doctor for an efficient treatment? or ineffective treatment, Brian.Brian (13:16)
Effective, hopefully.Bernie Maloney (13:17)
Awesome. Do you go for blood metrics or blood diagnostics?Brian (13:21)
Yeah, diagnostics for sure.Bernie Maloney (13:23)
Yeah, so now you're starting to get some hints about how you can start to shift the mental model. What you're really doing with Agile, y 'all, is you're shifting the culture, and culture is hard because it's not visible. The tools, the processes, the practices that folks like Brian and I will teach and coach, they're super visible, they're super valuable, but they're often not enough to start to change things. So, Brian, would you say most of your listeners are familiar? familiar with the language of Tuchman of forming, storming, norming, and performing.Brian (13:56)
I'd say there's probably a good percentage, yeah.Bernie Maloney (13:58)
Cool. I actually like to draw a Satir curve. So Bruce Tuckman, Virginia Satir, they were contemporaries. They were both just researching human systems. So Virginia did a performance axis on the vertical and a time axis on the horizontal. And the way Virginia described it is you're kind of going along in a certain status quo. And so you're kind of along that baseline. And then a foreign element enters and some change. And then you descend into chaos. And you can't see it. like your performance goes down until you have a transformative idea and then through some practice and integration, you rise to a new status quo. This happens to people all the time when they introduce changes in their life like New Year's resolutions. I'm going to get fit and healthy this year. You know, it's a beach body time. And you start doing it and it's like, this is so hard. You're in chaos. And what human beings want to do is they want to go back to the way things were instead of moving through. OK, this happens when you introduce agile into your organization. You'll hear Agilist talk about this as the Agile antibodies. You introduce it, this is so hard, and people want to go back to the way things were instead of kind of moving through. So the tools, the processes, the practices, they're really good, but they're not powerful enough. You got to start changing the culture. Culture is like what we all swim in, but climate is something that you can start to affect. So climate is a little bit closer in to your team, and you can start talking about these mental models. Like when I was at TiVo, I was hired into TiVo to bring Agile in because I had shipped TVs, I knew about Agile. And I was hired in on, I think I can say this now because we're more than a decade past. Have you all ever streamed anything? Yeah, okay. So TiVo was working on that in like 2009, 2010. I got to see that stuff and I was like, really wish I had taken off for them. But that program...Brian (15:42)
yeah.Bernie Maloney (15:54)
disbanded, okay, and the culture kind of spread in the organization. And I knew that this was a possibility, so when I brought it in, I made sure I didn't just work with my team that was doing a Skunk Works project, where we were just kind of doing some internal development that we weren't, you know, or stealth is probably a better word these days. So a stealth program inside of TiVo that you couldn't talk about. I knew that... when Agile would spread, it would hit some of this resistance, these antibodies. And so I made a case for bringing in people from outside my team so that it was familiar. And when that program disbanded, it organically spread on the cloud side of TiVo because of some of this stuff. So within your own team, you can kind of create a climate. And then when you start to see results like that, that's going to start attracting kind of the rest of the culture that's there. But these mental models, like shifting from mechanism to organism can really help an organization recognize where their limiting beliefs are about how things go. And it's going to be reflected in language. So if you like dive into anthropology a little bit, you're going to recognize that it's really well established. You can change a culture by starting to change the language. And all of us, okay, if you're observing what's going on in Eastern Ukraine here in 2024, that's what's going on. with the Russian occupation, they're changing the language because that's going to change the culture. That's why they're doing stuff like that. So, and even language starts to shape the mental models that you've got. A good example of something like that was when European, you know, when European explorers is the language I'll use, came to the Americas, the natives didn't really have a language for ship. And so they saw these people coming in floating on the water. And that was the way that they could describe it. So even language kind of gets into a cultural sort of a thing. So these are techniques that you can put into your toolkit. Start shifting the language to start shifting the culture, which can kind of help with the mental models. When you got the mental models, that's where the language starts to come from. If you don't have the mental models, you're probably not going to have the language. And I encourage all the folks I work with, start shifting from the whole idea of mechanism to organism. Okay, Brian, was that 15 minutes? Did I go on for as long as I predicted I would?Brian (18:27)
About 15 minutes. Yeah. No, but I think that's a good point. There's a thing that I'll talk about a lot of times in my classes where I would all say, you know, the waterfall paradigm is one that's based on manufacturing. And there's a false understanding of what we're doing as manufacturing and it's not. It's more research and development. So you have to kind of shift the process to be one that's more conducive. to research and development. So that's very much in line with what you're talking about here. I love that.Bernie Maloney (19:01)
Yeah. Do you think people would appreciate some book references that can kind of like help you? Okay. So specifically on that whole ethos of experimentalism that you just touched on, Brian, I'm currently going through Amy Edmondson's The Right Kind of Wrong. Really good book. Now, Amy is well known because she helped establish psychological safety as a super important topic in organizations.Brian (19:07)
absolutely. Absolutely.Bernie Maloney (19:30)
So she was coupled, I think, with Project Aristotle at Google. And in this book, she unpacked some really interesting stuff. She talks about failure, and there's types of failures. There's basic, there's complex, and there's intelligent failures. OK, intelligent failures, they're just native to science. You know things are going to go wrong. You're going to have Thomas Edison, the I Found 1 ,000 Ways. to do a light bulb wrong, sort of. That's like intelligent failure. Basic failure, she breaks down into, let's see, neglect and inattention. And those are the things that you really want to start to squeeze out of a system. With that mental model of a mechanism, I would say a lot of, call it management, tends to think of a lot of failures as basic failures. And that's where blame starts to come into a system. Okay, so now we're back into psychological safety. Okay, where you want to establish, you know, that was an honest mistake. Hence the talk title of make new mistakes. Okay, so you can have processes and procedures that can kind of squeeze out some of those basic failures. Complex in the middle is really interesting to talk about. As I'm getting into the material, she unpacks... Now, complex failures are those chain of events, you know,Brian (20:30)
Yeah. Yeah.Bernie Maloney (20:54)
This thing and this thing and this thing all had to line up and go wrong at the same time for this catastrophic failure to go on. And in medicine, which is where her original research was, they talk about it as Swiss cheese. And she says, if you go into a lot of medical administrators' offices, you're going to find some model of Swiss cheese there. Because they talk about it's like all the holes have to line up for something to go sideways on you. So complex failures. It's a chain of events, a bunch of little things. And she points out that in the research, these often happen when you have an over -constrained system where there's no slack, where you're trying to operate with, get this, Brian, 100 % efficiency. You're trying to load everybody up. So that is just like, it's not just juice on psychological safety, but like, looking at the whole idea of intelligent failures that we want to encourage versus constraining out basic failures versus working to reduce those complex failures and not just thinking complex failures are basic failures, but they're systemic failures that then might be part of the system, might be part of the mental model that's going on that's there. So super juicy stuff.Brian (22:11)
Yeah, yeah, that's really good stuff. I've always loved Amy's work and I feel, you know, silly calling her Amy. But Amy Edmondson's work has always been great. Yeah, Professor Edmondson. She, the work on psychological safety, I think was just amazing. And the examples she used in her research are amazing. And, you know, all the stuff with Project Aristotle.Bernie Maloney (22:20)
Okay, Professor Edmondson, yeah.Brian (22:36)
I love the concept of psychological. I mean, again, not to make this the topic of our podcast, but, you know, I love the idea that they, they, they found that psychological safety was, so foundational that nothing else mattered. That if you didn't have that, that not no matter what else you layered on top of it, it would not fix the problem that you didn't have psychological safety.Bernie Maloney (22:58)
Yep. And that's one of the reasons why I say Agile is actually a social technology more than anything else. I mean, that's why it's people and people over processes and tools. This is really a social technology that we deal in.Brian (23:10)
That's a great way to put it. I love that social technology. Awesome. I love that.Bernie Maloney (23:14)
So kind of talking about Amy and psychological safety and kind of all these systems that we're talking about, another mental model that I like to give particularly my product owners, going back to that Mobius loop. and like on the right hand side is all about delivery, okay, that's where you give team solutions to build. That's what a lot of organizations do. Versus on the left hand side with discovery, it's all about problems to solve. So I like to encourage my clients to instead of just giving people solutions to build, give them problems to solve. Now, for product owners, if you imagine like an onion that's kind of stretched out left to right, so kind of an odd long little onion.Brian (23:41)
Yeah.Bernie Maloney (23:58)
and on the far right is your sprint. And then as you go to the left, you're at a release, and further out to the left, you're in roadmap, and way further out into the left, you're into these vague things like vision. So product owners kind of deal with this whole span of things. And in between, product and sprint goals start to make things a little bit more concrete. Okay, and... One of the things I'll do for my product owners is I'll take that Mobius loop and I'll overlay it on a planning onion like that and go, do you get to see how, like what we're talking about here, you're starting out way vague in discovery and you're getting way more concrete as you get into delivery and into the sprint. And really the job of Agile and Scrum is both. It's not just about turn the crank on the machine. In fact, I think it's unfortunate that there's a book title out there of twice. the work in half the time. I actually like to pitch this as more it's about twice the value with half the stress. Okay, now as you imagine that Mobius loop kind of overlaid, one of the things I'll unpack for folks is when you're way out in that vision area, there's a lot of uncertainty that's there, okay? And you're actually going to have to do discovery. You may have to run some experiments.Brian (24:58)
Yeah.Bernie Maloney (25:24)
Okay, and it's only as you get closer into delivery that you want to get closer to certainty. And really, that's kind of the job of a product owner is squeezing uncertainty out of the system. Initially through discovery of the problem to solve, who to solve it for, what the market is, but it's the job of the whole team in Agile to squeeze that uncertainty out of the system. Brian, I'm sure you've had folks like talk about spikes. You ever have people get wrapped around the axle about like including spikes in their product backlog?Brian (25:48)
Yeah, for sure. yeah, for sure.Bernie Maloney (25:54)
Cool, the way that I frame that up, okay, so here's a mental model. That's just technical uncertainty that you've uncovered. Great, okay, so now we've got to go squeeze that uncertainty out of the system. So stop getting wrapped around the axle on stuff like this. Just like stop trying to plan and predict things. Instead, kind of get into sense and respond on all of them. And there, I've kind of brought it around full circle for you, Brian, for where we started.Brian (26:09)
Yeah, no. No, that's great. That's great stuff. And I love the fact that we can bring it back full circle. Well, this is fascinating. And like you said, we could press play and go on this for another half hour very easily. But we'll be respectful of people's time here and keep it to our normal time length. Bernie, I can't thank you enough for coming on. I really appreciate you sharing your experience with us. And... what you've learned over your years of working in this profession.Bernie Maloney (26:50)
Thank you so much for asking me, Brian -
Join Brian and John Barratt as they delve into the current state of the agile industry, exploring the impact of economic downturns on agile coaches and Scrum Masters, and discover innovative strategies to navigate these challenging times.
OverviewIn this episode, Brian and John Barratt dissect the current state of the agile industry, focusing on the effects of economic downturns on agile coaches and scrum masters. They discuss the reasons behind organizational layoffs and cost-cutting measures, emphasizing the need for innovation to thrive during challenging periods.
The conversation shifts to redefining the roles of scrum masters and agile coaches, highlighting the importance of delivering value and outcomes rather than merely facilitating meetings. John introduces two essential resources—the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel and the Agile Coaching Code of Ethics—to support agile practitioners in their professional development.
The episode concludes with a discussion on the significance of mentorship and continuous improvement within the agile community. Tune in for invaluable insights and practical tools to enhance your agile journey.
Listen Now to Discover:[1:08] - Brian welcomes Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Team Coach®, & Certified Enterprise Coach®, and host of the Clean At Work podcast, John Barratt.
References and resources mentioned in the show:
[4:42] - John reveals the core issues behind struggling organizations and shares how innovation can allow an organization to thrive during challenging times.
[5:50] - Brian and John analyze the impact of economic downturns on organizations and agility, offering strategies to navigate these challenging times successfully.
[10:04] - Brian and John explore the role of Scrum and Agile in an economic downturn.
[16:08] - Join Brian and the Mountain Goat Software team for not only a Certified ScrumMaster® class but a full year of membership, learning, and support from Mike Cohn, Brian, and the Agile Mentors Community. You don’t have to lead alone.
[17:09] - Brian poses an opportunity to expand the definition of done of Scrum leadership.
[19:43] - John introduces the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel and the Agile Coaching Code of Ethics as powerful resources to help Agile practitioners and leaders enhance their skills and progress in their development.
[23:42] - John shares the tool of Agile Scoping, based on From Contempt to Curiosity by Caitlin Walker, to lean into Scrum success within an organization.
[32:25] - Brian shares a big thank you to John for joining him on the show.
[33:04] - We invite you to share this episode with a friend and subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast.
[33:57] - Do you have feedback or a great idea for an episode of the show? Great! Just send us an email.
[34:16] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership into that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes, you can find the schedule here.John Barratt
Want to get involved?
Clean At Work podcast
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#93: The Rise of Human Skills and Agile Acumen with Evan Leyburn
The Agile Army - John Barratt
Agile Coaching Growth Wheel
Agile Coaching Code of Ethics
Agile Scoping
From Contempt to Curiosity by Caitlin Walker
Agile 2024 - The European Experience - Manchester
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Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training ScheduleThis show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.
Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
John Barratt is a Certified Enterprise Coach® (CEC) and Certified Scrum Trainer® (CST), passionate about helping individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their best through agile coaching approaches. With a background in the military and a keen interest in systemic modeling, John constantly seeks new ideas and innovations to support organizational resilience and agility.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are here for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I am with you as always, Brian Milner, and with me today, I have a good friend of mine that I've been trying to get on the show for a while. Mr. John Barrett is with us. Welcome in, John.John Barratt (00:14)
Thank you for having me Brian. It's been a while. We've been trying. We're here today. I'm really pleased.Brian (00:18)
Yeah, very, very excited. John and I have seen each other at conferences for years. We've crossed paths. And I kind of jokingly said to him, I'm threatening to have a conversation with you not at a conference at some point. And that was kind of how we started this. For those who aren't familiar with John and his work, John works with a company called Agile Affinity.John Barratt (00:34)
Hahaha!Brian (00:43)
He is a certified Scrum trainer, a certified team coach, and certified enterprise coach. So he has the holy trifecta of Scrum Alliance certifications there from the guide community. He's a coach and trainer. Couple of interesting things. First of all, we'll talk a little bit about this, but John has his own podcast called the Clean at Work podcast that we can talk about here a little bit. But another interesting thing that he told me before, I didn't realize this, but John actually started in the military. So do you want to say anything about that? How long were you in the military?John Barratt (01:19)
Yeah, so I was in the military for six years, joined accidentally when I was 18. So I went into the career office with a friend who was joining. And they were like, you're a bright lad, you can earn all of this money. So it was either go to university and getting lots of debt or join the army, get lots of training and get paid and see the world. So no thoughts of joining before that day accidentally joined. Did six years including a tour of Iraq. And the important thing about that for me is when I left, I felt really isolated. So Army is all about team, right? Team focus. Left the Army, was in IT, and it felt totally different. People were there stabbing me in the back, not supporting me. And then I found this thing called Agile, which was about teams again. And this thing called Scrum, where it was a team game. I was like, this is what I've been missing. Where's this been for the last two years since I left the army? And the rest is history. I did do a keynote at Central Agile Spain. I'm not sure what year, but it is on YouTube for anyone who's interested in hearing more about how the army is actually rather agile in my humble opinion.Brian (02:22)
Yeah. That's awesome. We'll find that and put that in the show notes here. So if people are interested in finding that, they can go and watch that.John Barratt (02:45)
Yeah, we'll have to dust it out of the archives.Brian (02:48)
Well, yeah, yeah, I'm sure we can find it. But we were talking before this about our topic and I think this is going to be a topic that's interesting to a lot of people. Really, really kind of diving into the state of the industry right now and what we're seeing as far as the economy in the agile industry. You know, there's there's several organizations that have laid people off You know, there's there's less demand at the moment in the coaching kind of realm So kind of what's behind that the the shifts and you know What might be driving this kind of thing? So I know John you got some opinions on this. So let us have itJohn Barratt (03:18)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, so I don't want to talk too much about the global economics. I don't pretend to be an expert on why we're seeing a recession. We can talk about, you know, COVID and the cost of that and also the war in Ukraine and, you know, all of the pain and suffering that that's caused much more than, you know, what we're seeing, which is, you know, a few people being laid off. So I don't want to go into that. But what I do want to really explore is, so if an organization is struggling, there's two elements. for that. Do they try and cut back as much cost as possible or do they try and innovate themselves out of that recession? Do they try and do something different and in a unique way? Unfortunately what I'm seeing a lot of is the first one which is cut back, reduce cost as much as possible and that's to the detriment of the the Scrim masses and and agile coaches that we see and I'm going to talk a little bit why they are the ones that often are in danger in a minute. Instead of where they should go, which my bias opinion should go, right? What I'm trying to do in the company that I run is to actually lean into that as an opportunity and try and innovate and see, well, what is possible in this new, exciting world that we're perhaps moving into? Where do we need to go when organizations are struggling? What are the opportunities, an example, AI that we've seen and what difference will that make in the next few years? I mean, who knows?Brian (05:14)
Yeah, yeah, I think it's fascinating and you know, there's something I've talked about with some friends for several years and that is that I think there's sort of a, boy, I don't know how deep we want to go on this, but you know, you have a lot of executives now that get hired to come into a company and it's gamesmanship because the idea is I've got to increase our... our stock price by however many percentage points. And my bonus is tied to that. The more I can increase it, the more I get a bonus. Well, it's kind of like if you go to a team and tell them, hey, can you do more story points? They can certainly game that and all of a sudden have more story points. Well, the same thing with a short -term kind of executive. If you're in an organization and you're only going to be there for a couple of years, And you know your site is, if I can raise it three percentage points, I get a bonus. Well, there's a lot of easy cuts I can make that all of a sudden I've gone up three percentage points. But the long term of that company has not benefited. It's only the short term. And it just feels like, I don't know if it's a day trader thing, if that's really why this is kind of becoming more prevalent or not. But it seems like investing is kind of more of the short term. Now, and it used to be when you buy a stock, you'd buy it for 10, 20 years because you believed in that company and you expected to pay off over the long run. There's still a little of that, but it seems much more short -sighted. And I think that's trickled down to our, like I said, I don't know how deep we want to get on this. I think that's trickled down to our executives. And I think from the executive, that's trickled down to the employees. And that's really affected how...John Barratt (06:41)
Mm -hmm.Brian (07:06)
you know, when we've had layoffs and we've had downturns in the economy that just, hey, this is an easy way for us to show an increase in profits.John Barratt (07:15)
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. It reminds me of Craig Lammon's laws, structure leads culture. And when we talk about structure, we don't ever just mean the hierarchy, we mean the bonus system, how people are rewarded and paid and all of those things. And so if you're rewarding shortism by giving these execs bonuses based onBrian (07:34)
Yeah.John Barratt (07:41)
profit for this year or as you said stock increase by 3 % then they will cut costs because what looks good for short term and for stocks is to have the minimum operational expense possible right if they can keep that as low as possible then that looks like a solid company because they're keeping controlling costs they talk about and and If they're working on margins and profits start to go down, which is what we're seeing as a trend at least UK, US, I can't say if it's completely global, but it seems like a large percent of the company and the organizations are going in that way, then what they do is to keep their margins so that they get their bonus is they start to reduce that, right? Because they need to keep that buffer. If they were to do what I'm suggesting, which is to lean into that and perhaps spend a little bit, spend some money to make some money, or at least keep it lying and try some innovative stuff, then that's high risk for them. Hmm.Brian (08:50)
Yeah. Yeah, I've seen things before that have said that when there is economic downturns, that their evidence shows that the companies that invest more during the economic downturns actually end up increasing their positions to a much greater extent when the downturn starts to turn around because...John Barratt (09:02)
Mm -hmm.Brian (09:14)
they haven't just set idle or they haven't tried to reduce, they've tried to invest and now they're positioned to really take advantage of it once the economy starts flowing again. I'm not like you, I'm no economic expert, I'm no economist. So I don't know all the ins and outs of what's causing that. But it certainly has caused pain in our sector. And I think a lot of sectors, because I have I know lots of people who have gone through layoffs, not just in the tech industry recently. So I guess kind of the question that I ask about this as far as the agile community is concerned is, if we were delivering value, right? If it was undeniable that what we were doing was increasing profits, increasing value to our customers, I think that would make it a lot. harder for these kind of layoffs to happen. So I don't want to entirely say, hey, it's bad leadership, right? I think we have to take ownership a little bit.John Barratt (10:23)
Yeah, and I'm going to say something I think is quite controversial here, which I actually blame servant leadership for this. So I know in the latest version of the Scrum Guide, we use the word true leadership, but I still like the word servant leadership. And I've actually changed my mindset and how I teach these things over the last few years because of this, because we've started to see this trend.Brian (10:28)
Go for it. All right.John Barratt (10:51)
And I've seen it in organizations where I've worked, I've left one year later, and then they've made all the agile coaches redundant. And I think it's down to how we use and perceive servant leadership. So historically, I was always, you know, Scrum Master or Agile Coach is the great person in the background. They let everyone else take the credit. They're there to help and support the team and to do all of that stuff, which is great, right? until someone with a balance sheet comes along and goes, what are all these scrum masters who aren't delivering any value, right? They're an overhead. They're seen as an overhead. Not delivering any value. No one can even tell me what value they've created. These developers over here, they're doing great. And the product owner is really maximizing the value of this product. But these scrum masters, they don't add any value. Because that's what we told them to do, right? We taught them to...Brian (11:29)
Yeah.John Barratt (11:49)
give everyone else the credit and serve everyone else and be in the background. So I think we've got a lot to blame, Brian, as trainers for, well, I don't know how you've taught it in the past, but I feel a little bit guilty. Don't worry, I've got the answer, but I just want to hear from you, what you, where you are with that one.Brian (12:04)
No, no, no, no. Yeah. I'll tell you my opinion and you'll tell me if I'm correct or not. Yeah, no, I agree. I definitely think that's part of it. But maybe this will be a little controversial. I kind of spoke about this recently at the Scrum Gathering in my talk. In the trend that we've seen, John Barratt (12:15) Yeah!Brian (12:40)
that I kind of talk about the diminishing of the perception of value of the Scrum Master. And I think that there's kind of multiple parts to that. I think part of it could be, hey, leadership doesn't really understand the value. But I think that there is a secondary part of that, that they're not seeing the value. And if they're not seeing the value, then I think that that'sJohn Barratt (12:48)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.Brian (13:08)
that rest on us. I think that we have to partly do a better job of helping them to understand it, but partly doing a better job of delivering it. And again, don't want to get too controversial here, but in our industry, in our training industry, You know, we've done lots of two day classes. We've done lots of things where we get people out the door and then they're in place and they're doing things. And the follow -up, you and I both know the follow -up is so important. You can't just take a two day class and then you're set for life. It's two days, but that's a kickoff and you got to continue that. and if I, if I take a two day class and I kind of slide backwards a little bit from that class and I get in and I'm a scrum master, there's, John Barratt (13:43) Mm -hmm. Yeah.Brian (14:01)
Unfortunately, I think there's a lot of scrum masters out there who see their job as meeting scheduler. I'm here to schedule meetings, and that's the value I bring. Well, I can't blame a leader for letting that person go, because anybody can schedule meetings. It doesn't really take a lot of skill to do that.John Barratt (14:08)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.Brian (14:26)
The skills that we should be adding are those soft skills, the conflict resolution and understanding the personality types that make up our team. And essentially what I talked about in my talk was that first phrase of the Agile Manifesto, individuals and interactions over processes and tools. It's about individuals and interactions. We have to know the people that make up our team, not every team in the world, but our team. And we have to know. how they work best together. And I think people who do that, there's enormous value for that. So I would propose to you there's a shared blame, right? I think there's a blame there that we need to do a better job of showing the executives, but we also need to do a better job of actually providing value for the executives. John Barratt (14:58) Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm just, I was just, you know, I'm new to running CSMs and things like that. And one of the things I've brought in is a follow -up session. So, you know, a month after the training, they can have 30 minutes and we can talk about stuff. And that's really where you appreciate that the CSM isn't enough, right, to be a Scrum Master because you... There's only so much you can do, but the thing that always lacks, at least I haven't managed to perfect it yet, is those soft skills, right, which are the things that are important because you can't cover that in half an hour, an hour, right? All of those things are a full one, two, well, I'm being generous, just touching the sides with a one, two day course in some of those. And it's good to see the Scrim Alliance moving into some of those, you know, competency based or what they call skills based. courses where we can go a bit deeper into those key things. Because they're talking about, well, how can I do this? And in my head, it's obvious, but it's clearly not. So there's a huge gap between putting someone on a two -day course and thinking they can be a scrum master. And we do see a lot of bad scrum masters in the industry. And it certainly does cost everyone, even the good ones, some credibility. Right? Because... And if there's more ones, and it's not bad because they're bad people or trying to do a bad job, it's just that they haven't been equipped to do the job, right? Yeah, it's as simple as that. Brian (17:03) Yeah. At one of the tables I was at at the recent guide retreat at the Scrum gathering, we were having a discussion around this. And one of the things that kind of struck me as that was going on was, you know what it sounds like? It sounds like we don't have a stringent enough definition of done. Like when we think about someone who's you're now ready to be a Scrum master, well, that definition of done right now is a two day class. Right? And.John Barratt (17:22)
Mm -hmm.Brian (17:32)
I think we have to put in the expectation that, no, this is a component of that definition of done, but there's actually more that you need in order to, you know, this is an important role. This is somebody who is shepherding and guiding a team to be successful in this. So if someone's not qualified in doing that, it's no wonder that we see a bunch of bad scum out there because the person leading it isn't qualified, you know?John Barratt (17:38)
Hmm. Yeah, and actually, I was just thinking an apprenticeship approach would be a much better idea, right, for this type of work. I often give the metaphor in my classes that agile coaching is a craft, Scrum Mastery is a craft. And imagine you're a carpenter, you don't get better at being a carpenter by reading lots of theory about good joints and all of this stuff. You know, you pick up a few things, you get better at Scrum Mastery or agile coaching.Brian (18:07)
Yeah.John Barratt (18:29)
by working and getting feedback. Our work is with the people, right? And people are a lot more complex than would, so we have to do even more of it to get any good. And of course, in carpentry, you wouldn't think about, we'll do a two -day training course. You would do an apprenticeship, right? And they do it for years before they become like a master carpenter. Yet we have scrimmasters after two days.Brian (18:58)
Yeah. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And for the organization, I know when you've seen organizations that have sort of that layer, that hierarchy of we have Scrum Masters, but we have coaches, and we have enterprise coaches. When you have that kind of structure where you can have the phrase we use as mentor and be mentored. And if you can be in that place where you mentor others and you're also being mentored,John Barratt (19:21)
Mm -hmm.Brian (19:28)
That I think is really key to reaching the next level, to being able to kind of grow into what it is that you want to become in this industry.John Barratt (19:39)
Yeah, I mean, I can't solve that problem very easily myself. You know, we've got a certified team coach and enterprise coach in the Scrim Alliance. It needs to be a bit more of a gap, I think, between that and CSPSM and we'll see what comes out in the next few years. But there is a couple of resources that I have worked on to try and help with this. So I've been on a mission to try and professionalize the world of agile coaching for at least five years. And the two things that I've found that have helped most people, is something called the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel, which you may have heard of. We'll put the link in the chat to that, which has kind of all of the competencies that we think you need in Agile Coaching, which is the set of competencies that a Scrum Master needs. So not Agile Coach, Agile Coaching, Scrum Master, Agile Coach, or any, you know, job title could be anything, right? It doesn't really matter. So that's a really useful tool. gives you all the areas, but it also gives you guidance, like a one to five guidance that almost uses the apprenticeship type thing. I can't remember all the levels, I think it uses like the Drift for scale, but it says at level one, you should be able to do these sorts of things. At level two, you should be able to do these sorts of things. And that gives people at least a starting point. You don't know what you don't know, right?Brian (20:58)
Right. No, I think that's awesome. And we definitely will put that in our links and make sure that people can find that. Yeah, you're right. That kind of apprenticeship idea, I know that I could not have gotten to where I am without the mentors I've had.John Barratt (21:15)
Mmm.Brian (21:18)
And it's people who have, for no benefit of their own, have taken their own time to say, I'm going to invest time in this person and help them reach the next level. And I've tried to carry that forward as I've grown in this career as well, because I think it's important. I think we have to help the next group that's coming along. Yeah.John Barratt (21:44)
Mm -hmm. I was thinking becoming a CST is almost like that apprenticeship type system, right? Where you have to do the co -trains with different people. They're like mentors, right? Different diversity, different types and groups. And you learn, both people learn from doing the co -train. And I think personally, it'd be a shame if they ever...Brian (21:54)
Yeah.John Barratt (22:16)
remove that concept because I think it's the closest we've got to an apprenticeship.Brian (22:21)
Yeah. Yeah, and it works, right? I mean, I think that it does a good job of getting people to the level they need to be. There's still a lot, I mean, that doesn't do it all on its own, but it is, you know, I think anyone who's been through it, I think you would probably agree with this as well, is, you know, that was a foundational part of becoming a CST for me, is being able to observe and watch others and learn from them and... get feedback on how I was doing it. So I think you're right. That could be a very intriguing addition if there was someone who kind of incorporated that into the process. And I think that would give organizations kind of a confidence to say, I can trust this person.John Barratt (23:10)
Which is what we really want with the CCCTCs, right? It's that stamp. I can trust that person. Second tool I wanted to highlight was the Agile Coaching Code of Ethics. So this was an initiative we did with the Agile Alliance. And the beauty of when we created this code of ethics, it was for people who were just starting out as well as experienced professionals. So you can read through that and that's kind of your rule sheet ofBrian (23:25)
Yeah.John Barratt (23:40)
I'm new to this. This is the minimum standard we expect from a Scrum Master or an Agile coach in this industry. Because you don't know what you don't know again. But we've tried to make it as simple as possible. A simple list of these are the things you should definitely do if you want to be ethical in your work.Brian (24:00)
Yeah. Yeah, that's a good resource as well. And we'll make sure we have that linked. Was there another resource as well that you wanted to mention, or is it just those two?John Barratt (24:12)
So it's the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel and the Agile Coaching Code of Ethics. So we've talked a lot about the problem of where we're at, and we've given a couple of pointers. I wanted to talk a little bit about how I've changed my direction from this original kind of servant leadership type focus, which seems to be having some...Brian (24:36)
Yeah.John Barratt (24:40)
traction and benefit and value to people. And it's a couple of tools combined. So I created something a couple of years ago called Agile Scoping, which was based on Clean Scoping. So Clean Scoping is something that Caitlin Walker created based on Clean Language around how she scoped out a new piece of work. If you want to know more, then I highly recommend her book from Content Curiosity.Brian (24:44)
Awesome.John Barratt (25:10)
Bit biased, but one of the best books I've ever read. Not an agile book at all, but just a truly incredible story about how she's used clean language and something we call systemic modeling, which is using clean language in groups, with youths that have been kicked out of school, for example, and how they went from all individuals to suddenly kind of helping and supporting and understanding each other.Brian (25:31)
Hmm, yeah.John Barratt (25:40)
So great book. But anyway, Agile Scoping was based on that and it starts off with a discovery phase. We call that initial scoping, which is setting out kind of, is this work set up for success? So is the person in charge actually got enough influence over the system to actually make any change? So if you are doing Scrum. Do they have permission to actually change the structure into something that is actually going to help Scrum succeed? Have they tried different things before? And also this thing called congruency. So it's what they're saying aligned to what they're doing. So asking for those examples of, okay, you're saying that this, have you tried that before? Those sort of things. Very high level, just checking it out. And you can do that in an interview as well. So this isn't just for an external person. I always think that interviews should be two -way, right? It's not just a one -way thing. I want to check that if I'm signing up 40 hours a week or however many, that this is an organization that actually wants to be agile. I mean, I always put my hand out to the people on my training and people I meet at conferences where they're really struggling, right? And it's a really hard environment. And I always think, wow, you've got way more patience than I have. I really respect that. but my patients' levels are very low. So if I'm going to work with a client, I need to have a feeling that they can work at a pace, right?Brian (27:20)
Yeah, right. Right.John Barratt (27:21)
So that's level one and that's fine. Then we do an organizational scoping phase where you work with as many people as possible. You're looking at the problems that the organization says they've got, what the culture is now, where they want it to be, running some workshops, finding out what's happening. And again, we call it scoping because you can scope it to the level that you've been brought into. So if you're a Scrum Master working with one team and it's... One product owner, small product, that's fine. That's your scope if it's a whole organization, much wider. At the end of that, you create a coaching plan with the organization. So you have a session and you agree up to four outcomes is what I've found. So we move into outcome -based approach. So even if you skip all of the other stuff, what I would say is move away from any output thinking. As a scrum -rosterer,Brian (28:10)
Yeah.John Barratt (28:18)
even if it's just in your yearly appraisal, make it clear these are the outcomes that we're looking for. And these are more business related outcomes or things that are going to actually make a difference to the organization. So it could be things like make more money for the organization, could be increase employee engagement, increase customer engagement, number of active users in your mobile app, whatever those are. But they're nothing to really do with Agile, they're to do with...Brian (28:42)
Yeah.John Barratt (28:47)
that the organization wants to set. Those go into a coaching plan. We have a coaching agreement canvas that you can use to put all of that in. And then it's really clear, like these are the things that I'm going to help and support you with as a Scrim Master or Agile coach. There's a bit more risk, right? Because if you don't meet them, then you've got to have a conversation, but at least then it's visible, right? These are what I'm saying I'm going to help with. This is what you've said you want help with. And now we're going to do a number of experiments to try and get there. And that's where we get into that continuous improvement cycle of trying to involve, adapt, inspect, work on all of those things that are happening within your team, within your department, within your organization, depending on where your scope is, constantly evolving and looking at. where we're at. We might have some lead -in indicators as well, perhaps in there to help us cycle time, lead time, throughput. Those can be useful, but really we're looking at end value and we're measuring our performance of a Scrum Master Agile Coach based on the value being given. We're not letting the product owner take all of that praise and credit. Of course, we don't want to be too arrogant and go too far the other way. It's a team effort. but we're at least putting our, you know, more, I think skin in the game is the thing. What I've seen in the past is, you know, bit of a puppy dog type thing, Scrum Master, ooh, shiny over here, great, shiny over there, no, skin in the game, this is a partnership, and we're gonna work on this together. Sorry, I spoke for a long time, though.Brian (30:16)
Yeah. Love that. No, no, no. I love that. You were saying great stuff. And I mean, I love the bit about outcome -based kind of approaches to it. I think that's really, really important. I've always thought, you know, like the performance, I'm always really hesitant about performance -based kind of metrics. And I always want to shift more to output outcome -based kind of metrics, not output. And I think that because that's, You're right. A business doesn't care how agile we are. A business cares if we're increasing our bottom line, if we're increasing our membership, all the business goals that you might have. That's what they care about. And agile -ism means to that.John Barratt (31:17)
Yeah, I have a big shiver when teams have like agile maturity models. Like the word maturity, first of all, like if I say to you, Brian, you're immature, Brian. You know, that's just like, why would you do that? And also if I, you know, it's many people have said agile is never the goal, right? We're never trying to be agile for agile sake. We're doing it to help organizations and, you know.Brian (31:23)
Ha ha ha.John Barratt (31:44)
Therefore, why would you want to know how mature a team is when that's not actually that important, right? Could be a very leading indicator, perhaps, of where you're trying to get to, but it scares me when I see those sort of things.Brian (32:04)
Yeah, this is great. This is great stuff. And there's so I mean, from what you've said, there's so many good links that we're going to be able to put in our show notes for this. We'll also, by the way, make sure that people can get in touch with you, John, if they want to follow up and learn more individually from you, because that's always really important here as well. And I know it's conference season. There's a lot of conferences going on. And you were telling me you're going to be at the Europe.John Barratt (32:12)
Mm -hmm.Brian (32:33)
Agile 24 conference, right?John Barratt (32:36)
Yeah, so I've decided to do my part for the environment and not fly out to America for the third time this year. So I'm going to be in the Agile Alliance Manchester in July. I'm doing two sessions there. One looking at product refinement using clean language and the other one how to help and support self -managing teams with Caitlin herself. So if you like the idea of the stuff I was talking with Caitlin. and that's the session for you. Also going to be in Agile Prague this year, Agile Coach Camp UK, which I run, but unfortunately that is full. So there is a waiting list if you did want to try and sneak into that. And I'm sure I'll be at a few other places as well. There's also my monthly meetup that I run with a number of other colleagues called Scrum Event. It's actually the second largest Scrum Alliance user group in the world.Brian (33:33)
Awesome.John Barratt (33:34)
and we tend to have some pretty cool speakers there, so watch out for that.Brian (33:40)
That's awesome. Yeah. We'll try to link to all of that so that people can find it. But yeah, if you're going to be at any of those conferences or if you're on the fence about going to the conference, you can hear great speakers like John there. So make sure that if you do, that you go up and say hello and tell them that you were listening to the podcast and heard this and were interested. And that's why you're there. Well, John, I appreciate your time. We're recording this on a Friday afternoon for you. And I know that's really precious time at the end of a week. So I really appreciate you giving us your time here and sharing your knowledge with us.John Barratt (34:19)
Thank you for inviting me and having me. It's been a blast.Brian (34:24)
Absolutely. -
Join Brian as he delves into the powerful response to his talk on neurodiversity at the Global Scrum Gathering in New Orleans, which emphasized small but significant changes to make environments more accommodating.
OverviewIn this episode, Brian shares his memorable experience at the Global Scrum Gathering in New Orleans, emphasizing the event's stellar organization and inclusive atmosphere. He reflects on the success of his talk on neurodiversity, which resonated deeply with attendees and sparked meaningful conversations.
Brian also underscores the importance of attending conferences for networking, learning, and expanding professional connections. Encouraging listener feedback and engagement, Brian hopes to inspire more inclusive practices within teams and the broader Agile community.
Tune in for insights on fostering inclusivity, the value of professional gatherings, and much more.
Listen Now to Discover:[1:08] - Brian warmly welcomes listeners and invites you to join an engaging conversation about the value and insights gained from Agile conferences.
References and resources mentioned in the show:
[2:45] - Brian kicks off with heartfelt gratitude to the behind-the-scenes teams whose hard work and dedication ensure these conferences run seamlessly and effortlessly.
[5:04] - Brian celebrates the often-overlooked joys of conferences, from hearing fresh voices and engaging in hallway conversations to making meaningful connections and sparking innovative ideas.
[9:57] - Brian highlights and commends the Scrum Gathering for its intentional efforts to accommodate and include attendees with neurodiversity and those with additional needs.
[14:15] - Brian shares that the goal of his talk was to demonstrate how small changes can create a more inclusive environment, such as playing neurodivergent-friendly music, dimming bright lights, and establishing quiet spaces.
[20:18] - Brian discusses the overwhelmingly positive response to his talk and expresses his hope that these inclusive practices will be adopted widely, transforming the way we all work with our teams.
[23:08] - Brian encourages listeners to attend future conferences to gain new insights, broaden their horizons, and forge valuable connections.
[24:20] - Do you have feedback or a great idea for an episode of the show? Great! Just send us an email. If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community.
[24:33] - We invite you to like and subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast and pass this episode along to a friend.Slide Deck From Brian’s Talk
Want to get involved?
#76: Navigating Neurodiversity for High-Performing Teams with Susan Fitzell
Scrum Alliance’s Global Scrum Gathering
AJR Brothers
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Join the Agile Mentors CommunityThis show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.
Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Agile Mentors, how the heck are you? How's your week going? Hope it's going pretty well for you. I wanted to spend some time with you on this week's episode because I just had an event that took place that was really, really a phenomenal event. And I wanna kind of share with you some personal insights that I had from it and just sort of give you a picture of what it's like. If you've never been to a conference before, Maybe I can entice you to maybe go to one. I think you'll benefit from it. And I think you'll kind of see your career maybe even go in new directions if you decide to go to one.We just had the global Scrum gathering that took place in New Orleans. That was the 2024 conference. And the Scrum Alliance has changed things up a little bit. I don't know if people are familiar with this or if you're aware of this, but... Scrimmelines used to have two conferences every year. They used to have one that was somewhere in the US, and then they would have another one that was mostly in Europe. But now they've kind of switched up their strategy.
They're going to have one in the US one year. And then next year, it'll be somewhere else globally. So they're really leaning into that global title here for global Scrum gathering. Next year's, I believe they announced here at the end of our conference, is going to be at Munich. So still staying within Europe, but that's not always going to be the case. So there won't be one in the US next year. It'll be the first year that that happens. So every two years, if you're here in the US, you get a chance to attend. If you're somewhere else in the world, maybe there'll be one that appears in a location near you. And that might be a little bit more convenient for you to attend.
But I want to talk about this one that was in New Orleans. And I have to start by just, I want to say to all the support staff, to all the people who volunteered their time from. from the teams that helped set up the rooms to the program team that helped kind of put this all together and create the environment and select the talks and everything else. Phenomenal job. Just phenomenal job.
I couldn't have asked for it to have been run any better. I saw zero hiccups in my time there and just had a fabulous conference. It was a great time. Enjoyed the heck out of it. Enjoyed New Orleans. It's always great to realize I had not actually visited New Orleans prior to this of all the places. It's not very far from where I live, but for whatever reason, it was just one of those black holes in my map. It was one place I had never been to and it was a place I loved. I thought it was just amazing to meet some of the local people there. and to get a flavor of what it was like on Bourbon Street and Frenchman Street and some other parts of the town after the conference. It was just a really great experience. I was very pleased with the whole thing. And so I just want to make sure that that's out there, right?
There's a lot of volunteers that go into working for a conference. I've been a part of that group from time to time. I've reviewed different submissions. If you're not familiar with that process, Speakers at a conference submit their ideas. It's no guarantee anyone's going to get picked. In fact, it's a very, very small percentage. They end up getting picked. So it's a very tough process for the reviewers. And it takes a team of them. They have different tracks that they take submissions in. And they kind of have to whittle those down.
One of my friends who was on the team was describing to me, you might have one talk on, or you might think about a topic like daily scrums. And you might have five submissions on daily scrums that are all amazing talks. They all sound like they'd be incredible with great speakers. But somehow they have to whittle that down. They can't have five talks on Daily Scrums. They've got to limit it. And they've got to have talks on things that they feel the majority of the visitors are going to be interested in. So it's a thankless job that goes on behind the scenes.
And I just want to publicly thank them. I know I got to rub shoulders with several of the people on different aspects of the teams and just really, really appreciate all the work that you guys did to make it such a successful conference. I really always enjoy the scrum gathering conferences. I think they're, they're, they're a fun event. they, they always have a Monday mingle kind of activity.
That's always, something you, you write home about if you will, just something fun to do. this year we had a location was not very far from, the hotel so we could walk there. And just had lots of things that were going on there, food and drink and that sort of stuff. But it just gives you a nice kind of off campus place to unwind and interact with other people and kind of maybe meet some people that you wouldn't get a chance to otherwise. So I always appreciate some of those social events.
Even though I'm an introvert, I just enjoy having different space, kind of a different opportunity to do that sort of thing. And I just want to say, you know, the talks I heard this year were incredible. I heard some really good first time speakers that had never spoken before. And I love the fact that, you know, they're doing that, that they are expanding and it's not just the same crop of people that you hear every single conference. You know, it's a different set of people and it really depends on your topic. It depends on what it is you're trying to talk about.
So I was really thankful to get to hear some new voices there in our community. And the only thing that I wish I could change about that, and this is the same no matter what conference it is, every conference I have this issue, it always seems like the ones you want to go hear the most are if you're speaking, they're happening when you're speaking, or they're all grouped into the same time slot. And you'll get three or four talks that you really wanted to go to. And you got to pick.
You got to choose one of those that you can go to and kind of just plug in there. I'm not one that likes to bounce between the different rooms. I don't have any problem if someone does that. I don't have any problem if someone does that in my talk. But I just like to commit. And that's kind of the way I look at it, is when I come in there, I'm committed, I'm here, I'm giving my full attention.
I want to learn from this person. and leave with something I didn't know in advance. So really, really enjoyed that. There was a talk that was put on by women in Agile that was three new speakers that were three women who had not spoken before. Really enjoyed that and loved their approach. They have a mentor for each person that kind of helps them prepare and get ready for it. So that was awesome.
Really enjoyed listening to that. And just... I don't want to call out any specific talk because they were all so good. I will say there have been years in the past when I have had sort of slots where I've thought, there's not really one I want to hear in this slot. So maybe I've set out or I've done something else. That wasn't the case for this one.
Every slot had something I was like, I've really got to go hear that. I've got to hear that person talk or really want to hear about that topic. So just really enjoyed that.
Couple milestones, kind of, I noticed that happened here. One of my mentors and someone I've had in the podcast, David Hawks was there and he's kind of publicly announced this now that he's retiring, he's stepping back a little bit from doing this stuff and he gave his last conference talk. So it was neat to be there to see his last one. He's a really engaging speaker and always has really deep kind of... needy content for you to chew over that you leave thinking about. So it was kind of an honor to be there for the last thing that he did at a conference.
And the other thing to say is that I really kind of just enjoy the one -off conversations, the hallway conversations. There's breakfast and lunch every day. And when you do those, you sit down at a table, you've got to find a spot. And sometimes I'm just trying to find any open spot. But what I'm trying to do is find the table with people that I don't know, that I haven't met before, that I want to. maybe rub shoulders with and learn a little bit more about what they're doing their organizations.
So those are a great time that they're kind of built in naturally to try to meet some new people. And you know, I'll tell you, I wore a little thing at this conference before it broke on me, but I had a little pin that was kind of my emotional, no, it was my social meter. That's what it was. And it had like a high and a low ranking on it. And you know, I'd start out every day with it on the high ranking. I'm ready to go. I'm excited.
And as the day went on, it would kind of go a little bit further down. And by the end of the day, I was spent. I didn't really have any more I could give out. And I just wanted to wear that sort of a visual fair warning to people. If they saw me and they saw where my meter was, they could say, OK, Brian's kind of running low. Maybe. Maybe I'll wait till tomorrow and have that conversation.
Not that I'm going to be mean or rude to anyone, but just there are times when you just are all empty. You're just out, and you don't have anything more that you can give. And that's certainly the way I feel sometimes at the end of some of these long days. I've been known sometimes to just go up and spend time taking a nap in my room, maybe doing some emails or something, just something to give me a break to go away.
And that's sometimes something I need in these kind of big social environments. I do want to really, really congratulate the Scrum Alliance on one thing that I noticed particularly here in this conference. They clearly made an effort to make some accommodations for some different personality types, neuro types, and you know, I've shared with this podcast before that my talk here at the Scrum Gathering was on neurodiversity and how to be more inclusive of different neurotypes in your teams. I'll get to that talk in just a second.
But there were things that I had been studying and learning about that were small accommodations that people could make that helped some of these different neurotypes. And it was clear that the Scrum Alliance had deliberately made an effort to do that. One thing that I didn't know was going to happen until I got there, for every keynote presentation they had on their big video monitor, they had transcription.
So there was closed captioning of anything that was being said, which is a very important feature for some various neurodiversity types. And I was very, very pleased to see that. I just thought that was a good change that they made. Small change, not really anything big that they had to do to do that, but it makes a big difference for a segment of the population.
And I'm really thankful that they did that. The other thing that I noticed that they did was they had a quiet room. There was a room that was right in the mix of all the other conference rooms where presentations were going on that was a quiet room. It was dim lighting. They had some nice cushy soft like beanbag chairs that were in there. They actually had like some soft quiet like atmospheric kind of effect noises going on like waterfalls and that sort of thing. Rain rainfall, ocean waves, things that were very peaceful and quiet.
And they also had made available in that room earplugs for people. And for those that have noise sensitivities, sometimes you can walk into these conference rooms and I can say, I've been guilty of this as a speaker. I want to create an exciting atmosphere. So I blare the upbeat music as people are coming in just to get people in the right kind of excited mood.
Well, if I have noise sensitivities, that's going to not only not be exciting, it's going to be painful. And having the ability for someone to self -regulate that and say, I'm going to put my earplugs in for this, because it's just a louder place. It's a louder room. Even just listening to certain talks, you would hear a talk next door where a speaker would just their plan for their talk was much more interactive. So there'd be a lot of audience participation and shouting outs and clapping and laughing and that sort of stuff.
And it can be disruptive for the room next door. I don't fault any rooms for being more interactive or fun for the attendees, but you know, noise has a bleed through effect. And I was just happy that they thought that far ahead and said, you know, we're going to have some people here who might have that sensitivity to noise. And it doesn't cost very much for us to provide a handful of earplugs.
I don't know how many of them were taken, but I would imagine there wasn't a ton. They didn't run out, as far as I know. But having a place like that, I took advantage of the quiet room. I knew that it was a place where I could go and collect my thoughts. And I would sit down with my laptop and maybe just make some notes of things I wanted to make sure I captured. No one was going to interrupt me.
That was kind of the rule of the room. There was no talking in that room. So I could focus. I could come in there and do what I needed to do without disturbing anyone and really kind of recenter before I headed back out. There were some who used it for meditation and other things. And I have no problem with that. If that works for people, then I'm happy for them to do that.
For me, it was just a quiet space. And I just needed a quiet space, somewhere away from all the hustle and bustle, what was going on. So just kudos to the Scrum Alliance there for that. I think that they made a couple of really intentional moves there to be more inclusive. And I, for one, as part of that neurodivergent community, really, really appreciated it.
So thank you there to the Scrum Alliance. If anyone here is from the Scrum Alliance listening. Big kudos there for you on that. The other thing here is I do want to talk about my talk just briefly. And just to let you know that I did a lot of preparation for this talk. It really was the culmination of about a year's worth of research. I've done talks at other conferences before.
I tried to let people know that this one was different for me. This one was very different because it was very personal. I was gonna be sharing things about my own medical diagnosis. And that's just not something that's common that I have in conference talks. I don't normally go into a conference talk and say, hey, here's what I was diagnosed with.
So that made it very, very personal. But it's also something that is prevalent throughout my family. So I was sharing information from my family as well. Again, like I've said here on the podcast, I wouldn't share that if I didn't have permission. I don't volunteer that for others in my family. If they say that it's OK, then I will. If they don't, then I don't share that information. But it was very personal. And I was much more connected, I think, to the material. I really, really had a vested interest in the outcome.
You know, I wanted to show some real practical ways that people could make small changes and become more inclusive. So that was my goal. And one of the things I tried to do, if you attended my talk, you may not even recognize all these things, but I wanted to first teach by demonstration. I wanted to kind of have things in place that... that would show that you can make small changes to be more inclusive.
So just a couple of things I want to highlight here. One was a very, very, very subtle thing that I don't think anyone caught. But I did have music on that I turned down fairly quiet. I didn't want it to be that loud. I wanted to be loud enough for people to hear, but I didn't want it to be very loud. And I just had a playlist that was playing where I was playing one band in particular. I was playing a band called AJR.
Some of you may be familiar with them, some of you may not, but AJR is a trio of brothers who are neurodivergent and their music is very neurodivergent friendly. They've sort of been seen as kind of, I don't know how to put it, but... figureheads, I guess, of neurodivergent movement. There's lots of neurodivergent people who go to their concerts.
There's lots of commentary and stuff about how they're very open about that in their lyrics. So that was a slight little nod there. If anyone caught that, then congratulations. You caught the most subtle way that I did that. But that was one of the ways I was trying to make it a little bit more friendly. One of the other things I did, I turned down the lights in the room.
There was overhead cans that you would have kind of typical in any kind of conference room. But they also had some like a chandelier that was over the middle of it. There were kind of some circles. And I found the light control panel and found out I could turn off the cans that were in the room and just have the overhead kind of chandelier. And it really kind of brought the light level down. It wasn't dark. It wasn't... so dark that you couldn't see in the room or anything like that. It was still enough that you could see. No darker than you would find in maybe a restaurant, right?
But it was a lower level of light. And that was very intentional. I was trying to help people who had light sensitivities to not have to struggle or worry about that. So that was something I did intentionally. I. Probably the biggest thing I did was I set aside two tables at the back of the room that I call quiet tables. Most of the time you go to a conference, there's an expectation that you do some interactive kind of work there.
I had a lot of data to get out, so I couldn't do as much interactivity as I normally do in a talk. But I did have one big activity that I did kind of towards the back part of my talk. And I wanted to have a couple of tables that if people just were not comfortable, group participation. They didn't want to have to talk to others. They wanted to just come and show up and take in the information.
I wanted them to be able to do that. So I set aside two tables. I put a little sign on the table that said, this is a quiet table. If you sit here, please understand these seats are designated for people who don't want to be a part of group activities and would rather just sit quietly while we have any kind of a group activity. And I set those aside. And I.
As people were coming into the room, I saw people that were starting to sit at those tables and I walked over and I just wanted to check on the people that were some of the first people sitting there and saying, I don't want to interrupt you.
I just want to make sure that you've seen the sign so that you know what to expect here at this table. And I had these three wonderful women that were sitting at one of the tables and they responded very emphatically like, yes, no, we absolutely read that. We loved it and we felt like, hey, he gets us. And that just made my day. I was just so excited that they felt that way and they felt welcomed, right?
That's kind of what I was trying to do is create a welcoming atmosphere that nobody felt left out. Everybody felt included, normal. I did some other things too, like we put out some little badges that said, embrace neurodiversity, that people could put on their name badges, just to kind of raise awareness across the conference from that point on.
I also put little fidget toys at each spot that people could take with them. Just a small little fidget keychain kind of thing that people could have. Not anything terribly elaborate, but just a small little thing. So all these things were just ways I thought of in advance to try to make it a more welcoming environment for people to participate.
Getting to the talk itself, as a speaker, I'm pleased with how it went. It kind of went the way I'd hoped it would go. One small technical thing with a poll that I did at the beginning, but you know now I'm kind of insider baseballing this and I don't really Didn't really Contribute hugely in any negative way. I was able to call out the numbers and we just moved on right
That was not a major part of the presentation anyway So, you know, I'm I'm as pleased with how it went as I probably could have been for anything like that I I could tell things were resonating with people. I got nods.
I got verbal agreement from people in different parts of the talk. So, you know, and we stay within our time box. We met that the way we needed to. So that all went pretty well. But you don't really know until after. And it's after that really kind of made my conference for me because... not just immediately after, but for the remainder of that conference. I spoke on Tuesday. It went on, the conference was Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
So for the remainder of day on Tuesday, into the night on Tuesday, and then before I left on Wednesday, I just had random people that would come up to me at various points and thank me for giving the talk. I had one person tell me, thank you and said, I felt seen. And that just almost brought a tear to my eye. I was so excited to hear that.
And that was part of what I was really attempting to do there, is I wanted people to understand that there are differences in how people process things and how people's brains work. And hopefully we can take that back to our teams and change how we approach how we work with our teams. I'm not going to go too much into the detail of the talk. We will make the slides available here in our show notes. So if you want to see the slides like I gave the presentation, I gave it the presentation, we'll make that available for you.
There's no recording of it, unfortunately. The Scrim Alliance doesn't do that. They don't record them and then publish them later. Some conferences I know do. do that, but the Scrum Alliance is not one of them. But I will make the slides available to you if you want to dig into that more.
The other thing I'd say is if you really want to dig in the topic more, find my previous podcast episode, which we'll also put in the show notes. That was with Susan Fitzell. She is a specialist in that area and helped me to understand some things. And that was a kind of key episode. on that topic.
So those are some places I can point you to if you want to get into that, the heart of that, that topic area. But, you know, hearing those kinds of things, those personal kind of congratulations and just people who I didn't know who'd come up and say, you know, they felt seen and that just made the conference for me. I was so pleased that that was the case.
Because just as it was very personal for me, it was personal for them too. It connected to them on a very personal level. And I hope that that can make a change in our teams. I hope that that's something that some of those people who are in the room can take back and implement just one thing. One thing they can change in how they work with their teams. All in all, it was a great conference.
I really enjoyed it. And Scrum Alliance just put on a great conference this year. as they always do. They always put on a great conference. So thanks to my friends at Scrum Alliance for inviting me and having me there to speak. Thank you for all the volunteers who worked on it. Thank you to each person that I had a conversation with, especially the new friends that I didn't really know before the conference.
I... I really enjoy, and the ones that I haven't seen for a while that I kind of got to rub shoulders with there. Again, I really appreciate you coming up and saying hello. And I did have a few people from the podcast who came up and said, hey, listen to the podcast. That's always a pleasure when that happens.
It just helps me to know that, hey, this is actually resonating. This is making an impact for people. So. I heartily appreciate that. If you ever see me at a conference, please do. Don't hesitate. Come up and say hello and tell me that you listen to the podcast. You'll make my day if you do that. So that wraps up Scrum Gathering 2024, New Orleans.
I should say global Scrum Gathering. And if you didn't attend this year's, if you're in Europe, maybe consider attending the Munich one next year. I don't know where the following year is going to be in 2026, but it will be back here in the States somewhere. And we'll have to wait and find out where that's going to be.
On my calendar, the next conference I have coming up is an exciting one for me. It's Agile 2024 that's taking place in Dallas. So if you go to the Agile Alliance, agilealliance .org, you can find information about that conference and join me there. I'm going to be talking about conflict and how we can have conflict competent teams. So I'm excited to talk about that and dive into that topic with everyone in Agile 2024. So.
Just wanted to give you a brief recap of what happened there and what it was like, and give you an insider view of what it's like. If you haven't ever attended a conference, I encourage you to give it a shot, especially, you know, I'm based in the Dallas area.
If you happen to be in the Dallas area and you're on the fence about attending the conference there in July, you got no excuse. It's in your backyard, right? It's right there. You'll hear some amazing speakers. You'll widen your network.
You'll be surprised at kind of the connections you make and what you walk away with from a conference. So just highly encourage you to give it a shot. So that'll wrap us on this episode. It was just me, so I won't do a separate little closing thing. If you wanna give me any feedback on this, just reach out to me and send me an email podcast at mountaingoatsoftware .com and I'll get that.
Or you can go to our Agile Mentors Community and post in our discussion forum there. That's a place where you can interact with me. As always, like and subscribe, all that social jazz. Make sure that you... You keep this in your inbox. We always appreciate that. And as we always ask, tell a friend. If you liked the episode, if you liked any of our episodes, pass that on to a friend and let them know about this podcast that you found. That's it for this time. We'll see you again on another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast.
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Join Brian and Mike Cohn as they dissect the vital roles and responsibilities of the product owner, from story mapping to stakeholder management. This episode is a treasure trove for anyone looking to sharpen their Agile skills and understand the nuanced demands of a product owner.
OverviewIn this insightful episode, Brian and Mike Cohn explore the multifaceted role of product owners in Agile development, discussing everything from market analysis and vision creation to the nuts and bolts of sprint planning and retrospectives.
Emphasizing flexibility and adaptability, Brian and Mike offer a comprehensive look at how product owners can excel by focusing on strategic planning and fostering strong team dynamics. This episode is essential for product owners seeking to enhance their impact in Agile environments and drive successful outcomes.
Listen Now to Discover:[1:07] - Brian welcomes special guest Mountain Goat Software and Agile Alliance founder Mike Cohn.
References and resources mentioned in the show:
[1:31] - Brian introduces Mountain Goat Software’s What Happens When for a Product Owner, and Mike flips the script, setting Brian, as the creator, into the guest seat on this episode.
[3:16] - Join Brian as he explores the vital, behind-the-scenes efforts of product owners that set the stage for Scrum success, all before the first sprint begins.
[6:24] - Brian explains the dynamics of crafting a product vision, clarifying how much responsibility lies with the product owner and how much is shared with the team.
[7:46] - Brian offers expert guidance on the optimal timing for creating a story map within the Scrum process.
[9:46] - Brian and Mike explore the optimal quantity of backlog items to have ready before adding them to a sprint.
[13:45] - Join Brian as he explains the importance of setting a product goal in Scrum, detailing how it enhances functionality and guides the development process.
[17:03] - Brian invites you to download Mountain Goat Software’s What Happens When for Product Owners, a comprehensive guide designed to support your Scrum journey.
[17:43] - Brian explains how to effectively integrate road mapping into the Scrum process, ensuring it adds valuable foresight and preparation without causing shortsightedness.
[19:55] - Mike suggests a strategy for managing stakeholders who overemphasize the product roadmap, offering a creative approach to preserve the flexibility and adaptability that effective road mapping allows.
[22:48] - Brian delves into the critical role and strategies of effective sprint planning, essential for driving successful Scrum projects.
[24:20] - Brian offers his perspective on the significance and involvement of the product owner in the daily scrum, detailing their role and contributions.
[26:15] - Mike recounts a memorable story about receiving exceptionally impressive customer feedback at trustworthy.com, highlighting the impact of genuine client interactions.
[28:30] - Brian emphasizes that the product owner is an integral part of the team and its goals, underscoring their collaborative role rather than being separate.
[29:18] - Brian explores the crucial involvement of the product owner in the backlog refinement process, detailing their responsibilities and impact.
[30:48] - Brian explains why he views the sprint review as the product owner's event and offers strategies for executing it effectively.
[32:17] - Brian delves into the product owner's essential participation in the retrospective, emphasizing that their insights and experiences are crucial for the team's growth and improvement.
[34:10] - Brian outlines ways the product owner can proactively prepare for the next sprint, ensuring a smooth transition and effective planning.
[35:27] - Brian discusses a key pitfall that product owners should avoid to ensure success in their role.
[37:35] - Brian shares a big thank you to Mike for taking over this episode of the show.
[37:57] - Do you have feedback or a great idea for an episode of the show? Great! Just send us an email.
[38:08] - We invite you to like and subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast and share the episode with a friend who could benefit.
[38:56] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership into that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes, you can find the schedule here.Mike Cohn
Want to get involved?
What Happens When For Product Owners
trustworthy.com
Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast
Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule
Join the Agile Mentors CommunityThis show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.
Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Mike Cohn, CEO of Mountain Goat Software, is a passionate advocate for agile methodologies. Co-founder of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance, he thrives on helping companies succeed with Agile and witnessing its transformative impact on individuals' careers. Mike resides in Northern Idaho with his family, two Havanese dogs, and an impressive hot sauce collection.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors, we are back. We are here for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm here as always, Brian Milner, and today I have the big man back with me, the OG, we've got Mike Cohn in the house with us. Welcome in, Mike.Mike (00:15)
Hey, Brian, thanks for having me back.Brian (00:18)
Always happy to have Mike here. Always a pleasure to have him here and learn from his experience. And really, really grateful he's here. We wanted to have Mike on because we have something that we put together recently. Honestly, it's kind of been something we've been talking about we just haven't put together. We had a document that we had out there called What Happens When for Scrum Master. And we just didn't have one of those for a product owner. So I did some work there on the side on that and put it together. And we're getting that out for people so that you can find that and download it from our site. And we wanted Mike to come on to share his wisdom in that area as well, because a lot of this is stuff that I put together. But we wanted to get Mike's insights on these areas as well. Does that sound about right, Mike?Mike (01:11)
That's what we agreed to do, but it's not what I'm going to do.Brian (01:14)
Okay. Sounds good.Mike (01:19)
I'm going to turn the tables on you, Brian, because it's your PDF. It's your document. You're the ideas behind this. So I kind of want to turn it around and take over. I'm going to kind of interview you, ask you things. I mean, I'll chime in with opinions here, of course. I can never shut my mouth long enough to not share an opinion. But it's your PDF. I want to ask you some questions about it, if that's OK with you. And I assume we'll have the link for this in the show notes for folks. They can get the.Brian (01:41)
Sure, fair game. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they'll be in the show notes. Anyone can find this. If you want to download it now and follow along, just pause, you know, go find that in the show notes and you can follow along as we talk through this.Mike (01:55)
Great. So Brian, you separated the document out into things that a product owner does. And of course, I mean, kind of naturally you did it by timeframe, right? Do this before you even go and do this every sprint, things like that. I want to talk to you about some of the stuff that we do before the project that a good product owner should do before a project. You had in there a couple of things like do market analysis and create a vision. You tell me more about what you would expect of a great product owner in that world.Brian (02:25)
Yeah, that first bullet point, what I was trying to capture is that there's some behind the scenes kind of product, standard product work that we don't really account for in a scrum sense. Things like market analysis and trying to understand the competitive landscape. There's a whole discipline there of activity and work that goes on behind the scenes. And I think it's important to understand, that Scrum isn't in any way saying throw that out or that that's not needed, that is something that would come, in my opinion, before you even begin this kind of work. Scrum does not include in it a process that would say, let's verify that they should fund this product. Let's do a pitch. So the CEO of, you know, here's why you should have this product. That's what I was trying to capture in that first bullet point is just understand there are some standard kind of product development work that goes on that we're not, we're kind of skipping over a little bit.Mike (03:36)
That's one of the things I've always loved about Scrum is that Scrum is silent, deliberately so on many topics. And occasionally I will have somebody that I'll meet and they'll say, Scrum doesn't say how we should do product envisioning, right? It doesn't say how we should do that. So I guess we don't do it. It's like, well, Scrum doesn't say that you should code, right? Nowhere in the Scrum guide does it say code your software product, right? Yet if you're doing a software product, somebody's coding, right? Somebody's doing something. And so I like that Scrum is deliberately silent on a lot of things like this because you're talking about doing this market analysis. I work with plenty of companies that are doing internal software. And if we're doing internal software, we're not going to do a market analysis, just kind of internal user needs analysis perhaps, but it's going to be very different. And so I do like that flexibility there.Brian (04:13)
Hmm, yeah. Yeah. So that's a good point, though, is depending on the product, it is sort of more as needed or as it would fit. Like you said, if it's an internal product, it's going to look very different than if you're doing a public -facing one.Mike (04:40)
I think for any of the steps that you've outlined, I think they can vary. I'm sure some are going to be the same for everybody, but I always think of it as commercial development, right? We're making Microsoft Word, right? I think of it as in -house development, right? We're making a payroll system to pay our employees or contract development are kind of the three big branches to me. And then things get very different within those three types of development. I'm thinking more product development there specifically, but of course we can be using this for non -product things.Brian (05:10)
Well, and I do want to say that that second bullet point, they're talking about vision. That's where I honestly, from my perspective, that's where the product owner portion of this begins, right? Because that's sort of the first thing you need to do. And in fact, when we teach our CSPO class, this is, you know, if you've been through a CSPO class with us, you will recognize this order because that's exactly how we go through it in our CSPO class, very deliberately. You know, thatMike (05:39)
I'm sorry, I was getting off there, but I was getting interested in something you're saying there. So product owner kind of starting with the vision. I know that the team can influence the vision, right? But where would you draw the line or how much of the vision is the product owners? Is it like, you know, I'm the product owner dictator. Here's my vision, shut up and build it.Brian (06:02)
Yeah, I don't know that there's one answer there. I mean, I have seen in certain situations where it's more of a group effort. And that might be part of that earlier genesis of the product, where we go through an effort to define the vision with other key stakeholders, with leaders in the organization. I do think that there is sort of a separate activity that I would take with the team itself. So I might spend a deal of time with key stakeholders developing a vision, but then I might also then have a separate meeting with the team once that's established to say, you know, here's kind of what we're defining it as. Let's walk through this. Tell me if you agree, disagree, or how you might improve or change this. Just so that we, you know, part of our job as a product owner is to cast that vision. and help people get caught up in the excitement for what it is we're trying to do. So that's kind of the purpose there I see of doing that.Mike (07:04)
Yeah. Yeah, the more excited we get people about it, the better off we're going to be throughout the course of the project. You also have some things in here about things to do before the first sprint about identifying users, possibly go into the persona level, but then also story mapping. I want to ask you about the story maps for a second. What's your guideline? Because somebody asked me this recently, I'm curious on your answer. What's your guideline for when we should create a story map? Do you do always, only at the start, only in the middle? What's your advice?Brian (07:35)
Creating it, I always created at the start. I mean, my, just, and again, this is my experience, right? But what I have found to be useful is to do it at the beginning. And it's sort of right in that order, right? I've done the vision, I've talked, I figure out who my users are. And then I wanna know what the general big picture is for my product. I wanna be able to step back from a 50 ,000 foot view and say, all right, here's kind of the step by step of what we're gonna be doing. Because, you know, kind of like a product backlog, it's a living, breathing document. It's not done, you know, we do it once at the beginning of our product and then it's done set forever. It's constantly adapting and changing as we add new feature areas, as we, you know, understand differently how our users would interact with the product. We're going to adjust and change it. I want it to always reflect reality.Mike (08:30)
Do you, so let's talk about reality there. I mean, I agree with that, but what I see is story maps that are hard to keep up to date. Are you seeing teams that really succeed at keeping them up to date all the time? I know the living breathing thing for like a couple months and then it's like the dusty old story map, right?Brian (08:47)
Yeah, well, this is kind of one of the things where it was kind of hard for me to put this in a time frame because there's really two time frames that I would like this to appear in. Yes, I do think we should do it before the first sprint. And by the way, again, there, I would do this in multiple rounds with different sets of stakeholders. But then once it's established, I kind of would slide that into that quarterly kind of activity to say, we may not touch it every quarter, but every quarter I would want to...Mike (09:03)
Sure.Brian (09:16)
check in on it and just say, is this still accurate? Do we need to adjust it? Do we need to do anything different about it?Mike (09:16)
Okay. see that. A couple of the things on the before the first spring here, you've got identify assumptions, possibly test some of those, and then create a product goal. And then the last couple of you got, you know, get enough of the backlog written to get started. And a sprinkle, how much of the backlog do you think a team should have to get going? I mean, I know it's probably not like seven and a half items, but you know, you're looking for, you know, one sprint, one or two sprints, eight sprints.Brian (09:45)
Bye. Well, no, Mike nailed it. It's seven and a half. Seven and a half items. No, just kidding. Now we can start. No, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, that's why I use the term enough, right? What is enough? Well, you know what enough is, right? You kind of know what that is. There's a, you know, there's a goal that we have in general that we've, lots of us trainers and coaches have put out there to say,Mike (09:52)
seven and a half backlog items. There we go. Once you've written seven and a half, we can get started.Brian (10:14)
you want to aim for about two to three sprints worth of items that are in ready to go shape. They're ready to move into a sprint and start at any given time. I don't know that you need two to three sprints to start. Yeah, I mean, I think you need, I think there's sometimes a hesitancy in teams to get everything documented upfront. And I'm trying to help people kind of push past that to say, no, we don't need to have everything.Mike (10:25)
That's a start.Brian (10:42)
We just gotta have enough to start. And when I'm working with a team, I wanna get them into that first sprint as soon as possible because they're gonna learn much more from just doing it than they are from talking about it beforehand. That's why I've never been a real big fan of like a sprint zero or something like that because it just doesn't take a whole sprint to do everything that you need to do to get ready for your first sprint.Mike (10:58)
Right. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, to me, I always put it in terms of like, we're gambling our time, right? Is it worth gambling more of our valuable time writing more backlogs, or should we just play and get started? And if we're a company whose name is invoices are us, right? You know, should we go ahead and write some stories about the invoicing part of the system? Yeah, I bet we should. But if we're not sure that, I don't know what we're building, but if we're not sure invoice is going to be part of it, don't write anything about that on the backlog yet. Just put one big item, do invoices, right? Break it down when you get there. So.Brian (11:36)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you typically know where you need to start. You know, there's a million things you could do. But when you have a big idea for a product and you're starting fresh and you're starting new with it, at least in my experience, again, I found like, I always know where I'm starting. And that's what I would encourage you to do is just get it out there, get it started. Even if you don't have all the different features and aspects of it thought through, that's OK.Mike (11:44)
Right.Brian (12:05)
You just want to start making progress so you learn.Mike (12:08)
That reminds me of something I've shared with a lot of leadership teams that I've met with over the years, which is that I'll tell them that they're basically solving the wrong problem. And they're trying to answer the question of what should we build? What should the product be? And that's totally the wrong question. The right question is what should we build next? What's that next one or two steps that would tell you what the next four or five steps will be? And so simplify the question, not what are we building, but what are we building next? And I think you're right there.Brian (12:26)
Yeah, yeah.Mike (12:36)
one sprint worth is enough and put in the backlog if you need to write more backlog items. Go from there.Brian (12:41)
Yeah. And I don't want anyone to hear us incorrectly here. I mean, part of the reason that we had them there to identify assumptions and try to test hypothesis is I don't want to open a, the silly example I always use in classes, I don't want to open a store that sells lip balms online and not test whether people want to buy lip balm online or not. There's some fundamental assumptions that you're going to have to test and know.Mike (12:48)
Thank you.Brian (13:11)
probably before you're gonna even get with a team and start getting up and running on this. And that should happen here.Mike (13:16)
Yeah. I was with a company, this is years ago, they were in Boston, we finished the engagement, I'm walking next to my rental car, and one of the guys walks out with me, one of the like VPs, and he's like, I got a question for you. He says, how often should we cancel projects? And I said,Brian (13:34)
Seven and a half.Mike (13:35)
I don't know, seven and a half. I said, I don't know. So I don't know how often, but you should be canceling a fair number of projects. You get started, you find out it's going to take twice as long as you thought, or you get started, and it's not really going to deliver the value that you hoped for. So you stop. And he's like, I thought so. He said something like, I've been here, I think, eight years, we've never canceled a project. And it's like, OK, that's bad. You should get into these and find out your assumptions are wrong.Brian (13:51)
Yeah. Wow. Yeah.Mike (14:04)
I want to talk about your quarterly items on here. And you've got a couple, let me just kind of read some of these here. So you've got establish a product goal. That's a relatively new thing in Scrum. I mean, I still think of 2020 as relatively new, but as a old timer with Scrum, product goal is one of the newer enhancements. You've got doing the story writing workshop. So you're supporting what you said there. Talk to me about the product goal here.Brian (14:19)
Yeah. Yeah, so I feel silly talking to Mike Cohen about what a product goal is. Product goals are just that neck, they're a milestone, right? And that's typically the way I talk about this in class is to say, especially when you're starting something new, you may not know everything that you're gonna do, but you know the next big thing that you need to accomplish. You know the next big mile marker that you're gonna hit in the life of your product.Mike (14:56)
Mm -hmm.Brian (14:59)
And that's what we want to establish with the product goal. Something that's going to take longer than a sprint, multiple sprints to do. I've got this in the quarterly section. And that's kind of how we tend to talk about it a lot here at Mountain Goat. But even in class, we'll even say quarterly -ish. Right, right, bigger than a sprint. And sometimes it'll be longer. Sometimes it'll be shorter. That's OK.Mike (15:16)
It's the bigger than a sprint section, right?Brian (15:25)
You just want to have that big thing that the team can keep their eyes on and kind of know, you know, here's, you got a sprint goal that tells us why what we're doing in this sprint is important and how my small task feeds into that. And you've got this product goal to say, how does the sprints work fit into this bigger picture of what we're trying to do? So you're making those...Mike (15:47)
Yeah.Brian (15:50)
connections consciously for the developers so that they are not just, hey, here's a laundry list of stuff to do, but here's the objective we're trying to accomplish.Mike (16:01)
Yep. I think it's important to have something that's out there bigger than a sprint. A sprint is just, it's just kind of suboptimizing, right? I think about if you're climbing a mountain and a sprint is like, what's the highest thing I see and just always walk into the highest thing you see. Meanwhile, those are all false summits. The real summit is, you know, behind some valley, but you don't see it because you don't set out that bigger goal. And I like how you talked about it quarterly because if the goal's too big, if it's too far out there, we're not going to feel very motivated. about it. I had this the wackest example of this. I hope the guy's not listening. Actually, I hope he is. But he was told me he was on a project with the large particle collider. And he said his whole project won't be due for 40 years, right? I mean, I don't get it. But it's like they've got to run like 40 years worth of data before it's like totally done. And I just picture myself showing up for work on a 40 year project, right?Brian (16:31)
Right. Yeah.Mike (16:57)
I know you, you're going to be reading Dallas Cowboys news for the first 35 years, right? You know, sports news and you know.Brian (17:04)
That's a 40 year project too.Mike (17:07)
Well, you're not going to take it serious for 35 years. Then you're going to wake up and go, the deadline's only five years away. I better get to work on this. And then what I would do is realize, wow, I'll be retired after 40 years. So anyway, I've been silly. But I mean, you're on a project with a 40 -year deadline. How do you say motivated? And I think three months is a really good time where I can see a bigger impact than a sprint. But it's not so far.Brian (17:15)
Right. Right, right, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.Mike (17:34)
that that student syndrome kicks in and I feel, I don't really have to worry about it. Let's go to a long lunch. We'll get to work on it tomorrow. So I do like the quarter -ish approach there. You mentioned here a couple others here. These are probably straightforward, but manage and maintain the economics of your project, assess stakeholder relations, and road mapping. You want to talk about any of those, maybe road mapping especially?Brian (17:46)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, road mapping, I think, is an important aspect. I mean, it kind of goes along with that product goal. But I do get people who come through a product owner class that will say, I don't like this approach because it seems like it's all so short -sighted. And we're not really having the big picture of where we're going. And in my world, we have this year -long thing, or 10 year. I've worked with some teams that build automobiles and they're on a three -year release cycle. They're working on the model year that's three years ahead. I've worked with some teams that do aerospace kind of stuff and they're working on a space launch that's multi -years out in the future.Mike (18:34)
Yeah.Brian (18:43)
And when you ask them, how certain are you that you're really going to be working on this five years from now? Pretty darn certain, right? Because it's there. We're building toward that launch date's going to be there. So I think that that roadmap is an important step for a product owner. Now, I just want to be clear about this. When I say a roadmap, I'm not talking about setting hard and fast dates and saying, we're going to be here by this date. We're going to be there by this date.Mike (18:50)
Yeah.Brian (19:12)
It's okay for us to say, here's kind of where we feel things are gonna fall, but I really am a strong proponent of the forecasting method, like kind of looking ahead and seeing, you know, kind of based on yesterday's weather kind of thing, right? Here's what the weather was like at this time last year. So it's probably a good indicator of where we're gonna be at this season this year, that sort of thing. So I'm a proponent of the forecasting forward. And I think a roadmap can fall very well in line with that because we can slot things and say, here's kind of this quarter's, here's the next quarter kind of things that we're thinking that are gonna take place. And if one thing moves forward or backwards, one of those sections, that's not a big deal. It's not gonna change earth shatteringly the course of our product, but it does allow for preparation. And that's what I think is the most important thing that people lose sight of in sort of forecasting and projecting forward is why do we do this in the first place? Well, we do it most of the time because there's someone else who needs to get ready. They need to be prepared. They need to be ready when this is delivered to do XYZ. And that's what we're trying to accomplish with this. We can do that with forecasting.Mike (20:32)
Yeah, I think you talk about taking those things seriously. And if we miss one, it's not the end of the world. Except there's always somebody in an organization who's going to say it is the end of the world. The danger for me with roadmaps is how serious people take them. They'll look at it and go, we got a roadmap. It says we're going to come out with this in 12 months. I bet we're going to do exactly these 12 things. And so that literalness to a roadmap.Brian (20:50)
Yeah.Mike (20:59)
is scary. I've only done this a couple of times, but I like the result is I put together roadmaps for with teams in a couple of organizations. And we kind of modeled them on the idea of the old, I don't know, 200 or 300 year ago, 400 year ago maps, right? And you would have like, you know, the. horrible map of what the world looked like, right? And there'd be Darby Dragons right on the edge of the map. And we actually did that on a roadmap, right? It had stacks of items are going to be delivered. You know, this, this six months, this six months. And then below there, we had just put a few things in kind of an unreadable font at Darby Dragons below there. Trying to reiterate that you can't take this that literally, but there often is somebody who's like, my annual bonus is tied to that box on the roadmap.Brian (21:24)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video. Right. Well, you can see this in, you know, I'm not going to get on a tangent here on safe, but you even see this in safe when people do things like PI planning and they plan out the next quarter. One of the pitfalls that I think a lot of organizations fall into when they do that is that they see it as a commitment. That the team is making a commitment to getting all that work done in that PI, in that program increment. And that's not the way it's intended. It's intended as here's our loose plan. We know what we're going to do in the next sprint, but the other sprints areMike (21:48)
Right. Yep.Brian (22:17)
more fluid and we'll adjust as we need to.Mike (22:20)
Yeah, I've written so many times about a plan is not a commitment or commitment is not a guarantee, right? You know, I can make a commitment to this. I'm going to commit to do my best. We're going to commit to try to achieve these. But I love a Clint Eastwood quote, one of his movies. He said, if you want a guarantee, buy a toaster. Right. So. Those are the days when supposedly banks used to give you a toaster when you open a new account, right? That.Brian (22:25)
Yeah, yeah. you can guarantee a toaster in today's world. Well, we joke in our family because my wife's grandparents have a, well, they're no longer with us, but they had a refrigerator that was from the 1950s that was sitting out in their barn that still worked perfectly. But we had, you know, our refrigerator is, you know, five years old and it's already breaking down and you have to consider replacing it. So, yeah, yeah.Mike (22:49)
precede my day, but I... Wow. It's all the electronics in them, I think, right? So I want to move on to the sprint planning. So from the quarterly planning. So in sprint planning, you've got this broken out by what people do in the planning meeting daily during the sprint. So I want to start in the planning meeting. You're proposing a goal and work with developers to kind of improve that, answer questions about backlog items, and talk about your schedule as the product owner share your schedule. You want to elaborate on what you're thinking about with these sprint planning activities?Brian (23:15)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, so I think a goal is important for the sprint. I think that gets us all on the same page and it's kind of one of the teaming aspects of it. We want to all have our eyes on the prize of what it is we're trying to accomplish together so that we're not all just in different places working on different things. I think it's important that we're there in sprint planning to answering questions because that's when they come up. We're making our plan for when we're going to do something. So I think it's important that we're there to kind of help them plan how they're going to accomplish stuff.Mike (23:59)
Yep.Brian (24:08)
We're not telling them how to, but we're giving them the information they need to determine how. And then, you know, as far as our schedule is concerned, I think it's a great idea for a product owner in sprint planning to say, you know, here's the next two weeks of my calendar. Here's where I'm going to be out of the office these days. I'm going to be at a client site on these days, just so that people can prepare. If I'm a developer and I know I need to get approval from my product owner and I know they're going to be out for the next two days at a conference or something, well, that might... guide me in how I'm going to plan and arrange my work.Mike (24:38)
Yep. Some of my favorite POs have been ones that have done something like said, look, between one and two o 'clock every day is total team time. I will never schedule a meeting. I'll always be available if you need me from one to two or one to three or eight to nine, whatever it is, but they'll have some sort of window there that is basically guaranteed access. Doesn't mean that's the only time they're available, but it's a guaranteed time, which is nice. I think it's nice.Brian (25:04)
Yeah, I love that too.Mike (25:06)
Talk to me about the daily scrums and what you'd expect out of a product owner during the daily standups.Brian (25:08)
Ha ha ha. Yeah, daily scrums are kind of a controversial thing here for lots of reasons, but I mean, there's some who would say a product owner doesn't need to be at a daily scrum. I disagree. I think product owners do need to be there. I don't think they're required. Actually, if you want to ask me my opinion, the only people I think are required are the developers, because it's for them, it's by them. You can't have it if they're not there. If anyone else is not there, you can still have the meeting.Mike (25:14)
Thank you.Brian (25:38)
But the product owner, I think, is important to try to be at as many of these as they possibly can. Because just like in sprint planning, they're making a plan for what they're doing, here it's immediately before they're going to be doing this work. So it's the time when the rubber meets the road. And here's where they're going to have some real practical questions. And if you're not there to answer them, you could hold them up. You could delay them.Mike (26:04)
Yeah.Brian (26:05) I also, like you said, I like to use this as an opportunity to say, here's when I'm available today.
Mike (26:10)
I wake that product owners attend because of the message it helps sends as well. If the PO never goes, is this project important, right? Or team members start to think, we have to show up daily and say what we did yesterday, that that person never has to do this, you know? And we started to get some resentment towards them. So I strongly encourage product owners to attend. I'm like you, that don't require, but my requirement test is always, would I cancel the meeting if this person had a dentist appointment, right?Brian (26:16)
Yeah.Mike (26:41)
If the product owner had a dentist appointment in the morning of planning, I'd probably say, can we do it in the afternoon? My product owner can't make the daily scrum because I've got a dentist appointment? well. We're still doing the daily scrum. But you're right. If all of the teams, this will be silly, but if all of the team members were all having dentist appointments, yeah, we'd cancel the meeting. There'd be no point. So.Brian (26:53)
Right. Yeah, the Scrum Master and Product Owner can't have a daily scrum, just the two of them.Mike (27:07)
What should we make them do? Let's talk about what to do during the sprint. You talked about kind of ongoing research. So you don't want to do all the research upfront on this.Brian (27:09)
Right, exactly. Right, no, it's a continual thing, right? I mean, if I'm working on my product and my competitor comes out with a killer feature that's starting to gain traction, I can't do that research upfront. That's something that becomes apparent as the product kind of goes along. So I think it's important that we keep in touch with what's going on in the real world with our product and the competitors.Mike (27:43)
Mm -hmm. through the marketing, through the market. The thing you had next here was about connecting with customers to hear feedback. I want to share a story on this one because it literally just happened. I told you I was out of the office. I got back like 15 minutes before we wanted to do this recording. And I'd been gone all morning, so I talked to my wife for about five minutes. And she and I had come across some software recently that we're using that looks kind of interesting. It's things like, you know, when you die, who gets access to your Facebook?Brian (27:57)
Yeah.Mike (28:18)
password, right? And most of my friends are pretty shifty. So I don't want to give my Facebook password now because they'd probably go post weird things. But I want you know, when I die, I want that to happen, right? And so we're looking at various software that does those things like who do you notify when after you died?Brian (28:19)
Yeah.Mike (28:35)
And we signed up with this company. I'm actually going to share the name because I like them so much here in a minute, but let me say why I like them. My wife and I both had interactions with them by email about totally different things. One was a little bug that I came across and then something that I think she was asking about how does the future work. But here's what I love. They contacted her today and said, can we get on the phone with you and hear what you think about our product? They're a fairly new company, I believe. what you think about our product and what you think about how we've, in particular, have like the three tiers of service that we offer, right? You know, this feature, this feature. And I just love that they're doing that, right? Because not as many companies do that as they should, right? As they should. Because I love that company, so I'm gonna mention their name, trustworthy .com. Probably nobody listening needs them, but they are just this kind of like, you know, I don't wanna say like death planning, because they're not like playing your funeral, but it's like.Brian (29:23)
Hahaha.Mike (29:28)
Who gets your Facebook account? What bank accounts do you have? So your heirs can figure it out. Right. So, so.Brian (29:34)
Yeah, yeah, that's great. No, I love having that mission if they're, they have good customer service. Yeah, definitely. Let's, let's mention them.Mike (29:40)
Yeah, and my wife and I favorably disposed of them, and that just put me over the top with them literally a half hour ago. You talk about checking in with the Scrum Master, about how you as a product owner are doing, but also staying in touch with devs.Brian (29:46)
That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's important for us to understand that we are not somehow separate from the team. We are part of the team. So we have the same goal as everyone else, and that's to deliver as much value as we can to our customers. We have a specific role, a responsibility to play in that. But I think checking in, partly I put that on there because. checking with a scrum master. That's something that we have on our scrum master sheet is to check in with a product owner. And I do think that those two need to kind of work hand in hand over the course of a sprint. And on an ongoing basis, kind of touch base to see how are things on your end? How are things on my end? And how can we help each other to kind of achieve our goals here?Mike (30:24)
Yeah. Yeah, you often notice something about somebody else before they may notice it themselves, right? We've got a couple other meetings that I'll move on to. So let's talk about refinement. Can you share what your thoughts are for a product owner's responsibilities during refinement?Brian (30:43)
Mmm. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, refinement, I always hesitate to even think about it as a meeting because it's kind of more of a series of activities. And you might have multiple meetings that would need to take place here. But yeah, I think that there's a lot of prep work that goes into. If I'm going to have the stakeholders come in and help me prioritize, I've got to prep a lot of that work. I've got to have the stuff that's ready to go prior to that meeting. I can't just show up and go, let's see what we got in our backlog. And we'll just kind of wing it.Mike (31:02)
Good point. if What do you think about this product owner? I don't know. Let me think now. Yeah. Did I write that one?Brian (31:21)
Right. Right. I don't even know what that is. I don't know. Let me read it. Right. That's just going to waste everyone's time and frustrate people. So I think there's a lot of prep that goes into that and prepping to go into anything like estimation. Do we have the right sort of things that are going to be estimated? I don't want to waste my team's time estimating stuff that's maybe really a long way in the future. And I'm not going to look at it for a while. So, you know, I think there's a lot of prep time that goes into that. And I think that, you know, we're at the center, at the focal point of any kind of refinement activity. as a product owner. So that's going to be, I don't really know exactly how those meetings are going to play out for you, but I think that there is some configuration there that you got to plan for.Mike (32:02)
I'm hearing your message. There is the old boy scout motto, be prepared, right? It's a new product owner motto, right? We'll, we'll steal it from the boy scouts. you have any, that's true. Just don't take away my Girl Scout cookies. So let's talk about the, the sprint review. what do you think a great product owner does then?Brian (32:06)
Yes, yes. Yeah. Well, that's okay, because there's no more Boy Scouts. So you don't have to worry about that. Right. wow. So this is our event. I really think of this as the product owners event. Yeah, exactly. I think you're the emcee. I think you show up, you host it, you send out the invites for it. What I typically tell product owners is kick it off with kind of a look back at some things that have been done recently by the team. Here's some features that we developed in the past three to six sprints and maybe even show some statistics about the impact those things are making.Mike (32:30)
you Showtime!Brian (32:56)
on the product and the market, on the customers. Our customer satisfaction has gone from here to there as a result of releasing these features, those kinds of things. So I think that the meeting opens that way. Then we move into the demonstration of the work and what we've done in that sprint. And yes, I would turn that over in large part to the developers so that they can demonstrate. But then I think it circles back at the end to come back to the product owner to say, all right, let's take a peek ahead. Let's look ahead what's coming up in our product backlog. Here's what our... looking at as candidates for the next sprint. And I think that's really important. It gives the stakeholders a chance to speak up and say, hey, what about this thing that I had that was really important? I don't see that prioritized. I really need that in the next sprint. I want to have those conversations in advance, not after sprint planning, when it's sort of locked in. Yeah.Mike (33:45)
Tell me about the retrospective. One of the things I noticed you had in there was that you want product owners to attend every retrospective. There's going to be pushback on that from some teams. What's your thought there?Brian (33:59)
Yeah, my thought there is, again, kind of reiterating that point that we are on the team, we are a team member like anyone else. And again, we have different responsibilities. We have a named kind of set of accountabilities that we have that may differ from others. But I kind of consider it like this. If I'm on a, in the US, we'd say soccer team, but if I'm anywhere else in the world, I'd say football team. If I'm on that kind of a team and I'm the keeper, the goalkeeper. I've got a very unique role, right? I mean, there's a set of things I do that no one else does. I'm allowed to do things that nobody else is allowed to. I'm allowed to touch the ball with my hands. Nobody else is, right? But if there's a team meeting, you're not gonna have a team meeting without your goalkeeper. They're an important vital part of your team. And that's what this is. It's the team meeting to get together to say, how can we get better? How can we improve? What's going on? What's wrong? What's right? And what do we wanna focus on?Mike (34:36)
Right. Yeah.Brian (34:58)
So I think it's vital for a product owner to be at every one just because like I said, we're a team member.Mike (35:04)
I agree. To me, it's always like, if you don't feel comfortable having your product owner at the retrospective, that's the first thing I want to talk about at the retrospective. Right? It would figure out why we're not comfortable with that so we can move past that. I do like here in the retrospective, you talked about having the product owner commit to making progress on the improvement items, which I think is important because sometimes it is product owners who have to improve. Right? So.Brian (35:31) Yeah. Yeah, I mean, one of the things we'll talk about in class is how the product owner is a vital communication relay point. They are the, I call them kind of the, it slipped my mind. What's the stone that had the different languages on it from Rosetta Stone, sorry. They're kind of the Rosetta Stone, right? Because they speak tech with the developers. They speak. Mike (35:36) Mm -hmm. Rosetta.
Brian (35:57)
business with the stakeholders and they translate across those two groups. So I think, yeah, I think it's important that we're there to try to, if there's communication issues with us and the developers, this is the place to work it out, right? This is the place to say, what do you need from me so that it's more clear the next time I write stories.Mike (36:02)
Yep. Yeah, that's a good point. What about for the next sprint? What should product owners do this sprint to be ready for the next one?Brian (36:24)
Yeah, excuse me. Yeah, I think it's important that we really get a handle on what should be prioritized, that we have a good understanding of what's going to be coming up, that we have that idea of what our next proposed sprint goal might be, where we're focused on stuff. And as I said, I want to check in with my stakeholders, especially my key stakeholders, on that prioritization so that it's not a surprise to anyone. I don't want to. I don't want anything to be a surprise when it gets to sprint planning. By the time we circle back around in sprint planning, I want my developers to have looked at these things multiple times before they see it in sprint planning. We've had estimations. We've had discussions about these. So there could have been multiple times we've had conversations about these. So by the time we get to sprint planning, it's not the first time we're looking at these things.Mike (37:00)
Yeah. Yeah, it should be a surprise.Brian (37:15)
And that's kind of what I'm trying to allude to here is that there's a series of activities that just are kind of the glue between one sprint to the next sprint. And if we kind of drop that ball in any way, like I said, I can't show up at sprint planning and sort of just say, well, let's see what we got, guys. I have no idea what we're going to do, but let's just take a look. Yeah, I can't wing it.Mike (37:30)
Right. Yeah, wing it. Yeah, that's not a good approach for things. Brian, you told me a lot of things that product owners should do. I want to twist it a little bit and ask you for one thing product owners should not do before the sprint, during the sprint, before the project, whatever. What's one thing, the one thing you would tell product owners to not do?Brian (37:57)
Wow, that's such a great question. I think probably the number one thing that I would say is to understand the boundary between the what and the how, and really to try to stay out of the how. What I mean by that is we're in charge as product owners of the what side of the equation. What is it that we're going to be doing? What are we focused on? The developers are in charge of the how. How do we accomplish this? What's the best way to deliver this? And I... I know as a product owner in my past, I've always struggled with that balance of, yeah, but I've got a vision in my head of exactly the way I want it to play out. And I have to kind of rein myself back in a little bit and say, yeah, but kind of remind yourself that that's not really my role here. My role is not to explain exactly how the page is going to need to look and exactly how this feature plays out. If I have no really discernible reason that I have to have it one way over another, right? If there's not like a legal reason or compliance that I've got to do it one way, then I want to as much as possible stay out of the house so that the developers really get to exert their expertise.Mike (38:59)
Right. Yeah, that's where they're going to be, they're going to be best at. I was describing it as that there's, there is a fine line between what and how, which is why people often will struggle with it. the way I think about it is like every time we dip into that, how at all product owners dip into that at all, they start to kind of take away degrees of freedom from the team. The team has less maneuvering room on how they're going to solve the problem. And great, take away one degree of freedom here and there. It's not going to be the end of the world. Take away too many, and you over -constrained the solution. The team doesn't engage as fully. All sorts of negative things, as you've touched on.Brian (39:39)
Yeah.Mike (39:40)
Brian, I want to thank you for letting me take over and turn the tables on you and ask you the question. Since you had made the PDF, I wanted to be the one asking you what your thoughts were on your great PDF that we have for folks. So I'll turn it back over to you. Let it be back to your show now.Brian (39:41)
Hahaha I... Yeah, no, well, thank you very much. This has been a pleasure. It's been really fun to have to see what it's like on the other side of the table a little bit. So thanks for being willing to do it, Mike, and thanks for being willing to share your insights as we walked through this. -
Join Brian and Marisa Smith as they dive into the world of developer advocacy, the challenges of agile methodologies in data engineering, and the vital role of open-source communities. Discover how to better support and communicate with your developers in this insightful episode!
OverviewIn this episode, Brian Milner interviews developer relations expert Marisa Smith to explore the vital role of developer advocates in bridging the gap between companies and their users.
Marisa shares her insights on the challenges of communicating with developers, emphasizing the need to create a welcoming environment for questions and feedback. She also discusses the unique difficulties developers face when implementing agile methodologies, particularly in the realm of data engineering.
They highlight the significance of open-source communities in fostering innovation and collaboration and provide a preview of Marisa's upcoming talk at Agile 2024 on enhancing data pipelines with SQLMesh.
Listen Now to Discover:[1:08] - Join Brian in an engaging conversation with Dr. Marisa Smith, PhD, Developer Relations Expert, Developer Advocate, and Speaker.
References and resources mentioned in the show:
[2:43] - Marisa Smith sheds light on the crucial role of a developer advocate, explaining how they bridge the gap between developers and the wider community.
[3:49] - Brian digs into common mistakes in how we communicate with developers and poses the question: what are we getting wrong in our interactions?
[5:57] - Marisa outlines the hurdles developers face in a Scrum team environment, shedding light on common obstacles.
[12:00] - Marisa explores the hurdles in developer communication, offering insights into improving dialogue and understanding.
[12:55] - Mountain Goat Software offers Working on a Scrum Team, a private class to help Scrum teams foster a team dynamic that supports the whole team, including bridging the gap in communicating with developer teams.
[15:00] - Marisa discusses how SQLMesh has empowered data engineers to streamline their tasks, sparking a sense of 'Marie Kondoing' their work.
[24:11] - Marisa emphasizes the vital importance of open-source developer communities for fostering innovation and teamwork.
[26:51] - Brian shares a big thank you to Marisa for joining him on the show.
[27:50] - We invite you to subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast. Do you have feedback or a great idea for an episode of the show? Great! Just send us an email.
[27:54] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership into that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software, such as CSM or CSPO. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes, you can find the schedule here.Dr. Marisa Smith, PhD
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Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Marisa Smith is a Developer Relations expert who bridges the gap between the community and development teams, addressing problems and promoting open-source software. With a Ph.D. in Computational & Theoretical Physical Chemistry, she has a background in simulating radiation effects in water.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're here for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have the one, the only Marisa Smith with us. Welcome in Marisa.Marisa (00:13)
Hi, thank you so much for having me.Brian (00:15)
Very excited to have Marisa with us. If you're not familiar with Marisa, her title is Developer Relations Expert. So right there, that's an episode, right? We could talk just about that. And we'll get into that a little bit more, but there's a lot of really interesting stuff here about Marisa. She has her PhD in theoretical and computational physical chemistry. So...Marisa (00:41)
Yeah.Brian (00:42)
Again, wow, right? I mean, this is amazing stuff. She's worked at Streamlet. She was their very first developer advocate there. And she has since, Streamlet's been acquired by Snowflake. And you founded Tobacco Data, is that right?Marisa (01:07)
Uh, no, I, um, I am their first developer advocate at Tupiqium data. Yeah. No words.Brian (01:11)
OK, gotcha. Sorry about that. Messed that up. So very, very interesting background. And one of the things that caught our notice, Marisa spoke last year at Agile 2023 and is speaking again this year at Agile 2024. So again, if you're going to come out, I highly recommend you attend her talk. Her talk is called Marie Kondo. your data pipelines with SQLMesh, which I think is really, really interesting. But I'm talking too much, and I want to turn it over to Marisa here. Help us understand developer relations expert and developer advocate. What does that mean?Marisa (01:59)
Yeah, so I am, what I always say is that I am the person that connects your company to the people who use your product. And it just so happens that the companies that I work for are companies that work in the tech industry. They're building some sort of piece of the tech stack. So the people that use it, their customers are other developer, developers essentially, or technical people.Brian (02:22)
Yeah, so you're an expert in the...Marisa (02:27)
in the art of, in the art of like, how do we communicate with other developers? How do we pass that information back and forth between the developers that are making a product and the developers that use a product. And how do we make sure that, you know, we're getting, we're, we're getting the best out of our, out of our users and that they're getting the best out of the technology that we're trying to build for them.Brian (02:49)
That is so, so interesting. And so I'm sure product owners are listening going, yeah, help me. Help me. I want to understand. How do I talk to developers? So gosh, there's so many directions we can go with this. What do you think people misunderstand most when they try to communicate with developers? What do we get wrong?Marisa (02:55)
hahahaha Oh, wow, that's a great question. Let me think about this for a second. I think, I think from, from, from my perspective, as somebody who spends a lot of time, like running different communities, especially open source communities, I think that people get the wrong idea in that. Yes, these developers are your customer, but a lot of the time they have very limited time. They come in, they look at, you know, maybe your open source product or, uh, you know, your free version or something that they're trying to see if they can integrate this in their own stack. And I think people can. or companies can come at them a little bit too quickly, a little bit too salesy, right? And then that ends up driving them away. They're like, no, no, no, I'm really not interested in any of this. I'm just trying to figure out if this is the right technology. A lot of developers like to iterate. They try things out, right? And so I think if you come at them too early with, oh, here's our sales process. Here's this, this is how much this costs. It's like, no, no, no, I'm like... way early, I'm MVP POC type of thing, trying to see if I can understand, or if this works with my team, my workflow, my current pipeline, the other technologies that we use, you know, that, that type of thing. I think that's one of the biggest mistakes that you can make, especially when you're talking about open source, which is kind of like my bread and butter.Brian (04:28)
Right, right. Yeah. And you know, the communication, especially, I mean, because we talk about Scrum and Agile here on the podcast, you know, that relationship between the business side of the house and the developer side of the house, it's almost like, you know, Romeo and Juliet and the two houses, you know, they speak different languages. They want different things. They see the world in a very different way.Marisa (04:34)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.Brian (04:58)
And yet somehow these two groups have to figure out how are we going to work together to really deliver something that is valuable, right? So you work with a lot of developers. You talk with a lot of developers. And I know there's lots of different kind of practices and things that are out there that developers are using these days.Marisa (05:09)
Yes. Yeah.Brian (05:26)
When you talk to them about something like Scrum, or when that kind of process comes up, what are some of the chief complaints that you hear from developers when they talk about working on a Scrum team? What are they not like about it?Marisa (05:44)
Ooh, interesting. Yeah, I would say. I would say, I mean, in the area that I'm working in right now, I'm working pretty deep in the data pipelines. So Tobico data runs these two open source projects, SQLMesh and SQL glot. And it's essentially your T of your ETL pipeline, right? We're using SQL, we understand SQL and we're transforming your SQL queries into these tables and we're helping you manage these pipelines as they evolve over time. And so, um, and so I think, you know, in this space, what happens is when you're talking about, you know, working with scrum teams and stuff like that, one of the pieces of agile is trying out new things and iterating. And that can actually be super difficult for a lot of like these data engineers and developers to do, because you have accountability at the end of the day, right? If you're changing up your data, you're mutating some, some SQL query that changes some model that changes your data pipeline downstream. And then all of a sudden. you know, you've pushed it to production and, uh -oh, this data is not what you expected. It's not what you had like originally tested for. And that's because, you know, teams have to work across many different, um, they have many different like iterations that they're working on and many different teams are, you know, making changes potentially simultaneously. And so I think that for, for developers, when you talk about scrum and you talk about agile, particularly if you're talking about like, adjusting tooling or trying out something new again, coming back to this fact that like, you know, they're just there to test things out. They have very limited time and that's because they get stressed out. It's like, well, I don't want to break production. We have to protect production, your production environment as much as possible. And, you know, part of agile and part of doing all these things is trying, trying these new tools, trying these new companies, trying these new methods. And you can get a lot of resistance from that because. they know this method works, they know that they have accountability and they know that production will be fine if they use this methodology that they've set up. Sometimes it can be a little bit of a matchstick thing in the back end.Brian (07:47)
Yeah. Well, and I mean, just hearing you talk about that and thinking about it, I know one of the big friction points between the business side and the developer side is take SQLMesh. If that's something that my team has never worked with and I have someone on the team who is interested in that and wants to, thinks it might give us some benefits, There's friction there with the product side to say, product has all these things they want, and they want to push these things forward. But I think this bit of adding this to our stack is going to improve things. But how do I communicate that to the business to give us the time to do this? Because it's not directly leading to a feature, but it will improve things moving on. How do you? How do you balance it? How do you have that conversation with a product person or the business side of the house to really say, Hey, this is worthwhile.Marisa (08:50)
Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, it's super difficult. And I think it's really a balance of, you know, having to have these engineers dedicate some time to new tooling and testing things out. And then once you have done that in their schedule, you know, I don't know how frequently you may want to do it like once a month or something like that, where they, you know, take a day and just review what new is out there. What else should we be looking at? What other tools, what other... You know, with, especially with the emergence of AI and all of that recently, that changes a mile a minute, I think. So, you know, keeping on top of that is, is, is a huge burden on these engineering teams. And so time needs to be dedicated for actually getting that kind of stuff done and the freedom to actually try these things out and do like just a minimum viable product, right? Just a tiny POC with like a little Tinkit data set. And then on, I think there's some.Brian (09:23)
Ha ha.Marisa (09:45)
there's some weight of this on the company that's developing these open source products or new tooling, that they have to start communicating and figuring out their business value as well. Because those developers cannot, with this little example, show all of the benefits that you would get. What cost savings do you get? What efficiency savings? What increase in productivity? All of that has to be done by the company and you need to have that ready. so that you can back up your developers that are trying out your product and your open source projects so that they have something to go off of. They're like, hey, look, I made this. It took one week or something like that. And I got it to a place where it's really good and look at all these cool features. And this will make us so much faster in our pipeline. And then here is the company's documentation or case study or whatever it is that says this should increase our productivity approximately this much. And... that these other big companies that are similar to us have this sort of success with it. And, you know, it, I think those two combined can really help alleviate these pressure that the developers feel and give them the time to actually try out new tools, which in many cases they love to do. They love to try new things. They love open source, right. And they will be your best advocates. If you spend the time talking to them, communicating with them and giving them the things that they need to be successful.Brian (11:12)
Yeah, I would think that's kind of a, there's a duality to, I would imagine your role in speaking with them about your product, because in one case you have to sell them on, hey, look how beneficial this is. This is, you should add this to your stack. But on the other hand, you've got to equip them with the, the, uh, the sales pitch, I guess, that they can then make to their business to say, hey, you should allow us to do this. You should give us the, whether it's finances to do this or the time or the resources to do this, that, you know, it does benefit you as well. So that's gotta be a really difficult part of that communication is kind of, you know, getting people who are not really salespeople, you know, having been a developer, I know I kind of get, you know, the personality type. Uh, and you know, we, we don't want to have to talk to people. We want to be able to put our headphones on and get our work done. Uh, but now, now I'm in the position where if I want to do this thing, I know it is the right thing to do. I've got to convince others and that's not really my strong point. So how do you, how do you help them with that?Marisa (12:24)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely a long road. I would say, you know, it's not done in a split second, especially when you're talking about larger companies, like any sort of fan company. They will take a lot of time to make this decision. So you have to be really committed, I think, to each person that you're talking to and each person that you're trying to help get moving with your product to really make them successful. And... For us, what we've been doing recently is we go in and we help them with that communication point, right? Like our developers know our tool the best. And so if there needs be, like we'll stop and we will actually go in and do a presentation to the wider team and be like, okay, you guys have set up this POC. You've tried it out. You really like it. Here are the benefits. Here are, you know, here's how we describe it. Here's how, you know, We have seen other companies succeed with this and we have some decks that are basically ready to go. So we can go in and actually help them with that communication stage as well.Brian (13:34)
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, then let's, because this is fascinating, and I really enjoy kind of the idea of trying to be an advocate for the developers. But I'm curious as well, with your upcoming talk at Agile 2024, by the way, just I don't think I've said the date, but July 22nd through 26th in Dallas, Texas, go to. AgileAlliance .org. You can find out more information about it. I think I've told everyone here on the podcast, I'm speaking there as well. So come and see both of us in my hometown in Dallas. So Marie Kondo, your data pipelines with SQLMesh. Tell us what was the idea behind this, where you got the idea for this talk, and what it is you're trying to get across in it.Marisa (14:18)
Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Well, here's the story. One of our users, I was doing case studies for our, for us, because we need to understand our business value. We need to show people that like they can get this, these, you know, these cost savings, these productivity savings and things like that. So I've been doing interviews with some of the companies that currently use SQLMesh. And one of the, one of the interviewees, we were just chatting and he was like, oh, You know, he brought Marie Kondo up and he was like, yeah, like SQLMesh just brings me joy. It brings joy back to my data engineering. And I'm like, well, wait a minute. What, wait a minute. What do you mean? mean? like, oh yeah. Well, I mean, you know, we spend all of this time. Fretting Fretting about these data pipelines, getting the correct data down the pipeline, getting the business needs on the timeline that they need them, you know, updating your production value or your production environments with, with anything new that's been requested. And.Brian (15:01)
youMarisa (15:21)
there isn't really a proper process for data deployments, right? Like for code, you know, we have GitHub, we have Git, we have all these things, right? You make some changes, you save it, you test it out, you make some more changes, you save that, you test that out, right? Like all of these iterations, they create all these versions and these checkpoints. But on the data side of that, there is nothing. It's just like match disks and toothpicks that hold up some of these.Brian (15:30)
Yeah. Hahaha.Marisa (15:49)
some of these pipelines, right? And that's become the standard. I'm not saying that this is particular companies that are doing this or something like that. It's pretty much everybody. And all of this falls on top of your DevOps engineers or your data engineers that are a very small percentage of your company. And they're treading through this escalating technical debt, right? Every time you add a new table, every time you add a new dashboard, that's a new backend that they are managing, right? It becomes very stressful for them. And... This individual was saying that he had lost a lot of the joy out of his work and you spend how many hours a day working, right? This is a huge chunk of your life that it's just like, oh my God, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to make that change because the pipeline currently works. It's not broken. It's not broken. Don't change that type of thing, right? But this isn't what business is. This isn't what agile is. You're supposed to iterate. You're supposed to make these changes. You're supposed to investigate.Brian (16:24)
Yeah. Right.Marisa (16:42)
find new things and find new insights. And you can't do that unless you start changing things. And so he had said that once they started implementing SQLMesh with the different features that it has with this virtual data environments and these data versionings, and we have these data contracts that essentially allow you to turn, have checkpoints for your data and have essentially unit tests for your data. He was like, oh my gosh, now I can not have to worry about it. I can just try something, see if it works. And then if it doesn't, it doesn't matter because I can roll it back super easily and things like that. So that's really where the inspiration came from.Brian (17:21)
That's awesome. Yeah, that's such a huge hole and it's such a needed kind of component to the stack, as you said, because, you know, I mean, you're right in kind of a programmer world. And, you know, if you're outside of the database world, there's all these tools you can use and put in place and test and see how things are going. But that fear that you have when you work in the database world where if I make the wrong error here, It could mess up all our data. It's not just that it's going to present it in the wrong way, but it could actually damage, which is a valuable asset. It's a hugely valuable asset, the data that the company has, maybe one of their most valuable assets. So yeah, that's an amazing tool. And...Marisa (18:10)
Yeah. Cool. And these days, yeah.Brian (18:16)
So this is also an open source project, right? So tell me how that's been interacting with the community on this and working in a corporate environment, but also it's an open source environment on this product that you're a developer advocate for.Marisa (18:19)
Mm -hmm. Yep. Yeah. Well, I love it. I love open source. As I mentioned before, open source is kind of my bread and butter because Streamlit, you know, was essentially the other end. I've gone from the dashboard side, which Streamlit is basically a free open source dashboarding tool that's built just in Python, to the side of the tables that make that, and the SQL that makes those dashboards possible in the backend. And so this, it's something that I really love about my job because... I've been lucky enough to work with a bunch of tools that are super useful and that people really love, uh, and that they have that they, you know, people who co -founded it, that there are co -founders all came from huge fang companies, right? SQLMesh was basically born out of these data problems specifically to solve them because they had been literally experiencing them at these companies themselves. And they, you know, went out and were like, okay, what's the solution out there? And, you know, uh,Brian (19:21)
Yeah.Marisa (19:31)
There's this, there's another company called dbt. They were pretty much the first one on the scene. They've been around for like, I want to say like 10 or 15 years and they changed the space. Like they really did make some huge advancements. But the thing is, is they came at it from a completely different angle than we're trying to come at it because they came at it from the almost like the data science and data analytics side. And they weren't necessarily thinking about future, how big these data sets were going to get with.Brian (19:52)
Yeah.Marisa (19:58)
these different like Netflix, Airbnb and stuff like that, right? Their data sets are huge. They're parsing huge amounts of data. And, you know, in the current tools, the systems that you have, you have to refresh your entire data warehouse every time you want to make a change to production. If you have a terabyte worth of data that you're trying to refresh every single time you make a change, that literally, you're just, you're twiddling your thumbs. Your analysts are just like sitting around waiting anxiously to find out.Brian (20:03)
Yeah.Marisa (20:27)
you know, if those changes they just made to the sequel is actually viable and good, right? So, sorry, I think I lost. I think they lost the train of the question I got all passionate about.Brian (20:32)
Yeah. No, no, no, that's fine. That's fine. No, I mean, I was just, I was asking about, you know, kind of the interactivity with the community on that and working with, you know, these open source projects, you know, you have volunteers, you have people who are giving up their time for free, basically to improve your product. That's got to come with a whole just mess of other considerations and concerns and how has that been?Marisa (21:07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's been good. And where I had been going with that point was that I've been lucky enough to work with companies and tools that are super useful, that were developed out of pain points that other people have experienced. So that side of things has been really great. When you're trying to develop a community, I just try to make the most welcoming space so that people feel comfortable in asking any sorts of questions. Right? Because that is the only way that you kind of surface some of these things that might've been otherwise hiding. Right? If people are nervous to ask questions, then you're not going to really have a proper conversation around, Oh, well, wait a minute. How did you get to that point? Like what led you to use it this way or to do it this way or something like that. Um, and so, yeah, there's lots of considerations, but we've been lucky enough that the, you know, a lot of our users are very happy with it, but also are.Brian (21:38)
Yeah.Marisa (22:01)
because of that, they're very vocal and they are very happy to, you know, take that five, 10 minutes, fill that survey in or meet with me and talk through, you know, a case study or like how they found SQLMesh and how it's going and stuff like that. So I think that the real balance comes in as to how much time do you want to dedicate my time? Do you want to dedicate to doing these interviews and getting this feedback versus Like, oh, we've already got like a pretty large signal that the next feature they need is this. Like, let's just run and do that feature and get that out for them, as opposed to continuing to bog up their time with interview questions or survey questions and bog up my time with it as well. So I think that's more the balancing point is when do you start acting on the signals that you're starting to see from your community versus like just constantly collecting data?Brian (22:56)
Yeah. And I love your point there about kind of creating that welcoming environment. It's very similar to what we talk about with just teams of the whole psychological safety kind of aspect of it. And if I feel like I can't say something without being made fun of or feel like I'm made to look stupid for my question, then you're right. I don't surface the things that I should, even if it's, you know, just, hey, I'm not sure how to do this and getting help for that kind of thing.Marisa (23:22)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. And I mean, I feel like with open source communities as well, they're all online. And this is a, I like that psychological safety and I like to try and promote this friendly environment because there's no guarantee that the person on the other end even speaks English. They might be running it through a translator, right? Like you have no idea. So they need to have like that safe place that they can just be like, oh, Hey, I tried this, but I couldn't get it to work. Right. And then that's when you can start to expand and be like, Oh, okay. Well, actually this person is from.Brian (23:39)
Yep.Marisa (23:54)
I don't know, like France, they speak French, right? So you're trying to translate kind of back and forth, either in your head or with a tool. And it's kind of like, okay, well, what else can I do to help them? Right? It's like, oh, well, what they need is a more in -depth, like getting started guide, right? We need to add these steps in or put this little note in there that's like, hey, if you get tripped up and you get this error, that's because of this and this is how you fix it type of thing, right? So that you just kind of like fill in those gaps of knowledge.Brian (24:23)
Yeah. I mean, there's probably so much that we could extract just from the remoteness of the team that you work with, because open source is an area where there is no office. It's not like we all come into the same place. And yet, it works. So for people who think it can't work if you're remote, well, open source is proof that it can. Yeah.Marisa (24:37)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And not because of that, our team is a hundred percent remote as well. Right. Like our entire Tobacco team works async, right. And we're only able to do that because of different tools and processes that we have put in place and, and that we do have this community and our community is a, is a Slack community. We actually, we could put a link in or something so that people can check it out if they were interested. But, but yeah. And, and that community isn't just about.Brian (25:11)
Sure, sure, sure.Marisa (25:16)
that specific tool. And I think that's also another thing that you want to surface when you're talking to developers is that this isn't just a space to ask questions about SQLMesh or SQLGlot, it's a space to talk in general. What are some of the best practices around evolving your data pipelines? What, you know, do you have any questions about your DevOps? Like, you know, what, what are people using for their cloud service provider? Why? Like, you know, did you switch from this to this and, you know, What was your thoughts around that? And, you know, what do people do with a dataset that is, you know, 300 rows and, and like 700 columns, like, how do you deal with this size of data? How do you want to, like, how do others mutate it? Like, do you incrementally load it? So just like try and load in the newest data. Do you only re when do you refresh these, like all these questions and all of this conversation needs to happen because we need to start deciding on a proper process and. DBT had started doing that and we're trying to continue this conversation.Brian (26:16)
Yeah, I would imagine that's working with the product as well, that that's very beneficial to even product development. Because you can hear from them, even if it's not part of your product, but if you hear those questions about, hey, well, how have you handled this, or what do you do in this kind of scenario, I can imagine that would lead you to maybe new product ideas based off of some of those conversations. Yeah.Marisa (26:43)
Oh, absolutely. 100%. I don't have like a specific example at the top of my head, but I definitely...Brian (26:48)
Right. No, no, no. Yeah. Yeah, it could come from this. So it's community, right? I mean, it's just the importance of having that community and not just being, no, we can only talk about this one product here, but no, we're a supportive community and we help each other here. Yeah. Awesome. Well, this is fascinating. And I could talk with you about this for a long, long time. I'm looking forward to your talk.Marisa (26:55)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah.Brian (27:16)
So I haven't checked the schedule yet, but I'm gonna, hopefully it's not on one of those times when like, normally, I don't know if you find this as well, but it's like the ones that I start and think, oh, that's the one I really wanna go to, turns out to be the one where you're speaking or somebody who's a lifelong friend is talking at that time. You're like, I can't miss that person's. So I'm hoping that's not the case, cause I really wanna come and hear this talk and hear more about it.Marisa (27:17)
Great, thank you. Yeah.Brian (27:45)
Thank you for giving us your time and helping us to understand this, Marisa. I really appreciate you coming on.Marisa (27:49)
What? Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. -
Join Brian Milner and McCaul Baggett as they explore the power of empathy and storytelling in successful Agile transformations. Learn McCaul's five-step approach to effective communication and discover strategies to overcome common pitfalls in organizational change.
OverviewIn this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner sits down with McCaul Baggett, Chief Agile Officer at CAVU, to discuss the intricacies of communicating change within organizations.
They delve into common pitfalls in Agile transformations and highlight the importance of empathy and storytelling in engaging teams. McCaul shares his five-step approach to effective communication, emphasizing the power of testimonials and spreading awareness.
Tune in to gain valuable insights and practical tools for navigating and leading successful Agile transformations.
Listen Now to Discover:[1:10] - Join Brian as he welcomes McCaul Baggett, Chief Agile Officer at CAVU and a master of Agile transformation, to delve into the secrets of successful Agile transformation.
References and resources mentioned in the show:
[3:15] - McCaul emphasizes the critical role of storytelling in engaging and guiding teams through the process of Agile transformation.
[5:57] - Brian addresses a common challenge in Agile transformations: navigating the unknown and its impact on team dynamics.
[8:01] - McCaul explains how effective communication and a compelling narrative can help teams grasp their value during a transformation.
[10:40] - McCaul advocates for going beyond the basic 'why' by incorporating testimonial narratives to create more meaningful connections.
[14:39] - Brian suggests using these tools to foster empathy, advocating for their use in both top-down and bottom-up approaches when initiating a transformation.
[16:29] - Dive into Mike Cohn's book, Succeeding with Agile, for practical advice on navigating your transformation. Discover strategies for communication, overcoming resistance, and other key aspects of Agile success.
[17:54] - Brian inquires about effective ways to connect with and engage resistant individuals within the team.
[22:49] - Join McCaul and Brian as they discuss the importance of creating specific best practices that suit the unique needs of this particular team and organization.
[28:07] - Brian shares a big thank you to McCaul for joining him on the show.
[28:33] - Join Brian in attending Agile conferences to connect with and learn from Agile experts and peers, fostering valuable discussions and insights.
[29:53] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership into that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software, such as CSM or CSPO. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes, you can find the schedule here.
[30:35] - We invite you to subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast. Do you have feedback or a great idea for an episode of the show? Great! Just send us an email.McCaul Baggett
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Communicating Change Made Easy with McCaul Bagget and Tom Bullock
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Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
McCaul Baggett is the Chief Agile Officer at CAVU, specializing in Agile transformations and effective communication strategies. With a focus on empathy, storytelling, and practical tools, McCaul helps organizations navigate change and foster sustainable Agile practices.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors, we're back. This is another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have the one and only Mr. McCaul Baggett with us. Welcome in McCaul.McCaul Baggett (00:13)
Hey, thanks Brian, really glad to be here.Brian (00:15)
Very excited to have you. For those who aren't familiar with McCaul, McCaul is the chief agile officer at Cavu. He has been working in transformations for quite a long time doing some large-scale transformations at different organizations. One that he is allowed to publicly mention is John Deere, but there's others that he's been a part of as well. You know companies are funny that way. They don't always necessarily want you to publicize things for some reasons. I don't know why.McCaul Baggett (00:43)
Yeah.Brian (00:44)
We were joking about that earlier. But I wanted to have him call on because we were both at the Agile 2023 conference, and I saw him on the agenda, and it was one of those sessions I didn't get a chance to go to, unfortunately, but really thought it was an interesting topic. I wanted to have him come on and kind of chat with us a little bit about this. So his topic was about communicating change and communicating change in an easy way, you know, kind of making that an easy process. So let me start there with you, McCaul, on this is, what do people get wrong when they're going through a transformation and we make the decision to go through a big change in our organization? What are some of the common pitfalls organizations fall into when they make that decision?McCaul Baggett (01:34)
Well, let me start by saying it wasn't me solely that was doing the talk. I did have some partners there with me. And if you look it up, you should definitely speak to them as well or look them up as well. Dana Dismukes is a transformation lead for Dell. Tom Bullock is the chief storyteller for Scrum Inc. And really the academics of the talk came out of Tom's brainchild. But through my work, I got a chance to apply it. And it was precisely because of this very issue, the ch- the- non-working approach that many organizations take to communicating about change. There's a tendency in a lot of change management structures to discuss the need for communication, but as Agilists, we don't inherently do a lot of study of the nature of communication. And so I would say probably the biggest, most common error that people in a transformation of any kind and most close to my experience in Agile transformations make in communicating about change is going about it from a way that is, from the perspective of trying to reassure their teams, their departments that this is something that has leadership endorsement by communicating from the top down. I mean, please forgive the hierarchical metaphor, but getting some senior leader to say, hey, this is gonna be great, you can do it, we're gonna do this. When in fact, the most effective way to communicate to someone, especially someone who's not fully bought in, is by telling them a story of someone who is like them, has experience like them that they can relate to. And that storytelling perspective is what we talk about in this talk, Communicating Change, maybe.Brian (03:16)
Yeah, there's a lot just in there to unpack. I mean, just the idea, thinking about, I've talked with a lot of organizations and a lot of people have come through classes and stuff that I've talked with who are going through changes like this, but then they're not really even sure how much their leaders are on board with this. They just, they have some layer of management who says, yeah, this is what we're gonna do, but do the people at the top really feel that way? Do they even know what it is that we're doing?McCaul Baggett (03:34)
Sure. I mean, that's even tougher. I would find it hard to even consider it a true transformation if you can't be sure your leaders are bought into it. But you're not wrong. It is stunning how often you get these folks that you run into and they say, my leadership may be willing to do this. I teach a lot of Scrum at Scale. And so we talk a lot about executive Metascrums and executive action teams and prescriptions about how involved the leader should be. And people will sort of stop and say, wait, you want a leader to meet about team obstacles every day? And I say, yeah, or however long those executives are willing to let their teams go without support to removing their obstacles. Like, what is it that they're doing that's more important than clearing the impediments for their teams? But that does tend to be the perspective is, I don't know if my leaders even bought into this change. That's tough.Brian (04:34)
Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I think that speaks to some of the fundamental flaws, I think, that people have with transformations before you even get to communicating, right? Just do we know why we're here? Do we know what it is we're trying to do? Those kinds of things. I like to focus on the communication, though, here because communication is such aMcCaul Baggett (04:46)
Yeah, that's true.Brian (04:56)
delicate beast. I mean, it just, you know, when you're trying to speak with another human, even if it's just within your team, you know, it's difficult because we're different personalities and we have different backgrounds and everything else, much less when you're talking about it over an entire organization. I would imagine, and you, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I would imagine that one of the biggest sources of kind of consternation or, you know, anxiety I think when these kinds of things happen is the unknown, just not really understanding how do I fit in and what does this mean for me.McCaul Baggett (05:33)
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Sometimes it's phrased that it's termed what's in it for me. And I think that's the wrong perspective to take. People aren't often necessarily, people are not always looking for some kind of payoff for the transformation. They don't need to know sort of what they get out of it. But I think that you really put your finger on a lot of the reason that we see trepidation with a transformation is because it implies thatBrian (05:38)
Mmm.McCaul Baggett (06:00)
Business as it had been occurring before was not acceptable. What you'd been doing previously was not good enough. And now we need to get you to do it another way. That inherently sort of fundamentally starts with a position of questioning whether or not your position is stable. And that gets, you get some amygdala hijack stuff going on. You get the brain started worrying about existence, not just change. So you're right, contextualizing.Brian (06:26)
Yeah.McCaul Baggett (06:29)
your communication about this is really important. And I think taking a perspective of empathy and meeting especially resistance in a change environment, a changing environment, meeting resistance with an attempt to understand the perspective really fundamentally underpins any successful communication you're gonna have about change management in general, but communication in particular.Brian (06:52)
What do you think about that, McCaul? I mean, if you're a leader in that kind of organization and you recognize this and you see, people are gonna, I'm gonna send people into a little bit of a panic, right? Because you're right, there's no way that I can hear that message, hey, we're gonna do things differently than the way that we've been doing them without kind of self-internalizing, well, that means that something I've been doing has not been acceptable, it's not been good enough, it's not been what the organization needs. How do you communicate that in a way to say, no, it's not you, right? It's kind of a process thing. It's not that you did anything wrong. It's that we found this is a better way of working.McCaul Baggett (07:30)
Yeah, so I think starting with that fundamental basis of why this is occurring is really key. But even before you get to the communication about why, it's really important to figure out who it is you're speaking to. So going back to that sort of, that empathy piece, there is a need to get that communication about, okay, it's not that you did anything wrong. and here are the reasons why we're doing it, that is the message we're looking to communicate. But at a communication level, like understanding even how to begin that communication really requires us to take a step back so that we can consider the people we're telling that story to. So just to connect this to the topic that actually came up in the talk about how we do that communication, it's really fundamentally about, and just a quick aside about that talk. So in the Agile 2023 conference, we actually applied for a longer workshop, like 120 minutes, 160 minutes, one of the long time boxes. And they'd come back to us and said, why don't you do one of these 30-minute segments? So we really pared down a lot of the things that we wanted to say. And so to connect back to what really, what emerged was actually, it was actually probably a better talk than if we'd had a longer period of time to do it. We just, we had to cut everything until we could come back with just,Brian (08:36)
Yeah. Hahaha. Mm.McCaul Baggett (08:58)
the real good nuggets. And what stayed was this. In order to communicate effectively when you're going through any kind of change management process, first of all, having a change management process and a plan for how you're gonna manage that, that's your beginning. But to get a little bit more particular about how we communicate about that change, there is one technique which we agreed was probably the thing to focus on so that it would be most universally helpful. in any stage of a transformation that was going on. And that was creating a, finding a way to create a narrative, a personal narrative that could connect to the various people that you're trying to connect to, right? So to create a testimonial. And so we spent our time in that talk discussing how to really get a useful testimonial. And then once you've... got that how to do something useful with it. And we outline kind of five steps for how to think about this. Brian, tell me if I'm getting too deep or you kind of want to... Okay, cool. And I don't know that these are the only five steps. We try to make it easy to remember. The takeaways that we were trying to give were, you have to be first thoughtful about what it takes to make a compelling testimonial. So this is where I mean, you can't start with why.Brian (10:00)
No, no, this is awesome. Go for it.McCaul Baggett (10:21)
we're doing this, you have to start with who you're speaking to about why. Because the why shifts. If you're speaking to stakeholders, there's one why. And if you're speaking to the organization, to your employees, to the people that are doing the work, it's not that the why is different, but the way that you talk about it may be different. So once you know what it's going to take to make the testimonial, the next step would be to think about how you can work. how you can set yourself up ahead of time to maximize the potential to make an impact with your audience, to plan. how you're gonna get the story, the testimonial that's gonna resonate. Which is the story that I wanna tell? So fundamentally what we're doing here is we're assuming that, testimonial, this is only one way to communicate, but it's a fairly useful one universally. If you're going to try to get that testimonial, what are the questions that are gonna be useful to the who that you've identified ahead of time? What is the story you need to find to tell? Then step three is actually. having the conversation. So you've already done a lot of pre-work ahead of time before you even begin the process of the discussion. And then once you've started the discussion, once you've got it, using that testimonial, which is typically recorded kind of like this, grounding that in a way that doesn't sound overly positive and really connects with reality, and then using what you've got to spread that awareness as broadly as possible. So five steps. Know, think, get. ground and grow. I don't know if that's a useful mnemonic of any kind, but that's what we came up with.Brian (11:59)
That's awesome. No, like I said, easy to remember. Just a few things to kind of keep in mind there. Yeah, I love the concept of telling it as a story, that we're not just, because that makes it much easier for me to see myself then fitting in there. Like we talked about earlier, right? If I have a fear of, oh my gosh, does this mean that I'm gonna lose my job? Does this mean that I'm gonna have to... McCaul Baggett (12:03) Yeah, just five steps.Brian (12:24)
now do something that's very different from what I've been trained for or what I'm used to doing or what I wanna do as a career, telling it as a story can kind of allow me to see myself in the story.McCaul Baggett (12:37)
You are exactly right. Not only does it allow you to do that, we as humans are wired to do that very thing. We do it all the time. In fact, when you're listening to a podcast like this, you'll often sort of have the sense that you're sitting at the table, thinking through, like you're literally exercising pathways in your brain as if you were participating in the conversation. And that direct involvement allows you to mitigate some of the inherent resistance that you. that you find, that amygdala hijack, that fight or flight response is not present because you're following along in a story, hopefully about a successful element of the transformation. So you really engage that piece right from the very beginning.Brian (13:20)
Yeah, I love this and understand to the listeners as well, right? I mean, we're speaking at like a neuroscience level here and trying to understand that, you know, the preparation that needs to be made so that, uh, like McCaul is saying, there's not that amygdala hijack going on of just saying, uh, oh my gosh, I'm panicked. I can't get past this panic. Uh, you know, in my, that's going on in my head that has to be stripped away. That has to be. resolved so that now I can start to learn, now I can start to see and form, like you said, the new pathways. And that is, you know, physically what's going on. We're forming new connections in our brain to say, oh, I've never seen it this way, but let me try to make this connection and see it a different way.McCaul Baggett (14:10)
Yeah, not only is it important to do that, we as humans, now I'm stepping a little far beyond my training, so I'll be careful. My understanding is that fight or flight response really lives in an entirely different system, in the limbic system of the brain, much earlier part of the brain. And in order to engage the neocortex at all, or in any significant way to create thoseBrian (14:21)
Ha ha ha.McCaul Baggett (14:39)
pathways to be able to see a perspective of the other than our own, we have to kind of dampen that limbic response, that fight or flight. Will I, won't I have a means to feed myself beyond this space? Am I safe before we can start to begin that conversation, to begin that connection with someone we want to connect to?Brian (14:59)
Absolutely. And I think this applies not only, I mean, we started in kind of approaching this from sort of a high level top down, like you said earlier. But I think it applies even if you're a Scrum Master, or maybe you're part of a small group in the organization. Maybe you are in an organization that's not agile in any way, but you've gotten permission to have a pilot, to just have a pilot team.McCaul Baggett (15:08)
Sure.Brian (15:28)
and your desire is to grow this in the organization, or maybe they're doing it poorly and you wanted to have one pilot team that does it the right way so you can start to spread this out to other places. All this applies, I think, to you as well because you're gonna be communicating this and you're gonna encounter the same resistances, right? You're gonna have the same kind of skepticism. You're gonna have the same kind of possibility have someone have amygdala hijacks going on thinking, Oh my God, what's this guy doing? What's this woman doing? Why is she trying to make these big changes in the organization? Is she gonna try to change my job? Yeah, am I under threat? So while we started top down, I think it applies bottom up as well. They're all principles I think we have to think through before we even start to try to communicate with this.McCaul Baggett (16:05)
Yeah, am I under threat? Oh, absolutely. I mean, any good scrum master is gonna be thinking and hopefully practicing their ability to deal with any tense conversation. And so that limbic engagement, that epinephrine and adrenaline start coursing through the brain. And you can see it in many people when you're looking at group dynamics, regardless of large or small group dynamics, but any group. that shutdown of the ability to really process new information and assimilate it, you have to start by working past the threat. You have to get people beyond that sort of defensive place before the conversation can even begin. Yeah, I agree.Brian (17:01)
Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Well, in how we're talking about this, I kind of had this one scenario in mind I wanted to kind of run by you because I know I've encountered this before. I know, you know, I've encountered this in classes before. So I'm curious kind of how this communication approach would kind of adjust for this kind of individual. But what about the person who just sort of is crossing their armsMcCaul Baggett (17:11)
Sure, hit me.Brian (17:28)
And they kind of take the approach of, ah, this is a fad. It's not so much as an active, hey, I'm gonna really counteract you and go against you to try to dispreview, but I'm just gonna, you know, I'm not budging. I'm gonna stay here, because I know this is a fad and it's gonna change eventually back to the way I wanna do things. So you do whatever you wanna do, but you know, I'm not gonna get on board with you because. I've seen lots of things come and go on this is just anotherMcCaul Baggett (17:59)
I think that takes a couple of forms. Certainly some of those, and particularly when I've been asked by an organization to come and do training, you get a lot more of those because, nope, they didn't raise their hand to come and join a public class or something. I think there's really two significant flavors of that engagement. One is, as you described, someone who's just sort of like passively waiting for this to sort of blow on by. And that's a lot more tricky than the one that's actively pushing back. By far, I prefer someone who's willing to stand up and say, this is not going to work here and here are the reasons why. Because to come into the space of someone who is not choosing that engagement is inherently threatening. So you've picked a very challenging person to get through to, um, because directly calling them out and being like, Hey, Brian, you've been really quiet. What do you think of what's going on? when they were not inclined to share that, sort of already starts to engage that, am I prepared to risk saying out loud what I think is gonna happen? And it also, it could inherit, it could just by the nature of asking them to speak out loud that they don't believe in what's going on around them, sets them apart from the rest of the group and could mean that makes them something of a target if they don't feel like their culture is a safe place to speak. So, That is your problem Often I have found that a testimonial based approach, one where you can tell someone's stories about someone in a similar position, not stories about why this is going to work from a leadership position, but a testimonial based communication campaign is one of the best ways to reach folks just like this. You don't need to directly address them. You don't need to confront them. It's fine. If you're not, if you're not buying this, that's okay. Why don't I tell you about where it's happened elsewhere? And frankly, that thing is one of the things that training in person used to be so great for, because you could stand away and kind of watch these people who weren't necessarily bought in, sit back and just study what was going on in front of them. It wasn't being forced on them. They could just sort of watch their teams and you'd do something silly like.Brian (19:58)
Yeah.McCaul Baggett (20:17)
play any number of the Agile games that are meant to demonstrate things like small batch processing or teaming, right? Team dynamics and that joy that human collaboration and competition can bring in a really small scale in a very short amount of time and like a magic trick you could be like was that fun? Was folding these paper airplanes and throwing them across the room fun? And they'd be like yeah it was fun it's paper airplanes whatever I'm not working and then you could take a step back and say okay Was it fun because you just love folding paper airplanes or was it fun because you were making connections with people that you don't get to do in your daily job? And just sort of, again, the story here is, look what's over there. Look what this says about the nature of communication. It's not testimonial based per se, but it is lighting that fire, that inspiration that I always loved about training. And it's not just in person, but it really... I do miss that about in-person training because you could really connect really well.Brian (21:19)
Yeah, I mean, we're talking about communication in general and we can't escape the Agile Manifesto comment about it. It's best done in person face to face, right? So it doesn't mean you can't in another way, it just means it's best that way and it works easiest that way, right? Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah, I just wanted to just, go ahead.McCaul Baggett (21:28)
That's right. That's right. I'm sorry. Not to go too far off topic, though, but to that very point, we see this request of many executives later, the return to the office movement being another form of, is that the best way to communicate? Yeah, it is. Is it the only way to communicate? Should we be seeking that to the detriment of our work forces at scale? And there are many reasons that people are choosing to encourage their. employees to come back to the office. But I think part of that is because leadership is also far easier in person. So we're missing some opportunities for leadership to understand how to lead remote teams and may have caused that sort of same challenge. Anyway, another topic.Brian (22:23)
No, no, I agree. And I think that part of that as well is just kind of the general whole. I've talked about this a couple of times in the podcast where we, we seem to be stuck in a cycle of trying to find out what is the way to do something versus what is the way for this team, for this organization to do something. There's lots of data out there that we can get, can inform us. Just like if I'm a product owner. There's lots of data that can inform me about the market, but ultimately I've got to make the call about what's right for us to do next. Same thing with the organization, same thing with the team. What's going to work in this instance?McCaul Baggett (23:03)
Absolutely. It's probably one of the biggest challenges that I think, uh, when we see transformations, not even transformations, when we see an agile, um, enthusiast really go off track and good. I did it for sure when I was a new scrum master. Like this is how the scrum guide says we're supposed to do things and we're not doing these particular things. We need to do scrum the right way. that sort of the willingness to take a step back and say, well, there are a lot of better practices. Is there a best practice in our case that is true? Actually, the challenge is not, is there a better practice in all cases? And almost certainly not, but there may be a better practice in our case, even a best practice in our case, but you have to be willing to let go of the dogma of this is the way it's meant to be, and instead seeking, seeking to be informed by these, yes, science-based studied practices. It is better to be in person, but let's not fire all our remote employees. Let's, let's figure out another way or let's make teams that can figure out other ways to do it.Brian (24:11)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we're in an interesting time, I think, as far as that's concerned, because like you said, it's the dogma, I think, of pragmatism and what's gonna work best in this scenario. Yeah, I struggle a lot in classes, even, when people will bring up certain topics, to ever say always, that this is always, it should always be this way.McCaul Baggett (24:22)
Yes. Yes.Brian (24:36)
Because I don't know, I frequently will say things like, my experience has been, what I have seen is this, but that's just my experience. And that's a limited set of experiences. You have to line that up against what you've experienced and what your organization is going through and say, hey, does this sound similar? Are we seeing those same things? Are we not seeing those same things? There are best practices. There are some things that we could say, yes, this... And a lot of situations will work best in this way, but not all. And that's where it takes experience. That's where it takes somebody who's been there before to know.McCaul Baggett (25:16)
Well, yeah, and a lot of this grew up in a very particular environment, right? So Agile practices, many of the ones that we've adopted, grew up through software, and through software in North America. So one of the things that I've been passionate about, and one of the reasons that I've pursued the career that I have is because a lot of the Agile community looks like you and me, right? So if you take into account not only are these the, quote,Brian (25:29)
Ha ha.McCaul Baggett (25:43)
but it's for teams that tend to look like you and me, tend to live in North America, and tend to be working on software. And that's such a narrow area that we're foolish to assume that such a thing as best practices have been codified yet.Brian (25:58)
Yeah, no, and please, for the listeners, don't get me wrong because if you listen to the show, you know I'm a geek for the data. And I love being able to have really hard scientific data that you can look at and say, hey, studies show that this is how you do this, but you gotta be cautious about asking, was that a rigorous scientific actual study or was this just an internet sampling?McCaul Baggett (26:13)
Yes.Brian (26:26)
That's not a scientific study. That's just kind of gathering people together and saying, hey, if this group of people who choose to respond to this, what do they think about something versus something else? But you're absolutely right. You have to understand the basis of where this comes from. And the basis of where we get a lot of our stuff is people who look like you and me, who have been working in the software industry for kind of the time we've been working in the software industry. So things have changed.McCaul Baggett (26:50)
Yeah.Brian (26:53)
cultures change, cultures bring different dynamics into things. And what works for my team of five, six developers based here in Dallas, Texas, is going to be very different from my team that I have five people in India and three people here, or even all the team is in India, or all the team is in Malaysia, or all the team is in Saudi Arabia or Ireland. I've worked with teams all over Israel.McCaul Baggett (27:09)
Yes.Brian (27:23)
You work with teams in different cultures and you have to understand what the playbook I used for that last team ain't gonna work for this next one because they're different people.McCaul Baggett (27:32)
I heard the term coined radical pragmatism. It was, JJ Sutherland said it. And it was, it is precisely what we should be shooting for. Radical pragmatism informed by the best data, informed by the best science, and then immediately thrown away when it's not applicable to the situation we're in. Yes, these are the ladder, the rungs, the steps to head in the direction we need to be headed, probably, but let's evaluate them for ourselves and reevaluate.Brian (28:02)
Yeah, if you're gonna go buy a car, you're gonna do your research, you're gonna figure out what gets the best gas mileage, blah, right, all this stuff. But then you're gonna get on the line, you're gonna test drive and go, I just like the way this feels. Ha, ha, ha.McCaul Baggett (28:12)
That's right, test drive the car, yes, for sure.Brian (28:16)
Awesome. Well, this has been a great conversation. I really have enjoyed having you on, McCaul. And yeah, thank you for kind of sharing kind of some of the wisdom in there from the talk. I know we, you know, the talk was not long and we have not long to kind of dissect stuff here in our podcast, but I appreciate you making time to share with us.McCaul Baggett (28:36)
Absolutely, Brian, this is a pleasure. And if you ever need somebody to shoot the breeze with again, give me a call.Brian (28:42)
I will take you up on that.McCaul Baggett (28:43)
Thanks. -
Join Brian as he discusses the crucial elements of sustainable agility with Leor Herzfeld, Agile Coach and CEO of Integral Agile. Dive into the human side of sustainability and discover the 14 dimensions essential for creating a culture that truly engages.
OverviewIn this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner sits down with Leor Herzfeld to unpack the concept of sustainable agility from a deeply human perspective.
They explore why external changes often fail and how a focus on individual health—encompassing safety, autonomy, mastery, purpose, and accountability—can lead to genuine, lasting transformation within organizations.
Leor shares practical tools for leaders looking to foster an environment that supports continuous agile practices and nurtures employee engagement. Listen in as they discuss how to achieve a resilient and thriving workplace.
Listen Now to Discover:[1:01] - Join Brian as he explores the vital role of sustainability in Agile methodologies with expert guest, CEO of Integral Agile and author of the upcoming book Reimagine Transformation, Leor Herzfeld.
References and resources mentioned in the show:
[2:09] - Leor delves into the meaning of human sustainability, explaining its significance and impact.
[4:33] - Brian discusses the inherent resistance to change, noting that even positive transformations require adjustments.
[5:22] - Leor poses the shift from thinking about only the holistic, healthy Agile culture and team to focusing on a healthy individual.
[7:14] - Brian and Leor explore what sustainability and sustainable pace practices entail in real-world scenarios.
[10:03] - Leor examines the reasons behind employees' lack of engagement in their organizations and work environments.
[11:49] - Leor discusses 14 key aspects of individual health that are essential for creating a sustainable and healthy environment at both individual and organizational levels.
[14:03] - Leor shares a tool to assess the Agile health of your team or organization.
[14:53] - Enhance your team's performance with Mountain Goat Software’s specialized private training, including exclusive classes for leaders that accommodate their busy schedules. Dive into training that promises to elevate your team and organizational health, ensuring success across the board. You can email the Mountain Goat Software team for detailed information.
[16:43] - Leor shares how he measures the sustainability and health of the teams and organizations he works with.
[18:46] - Brian highlights a frequent issue encountered in classes: Agile teams feeling unsupported by their organization's culture.
[22:27] - Leor delves into the evolving landscape of the Agile world, exploring how shifts can foster greater organizational support and, thereby, sustainable environments.
[28:58] - Brian shares a big thank you to Leor for joining him on the show.
[29:52] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership into that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software, where we get right into the good stuff and have some deep discussions. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes. You can find the schedule here.
[30:17] - We invite you to subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast. If you have feedback or a great idea for an episode of the show, send us an email. We can’t wait to hear!Leor Herzfeld
Want to get involved?
Integral Agile
Integral Agile Health and Happiness Assessment
Reimagine Transformation by Leor Herzfeld, David Hersey, Ben Williams, and Julio Pizarro
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Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected] episode’s presenters are:Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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.
Leor Herzfeld is an Agile Coach and creator of the Integral Agile Approach, combines his artistic and scientific expertise to drive transformative changes in the financial and educational sectors. He is dedicated to developing advanced collaboration tools that enhance organizational design and enable seamless workflows, drawing from his unique blend of artistic vision and scientific insight.
Auto-generated Transcript:Brian (00:00)
Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're here for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I am with you as always, Brian Milner. And with me today, I have Mr. Leor Herzfeld with us. Welcome in, Leor.Leor Herzfeld (00:13)
Thank you, Brian. Happy to be here.Brian (00:16)
Excited to have Leor with us. Leor is somebody who we kind of cross -passed at the Agile 2023 conference this last year. And he had a talk there that was really, really interesting. And we wanted to have him on for a while now to kind of share some of the insights from that talk with us here on the podcast. So his topic was called sustainable agility. But we were talking about this before he had. So Leor, I'll kind of turn this over to you. Help us understand, because it sounds like that's maybe, that might be a little misleading into what we're really talking about. So what are we really talking about?Leor Herzfeld (00:56)
Well, yes, so it's misleading from the perspective of sustainability with regards to the buzzword that it is today, right? So we think about, you know, are we being ecologically responsible and so on and so forth. But in fact, this is sustainability from a more human perspective. So what happens typically when the coach or scrum master leaves the team? Oftentimes things fall apart, right? When that kind of protective presence leaves. the gains that were made tend to erode. Now, why is that the case? Often it's the case because whatever change they've put in place was external. It was a process -oriented change and it's not something that really penetrated into the hearts and minds of the people there.Brian (01:44)
Yeah. Yeah. I make an argument there as well. Cause I know this is something that, uh, like Lisa Adkins will, will mention is that, you know, if that, if that coach that leaves and there's a vacuum and a hole, and now they're kind of lost, that coach didn't really do a great job because part of our role is to create that capability so that they don't depend on the coach. Right. Um, so yeah.Leor Herzfeld (02:10)
Yeah, and you know, I'm going to go ahead and take the coaches side here, which is a rare point of view for me. Don't get me wrong. I love coaches and I love agile. But I often think, you know, sometimes coaches might be coming at the situation from, you know, a lack of empathy. You know, they're very process oriented and I've heard many coaches blame the client for, you know, not listening to them where.Brian (02:16)
Hahaha.Leor Herzfeld (02:36)
you know, as a coach myself, someone who's been a coach for 15 years, I've always felt like it's my responsibility to connect empathically with the person because what are we doing when we're coming in to bring in a massive change? And in essence, Agile is asking people to think backwards, right? It's thinking from the perspective, whether we're talking about, you know, the definition of success is no longer output, it's now outcome. or we're not going to do right to left planning, they're going to say, oh, when's something going to be done? And we're going to say, well, I don't have a baseline for how your teams are performing yet. So let me get back to you in about a month after we'll establish what the team's velocity and throughput is. And that's a terrifying thing for people to hear who are accustomed to doing things a particular way for five, 10, 15 years. So when coaches come in and they're just like, well, here's the process and it must be done this way, why aren't you listening to me? You know, that's where I sometimes take exception with how coaches approach it. I see it as a personal responsibility as a coach to understand the intrinsic motivations of every individual with whom I encounter and really help them get that I understand that you're taking a risk. I understand that you've spent, you've gotten where you are today in terms of your career. You've gotten here by doing these things. And I'm now asking you to throw that out the window and do things differently.Brian (04:02)
Yeah, it's tough. I mean, the change in itself, anytime we go through change, it's hard and there's resistance to any kind of change that we encounter in our lives. You know, even changes that we would seek out, you know, like getting married or having a kid or anything like that, you know, like it's, we, we, we, uh, we enter into those changes very willingly, but it doesn't mean that every aspect of that change is something that we embrace wholeheartedly, you know, uh, There's adjustment periods and there's just something that you got to get used to when you go through those. And I agree with you. I think the organizations are the same way, the people in those organizations. So I love this approach. I love kind of thinking about it from the human perspective and kind of the impact it makes there. So let's go further into it. So if we're talking about kind of the human aspect of this, help us understand that a little bit more.Leor Herzfeld (04:56)
Right. So this is something that, you know, that integral agile, this is my company, we've created the integral agile approach. It's intention. So when I say I'm having empathy for coaches here, agile talks about how important the mindset is. And they talk about how important it is to create a healthy agile culture. But if you Google how to create a healthy agile culture or how to cultivate a healthy mindset, there isn't anything that someone can have a look at. and say, oh, I'll just do that then. And the reasons for that are, of course, is it varies place by place. And it's ethereal, right? It's a very difficult thing to codify. We've tried to do that anyway. So the basis of the talk I gave at Agile 2023 was about, if we're talking about sustainable agility, the individuals. So Agile often talks about healthy teams. But I never hear it talking about healthy individuals. And is it possible to have a healthy team if the individuals who make them up are themselves not healthy?Brian (06:05)
Yeah, that's a very, very good point. And by the way, I got to just stop down here because I got so excited with our topic that I kind of skipped over really giving Leor a proper introduction. I'd said that we cross paths from Agile 2023, but you just reminded me that I didn't really introduce you. Leor is the CEO of a company called Integral Agile. And their philosophy is trying to work to have Agile deliver the results that it promises, which is, again, we were talking a little bit before we started about how that's just not always the case. We see, in fact, it's often not the case. There's a lot of circumstances where organizations are just not getting the promise that they thought they were going to get with Agile. There is a book that is not out yet, but is coming out that Leor is going to have out in a bit called Reimagine. transformation. And so be on the lookout for that. That's going to be a really, really important book, I know. So sustainable from a human perspective, sustainable is the person healthy, is the person working in a way that they can kind of keep that up over a long period of time. There was an interesting thing I came across actually on this that I don't know if you've. encountered this or not, but I know when the whole agile concept of working at a sustainable pace, before that even came up, I think it was from the XP team, when they had originally started to deal with this whole concept of sustainability, their original kind of approach was about, when they started, they actually quoted it as something like, people shouldn't work more than 40 hours a week. And they started from that perspective of we got to limit all this because we're having all these people work nights and weekends. And so let's just say people shouldn't work more than 40 hours a week. But that adjusted over time and it changed it to sustainable because what they realized was, well, for some people, sustainable is less than 40 hours. For other people, it's more than 40 hours. So who are we to say, you know, Hey, this is what sustainable is for you. You've got to find your own sustainable pace.Leor Herzfeld (08:31)
Yeah, and sustainable pace is a part of it. But you know, if we're talking about so you you, you also may have seen, you know, the Gallup State of Work poll that came out last year. And we've heard about quiet quitting. And, you know, you just have to see now, especially with with Gen Z coming into the marketplace, and, you know, they've got a completely different mindset and they have different expectations at work. They have expectations that are valid. They have expectations around psychological safety, diversity, equity, inclusion. There are things that organizations are struggling to adapt to because there's been this kind of like, you're going to come here and work and you hear people being called resources and that makes us cringe. But there's this old school mindset. And again, I really want to respond to this with empathy and not make like where we are in the world today. This is a slice of human history. And it's very easy to look at, you know, to try and make things wrong, whether it's like there's a mismatch in culture, you know, boomers versus Gen Z versus, you know, millennials, Gen X, whatever. We've got different cultures. We've got different mindsets and we need to figure out a way to come together. So something like... Let's not work 40 hours a week is important, right? But it's not sufficient to say, okay, well, we now have a healthy individual.Brian (09:55)
Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot more that goes into it, right? There's, I mean, that is part of it, obviously, because you don't want to have burnout and everything else, but I love you bringing up the point about quiet quitting and engagement. You know, there's clearly, you know, lots of organizations deal with this issue of engagement and having a disengaged workforce and trying to have engagement initiatives and raise the level of engagement of employees and all that kind of stuff. So it's clearly a recognized problem. It's clearly something that organizations struggle with and have experimented and tried to find solutions to. So from your perspective, what do you think about that? Why do you feel like organizations are having such a big issue with engagement with their employees?Leor Herzfeld (10:44)
I think people don't feel valued. They feel like they're fungible parts in the machine. But more so than that, they lack a connection to purpose. So most folks operating in an organization don't know what the organizational purpose is. And if they haven't done their own personal development work, they probably don't know what their own personal purpose is. So they're in there to get a paycheck. And there's this kind of adversarial relationship. I would think most people kind of hate work, right? And again, maybe this is me just being utopic, but I really feel like it doesn't have to be that way, right? And there's this idea of, you know, even in any, something like a retrospective, we don't have time to do the retrospective. So like, you know, oh my God, if we're gonna try to really get down to a human level and try to connect with our people and see what motivates them intrinsically, Like who has time to spend on that? But wow, if you spend the time on that, what do you get? What's your return on investment there? If you can actually help a person connect to what they're passionate about and then how what they're passionate about can contribute to the organizational purpose, which might mean changing their role, right? It's like sticky icky and people don't want to touch it.Brian (12:08)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like, uh, you know, if you were in a professional athlete of some kind and you played whatever game your sport, you know, has, and you just went from game to game to game and never stopped in between to watch the game film or analyze your, your, you know, uh, swing or, you know, right. You got to have that, those moments to stop and be critical, uh, so that you can then say, all right, well, this didn't work as well as we should have, but. Let's try something new. Let's try a different way of approaching.Leor Herzfeld (12:41)
Right. So this is what we came up with. I've got, you know, I'm curious to hear if anyone has any feedback, but so far these have felt, they've gotten pretty good feedback. So we came up with 14 dimensions of individual health that we feel need to be addressed in one way or another. So I've got safety. I love Daniel Pink. So we've got autonomy, mastery and purpose. Personal growth, right?Brian (13:08)
Yep, I'm with you.Leor Herzfeld (13:11)
Person needs to feel like they're learning something or they're gonna get bored. Career growth, if there's no path for them to grow in their career, then they're gonna look for work elsewhere. Diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, right, very important. Play. Things don't have to be so damn serious all the time. We can have a little bit of fun at work, people. It's not dangerous. You need healthy relationships with your coworkers. Accountability.Brian (13:31)
Ha ha ha.Leor Herzfeld (13:41)
Um, and accountability is something that, that is not intrinsic to a lot of people. It's something that often needs to be taught and it's about showing up with integrity. Um, doing what you say you're going to do by when you're saying, by when you say you're going to do it, you know, being your word. And a lot of that comes from, and this is one of the reasons why I love scrum is it creates that accountability to the sprint goal. Hopefully in a way that is, you know, inspirational and not, um, command and control, um, mentoring. People need mentors. Achievement. This is another area where I feel modern Agile for very good reasons is missing something. So we look at performance at the team level. Absolutely makes sense. Let's not look at performance at the individual level. This can create an anti -pattern where we're now saying, well, you're better than you and that's not what this, but there needs to be some kind of an empirical feedback mechanism for an individual. understand how they're improving and that's not something I've seen thus far. Physical health, so there's your 40 hours a week and perhaps some other things and finally mental.Brian (14:43)
Yeah. Yeah. Those are good. Yeah, I'm just trying to think through. And I don't think I can't, off the top of my head, I can't think of something I would add to that list. That's a really good list.Leor Herzfeld (15:06)
I'm sure it'll grow. So the talk that I gave only had 12, so we've added two. So I'm sure it'll continue to grow. But like everything else, you know, perfect is the enemy of good. So, you know, what we've created here is, so we've got the list of 14 items, and then we've got this kind of shoe -hawry journey of, you know, are you even on the journey? So there's actually...Brian (15:11)
Hahaha.Leor Herzfeld (15:31)
tool for this on the Integral Agile website where you could go in and there's four questions for each one and if you answer at the first one, it's something like, let's take autonomy for example, the first one might say, I'm told what to do all the time. And then there's a journey from there. So it's not like you have safety or you don't have safety, you can have a little bit of safety, have a little bit of autonomy. So we created this beginner master, beginner practitioner master journey. And we've tried to set master it, you know, the objective is to get to the practitioner portion of it. We've tried to set master as like a really unattainable thing at work. Just to, you know, and if anyone gets there, it's amazing. But just to indicate that like our objective is to be practicing these things. We want general health, not expertise in every dimension.Brian (16:11)
Ha ha. So is it kind of a, do you take kind of a survey approach with an organization that you have everyone in the organization kind of rate this and then get an overall score or how do you measure it?Leor Herzfeld (16:32)
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. So where I propose this for various different enterprises. You start, so this is applicable anywhere, right? This is applicable to leaders. This is not just applicable to team members. Leaders are feeling all of these things and oftentimes in more dire ways than team members might be. But if we were gonna deploy this across the organization to get a pulse on what's actually happening, we would do this on a team by team basis. So from an individual perspective, the results will be all over the place. Every team's answers are going to have some patterns. that align based on the team's individual culture. Then if we go to the team of teams area, again, so we're gonna see things, a little bit of difference, because different teams, one team might have a stronger scrum master, and therefore their culture is a little, they might feel more psychological safety or more autonomy. So that'll let you know, right? This gives you like a real big indicator of how agile you are, because agile teams will tend to score a little bit higher on some of these. on some of these results. Anything that's happening at the team of teams level that's consistent is telling you that you've got a systemic problem in that team of teams level. And then of course, you raise it from there to the organization or to the enterprise. So the hope is where you see in an organization something lacking, these are not terribly difficult things to remediate and the remediations for them may or may not be agile.Brian (18:06)
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, I'm just, I'm fascinated by this concept and, and, and I, I like how you broke it down on different levels because you're absolutely right. I'm just sitting here trying to process it through as you're talking through it. And yeah, I can think of scenarios I've been in where we felt like the team has been great or we have a certain level of, like you said, safety or something within a team. But then we feel sort of like the organization is not listening to us or the organization has a different set of values. cultural values than the team does. That is something that I encounter quite a lot in classes too. I hear a lot of people who will say that, that our team is doing all that we can, but we feel like our organization is in a different place culturally and how do we make an impact there? How do we change that? So how would you handle that? What would you say to the teams like that, that feel like we're doing pretty well on our team, but our culture and our organization is just not. kind of in alignment with where we are.Leor Herzfeld (19:13)
Yeah, so the trick with culture is it's very difficult to see. So this is another tool that we came up with something we call the Integral Cultural Map. So in any organization, in any given area in an organization, there's going to be one of three dominant cultures. There's going to be a risk averse, you know, rules and roles kind of a culture. Right. So that culture is going to be, you know, rife with red tape. making sure that we do things the right way. There's a process for the process for the process. And then the next kind of culture that we see is achievement oriented. This culture is gonna be very exciting. There's gonna be a lot of innovation going on. We're gonna be like results, results, results, bottom line. But the pitfall, so let me go back. Let me make sure that I talk about the healthy and unhealthy versions of these cultures. So the healthy element to the risk averse culture is obviously, you know,Brian (19:46)
Right.Leor Herzfeld (20:10)
we're gonna be very safe, lowercase s. So you're not gonna get a lot of dings by compliance in an environment like that. However, the rate of progress is probably gonna be pretty slow. And achieving oriented culture, very exciting, lots of great innovation, but the dark side to that might be very individualistic in terms of, you could have political infighting, you could have leaders,Brian (20:14)
Yeah.Leor Herzfeld (20:40)
not wanting to relinquish their own little fiefdom if it means, you know, if it's indicated that it makes sense from like some value stream mapping diagram, it makes sense to kind of break things up and create cross -functional teams. They'll say, no, no, no, I want to hold onto my teams. You know, so you'll get that as one of the dark sides of the achievement -oriented culture. And then you get what Agilists love is the people -centric culture. And that culture is going to be very much about ensuring that we have... health and morale. But the pitfall of that culture is it abandons achievement. So, you know, you might have people coming out of a meeting where everyone feels great about the conversation that took place, but nothing was actually accomplished. So there's a fourth level to this. And this is, I'm kind of like talking about something that's inside of integral theory. This is the levels portion of integral theory, if people are familiar. Then there's an integration of all three. And one of the things we try to espouse is, you need control, you need achievement, and you need morale. You have to have all three, but you don't necessarily have to have all three in every area of your enterprise. So if you have an objective that says, I want to make 10 million more dollars, but the culture of the area that is in control of achieving that objective is either we care about our people's morale or we care about making sure that nothing breaks, you're unlikely to meet that objective. So a different tool that we have that reveals these invisible cultural value schemes. And of course, the thing that creates the culture in any area of the enterprise is its immediate leader, which is why you'll see the enterprise itself might have, you know, let's say an achievement oriented culture, but then a particular organization might be very people oriented and another organization might be very, you know, rule, role, risk averse.Brian (22:36)
Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah, I mean, I see exactly what you mean. And I see how those things kind of interact with each other. So tell us a little bit about, because I know you have this book that's going to be coming out. And you described it really before we got on about how it's sort of your theory there at Integral Agile. So re -imagine transformation. What are you trying to capture? with this forthcoming book.Leor Herzfeld (23:09)
So it's really taking this thing that we've worked on for the last five years, this integral Agile approach, and breaking it down into a series of tools that people can use. Again, Agile's been very good to me, and I like it very much. I think that it's a little bit sick right now. We've seen there's been like Capital One just declared, hey, we're good, let's get rid of our coaches and scrum masters. And... I, the shine is definitely, I don't want to go so far as to say it's become a dirty word because it hasn't, um, and the industry is still growing, but the, the luster has gone off it. And that's because it's failing to the deliver the results it promises. So after people have been through a transformation two, three, four times, I've dealt with this myself, right? I'm, I'm coming to a team and they've had, you know, three coaches before and they're like, well, it hasn't worked before. Why is it going to work with you? Um, and it's almost like, I used to joke, you know, it's like, um, bad, you know, significant other syndrome. Like the person, like you're dating someone and their last three significant others, you know, treated them like garbage and they're like, they've got that trauma built up. Um, so we're just trying to help everybody with this book. The reasons why agile fails when it fails is because it's only addressing half the problem. It's addressing what you can see. Um, so what we wanted to add into it is how do we take the elements that we can't see and how do we add them back in? not from a, this is an important thing, let's do this perspective, but literally in every single element of everything you do, how do you add it in if you're giving a one -to -one? How do you add it in during sprint planning or during backlog refinement? When you're thinking about OKRs, how can we think about it from these internal and external perspectives? And the thing that we've been challenged by, that we feel pretty good about now, but it took us a really long time to get here, is how can we describe these internal processes that quite frankly many business people have no appetite for whatsoever. How can we put it in a way where they will want to give it the attention it deserves? Because if it's not given the attention it deserves, these invisible blocks, whether they're cultural elements or values mismatches or, you know. people just hate their job, right? People are not aligned with purpose. How can we do this in a way that's visible, that's simple, and that people will actually want to buy? So that's the objective of...Brian (25:47)
I think that's an awesome take because I know one of the things that we try to do in our classes and one of the things I hear from people who come through classes a lot is just, you know, there's a lot of discussion in sort of a lofty, high ideals, wouldn't this be great if things worked in this way? But, you know, a lot of times people don't really understand, all right, well, that's the way it should be in totality. But here's what I'm dealing with on a day -to -day basis. I've got OKRs. I've got all the stuff that I've got to do. How does that change what I do on a day -to -day basis? So I think that's really wonderful. I think that's a really needed aspect of that is, you know, kind of in the practicality, how does this play out on, you know, just what we typically do on a regular basis as a business.Leor Herzfeld (26:38)
Yeah. I mean, if it's not practical, who cares? You know, I'm a giant nerd. I love getting into theorizing and thinking about all of these things at the end of all of that conversation. If I can't say, try this, here's the way to try it. If I can't explain a concept to you in 15 minutes in a way that you can use it, I failed.Brian (26:41)
Right. Yeah. Yeah, I'm right there with you. Well, this is fascinating stuff. And we're going to put a lot of links in our show notes for this episode so that you can get in touch with Leor if you want to find out some more about this or maybe find out about the book that's coming out. Maybe get on a list to be able to buy that once it's available. Also, so you can get in touch with this company at Integral Agile. But this is fascinating stuff. I really appreciate Leor, you taking the time to come on and help us understand this a little bit.Leor Herzfeld (27:36)
Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. And I'll also note that on our site, the majority of these elements are just right there. So a lot of the stuff, the models, the diagrams, how you can actually do these things, we wanted to give that away. So we're just looking to, in a general sense, well, now we're looking to bring Agile back from the brink. I mean, I hope it's not the brink, but we want this to work. And the reason why my company exists,Brian (28:00)
Ha ha. Leor Herzfeld (28:06) is we want to make people's lives better. Our objective is to make people's lives better at work. The first time I ever worked with a Scrum team, the difference in the way they showed up at work, the way they spoke to each other, it was night and day. They're laughing, they're happy. And I think about it, a colleague of mine once said, I'm tired of doing this agile thing. I don't need to help whatever bank make an extra $5 million. And I'm like, dude, that's not what we're doing. I mean, sure, it's a knock -on effect of what we're doing, but every life that we touch where that person feels lighter, feels more able to express themselves, we spend the majority of our times at work. And if that time is misery, then you go home drained, dejected, and you bring that energy with you to your friends, to your family, to your children. If that time is something that, you know, okay, joyful, could be, I like to think so, but even just not painful, it has an effect. So that's what inspires me and that's why we're here.Brian (29:15)
That's awesome. I'm right there with you. Completely agree. It is important. It is important how you show up and what you do at work. It's kind of one of the things I say to people sometimes is both things can be true at the same time. It's fine. Yes, we do help from a business perspective. We're helping people be more efficient with their business and get more from less. And... really achieve higher levels of success. But at the same time, we're also helping people to have more fun at work and to enjoy their time at work, not be miserable with their time at work.Leor Herzfeld (29:54)
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I mean, I, you know, that's a good point you're bringing up. I know we're just about out of time, but I, you know, I don't want the message to get lost that this is like some touchy feely kind of a thing. Um, this is the way, if you want that 300 % boost in throughput, you need this to get there. You're not going to do it by throwing new process at the situation.Brian (30:17)
And I'm geeky enough to just have to repeat that phrase again. This is the way. All right. Well, thanks again, Leor. I appreciate you coming on. And we'll make sure people can get in touch with you.Leor Herzfeld (30:22)
I love it. Awesome, thank you, Brian. - Daha fazla göster
