0:00

Feedback from discord. When

0:02

we do the diversity inclusion, someone

0:04

said for God's sakes, please don't introduce

0:07

yourselves again. So

0:48

you got your first scrum master

0:50

job and you start in two

0:52

weeks. What

0:54

do you do? How do you

0:57

do this thing? You've never done

1:00

before. And this

1:02

episode is in response to a

1:04

couple episodes ago where

1:06

we talked about how you get your first scrum

1:08

master job. So if you want to break into the scrum

1:10

master world, you've never done it before.

1:12

Maybe you're coming from an adjacent industry or something.

1:15

You did it, you listened to the episode

1:18

and we've actually had some people that did that. And they got

1:20

the first job. Yeah. And they start

1:22

in like two weeks. And now

1:25

what. See you, you got

1:27

me unaware. I'm feeling very uncomfortable,

1:29

Josh, because you didn't start the way we always start.

1:32

You just dove in. Well, you

1:34

know, we've had some feedback about us introducing

1:36

ourselves too much

1:37

a lot. Yeah. So I'm not

1:39

gonna tell anyone who I am. Good. Well, they know who

1:41

we are. Yes. Or

1:44

assume. Yeah, that episode. I

1:46

mean, my daughter I'll, I'll personalize

1:48

it a little bit. My daughter Has been

1:51

thinking about pivoting from social work.

1:53

She has a, she's a leader.

1:55

She does organizational development in affirm

1:57

in New York city. So on boards,

2:00

social workers and there's certification

2:02

that they have to do, I guess, I don't know,

2:04

professional certifications annually,

2:07

so they have to have evidence. So they have

2:09

to have ongoing training to do government contracts

2:11

and things like that. To get funding. So she's,

2:14

she does that for a pretty large organization.

2:16

So she does training facilitation,

2:19

she's you know, good soft skills.

2:21

And and I've been trying to twist her arm

2:23

to say, you know, a lot of that

2:26

could be translated to scrum master.

2:28

And I actually, I actually funded her,

2:30

like I said, I paid for a scrum

2:32

master and her PO certifications and things like

2:35

that. Just trying to twist her on

2:37

a dad. Well, I mean, it's self serving,

2:39

so to

2:40

some degree, right? So maybe we shouldn't celebrate

2:43

your dad. I'm not, yeah, I'm not.

2:45

And she hasn't been, you know, incredibly,

2:47

you know, she's been lightly interviewing

2:49

but she recently got offered

2:52

and she has no direct, so

2:55

she has no direct. Technology

2:57

experience. She's never worked in a development

3:00

organization at all, like a software development

3:02

or an engineering or an it

3:04

organization ever. And

3:07

she has no scrum mastery experience, but

3:09

she got offered a position. And so this, this,

3:11

this this cast is, is really

3:13

relevant because I think about like, what

3:15

does the beginning look like that? Yeah. Because

3:18

I think you can go through in our, in that

3:20

episode, we talked about like the interviewing,

3:22

how to tell stories, how

3:24

to translate your, what you do

3:26

have your strengths. That map

3:28

your soft skills and how do they map into

3:30

storytelling and things like that from a scrum,

3:33

but then there's the walk in the door, either

3:35

the physical door or the virtual door

3:39

and like, here's your tea. So there is this,

3:42

you know, apifany phone for folks

3:44

like you walk in the door and you meet

3:46

your team for the first time. Yeah. Right?

3:49

Yeah. And

3:50

you've been down this path, I've been down

3:53

this path. So many of us have. Gotten

3:55

that first role in an agile

3:58

sense, scrum master was the first

4:00

thing for me, that was like an official role.

4:02

And I remember my wife saying, you've never done that.

4:05

Like, how are we going to do that? And I'm like,

4:07

I think it'll be okay. I'll figure it out. But there

4:09

is that moment of like, okay, the

4:12

first standup happens and like,

4:14

what do you do? How do you, how

4:16

do you become a

4:19

voice? How do you establish

4:21

the role? How do you establish yourself?

4:24

So I think the first thing. I w I would

4:26

recommend is embrace your imposter

4:28

syndrome. So in this,

4:30

in, as you walk in, you're

4:32

going to have, you know you know, orders

4:34

of magnitude imposter syndrome, and

4:37

you're not an imposter, but

4:39

you're going to feel that way. So I

4:41

think like, look, you know, look your

4:43

imposter syndrome in the eye. Do

4:45

a little research on it. There's a wonderful video.

4:47

The Alaska and founders have a video.

4:49

They are great. Look at that. I forget

4:51

his name, but one of them has talked about imposter

4:53

syndrome and it's like Michael Cannon

4:55

Brooks. It's a 15 minute thing.

4:58

And the key, the key point he makes is don't

5:00

let it freeze you. So, so I

5:02

think, I think from a meta point

5:04

of view, right, I'm

5:06

coming back, everything comes full circle from

5:09

a meta point of view. Don't freeze.

5:12

Trust yourself or

5:14

somehow goose yourself or energize

5:16

yourself because freezing the

5:19

imposter syndrome could freeze you. Stelfreeze

5:22

maybe another thing is recognize,

5:24

like acknowledge it with your team, right?

5:27

Like the people that interviewed you, they know

5:29

what you th they hired. They're hiring you for

5:31

a reason. They hired you for strengths

5:34

and they understand Rihanna. And I think she

5:36

did a good job of saying, I am not.

5:39

Right. I don't have, she didn't try to fake

5:41

her ScrumMaster experience. She tried to do

5:43

the mapping. So I think

5:45

the company, if they did a fair job of interviewing

5:48

you, then they know they know what you're

5:50

good at. They know what you don't have

5:53

and they still hired you. So,

5:55

so I think when you come in, just

5:57

sort of trust your team with your team

6:00

you know, do what you can

6:02

and expect the team to help you. Where,

6:05

where they can. Right. So it's not, it's not

6:07

the burden zone on you. What do you think about

6:09

that?

6:10

Yeah, I think there's two things. Number

6:12

one, be you

6:15

because they did hire you. They

6:17

didn't hire somebody else they hired. Yeah.

6:20

So be comfortable on that because in

6:22

that also any

6:25

reasonable leader

6:27

that hired you is not going

6:29

to throw you into the deep end. They

6:31

aren't going to give you the worst

6:34

team, the hardest product,

6:36

the strangest, whatever. Right?

6:39

So be comfortable

6:41

that, yes, you're going to have some challenges,

6:44

but you should not be presented with

6:47

the biggest scariest challenges that are out there. You should

6:49

be allowed to ramp up.

6:51

And if not, then, you know, maybe

6:53

life's a little bit hard, but you'll figure it out because you're there

6:56

for a reason, but you should expect

6:58

not to be thrown to the wolves.

7:00

Actually when I talked to Rihanna

7:02

and as part of her process, we

7:05

were talking about when you

7:07

do interview or, or companies,

7:09

you want to assess them. So it's not just about

7:11

them interviewing you, you're interviewing

7:13

them to say, are they going to mentor me? So

7:15

not only are they aware of

7:18

what I know and don't know, but are they

7:20

going to surround me? Yeah. You

7:22

know, is someone going to coach me? Are they going to

7:24

pair me up with someone who can help me? Are they going

7:26

to provide a mentor for me? I mean, not as

7:28

a crutch, but clearly

7:31

as, as a color. And that's part of the

7:33

collaboration nature of,

7:35

of scrum and agile, I think. Yeah. And,

7:37

and that's part of what she's seen. I think

7:40

in her interviewing is you, yeah. They're going to surround

7:42

me. I'm connecting, like who

7:44

you report to, I think matters more.

7:47

Right? Are they, are they going to have the time

7:49

and the wherewithal and the intentionality

7:51

to mentor you, right. Have one on ones with

7:53

you and really sort of grow you because

7:56

you're going to need that. I agree with you. What

7:59

else?

8:02

I keep coming back to. And

8:05

I feel like it's repetitive, but I

8:07

keep coming up with scenarios where the

8:09

don't freeze thing comes

8:11

in. Your team

8:13

needs you to be the scrum master. Maybe

8:17

you've never done it before, but

8:19

you've been put in that position. So

8:21

in those stand-ups in the sprint plannings,

8:24

in the refinements, in the, all

8:26

the things you have

8:28

to be out there, you know, it's

8:31

it's our oldest son is a pitcher. And

8:34

they put you on the mound. They need you

8:36

to throw strikes. You can't worry about

8:38

it. Like, that's your job. So you

8:40

need to recognize that

8:43

you're put in this position and like, you

8:45

have to aggressively

8:48

do the job. If you stand on the mound and you tend

8:50

to Devale, try to throw strikes.

8:52

Yep. It's going to be a disaster.

8:55

You have to go there and be kind of

8:57

aggressive. Don't like, you can't be a jerk

8:59

about it, but you gotta be aggressive with like, Hey.

9:01

I'm here to make a difference. I'm here

9:03

to do something. If you just

9:05

be like, Oh, I'm new and kind of tiptoe

9:08

around.

9:09

Th no, I agree with you. So you

9:11

may not know or have the direct

9:13

experience, but you have to have the boldness

9:15

of, I own this. That's better

9:18

said I own this. Yeah. Right.

9:20

Whether I like it or not, whether I know what to do or not.

9:23

There's no one else going to be there. Right.

9:25

And I have to show up. Yeah. I, I ha

9:27

I'm not trying to overly talk about my

9:29

daughter, but Rihanna and I were talking

9:31

about like what the scrum mastery

9:33

looks like. And to her credit,

9:36

she's shown curiosity. Like

9:38

there's a there was a post on the scrum.org

9:41

site. That's longer than it's

9:43

pretty long. It's like 20 plus pages that

9:45

talks about the eight or 10 stances

9:47

of a scrum master. Just

9:49

like we talk about the stances of an agile coach

9:52

and there's the stances of discrimination and that's part,

9:54

it's not just. Facilitating

9:57

a daily standup. Right? Right. You have

9:59

to show up in the, in, in sort of the, all

10:01

the nuance of it. Now you can have some areas

10:03

where you're more comfortable and less comfortable, but

10:06

you have to realize, like I have to mentor the team,

10:08

right. If there's an opportunity I'm going

10:10

to be coaching the team, or I may be coaching

10:13

up. I have to run

10:15

events. Yes. I have to facilitate

10:17

events. I have to partner with the product owner. Yes,

10:20

et cetera, et cetera. Right? There's this,

10:22

but you have to understand the nuance of the role

10:25

and really put it on and then take action.

10:27

I think that's you don't get it for

10:29

that. No. Or you don't and you

10:31

don't, you can't skip stuff. Like

10:34

you have to, you may say you suck

10:36

at something, you have zero experience

10:38

in this stance, but

10:40

you need to know that you own the stance, so you can ask

10:42

for help for that stance. Right. Right. You can't,

10:44

you can't not do it. You have to have

10:47

the self-awareness to add, to reach out.

10:49

Yes. So,

10:50

so you have to have the boldness to do the job,

10:53

but also. Don't

10:55

be ridiculous. You know, you haven't done

10:57

it before. You still have to do the job. You

10:59

might say like, gosh, okay, I'm trying,

11:01

I'm not doing as great as I'd like can you help me

11:03

or something, but you still need to do the job just

11:05

because you haven't done the job. Doesn't

11:07

mean like you get a pass, like, Oh, I've never done this.

11:10

You know, it's okay. Now you're

11:12

in there. You're in the game.

11:14

You got to play the game. And again,

11:17

like we talked about at the beginning, you

11:19

should be in a position where you're

11:21

not going to be put in a really

11:23

tough spot. You know, it should

11:25

be a nice glide path, but once

11:28

you're there, go with it. Right.

11:30

You got the job you wanted now, like

11:33

run with it.

11:36

Welcome to our diversity and inclusion minutes.

11:38

I'm not going to say our names because I've been told

11:40

we introduce ourselves too many times. So

11:44

here we are. So it's an awkward

11:46

transition. Yeah. So I'll dive in just

11:48

talking about some things. I, my

11:50

daughter and I did a presentation

11:53

a few weeks ago now at

11:55

the Charlotte women in agile group.

11:57

So it was really gosh, it was a privilege to

11:59

speak there. And we S we talked about diversity and

12:01

inclusion and there was and maybe

12:04

like 40 people showed up 45 people showed

12:06

up. So Charlotte has a nice

12:08

woman in agile community down there. Raleigh

12:10

has a chapter, but it's not real active. So Charlotte

12:13

has a pretty active, it's a credit

12:15

to the leaders down there. And. I

12:17

think they may have recorded it. So did that

12:19

talked about that, but there was a group down there

12:22

and I'm blanking on their name. We'll put

12:24

it in after the recording. There's

12:26

a a nonprofit in Charlotte

12:29

that is investing in children down

12:31

there, like a STEM technology,

12:34

introducing it to kids in

12:36

Charlotte. But then they went to Kenya

12:38

I think. And they're fostering

12:40

some bootcamps and things there. Wow. And

12:42

I just fell in love with the, the

12:45

ladies who were talking about What

12:47

they're doing, and

12:48

I assume they accept donations. So it's people that are

12:50

also excited. Then we can put a link in there

12:52

for

12:52

them too. I would love folks to take a look

12:54

at what these folks are doing. And,

12:56

and I can put that other organization

12:59

that I've talked about. So we have two organizations

13:02

that are doing work with young

13:04

girls. In Africa

13:07

to introduce them to technology and

13:09

they're doing just wonderful work and

13:12

every dollar because of the economics there,

13:14

every dollar that you put in has a

13:16

multiplicative effect there. Gotcha.

13:18

So just I'm just really privileged

13:21

to do that. So that's, that's what I've

13:23

got.

13:23

Okay. Okay. I got a couple of things. One I,

13:25

I have received some feedback from

13:28

listeners slash viewers that I really respect

13:31

that have been in our. Twitch

13:34

chats have really engaged

13:36

in discord, all of the things. And

13:39

it's like, Hey, can you not put the diversity inclusion

13:41

right in the middle of the episode? Like I

13:43

really liked the episode. And then you slam on the

13:45

brakes. We're choosing to

13:48

keep this content

13:50

here because it's important to us and

13:52

we know. If

13:54

we were to decide to sell ads

13:56

on Medi-Cal, this would be

13:58

the most expensive. Add

14:01

we could charge for, and it's important

14:03

enough that Bob and I, number one,

14:06

we're not putting ads in here. And number

14:08

two, we are putting this in what

14:10

we believe to be the most expensive, the

14:12

most valuable moment in our podcast,

14:14

because we think it's that important. So

14:16

I understand it's disruptive, but we believe

14:19

it's important enough to keep it here.

14:21

I appreciate that. It might be

14:23

frustrating, but it's going to stay here. So

14:25

the only thing that I have that really

14:27

leans into. Diversity inclusion

14:29

is more on well, no, it's not. So

14:31

it's one of the things I've learned

14:34

over the past year or so

14:36

is the value of pronouns.

14:39

And this is something that I didn't understand. So on

14:41

LinkedIn people may

14:44

see others having he, him

14:47

or she, her and for a while,

14:49

I didn't understand that invite like that. Why

14:52

would you do that? Right. And then

14:54

education at work. It was

14:56

a trans inclusion

14:58

day, right last week.

15:01

And I had been talking about pronouns

15:03

and learning about pronouns because I,

15:05

I have friends that are,

15:08

that are working through that and try and

15:10

have been asked, have asked me to use

15:12

different pronouns when talking to them. And

15:15

I am working my butt off to do

15:17

that. And I have understood the importance of

15:19

that. So I really do incur,

15:21

I am certainly not an expert. I am learning.

15:24

I'm trying to get better for the friends

15:26

I have, that I, that I really care

15:28

about and I'm trying to get better at. So when

15:31

you see that on LinkedIn, be

15:33

thoughtful about it and maybe

15:36

do a little research on pronouns

15:38

and it might be worth you

15:41

updating your. Profile because

15:43

the more we all can do it, then

15:45

the more comfortable everybody else is.

15:48

Around using pronouns

15:50

that might be different than what others expect.

15:52

Well, and it's meeting them where they are. Yeah, exactly.

15:55

Right. I remember years ago, one of the best

15:57

scrum masters I've ever worked with Jeb

16:00

was in Atlanta and Jeb is

16:02

now Gina. And and I had

16:04

written hight actually written a blog post,

16:06

and I referenced jab in

16:08

it talking about his scrum mastery.

16:11

And then when he was looking, when she was

16:13

looking for work, it's like, can you

16:15

update that? Can you update that blog post?

16:18

And I did. And it was, it was actually

16:20

hard for me because

16:22

I was programmed to Jeb.

16:25

It was, it was it was it was just, I was programmed

16:27

with that, like him, he and

16:29

Jeb. And, but it was, I detective

16:32

was really important for him

16:34

and to go to Gina and, and

16:36

like, you, I didn't learn that until

16:38

it was smacking me in the face. And someone said,

16:40

Hey, can you please use

16:43

they or they're. Yeah. And.

16:45

Caring about the person as deeply as I do

16:47

it's yes, absolutely.

16:49

I will absolutely do that, but

16:52

it is, it takes effort. So

16:54

I do ask that you put in the effort

16:56

and, and, and help everyone out

16:58

there and to Bob's point, meet people

17:00

where they are. It's, it's the only

17:02

responsible, respectful

17:04

thing to do. So I, to, I want to real

17:06

quickly I did another Anthony Marcino

17:09

is a coach in Chicago. And he's

17:11

doing some diversity work

17:14

and he has a little diversity minute podcast

17:16

or something that he does video, and

17:19

I can get Josh, I'll send you a link to it.

17:21

And he invited me on a, he normally

17:23

invites other, he tries to give folks

17:25

you know, women in agile or people

17:27

of color. He tries to give them a stage.

17:30

But he invited me because he knows what we're doing

17:32

in the cast and things like that. And

17:34

I, we, I spoke for maybe 15 to 18

17:37

minutes, but net net where

17:39

I left it is I think,

17:41

and this is my mantra is we're

17:43

trying to do something right.

17:45

We're not trying to talk about it. We're trying to do it.

17:48

And it requires hard work and heavy lifting.

17:51

So that goes back to what Josh was saying, that casters,

17:53

I mean, this may be interrupting you, et cetera. Aye.

17:57

Aye. Aye. We care, but we don't care.

17:59

We care more about diversity. We care more

18:01

about change and we care more about

18:03

what are we trying to do? We're not perfect.

18:06

We're trying to use our stage to be role models.

18:08

Yep. We hope you see that and appreciate

18:10

that. More than the,

18:13

and our whole goal is that it creates

18:15

a pause for you and get you

18:17

thinking about. What can I change?

18:19

What can I do? Because it will take

18:21

all of us. So, and with emphasis

18:23

on the do. Yep. Right. It's doing,

18:25

let's get back to that episode. Okay. So

18:29

you made a transition what's

18:32

storage or what is it? Storable. Wait,

18:35

you made a transition from a technology leader

18:37

to a product oriented leader right

18:39

there. And your first

18:41

day as a product oriented leader, you're

18:44

not a product guy, right?

18:46

I mean, you, you have some,

18:49

but, but there was ambiguity, right?

18:52

And you walked in. So you were in

18:54

this position, you took a job. Where

18:56

you didn't have as much of a clue as you

18:58

did on the other side, right?

19:00

Yeah. And so what I'm leading to

19:02

is I think there's also this case and it

19:04

kind of goes to imposter syndrome, maybe a little bit.

19:07

You have to be comfortable with emergent.

19:10

You have to just be able to, so part of it is movement

19:12

and imposter syndrome is you have to be

19:14

comfortable just experimenting and trying shit.

19:17

Right. You have to just like, like.

19:19

Like just, just and have fun doing

19:21

it. So instead of looking at his, I don't know,

19:24

like look at, I don't know, as

19:26

an opportunity to try

19:28

some wild thing and see

19:30

how it works an experiment and see how it lands.

19:33

And I, and so I think you need that mindset,

19:36

that playful mindset. An

19:38

experimental mindset and emergent

19:41

and you need to be really comfortable with ambiguity.

19:44

Yeah,

19:44

right? Yeah. Th th that's the, that's the thing

19:46

that I always fall back on is that

19:48

I trust that

19:51

I will land on my feet.

19:53

It's a better way of saying it. Right. And I know

19:55

it's really uncomfortable. Yeah. But

19:57

your experience, and this is going to be true of my daughter.

19:59

My daughter has oodles and noodles of experience.

20:01

She doesn't have direct experience. If

20:04

she, if she experiments, she will

20:06

land 90% of the time.

20:08

I'm confident she will land on her feet. Right.

20:11

But it's the, you got D you got

20:13

a job. Yeah. Well,

20:14

and like you see those cats that are dropped upside

20:17

down and all the contortions, they have

20:19

to go through to land on

20:21

their feet. That's what you have to

20:23

do. You have to be willing to be dropped

20:26

right. Way up, high, upside, down and backwards.

20:29

And be comfortable that by the time you

20:31

hit the ground, you're going to make whatever movements,

20:33

whatever adjustments are needed to

20:35

land on your feet.

20:35

And that's uncomfortable. Yeah. That's incredibly scary

20:38

and incredibly uncomfortable. I

20:40

can do I, to be honest, I

20:42

do that in most consulting gigs. I,

20:45

if I told clients how often I'm

20:47

just winging it, they would be

20:49

like frightened. It's like, I thought you knew everything

20:51

and you've tried everything. Right. And I've tried a lot

20:53

of stuff, but there's this contextual

20:55

nuance. So very often

20:57

I'm leveraging my experience, but the individual

21:00

things are unique.

21:02

Yes. Right. And it's

21:03

dangerous. Yes. And I

21:06

really want to lean into that where.

21:11

I see so many first-timers

21:14

new, whatever,

21:17

where there's a expectation

21:20

that there's one answer that there's

21:22

one answer that Bob knows the answer that

21:24

if you do this, you're fine. And like, just,

21:26

just, just do the process. And

21:29

sometimes that gets in the way, and it

21:31

becomes about the process and less about solving

21:33

the problem. So be aware

21:36

that your job is filled with ambiguity,

21:40

your team is different than every

21:42

other team. Your product is different than every

21:44

other product. All of that, like, just

21:47

because you can recite the scrum guide.

21:49

That doesn't mean you have all

21:52

the answers. You're going to have to try things.

21:54

You're going to have to experiment. So

21:57

get comfortable with that. Know that

21:59

that's going to happen, not just on day one,

22:01

but on day every day.

22:03

Yep. I would agree. There's

22:05

a, there's an activity part. I think when you walk in,

22:08

you have to be present day one. There's

22:10

a standup. So let's talk about the dynamics

22:12

of a scrum, something at least at the top, right?

22:14

So you can't. Say,

22:17

so I think there's a go in softly

22:20

and listen more

22:23

than you talk for the

22:25

first sprint or two. And,

22:27

you know, so listen, listen and

22:30

actively listen, not just listen, but observe

22:33

and listen. So there's this, listen,

22:35

before you start changing everything, try

22:37

to understand the history of why they got where

22:40

they're at. So don't come in judgy. Don't

22:42

come in and tell you. No don't don't guess is,

22:44

Oh, that's wrong? So there's

22:46

a, there's a sort of a laid back listening,

22:48

observing. Thinking about

22:50

things, but then in the scrum master role,

22:53

it's also, but dive into the daily stand-up

22:55

you got, you got to own the stand up or

22:57

refinement I've got to. And so

22:59

it's, I think there's a, a weird

23:02

juxtaposition of, you know,

23:04

half of the time you're

23:07

you're listening when you first go in. And

23:09

you're just thinking you're getting recognized

23:11

entering. And what

23:16

did you recognize entering

23:18

or orienteering? Right? You're

23:20

you're orienteering. And in most

23:22

jobs you could actually get away. I'm

23:24

sure you did that in your job. You did a lot of

23:26

orienting initially. And then

23:29

you started taking a response, but th the, the

23:31

dynamics of a ScrumMaster job is what I'm saying.

23:33

Is there some stuff there's some stuff you have to do

23:35

right away. And so

23:37

it's, it's a little bit torn that way. So you

23:39

have to have this balancing act. Do you see it that

23:41

way as well? Yeah.

23:43

And I think about. Some of

23:45

the consulting gigs that I've did. Like, that's

23:47

a, it's a very compressed version, but

23:49

you go in, you observe, you figure

23:51

it out and then you take some action. And

23:54

that's. That's what you do every

23:56

time somebody calls you absolutely. Right.

23:58

Every time that you are helping a company,

24:01

wherever it is, the first thing you do

24:03

is, you know, kind of watching listen and

24:05

learn. But

24:06

in this case, it's weird. And I think it's,

24:08

it's probably due to product owner a little

24:10

bit, but the scrum master is so daily active,

24:13

like. I have a sprint. Yeah. And

24:15

you have activities. So what

24:17

I'm getting at is don't get sucked into just

24:19

the activities and don't get sucked into just

24:22

being quiet and listening. You sort

24:24

of have to figure out the balance of both.

24:26

You gotta do both, right? Yeah. And

24:28

just carefully navigate that. I think that's

24:30

probably a unique thing to the scrum master role

24:32

because it's so tight. Yeah. It's so

24:34

execution. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. What

24:37

else do you do first week? A couple of weeks.

24:40

Say, I don't know, be comfortable with saying, I don't know

24:42

be comfortable with failing, fail

24:44

small. In fact, I would, I would

24:47

this going to be something weird, but I would. I,

24:50

you know, if I'm not failing, I might create a

24:52

failure just to see how everything goes

24:54

with that. I don't know what that looks like, but,

24:57

you know, trip into it. Yeah. And falling,

24:59

you know, or something. But

25:02

in all seriousness show, show

25:04

my humanity, show my vulnerability.

25:06

Not shy away from that. Yeah. I

25:08

think that's

25:08

a great point of, we've talked

25:10

a lot about being bold and launching

25:13

and doing the job, the responsibility of that, but

25:15

there, but there is power in vulnerability,

25:18

power in knowing who the team knows

25:21

you. Haven't done this job before. So again,

25:23

don't, don't, don't pretend you've been doing this for

25:25

decades. Go in and be yourself,

25:27

but like jump in. Jump

25:30

in knowing who you are.

25:32

Yeah. Like it's, it's weird,

25:34

almost like a yin and yang to this discussion.

25:36

Right. But absolutely jump in.

25:39

Be yourself, fail, succeed.

25:41

No stuff. Don't know stuff balance

25:44

here. Be quiet over here.

25:46

Be bold in the stand-ups, whatever

25:49

it is. But navigate that really

25:51

be all like presence. Be present,

25:53

be all in. What

25:54

else? I'm going to say something

25:56

that you might not like. Oh,

26:00

given the last video that we published,

26:03

where I talked about using scrum

26:06

to change a culture. Go ahead. I

26:10

think you could practice

26:12

scrum on yourself and

26:14

have a little like sprint plan for like

26:16

this week. Here's what I want

26:18

to do. Have a little backlog

26:21

of like, Hey, I'm going to get better at this.

26:23

I'm going to aggressively attack this

26:26

and focusing on just that. So keeping your

26:28

work in progress, limits low, not trying

26:30

to get better at everything, but like have that backlog

26:32

of improvements you want to make have

26:35

little retrospectives of like, how did it go, maybe

26:37

talk to your team, like, Hey, how are you doing?

26:39

How are things going? Is this working? I'm trying,

26:41

what do you, I think not

26:42

only do I agree.

26:47

But, but I'm like, plus 20

26:49

to that plus 20. Yeah.

26:52

You were afraid. And I can see the connection

26:54

back to, yeah, I'm just, I'm trying

26:56

to be open-minded I'm trying to, I'm

26:58

trying to go up. I'm

27:00

trying to change jobs too. But

27:03

no, I like what you, so I would, I would actually say

27:05

scrum and Kanban and so

27:07

I would, so I'm not trying

27:09

to sound confusing, practice

27:12

what you preach. Yourself.

27:14

And so start with scrum, but

27:17

then three months in and then switched to Kanban

27:20

and to whip limits and visualization

27:22

and on yourself,

27:24

on yourself,

27:26

no desks, no on your desk.

27:28

Have a whiteboard over your, over your terminal

27:31

at home in your virtual environment. A

27:33

terminal. This isn't. Where

27:45

your terminal, he

27:50

just gave me the bird.

27:54

I mean to Shay, but at that, so

27:56

sometimes they date myself that really

27:58

hated myself, then it gosh,

28:01

and you didn't let it go. Now, there

28:03

is an option to let stuff like that.

28:05

And like you were on a really good

28:07

point and then I ruined it

28:09

and I was agreeing with you and

28:12

you still. Yeah, so, but,

28:15

but I'm, I'm really, I mean,

28:17

I'm resonating with what you said at

28:19

home on the fridge behind

28:21

and really, and really do it and

28:23

not just do it for yourself. So there's

28:25

this private learning and it's going to give

28:27

you an advantage, but then talk

28:29

about what you learned. Like,

28:32

Oh, I was one of my, I was, I was doing

28:35

my backlog grooming last night and

28:37

I realized that I need to slice my stories

28:39

differently or something, or I

28:41

just, I just failed my last sprint,

28:44

but that gives it, that gives you a whole line

28:47

of learning. So there's personal learning and

28:49

then there's shared learning with your team

28:51

or teams. And I just love that.

28:53

Yeah, I think that, yeah. All right.

28:55

Well, let's, let's end on that. Do you feel good about that?

28:58

Or do you have anything, you know,

28:58

I wanna, I want to think about, I really

29:00

want, this is an important topic because this is

29:02

a risk. This is a, this is

29:04

a challenge for people. Did we cover,

29:08

I, I think you need to read,

29:11

so please read a couple

29:14

like Jeff Watts has a wonderful book,

29:16

like scrum mastery. So

29:18

it relates to. It

29:20

really, I think you have to become

29:23

a continuous learner and a continuous

29:26

Dewar.

29:27

I'm I'm kind of assuming you've done

29:29

all of that if you've gotten to

29:30

this point. Yep. But you may not have,

29:32

okay. Yeah. You could have just done the certification.

29:35

Yeah.

29:35

Okay. Just because just how my mind works.

29:37

Like, I wouldn't be in this position

29:40

getting a job like this. If I hadn't like

29:42

decided and done all those things,

29:45

have it, but I'm saying even do it again.

29:47

What I'm saying is. You need to,

29:49

you need to become a deep student

29:52

of scrubbing mastery. Yeah. Oh, I

29:54

got

29:54

something. Okay. I, one of

29:56

my favorite product, people that have ever worked

29:58

with Pamela, I'm naming you. She

30:01

opted to not go get

30:03

her product certification

30:06

until after she had done the job

30:09

for like a year.

30:09

That's my preferred path, actually. So

30:12

maybe a year in. Revisit

30:16

those trainings, because now

30:18

your ability to connect those dots

30:20

will be that much greater. And that will be a real accelerant

30:23

for you in your career.

30:26

I would, I would buy that and then let's

30:28

land on this. Yeah. There's so many virtual groups

30:30

nowadays. Oh yeah. They'd have scrum master

30:32

groups our Raleigh Durham meetup

30:34

group. Used to have them. I

30:37

know there's I know there's a scrum master focused

30:39

group in Austin, Texas, Dallas, Texas

30:42

Denver there's one. My daughter

30:44

actually attends a couple of, so you're looking for these

30:46

peer groups to network with. I

30:48

would say, I would say do that

30:50

in general, but what it's going

30:52

to do is it's going to give you you a network of

30:55

people that you can sounding boards that

30:57

you should have mentoring inside the company.

31:00

But let's say you're joined a small company

31:02

where you're the only scrum master or

31:04

you're one of two, then really

31:07

develop your, your external network. And it's

31:09

not, it is not hard nowadays.

31:11

You can really do that.

31:13

It'll be fledgling, but I am going to

31:15

create focus groups in our

31:18

discord server. For scrum masters

31:20

and product owners and folks like that to have

31:22

a dialogue discussion there. Yes. There

31:24

are a ton of other good ones and I am hopeful.

31:26

We can connect people to all of the places. Yeah.

31:28

But that's the, that's, that's the community

31:31

that we're trying to build where people can help each other. So

31:33

there's all those things they're out there. Plus we're going

31:35

to create something as well. I really

31:37

liked this episode because it connects so

31:39

actively back to that other

31:41

one. And I'm really glad

31:43

we visited this because I was thinking like,

31:45

you know, you're motivating folks there. There's a couple

31:48

people. That have gotten

31:50

jobs with very little experience due

31:52

to themselves, but also, you know, we provided some

31:54

inspiration. Yeah. But then there's this

31:56

like, disconnect of, okay. Then they're

31:58

like day one. Now what

32:00

the hell do I do? So we've talked about

32:02

that. If anyone has any ideas.

32:05

That we missed or an extension to

32:07

this episode. I wouldn't mind doing a part

32:09

two or whatever three to this. Yeah.

32:12

If there's some areas that you think we missed

32:14

or you'd like us to hear it talk about

32:17

like successful entry and ramp

32:19

up, man, just hit us with that.

32:21

Yeah.

32:21

And you can connect with us on

32:24

Twitter at Metta hyphen cast all spelled

32:26

out or in discord. The server link

32:28

is below.

32:29

All right. So I think we can stick a

32:31

fork in this sector from beautiful downtown.

32:34

Phew Quave arena, North Carolina.

32:36

I'm Bob Galen, and I'm Josh Anderson shake

32:38

and bake

32:39

take care. Y'all you know, I usually say

32:42

I messed it up. You stole it from me.

32:44

I'm sorry. That's what

32:47

it is. It's just, I think

32:49

that I've been on the terminal too long.