0:00

Our guest today is someone who quite honestly, I've been wanting to speak to for a long time.

0:07

What he stands for is everything that this podcast stands for a nice stand for.

0:12

And the reason why I started this podcast, he is the founder of[inaudible] Inc, a consulting firm.

0:21

He's also the author of scrum, a pocket guide, which is in its third printing as of January of this year, 2021.

0:30

And he has recently started the value in the scrum values has workshop.

0:37

You can catch the next one on the 7th of May and on the 28th of May, they sell up very quickly.

0:44

So I'd highly recommend you getting your tickets as soon as possible, wildly popular.

0:55

Are you ready? Can you handle it?

0:59

Here we go. The independent scrum caretaker.

2:05

[inaudible]

2:06

Welcome to the podcast that challenges you from the inside and discover the agile within.

2:15

And now here's your host, Greg Miller.

2:20

Thank you very much, Greg, for having me on the show.

2:22

It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

2:25

Yeah, thank you for your time. We definitely appreciate it. So, so let's dive right in.

2:29

Uh, I know you've been focused a lot on humanizing the workplace with scrum and around the values, and that's really a big topic of mine.

2:39

Something that this show is really centered around.

2:41

So, um, how can we do, how can we, uh, dive into scrum and how scrum help us with the, um, understanding the values better?

2:53

Yeah, well, indeed one of them, one of my main focuses on, on scrim, let's say, cause I feel Greg, I don't know how you

3:00

See that, but, um, scrim has been around for a while sort of twenty-five years, uh, in the meantime, and I feel in those 20 to 25 years of scrim so far, we have achieved a lot, really a lot amazing.

3:15

Um, but what I about, I still feel needs a lot more attention, um, first and hopefully I've practitioners around the world is, is the people aspect of scrap.

3:26

So, so from that industrial past, know how you see that, that, that we were sort of dragged into the old-school thinking waterfall, linear approach, sequence, shul phases, and so on or very long and almost see boring and certainly not a good fit for the creative process that software development is, which is why we use scrum.

3:49

I feel that we've been overly focused on process, which is good.

3:53

It has helped us a lot, but the people aspect, I still see that a lot of companies struggle with it and that also expresses it.

4:03

It is also expressed in the way that companies approach whatever they called it, agile transformation.

4:09

That's why my, my it's sort of my built in focus on the people, the human side of scrum, let's say.

4:15

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I, I I'm right there with you.

4:18

Uh, in my experience has been that, um, pretty much every place I've been, I'm a scrum master and I started off in QA and was a BA on agile teams, scrum teams.

4:30

So I've been around a minute for about 10 years and um, most, every place I've been is focused on the process, like you said, and, and very, very, it's like the second a secondary, if they give it thought at all, is, is the people and the kind of realize as they're going through agile transformation, I sometimes I say, I don't think they knew what they signed up for when they think it's just a process that's going to make them go faster and maybe be more competitive.

4:58

And they forget that the, and I think this is the hardest part and you've probably seen it too, is, is the change that's needed in the inner going from waterfall to scrum.

5:09

Um, one thing that, uh, uh, as I was, uh, researching into, uh, preparing for this show is, uh, I saw a little clip you did on the illusion of agility that really, uh, really resonated with me.

5:24

And I liked, uh, I liked what you said about that, is that, um, kind of what we're saying here is that, um, they think they're, they think they're agile, they're doing agile, right.

5:36

Um, and they don't really realize, um, what they're in for all the other values and the principles of the agile manifesto and all that, all that like that.

5:46

So what, what do you, um, what are your thoughts around the illusion of agility?

5:52

Well, it's, it's sort of in a way connected to what I call humanizing the workplace or of the lack of humanization of the works Felicity.

6:00

So a lot of large organizations, but often, much to my surprise, not just large organizations, but even small and medium organizations, but certainly very clearly large organization.

6:10

This is, they want to become more agile. Right.

6:13

So, so, and they often look at scrum dip, probably not really sure why that matters and you know, everybody else is doing so that they want to do that too.

6:23

Um, then they don't really think about what they're hoping to achieve, what their sort of main urgencies are and so on.

6:30

So they just dive into it and at what do they typically do?

6:34

So they apply ways of working, um, change processes.

6:40

And so on the way they've done it in the past, but the problem is the problems of the past is what they want to get rid of.

6:48

So they want to want to outgrow, uh, slow long phases, types of processes.

6:56

So you don't want to get away from that. And the problem is when they apply what they're used to doing, they're applying sort of industrial approach to become more agile, which one of the things is that has it doesn't have enough focus on the people aspect, or do you just talk about, but it also, it sort of, industrializes their way of working.

7:17

What I often say is you can introduce crumb, um, as a sort of standard way of working in organization.

7:24

But, uh, I like to say also, it doesn't mean that you have to industrialize your scrum to death.

7:30

Scrum is in that sense of framework, it, it creates a lot of openness so-so YRC on, on, on the topic of the people aspect that scrum is actually more about behavior Asia than it is about process.

7:44

And why is that? The process just installs a sort of simple, lightweight framework.

7:49

It gives direct between two people. It structures the way of working a little bit, but it surely doesn't give answers to every possible question.

7:58

And certainly not front it doesn't tell people whatsoever of meetings to hold or whatever.

8:04

So in the end, the real benefits you get out of scrimmage from collaborating and interacting within the framework.

8:12

And when, when companies, yes, introduce an agile way of working in that lab skill.

8:18

What I often call mass production types of, uh, uh, ways that's the old school way of working.

8:24

It doesn't allow contextual, fine tuning, tweaking, and so on.

8:30

So to give you an example of that, but what I call as in your scrum to their face in a lot of larger organizations, the introduced scrum, and I've know whether you've seen that, but in, and then they instruct they impose a fixed sprint length on every single team in the complete organization.

8:50

It means everybody has to do scrub. And nowadays it seems that everybody thinks they have to do two week sprints.

8:55

So a management or leadership or transformation leads for little coaches.

8:59

Sometimes they tell all teams throughout an organization to work on the same sprint length, and even worse to have the same start and end date.

9:09

And I'm like, Oh my God, that is, that is taken away.

9:13

The openness that scrum offers you because in a way, sprint length, like many practices or many fees that you want to organize, your scrubbing should allow you to June to tweak your scrum to your context, in that sense in the same organization, maybe for product a or for system B of a service, see a different sprint length is the most desirable, maybe at a product, some product they want to work in two week sprint.

9:41

And another, another part of the organization tree, we explained what be the best for them.

9:46

So that's sort of, you can standardize on scrub so that everyone knows everybody knows what is the sprint?

9:52

What are the accountabilities of scrum holders chromatically work, but still in every specific context, you can have a sort of different implementation of scrum.

10:02

And that's what I miss. And that's an effect of, um, that sort of mass production approach to an agile transformation, everybody following the same rules, the same practices and so on.

10:13

And it sort of this destroys the openness, which is, which is third.

10:18

And that's what I call the illusion of agility

10:23

Because

10:23

Organizations introduce it, uh, via a supposed school book approach, uh, copy pasting what other companies are doing, implementing some sort of blueprint model with without thinking and considering what is needed, what is not needed, how to tune that industrializing the scrum to this mass production.

10:43

All the teams in a complete organization suddenly have to go to the same trainings and almost overnight having to suddenly be, or act agile.

10:53

And after a while, they find out that what they were hoping to achieve it's Chrome and that's often, um, improving customer satisfaction, decreasing time to market, increasing the quality of their products, reconnecting with their consumer base, reengaging, the workforce, humanizing the workplace.

11:10

It's not happening. And that's, and that's, and that's what I call the illusion of agility.

11:16

They fought the word, increasing data agility.

11:19

They, they fought for themselves that they were increasing their flexibilities speed, responsiveness ability to, to change direction, to something new.

11:27

And so even the ability to innovate and after a while they find out, so we've now introduced crew, everybody's doing scrum in that sense, everybody's following the process and then they wonder where's the improvement.

11:42

And

11:43

That's when the moment that I call deflation by reality, that follows the illusion of agility.

11:49

Ah,

11:50

Right. Yes. Yeah. I, I, yeah, I saw, yes.

11:52

I heard you say that D yes. So how do we, um, in, in your experience, how, how do you introduce, so a team is, or a company is following the process, scrum.

12:04

They're not getting what they want.

12:07

How do we introduce these values into an organization and help them be agile instead of just following the process?

12:17

Is there any, any, uh, advice you have?

12:21

It's certainly not an easy road.

12:24

I don't know why I didn't notice it because the reason why a lot of those organizations go for the approach that we, that you just talked about is they think it's an easy road.

12:34

They feel they can easily copy paste what other people are doing, that they can easily implement an existing model.

12:41

I don't know. How have you seen it over, over time?

12:43

There was at some point in time, at least some sort of Spotify hype.

12:46

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I have, yeah.

12:49

People wanted to copy that. Yes. Yes, that's right.

12:52

I hear people talking about squat. You know, that it's been at least some influence of, uh, of, of the Spotify model, which actually wasn't a model, but again, um, so, and people go through all of that and then they got you can't avoid to heart work, right?

13:06

Meaning, meaning transforming your organization from an old school silo based really departmental, uh, structured organization towards say flexible organization that is as an organization is, has agility almost in its structures.

13:23

That is not an easy road. And that requires, and that's, that's the big, the big problem, the big contradiction, almost you have to do that almost in an agile way, but they're not used to think and work in an agile way.

13:37

Now, one of the aspects indigenous is how to, um, help them almost live, develops inactive elders.

13:44

And the problem is it's not the one or the other that again, the difficulty is that practices and even doing, applying the scrum process.

13:54

So practices and values for me go hand in hand, you can't, you can't program people's mindset.

14:04

You can't, again, you can't plug in a USB cable, USB cable into somebody's head and it just downloads new fellows doesn't work locally.

14:14

It does look like that. Right?

14:16

So, so practices and fellows go hand in hand.

14:19

So I think it, it, it requires courageous people around the world and not just scrum masters, not just management leadership, but also teams themselves to, to apply the practices.

14:32

And then regularly think of the values.

14:35

Is this reinforcing the values of what we're doing?

14:38

And in what sense is it reinforcing the value?

14:40

So, so fellows and practices for me go hand in hand, you can't just do practices.

14:46

How having the fellows in the back of your head, you just first try to get all the develops, writing people set, and then start applying new practices.

14:55

It's and then the idea is it's not industrial.

14:59

Um, it's, it's falling, getting back up, learning, improving, changing, trying something else, experimenting.

15:07

And, and in that sense that you choirs, um, the current photo and organization in my view to also try to build on the collective intelligence of creative creativity of people.

15:19

So it requires some sense of engagement of people.

15:24

Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned engagement is key.

15:26

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I, I, yeah, I, I, one thing I try to do is I do try to get, uh, the teams engaged that I, that there's a lot of people that, um, you know, people are different.

15:39

You have to read the, read the temperature of the team.

15:42

Some people are quiet, not that they're not engaged.

15:45

I just don't speak up. I try to, I try to encourage them and get them to speak up.

15:49

Uh, but one thing that I try to do as far as the values is I think it's the best way is to just lead by example, um, having, you know, having courage to just, you know, speak up, uh, and, and, and protect the team and speak up for the team on, in front of them.

16:08

I found that that's a good way to build trust and, uh, just being open with them, just telling them, you know, uh, not, not, not blunt, but trying to soften things, but tell them my open, honest opinion on things.

16:22

And, uh, and let them know that it's okay for them to that.

16:26

Um, uh, it's okay. To express your opinion.

16:29

No, one's going to, you know, if you tell me that you don't like scrum, which is fine because in the beginning and a lot of teams, don't like it tell me that you don't like it, but then tell me why, and that's okay.

16:38

I'm not going to run to your manager and get you in trouble.

16:41

So that's, that's a couple of things that I've, I've, I've tried to, do you have similar experiences?

16:46

Yeah, absolutely. I totally recognize that.

16:48

So some of my most powerful experiences were, and to just to summarize it a little bit is in also what call tickets to the team.

16:59

So I often, often, as certainly as a scrum master, I often felt a little bit lonely because they have this sense of, of having one foot in the team.

17:08

But then on the other hand, also one foot, not because you also want to address the organization and in a way connected team to the organization, you want to be able, like you just said, bring in, um, almost open opinions as, as sort of want to have some sort of neutrality in, in that.

17:26

And, and at points at times, I felt like really lonely because, you know, at the same point in time, you're part of the team, you not part of the team, you also have other things to do, and you want to work with the organization.

17:39

And at some point in time, and I really felt almost emotional over that.

17:47

I had had to grow up, go an experience sometimes of just taking to the team.

17:53

So at some retrospective, um, stop trying to be the brave, bold, courageous, whatever guy, um, and just express my feelings to the team.

18:04

And I was not, not that much about giving my opinion about what I saw happening, but sharing my emotions.

18:11

And because when you say I recognize leading by example, but also in the sense of, um, what helped me at least start showing vulnerability.

18:21

So sharing with the teams, Hey guys, this is how I feel.

18:23

I feel sort of slowly, you're doing lots of stuff.

18:26

I, I love what you're doing.

18:28

You're having great results, but I feel locked out a little bit.

18:33

And then a couple of times I got the, the, the, the, the feedback from the team saying, Hey, because we love you.

18:39

We love what you do. You create a great environment.

18:41

It's where we can prosper. We love this.

18:43

So yeah, if you feel locked out and then I started realizing, Oh, it's just part of, in a way, my role as a scrum master, it really, really helps them.

18:54

So, and in that sense, you lead by example.

18:57

So by showing the fact that, um, it's also a humanized working environment in that sense, emotions are important too.

19:05

We don't have to go to the office and leave emotions or personal life or personal concerns, whatever behind us that wouldn't be.

19:14

I wouldn't be humane. Right. So in India, that's leading by example.

19:18

Cool.

19:19

Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah, it definitely, yeah. You said it better than I did.

19:22

Yeah. It vulnerability. And I, I, uh, identify with that loneliness, especially in lockdown now COVID, uh, even worse.

19:31

I mean, in my case, I, um, uh, about a year ago I got laid off due to COVID, uh, from my role.

19:39

And then I was able to, I got a new, uh, role over the summer and I've never met, uh, my team face to face.

19:47

Uh, I've never, I've never even seen some of them, uh, over zoom on camera.

19:52

Uh, never been to office, never met my manager.

19:56

Um, and it it's, it's different. And I did, I did, uh, like you mentioned, I did, I did one time, uh, mentioned to, um, a couple of people on the team.

20:06

I don't think it was the whole team. I did say that I feel, I feel lonely.

20:09

I feel, um, like I'm not part of the team because they had been working together for a while.

20:14

I mean, years in waterfall before we came to scrum.

20:17

So they knew each other, they were always on Jabber and, you know, I'm not on that.

20:23

And they don't really need me a lot to be honest, even though they're a new scrum team, they don't, you know, they don't have a lot of impediments for me to remove.

20:31

And, um, you know, I set up the events and I show up to the events right.

20:35

Over zoom and stuff, and I help them, but you're right.

20:39

I, I actually said, I said, I don't feel like I'm part of the team.

20:41

And then I noticed, um, they started, uh, wanting to do one-on-ones with, and that's where I really started connecting with them.

20:48

And do, do, one-on-ones periodically getting to know them as a person, like you said, humanizing it and talking about not just work, but, um, like an example is, um, I have a team that is working, you know, over 50 hours a week and I'm trying to cut that down.

21:09

Uh, cause I don't, I don't think it's a, seems like a sustainable pace and they've opened up to me and told me that they don't like working that.

21:15

So I'm trying to connect with them on that way.

21:17

So you're exactly right with, with about humanizing.

21:20

Yeah. I can relate to a lot of that.

21:21

Yeah. And, and I, I liked the example you just gave about the overtime because in a way what you're doing, and I love that.

21:28

I recognize that it's, you're trying to create a sort of safe environment for them, but safety is not silently doing what people expect you to do.

21:39

Safety in an environmental scrimmage. Does any, you're creating a safe environment, is an environment where people have the courage and feel the Liberty to speak up and to share things that are bothering them or, or different opinions and go into some sense of constructive conflict.

21:58

And, and, and I like, because, because in a way that you, you you'll sense that this is, this is not okay, this is not just sustainable, that all the dumb things and so on, it's probably also not good for quality and so on because that's what the experience shows.

22:11

It just, it just sends out a signal that we're really busy and it looks like commitment and it looks like engagement now, like you're sensitive to not, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm fond of the way that you bring that to the team.

22:24

And you ask them to think about it. You don't say it's bad.

22:28

You, you create an environment where people feel that they can finally speak up on that.

22:33

And that is actually very unsafe behavior in a traditional environment because it's not what we expected people to do in the past.

22:43

So I like that a lot. And what it taught me also, luckily that leading by example, so we just talking about our relationship with the teams.

22:50

Correct. So that's cool, but what helped me a lot, at least.

22:54

So the last couple of years I've been working a lot with CXO teams, also managing teams of organizations.

23:00

And in a sense, it made sound strange, but approaching those people as people has helped me a lot.

23:10

Right. Because if you go to an almost upfront act like a sort of subordinate or sort of not so great, right.

23:20

Just because you're addressing management is not helpful.

23:25

So I've tried to talk to them as, as let's say, fellow human beings.

23:29

And that helped me a lot because what I noticed with them, like, like you've now felt some sort of problems with the team and not speaking up what I noticed with a lot of managers and leadership.

23:40

And that helped me a lot is that they truly care for their people, but for some reason they they'd climbed the ladder and it, it, it, it looks like a lot of people think that they now have to leave emotions behind because as they climb the ladder, that they have to be strong, whatever sort of leading manager and so on.

24:01

And when I, when I, when I sort of opened up to them, they start opening up to me and, and great things come out of that.

24:10

And that is for me, is so important in introducing scrum, because not just with the teams also with management.

24:16

And like you said, like to just introducing yourself with a team, getting to know them is really important.

24:22

It's way to introduce that behavior into, into an organization or that behavioral change.

24:29

It's a slow thing. Another thing I've tried to do at that, I focused a lot on, on getting over the agility, illusion of agility or not ending up in the illusion of agility is also to make change in a way small again, for organizations, because I talk about those mass production, that mass production approach, all teams going to the same training over a limited amount of time, if not overnight, or sort of leaving your office by Friday and expecting everybody to come back in an agile organization on Monday morning, I try to make it small again.

25:06

And I tried to get management and CXO to thinking in following to us.

25:11

So you've now introduced scrub massively large scale.

25:16

Let's now big, big one initiative, one initiative, only one product, one service for project, whatever you want to call it one initiative.

25:24

And let's have a closer look at how they're doing scope and let's try to improve sort of their scrub let's reimagine their scrub.

25:34

So think in terms of end to end fellow delivery, the accountabilities of scrum product backlog as a one, one plan as well, facilities, infrastructure, support, technology tools, whatever to produce as, as one initiative, at least what I call tasty tasteful tasty.

25:54

So see me releases of product and then, but just for that one initiative and then make it smaller again.

26:02

And it, it, it feels like, yeah, this is going to go too small, but imagine two, three, four years sometimes before they wake apart, wake up, call deflation by reality, wake up, call from the that, Oh my God, this is only in the illusion of agility.

26:17

Now let's make it like, make it small.

26:19

And then again, our approach comes, comes into play as a ScrumMaster, try to create a safe environment for the team, but also as a ScrumMaster to try to, um, help stakeholders management, um, people outside of the scrum team, external to the scrum team and the scrum team sort of grow new relationships based on the ability, the courage to speak their minds and share and work together.

26:45

So, and in that sense, you create some sort of, it's a different perspective, stakeholder management as well, but you create some sort of relationship in which they try to help out each other.

26:57

So, so those let's say, um, people that have climbed to the management ladder, they rediscovered the human side, the fact that they are actually like to work with people and the fact that they actually give her for the people and the people in the teens discover that, um, managers are also human beings.

27:17

And, and, and try to again, get them to think in terms of the values and behavior, interaction, collaboration, more than about process.

27:26

So, so the illusion of agility. Nice, fine.

27:29

It's it's an important finding. I don't, I think, I think you recognize it also in, in organizations.

27:36

The funny thing is I've been speaking to people around the world.

27:39

That's one of the, at least something, what better, uh, aspects of the results of the COVID crisis that I've been able to connect online with people around the world?

27:49

I can't imagine myself having to do all of that physical traveling.

27:54

Yeah. The downside is obviously what you say, that, that feeling of disconnect, but there's a good side of this connecting to people around the world, sharing observations, talking about things like you and I are doing now illusion of agility, the needs to humanize the workplace.

28:08

And although every place, every country, every organization, every, every department, every Dean even is a unique still, you see a lot of things it's coming back.

28:18

Like people finding, Oh my God, humanizing the workplace that resonates with me, that attracts me the illusion of agility.

28:25

I recognize that, but that's all good findings observations, really important.

28:32

Um, almost the, sort of the openness from the scrum fellows to, to, to confront them, not wipe them under the carpet.

28:40

Again, that is an absolutely crucial start, but like, uh, like to see that sort of the inspection, I hope sufficient aspects of school.

28:49

Like I'd like to see inspection without adaptation is pointless.

28:54

It makes no sense in the changing dynamics environment.

28:57

So dynamical environment. So the finding that is an illusion of agility, uh, being created to find it, the workplace is not being humanized.

29:08

The finding that people are not reengaging.

29:11

Now we finding their intrinsic motivation again, that can only be the start for me.

29:18

The adaptation is the goal. What are we going to do?

29:20

How we're going to act that's for me, where things come in, like you're getting to know the team, try to create a safe environment, try to bring up concerns that they've probably been having for a very long time in creating a space where they feel safe to speak up.

29:36

We reconnecting, uh, teams with management and stakeholders and leadership, and that the overall feeling approach for me is that reimagining your scrub.

29:47

So let's look for one initiative. Let's rethink.

29:51

Why, why again are you introducing SCO?

29:54

What we were hoping to achieve? What is the biggest urgencies that you, that, that you sense that you want to do something about?

30:02

And let's take an initiative and let's do it with that initiative only.

30:06

And once we get that going out, flowing in an iterative income motivated because sprint after sprint our screen to try to improve and improve, not just on the process, but on collaboration interaction within the team and beyond the team, once we get that flowing everything gold, some problems let's let's then think about a next initiative.

30:28

So keep improving the first one. Now let's think about the next initiative.

30:33

And in that sense, that's, for me, to me truly literally transforming an organization because it builds on, uh, people's engagement, motivation.

30:44

It, it tries to inspire them, at least invites them to participate.

30:50

We don't overload it with, uh, too much things.

30:54

And often, I don't know whether you recognize that Greg, but also we run into problems like reestablishing the relationship between often the development departments of the it department, with the business, the product management people, the sales people, the marketing people, and then rerun that things.

31:10

We run into how to rethink governance, how to rethink structures around those procedures, meetings, handovers, and so on.

31:19

And in the end for that one initiative, you start running into a number of major challenges.

31:27

And that's what I used to say to people. Imagine you would have run into this for all teams, all initiatives at the same time, it would be chaos.

31:36

So let's keep it small.

31:39

Definitely. Yeah. Uh, you were talking about, um, as you were talking, I was thinking when you mentioned inspection without a adaptation is futile.

31:48

I have, uh, I have, uh, I actually experienced that.

31:50

Uh, it was kind of funny. Um, I, I had, I took over, uh, a scrum team and from another scrum master.

31:59

So, uh, I came in and they were already, um, they were kind of sort of doing it right.

32:06

They weren't, they, they weren't, they weren't following it. Right.

32:08

So I turned them around and one of the things that they were doing as, um, the kind of fits in with this, um, so they would do their retro.

32:19

Right. And well, I heard one of, one of the team members said she was like, I hate the retro.

32:24

And I was like, Oh, okay. I, I didn't know why.

32:27

So, uh, come to find out they were doing the retro that right.

32:31

They were doing the inspection part. And she said that they would just simply have a co have conversations, talk about these things.

32:38

And then that would be it. And they never, they never had action items where they would take action and actually try to, uh, implement some changes.

32:48

Right. Um, so all I simply did was had the retro, we did the discussions and I kept, uh, uh, we use teams and I created a little board in there, you know, simple start, stop, continue.

33:02

And I put it action items column, and, you know, had him just, you know, I'm sure you've done this before.

33:07

Simply vote on vote on items you want to, you want to bring into the next sprint.

33:11

And they voted on a, an item. We brought it in and, uh, we would work on it and I would keep track of it and the action items list.

33:18

And when it would get done, we would close it.

33:20

We'd keep adding right to the backlog.

33:23

And then after a few months she was like, Oh, I like retro.

33:27

Now. It's really good. Because, you know, to your point, we close that loop.

33:31

We actually inspected. And then we adapted and you're right.

33:34

It was futile. Uh, it was.

33:36

And I think when I heard, when I heard you say that, I was like, yeah, I definitely agree with that.

33:42

Yeah.

33:42

That's a great example you gave of how you've helped people see the value of the retrospective, because in a way they're just noticing what you said.

33:51

The funny thing is that, um, as, as a, uh, in a simplistic way, so not simple in a simplistic way.

33:58

So it deemed member coming up to you saying, like you just said, you just experienced, I don't hate to rentals in, in, in a, in a great ways, in a way we have a bond off time to talk about why you hate the retrospective, but that will be the retrospective.

34:12

So that's a little bit SIM simplistic Abe.

34:14

We've got a point of time to, to talk about it.

34:17

So I like how you just introducing them and in a way, again, creates that environment and help them see the fellow of the retrospective.

34:25

Now, I don't know how you see that, but is also something you recognize because I see a lot of teams struggling with the retrospective because of the fact that they often don't work in a, in a very sustainable way, because they're, they're done, they're dead.

34:39

They're exhausted by the industry.

34:42

They're already that they survive, survive and get home as quickly as possible.

34:49

And then they don't engage at a retrospective anymore.

34:52

So all those things are excluded that you recognize that, right?

34:57

Yeah. So yeah, the, the, the, on the, what I've, what I recognize currently in my, in my current role is, um, is, um, it's not, it's not something I haven't experienced before.

35:11

You know, there's always, you always have the quiet ones that just, they just don't want to speak up.

35:16

And then there's the people that the other extreme, they definitely let you know how they feel, um, whether you want it or not.

35:24

Right. They're going to give you their opinion and got some, um, uh, loud opinions about scrum, which I would rather actually have that than a quiet person.

35:34

Cause I would rather I'd want people to tell me how they're feeling.

35:39

Um, but I do try to come alongside those folks that don't speak up.

35:43

Uh, but, um, in the retro you're right.

35:46

The, it is probably the, the one that people don't like the most.

35:49

And as a scrum master, for me, it's probably one of the most difficult sessions to, to help, uh, help them understand the value.

35:59

Um, and you know, you go through it, they don't want to do it.

36:03

Uh, they don't think it has value. They don't think they have time to do it as another thing.

36:07

Right. They, uh, all these meetings when you first introduced scrum, you know, uh, uh, I've heard you say before, you know, um, you've heard this before, where they complain about all the meetings.

36:17

Well, you're supposed to, you're not supposed to, but help them understand that a lot of the means that they're have can, can likely go away and be brought into a lot of the scrum events.

36:29

Right. Uh, and I've tried to do that too, but in the retro.

36:33

Yeah. Um, because it's a time when I say, okay, let's look back and inspect what we did, what we liked, what we didn't like and what we want to do better.

36:43

And then they start realizing, Oh, I have to, um, I have to talk.

36:47

And, and, and I try to throw things out there and then pull back and a lot of silence.

36:54

Right. And that can be awkward. And I do that on purpose.

36:58

I leave silence on purpose and cause, you know, after a minute or two someone's going to speak up and uh, uh, because they, they don't like the silence anymore, but yeah, it it's the most challenging, uh, event that I've found.

37:10

Yeah. And, and, and, and one of the, one of the challenges that you just described for, for you and, and, and as a scrum masters is indeed to become comfortable with silence.

37:21

Yes. Yeah. And that's not, that's not easy.

37:24

Is it now just to sit around and wait until at least somebody speaks up and I must honestly say, so I've been doing this scrum thing since 2003.

37:35

And in all of those years, I've only met once a team where it really didn't work.

37:42

So silence, it just get also, so I've tried to do things in retrospect, like you just called collecting ideas, thought floating and so on.

37:51

Um, I've even asked people to work in smaller teams or in pace.

37:55

Uh, sometimes even now during the retrospective talk about those topics as two people, then try to bring it back to the group.

38:02

And in the end, that one team, I remember, you know, we always remember the exceptions.

38:06

Um, so that one team where it really didn't work in the end, um, find out if it's really one person, the most senior, whatever, developing, you know, really in the end dominating in the end, for whatever reason that that person went out, had to leave whatever.

38:25

And then after a while people started, started doing those things, standing up, speaking up and Swan, and that's where you realize, Oh God, how can one person dominate so much even without, without speaking too much cheers by being their facial expressions who radiating some sense?

38:46

I don't know.

38:47

Yeah. Yeah.

38:50

There, there is. Uh, there is, uh, um, uh, my current team there's, there is a person who, um, not, not a dominant voice, but not, uh, not in a negative way.

39:02

Just someone who likes to talk a lot. Right. And was it, I was able to do a one-on-one, uh, several one-on-ones and still meeting with this person.

39:11

And, um, he even said, Hey, you know, I probably talked too much.

39:16

Right. I said, yeah, if you could just turn it down a little bit, I appreciate your feedback.

39:21

Your, you have a lot of good things to say, but I want the, I want the team members to speak up.

39:25

Cause they, they, they were not talking because they know that this person would speak up.

39:30

And so they would just, uh, wait for this person to speak up and then just go along with whatever he said.

39:37

And, and, and I was thinking, well, that's okay, because that's what they're used to.

39:41

Right. Because this person, um, is, uh, kind of like a tech lead, so a leader person.

39:48

Right. And they kind of look to this person and they would, they would go to this person, uh, with things instead of coming to me.

39:55

So I had to kind of, uh, work on that.

39:57

So they would start coming to me instead of going to this and this person used to be a manager too.

40:02

So they had that going for them.

40:04

So I had a little things I had to overcome there, but, um, yeah, once you get through that, then they're, they're starting to open up with me and it's, it's, it's going better.

40:13

Yeah.

40:16

And having such a person in the team, uh, in a way makes it too easy for the other people, because they can hide behind it and not speak up.

40:24

You know, if you stay silent long enough, he or she is always the longer rule speaker.

40:29

Yeah. And, and, and how to, how to, how to break that, how to create an environment where everybody feels we can speak up regardless of seniority or age or whatever.

40:41

And that's, that's again, it's, it's about behavior.

40:45

Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So you mentioned about like, you touched on engagement is the key that's I think so when I, when I think about that, it's, I don't, it's not that these people are not engaged.

40:58

They're, they're good workers. Um, and there, I mean, that's one piece of it, but, um, I guess they don't know.

41:08

I don't know. What do you, what do you think, would you say that's not being engaged if someone, um, would hold off and not speak up like that?

41:15

Or would you think there's, they're just a quiet person.

41:18

Both can go, obviously. And I also say that for myself, because I'm actually a quite introvert person.

41:26

The only times when I really, uh, sort of completely go for it is actually in, in classes or in, in, in a conversation like this, when I'm, when I'm on a stage at an event and have to talk, I don't know where it comes from.

41:40

It's something inside of me. But outside of that, put me as a student in a class, put me in the audience of an event and I'll just see them back silent listening.

41:50

And, and that's often my way of enjoy enjoying it too.

41:54

But in a way that helps me also, um, work with more introvert people.

41:59

That's one aspect. The other aspect of engagement is engagement is not just being introvert or outspoken for me.

42:08

Like, like you say, we meet a lot of very highly competent people.

42:13

But what I see a lot is what is, what is almost preventing them to really engage is organizational culture.

42:21

So for years, and years and years, when people took an initiative and it was working out fine, we give them applause.

42:28

We give them champagne, whatever. But when it didn't work out, like we expected or of the management or leadership, we chop their heads off.

42:37

What happens in the end. People stopped doing that because we have not created the context where it feels okay to do that.

42:44

So it doesn't have to do with competence.

42:47

It, it has to, with, um, our, our, our, our tendency to breathe down, people's neck all the time, look at their individual performance.

42:57

Look at, did you live up to your estimate?

42:59

So taking a step back suddenly as management and leadership, and I feel you've given a couple of great examples as a ScrumMaster, how you have moved from managing individuals towards managing an environment.

43:14

It's something you would like a lot of management to do that because it creates breathing space for people.

43:21

And then again, it takes a while. It takes a while before people actually start engaging again, because we have, we have created cultures of fear.

43:31

Yeah. In the past week, we chopped their heads off.

43:34

So it's takes awhile. And an often what I've noticed, I don't know whether that connects to your experience.

43:39

Correct. But it often takes, so we have to be comfortable with silence.

43:45

I also see our scrum master. You have to be impatiently patient.

43:50

We see so many potential improvements.

43:52

So we want to try that through again, if we do too much at, at a, at a short time, we come to overload people, but being impatiently patient also means trying to get stakeholders, managers, get them out a little distance because often after two, three sprints, whatever, they don't see it happening again.

44:15

That is not a self-organizing team.

44:17

They don't take their responsibility, whatever.

44:20

So no, give them, give them more time, because this is a few decades of installing the wrong culture.

44:29

The culture of fear, you can't undo that in a couple of spins in the past.

44:33

We've said that regularly. Yeah. You can now take initiative.

44:36

You can self-organize, but it was never true.

44:40

So it's going to take awhile. So in that sense, in order to, for me, important to get an engagement, rather than, um, trying to enforce that, which people try to look at what is preventing them from engaging, because I feel it is in our human nature that we want to engage.

45:01

We want to, we want to have joy and fun.

45:03

We want to continue to contribute to a bigger story.

45:08

Some, some sense of purpose is important for us as human beings, but what is, what is keeping us from showing that natural ability that natural desire to contribute.

45:21

So, and it's often, uh, that culture of fear.

45:24

What is keeping people, what is keeping people from, from speaking up?

45:29

And then often like, like we already said, it's, it's, it's falling, it's falling down, getting back up learning.

45:37

And, and what I like also about the leading by example that you also said also as a ScrumMaster, if I felt, if every time I overstepped it, if, if, if I didn't get any pushback from the team, which is by the way, the most preferred thing to happen to a scrum or getting pushback from a team, if that did happen.

45:55

And I felt for myself, or honestly, Oh my God, this was not, this was not correct.

46:01

I would share that with the team also spontaneously.

46:04

Right. Just to set a sort of atmosphere that, Hey, it's okay to share this.

46:11

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Um, when you were talking there, yeah.

46:15

I was thinking, um, the, uh, the culture and you were saying about how cause before, um, before I got into, before I even understood what heard of scrum or agile, I'd never heard of it.

46:29

I was in management and I, one thing that I always liked, uh, just by nature, uh, I really got a lot of enjoyment, not being a manager for the title, and you're mentioning, you know, people move up and they change.

46:43

And, and actually what the approach I took was, um, the, the workers, the workers on my team who, uh, like maybe were, uh, performing below standards or whatever, right.

46:57

I would always,

47:00

Um, come

47:00

To them and try to help them, help those folks out and try to help them improve.

47:05

Um, and then I realized when I understood, uh, what agile and scrum was, I was like, yeah, this is, you know, by nature who I am.

47:13

And that's why it fits. That's why I love it so much because it just fits with my personality.

47:17

And, uh, it's unfortunate.

47:19

I know, I have seen, like you mentioned, I have seen people come from, you know, an individual contributor and move up to management or whatever, and, and they, they change there's this hardening, right.

47:34

That dehumanizing, right. Um, not humanizing and where they change and they become a, and they'll talk to you as much anymore.

47:41

Like you said, that they feel like they have to be this hard leader.

47:45

And, uh, and I think just the opposite, I think it, uh, to show a leader that shows vulnerability and, uh, you know, that you are human.

47:55

I have much more respect for people like that than, than someone who's trying to be, you know, and not to bash executives, but I've, I've seen a lot of executives display behavior that, you know, you wouldn't, uh, you wouldn't like to see, so yeah.

48:10

I'm sure you have similar thoughts.

48:12

Yeah, absolutely. I totally recognize that in a way it sort of, um, brings also the, the ID back of, of in a way, a good, good consult of servant leadership.

48:23

Um, and, and in a way, sometimes words are important because when our right servant leadership, I was put a hyphen between the two words, which is not the official way, but it's, for me, important to express in a way that those two aspects are connected.

48:38

It, I often say it's being enough authority without having power, or maybe without even wanting to exert power once you're right.

48:50

It's not just, servancy, it's not just leadership.

48:53

It's a combination of the two creating the environment.

48:55

Like, like you've given a couple of examples where people start trying again, that is so important.

49:01

So imagine more leadership doing that. So in, in some seats or teams or management teams, I've translated that into not just servant leadership, but you have to become a sort of servant manager.

49:15

So I translated to servant management, and that is very different because a lot of people think that they have to boss people around.

49:25

And in that sense, you don't have to try to control people individually.

49:31

It's, it's creating a context where they can, um, engage again, find inspiration again, and find energy again.

49:38

And in a way, the word control, the fact that you won't control is fine because your manner of leadership, you care about the health and the survival of the organization, but you know what those teams care about that too.

49:51

And a lot of things in that sense, and you can see that that going to put it between between quotes.

49:57

So control in scrum means for me management, leadership stakeholders, regularly meeting with teams in scrum, at a sprint review, not to check-in on what they've done, not to check in on philosophy, not to ask teams to justify what, for what they've done or justify the injury to estimate.

50:17

It's about checking in with each other, where do we stand?

50:21

What has been done? How can I help you create even more value the next couple of sprints?

50:29

And that's in a way controlling things from the boundaries of scrum, from the outset and that for me so important, but that seems to be a huge, the huge shift with our fake is going to be crucial.

50:43

Let's say for the future of scrub, helping managers rethink their role, reinvent themselves within organizations.

50:52

It's, it's not, it's not the same as saying, you're a manager, your bad, you're wrong art, right?

50:58

It's about helping them find a better way to be a manager in that sense, maybe it's surfing managers.

51:05

What are you doing today? Help the team. What are we doing to create a better environment?

51:09

And if you create that environment in a way, the results, the output, and certainly the outcome, the impact of the work that the team is doing is going to be a lot bigger.

51:21

And then, and then you're going to, you're going to look like a really brilliant manager because the results are better.

51:28

So when you just talked about personality and how that connects to you, and you, you discover that in, in your, um, maybe your path or your journey to becoming a scrum master as a, can I say that Greg, as a former, um, yeah, it's true.

51:44

Yes. I think I recognize from my early days in scrum, I went to exactly the same experience.

51:51

I was not a manager, but I was, was, I was a sort of project manager trying to do projects.

51:57

And then I get into this world of agile via something called extreme pro.

52:03

Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so, uh, programming and so on.

52:07

And then we started with the extreme program without teams, and then we added scrum to that as, as sort of way to even, even sort of manage it better in a healthy way.

52:17

And then I discovered, Oh my God, it's so cool because it's just, this allows me to focus on people and allow in that sense, self-organization to play within the boundaries of going within the rules of scrum organizing work in sprint, showing users by the end of the sprint and so on.

52:34

And so in those days of us back in 2003, let's say 2005, that, that period in those days we eat over here.

52:42

We didn't call our thing scrub because nobody knew what it was.

52:44

We didn't call it. And so nobody knew what it was, but in it, it may be, at some point I realized that sort of the external world, my organization, my, my, my bosses, whatever they were looking at me, like I was sort of the most brilliant project manager ever.

53:02

And I felt this is, this is not correct, because I don't feel I'm doing a lot.

53:07

It's the team doing the work, going to all of the development, building quality.

53:12

They're the they're driven by excellence.

53:15

I'm going to create an environment, but helped me see that to the outside world, to the external, I looked like Greg project management, because the results were great.

53:23

And that those are experiences that are my early years of, of, of[inaudible] with extreme programming.

53:30

Those, those are so important for me.

53:34

They have shown me what the beauty, the power, the potential of this way of working can be.

53:40

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I've yeah. I've definitely seen the, seeing the power of it to, along my journey.

53:45

Yeah. So, yeah. Well, Gunther, this has been great.

53:48

I, I definitely thank you for, for taking some time out of your data to talk with us and, uh, explore humanizing the workplace more.

53:56

So thank you everybody for listening and hope.

53:59

You've enjoyed our conversation with Gunther Han today, the SCRA independent scrum caretaker.

54:05

So remember to reach out to me, if you want to Greg Miller at the agile, within.com, with questions, comments like us, subscribe to us on any of the podcasts apps that you listen to.

54:16

You can reach out to me as well on social media.

54:19

I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all over there.

54:22

Let me know what you think. So once again, this has been Greg and Gunther and, uh, listening to the agile within where we help you to be more agile.

54:33

Okay, cool. Thank you again. Correct? For the invitation great conversation.

54:38

Yeah.