Grateful for the Agile Coaching Summit in Chicago

Left to Right: Ben, Me, and Mara.

A big challenge for any scrum master or coach is the feeling that you are alone in the organization you are leading change.  Cultural inertia, fixed mindsets, and the pressure to deliver have a way of draining a person of enthusiasm and devotion to the agile reformation.  Professionals like us need an opportunity to recharge our batteries and spend time among like-minded individuals.  The Agile Coaching Summit at the Guaranteed Rate headquarters in Chicago was one of those opportunities.

If you are an agile professional, there are plenty of opportunities to interact with others.  Social media features countless user groups for agile professionals.  Two significant conferences begin and end the summer, offering learning credits and a chance to rub shoulders with others.  The Agile Coaching summit in Chicago is different.  The Agile Coaching summit in Chicago is different.  It is more intimate with room for about 150 people.  Skill levels from new scrum masters to hardened coaches leading enterprise change at Fortune 500 companies are present.  What unites all of us is a desire to make a difference at our organizations and our devotion to agile.  It is a great mix, and it is why I attended the inaugural meeting and why I went this year. 

In a change of pace, we had not one but five keynote speakers.  Some were coaching language, others spoke about positivity, another was an improvisation coach talking about coaching conversations; finally, we learned about generational differences in the workplace.  It was upbeat, positive, and informative.  All these speakers spoke about the skills necessary to be successful leaders, listeners, and coaches.  Not a single one was an agile specialist.  The focus on these areas creates an impression that agile coaching is more about coaching others for success than agile.  It was a necessary pallet cleanser for a great conference. 

Saturday opened with coffee and breakfast and quickly moved into in-depth learning sessions.  I was busy learning about a wiki book imitative while others were discussing “agile fakes.”  Later sessions included conversations about how executives undercut agile, and it is always good to learn how to perform Kata experiments to change behavior.  The best part of this gathering is to see old friends and to meet new ones.  People swap war stories about creating organizational change.  We catch up on each other’s children, careers and personal lives.  I even spent time bantering about smart lights and how to set them up in a new house. 

Sunday is usually a laid back affair, but there were great sessions about coaching teams versus one on one coaching.  We had conversations about dealing with difficult team members and discuss product ownership.  It was a great weekend, and I strongly recommend it next year.  Many thanks to Emilio B. Perez and the folks at Guaranteed Rate for a successful summit and I look forward to ACS2000.

Until Next time.

Scrum depends on leadership.

Leadership is hard.

The global economy is filled with challenges.  The economic cycle of boom and bust.  Trade wars and political uncertainty dominate headlines.  Workers are flexing their muscles to retain the wages and benefits which kept them in the middle s class.  The agile reformation is in the middle of this environment.  We are striving to make business saner, sustainable, and satisfying.  It is hard work.  Often we are struggling with status quo thinking and the demands of the market place.  We test scrum masters and coaches daily.  The principle test is the leadership skills we bring to work each day.

The scrum guide has evolved over the years to discuss the changing role of the scrum master.  We describe scrum masters as servant-leaders with the ability to influence others without having real authority.  I have written numerous times about servant-leadership.  I am a big fan of people like Dwight Eisenhower, Harvey Milk, and Creighton Abrams.  I am also impressed by academic thinkers like Gilles Deleuze and Albert Camus.  What all of these people have in common is deep intelligence and the ability to overcome obstacles to accomplish great things.

Leadership is hard.  In the words of General Collin Powel, leadership is pissing people off to get things done.  It is uncomfortable.  Leadership is upsetting comfortable structures to achieve greater success.  It is emotionally taxing and a job that follows you around even when you are outside the office.  It is a skill that must be cultivated and rehearsed regularly. 

The alternative is a catastrophe.  People who are concerned with their advancement at the expense of others are toxic in an organization.  Those people will game measurements to make themselves look more effective than they are.  They will withhold support for others unless they can receive some benefit.  People work with these kinds of leaders not because they want to but because they have to do it.  Organizations succeed or fail based on the leadership skills of their people, and poor leadership will kill and organization.

By now, you realize that I feel strongly about this subject.  I have spent my entire career working with many different people.  Some were inspirational, and others were more interested in their success than others.  I prefer the company of inspirational people.   This week my leadership was challenged twice.  I was helping a professional team release software, and I had to perform agile assessments on other teams.  The common thread through these experiences is that good leadership was obvious to see, and lousy leadership was more deceptive.  Be on the lookout for these corrupt leaders; they will harm your business. 

Until next time.

Necessity and Urgency for the Scrum Master.

Necessity Matters.

Last week, I discussed prioritization and why it matters.  I received plenty of feedback and I want to devote extra time to the topic.

It has been my experience that the further one advances in the company the more people struggle with prioritization.  I blame this on individuals who have never had constraints on time, money, or energy placed in positions of authority.  I also suspect sales and marketing professionals advance into the executive ranks faster.  These individuals are trained early in their careers that “no,” is just one obstacle in the way of an eventual yes.  When they become responsible for operations or essential projects, “no,” has a very different meaning.  Unable to deal with shortages of people, money, or time they lash out or resort to deception to get things done.  It is an ugly state of affairs, and it will destroy the morale of a project team.

When I face this situation, I remember the 1999 movie, “Three Kings.”  The film features Ice Cube and George Clooney as gulf war soldiers who decide to steal a shipment of Saddam Hussein’s gold during confusion surrounding the end of the first gulf war.  The film has one moment which sticks out for me, and that is a monologue by Clooney’s character.  He asks his fellow soldiers what is essential.  After listening to several wrong answers, he says, “Necessity is the most important.  We need to know what is going to get us to the next moment and do that.”  When a ship is leaking, fix the leak.  When a house is on fire put out the fire.  Other issues can wait until the immediate crisis is over.  I have used this approach for five years, and I have seen its effect.  If you are in a staff meeting ask, “Is it necessary?” and if the answer is yes then inquire why it is necessary.  Eventually, people in the organization will start asking the same questions.

Some organizations have a culture of firefighting.  Jimmy Leppert observed these organizations are so focused on short term results they do not have time to focus on growth or excellence.  To get anything done, you have to become an arsonist to create a sense of urgency.  To reduce the “fire risk,” take away flammable material from the organization like technical debt and outdated software.  Next, take responsibility away from the “firebugs,” in the organization; people who create a crisis to get things done.  Finally, encourage fire safety with good engineering practices, automated testing, and code reviews among the team. 

People use urgency and necessity interchangeably.  Do not use these words for is a means to upset the process of prioritization in an organization.  It is arson burning down the business.

Until next time.