Attack of the Scrumzilla!

As a child, I was a big fan of monster movies, from the classic Universal horror films, the campy gore of Hammer horror films, and the unbridled fun of Japanese kaiju films. My favorite was Godzilla because my ten-year-old self identified with the lumbering lizard, and I spent my Saturday afternoons watching UHF television and enjoying these edited television treats. A pre-teen boy has all the properties of a Japanize movie monster. The limbs are unresponsive, the impulse control is lacking, and in moments of stress, you roar for attention. Godzilla was both an inspiration and friend on those lonely Saturday afternoons.  

Plenty of time has passed since those Saturday creature features, but I still see the tropes of those films in my consulting work. The most disturbing is the appearance of a monster that terrorized the cubicles of every business – the scrumzilla! A scrumzilla is a recently minted scrum master or SCP who, with the discipline of a guard at a POW camp, attempts to enforce the rules of scrum or SAFe with an iron hand. These people are the avatars of a dark scrum. These individuals understand the letter of the scrum guide but not the spirit or intent.  

A scrumzilla will stomp over the empowerment of the team because they are experimenting with a new way of working which does not align perfectly with the Scrum Guide or the SAFe specification. These individuals ignore the agile manifest because they follow processes and tools more than they trust individuals and interactions. Without early interventions from management or a coach, these monsters will destroy your digital transformation efforts faster than Rhodan.  

For agile to work, the most important thing you can do is to lead by example instead of by authority. I speak from experience because I was a scrumzilla. It would take me a year with the direction of a patient manager and agile coach to get me to the point where I could get a team to self-organize without being prescriptive. Let people make mistakes and then use those errors as learning opportunities. The approach is not the spit and polish of a military drill team but rather the technique used by bomb disposal units. If you have met anyone involved in Explosive Ordnance Disposal, you know they have a light approach to discipline and a deadly serious focus on learning. It is because a lack of knowledge can get someone killed when working with explosives. 

Just because someone takes a test and passes a training course, they do not become an expert. It takes practice and time before they have the correct temperament to serve others and guide people through the agile process. I have seen plenty of damage done by lousy scrum masters and product owners. Terrible agile coaches are more destructive. If we are going to lead change in organizations successfully, we need to be on the lookout for these scrumzillas before they crush us underfoot. 

Until next time. 

Radical Candor is the New Way of Leadership

My mentor at CAPCO Financial says, "Each day, everyone gets up and delivers value." This aphorism provides me with the desire to persevere in my darker moments. As a leader and agile coach, it has become apparent that most of my job is helping others navigate difficult moments. The pressure of working in the global economy is enormous, and everyone cracks under strain. Their ability to deal with daily adversity during work makes people and teams successful. Today, I want to discuss why you should learn the techniques of Kim Scott's popular book "Radical Candor." 

Scott has a simple thesis in her work. For a leader to be successful, they must care personally for the people they serve and challenge them directly to do the best they can. It is not a difficult concept to understand but hard to put into practice. Mistakes cost money, and careers rise and fall based on small details. The demanding needs of customers are exhausting, and business relationships years in the making can disappear overnight. Being a business person requires a certain amount of toughness. The challenge is to exhibit this mental toughness without inflicting it on the people who work with you.  

It is apparent when you challenge people to improve performance or adjust to changing situations. Speaking up is problematic because many people want to be well-liked by others, and telling someone they are failing risks rejection. Scott understands this, so she comes up with strategies that help leaders correct the conduct of the people they serve. In my experience, people want to know if they are doing good work or how to do a better job. To make this approach relevant, you need to care about the people working with you.  

When we talk about caring for people, it means learning about their families, what they enjoy off hours, and listening to what they have to say. I struggled with this skill, and only in retrospect did I realize that not caring personally about the people under my care creates a toxic type of management known as obnoxious aggression. It is when you challenge others but do not care about them. After some time, I had one team member in open rebellion and another dissociated from the work. I was determined to be different in my next leadership role. 

This humility is hard-earned thanks to numerous failures and false starts during my career. Today, I accept my failures and use them as valuable lessons for my next leadership role. Vulnerability is a superpower in today's business world because it helps you connect with other people and proves that when you must be firm, it comes from a place of empathy instead of malice. The world contains plenty of talented jerks, be the radically candid leader. 

Until next time. 

Saying Yes and No a New Way

The seasons are changing, and the chill in the air represents a sense of urgency organizations have to meet their financial and project goals. I am one of those people who accomplishes these goals and helps organizations succeed. Over the years, I have discovered that the most challenging part of the job is not the engineering but the interpersonal and political skills necessary to get work finished at large bureaucratic businesses. This week I want to look at a skill I learned that had become an essential tool for my success in the weird business world of business.  

I feel strongly that a Liberal Arts education is valuable in business and technology. You can teach anyone to write software and perform basic development tasks, but the real skill is communicating with people via the written and spoken word. Putting yourself in another person's shoes and spotting spurious arguments are also valuable business skills. A liberal arts education helps teach these skills, and the business world is better because of people with liberal arts backgrounds. I am biased on this front because I am a liberal arts graduate, and exposure to philosophy, theater, literature, media, and writing traditions has given me a competitive advantage in my career.    

In high school and community college, I took theater courses. Each student learns how to improvise on stage. It was a great experience, and I had plenty of laughs, but I did not realize the presentation and speaking skills I developed in a theater would stay with me for the remainder of my life. As I began meeting facilitation, I remembered a technique I learned in improvisation. Performers know to be unselfish with other performers and internalize the maxim of "…yes and." During a strange situation or when you are stuck on what to say, you look deeply into the eyes of your fellow performers and say "yes and…." At that point, the other performer, if they are paying attention, will pick up the performance and move it in a different direction.  

As a coach, in meetings with people who are reluctant to talk, I often use the "yes and…" technique to elicit more feedback and information. It is a great way to break the tension, and it helps remove the responsibility from one person speaking to the group. It transforms meetings into a more participatory experience because, as the facilitator, you lead them to say what needs to be understood instead of dictating to the group.  

We often have deadlines and other challenges which involve conflict. That conflict can be acknowledged if we use language that is a little less violent. Lately, I have been using an additional phrase: "no, wait…."  For example, I had someone demand that I deliver a user story. I said, "No, wait, I understand this is important, but where does it fit in with the release schedule."  After some thought and waiting, the person making the demand backed down. Another example is saying, "No, wait, do I understand you correctly?" The approach makes the conversation more participatory and helps facilitate a more profound understanding.  

We all have to say yes or no at work. Using theater improvisation techniques makes the process easier and allows people to feel involved in creating value. Feel free to give it a try.  

Until next time. 

Learning to Lead in Strange Times

The current economic situation is strange. Inflation is increasing, and at the same point, the employment market looks strong. Prices are rising, but at the same time, employers want to recruit and retain talent. It is enough to make an economist feel like they are being drawn and quartered. What is going on as an agile leader, and what do you do?  

It is easy to be gloomy in the present economic times. Forecasts say a recession is coming, and the price of everything has taken a colossal spike. We even see layoffs at companies like Meta. As much as I like seeing Marc Zuckerburge receive a dose of reality, scratch below the surface, and you will see that the job market is more robust than it has been in my lifetime. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are over 10 million open jobs or 1.7 jobs per person looking for work. It is the best it has been in twenty years. 

Workers are gaining power and can afford to be picky with who and where they work. We can see this in the public conversation about hybrid work and returning to the office. It also includes the discussion about quite quitting and the equally awful practice of quite firing. When you think about it, the debate centers around trust. Workers want to work to be productive and fulfilling, while employers demand their labor dollars to generate a profit.

Employees want to do work that provides for their families and generates some form of fulfillment. Employees also want to take pride in what they are doing; do the widgets they produce help the environment, are the customers thrilled with the gadgets, or do they help improve communities? I do not know an individual who wants to sell a product that causes cancer or is flammable on children. Workers also realize that with modern technology, they can work anywhere. Long commutes to the office are unnecessary, and saving time allows people to look after their kids and aging parents. I also think it eliminated a form of theater where office workers looked busy to their managers because those managers were outside their doors, snooping on the employees in the cubicles. With the charade, gone employees could do their jobs and be authentic without playing games in an office. 

Amy Chow, the former CEO of AT&T Business, this week in Forbes magazine says as business people and leaders, we need to be aware of the “…what, where, when, and how” of work. The ‘what’ is non-negotiable. Accounts receivable need to be collected, sales calls need to be made, and new products need development. Thanks to COVID-19, the ‘when’ and ‘where’ of work do not need to happen in an office during business hours. Not it can occur in coffee shops around lunchtime or late at night after story time with the children. The ‘how’ was always up to employees, and technology makes creating high-quality results that deliver customer value easier. An old line manager wants to control three of these parameters. Agile leaders must respect that they can only handle one of them. 

Business people love fancy offices and corporate campuses because they represent the physical manifestation of their company. The coffee bars, ping-pong tables, and minimalist architecture are all a façade to entice workers and customers. The last three years have shown that image as empty because innovation can happen anywhere. It might be time for business leaders to review their construction and lease plans. 

These economic times are strange, but one clear thing is that workers are growing in power, which is changing the office. If we are serious about agile, we must respond to the change instead of following the old plan. 

Until next time. 

Agile defeats Brutality on the Battlefield

War isn't about the brutality

Since the beginning of this blog over ten years ago, I have been an advocate of working differently.  The IT world was and still has plenty of talented jerks.  Women and people of color are underrepresented in the ranks of Software Engineers.  Finally, LGBTQ people labor under a cloud of etiquette in the technology business, which is a shame because much of the business would not exist without the contributions of Alan Turning.  Over my career, the situation has improved, but we have significant improvements yet to achieve.  I have fought for this change my entire career.  Reform is difficult in the best of situations.  Even so, it's even more complicated when people fetishize the past that did not exist or feel threatened by people involved in decisions or creative processes.

The most exciting thing to happen in the last fifty years of American history is the gradual acceptance of the variety of people who make up the United States.  The law and public opinion witnessed the approval of the religious and those who do not believe.  Gay people can live their lives openly, and that acceptance has led to a debate about the commercialization of the gay rights movement.  Technology workers from India and Pakistan have exposed American to Muslim and Hindu cultures.  We even see women participating in politics on a level not seen before.  

The progress generates a vocal and sometimes violent backlash.  Individuals in our society struggle with dealing with different types of people with who they do not understand or identify.  Both politicians and media figures have embraced this backlash to make money and gather political power.  This week pundits Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson lamented the state of our military for being too 'woke.' Never missing an opportunity to call attention to himself, Texas Senator Ted Cruz joined the public debate.  The conversation was so disingenuous that republican representative Adam Kinzinger decided to call out Shapiro's bad faith arguments.  I decided to share the tweet below.  

Good point Ben. What branch were you? https://t.co/DA8o17zY90

— Adam Kinzinger🇺🇦🇺🇸✌️ (@AdamKinzinger) September 25, 2022

I am not a military veteran and do not even understand the daily sacrifices our service members experience.  I do have a strong background in military history and war gaming.  It gave me some insight into the changes which happened to the United States military since the war in Vietnam and the shift to an all-volunteer army.  Shapiro, Carleson, and Cruz are wrong.  Brutality and firepower do not make a military successful; instead, it is diversity, intelligence, and agility.  I have first-hand knowledge about this subject because I am hosting two Ukrainian refugees in my home.  The stories they tell about the brutality of Russian troops are chilling.  There is also widespread evidence of war crimes committed by entire Russian units.  

A modern battlefield is a place that demands grace under pressure, the ability to improvise, and finally, a will to fight, and based on what we see in Eastern Ukraine, the Russian army lacks those values and skills.  The reason is that the Russian military still thinks it is fighting the Second World War despite its tanks, artillery, and planes. 

While attending training as a product owner, the instructor said something interesting to the class.  He said, "The largest agile organization is the U.S. Army." I chuckled a bit at that notion, but he reassured the class that it was true because everyone spends time in training to do their job.  Soldiers in the field are constantly tinkering around to do their jobs better.  Finally, after a mission, military people have "after-action reports," where they attempt to understand what they can do better.  "There is no way you have a volunteer army without an Agile mindset," he said. 

It brings me to a few articles on the web.  The first is from the Atlantic this week from Phillips Payson O'Brien.  I will include his article here, but he points out that the brutal army of Russia is getting its head handed to it because the Ukrainian military is more flexible, technologically conversant, and willing to learn.  Additionally, unicorn soldiers prove that LGBTQ troops are as deadly and heroic as heterosexual troops.  

The more informative article is from agile coach Dmytro Yarmak who became a Ukrainian Military Officer overnight and February 24, 2022.  Commanding a Ukrainian artillery battery, Yarmak says many of the skills he has as an agile coach make him a better leader of troops.  Empathy, pushing decision-making down to ranks, and giving people purpose and mastery instead of orders is how he runs his unit.  It is a powerful lesson that victory belongs to the agile instead of the brutal in war.  

This blog is a bit of a departure for me.  I do not like to talk about current political events and would instead focus on the ups and downs of the business world.  The Ukraine war has lasted six months, and I can no longer ignore it and its impact on the planet and my family.  It also reinforces my belief that we can have a more sustainable, sane, and satisfying work world if we abandon notions of brutality and ignorance for something more agile.  

Just as the Cultural Support teams of the United States Army proved that women have a role in combat during the Afghanistan War, it is evident that agility on the battlefield is more critical than brutality.  Something I doubt Shapiro, Carlson, or Cruz would understand.  

Until next time.