The city by the lake and technology

I live and work in the Chicago metropolitan area. It comprises the northern counties of Illinois and, like much of the Midwest, has challenging weather. Often, you can experience all four seasons in March. The climate creates a flintyness toward nature and forces us to be kind to one another because if nature is not pleasant, then at least we can be good to our fellow humans. It explains why Los Angeles and New York people call the Midwest friendly. The stereotype of the Midwest conceals a strong work ethic and a judgemental streak, which many of us, including myself, exhibit. Today, I want to discuss what that means in the Midwest technology business.

I joined the technology business in the mid-1990s. The main intellectual centers of technology are Silicon Valley in Northern California and New York City. New York's concentration of media company headquarters gives it a powerful grip on media-related technology. Silicon Valley became a land of myth and legend where coders got to make billion-dollar corporations. That myth has some truth because Hewlett Packard, Netscape, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook found a home in the valley and became household words.

The Midwest and Chicago represent what pundits dismissively call "fly-over" country. We are land you bypass to go from east to west. To many, the Midwest is about corn, hogs, and transportation to move those goods to the remainder of the country. Truthfully, the Chicago metropolitan area fulfills a vital role in the technology ecosystem, and it is the integration and interoperability of systems. Since its founding as a city, Chicago has been a hub of communications and a link between the eastern seaboard and the western frontier. As technology begins to eat the world, the city and metropolitan areas have specialized in the less glamorous aspects of technology, which keeps the global economy chugging.

Computer systems in banking, insurance, and business span fifty years, and they must communicate, or all forms of commerce will come to a grinding halt. Computer languages span functional programming languages, object-oriented development, and large learning models. Often, these disparate systems cannot speak to each other directly, so something called middleware is written to facilitate communication. Finally, businesses, cloud companies, and purveyors of Artificial intelligence need warehouse-sized facilities to house their servers and infrastructure. The Midwest and the Chicago metropolitan area excel at these activities.

People give more thought to those things once they break, which becomes a crisis. Midwestern technology professionals take pride in running these systems at peak efficiency with no downtime. Instead of splashy conference demonstrations, we prefer working software that others can test and experience for themselves. Reliable working systems are proof of skill instead of social media credibility.

This pragmatic streak defines most technology professionals in the Chicago area. In general, we do not want to change the world but instead want to make it better, faster, more reliable, and work with other systems. It takes an engineer's mind with an illustrator's creative sensibilities. It is long nights working on knotty problems and early mornings with off-shore teams on conference calls. Hard work and innovation combine to make technology work invisible, and Chicago plays a critical part.

During the days of the first Dot-Com bubble, The Chicago Tribune published a special technical classified page called "The Digital Prairie." Sadly, the Tribune became a victim of the digital economy, but I liked their portrayal of technology as a service and infrastructure that needs maintenance. So, the story of Midwest technology is getting desperate systems to work correctly and with little fuss. To Midwesterners, everything should be plug-and-play, behaving like magic. The reality is more complex, but the goal is what makes the digital prairie so fertile.

Until next time.

Let Your Employees Work from Home

From time to time, I like to call out bad behavior in the business community.  I don't particularly appreciate doing it, but when people behave poorly or say things that need challenging, it is the responsibility of people like me to call attention to it.  This week, billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin gave a speech at the Economic Club of Chicago and said young people are hurting their careers by not returning to the office.  I respectfully disagree and want to point out that a net worth of 21 Billion dollars does not equal wisdom. 

Mr. Griffin is hugely successful, and he has offices in Chicago, New York, and across the globe.  He has one of the most significant hedge funds in the United States, so when you have that level of wealth and power, people like the Chicago Economic Club are going to give you a forum to speak.  According to Bloomberg News, he said, "So for our youngest members of our workforce, I'm gravely concerned that the loss of early career development opportunities is going to cost us dearly over the decades to come." I disagree; if we work in the global economy, we need to think differently about asking people to work at a corporate office.  

Workers are going to time-shift working with teams in India and Asia.  Thanks to tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Slack, they do not need to come into the office to have those meetings.  In addition, people who work at home can avoid commuting expenses, and the savings in both time and money tends to increase productivity from the workforce.  Finally, the last 18-moths of work have proven that professional workers can do what they do from anywhere in the world.  

I suspect that Mr. Grifin is more interested in exercising control over his workforce than the personal development of younger people in his organization.  Why?  Because he runs a multi-billion dollar hedge fund and thinks it gives him absolute power over the people who are delivering value to his organization.  It is a common form of arrogance that the wealthy have regarding the people who work for them.  

Griffin can run his business, however, he chooses, but it is clear that it is a conformist place that stifles innovation and creativity.  I am confident he enforces a dress code in the office and likes to keep up appearances for his clients or competitors.  The offices he is eager to populate with his workforce are a stage to show off his wealth and power to future investors.  

Mr. Griffin then chides other CEOs for being soft because they are not mandating their workers to return to the office.  The reality is companies are struggling to retain workers because they want to work from home. The great resignation is a reaction to businesses that will not allow them to work from home.  Workers are voting with their feet, and CEOs are not being scared; they are smart.  The global talent competition is such that if you do not offer a hybrid model for working, your competition will poach talent from you.  

I have repeatedly said that workers are not resources, and treating people like machine tools who can be used up and thrown away is a recipe for failure in the 21st century.  Mr. Griffin's wealth insulates him from that reality, but that does not mean people like myself cannot call out his lack of vision.  It will only be a matter of time before that reality catches up with him or his descendants.  

Until next time. 

Getting Back to Blogging

It is good to be back.

Long absences deserve an explanation.  Being a blogger while holding down a full-time job as a technology leader requires a significant time commitment.  Blogs need to be written and promoted via social media.  The twenty-four-seven media cycle is ravenous, and keeping it fed is exhausting.  It makes me wonder how more successful internet influences can keep up the pace.  Today on my blog, I feel I should explain my absence. 

I have been off-line for seven weeks.  During that time, I moved from my old house to a forever home with someone I wish to grow old with.  Picking up your life and consolidating with some else is hard given the most ideal circumstances.  In my case, my partner and I each had to sell a home and pooled our personal possession.  I was a feast of riches when it came to cookware, but it was a hassle getting it from our storage units into our home.  Additionally, we had a COVID-appropriate holiday with family and friends.  All the while, we were both working full time and working out of boxes.  Something had to give, and my blogging had to wait while I unpacked and developed a new routine.  

I am still unpacking, but I am settled enough to start writing seriously again.  The last seven weeks were a spectacle of poor leadership, resentment, grievance, and outright rebellion.  I feel compelled to comment on it, but I will keep my promise to avoid commentary like this because much better discussion exists on the political left and right.  My opinions will not provide any more additional illumination to the current cultural or political situation.  What I can contribute is my experience and wisdom relating to project and product leadership.  It is what I dedicated most of my life to understanding.  

The intermission has allowed me to think about how I will approach my little slice of the internet in 2021.  I would like to concentrate on the basics of agile.  Each week, I want to discuss the basics of agile from the daily scrum, to backlog coaching and refinement, to the standard of care.  Each week we will cover one of these topics and provide my readers with a foundation to build their own agile practice. 

The agile reformation is entering its twentieth year.  I have been part of it since 2009.  I have learned a few things along the way, and this year I will commit myself to share that wisdom with you.

Until next time.  

It is never about you.

Serve others it isn't about you.

The best part of being part of the agile reformation is the community of supportive professionals who inspire each other.  I can rely on the experience and wisdom of thousands of people who are on a similar journey attempting to make work saner, sustainable, and satisfying.  Currently, I am training at Chicago State University to improve my credentials as a certified agile coach.  It is an excellent experience with people from all over the globe.  Someone from the Philippines has the same challenges I do when leading change.  It is always nice to know that we are all facing similar struggles and challenges. This week, I learned a rather important lesson, which often gets lost as we become more experienced in agile. 

 

One of the critical foundations of agile is the notion of servant leadership.  The best leaders often are those who see themselves as servants helping the people; they lead rather than viewing the people under their authority as people who serve them.  As you gain experience and credibility within the profession, it is easy to let the certifications, recognition, and respect go to your head.  We are scrum masters, and people look to us for advice and guidance.  It is intoxicating.  

The reality is that being an agile coach or scrum master is about service to others.  It is not about us and our journey.  We should remember that success in this profession is when others take the lessons we have learned and apply them to their challenges.  If we are doing our jobs properly, our wisdom will help build success for others.  We should celebrate the achievements of others and the growth of people under our charge.  Unlike other areas of business, being a coach or scrum master means taking the focus away from yourself and directing it at the teams you are working.  

It is nice to learn from others.  The most important lesson is discovering that to be a servant leader, you need to remind yourself it is not about you but the people you are leading.  It is a lesson worth repeating.  

Until next time.  

Call out Trolls Before They Destroy Your Business

Spot trolls before they hurt your business

The biggest challenge in Servant leadership is working with the disinterested, dishonest, and disrespectful.  Each organization harbors these individuals like weeds in a field of grass.  People like this seem to revel in their bad faith efforts to undermine others, avoid work, and act as parasites to everyone around them.  Throughout my career, I have confronted these individuals, and it never gets easier.  We should be brave enough to call out poor behavior.  

I spend plenty of time on LinkedIn. It is an excellent service because I can catch up on colleagues, get the latest news from the business community, and many of my fellow travelers share information about what is new. I was surfing along and read the following post from a coach and scrum trainer. The emphasis is mine.  

“I am a project manager having 15 years of experience and 5 years exclusively in project management. I do hold a PMP certificate too. My company is adopting Scrum-based delivery and it seems there is no role for the project managers. There are 3 roles in Scrum but none of them is for me. 

I can’t be a Product Owner because it will get filled from the business/customer side. I am not hands-on so I can’t be a part of the Development Team.

Scrum Master seems to be a very junior role for me. Many Scrum Masters are just a part-timer or working previously as Team Lead/ Tech Lead etc. There was a point when these people were reporting to me on my projects.

I also have an issue with the Servant Leadership style. It is not that I am a command & control person and you can ask my colleagues. Everyone will say how good I am with empathy, situation leadership, and self-reflection. But servant leadership sounds to me either head of the Servant or becoming Gandhi and Mandela. 

What will you suggest? Should I look at some different roles if yes then which one? I have also heard a lot about Agile Coach though I don’t know much how is this different than Scrum Master.”

I had a lot to unpack in this message.  It is an excellent example of how NOT to do Servant leadership.  I have said in the past, that ego is the enemy of good leadership.  Additionally, Servant leadership is more about leading by example than attempting to behave like a saint.  Scrum mastery requires kindness, and it often requires going beyond the call of duty. 

Being a scrum master is not a junior role.  It is a managerial role with tremendous responsibility and little authority. You are the person in the Taupe blazer who must inspire others to get work done.  At times you are a therapist, and at others, you are doing code reviews.  Often you are a square peg in a round hole.  Scrum masters are not junior; instead, they are essential to the success of your organization. 

The arrogance associated with the post was very telling.  What made it shocking was that it came from an instructor from Scrum.org.  I could expose this individual, but that would make me no better a coach or scrum master.  I am sensitive to harassment and doxing concerns on the internet.  I want the satisfaction of calling out a troll and exposing them to shame and ridicule.  The reality is they do not care.  A troll does what they do for the attention and outrage.  Instead, I would rather point out the attitude of these people so that we can be on the lookout for this behavior.  People like this are going to hurt your organization, so it is best to make you aware of them and not give them a chance.  

I take a great deal of pride in what I do.  As I continue to advance my career, I do not want to forget where I came from and the lessons I gained along the way.  Being a scrum master and product owner is hard work.  Developers and people in the organization are under tremendous pressure to deliver value to their customers and organization.  In the global economy, we are all servants, whether we like it or not.  Insulting other professionals as junior or beneath you is not how you participate in the agile reformation.  It is a form of elitism that has sparked backlash around the developed world.  

Today, I wanted to call attention to an attitude that will hurt your organization.  It is elitist, and it comes from a position of arrogance.  Do yourself a favor, find these people, and make sure you never hire them.  

Until next time. 

Listening to COVID-19 and What It Means for Agile.

Pay attention to the world around you.

It is an extraordinary time.  The world economy lurched into a lower gear.  Many of us are cooped up in our homes attempting to teach children, work remotely, or pass the time because our jobs disappeared with the stay in place orders.  It is also a time where we have discovered how networked and interdependent we are.  A virus half a world away can create a wave of disruption.  In my physical –isolation, I have taken the time to process a few bits of wisdom.

The COVID-19 virus has exposed how networked the global economy and society has become over the last fifty years.  It has also acted as a great equalizer. The developed world is just as susceptible to the virus as the poorest of nations.  The mutation of a virus in bats which spread to humans now threatens everyone on the planet.  It is a slow-motion disaster which we saw coming.

Scientists, health workers, and professionals crunched the numbers and played out the worst-case scenarios.  When leaders listened, you had widespread testing and public health responses.  Where leaders decided to ignore the evidence, military quarantines of entire cities would be necessary, and health care systems were overcome with sick people.  The experts were right and we should trust that expertise more often.

It is easy to be smug in a time like now.  Hundreds of thousands of people are suffering economically as restaurants, bars, and nightlife shut down.  The education of millions of young people is upset by schools closing.  If experts were trusted and people gave credit to others who dedicated their entire lives to the study of science and public health, we might not be in such a difficult situation.  The reality of saying, “I told you so,” is only going to make the present situation more unbearable.

The distrust of experts comes from a particular place.  We often see these experts in comfortable offices and universities and think they lack real-world experience.  Many professionals have authority over others, and it creates resentment.  They are the teachers, doctors, lawyers, judges, and executives who make decisions about our lives.  Making matters worse, professionals often do not live in communities where their choices have the most impact.  It explains why those who work hourly like to use words like quack, shyster, and shylock to describe those with expertise.

One of the reasons I wanted to get into agile is because I wanted to be a different kind of professional.  I wanted to be responsive and empathetic to others. I wanted to show kindness.  Professionals must earn trust each day. It is up to professionals like myself to create ways to work, which are sustainable, satisfying, and sane.  If we are going to dig out of the economic calamity, we are going to discover better ways of working.  Agile will be one of the movements leading the way.

So the main piece of wisdom I have obtained while I remain in self-isolation is that respect of experts and professionals must be earned.  Earning that trust means treating others with decency and kindness.  It means having shared experience in good times and bad.  Agile will be part of this transformation, and I will continue to be part of it.

Until next time. 

The Profession of Software Development

Software developers are much like plumbers. 

The stereotypes surrounding software developers are numerous.  Sandra Bullock was the shut-in hacker in the 1990’s film “The Net.” The cast of “Silicon Valley,” embodied the “move first and break things,” ethos of the rise of Facebook.  Finally, the frat brother atmosphere of gaming companies is legendary. Software developers are many things, but not many people outside of the business consider them professional.  Today, I would like to take the time to discuss professionalism in software development.

Many of the things we use operate on code.  The turbochargers in our cars are computer operated.  Trains rely on computer algorithms to run on time.  We can shop for groceries from the comfort of our sofa.  The reason this is possible is the combination of increasing computer power and the work of smart people who write the software code to exploit that power.  It is a detail-orientated and challenging task.

Software development is custom work with little automation, so each piece of software is made by hand.  Each phone application or web site we see today began as a blank slate that needed data, graphics, code and business processes. Line by line, a software developer wrote what you see.  As the site became more complex Database administrators, user experience experts and network security specialists will add their contributions. It is like the manufacture of a hot rod with all the mechanics hammering out the individual parts and then attempting to assemble them into a working car.  The complexity and challenges are difficult for people who do not do it to understand. 

People understand the pressures doctors endure.  Each day doctors are making decisions that might affect the life and death of patients.  Attorneys are responsible for up to billions of dollars in money during civil suits.  In criminal trials, they have to power grant or deny a person their freedom.  Likewise, bankers must make an informed decision about how to invest and loan money to protect their depositors. Finally, teachers educate and look after the wellbeing of children.  Our culture understands these pressures and rewards a particular level of respect and deference to these individuals. 

Software professionals are in that gray area.  What they do is essential but it is invisible until something breaks. The story of the Boeing 737 is a tragic example.  Software developers compensated for an engineering flaw in the aircraft.  Given the time pressures, they were able to create a control system that prevents planes from crashing.  What was not taken into account was the way pilots would behave in critical situations.  The flaw in logic would cost the lives of over 300 people in airline crashes.  It also cost the CEO his job because people no longer wanted to fly on 737 aircraft.  No one knew what the standard of excellence for software was until planes began to fall from the sky.

The software profession has a youth bias; many of the contemporary programming languages have been around for less than twenty years.  Less than five-tenths of a percent of the entire world population know how to write code. Caucasians and Asian people dominate and it is an overwhelming male occupation.  The attire is comfortable, and software professionals are more interested in getting things to work than being likable.  Compared to other professionals, software developers do not look the part.

The trends above make the profession seem clannish.  The time pressure often forces these professionals to take shortcuts.  Finally, the skills are in such demand that compensation is a powerful incentive for people with mediocre talent to join the profession.  Taken together people outside the business see developers with the same respect as mechanics or plumbers. The funny thing is these professionals lack respect until we need them.  It is then we will pay big money to use their expertise and services.

So software developers deserve respect because they keep the contemporary world working.  The world runs on code.  It is a shame we needed planes falling out of the sky to understand that reality.

Until next time.

A Year in the Life of a Scrum Master

Sharpen the saw, regularly.

Any scrum master worth their weight in salt, should take time out of their busy careers and take stock.  The book, “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” calls this practice “sharpening the saw.”  It is a chance to review the successes and failures of the recent past and see if you have gained any wisdom along the way.  I do not do it as often as I should.  The last year has been a crazy ride, and I want to share with you a few things I have learned.

A year ago, I left LSC communications. I was profoundly unhappy and filled with rage and contempt.  During my fifth anniversary, my manager joked, “Ed has been dragging this organization kicking and screaming to become more agile.”  I was an effort I was often fighting by myself. I was self-medicating with alcohol and over-eating to deal with the stress.  I was also making below-market rates for my profession.  I took the first opportunity offered to me to leave.  Three weeks later, I was cast aside like a used piece of facial tissue.  It was a valuable lesson.  If an offer is too good to be true, it probably is.

In the first quarter of the year, I worked for a non-profit which wanted to become agile.  I was hungry for a fresh start.  I let my hunger blind me to some distinct realities.  The organization was not serious about agile.  The firm would not hire or appoint product owners.  The managers would not share power with their teams.  Finally, my immediate manager wanted me to shut my mouth and maintain the Jira board rather than coach.  The second lesson learned, do not let hunger blind you to a no-win situation, which will further stunt your career.

I would spend the summer months looking for work and keeping my spirits up.  I could not have done it if I did not have the support of my friends, my family, and an understanding girlfriend.  Jobs come and go, but when you die, the only people who will mourn you are the people who loved you.  It is doubtful your boss or the VP of engineering will show up unless you neglected to check your code back into source control.

Finally, when I had a new opportunity, I set aside my preconceived notions and took time to learn about what works for my client.  It is not a mistake that the creator gave each person two ears and one mouth.  We need to listen to others with a frequency of two to one.  Learn the names of your colleagues and their children.  Find out how to make coffee that everyone in the office will drink.  Learn where the pain points exist and find out if you can fix them.  Share the values and principles of the agile manifesto and then be an example for others.

Plenty of things can happen in a year.  I feel like a different person. I am older and a touch wiser.  I want to bring that knowledge to other software developers and agilests.  I am grateful you are along for the ride.

Until next time.

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.

A River of Leadership

Leadership is like white water rafting.

The world of software development is an untamed river of uncertainty and innovation.  I swim in this whitewater of ambiguity and get caught up in its currents regularly.  Technology never rests, and the pressure to sink or swim is always present.  Being a leader is more perilous because you are also responsible for the wellbeing of others who work with you.  I want to take a closer look at those responsibilities of leadership.

At the recommendation of my colleagues, I am stepping forward and founding a chapter of the Agile Coaching Exchange in the greater Chicago area.  It is a new role for me and something I have not done before.  I am gathering speakers and attempting to set up venues for the group to meet.  I have been a participant in these kinds of gathering for years, and now I am organizing them.  It makes me respect the people organizing meetups and user groups more because I understand how much hard work it is.

The experience reminded me of a blog I authored about leadership.  A person has three choices when confronted with a challenge; lead, follow, or get out of the way.  It is time for me to show some leadership in the agile community instead of ranting like a voice in the wilderness.  It is not the traditional leadership I was trained earlier in my life to adopt.  Times change, and so does leadership.  Claire Croft mentions this in an article for Forbes magazine.

The global economy is changing too quickly.  Sears and ToysRUs are gone.  The internet reaches over half the world's population, and it is growing by 2% annually.  We measure success in days instead of years.  Finally, the job I have today did not exist when I was a college undergraduate.  It means traditional notions of leadership are not going to adapt to the turbulence of the current business world.

It means leadership needs to come from inside.  You have to play up personal strengths and work with your shortcomings.  Instead of a mask of command, a leader should expose themselves to others to build empathy and radical candor.  It includes being kind to yourself and others because we are all fighting unique struggles each day.

I continue my adventures rafting the unsettled river of technology.  As the water rises and falls, I will change my leadership style to navigate to the next destination.  I am grateful for each of my readers, who are sharing this journey with me.

Until next time.

Agile Coaching must work with Corporate Leadership.

They made great art but the rivalry was toxic.
 Don't let this happen to your coaching relationship
with business leaders.

One of the best things about being an agilest is the network of smart and committed people who are willing to provide insight into how they are solving business problems.  I know if I ask for help I receive plenty of suggestions and feedback.  I wrote a blog about how agile is good at exposing toxic leadership inside an organization.  I received some criticism from people I respect who thought I was creating a false conflict with leaders.  Let me explain myself.

Organizations are coming around to the Agile Reformation for one apparent reason; it is good for business.  Faster time to market and more precise focus on meeting customer needs translates into profits.  Business leaders are also discovering disengaged workers, and toxic leaders are a drain to the bottom line.  It is just like what baseball manager Tommy Lasorda said, “Happy Cows make more milk.” The reality of the benefits of Agile provides an opportunity to make business better.  It also means business leaders and agile coaches have a vested interest in working together. 

The tension between leadership and agile coaches happens when agile exposes inefficiencies in the broader business.  Development teams release software, but the business users are not interested in testing.  Network professionals block the use of Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment tools because they see it as a career threat.  Finally, pointing out a toxic leader can jeopardize the balance of power in office politics.  I struggle to navigate these situations. 

Often when teams become more agile, the surrounding business is stuck in the status quo.  It is inside this shadow zone where a company makes the transition from doing agile to being agile.  The metaphorical rubber hits the road in that place.  The only way it can succeed is if business leaders buy in, agile professionals lead by example and teams follow through.  A woman I respect very much said, “Do your job, tell the truth and if it does not work out it is their problem.” 

A large organization can behave like an addict they know they are involved in the self-destructive activity, but they cannot stop.  Only when the organization realizes they have to quit will they.  A scrum master or coach needs to be available when they are ready to make the change.  Leaders should be partners in any agile transformation.  Collaboration and cooperation should be the guiding principles of this relationship.  If it collapses into codependence and conflict, then it is time for the coach to admit failure and go elsewhere. 

Until next time.

A scrum master should do more than punch a clock

A good scrum master is like a good camp counselor

As we head into summer, it is a good time to reflect on the first half of the year.  I am going through numerous personal and professional changes.  My role is going to be changing at my firm and there are plenty of comings and going.  This week I wanted to discuss some insight I gained at the office.

Many of you know, I am a big fan of Angela Dugan and her blog The TFS Whisperer.  For three days, she came to my firm and conducting training for Visual Studio Team Services and spent quality time with Product Owners at my firm.  What happened next was a revelation.  The following Monday half of the scrum masters in the organization were rolled off.

I think it would be unprofessional and small to discuss the details of why those scrum masters are gone.  Instead, I will say their departure reflects a divide in the agile profession of scrum master.  There are two camps; one camp see being a scrum master as being a glorified project manager, the other camp sees the scrum master as a servant leader, coach, and therapist for development teams.  I belong in the latter camp.

There is plenty of blogs on the web which say that being a scrum master is not being a project manager.  Yet, I see some scrum professionals who see their job as nothing more than scheduling meetings and updating the scrum board too.  This is not being a scrum master.  It is a person accustomed to doing things the old way of attempting to survive in the corporate rat race.  They do not really add value and often create scrum-butt situations.

In my opinion, a scrum master is more than someone who punches a clock and generates reports.  They are more like a camp counselor or youth pastor minus the bad facial hair.  They have to hold other people accountable.  They have to train product owners to a basic level of competence.  They have to make sure that people are shipping working product into production.  Finally, they have to keep people motivated because software development can devolve into a soul-crushing activity.

In short, being a scrum master is hard emotional and intellectual work.  If you are not willing to do that work then you are likely to get rolled off a client.

Until next time.

Laquan McDonald can teach us something about scrum.

They look cute until they undermine your efforts

One of the hardest things for a scrum master to do is lead organizational change.  For example, showing developers how to do SOLID development and test driven development is not enough.  The developers should see the utility of what they are doing and be compelled to practice it.  If your development team refuses to follow your lead you are stuck.  This week I wanted to discuss what happens when institutional needs meets resistance from the front line employees.

There has been plenty of news in the press about the killing of Laquan McDonald.  The young man was carrying a knife and walking away from a police officer when he was shot 16 times by a Chicago Police officer.  Video footage of the police officer using lethal force on McDonald was caught on a dash board camera in a police car.  The audio for the event was lost because the microphones were either disabled or broken.  McDonald’s death has sparked protests and calls for the mayor of the city to resign and has made the election of the attorney general a wide open race.

What is not being said in all this protest is that police officers have been wearing body cameras and using dash board cameras for roughly five years.  The shooting of McDonald also included a three year effort by the city to prevent the video footage from reaching the public until a judge gave the order during the December of 2015.  So on the one hand you have efforts to make the police department more accountable and on the other the information is suppressed by self-interest by police, politicians and prosecutors.

Currently, news has surfaced that eighty percent of the dashboard cameras and body cameras have the audio feature disabled on them.   There is a great deal of doubt as to whether this is because of tampering among police officers or poor maintenance; either way the optics look very bad.

So you have a government which wants to make the police force more transparent and cut back on the use of deadly force in communities and you have a the members of the police force with equipment which does not make that happen.  There is a lesson here for the scrum master.  If you are going to institute change then that change needs to be embraced from the bottom up rather from the top down.  Otherwise, you will be confronted with sabotage, monkey-wrench efforts, and stonewalling.

It is a shame that it takes a dead kid and embarrassing headlines to make that point.

Until next time.