Focus is the Key

The older I become, the more I am struck by how the contemporary office is resistant to change. The COVID-19 pandemic proved we could work from home and deliver value to customers, but business leaders are pushing employees to return to the office. We are also seeing business leaders demand employees become 'hardcore,' whatever that means simultaneously. We are seeing business leaders juggling more opportunities and distractions than concentrating on the core of the business. The trend of the superstar CEO and founder is becoming tedious, and it is time that coaches and agile professionals emphasize the importance of focus if we are going to make the business world better.  

Ed Zitron in Business Insider this week points out the hypocrisy many business leaders illustrate when they complain about the work ethics of their employees. Zitron points out that many CEOs do not create value for their firms and are "A chaotic blend of unproductive micromanagement and highly paid absenteeism." The problem is that there are too many temptations for an executive to moonlight outside their core responsibilities. Today, a CEO has meetings to attend, boards of directors to sit on, and a television appearance on cable to show the shareholders they are making a difference. Lost in this busy work is the operation of the business and leading the people who work there. 

The lack of focus on the part of executives directly impacts the firm's bottom line. The fact that distracted leaders struggle to deliver value means that as a coach, you must point out the destructive behavior to the organization and then guide people to fix it. Leadership and getting people to work together toward a common goal is hard work. It requires dedication and commitment. The result can get tedious. Frankly, it is more fun to appear on television and make public speaking engagements talking about how good you are at business. 

The sad reality is television opportunities and public speaking engagements are transitory. A business leader who is absent doing other things puts the business's long-term survival at risk. As a coach, you need to concentrate on what is essential, and that focus should be on the company and its executive leadership. Anything else is a wasteful distraction. 

The economy is becoming more challenging, so now is the time for a change of perspective. Instead of building personal brands, concentrate on customers' needs and building the business's brand. Take a good look at your organization's operations and see what you can do to improve. It is not glamorous, but what's best for the business's continued success. 

Until next time. 

Not just coders

I have spent the last few days hiding from cable news.  The death of the Queen of England and the mourning and celebration it generates is overwhelming.  I have spent my time reading David Forster Wallace's essays and working on white papers focusing on creating cross-functional teams.  It has been a welcome respite.  As I was writing, I stumbled upon some online forums discussing the role of developers in an agile team, and I felt that I needed to make an important point.   

I have commented on the attitude of a minority of people in the project management profession that the only role of a development team is to write code.  It is an incorrect assertion.  A development team not only includes people who write software code but quality professionals, data specialists, user interface professionals, and business analysts.  Each team member has a say in delivering value to a customer.  The combination of these diverse skills makes an agile team so powerful.  

Leaders with command and control mindsets think that developers are interchangeable.  A developer understands a computer language and can take business requirements and translate them into that language.  What these leaders do not understand is that developers are people.  Developers have children and spouses.  Like all human beings, they are struggling with emotional and existential challenges.  Software developers deal with deadline pressure and problem-solving differently than others because each is unique.  A software developer is not some nameless worker bee working for the company hive; they are flesh and blood struggling to get along in the world just like everyone else.    

Along with Marx's observation that work alienates people from themselves, I believe the dehumanization of people keeping the global economy spinning is the biggest challenge of our time.  People should take pride in what they do, and saying a software developer is just a coder dismisses all the intelligence and effort they put into mastering their craft.  Influential bureaucratic organizations often make the work process impersonal and anonymous, whether in government or business.  

A competent software developer requires creativity, attention to detail, intelligence, and the ability to deal with oppressive levels of frustration and doubt.  The middle ground of healthy self-esteem is elusive when you are on deadline with a gnarly problem to solve.  Some days you feel like the dumbest person on the planet, and other days you want to revel in your intelligence.  It is emotionally taxing, and treating these people like mindless drones is insulting.  

Treating people like people instead of nameless cogs in a global machine is the key to success in a global economy.  I have come up the technology ranks as a hobbyist, student, entry-level developer, and finally, a scrum master.  This experience in the trench of software development makes me a better leader and agile coach.  

Until next time. 

The Slow Road to Agile

Organization change resembles the story of Sisyphus.  As punishment for cheating the god of the underworld Hades, Sisyphus was doomed to spend eternity rolling a heavy boulder up a hill.  It would move back to the bottom when he brought it to the top.  The futility of the effort was the punishment the ancient gods inflicted upon Sisyphus.  Each day, as an agile professional, you struggle with similar challenges.  The stone gets further up the hill, and an executive or vendor will knock it down for spiteful or selfish reasons.  It is frustrating.  Today, I want to discuss why the struggle is worth the effort. 

It is easy to get discouraged when leading organizational change.  It is easy leading a crowd of people who are enthusiastic and committed.  The hard work comes when you have to motivate others to set aside their selfish needs for the greater good of others.  Cultural inertia will always be an obstacle to progress.  Still, the biggest challenge is the profound feeling of loneliness that comes with putting yourself in front of others who are doubtful of your mission. 

Agile began when a group of hard-working and committed people got together to point out that traditional approaches to work were not working.  These people created the Agile Manifesto and principles.  Since then, the agile reformation has become inclusive of each nationality on the planet.  Women are some of the most respected proponents of the approaches agile uses.  Finally, agile has earned the respect of executives and business people because it delivers more value to customers.  It is a slow road of progress. 

The industrial revolution and modern corporations have only existed for two hundred years.  The agile reformation has only lived for twenty, and businesses have come around to the values and principles of agile.  My work and countless others are starting to make a difference.  It feels good to be part of a social movement like that.  

As an agile coach or scrum master, it is essential to look at the progress made over the last twenty years.  Businesses are beginning to understand the old ways of operation are hurting profitability and customer satisfaction.  This realization points them toward people like myself to help show them a better way.  I can't think of a better calling for one's career and life.  The struggle is worth the effort.  

Thanks for following the blog.  I look forward to more writing when I return.  We will be taking time off next week for a vacation with the family.  

Until next time and have a happy Independence Day.  

The Pragmatic Way is Agile.

Lewis Carol said, “Between the idea and the reality lies the shadow.”  It was a wise observation from the author of “Alice in Wonderland,” particularly for people in the technology business.  Each day developers are taking ideas from others half-formed and transforming them into web pages, mobile applications, and complex data systems which keep the economic world spinning.  The theoretical becomes a reality in my line of work.  

I am working on a professional credential for my profession, and something has occurred to me.  To be a good scrum master or agile coach, you must balance the academic skills of the trade with the real-world challenges of working with people and business.  Not only must a scrum master know things, but they must be able to put those things into practice when the knowledge counts.  It means agile must embrace pragmatism.  

I have written about pragmatism before on this blog.  It is a uniquely American type of philosophy which more concerned about outcomes than deep philosophical processes.  It is also concerned with what people accomplish than how they get to the accomplishments.  For example, when I was between jobs, I substitute taught computer s science at my local high school.  To my surprise, the high school has a daycare center.  I was a little flustered and asked why a high school would have a daycare.  An understanding woman who was dean of students, Flora Betts, explained that it was for teen mothers so their children could receive care while they finished their diplomas.  My apprehension turned into admiration as the school found a way to prevent women from dropping out.  Instead of forcing young mothers to drop out, the school allowed them to complete their education while their children were in a safe and healthy environment.  If a high school can find a way to address a problem like teen motherhood, then the business world can deal with its myriad of complex issues.  

Part of many of the problems I see in business come from people slavishly following processes and ignoring what those processes are supposed to accomplish.  The customer must fill out forms correctly or obtain approval before receiving a product.  It may be the correct approach for accounting, but in the world of customer service, it undermines relationships and sales.  It is why I am a big supporter of pragmatism at work.  For instance, retrospectives should fall on the last day of a sprint, but what if the last day of the sprint falls on a national holiday? 

Many people would move the retrospective forward a day.  Often it is scheduled after the holiday because the entire office wants to get out early before the holiday.  In my coaching practice, I ask the team when it is time to have a retrospective.  We are still having a retrospective, but the pragmatic approach is to let the team decide when to have it.  The team is empowered, and the bent rules are not broken.  The agile world uses a fancy Japanese phrase for this approach, and it is called Shu Ha Ri.  

Development teams should learn the basics of agile, the Shu stage.  Next, they know which rules can be bent or broken in the Ha phase.  Finally, the team comes up with their own more relevant regulations for work, and this is the Ri phase.  After all the learning and growth, they begin the process again.  Mastery never happens because everyone is learning and growing.  It seems like a powerful, pragmatic way to improve an organization.  

So as I continue to study very formal and prescriptive ways to do my job, I am aware that work gets done in the shadow of the idea and the reality.  I need to understand the rules before I know which ones to bend or before I can create new ones.  Remember it the next time someone quotes practices or processes to avoid doing work.  Being pragmatic gets the job done and leads to change in organizations.  

A good Juneteenth and until next time.  

Agile is Ethical and About Squashing Trolls.

In the early days of internet communities, the conversation was limited to bulletin board systems and the early attempts at instant messaging.  It was a wild and unregulated era.  People got into an intense discussion that would degenerate into personal attacks known as “flame-wars.” Often the online conversation would be a mix of community building and toxic misanthropy.  Other times, communities would sprout up and become repositories for wisdom and trivia in equal measure.  To be an early adopter of the internet, you learn to find the good stuff and avoid the poison.  

The most dangerous people in this new world were called trolls.  According to The Guardian newspaper, they are the type of internet user “…who posts a deliberately erroneous or antagonistic message to a newsgroup or a similar forum intending to elicit a hostile or corrective response.”   Today, social media and the internet appear overrun with these trolls looking to monetize the attention into fame and fortune.  Today on the blog, I want to deal with a troll spreading disinformation about the agile movement. 

Dealing with internet trolls is often like wrestling a pig in a mud puddle.  After lots of exertion, you are dirty and exhausted, and the pig appreciates the exercise.  When a troll is denied the nourishment of attention, the internet troll moves to another topic or potential victim.  It is why a common source of wisdom on the web is “don’t feed the trolls.”  

I spend plenty of time on the professional network LinkedIn.  It is a way to keep in touch with old colleagues and stay on top of industry trends.  Daily, I see articles from solemn people talking about why agile does not work.  Many of these articles follow a similar template and often boil down to organizations being unable or unwilling to apply the information they discover during the agile process to improve.  I liken it to a person who knows they have to quit drinking but journeys to the liquor store because they cannot fathom a life without alcohol.  This week was an exception because someone seeking attention posted an article saying agile was unethical.  I have dedicated my entire career to ethics and agile.  To have someone accuse the agile reformation of being unethical felt like a grievous insult to everything I have stood for professionally.  

Agile, emphasizing transparency and empiricism, is the height of ethical business behavior.  Customers deserve collaboration instead of lengthy contract negotiations.  The manifesto talks about working software being a principal measure of success.  Rather than sticking to a plan, an agile professional will respond to changing conditions and market plans, and being an agile professional means being deadline-focused.  Finally, agile requires you to be good with people and practice radical candor along with dynamic leadership. 

Agile is an accepted part of technology organizations and global business because it works, and its practitioners embrace the highest ethical standards.  The business world is harsh, but it will not tolerate frauds and grifters.  A grifter will alienate everyone and then no one will do business with them, and eventually, a fraud will get caught and go to jail.  

Finding an audience is difficult on the internet.  It does not excuse spreading misinformation or outright falsehoods.  Often you feel like a mime in a mosh pit wanting to express yourself and receive the attention you deserve.  When I made my predictions about 2022, I said I wanted to fight misinformation.  Any accusation that Agile is unethical for business should receive a dose of skepticism.  I have paid a high price to be an ethical technology professional and speak truth to power.  I will not feed trolls by letting them get away with spreading erroneous information.  

Until next time.

Embrace the Pain and the Progress of Agile

I am busy with my work commitments and researching a book.  As part of my research for the project, I have spent time reading about topics outside my comfort zone.  One of the topics is an understanding of Lance Armstrong and his doping scandals.  While doing this research, I discovered the deep wells of endurance and dedication it takes to be a professional cyclist.  Each cyclist has masochistically embraced pain and suffering.

Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O'Connell described three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond book in their book "Wheelmen,"

"He'd hit 5,000 feet, and the air would get thin. He'd feel light-headed. He'd breathe hard. So hard he couldn't think anymore – couldn't feel anything.  And LeMond liked it that way.  He was happiest when he was suffering when he was in total pain."

LeMond was an abused child, and he would get on his bicycle and ride.  The physical pain and adrenaline were his escape mechanism.  

What many people consider masochism was a typical day's effort for a professional cyclist.  With little fanfare and attention riding, six, eight, ten hours a day, the rider would climb steep mountain trails at altitude and pursue a constant diet and exercise routine.  The routine of suffering had few guarantees because everyone else we doing the same things to remain competitive.  

After a call with my development team in India, it occurred to me that the life of a technology professional is similar to a professional cyclist.  Most people do not see the hard work and attention to detail software developers and quality assurance professionals put into their work.  The hours spent tweaking algorithms, troubleshooting bugs, and tuning database tables are invisible to the software users.  It is a grind, and it resembles the suffering of professional cyclists. 

As the coach and leader of your team, it is your job to put that suffering and grind into perspective.  Measure things like defects, lead time, number of stories getting done per sprint.  Spot trends and point out improvements.  Show your team that the hard work is paying off.  Finally, expose the team to the people using the software.  It will allow the people doing the work to see how all the effort is paying off. 

The emotional labor it takes to lead a software team is challenging, but if you put in the effort, there is a big chance that it will pay off with a victory lap or two when you complete the project.  I hope all of my readers have a fabulous Christmas holiday, and I look forward to more adventures in 2022.  

Until next time. 

Being Grateful is Part of Leadership.

It is Thanksgiving week in the United States, and it is a uniquely American holiday with its origins in the American Civil War.  The family gathers together to have a big meal and make plans for the Christian holiday in December.  The Thanksgiving holiday weekend is also a great opportunity to emotionally reset and take stock of the things in life which make you grateful.  In the lonely world of leadership, gratitude is the only thing that can keep you concentrating on long-range goals. 

General Collin Powell died this year, and this imperfect patriot had plenty of things to say about leadership.  I have plenty of respect for Powell and his style of leadership.  One of the things he says in his book on leadership is being in charge is a lonely activity with others second-guessing decisions.  A leader deals with negativity, hostility, and apathy each day, and it can make even the most enthusiastic to a cause feel crippling levels of exhaustion.  In those moments of fatigue, being grateful for even the most minor things in life make it possible to move on to the next day.  

Even in the dark moments, it helps to take time to show gratitude for what good you can find in the world surrounding you.  First of all, I am grateful to the CAPCO organization.  I was feeling discouraged about my career, and they hired me as a Senior Consultant.  Since I have joined the organization, I feel like I now have a tribe of people as my colleagues.  We are eccentrics, innovative, and want to make a difference in the business world.  Being the lone agile person in an organization is isolating.  To be part of a group of agile professionals going through the same struggles make the fight worth it. 

I am grateful my parents are alive, and I get to enjoy them in their old age.  Life expectancy has doubled in a century, and my family has benefited.  I see my mother and father grow old together.  Our family will spend the Thanksgiving holiday together, and we will catch up and love each other as an immediate family can.  I get to enjoy the wit and wisdom of my parents for a while longer.  

Four years ago, a woman entered my life, and I have been a better person for the experience.  My partner Carol is warm, empathetic, and kind.  She puts up with my crazy career and the emotional ups and downs which come with it.  She is a teacher of young children, so I am learning how to relate better to small children.  She and her grown children have accepted me into their family, and I am grateful for that acceptance.  

I could go on, but I am most grateful for many things.  It helps push away the despair and darkness.  It is a chance to reflect on gratitude which helps make our workday struggles seem less consequential.  I am grateful to you, my readers and I look forward to more agile adventures in the future.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  

Until next time.

Cheering on the Butterflies on Your Team

Working on large projects has a way of grinding down the best professionals.  The list of things to do is endless.  Deadline pressures mount, and technical challenges can take the most realistic timeline and transform it into a tar pit of despair.  I experience these emotions just as much as the next person.  Taking some time for myself this weekend, I stumbled on a metaphor that will help me manage the stress and strain which will build up over the next four weeks as I prepare to get ready for a new release.

Anyone who leads a team needs to learn how to tell stories.  The ability to tell stories helps you put situations into context, inspire others, and make the bad times less terrible.  Good leaders know how to read the team and what stories to tell to help them get to the next point.  Over the years, I have collected some of the better stories from literature and philosophy to help make sense of the chaos that swirls around me as a technology professional.  

After a relaxing weekend with my partner, I watched her grown children participate in the Brookfield Zoo 5K race.  It is a casual affair where you will see parents pushing strollers around the race route next to runners looking to earn prize money.  At the start of the race, cheering people on, we spread out over the course to clap and provide support to our family members.  The runners appreciated the support from family and friends to a person.  The runners went a little faster and kept pushing, thanks to the encouragement of others.  As a leader, you need to be on the sidelines, helping push people to keep running and provide the support they need when tired or running out of energy.  

In many respects, a significant software project is like a long-distance race.  The difference is with a technology project, the endpoint is unclear, and the racecourse changes difficulty as the race progresses.  It is frustrating and can undermine the confidence of anyone.  After the race, the family and I decided to enjoy a leisurely tour of the zoo via tram.  Our driver mentioned that many species of animals and insects migrate as part of their natural behavior.  The monarch butterfly is one of those species.  A common misperception is that a butterfly will travel across the United States to Mexico in the space of a year.  The tour guide mentioned that it takes four generations of butterflies to make the trip to the breeding grounds in Mexico.  The butterfly in Minnesota will never experience the warm sun of Mexico.  It is up to the butterflies' descendants to make the trip.  

Throughout four generations of butterflies living, breading, and flying, they make the trip across the continent one flap at a time.  It struck me this is the perfect metaphor for a large enterprise software project.  Often, people come and go on the project doing necessary work and then moving on to other things.  What keeps everything moving forward is the instinctual desire to finish the project and the muscular memory of the organization.  A good coach or scrum master should support this process and make sure that work gets done.  An agile leader should also point out that it will take numerous people to work together over long periods to get the job done.  It is like standing by the side of the road and cheering on people you want to succeed.  

Until next time. 

Integrity and Agile make a difference.

Being a coach and scrum master is one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.  I have worked with many great people, and I had received plenty of support from total strangers when life at the office was painful.  We are a diverse and unruly bunch of misfits who think we can change the business world one project at a time.  The last eleven years since I discovered agile changed me for the better and helped me find a purpose.  We talk about plenty of topics in agile: from servant leadership, being authentic to how to write a good user story. Still, we don’t talk about personal integrity and why it is so essential for the success of the agile reformation.  I want to correct that oversight.  

The author C.S. Lewis said, “Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching. “  It is a strange concept in business because we judge people on how they impress their superiors or how much revenue they generate in an amoral world which is concerned about profit; notions like character and integrity get lost in the daily hustle.  

What gets missed in the conversation about business and amorality is that to lead others effectively, business people must have a type of personal integrity that makes others want to follow them.  Leaders do not lead because they have a title or authority.  A person becomes a leader because others connect with them and wish to follow.  The secret sauce to leadership is personal and professional integrity.  

Borrowing from C.S. Lewis, I define integrity as a code of conduct you follow in public and private spheres.  You treat others with respect at the office and home.  Someone with integrity will never ask someone to do something they would not do themselves.  When your staff is working late, you are with them, providing moral support.  It is not an easy way to conduct your life, but it is fulfilling.  

People with integrity win the respect of others and the hatred of those who are lacking.  A person with integrity acts as an example for others to follow.  When they make a promise, they keep it.  Those with integrity move through the world with a quiet poise that others will notice and does not require constant self-promotion.  

Having integrity saves careers.  After a business meeting, select scrum masters in the organization were not performing their duties and billing their hours to the firm.  Within a week, these scofflaws were gone, and the remaining people granted more influence in the organization.  People see who is doing the work and who is skating by on good looks and charm.  When times are tough, people with integrity are those others want around.  

Angela Dugan, the Chief People Officer at Polaris Solutions, said at an after-hours meeting, “Do your job the best you can and let them fire you if they have a problem with that.”  It is a bit of wisdom that has remained with me during my career and the best definition of Integrity I can find in the business.  Imagine if every business person conducted themselves in that manner and how much better it would be.  It is a lofty goal and one I hope others with integrity will pursue with me. 

Until next time. 

 

Remembering Larry Blankenship

I have been part of agile reformation since 2009.  I evolved from a voice in the wilderness to part of a growing cohort of professionals who make the world of work better. Unfortunately, this week our tribe got a little smaller.  Larry Blankenship died from a heart attack this week. I am feeling compelled to honor the man and his work.  

Larry, like many of us, came to the agile reformation as a frustrated technology professional.  Projects were long, painful slogs, which ran over budget and demanded superhuman efforts. So naturally, when someone suggested a better way, people like Larry gravitated toward it.  He preached a common-sense approach to agile and development.  He was mid-western friendly with deep insight into engineering and human nature.  You could count on him for some humor and a subtle jab if you started acting smug.  

He represents a common theme among the people I know online and in-person related to the agile reformation.  Each of us has a deep devotion to making work feel less like drudgery and more like a vocation.  We are intelligent people who have discovered that many problems in technology are not technology problems but human issues which need addressing.  

Larry epitomized that mindset with wisdom, kindness, and a wry sense of humor.  The agile community is going to be less interesting without him.  Fortunately, more people are coming to join and carry his memory forward.  

Goodbye Larry, we will miss you.

Resolve Matters More Than Ever

Resolve is fun and difficult!

Four years ago, I wrote a rather glum blog in the aftermath of the election of 2016.  I struggled with plenty of feelings and the realization I had a skewed vision of my fellow citizens.  In that darkness of the soul, I over-ate and did some reflection.  Today, the election results are different, but I do not feel any big jolt of joy.  Instead, I feel a deep sense of resolve.

I said the following in 2016, “Even in darkness, we can find resolve and purpose.”  Today, I feel more committed to that sentence.  We are in the middle of a terrible pandemic, the economy is deeply dysfunctional, and political polarization creates a toxic brew of resentment.  Fixing these challenges is daunting.  I have naïve faith that collectively, we can overcome these difficulties.  I feel this way because it is up to people of good faith to do the hard work to help unify the country and deliver value to its people.  People like me.

I joined the agile reformation because I felt there was a better way to work.  The toil and struggle of working on technology projects could be fixed and agile with four values, and twelve principles showed the way.  It was easy to learn the ideas of agile but carrying them out in the real world is complicated.  You cannot host a meeting with a slide deck and expect people to start leading their businesses differently.  Agile requires technical excellence, servant leadership, psychological safety, and putting in the extra effort.  

The goal of agile is to make the workplace more satisfying, sustainable, and sane.  If people like myself can make work better for others, then we can slowly begin to neutralize the poison which exists in society.  People who can support families and who work in healthy environments are less likely to support authoritarianism.  I am working to make the world a better place, one cubical at a time. 

We are still in a dark time.  The world is not going to fix itself.  It requires smart people working hard to create reasonable solutions that people can embrace.  It is not going to be easy.  Agile and servant leadership will provide direction and purpose.

I look forward to continuing to lead change and help make work better one step at a time.  I am proud to be part of the reformation, and I hope you will continue to follow me as I share nuggets of wisdom I gather along the way.

Until next time.

The Road to Damascus and Agile

Enjoy this holiday weekend.

Each day millions of people go to work.  A person spends a third of their lives working to provide for themselves and their families.  In the modern economy, it means being adaptable and finding value in any situation.  It is challenging and filled with anxiety because, at any moment, forces outside our control could threaten our livelihoods.  With the upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we should reflect on work and how it should be. 

I became a member of the agile reformation over ten years ago when I discovered agile could be a better way to work.  I was tired of the drudgery of a project which had no payoff.  Technology leadership exhibited the worse traits of authoritarian management, and your best was never good enough.  I felt something had to change.  Since that “road to Damascus,” moment, I have devoted myself to the agile movement.

The manifesto has four simple values and twelve principles.  Professionals have used this tool to help make work better and more humane.  Now we understand how to eliminate waste, deliver value, and improve quality without being callous or working people to death.  Along the way, I have grown exponentially and met plenty of great fellow travelers. 

As we settle in for a long weekend, take some time to relax and spend time with the people you love.  We have a global economy to rebuild and a business community to reform.  We need to put people back to work, and I look forward to being with you during the journey.  

Until next time and have a happy Memorial Day Weekend.  

Admit Weakness and Become Agile

Good teams help compensate
 for the weakness of its individual members.

Continuous improvement and changing organizations are difficult and time-consuming work.  I talk about it all the time because it is the vocation, I find myself.  I worked for years for bad bosses and exploitative people.  I swore to myself if I earned a position of authority, I was going to be different.  Your values and your principles are exposed when you are a servant leader.  You are vulnerable, and learning to forgive others, and yourself becomes critical. I want to talk about something which illustrated that point.

Being a software developer is hard.  It is a lucrative and satisfying career, but it is not easy.  You have to relearn your job every eighteen months.  Developers are surrounded by smart, capable people and expected to be intelligent and capable.  The time spent writing software is filled with false starts and dead ends.  It also contains unrealistic deadlines and pressure to excel.  I was an intermediate level software developer.  It explains why I am so protective of the developers under my leadership; I was one of them.

Since being a developer requires a tremendous amount of problem-solving skills, focus, and intelligence, it creates a culture where to admit misunderstanding or lack of knowledge is to admit weakness.  It is why stand-up meetings degenerate into a perfunctory status report or silent staring matches between the scrum master and the team.  No one wants to look weak, and in many technology companies, this weakness leads to unemployment.

A software demo went poorly this week.  The client was unhappy, and the CEO was frustrated.  What happened next changed the culture of the company and the career of the developer.  Instead of asking why the demo went poorly, the scrum master asked how the demo went badly.  It became apparent the developer was using an untested technology and was struggling for two weeks to meet a deadline.  Instead of speaking up, they suffered in silence.  No one knew there was a problem or that someone needed help.  It was apparent when the software demonstration failed, but by then, it was too late.

Instead of shaming the developer for not knowing the untested technology, the scrum master asked him what he would do differently.  In a heartbeat, the developer said next time they would ask for help.  By showing vulnerability and learning painful lessons, the developer grew as a professional.  The development team learned that they were only as successful as their weakest member.  The team discovered they would have to support each other.  Finally, they accepted failure was necessary if the team is going to succeed.  The scrum master used non-violent language and powerful questions to fix a problem and grow the organization.  I do not doubt that the team will have a successful demonstration in two weeks.  Together, they learned what it takes to be successful.

Admitting vulnerability and asking for help is essential for individuals to come together as a team.  Admitting weakness is a powerful professional strength.  Finally, understand those weaknesses and helping others overcome them is the key to good leadership.  I am glad I got a chance to witness it among my team.

Until next time.

Use Agile to Fight Failure

Failure hurts, but not learning from failure hurts worse.

The purpose of agile is to create working software and solutions.  I have stated this goal repeatedly.  The iterations, meetings, and emotional labor are all designed to get work completed promptly.  The rapid feedback delivers value in the least amount of time without waste exposing failure.  The real test of an agile team is how it copes with failure.

The world of politics, media, and business loves to celebrate winning and success.  John F. Kennedy remarked that success had many fathers, but failure was considered an orphan.  People with careers on the line will do anything to avoid failure.  In a world of achievement, the stigma of failure is very real.  I suspect it is this stigma that makes it hard for business leaders to experiment and try different approaches to problems.  To do so is to risk failure.

Failure is a clarifying experience. We quickly discover what does not work.  We also understand the conditions we are working to overcome.  Failure also creates an emotional connection to the work.  It is the chip on the shoulder that drives you forward which says to the world, “I may have failed now but it will make my future success more powerful.”  I extol the virtues of failure because it makes people and teams better at overcoming adversity.  I have failed a lot in my career and that wisdom follows me around.  It helps me train others to avoid the mistakes I have made in the past.

A team has three reactions to failure.  The first reaction is apathy.  If failure does not have any repercussions, a group of people will continue their bad habits and personal agendas.  The next response is fear, where we have people behaving in self-preservation mode.  Team members withdraw from each other and look to do just enough work to avoid blame or blame someone else.  Leaders micro-manage because they feel helpless and see the people they lead unable or unwilling to do the job.  Fear is a palatable emotion, and everyone experiences it on the team.  The final sentiment is determination.  Where the fear once existed, the emotional survivors of the group become determined to overcome their adversity.  Good leaders and coaches get teams to the point of determination quickly.  Those with less skill will have to slog through the earlier steps.

Agile and scrum help along this process, exposing failure and forcing the team to inspect and adapt.  Each retrospective allows the team to find the points of failure and address them.  The team reflects on what they need to do and what they need to change.  A woman I respect who teaches children says failure is an acronym for the first attempt at learning.  Based on this premise failure is a stepping stone to more substantial success.

I have failed more times than I can recall during my career.  Each setback, mistake, and screw up has made me a better developer, scrum master, and coach.  I like to point out the mistakes I have made in the past so that other people can learn from them.  It is also this display of vulnerability that helps me build credibility with the team.  I strive to be a leader instead of a boss or manager.  So, when you are creating working solutions for customers, you are going to confront failure.  The critical part of the failure experience is how you learn from it and the emotional strength of the team who should develop the ability to overcome.

Until next time.

It Takes Labor and Intelligence to Make Magic

It looks like magic but it is something else.

The software business is a strange beast.  Developers wrestle with ones and zeros to create things that only existed in someone’s imagination.  We exchange terabytes each second to help us shop, get driving directions, or book a vacation.  The raw computing power we hold in our hands dwarfs the computing power which puts people on the moon.  Science fiction author Arthur C. Clark said any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic. We live in these magical times, where we can get anything on our phones.  It hides an ugly reality that it takes a tremendous amount of labor and intelligence to construct these systems.  It takes more energy to maintain those systems and keep the global economy spinning.  I need to pull back the curtain and reveal the hard work behind the magic.

Software is written to solve problems or to automate a process.  The first electronic computers were created to break the Nazi Enigma codes and to calculate the trajectories of artillery shells during the Second World War.  These machines were ugly and ungainly.  The early computers did not have formal systems of logic or operations.  Smart people would have to come up with those systems.  Fortunately, the allies had people like Alan Turing and Grace Hopper to pioneer those advances.

The vacuum tubes of the early days of computers would give way to the transistors and then semi-conductors.  The transition from glass tubes to silicon wafers leads to an explosion of innovation including programming languages like Pascal and COBOL.  IBM used a startup company from Seattle called Microsoft to create the first operating system for personal computers.  The world wide web was born, and soon businesses sprang up to generate billions of dollars of wealth.  In hindsight, all of this “progress” appears inevitable.  In reality, it is the work of tens of thousands of engineers and software developers who will forever remain anonymous.

These were people who sacrificed time with family and friends to stare at green computer screens attempting to squeeze additional seconds of processing time out of applications.  These were people who came up with algorithms that allowed efficient organ donations.  They were UI/UX designers who discovered horizontal scrolling hurt sales and created designs that improved closing rates.  It was late nights, cold coffee, and exhaustion, which constructed the technology we take for granted.  I am one of those anonymous foot soldiers in this march of progress.

As I became more experienced as a software engineer, I realized the way we lead those projects was not improving with the technology. We were doing the same crazy things and expecting the same results.  It is why I become a member of the agile reformation.  I wanted to make a change.

Today, many of the people making decisions about technology have not constructed that technology.  These people have ideas but no practical knowledge of how to make those ideas work.  Confronted with this reality, they have engineers, developers, and designers to make the idea a reality.  Unfortunately, because they think technology behaves magically, they believe its creation is a magical process.  It is not magic but the product of hard work and intelligence.  No amount of wishful thinking will change the realities of Moore’s Law.

It is why we have the agile manifesto and principles.  We want our work to be more sane, satisfying, and sustainable.  It is only four values and 12 principles, but they make all the difference in an organization. We do live in a magical world.  It is a world created by the sweat and toil of smart people.  By understanding the labor which goes into technology, we can make the world a little more magical.

Until next time.

We need to teach the agile reformation

Everyone in agile is an educator. 

I have a love affair with teachers.  My Aunt was a teacher and an elementary school principal.  My first wife was a teacher, and my current romantic partner is a teacher.  I owe my career and success to teachers who invested time and energy on me.  Teachers are the glue which holds society together, and without them, the world would collapse into a puddle of ignorance — teachers mater.

I some respects, I have become a teacher myself. I have spent the last few decades of my life learning software developments and project management.  Now I am sharing my knowledge with others and helping make business better one project at a time.  Being a scrum master and agile coach means you have to be a teacher.  The Agile manifesto and principles of agile are a foundation of a massive ecosystem of learning about how to make work more sustainable, satisfying, and sane.  It is a calling, just like teaching.

The world of agile is continuously changing. After the creation of the agile manifesto, we did not know how to scale agile to larges organizations; software testing was not part of the conversation, and many though it would only work with technology.  Today, thanks to the contributions of thousands of people we have solutions to those challenges.  We use agile in Human Resources, Education, Marketing and Finance.

To me, the reasons are clear why agile is growing.  The emphasis on transparency, inspection, and adaptation prevents organizations from being dogmatic about how they do things.  It is a pragmatic approach which makes an effort to deal with the chaotic nature of the contemporary world.  It is also a world view seen through the lens of engineering, where people fix problems and discover solutions.  Finally, it is an optimistic approach to the world where we make small and steady continuous improvements one sprint at a time.

The agile reformation is not entirely unicorns and glitter.  People are resistant to changes, and large organizations are notoriously hard to transform.  I have suffered numerous personal and professional setback in this field.  Every reformation has a counter-reformation.  Still the hard work and dedication to teaching others how to do things a better way is what keeps the movement going forward.  My love affair with teachers began when I was a child.  The love has grown stronger as I have become a coach in the agile reformation.

Until next time.

The Scrum Master as a Square Peg

Your scrum master is a square peg.

I have said repeatedly agile is a reformation to the business world.  It is not an uprising with torches and pitchforks.  It is a smart and conscientious people seeking reform and the abolition of corruption in business.  It is thankless work. Today on the blog, I would like to talk about the job and how it requires devotion to be successful.

The scrum guide makes the role of scrum master sound easy to fill.  A scrum master is a servant leader.  A scrum master is a person who promotes and supports scrum in the organization.  Finally, they help others understand what helps and interferes with the delivery of solutions.  It sounds simple but is a career fraught with peril.  A scrum master is often a misfit inside the organization doing what they need to do to get work done.

A scrum master ruffles feathers daily.  It means being on the phone, making sure network permissions are correct.  It is attending a meeting so the development team can concentrate on delivering value.  A person in the job spends plenty of time asking uncomfortable questions and does not accept, “…because we have always done it that way,” for an answer.

Scrum mastery requires being the person who points out when the emperor’s new clothes are illusionary.  The scrum master gets work done and being able to ship product to customers often silences critics inside the organization.  Paradoxically, this kind of success breeds organization resistance because you are upsetting established patterns of work and culture.  It is leadership without authority which drives ineffectual people to resentment.  It is the opposite of the go along to get along personality, which often crops up in corporate organizations. A scrum master by their very nature is an iconoclast.

It explains why a scrum master is often a square peg in a round hole.

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.

A Little Empathy Goes a Long Way

Empathy is a big deal.

As a scrum master, one of the most important qualities you can have is empathy.  It is a special quality where you can put yourself in someone else’s situation and understand the world from their perspective.  It means operating outside your comfort zone.  Today, I would like to discuss the importance of empathy for a scrum master.

Working for a large organization is hard.  Employees often feel alienated from their work and coworkers. I think a significant reason for this situation is many people in leadership roles do not understand what it takes to provide the goods and services their organization offers.  These leaders are good at managing budgets and capacity but little else. It is where empathy matters.  As a leader, you need to walk a mile in another person’s shoes.  If a leader cannot do that in reality, then they must attempt the thought experiment to see the world from the perspective of the employee.

When a leader sees the organization from the perspective of the people interacting with customers several changes take place.  First, they see the people doing the work as people instead of resources who are disposable.  Next, they understand the systems and equipment the employees are using might not be meeting the needs of the customers.  Another by-product of this exercise is leadership understands how long it takes actually to build something.  It gives leadership insight into which deadlines are real and which are fiction.  Finally, leaders discover which activities generate value and which ones do not.

Early in my career, a mentor I respect said I should never order a person to do something I would not do myself.  I still follow those directions today.  It is why I go to meetings, so my coders get a chance to write software.  It is why I fill out expense forms and project requests; so the people doing the work do not have to do it.  It is part of the servant leadership I try to practice each day. So have some empathy for the people who work for you.  You will be surprised by what you might discover.

Until next time.

Dealing with Scary Stuff

I am scared but I am going to be OK.

I have a sign on my wall which says, “If your dreams don’t scare you they are not big enough.” It has been a frightening period for me.  I am interviewing for new opportunities, sending out applications, all the while the holiday season approaches.  It is a lonely period despite the support I have received from family, friends, and colleagues.  Periods like this test a person and this week I would like to discuss it.

Since high school, I have been one of those students who could be labeled as “striver.” I wanted to advance myself and do better for myself and my family.  Pushing myself academically and participating in extra circular activities, so I would get noticed by a college.  It happened with a twist. I was offered a scholarship to a university and then it fell through.  I went to a community college for the first two years of my college career.  In hindsight, it was a perfect move as I was able to deal with the pressures of college with the support of my family.  When I transferred to a four-year university, I learned the discipline it takes to succeed academically.  It was not easy, but the early lesson was that success required sacrifice and discipline.

Sadly, those two qualities are not helpful when jobs were scarce as was the case in the recession of 1990.  Keeping the lights on and the rent paid required the swallowing of personal pride.  It meant working retail working for commission.  It was dealing cards at a casino.  I discovered I was good at computers and learning how to program them.  I was lucky when I left the casino industry, it was the giddy and stupid times of the dot-com boom.  I transitioned from dead-end jobs to a career.  It only took seven years out of school to make this basic professional milestone.

In the intervening period, I have been fired and laid off more times than I can mention.  I struggled to keep the lights on and the mortgage paid.  People have treated me in a grossly unfair fashion and I have received numerous second chances throughout my career.  The adversity which has dominated my career makes me contemptuous of others who have not had similar experiences.  It is also why I roll my eyes when I hear certain public figures discuss their “life of struggle.”

The ups and downs of my career took a heavy toll on my marriage and family life.  It has changed me more than I would like to admit.  In spite of it all, I have remained committed to the business of building working software and attempting to make work more satisfying, sustainable, and sane.  I am committed to large businesses treating people with basic decency.

I am going to give that vision a hard test.  The experience is going to challenge me in ways I am not comfortable.  I might fail.  I still have to try because I owe it to the people grinding out code.  I owe it to my family and I owe it to myself.  My dreams are very big and they scare me witless.   I look forward to defeating the fear and sharing those dreams with you.

Until next time.