 Hello lovely patrons and welcome to yet another prestigious pints episode with our old friend Henrik Knieberg So Henrik and I met at a conference a long time back So for so long ago, we can't remember what it was as you'll hear me and Henrik talk about there but yeah, it's great to reintroduce and Revisit a relationship a friendship from from a scrum gatherings in the past and Henrik's been around the scrum and I've just seen for a long time Since the early 2000s formally, he wrote a scrum and XP from the trenches very much seen as the kind of the An internal coach Doing scrum on the ground and kind of very much still a hands-on Scrum and agile practitioner So it's great to catch it But then we talked all about his kind of history with scrum and agile how he got started There's some of the fabulous companies that he's worked for in Scandinavia So it's great to hear some of those real case studies about what he's up to now and how he's being inspired to carry on that journey So we hope you enjoy it And we hope you're enjoying these prestigious pints episodes And let's get on with it. Here we go So yeah, how you doing? Hey, Henrik? Nice to meet you. Yeah, the same. I know I've met Paul before Have we met? Very very briefly. I can't remember where it was But it was in a hallway during one of the gatherings where and there was a wiki speed car somewhere Oh, right looking at it I was I was way back and what about Paul? I said, I don't remember where we met I know we've met or a pretty sure we've certainly met and we've certainly had had a chat before again It's probably a conference or a gathering of some kind. It's just yeah, yeah, but it was years I'm talking years ago now rather rather months everything's years ago now, isn't it? Everything seems to have stopped for the last two years But yeah, it was probably a conference back in the day Yeah, but the benefit of everybody else you can't see Henrik is sitting in glorious glorious sunshine in Stockholm I'm back in my shed And Paul's in his in his office in his house. Yes, and it is raining here right now in beautiful England It's raining. So it's glorious. I've been indoors all day. So like I have to get out So I don't blame you. I don't play beautiful blue skies behind you Henrik so yes, we For for your benefit Henry, we we we get in trouble if we don't tell our listeners what we're drinking because this is a pubcast after all all right today I'm going through a bit of a What's the what's the word I'm looking for here? Maybe maybe appearances? Listen, you'd never judge a book where it's covered, but your appearances can be deceptive all those kinds of metaphors and analogies I've gone for something that enough hold in front of me. Hold in front of you What does it say? It's called leave it out. I don't even know how to pronounce it, but it's not a leucon or something So it's it's something to do without a space. I think is the theme. There's lots of aliens on the can Ultimately, it's a lager in line Which isn't something I would normally drink but when I was younger and the Sun was out It was it was very much a summery drink for me refreshing good. Isn't it? Yeah, so it's sort of a refreshing drink It's only what 4.4% so It's it was it has been sunny this week or that it's not particularly today. It's still quite warm So I'm gonna stick with it and cheers. What do you got Paul? I've got it as a tribute to you Henry. I've gone for a Swedish cider. Now. These are very big in the UK Which is copperberg? Okay, what kind of cider so this is it's alcohol-free because Yeah, apple looks like apples or it is apple apple and raspberry. It's kind of a mixed fruit edition Copperberg made in Sweden I'm gonna go get a coke zero because that's about all I got at home But is is copperberg a thing in Sweden Henry or not it is Is it an export that your country's rightly proud of and that that's actually good question. I don't know really How proud we are of it, but But it is a bit is a pretty big thing I think it seems quite crazy for England to be importing cider considering it's one of our major Yeah, but we record a leg as well as another one isn't it that comes from Sweden. Yeah, that's Swedish Well, I think yeah, and we see that a lot here as well. So It's obviously it's obviously doing well if it's if it's penetrating the UK market So yeah, thanks for joining us it's been It's been good to get you on or it is good to get you on For I mean everyone will know who you are That's one of the reasons why we've invited you on because you've been an inspiration to so many people in the agile space But if I give a very brief recollection of my Well, my recollection of your journey, I suppose So the first the first time I came across you was with the trenches books, right? Which which didn't even start out as books, right? These started off as was it lean pub? Yeah, it was it was an article that kind of went out of control. Yeah, and then ended up a mean pub I guess an emergent book. Yeah, definitely it was not planned and Then I'm not quite sure which way around it was but there was then there was the whole Spotify thing and the product ownership in a Nutshell, which kind of went viral. Yeah that YouTube video and And then because we were at the same sort of conferences and things I'd often see you with your son Because you went through a time where you were taking your son everywhere, right? You were just living the dream of just traveling with your family and yeah I have I have four kids So there was always one or two that were interested in joining on a trip So they were to kind of take turns you taught CSM classes with them as well I think didn't you? Yeah, sometimes when I when I was traveling I would bring like it's actually There was they thought it was quite fun being in classroom settings actually Because there's whiteboards and there's pens and slipcharts and sticky Yes, and I'm not to that degree I looked upon that with with a certain degree of envy because you know that would have been sort of my living the dream if you Like but I did I haven't managed to take some of some of my kids to some of some of our things And you know getting the Lego out and sitting with the class and enjoying things so they absolutely love it and the class I bet they're like that it's just really your work are you getting paid for this absolutely absolutely. Yeah, yeah Yeah, so if I is that sort of chronologically Correct more or less. Yeah And is there anything glaring that that I missed? I did some work on climate change And I guess I did a bit of a pivot like back into now I'm back into into coding and design So it's been a bit a bit of back and forth, but I guess if there are some highlights in terms of Stuff being known. I guess this probably those were probably the main ones. Okay And obviously I haven't mentioned anything about the backgrounds. I'll leave that to you Paul because Fanboy moment when I yeah, so my son I've got a nine-year-old son Henrik and He was beside himself when I was telling that telling him that I'd be speaking to someone who works with Minecraft who works at the company that Generates the minecraft game and he gave me he must have reeled off about six or seven questions I said, well, what would you ask someone like that? Oh, and if you could speak to him and he just and it then he went to some some kind of different language I just didn't understand of all these different minecraft based questions. Yeah, and and he was so Excitable, but you said because you said about your kids and you must because you've worked at Lego as well, right? Yeah, so but you've your kids must be that must think you have the coolest job in the world surely Uh, yeah, they're kind of like how am I gonna I want I want a job like that when I grow up. How do I do that? Proud truly jealous. Yes, I Grow up to be honest. Yeah, I think we all do yeah How did you get get stumble into those positions? And I know you're still very much a coach consultant But how did you happen across those companies? Yeah, it's it's a bit weird I guess there was one period just before Spotify when I realized that I was just being tugged around in different directions Yeah, because it's always easier to say yes than no So I realized I was traveling around a lot doing, you know various consulting gigs and talks which I enjoyed But I felt completely unfocused and then I did this kind of self-coaching thing where I started listing down What would be my ideal work situation ideal client? And I broke down like a kind of vision like this is what I would like to do and then to my surprise I realized if that client calls me today, I'm gonna have to say no because I won't have capacity for it Yeah, which would be stupid. So that's when I decided to kind of take a break and you know clear my calendar a little bit Try to be a little bit more deliberate about what I spent time doing So I took a break when traveling six six months with my family And then came back kind of fresh with an empty calendar and that's when I contacted Spotify because I'd worked a little bit with them in the past But then I was like actually Spotify kind of ticked all the boxes in terms of what I want to do Yeah, I basically just did you know my first and last cold call sales cold call. I hate sales It's the worst thing in the world But I kind of called a guy that I that I knew they're one of the middle managers and basically said hey You know You guys have growth pain, right? And he's like yeah And I said do you want help with that and he said yes, and then we had a lunch and it was done Kind of what happened and then and then I got stuck there So it was just I was learning so much and they needed help and And they grew and yeah, so it's different for quite a long time But then later on when I kind of felt the need to move on then I guess Lego contacted me because some of those people had seen my books and Stuff on Spotify. Yes And I was kind of like Lego. I can't say no to Lego my kids would I had to go to Denmark around a regular basis And it was really interesting But then and then I had a climate panic attack at some point realized that shit the climate is going to hell The climate is going to hell is there anything I can do So I started, you know becoming a climate nerd and climate entrepreneurs starting companies and spreading knowledge and making videos Just like hey guys, we've got a you know We we need this atmosphere, right? Yeah, not much of a future without it So it did that for a while and then I was planning to continue with that But then I kind of stumbled into Mojang because I had a colleague were working there and I realized after all that Although I climate change is the most important problem in the world. I felt that I did it wasn't my calling to work with It was I was torn between what I should do and what I want to do and what I wanted to do was just Well actually code Minecraft I stumbled into the team there and started helping them with stuff and finally I was like hey Shit, I'm doing design and coding now I'm apparently part of this design team and this is fun. This is what I want to do So it became this kind of realization that what I actually want to do is not Primarily coaching and doing talks, although I like that, you know to a limited extent Yeah, what I actually like to do is build stuff and work in teams and have my hands in the code and you know design That's actually my calling in life. I kind of realized a bit late So that's yeah, so I kind of oriented my life around around doing that So I still do coaching and stuff But but mostly in the context of my current engagement like the coaching the teams around me and the leaders around me Yeah, a few a few things outside. Yeah, and I think that's that when me and Jeff We're talking about the various people that we wanted to speak to as part of these Henry when your name came up Those the words that resonated with me with with you with that you're actually doing it You are still very much at the cold face in terms of a lot of The agile talks and the videos the content you produce is all it's high integrity stuff because you're doing it You're actually living and breathing Development on a daily basis Sharing personal experiences basically. Yeah, and I think that's exactly what we still need to hear those those compelling stories and to motivate people towards doing this on a better on a day-by-day basis, but To go back to this you said meant you're about all the way about to Spotify I had a brief look at your LinkedIn profile and you you quote you've written yourself You think you've accidentally created it that the Spotify model or co-created that this by model Can you talk talk to us about how that came about? I? Was it was the weirdest thing ever? I was there for a few for like quite a few years actually But after maybe two or three years there. I was like this is interesting This is an interesting companies different from other companies. I've been at and we were growing quite quickly And I realized that the culture seems to be there's something magical here And it can easily be lost as new people come pouring in So I started becoming the guy that would you know introduce new newcomers to what is Spotify about what is what are we trying to be? and Then at some point I was going to do a talk at a conference in Paris I think And then I I said suggested that as a topic because I thought there's things here we can learn So I did this keynote in Paris and it went completely viral everyone was talking about I don't think they use a term Spotify model at the time But I just noticed that people were extremely engaged in it. So I realized oh, it's not just me There's others who think there's interesting stuff happening here And I started getting a lot of requests to do more talks around it But also internally a lot of more requests. So finally someone suggested that hey Maybe you should make a video instead of just you talking all the time, you know We could a little scale better if you just put it put it down on the video So so I did that I made a video out of it I figured that great now I can just put out the video and I don't have to keep to redoing the talk Which of course had the exact opposite effect What I didn't expect was when I put that video out there I didn't expect it to become a like a a model which you know hundreds of companies would use as their kind of Framework that was a big surprise. So how big was Spotify at that kind of time when you were just starting those those talks? Probably maybe I would guess two three hundred people or something like that. Okay So this is pretty much at the start of that journey that yeah Well, I mean it was a startup when it started they were just a you know a small group in a basement basically but But when I started working Spotify, I think maybe they were 30 40 people Oh, okay, and then when I started working more almost full-time or at least yeah Like more regularly then maybe they were you know 200 or so And that and that's when I noticed that this there's something here that I want to capture There's something interesting happening here. I it's been very useful, but I can absolutely empathize with Well, I'm assuming here, but I think I picked up not just from you many other people a sense of frustration that people have taken that Spotify model out of context Because what people are quoting is the Spotify model never existed. It's not something to be copied and yet that's what people do Now it's done a lot of good So I'm wondering from from your perspective looking at that. What's the sort of Mixture of feelings is there pride in there and frustration or what's in there when you look at what's going on with? For me, it's mostly I think curiosity I don't have any frustration anywhere actually I know that some other people are kind of like hey You shouldn't just copy a model and blah blah But my experiences is that people copy models all the time copy other companies and learn from it and improve and that's kind of the Way things work Most of the ideas that we applied at Spotify weren't invented at Spotify That was just us looking around and stealing the best ideas from everywhere. I think that's both natural and even good to copy from each other The most important thing is of course to adapt you can't just copy and then not adapt But I don't have I haven't seen anybody just copy any model and not adapt you kind of automatically have to do that So I'm really not worried about it. I mean I find that I've met a lot of companies who Apply what they think of as a Spotify model And what I've observed is that in most places in most cases they end up in a better place than they were before They don't end up, you know doing the same thing as we did and that was probably wasn't even appropriate But they got inspired this they took some ideas And implemented their interpretation of our ideas or sometimes even their missing interpretation of our ideas And it doesn't matter they got inspired to change and they changed So that's fine And also seems like there's a lot more to win than to lose because I haven't seen a single case firsthand where things got worse Yeah So that's why I'm not really worried about it. I'll just say go ahead You know copy paste and adapt from all over in any different if it was called the Henrik model With a new book model rather than spot if I then I'd be more worried. I'd be like what the heck For how what where you end up like yeah, yeah, the other people other people at Spotify How do they feel about it? So it's kind of interesting in the beginning when it first was released that was the time when it was most accurate, of course and Like that like the video at the time was pretty close to reality and of course over time the video stays and reality can changes, right? So so so the the correctness of the video degrades over time But at the time when it was released most people were like me. They were just very surprised Because they're like what why is everyone talking about something called the Spotify model? What is that? We should try it. That's what you guys are doing. What I've never heard of it And then someone points out the video. Oh that. Oh, oh, that's a model now It was really interesting but then I and but mostly people are very happy because the most common comment internally was Spot on like this nail is what we are or trying to be and then that became a real useful recruiting tool Because a lot of people saw this video came to Spotify already primed So we didn't have to explain what we want to be they already came knowing that But of course, you know five years later people would watch a video and coming expecting to see that and then they'd be very surprised That it's things are different So in that sense, I guess it kind of became frustrating. They had to explain that this video was a snapshot in time for a company That was ten times smaller Yeah, and you still working with them now Hennik or not No, I'm almost for full-time at at mojang now, okay What what are the similarities and differences between the two? Similarity I guess is a very experimental mindset and a very pragmatic approach to agile, you know very little buzzwords and dogma And an extreme passion for the product. I think is a is a common denominator also at Lego people just care a lot Yeah Which makes things both easier and harder sometimes well, they're all three those three companies They're all really easy products to love I think are they yeah Yeah, definitely. I worked with some banks before and things like that. It's a little harder sometimes to find the same level of engagement Yeah, but So that's I guess a common denominator, but there are some differences too, I guess I guess the scale is a difference spot if I was just so much bigger that the Minecraft team is quite small Very small in comparison Although Mojang is bigger company, but I work mostly with the Minecraft folks. I guess another difference is that At Spotify there was also more things happening those hardware. There was like Partnerships and integrations like it was a more complex ecosystem in a sense Minecraft is more of a coherent product. This is the code base. That's it Spotify was a was a more like us, you know Microservice architecture with a thousand, you know hundreds of different systems and interact in different complex ways Plus that Spotify was very much around operations. It's a system that's running people Need to press play and music needs to start Yeah Minecraft sure we do run servers, but mainly it's a product that we ship and people download and run on their own host their own servers So we're not as much, you know, like having to host and and do that kind of stuff So going back a bit further henrik back to kind of well pre almost pre Scrum and agile that kind of the the movement first started. How did you first get involved with kind of Software development and how did you that steer you towards agile as a wider concept? I guess like most things that was also accidental But when I started as a software engineer, um I was a consultant it was this was during the dot-com era So any person halfway through college was considered an expert And would be paid large amounts of money to consult a contract to type write code even though we're all beginners crazy period So there I was consulting contracting writing code um But I was kind of surprised because I I I'd be sitting there in my in my in my cubicle, you know typing code And then part-time as I was also studying and I noticed that you know, I didn't even know who the customer was I didn't know didn't know who else was working on this thing or how my stuff is supposed to fit together with anyone else's And it became this pattern of it almost felt like I was in you know, like a matrix moment What is this weird parallel universe where people are just working and nothing fits together? Is this really the way it's supposed to be So I was almost kind of disillusioned. Like is this really, you know, it's the way it's supposed to work Do I really want to be in this business? Like So I just saw so many big failures Uh, but then later on a friend pulled me into a startup And it was just us four starting a company and you know, so suddenly I was writing code for myself Okay, and I was hiring people and I was building teams and I was like shit Uh, now I need to make this work Uh, now I got a bunch of people and I need some way of working and I don't want it to be like all these failed projects I've seen It's like I knew exactly how to fail but not really how to succeed Yeah So I was like basically desperately looking around for you know, there must be some it projects that succeeded somewhere Like I learned from that started kind of desperately googling around that I ended up at this c2 or c3 wiki What's it called? Kent Beck and word Cunningham and company. Okay. Yeah The initial the first wiki basically because word Cunningham invented wikis. That's right. Yeah, we're forgetting that. We do forget that And then that was just it's still up. You can still find it. It's full of wisdom They're basically showing knowledge So things like pair programming, tester and development, you know, self-organizing teams all that Before agile came along as a concept. That's the kind of 90s, yeah Yeah, so I was yeah, I was in the side. I think I was 99 or something like that. I was I was using that site to learn Maybe 2000 and I started applying what was on the site because it seemed to just make sense And it kind of worked like it wasn't like silver bullet, of course, but compared to absolute guaranteed disaster It was great, right? We were shipping stuff. We were having fun. Yeah, we're learning and iterating So I was like, okay, this seems to be a better approach. So I was basically hooked from day one Um, and then later on agile manifesto came along and kind of like it became more clear like and I just stayed with it since then basically So along the way who stands out for people that you look back and think do you know what they did or what they wrote or what they said Either consciously or or subconsciously they were influences on you and your career I would say during different periods. There's been different people But I would say it kind of started with probably Kent Beck and Ron Jeffries and you know word counting him the xp guys basically And then later on as I started applying this at scale Then I stumbled into scrum and I started working with with Jeff Sutherland And then he became a big source of inspiration basically because we worked a lot together And then later on I got into lean. I started getting more curious about the whole, you know, why does this work? What is the what is what are the principles behind? Which led me to lean and systems thinking So then I started working with Mary Poppendick and people like Don Reinertson and that whole kind of lean side of things So it's been different during different periods Um, basically trying to you know learn from as many people as as I can And you mentioned Henryk so the companies that you've talked about largely and You're based in Sweden and just outside of Stockholm. You mentioned but Do you see is that mainly your clients and the companies you've you've centered around that kind of Location geographically if you've ventured much out into the rest of the world I've been traveling quite a lot to do conferences and courses, but not so much for coaching basically because I'm lazy And it's a family and I don't want to do engagements where I have to travel regularly So basically as long as I could find interesting, you know clients in nearby I would I would prioritize that And I'm lucky. Stockholm has been a kind of a bit of a hub for interesting companies That's the thing because Scandinavia certainly is um Certainly from looking from here from the uk. We've we've looked at the Scandinavia is kind of a Very much a hotbed of agile in terms of early adoption and kind of a lot of companies that have really taken to it Do you think that's um, have you noticed that with Scandinavian Scandinavian companies as well? Definitely, and I think there's a bit of a cultural bias that's helped us because a lot of these values In agile such as the self-organization stuff kind of fits with Swedish culture Okay, I think maybe I'm just guessing but maybe that's why there's a little maybe a little bit of less resistance Since people kind of tend to want to work this way anyway Yeah, that's part of it. But otherwise, I don't know. There's always been a lot of You know companies starting around here. I'm like a pretty entrepreneur friendly culture. I'm not sure Why maybe part of it is also our our social security system Where if you would decide to start a company, you're not risking your livelihood So it's a limited liability thing And kind of insurance you you're you're you're not going to be homeless and hungry if you fail. Yeah Yeah, I think that makes people gives people a bit of courage to try things plus I think the free education anyone can go to university And at universities without paying so it's so without so so that mean and that's where people meet each other and get ideas And want to try new ideas. So I think maybe just the fact that there's so many people that Have the economic opportunity to try crazy ideas It means that there's statistical likely that some are gonna some are gonna succeed Yeah, it's definitely that I get that We hear a lot of the news about again the social security system particularly in sweden about how people Generally happier and kind of they feel a lot more. I think it's a lot to do with psychological safety as well People feel like they like you say try things out. They can perhaps change their job Or they can start a new company or come up with a no idea without a fear of failure without without The downside is if you do succeed and you you know your company does well you get rich You're going to be taxed a lot for it. Exactly. Yeah, you're not going to get as filthy rich as you might have been somewhere else Yeah, but yeah, but yeah Would you rather pay higher taxes and have you know an increased social security? Maybe that's the thing That's a cultural difference. Yeah, I find that once you you know when it comes to like Once he gets past a certain level of earning money I think in most cases that extra doesn't matter so much And when you have your basic security and you can do what you want to do Then it's the rest is maybe just I know that some people are very driven by Earning as much money as possible, but I think it maybe it just becomes a game after some point Yeah, so most of the people that I work with, you know entrepreneurs. They're not driven by I'm gonna get rich It's more like I want to do this thing. I want to change the music industry I want to make a wonderful game And then the the money is more like the rocket fuel you need fuel for the rocket to go But the fuel isn't the goal itself. Um kind of thing Yeah, and I think you're right and I this is a very really Probably a really silly thing to say but From a stereotypical perspective In what I think of sweden, I think it's a happy country. Yeah, that's a real generalization to say But I think of sweden as a happy country Depends on what time of year you come Quite probably Yeah From what I've seen also statistically I mean not at the top, of course, but definitely it seems to be kind of above average generally general well-being. Um, yeah And I think that helps with regards to Because you need a lot of resilience for entrepreneurial startup type businesses. Yeah, as well as having that safety net in the cycle You're super depressed and super worried about how you're gonna pay this month's bill You're not gonna be likely to start the next Spotify kind of thing. Yeah Yeah, true. How you said, um, Henry you like traveling How has this last uh 18 months affected your travel schedule? Other than just um, no travel at all Exactly. How have you been coping with that? I have this uh, I have this dilemma because I like traveling but I also don't like climate change Yes, and flying is a problem. So at some point I realized I can't sit on a plane anymore without feeling like like shit Um, so I minimized that radically. Uh, so that was one So I did travel a little bit but mostly by train whenever possible and that went I would get on a plane sometimes But just like a last resort but then uh, uh, you know COVID came along and I think it's nice. It just takes time. Um, it's not super reliable But uh, what I really wanted for someone to just invent a damn electric plane Hurry up, man. Make the electric plane so I can go back to traveling all over the world. It's fun Well Everything's possible, isn't it? Well, maybe that's maybe that's your maybe that's your calling Henry It kind of is I just I just don't think I'm gonna be the one inventing it So I'm just gonna keep inspiring people hoping hoping someone well There's also plenty of people doing it. So it's just a matter of fanning the flames, right? Hurry up that that innovation. Yeah So we've um, we've asked pretty much everyone that we've spoken to on these types of episodes how they've seen things change over their time in the industry We're getting some break up. Yeah, is that me? No, I think it's you. I think it's Henry. We get some um These signals dropping. I think Henry or Henry a bit Uh Can you hear us? Uh, yeah, and in order to shade. I think my computer's overheating. It's getting angry at me Yeah, it's just it broke up that last few minutes There we go You hear me now. Yep. Yeah, I think I can actually hear the fan on your machine as well That's good breathing up. I'm like, okay. This computer's overheating. It was written in direct sunlight I was just saying that we've um, everyone we've spoken to on these these types of episodes We've asked them how they've seen things Generally in the agile space change over their time in in the in the industry What what would you say the major changes that you've seen are and how is the state of things right now from your perspective? um, I think maybe the main trend I've seen is uh Uh going from dogma to being pragmatic In the past there was a lot more like hey, my framework is better than yours Or hey, you need to use this framework by the book. Otherwise you're doing it wrong I don't see a lot of that anymore And also there's a lot more Agile is taken for granted kind of thing Before you'd have to kind of explain what agile is and there'd be a transitioning and there'd be Like almost like a convincing happening where people need it to be sold. What agile is I don't see that anymore. At least not from my perspective. It's more like people want this They they want help with the how um, so Of course, you know every my perspective is of course biased by the companies I happen to work with but At least yeah, I've seen that that trend pretty clearly On the whole dogma side of things I've been slightly torn on that over the years because um I think there is an element of people Tailoring things and diluting things a little bit too quickly Um, you know, you think a lot of the xp practices It takes quite a lot of discipline to get them in place before you start playing around with them yourself, perhaps Things like the scrum framework and getting into a rhythm and and that that that habit of continuous improvement and that habit of continuous collaboration Um, and so the the dogma has been helpful for some people in the past A little bit like me going to a personal trainer You know, there'll be times when I just slack off a bit, but if I've got a personal trainer They won't let me slack off and I've bought into that Sure, hurry about the mind. Yeah. Yeah, exactly And so I wonder do you see there there being a downside to that slightly more pragmatic approach? Yeah, I think I think it ties in a lot to experience. Um, if I if I'm in a context where most people don't have experience with agile then it's useful to do stuff by the book for a while But I think maybe at least the company is around here Most people have used scrum or bastardized scrum or something but they they have This stuff is not new. Yeah, there's gonna be enough people in the room that that know scrum properly so that they Adapt But I guess in if you're in places where agile is not as widespread Then it's maybe more useful to take something by the book But I think it's also what I also notice is when people do take stuff by the book They don't do it. They don't treat it as dogma. Anyway, it's more like hey Let's use this recipe as a starting point Just like if I make pancake the first time I'm going to follow the recipe Not because this is the best way to do pancakes, but because it's concrete and I can follow it and it'll kind of work Yeah, and then I can do the recipe after a few times. So basically not treating the recipe as gospel I think that that's maybe that the the change. Yeah I think I think we have seen so you'd go about 10 probably 10 years also, um and a lot of that infighting that we used to see between Frameworks communities saying our our frameworks better than yours. You should do this. You shouldn't do that But I think now that people like you said have an awareness of it's not a shock anymore these the terms and people generally know a lot more now It doesn't feel I don't feel like I'm having to force down the message down people's strokes because they already know what it tastes like They've they've seen it Even if they haven't done it in that company, they've done it somewhere else. So they've seen it somewhere else So I think a lot people are coming from a different position now that they tend to know more and they can make their own choices Um, I find myself now talking about the different choices. They can make rather than telling them what they should do Yeah, which I think is a big difference Um, I was going to say so jeff asks what you think what you think's changed about The environment, uh, henrik, do you think you've changed much over the last 20 odd years since you started this this journey? I definitely The weird thing is, um I used to be more certain about things in the past Yeah Like this is the way to do things and then it's it's really it I know it's a cliche But it really is true for me that the more I learn the more realize I don't know So I really become more more pragmatic. I can go to team and I'm pretty sure this is I have an idea We should do it this way But I'm also not sure that's the best idea So it's really like I've seen this work in a bunch of times In a similar context to this So what do you think but I'm really not convinced so if someone else in the room says I don't think that's going to work Because of blah then I'm really listening to that because I've seen it that'd be true in some cases Uh, but there's also in there's some other things that have become more Confident about for example, I've really become confident about like I guess I've I I've become more clear about what's important and what's not So for example, I've noticed that a lot of things seem to boil down to if a team has close contact with their customer Then a lot of other things sort themselves out So I guess that become more clear and what I emphasize like that's kind of the most important thing How you do it doesn't really matter, but anything we do to reduce that distance is is most likely going to be helpful And also things like Don't burn out teams Somewhat dogmatic on some points such as that like if I see a project that is doing a death march And people are marching along just working overtime I'm going to be more likely to just put my foot down and say this has to stop right now While in the past I wouldn't have had that that confidence really Yeah, so yeah, overall maybe I know I'm saying that opposite things here But I've become less confident on many things and much more confident on on some few things But that that has an impact right because if people know that you're intellectually humble and Around a lot of things when you actually you are certain about something people pay attention a lot more Right. Yeah, if I put my foot down every day, then it doesn't matter, right? But if they're used to me being the guy asks questions and offers suggestions And then one day I say this has to stop right now. This is wrong. This is broken Then then they're gonna go shit. It's what I wanted. You know, they're gonna listen, right? Yeah, I find myself Really relating to what you said there about being less certain than I was before and You know that that hurts to a large degree. I find myself You know yearning for those days when I was more confident when I was more certain about things The awareness that I've built up over the years and it sounds like you're pretty similar Has actually just opened it hasn't brought any kind of comfort or certainty. It's it's brought the opposite It's brought anxiety because if you realize how complex things are and how little you do you can be certain of Something about yearning for those days when I didn't know I didn't know so much Yeah There's one thing though another Realization I guess for me was now that I am back In the trenches as a coder So I've been working like kind of in the trenches for a long time But mostly as a coach So working very closely teams in the teams, but I haven't been the guy writing the code to the design So most of my coding has been on the side on my own hobby projects just to kind of keep that that muscle in trim But now that I'm working almost full-time doing actual design and development and working a team And kind of practicing the stuff I've been talking about for all these years I've noticed my confidence go up also because I I guess I didn't realize how much I was guessing before as a coach You're you're trying to help a team solve a problem, but is it their most important problem You're suggesting something is it a good suggestion You're kind of guessing and I find that the longer time I worked as a coach and not doing development The more kind of on thin ice I was And I would realize sometimes after the fact that this thing that I said was really important was actually the wrong thing for this team And they were just listening and smiling and nodding and waiting for me to leave so they can go back to doing what they needed to do And so I always had this nagging doubt like as a coach The stuff I'm saying now Is it really the most important thing or are they just listening because they paid me to come there and talk, right? Yeah, but now I now as a developer in the team building and shipping stuff every week I'm a lot more certain in terms of this is a problem to solve here are some ideas. We can try this this works This doesn't it all comes from a from a from a personal kind of like I got my hands in a jar perspective So we we predominantly are more of a technical coach then rather than agile coach Well, it is I guess both Um in a sense, but let's say We're talking about Like the importance so like whether we should do branching or not or feature toggles That's I guess kind of technical coaching But then also other things like when should we do mob program when should we pair program when should we work independently? How long live branches make sense? Or things organizational things like when does it make sense to work in a true cross-functional team? When does it make sense to create more component teams? All those kind of things are a lot easier for me to reason and reason around when I'm in the teams because then I can see that Okay, in theory this would be a place where we where we do standard agile practice a But in practice, that's not the wrong thing to do as a coach. I wouldn't be quite as sure So you Henry, are you doing both at the moment? Would you say you? Would you say as a percentage you 100 developing or you still saving a bit of coaching time for coaching and for that organizational role? On average, I would say it's about 50 50 Okay, so I work almost full-time in the team and on average 50 50 development coaching But it's very unevenly distributed over time So it might be three months of almost only coding and design Okay, and then suddenly we need to do a major pivot in our roadmap and everything's changing and we just hired as much people So now I basically put on the coach hat and I got to help sort things out So then I may be just doing 20 design coding and really mostly coaching so it varies over time Because this this is a question that does come up quite a lot in even now in my csm classes and where it always comes up I'm not gonna say quite a lot always comes up is that can a scrum master Also be a developer. Can they can they can they split the role? Can they? What's your opinion on that? I just interested in your thoughts on that I actually like the combination I find it's useful when there's some people that are both coach and and team members Because then you have a very hands-on perspective on things You like everything you do is grounded in reality But you sometimes lose the whole picture if you're too deep inside the trenches So it's also useful to have some people that are peer coaches And those two people compliment each other perfectly So I have a colleague yasal now who works at mojang as well and she's a peer coach Doing the kind of stuff I might have might have been doing in the past Okay And and I'm in the teams and we compliment each other I think because she sees things that I don't see And I see things she doesn't see so we help each other That's nice almost like an extra Oh, yeah, like a two coaches working together to try Often in the past when I would come in at a peer coach role I would make a habit of finding Someone who is in the team as a as a team member and a coach Whether it's a formal or informal coach But a person who has that perspective and I would kind of bond with them Because they would be my insider to keep me real So to speak Yeah So you think you found eventually you found your calling The development is really what you enjoy. Is that is that going to be your career going forward? Do you think? It's it's hard to say because like five five years ago. I was so into process stuff I was reading books on lean and agile systems thinking it was like it was just what I was really interested in And now I'm not as interested in it to me. That's more a means to an end So I'm more interested in the product and the coding and the design Of course as part of that I'm also interested in the design process How do we ship features in a good way? So there's a bit of process stuff, but it's very much anchored in the product itself So since I've changed in the past it might change again Maybe it's future. There'll be something else that'll be my main passion But right now it's building the product. That's what I'm mostly interested in cool cool Where do you think um, what do you think things are going to go in general over the next few years? It's it's there's a lot of unknowns out there right now, isn't there? What's going to happen as the pandemic evolves and maybe subsides? Well, I guess the big interesting thing is this global experiment going on with remote working This global um unwilling experiment that we're all being guinea pigs right here And companies having forced to learn to do things that they previously thought was impossible. Yeah, right? Um, like my my team we were we were so Collocated we were that was everything was around being collocated the same room and then from one day to the next we're all at home And we made it work. I can't I still think it works better to be in the same room But we found ways We found things that we could do now that we can't do physically together in the same room So we're now starting to not only try to match what we did before but in some senses exceed what we did before And all the so many companies are going through the same journey So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens when we get out of the false assumption That agile means having to be in the same room Do you think you would go back though to being in the same room? I don't think so. I think uh Almost every company I've talked to now including my own teams are saying that Being in the same room has advantages being distributed also has advantages and we're going to try to get the best of both But basically a hybrid workplace. I think it's going to be the norm probably and hybrid as in There's going to be some days per week when we're all in the same room To do the things that are best to do in the same room And some days per week when everyone's at home to do the things that are best to do in that context And infrastructure optimized for dealing with the fact that now somebody is in another country And instead of that being an odd weird thing. It's like, yeah, we we have systems for it. We have ways of working for it Yeah, from my experience. It's almost been a new Almost formal now part of an iteration plan, which is when we're planning this iteration Let's work out which bits are going to be synchronous, which bits are going to be asynchronous. Let's let's coordinate those now Um, and whereas before that was probably have been avoided and and they would just sort of made it up as they went along and made the best of it Yeah But there is one thing which I think concerns me a little bit. Although it might sort itself out of her time, which is the Kind of the unfairness of the whole thing because I'm lucky. I have a I'm an office at home. I can close the door I have a fast internet, right? Yeah other people live in a cramped apartment with a screaming baby And they have to sit on their kitchen table and it's really hard for them to focus on anything, especially being in a meeting So it gets these people with very different life situations, which means that there's a lot of people that are super depressed Just because they're unlucky. They can't work effectively at home and they're forced to So what I hope is going to happen is if this becomes more of a norm Well, a people might start optimizing their homes to a certain extent if they can But also maybe there's going to be um, you know more commonly forming hubs Of like work hubs Where you can go to in your neighborhood to go to something like an office Um, but not having to be at the office the same as everyone else. Um, those kind of co-working spaces I'm just guessing that that's going to become more more of a thing for people that either don't want to or really can't work effectively at home I'm expecting sweden to be leading the way on that as they are with most of these things We'll see. Yeah Yeah, um, I was gonna mention something else then, but it's gone. It was gone. It'll come back to me a minute Carry on So anything else that's going on for you at the moment? What's what apart from the coding side of things? Um, not much. Well four kids all becoming teenagers. So that's you know, a handful Coaching them supporting them in their kind of journey. Um, but uh Um, yeah, no other than that. I think I'm I'm I'm learning a lot and I really enjoy that just the whole you know design processing I think it's very interesting. How do we ship features in this game? Plus it's really fun to have to get to live This vision that I've been trying to promote for so long. I've seen a few teams Live the agile way and it's so fun to see how inspiring that is And now I can taste it myself being a team shipping every week getting feedback from real users Adapting to it ship the new version the next week and it's really exhilarating So I feel more and more than ever inspired to spread this stuff. I want others to taste that That you know feeling yeah talking of um talking of you kids One thing that often comes up in conversation with my friends is you know Would you encourage your kids to to follow your path and you know do the job that you do? And I know we've joked earlier on that your kids look at your job and think this is amazing Would you what sort of general high level advice would you give them around careers based on your experience? There's this very simplistic kind of mantra that has come become a bit of a mantra for me when it comes to life And I know not everyone has the opportunity but but the mantra kind of is Find out what it is you love to do and then do that Mm-hmm I think it kind of really boils down to that and there's this really lovely model called icky guy from japan icky I don't know exactly the back where you may be seen it is for it's a it's an tiger on four circles, right? So there is that what the world needs There is what you enjoy doing There's what you get under living off of and then there is what you're good at Uh, I tend to de-emphasize that what you're good at because if you enjoy doing something you you tend to get good at it but There are the three circles right the world needs it you can earn a living off it you enjoy doing it And just try stuff. I guess that's what I encourage my kids to do try things and find what what what gives you that sense of joy And then hopefully you'll find a way to earn a living living living off of it Well, that's really interesting from my perspective because this is quite a circular thing for me Because one of the first things you said was when you were talking about your career is that you said yes a lot And you said yes a lot more than yes saying no which It's quite ironic in a way because a lot of the time we're telling people in our organizations We're telling our product owners. We're telling our developers say no more do less stuff and you get more stuff done Right, so don't split your focus too much But actually that's a great way of finding out if you don't know what you want to do in life And most kids don't to be fair. I still don't How could you go right? How do you find out unless you try stuff? Yeah So the trying I think saying yes a lot of the time I think is a really Is a really it's something that I've tried to a sort of general thing for my kids is just try a lot of things Yeah, and also also I've emphasized to them that I did not plan this career. I couldn't have planned it No, uh, I just followed my nose if I found something interesting I'll try it and just try to encourage them Get get your basic education in place because that opens doors So so and they've they've accepted that they bought that that's good So just get the basic education place just because it opens more more more more doors for you But then after that, yeah Try stuff and you don't need to decide you don't need to make a career choice because you're very unlikely to keep doing Your first job Yeah, you're pro again because I'm almost all everyone I know works on something That's not what the first job was and it's not what they were educated for So I kind of like don't worry try something and then if you don't like it try something else And then probably hopefully at some point you'll stumble on some stumble on something that makes you really happy And then try to find a way to make a living off of that whatever it is Baking or fishing or coding or whatever it is. Yeah, I guess and also in my case there was also another Aspect to it. I wanted to be I wanted to become a musician initially Okay So when I when I was in high school I was playing music a lot and I still play music a lot And jamming and you know playing instruments and my assumption was I'm gonna become a musician because that's what I like to do But then when I finished high school I came to the conclusion that it's probably going to be hard to make a living off of being a musician And I might end up having to make music that I don't like making and then I might it might lose the magic So I got worried about that. So I started thinking about can I do something else instead? That's more a surefire way of making a living at least for starters and then play music just for fun Because then I don't need to make a living off music. I can do it just for fun So that's when I decided that coding is something I also like to do And I'm more likely to be able to make a living off of it at least initially So that's that's that's why I decided to study, you know a software engineering And I'm really glad I made that decision because I know so many musician friends that are kind of like Some are doing okay, but many are struggling. They're like they take whatever gigs they can get They have to say yes to everything because they don't get so many requests And they're okay. They're not unhappy, but it wasn't really what it was cut out to be And I feel very lucky because I can say no to a gig even though it's well paid And I can say yes to a gig that's not well paid just because it's more fun Yeah So I'm I'm really happy about so I guess I guess my learning was if if I want to do something It doesn't necessarily mean that has to be my main source of income Yeah, and we'll gloss over the fact that the spot if I had a role to play musicians not earning anything anymore Yeah, royalties aren't what they used to be Um, one final thing, um, Henry because I know I'm conscious of the time Um Two well two things one one's related to what you've got back into development now. Sorry. Sorry Well one that's got you've got back into development. Did you find that hard? So because I was I used to be a developer And I've I suppose I've more or less told myself now or you know, this is it's a young person's game You know, I I wouldn't be able to keep up. Did you find that tough to get back into it? I was a little bit worried about it because although I had been coding on the side It was mostly just me and my pet project. So it wasn't I didn't really feel cutting edge in that sense And I felt intimidated by the mega big brains of everyone on the team Yeah, so there was a pretty big imposter syndrome in the back of my head So but when I started joining the team as a coder, it was kind of like as a side thing I was coaching But then I had time I had space in between my in my schedule Yeah, and I offered to just help out because I noticed they were struggling and they had lots of work to do So I was like, maybe I can just help fix bugs or something And when I so I did I did simple things But when I did simple things I noticed that I was able to contribute more than I thought I realized that You know the actual the actual chops the skills the little details that came back quite quickly Did it okay, but I had a long enough experience of the architecture. How do you think with around code? Well, I could I could lean on that and then the actual, you know Techniques came back fairly quickly. It also helped that we were using a pretty old version of Java. So, you know It was pretty much what it was when I left it, right? So I didn't have to learn a bunch of new stuff being Maybe I can get back into Although just the other week we upgraded to Java 16. So I'm like, oh shit. Okay, I got a lot Eating But so I kind of quickly escalated from being a guy that fixes bugs to being a guy that now is You know responsible for some of the core features of the game and building it from scratch Uh, but I guess it's kind of like Getting into it There was a bit of a ramp up But it was a lot faster than I thought because I had experience I just needed to freshen up a little bit. So And my final my final question, Henrik It's not from me Is there anything you can you can any um Any um, we've certainly had any surprises he can expect in kind of future versions or the next version of minecraft Easter eggs that he can look forward to to finding out about anything new little teasers Maybe you can without giving too much away everything seems to stop Well, we we've learned the hard way not to make anything that can be interpreted as a promise Okay But but we are working on but we already have announced update working on right now, which is called caves and cliffs And I can say that your son is going to be pretty surprised when he fires that up Towards the end of the year when that gets shipped because it changes a lot about the world So I think he'll enjoy it Thank you, Henrik nice lovely to speak to you my friend lovely to see you again after all this time Yeah, it's great. Absolutely. You're great to catch up. Well, maybe Maybe you'll be tempted out of your your your development cave and cliff to uh to come to a conference or gathering one day when things Start traveling again, and maybe our paths will cross again and if do we'll have a proper bit. I hope so. I hope so That'd be great. But for now We really appreciate your time and not just today, but everything that you've done over the years for the agile and lean community So Thanks a lot Bye It's quite a refreshing drink, isn't it? Yeah I've got um as a tribute to you, Henrik. I've gone for a swedish cider Now these are very big in the uk, which is copperberg Okay, what kind of cider so this is uh, it's alcohol free because uh No, yeah, apple looks like apples or it is apple apple and raspberry. It's kind of a mixed fruit edition It's uh copperberg made in sweden I feel I feel very bland and I don't want to go get a coke zero because that's about all I got at home But is is copperberg a thing in sweden henrik or not? It is And that that's actually a good question. I don't know really Uh, how proud we are of it, but But it is a bit. It is a pretty big thing. I think Yeah, that's swedish as well, isn't it? I think yeah Right Well, yeah, it was it was an article that kind of went out of control Um, and then ended up on Neenpub, I guess Yeah, definitely It was not planned Well, yeah, I have I have four kids. So there was always one or two that were interested in joining on the trip So they would kind of take turns Uh, yeah, sometimes when like when I was traveling I would bring like it's actually It was they thought it was quite fun being in classroom settings actually Because there's there's whiteboards and there's pens and there's slipcharts and sticky lots of snacks and So I I bet they're like that is just really your work. Are you getting paid for this? More or less. Yeah I did some work on climate change Um And I guess I did a bit of a pivot like back into now I'm back into into coding and design So it's been a bit a bit a bit of back and forth, but I guess if there are some highlights in terms of Stuff being known, I guess this probably those were probably the main ones. Yeah When I yeah, I say my son I've got a nine-year-old son Henry and um He was beside himself when I was telling that telling him that I'd be speaking to someone who works With minecraft who worked at the company that Generates the minecraft game and he gave me he must have reeled off about six or seven questions I said, well, what would you ask someone like that? Oh, and if you could speak to And he then he went to some some kind of different language that I just didn't understand of all these different minecraft based questions Yeah, um, and he was so excitable. But you said because you said about your kids and You must because you've worked at lego as well, right? Yeah, so but you've your kids must be Must think you have the coolest job in the world. Surely uh Yeah, they're kind of like how am I gonna I want I want a job like that when I grow up. How do I do that? They're kind of pretty truly jealous. Yes and how Yeah, I think we all do. Yeah. How how did you get get stumble into those positions? And I know you're still very much a coach consultant, but how did you happen across those companies? Yeah, it's it's a bit weird, um I guess there was one period just before Spotify when I realized that I was just being tugged around in different directions Yeah, because it's always easier to say yes than no um So I realized I was traveling around a lot doing, you know various consulting gigs and talks Which I enjoyed but I felt completely unfocused And then I did this kind of self coaching thing where I started listing down what would be my ideal Work situation ideal client and I broke down like a kind of vision like this is what I would like to do And then to my surprise I realized that if that client calls me today I'm gonna have to say no because I won't have capacity for it Which would be stupid So that's when I decided to kind of take a break and you know clear my calendar a little bit Try to be a little bit more deliberate about what I spent time doing So I took a break. I spent traveling six six months with my family Um And then came back kind of fresh with an empty calendar and that's when I contacted Spotify because I'd worked a little bit with them in the past Um But then I was like actually Spotify kind of ticked all the boxes in terms of what I want to do Yeah, I basically just did uh, you know my my first and last Cold call sales cold call. I hate sales is the worst thing in the world But I kind of called called a guy that I that that I knew there one of the middle managers and basically said, hey you know You guys have growth pain, right? And he's like, yeah And I said do you want help with that and he said yes, and then we had a lunch and it was done So I was pretty Kind of what happened and then and then I got stuck there because it was just I was learning so much and they needed help and Um, and they grew and yeah, so it's different for for quite a long time But then later on when I kind of felt the need to move on Then I guess uh lego contacted me because some of those people had seen my books and Stuff on Spotify. Yes, uh, and then I was kind of like lego. I can't say no to lego my kids would They disown you, wouldn't they? I had to go to Denmark around a regular basis um And it was really interesting But then uh And then I had a climate panic attack at some point realized that shit the climate is going to hell The climate is going to hell Is there anything I can do? So I started, you know becoming a climate nerd and climate entrepreneurs starting companies and spreading knowledge and making videos Just like hey you guys we've got to you know We we need this atmosphere, right? um Not much of a future without it So it did that for a while and then I was planning to continue with that But then I kind of stumbled into mojang because I had a colleague working there And I realized after all that although I Climate change is the most important problem in the world. I felt that I it wasn't my calling to work with um It was I was torn between what I should do and what I wanted to do and what I wanted to do was just Well actually code minecraft I stumbled into the team there and started helping them with stuff and finally I was like hey Shit, I'm doing design and coding now. Now. I'm apparently part of this design team and this is fun This is what I want to do So it became this kind of realization that what I actually want to do Is not primarily coaching and doing talks although I like that, you know to a limited extent Yeah, what I actually like to do is build stuff And work in teams and have my hands in the code and you know design that's actually my calling in life I kind of realized a bit late So that's yeah, so I kind of oriented my life around around doing that So I still do coaching and stuff But but mostly in the context of my current engagement like the coaching the teams around me and the leaders around me Yeah, a few a few things outside Yeah, and I think that um That's that when me and jeff were talking about the various people that we wanted to speak to as part of these Henry when your name came up Those the words that resonated with me with with you were that you're actually doing it You are still very much at the coalface in terms of a lot of The agile talks and the videos the content you produce is all It's high integrity stuff because you're doing it. You're actually living and breathing Development on the daily basis. Yeah, just sharing personal experiences. Basically. Yeah, and I think that's exactly what We still need to hear those those compelling stories and and to motivate people towards doing this on a better on a day by day basis But um to go back to this you said meant you're all about to Spotify I had a brief look at your linkedin profile and you you quote you've written yourself You think you've accidentally created it that the spotify model or co-created the spotify model Can you talk to us about how that came about? I was it was the weirdest thing ever. Um, I was there for a few for like Quite a few years actually, but after maybe two or three years there. I was like this is interesting This is an interesting company. It's different from other companies. I've been at And we were growing quite quickly and I realized that the culture seems to be there's something magical here And it can easily be lost as new people come pouring in So I started becoming the guy that would you know introduce new newcomers to what is spotify about what is what are we trying to be? um And then at some point I was going to do a talk at a conference in paris, I think And then I I suggested that as a topic because I thought there's things here we can learn So I did this keynote in paris and it went completely viral everyone was talking about I don't think they use a term spotify model at the time But I just noticed that people were extremely engaged in it. So I realized oh, it's not just me There's others who think there's interesting stuff happening here Um, and I started getting a lot of requests to do more talks around it But also internally a lot of more requests. So finally someone suggested that hey Maybe you should make a video instead of just you talking all the time You know make it a little scale better if you just put it put it down on the video So so I did that I made a video out of it. I figured that great now I can just put out the video and I don't have to keep doing the talk Which of course had the exact opposite effect What I didn't expect was when I put that video out there I didn't expect it to become a like a model which you know Hundreds of companies would use as their kind of framework. That was a big surprise So how big was spotify at that kind of time when you were just starting those those talks? um Probably maybe I would guess two three hundred people or something like that Okay, so this is pretty much the start of that journey though Yeah, well, I mean it was a startups when it started. They were just a you know a small group in a basement basically but But when I started working spotify, I think maybe they were 30 40 people Oh, okay, and then when I started working more almost full-time or at least yeah Like more regularly than maybe they were you know 200 or so Uh, and that and that's when I noticed that this there's something here that I want to capture There's something interesting happening here Um for me, it's mostly I think curiosity Um, I don't have any frustration anywhere actually I know that some other people are kind of like, hey, you shouldn't just copy a model and blah blah But my experiences is that people copy models all the time copy other companies and learn from it and improve And that's kind of the way things work Most of the ideas that we applied at spotify weren't invented at spotify That was just us looking around and stealing the best ideas from everywhere I think that's both natural and even good to copy from each other Um, the most important thing is of course to adapt You can't just copy and then not adapt But I don't I haven't seen anybody just copy any model and not adapt you kind of automatically have to do that So I'm really not worried about it. Um, and I find that I've met a lot of companies who Apply what they think of as a spotify model And what I've observed is that in most places in most cases they end up in a better place than they were before They don't end up, you know, doing the same thing as we did and that what probably wasn't even appropriate But they got inspired they they they they took some ideas Uh and implemented their interpretation of our ideas or sometimes even their missing interpretation of our ideas And it doesn't matter. Uh, they got inspired to change and they changed So that's fine. Um, and also seems like there's a lot more to win than to lose because I haven't seen a single case First hand where things got worse Um, so that's why I'm not really worried about it I'll just say go ahead, you know, copy paste and adapt from all over the place Then I'd be more worried. I'd be like, what the heck why am I responsible for how what where you end up like So it was kind of interesting. Um, in the beginning when it first was released Um, that was the time when it was most accurate, of course And uh, or like that like the video at the time was pretty close to reality And then of course over time the video stays and reality can changes, right? So so so the the correctness of the video degrades over time But at the time when it was released, most people were like me, they were just very surprised Because they're like, what why is everyone talking about something called the Spotify model? What is that? Someone says That's what you guys are doing. What I've never heard of it And then someone points out the video. Oh that oh, oh, that's a model now and it was like It was really interesting. Um But then I but mostly people are very happy because um The most common comment internally was Uh spot on Like this nail is what we are or trying to be and then that became a real useful recruiting tool Because a lot of people saw this video came to Spotify already primed So we didn't have to explain what we want to be. They already came knowing that But of course, you know, five years later people would watch a video and coming expecting to see that And then they'd be very surprised that it's things are different So in that sense, I guess it kind of became frustrating They had to explain that this video was a snapshot in time for a company that was 10 times smaller And are you still working with them now, Henrik or not? Um, no, I'm I'm almost full time at at mojang now. Okay Um similarity, I guess is a very experimental mindset and a very pragmatic approach to agile, you know, very little buzzwords and dogma Um and an extreme passion for the product. I think is a is a common denominator Also at lego people just care a lot Um, which makes things both easier and harder sometimes Yeah Yeah, definitely, I worked with some banks before and things like that. It's a little harder sometimes to find the same level of engagement Yeah, true, but uh, so that's I guess a common denominator, but there are some differences too. I guess, um Uh, I guess the scale is a different spot if I was just so much bigger that the minecraft team is quite small Very small in comparison Although mojang is a bigger company, but I work mostly with the minecraft folks. Um, I guess another difference is that At spotify, there was also more things happening those hardware there was like Partnerships and integrations like it was a more complex ecosystem in a sense Minecraft is more of a coherent product. This is the code base. That's it Spotify was a was a more like us, you know microservice architecture with a thousand, you know, hundreds of different systems and interacting different complex ways Plus that spotify was very much around operations. It's a system that's running people need to press play and music needs to start Uh, minecraft sure we do run servers, but mainly it's a product that we ship and people download and run on their own Host their own servers So we're not as much, you know, like having to host and and do that kind of stuff So going back a bit further, uh, henrik back to kind of well pre Almost pre um scrum and agile that kind of the the movement first started How did you first get involved with kind of software development? And how did you that steer you towards agile agile as a as a wider concept? I guess like most things that was also accidental. Um But when I started as a software engineer, um I was a consultant it was this was during the dot com era. So any Halfway through college was considered an expert And would be paid large amounts of money to consult a contract to write code even though we're all beginners crazy period So there I was consulting contracting writing code um But I was kind of surprised because I I I'd be sitting there in my in my in my cubicle, you know typing code And then part-time as I was also studying and I noticed that, you know, I didn't even know who the customer was I didn't know didn't know who else was working on this thing or how my stuff was supposed to fit together with anyone else's And it became this pattern of it almost felt like I was in you know, like a matrix moment What is this weird parallel universe where people are just working and nothing fits together? Is this really the way it's supposed to be So I was almost kind of disillusioned like is this really, you know, it's the way it's supposed to work Do I really want to be in this business like So I just saw so many big failures Uh, but then later on a friend pulled me into a startup And it was just us four starting a company and you know, so suddenly I was writing code for myself And I was hiring people and I was building teams and I was like shit Uh, now I need to make this work Uh, now I got a bunch of people and I need some way of working and I don't want it to be like all these failed projects I've seen It's like I knew exactly how to fail but not really how to succeed Um, so I was like basically desperately looking around for you know, there must be some it projects that succeeded somewhere I can learn from that started kind of desperately googling around that I ended up at this c2 or c3 wiki What's it called? Kent Beck and word Cunningham and company. Yeah The initial the first wiki basically because word Cunningham invented wikis. That's right. Yeah, we're forgetting that we do forget And then that that was just it's still up. You can still find it. It's full of wisdom They're basically sharing knowledge So things like pair programming, test driven development, you know, self-organizing teams all that Before agile came along as a concept. That's the kind of amp field Yeah, so I was yeah, I was in the I think I was 99 or something like that. I was I was Using that site to learn Maybe 2000 and I started applying what was on the site because it seemed to just make sense And it kind of worked like it wasn't like silver bullet, of course, but compared to absolute guaranteed disaster It was great, right? We were shipping stuff. We were having fun. Yeah, we're learning and iterating So I was like, okay, this seems to be a better approach. So I was basically hooked from day one Um, and then later on agile manifesto came along and kind of like it became more clear like and I just stayed with it Since then basically I would say during different periods it's been different people But I would say it kind of started with probably Kent Beck and Ron Jeffries and you know word counting him the xp guys basically And then later on as I started applying this at scale Then I stumbled into scrum and I started working with with Jeff Sutherland And then he became a big source of inspiration basically because we worked a lot together And then later on I got into lean. I started getting more curious about the whole, you know, why does this work? What is the what is what are the principles behind? Which led me to lean and systems thinking So then I started working with Mary Poppendick and people like Don Reinertson and that whole kind of lean side of things So it's been different during different periods Um, basically trying to you know learn from as many people as as I can And you mentioned henrik so the companies that you've talked about largely and You're based in sweden and just outside of Stockholm. You mentioned but Do you see is that mainly your clients and and the companies you've you've centered around that kind of Location geographically if you benched much out into the rest of the world I've been traveling quite a lot to do conferences and courses, but not so much for coaching basically because I'm lazy and Family and I don't want to do engagements where I have to travel regularly So basically as long as I could find interesting, you know clients in nearby I would prioritize that And I mean looking at Stockholm has been a kind of a bit of a hub for interesting companies that's the thing because scandinavia certainly as um Certainly from looking here from the uk. We've we've looked at a scandinavia is kind of a Very much a hotbed of agile in terms of early adoption and kind of a lot of companies that have really taken to it Do you do you think that's um, have you noticed that with scandinavian scandinavian companies as well? Definitely, and I think there's a bit of a cultural bias that's helped us because a lot of these values In agile such as the self organization stuff kind of fits with swedish culture Okay, I think maybe I'm just guessing but maybe that's why there's a little maybe a little bit of less resistance since people kind of tend to want to work this way anyway That's part of it. But otherwise I don't know. There's always been a lot of You know companies starting around here. I'm like a pretty entrepreneur friendly culture. I'm not sure Why maybe part of it is also our our social security system Where if you would decide to start a company, you're not risking Your livelihood So it's a limited liability thing And kind of insurance you you're you're you're you're not going to be homeless and hungry if you fail I think that makes people gives people a bit of courage to to try things plus I think the free education anyone can go to university and at universities without paying so so so So that mean and that's where people meet each other and get ideas and want to try new ideas So I think maybe just the fact that there's so many people that have the economic opportunity to try crazy ideas It means that there's statistically that some are gonna some are gonna succeed Yeah, it's definitely that I get that um, we hear a lot of the news about again the social security system Particularly in sweden about how people Generally happier and you kind of they feel a lot more. I think it's a lot to do with psychological safety as well People feel like they like you say try things out. They can perhaps change their job Or they can start a new company or come up with no idea without a fear of failure without without The downside is if you do succeed and you you know, your company does well you get rich You're gonna be taxed a lot for it. Exactly. Yeah, you're not going to get as filthy rich as you might have been somewhere else Yeah, but yeah, but you Would you rather pay higher taxes and have you know an increased social security? Maybe that's the thing that's a cultural difference Yeah, I find that once you you know when it comes to like Once he gets past a certain level of earning money I think in most cases that extra doesn't matter so much And when you have your basic security And you can do what you want to do then it's the rest is maybe just I know that some people are very driven by Earning as much money as possible, but I think it maybe just becomes a game after some point Yeah, so most of the people that I work with, you know entrepreneurs. They're not driven by I'm gonna get rich It's more like I want to do this thing. I want to change the music industry I want to make a wonderful game And then the the money is more like the rocket fuel you need fuel for the rocket to go But the fuel isn't the goal itself. Um kind of thing Depends on which time of year you come Yeah Yeah From what I've seen also statistically I mean Not at the top of course, but definitely it seems to be kind of above average generally general well-being. Um Yeah, yeah If you're super depressed and super worried about how you're gonna pay this month's bill You're not going to be likely to start the next Spotify kind of thing Yeah, true. How you said, um, Henry you like traveling. How was this last uh, 18 months affected your travel schedule? Other than just No travel at all Exactly. How have you been coping with that? I have this uh, I have this dilemma because I like traveling, but I also don't like climate change Yes, and flying isn't a problem So at some point I realized I can't sit on a plane anymore without feeling like like shit Um, so I minimized that radically. Uh, so that was one So I did travel a little bit but mostly by train whenever possible and that went I would get on a plane sometimes But just like a last resort But then uh, uh, you know Covid came long and Travel more locally train. I think it's nice. It just takes time. Um, it's not super reliable But uh, what I really wanted for someone to just invent the damn electric plane Hurry up, man. Make the electric plane so I can go back to traveling a little bit of world. It's fun Well, everything's possible, isn't it? I mean It It kind of is I just I just don't think I'm gonna be the one inventing it So I'm just gonna keep inspiring people hoping hoping so much Well, there's also plenty of people doing it So it's just a matter of fanning the flames, right? Hurry up that that innovation We're getting some break up. No, I think it's you. I think it's Henry. We get some um Your signal is dropping. I think Henry of Henry a bit Can you hear us? Yeah, I don't know to shade. I think my computer's overheating. It's getting angry at me. Yeah It's just it broke up that last few years There we go You hear me now Yeah Breathing up. I'm like, okay, this computer's overheating. It was right didn't direct sunlight Um, I think maybe the main trend I've seen is uh Uh going from dogma to being pragmatic In the past there was a lot more like, hey, my framework is better than yours Or hey, you need to use this framework by the book. Otherwise, you're doing it wrong I don't see a lot of that anymore. Um, and also there's a lot more Agile is taken for granted kind of thing Before you'd have to kind of explain what agile is and there'd be a transitioning and there'd be Like almost like a convincing happening where people needed to be sold what agile is I don't see that anymore. At least not from my perspective. It's more like people want this They they want help with how? um, so Of course, you know My perspective is of course biased By the companies I happen to work with but At least that yeah, I've seen that that trend pretty clearly What about you guys? Well, yeah, um, sorry. I'll come back into my question. I was going to change the subject Have we changed? Yeah About the mind Yeah Yeah, I think I think it ties in a lot to experience. Um, if I if I'm in a context where most people don't have experience with agile then it's useful to do stuff by the book for a while But I think maybe at least the companies around here Most people have used scrum or bastardized scrum or something but they they have This stuff is not new. Yeah, there's gonna be enough people in the room that that know scrum properly So that they But I guess in if you're in places where agile is not as widespread Then it's maybe more useful to take something by the book But I think it's also what I also notice is when people do take stuff by the book They don't do it. They don't treat it as dog by anyway It's more like hey, let's use this recipe as a starting point Just like if I make pancake the first time I'm gonna follow the recipe not because this is the best way to do pancakes But because it's concrete and I can follow it and it'll kind of work Yeah, and then I can dip the recipe after a few times. So basically not treating the recipe as gospel I think that that's maybe that the the change I think I think we have seen so you'd go about 10 probably 10 years also um And a lot of that infighting that we used to see between Frameworks communities saying our framework is better than yours. You should do this. You shouldn't do that But I think now that people like you said have an awareness of it's not a shock anymore These the terms and people generally know a lot more now It doesn't feel I don't feel like I'm having to force down the message down people's strokes because they already Know what it tastes like they've seen it Even if they haven't done it in that company, they've done it somewhere else. They've seen it somewhere else So I think a lot people are coming from a different position now that they tend to know more and they can make their own choices Um, I find myself now talking about the different choices. They can make rather than telling them what they should do Yeah, I think is a big difference Um, I was going to say so jeff asks what you what you think's changed about The environment, uh, Henry, do you think you've changed much over the last 20 old years since you started this this journey? I definitely The weird thing is um I used to be more certain about things in the past yeah Like this is the way to do things and then it's it's really it's I know it's a cliche But it really is true for me that the more I learned the more realize I don't know So I really become more more pragmatic. I can go to team and I'm pretty sure this is I have an idea We should do it this way But I'm also not sure that's the best idea So it's really like I've seen this work in a bunch of times In a similar context to this So what do you think but I'm really not convinced So if someone else in the room says I don't think that's going to work because of blah Then I'm really listening to that because I've seen it that'd be true in some cases Uh, but there's also in there's some other things I have become more Confident about for example, I've really become confident about like I guess I've I've become more clear about what's important than what's not So for example I've noticed that a lot of things seems to boil down to if a team has close contact with their customer Then a lot of other things sort themselves out So I guess that become more clear and what I emphasize like that's kind of the most important thing How you do it doesn't really matter But anything we do to reduce that distance is is most likely going to be helpful and also things like Don't burn out teams Somewhat dogmatic on some points such such as that like if I see a project that is doing a death march And people are marching along just working overtime I'm going to be more likely to just put my foot down and say this has to stop right now Well in the past I wouldn't have had that that confidence really So yeah, overall maybe I know I'm saying that opposite things here But I've become less confident on many things and much more confident on some few things Yes, yeah, if I put my foot down every day, then it doesn't matter, right? But but if they used to me being the guy asks questions and offers suggestions And then one day I say this has to stop right now. This is wrong. This is broken Then then they're gonna go shit. It's what I wanted, you know, they're gonna listen, right? Yeah There's one thing though another Realization I guess for me was now that I am back In the trenches as a coder So I've been working like kind of in the trenches for a long time But mostly as a coach so working very closely teams in the teams But I haven't been the guy writing the code in the design So most of my coding has been on the side on my own hobby projects Just to kind of keep that that muscle in trim But now that I'm working almost full-time doing actual design and development and working a team And kind of practicing the stuff I've been talking about for all these years I've noticed my confidence go up also because I I guess I didn't realize how much I was guessing before as a coach You're you're trying to help a team solve a problem, but is it their most important problem? You're suggesting something. Is it a good suggestion? You're kind of guessing and I find that the longer time I worked as a coach and not doing development The more kind of on thin ice I was And I would realize sometimes after the fact that this thing that I said was really important was actually the wrong thing for this team And they were just listening and smiling and nodding and waiting for me to leave so they can go back to doing what they needed to do And so I always had this nagging doubt like as a coach the stuff I'm saying now is it really the most important thing or are they just listening because they paid me to come there and talk, right? Yeah But now I now as a developer in the team building and shipping stuff every week I'm a lot more certain in terms of this is a problem to solve here are some ideas. We can try this this works This doesn't it all comes from a from a from a personal kind of like I got my hands in the jar perspective Well, it is I guess both In a sense, but let's say we're talking about Like the importance or like whether we should do branching or not or feature toggles That's I guess kind of technical coaching but then also other things like when should we do mob program when should we pair program? When should we work independently? How long live branches make sense? Or things organizational things like when does it make sense to work in a true cross-functional team? When does it make sense to create more component teams? All those kind of things are a lot easier for me to reason reason around when I'm in the teams because then I can see that Okay In theory, this would be a place where we where we do standard agile practice a but in practice That's not the wrong thing to do as a coach. I wouldn't be quite as sure Yeah, so you Henry. Are you doing both at the moment? Would you say you Would you say as a percentage you 100 developing or you still saving a bit of time for coaching and for the organizational role? On average, I would say it's about 50 50 Okay, so I work almost full time in the in the team and on average 50 50 development Coaching but it's very unevenly distributed over time So it might be three months of almost only coding and design Okay, and then suddenly we need to do a major pivot in our roadmap and everything's changing and we just hired a bunch of people So now I basically put on the coach hat and I got to help sort things out So then I may be just doing 20 design coding and really mostly coaching. So it varies over time Because this this is a question that does come up quite a lot in even now in my csm classes Isn't where it always comes up. I'm not gonna say quite a lot. It always comes up is that can a scrum master Also be a developer. Can they can they can they split the role? Can they What's your opinion on that? I'm just interested in your thoughts on that I actually like the combination I find it's useful when there's some people that are both coach and and team members Because then you have a very hands-on perspective on things You like everything you do is grounded in reality But you sometimes lose the whole picture if you're too deep inside the trenches So it's also useful to have some people that are pure coaches And those two people compliment each other perfectly. So I have a colleague Yassal now who works at mojang as well And she's a pure coach doing the kind of stuff. I might it might have been doing in the past Okay And and I'm in the teams and we compliment each other I think because she sees things that I don't see And I see things she doesn't see so we help each other That's nice. They're almost like an extra Oh, yeah, like a two coaches working together to try Often in the past when I would come in at a pure coach role I would make a habit of finding Someone who is in the team as a as a team member and a coach whether it's a formal or informal coach But a person who has that perspective and I would kind of bond with them because they would be my insider to keep me real So to speak Yeah Yeah It's it's hard to say because like five years ago. I was so into process stuff I was reading books on lean and agile system stinking It was like it was just what I was really interested in And now I'm not as interested in it to me. That's more a means to an end So I'm more interested in the product and the coding and the design Of course as part of that I'm also interested in the design process How do we ship features in a good way? So there's a bit of process stuff But it's very much anchored in the in the product itself So since I've changed in the past it might change again Maybe it's future. There'll be something else that'll be my main passion But right now it's building the product. That's what I'm mostly interested in I I guess the big Interesting thing is this global experiment going on with remote working This global Unwilling experiment that were all being guinea pigs right in And companies are being forced to learn to do things that they previously thought was impossible right Like my team we were we were so co-located We were that was everything was around being co-located in the same room And then from one day to the next we're all at home And we made it work. I can't I still think it works better to be in the same room But we found ways we found things that we could do now that we can't do physically together in the same room So we're now starting to not only try to match what we did before but in some senses exceed what we did before And all the so many companies are going through the same journey So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens when we get out of the False assumption that agile means having to be in the same room Because I think I don't think so. I think Almost every company I've talked to now including my own teams are saying that Being in the same room has advantages being distributed also has advantages and we're going to try to get the best of both But basically a hybrid workplace. I think it's going to be the norm probably and hybrid as in There's going to be some days per week when we're all in the same room to do the things that are best to do in the Same room and some days per week when everyone's at home to do the things that are best to do in that context And an infrastructure optimized for dealing with the fact that now somebody is in another country And instead of that being an odd weird thing. It's like, yeah, we we have systems for it. We have ways of working for it Yeah But there is one thing which I think concerns me a little bit although it might sort itself out of our time which is the Kind of the unfairness of the whole thing because I'm lucky. I have an office at home. I can close the door I have a fast internet, right? Other people live in a cramped apartment with a screaming baby and they have to sit on their kitchen table And it's really hard for them to focus on anything, especially being in a meeting So it gets these people with very different life situations Which means that there's a lot of people that are super depressed Just because they're unlucky they can't work effectively at home and they're forced to So what I hope is going to happen is if this becomes more of a norm Well, a people might start optimizing their homes to a certain extent if they can But also maybe there's going to be um, you know more commonly forming hubs of like work hubs Where you can go to in your neighborhood to go to something like an office Um, but not having to be at the office same as everyone else. Um, those kind of co-working spaces I'm just guessing that that's going to become more more of a thing for people that either don't want to Or really can't work effectively at home We'll see. Yeah Yeah, um, I was going to mention something else then but it's gone. It was gone. It'll come back to me a minute Carry on Um, not much well four kids all becoming teenagers. So that's you know a handful Uh coaching them supporting them and their kind of journey. Um, but uh, um, yeah, no other than that, I think I'm I'm learning a lot and I really enjoyed that just the whole you know design processing I think it's very interesting. How do we ship features in this game? Uh, plus it's really fun to have to get to live This uh vision that I've been trying to promote for so long. I've seen a few teams Live the agile way and it's so fun to see how inspiring that is And now I can taste it myself being a team shipping every week getting feedback from real users Adapting to it ship a new version the next week and it's really exhilarating So I feel more and more than ever inspired to spread this stuff. I want others to taste that That that that you know feeling There's this very simplistic kind of mantra that has come kind of become a bit of a mantra for me when it comes to life And I know not everyone has the opportunity but but the mantra kind of is Find out what it is you love to do and then do that Um And I think it kind of really boils down to that and there's this really lovely model called the, um icky guy from japan icky I don't know exactly the back where you may be seen it is for it's a it's an diagram of four circles, right? So there is that what the world needs There is what you enjoy doing. There's what you can earn a living off of and then there is what you're good at Uh, I tend to de-emphasize that what you're good at because if you enjoy doing something you you tend to get good at it but But the other three circles right the world needs it you can earn a living off it you enjoy doing it And just try stuff. I guess that's what I encourage my kids to do Try things and find what what what gives you that sense of joy And then hopefully you'll find a way to earn a living living living living off of it. Um Yeah, how could you go right? Yeah Yeah Yeah, and also also I've emphasized to them that I did not plan this career. I couldn't have planned it Uh, I just followed my nose if I found something interesting I'll try it and just try to encourage them Get get your basic education in place because that opens doors So so and they they've accepted that they bought that that's good So just get the basic education place just because it opens more more more more doors for you But then after that yeah Try stuff and and you don't need to decide you don't need to make a career choice because you're very unlikely to keep doing Your first job You're probably gonna because I'm almost everyone I know Works on something that's not what the first job was and it's not what they were educated for So I kind of like don't worry try something and then if you don't like it try something else And then probably hopefully at some point you'll stumble some stumble on something that makes you really happy And then try to find a way to make a living off of that whatever it is being baking or fishing or coding or Whatever it is. Yeah, I guess and also in my case there was also another Aspect to it. I wanted to be I wanted to become a musician initially So when I when I was uh in high school, I was playing music a lot and I still play music a lot And jamming and you know playing instruments and and my assumption was I'm gonna become a musician because that's what I like to do But then when I finished high school I came to the conclusion that it's probably gonna be hard to make a living off of being a musician And I might end up having to make music that I don't like making and then I might it might lose the magic So I got worried about that. So I started thinking about can I do something else instead? That's more a surefire way of making a living at least for starters and then play music just for fun Because then I don't need to make a living off music. I can do it just for fun So that's when I decided that coding is something I also like to do And I'm more likely to be able to make a living off of it at least initially So that's that's that's why I decided to study, you know software engineering And I'm really glad I made that decision because I know so many musician friends that are kind of like Some are doing okay, but many are struggling. They're like they take whatever gigs they can get They have to say yes to everything because they don't get so many requests And they're okay. They're not unhappy But it wasn't really what it was cut out to be And I feel very lucky because I can say no to a gig even though it's well paid And I can say yes to a gig that's not well paid just because it's more fun Um, so I'm really happy but I guess I guess my learning was if if I want to do something It doesn't necessarily mean that has to be my main source of income Yeah royalties aren't what they used to be are they but um, um one final thing, um, Henry because I know I'm conscious of the time um Two well two things one's related to what you've got back into development now. Sorry. Sorry. Well one that's got you've got back into development Did you find that hard so because I was I used to be a developer And I've I suppose I've more or less told myself now on you know, this is it's a young person's game You know, I I wouldn't be able to keep up. Did you find that tough to get back into it? I was a little bit worried about it because although I had been coding on the side It was mostly just me and my pet project. So it wasn't I didn't really feel cutting edge in that sense And I felt intimidated by the mega big brains of everyone on the team Yeah, so there was a pretty big imposter syndrome in the back of my head So but when I started joining the team as a coder it was kind of like as a side thing I was coaching but then I had time I had space in between my in my schedule Yeah, and I offered to just help out because I noticed they were struggling and they had lots of work to do So I was like, maybe I can just help fix bugs or something And when I so I did I did simple things But when I did simple things I noticed that I was able to contribute more than I thought I realized that You know the actual the actual chops the skills the little details that came back quite quickly Did it okay, but I had a long enough experience of the architecture. How do you think with around code? Well, I could I could lean on that and then the actual, you know Techniques came back fairly quickly. It also helped that we were using a pretty old version of Java So, you know It was pretty much what it was when I left it, right? So I didn't have to learn a bunch of new stuff Now we just maybe I can get back into dust off my old java java Although just the other week we upgraded to java 16. So I'm like, oh shit. Okay. I got a little Eating but so so I kind of quickly escalated from being a guy that fixes bugs to being a guy that now is You know responsible for some of the core features of the game and building it from scratch And I was like shit. How did this happen? But I guess it's kind of like Getting into it There was a bit of a ramp up But it was a lot faster than I thought because I had experience. I just needed to freshen up a little bit. So My final my final question henrik It's not from me. It's from my from my nine-year-old son. Is there anything you can you can any um any Any surprises he can expect in kind of future versions or the next version of minecraft or anything that Any easter eggs that he can look forward to to finding out about anything new little teasers Maybe you can without giving too much away Well, we we've learned the hard way not to make anything that can be interpreted as a promise But but we are working on but we already have announced update working on right now, which is called caves and cliffs And I can say that your son is going to be pretty surprised when he fires that up Towards the end of the year when that gets shipped because it changes a lot about the world Does it um So I think he'll enjoy it. That's going to make his day just those two words caves and cliffs are going to make his day I'll look forward to that Great. Thank you. Hang on it. Nice. Lovely to speak to you my friend. Lovely to see you again after all this time. Yeah Absolutely. We're great to catch up. We'll see where we Yeah, I I hope so. I hope so That'd be great Thanks Thanks a lot. I'll see you again. Thank you Bye