 Hi, I'm Jeff Watts and welcome to another episode of Scrum Mastery Challenge. After the last week's episode where our contestants had 20 pounds to spend to increase the agility of a team, we ended up with joint leaders, Sam and Christina. Everyone else is still in touch so it's all still to play for. This week's episode is a bit different and it's more of a mental challenge. Let's see what they had in store for them this time. What do we have here? Okay, I'm getting a little bit more happier with what's going on now. Let's take a look at the next one. Memorise as much information about the people on the table as you can. You will be tested on them in 30 minutes time. The most correct answer wins. So, a memory challenge. Our contestants had 30 minutes to look at the biographies in different formats of four people. And they ranged from videos to CVs, a cartoon and an obituary. Do you want to have a look at the personas yourselves? Now it's revision time. They've each got 30 minutes to learn and memorise as much as they can. Start cramming. It's much harder to remember. I never read magazines with lots of words in and that's because I just lose focus. Because I'm a lot more of a visual learner. I'm just not going to be able to remember this one. Just focus my mind on the ones that I am. I've been excited to see how it was. I wouldn't be easy if this guy hadn't done as much. This is a clear principle of play here. Need to present information in a simple and memorable way. So, it's mastermind time. Aren't you our contestants are confident, do you think? My memory is rubbish. I think my memory is pretty good. Now, there's a mixture of confidence levels there. But it's time to find out whose memory is the best. They all have 20 questions. So, let's see how they did. It's exam time. Oh, B.S.C. Honours is... He graduated from Aberdeen University. B.H. Honours... Signs? Oh, I knew it was Aberdeen. I can't remember. Aberdeen Bachelor of Science in Physics. Aberdeen Physics. Music and English. Drawing? Drawing in English. Do you get favourite lessons at school? No, I don't remember. Music in English. Music in English. I really don't know. E.T. 73. 73. 3rd of October, 1990. 1990. 1990. 1996. No, no, hang on a minute. No, I'll go over 1996. Goes to the beach. E.T. Drinks whiskey. Scotch whiskey. And... Mmm. I drew it down. It was a drink. He's a pair of governor. Is that it? Is that all he does? That was one thing. Point of breach. He likes playing with his children. Music. Sport. Art. Movies. So he volunteers for the Samaritans. He used to be a governor for his daughter's school. Beach holidays. Watch the rugby and drinks. Scotch whiskey. He likes to watch rugby, I think. Remember rugby. Can't remember any of this. Timo. Audrey. He was a sister. There was André in his first crush. Daughter Avery. Gabrielle. I don't think I'm any good at these memories. Timo. Timo, that was her husband. Is it like Anders? And something like that. That was her boyfriend in college. She didn't marry him. He wasn't the one. Gabriel. Lillian. Aubrey. First crush on André. And Timo. Gabriel. Aubrey. Avery. Timo. Juliet. Gabriel. Lillian. Aubrey. André. Timo. That was the guy in the old photograph. Yeah, I love it. I didn't read it. His wife and children? No, no, no. Laurence Olivier. Duncan McCree. Just was the highest to remember. Laurence Olivier, that was one of them. She liked playing with Lego and she liked Disney movies. And crayons. And Barbies. She liked playing with the sister. She loved dancing. She likes watching Disney films and drawing. She liked colored pens and pencils. Or pastels as the video called them. Yeah. She also liked Disney, Lego, and to build houses out of Lego. Lego and Disney films. And like drawing. And seeing. And dancing. Dancing. And going to the beach. Dancing. And house. He's done quite well for himself. Berkshire. Hull. Hull. Barnsley. McBeth. Lady McBeth. Lady McBeth. Lady McBeth. So 10 questions in and half way through. Freya's currently in the lead by 3 points from Christina and then Sam. Helen languishing 10 points behind. Can she make that up with the final 10 questions? All I remember was that you got kicked out of the RAF. He didn't like his personal life being out there. Because he didn't like the public life. Jeff, he was a bit reclusive. I run this fit. No. No. Because I'm going to say because he moved back to Scotland. But I don't think that's right. When I went to the beach I immediately bronze and everyone called me the black pearl. Debbie? I can't remember. Black pearl? No, don't remember that. It was part of a 1.2 million dollar project but I can't remember what that entailed. Getting paid each month? To do a 1.2 million pound to the data integration project. I mean I deliberately choose to only remember that bit. Managing a 1.2 million pound data company thing. Don't really understand the word. Something about delivering a 1.2 million pound project. Sushi. Sushi. I'm going to take a guess. Acting. Music. Didn't you ask me this one already? Oh I think I've mixed these up. Just go the same again. That was fashion and kitchen. Drama? Want to say new? I don't remember. It was fashion and cooking I think. Did I? Oh we did I. No. No idea. Charles Darwin, Bill Gates, Princess Diana, Billie Holiday and Leonardo DaVinci. Leonardo DaVinci, Princess Diana, Billie Holiday and Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin, Leonardo DaVinci, Princess Diana. That's really annoying I forgot. Charles Darwin, Leonardo DaVinci, Bill Gates, Billie Holiday and Princess Diana. Princess Diana, Charles Darwin, Billie Holiday, Leonardo DaVinci. I can't remember any of this. Forty-five. Do you know? Forty-five. Forty-five. Forty-five. Forty-five. Maccabee. I've wanted to say Maguire. Yeah Maguire, let's go with that. Maguire. Maguire. Disney. Disney. Disney. Disney. Disney. So I think we all did well. There were some exceptional performances from Sam and Christina and especially Freya. So it's having a good memory, important or valuable to us as a scrum master or an agile coach. Well I think so. I think it helps build relationships and develops rapport. It shows we care and we're listening to people which also shows a little bit of respect for them as well. Now we're not looking to remember things like commitments so that we can hold people to account or anything like that but it can be useful to be able to hold that data in our heads of things we've seen or things people have done to be able to play back to them objectively and accurately so that the people that we're trying to help have accurate data with which to reflect upon. A good memory can also help us connect the dots or identify patterns over time. We can hold more data in our heads that we can start linking things together and putting them in the bigger picture of the system that we're operating within which can be helpful to us in analyzing and getting at the root cause of something rather than just focusing on one specific superficial piece of data. I found that we can actually improve and enhance our memory with conscious effort which surprises quite a few people that I work with. One of the big barriers to an effective memory is interestingly enough our self-talk. I come across a lot of people who say things like I'm terrible with names or I've got an awful memory. Whether or not that's true it's probably not helpful because it can become self-fulfilling as a prophecy. If we think we've got a bad memory then we probably won't try as hard to remember things. We've given ourselves an excuse already that we're probably going to forget it. So a first step is just being very careful with the messages that we're giving ourselves and then consciously coming up with a more helpful and positive stance. If you want to increase your memory, here are a few quick tips. First of all, tell yourself it's possible. Get rid of the self-talk that says you've got a bad memory or you're terrible with names. Just believe that you can do it. Start small and remember a few things. Perhaps the shopping list, just from the local shop and then slowly increase the number of things you memorize over time. You'll get better at it. It's a muscle. Perhaps try telling a story to connect the pieces of data that you're trying to remember. A narrative is so much easier to remember than just some random data points. And imagine things visually. Play things out in your head. See things happening. Pictures are much easier to remember than words. And then repeat. In your head just repeat the same things a few times. That repetition will help things sink in. And don't beat yourself up if you do forget things. Just go again. If you're looking to make your message stick with somebody so that they remember it, don't forget you. And perhaps you could take some of the learning points from this exercise forward for you. Make things visual. Make things engaging. Short. Sharp. To the point. And the more that you can connect with the person that's listening, the better it will stick. All in all, I think this was an interesting challenge that sets us up quite well for what's to come next. And with Freya winning this challenge, she now moves back up into third place while Sam reclaims top spot on his own outright. Everyone's still in touch though, so it's all still to play for with just two challenges remaining in this series. Anything can happen. I'm really looking forward to the next episode. I'm not going to tell you why, but I think it's worth tuning in. That's all I'll say. So now though, we're nearly done and all that's left is for me to say thank you and well done to our competitors for another excellent episode and to encourage you to subscribe and keep tuning in for the rest of this series. To get us to Dundun, here are the credits. See you next time.