 Welcome, everyone. My husband and I are acclimated to the time zone. Unfortunately, we just spent three weeks in Thailand. So I've done a lot of communication there. Sawadika. That's welcome. Good day. Good morning. And so welcome to all of you. I was interested in Mr. Chan's remarks this morning, his ABC's collaboration, because we need everyone. And so this is about collaboration. I'm not going to be talking about techniques. I really thought Mary's technique, when she talked a little bit about gathering the collaborative wisdom, she gave some ideas about some techniques. And I thought they were really interesting, but this is not about that. It is not about technology. And it looks like there's a lot of really good presentations here that are going to touch on useful and important technologies for Agile. And I'm not really talking about Agile or Agile roles, although you'll see we will be using the labels for Agile roles for context mostly, because I thought some of you might be comfortable with those roles as being familiar. What we are going to be talking about is people. And I do have some glare on my glasses, but I suspect everybody in this room is already an expert in being a people. So that's good. What I'm going to do is I'm going to invite you on a journey. And we're going to be setting up a meeting. But everybody in the room has an active role, just so you know. Many of you, well, many, many of you, probably most of the people in the room are going to be active observers. And you will have an important role when we start talking about what went on in the meeting. Because we want to discover what happens when you interact with people. A few of you are going to have some roles to play. And roles, these are play roles. There's nothing, I have cards. So you get to be somebody with a label. But more importantly, on the back of the card for you and you alone is a description of who you are. You could be a product owner, but you could be anybody because this is really the important context on the back as to who you are. And so I need four people to help us make this whole meeting come alive because we are going to be talking about the interaction model from Virginia Satir. And Virginia Satir was a family therapist. Her focus really was on the fact that people interact with one another in families. You can't really help someone in isolation because as you grow up you really become who you are based on how you've interacted with your family and your family interacted with you. And so she kind of developed this set of patterns or models where she realized that she would see the same things over and over again. I was fortunate enough to learn about her work years ago in 1993 from Jerry Weinberg and later also spent some time with Virginia Satir. I was one of...someone came up to me. I'm sorry, I don't remember your name, where are you? And said, I went to the AYE conference. Well, I was one of the 14 consultants who originally started... there you are, the AYE conference, which was all about using... making people aware of some of the important aspects of how you as a human being, how you as an individual can become more aware of how you can be more effective. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that as we look at the interaction model from Virginia. But part of doing that and part of the spirit that Virginia was very much in favor of and many of her techniques were looking at making things come alive, doing a sculpture, doing where people actually act out a role. And the nice thing about these roles that you act out, you're going to be making up the script. So all of you, I assume, were children. And some of you as children may have played and pretended you were an astronaut or pretended you were a nurse or a doctor or something else. That's all we're doing here. So there are no wrong scripts. There are no wrong words. So...and for those courageous people that do play the roles in front of the entire group, three years ago, six years ago now, I'm trying to remember when it was. I went to a satire conference in Hong Kong and the woman who owns and runs the Hong Kong Satire Center made up these beautiful bookmarks. Each one of them has a different satire saying. So some of you that play those roles will be able to choose yours. Okay, so to start with, I need then four volunteers who would like to be somebody at the meeting. And as I said, there are no...there's nothing wrong. You can't do anything wrong. You just have to be able to stand up here. And you can stand this way if you want to. But just enough so that all the rest of the people in the audience can listen to what you make up as a meeting. And probably most of you have been in a meeting of some sort. So whether it's an agile meeting or not. The context for our meeting is this is a meeting where the company we work for has an app for an ocean simulator, simulating the currents and the trends and all of that. You have some lovely ocean here in Singapore. And so the business has decided they wanted a new feature in that app that has to do with whale migration. So you're going to be talking about what you think you're going to do. Once again, you can go back to... Oh, are you going to be a volunteer? Yay. Come up, please. Yes. Okay. I'm going to make you the... Oh, Juan. Nice to meet you. Yeah. I'm going to let you pick your role. Do you want to be a team member, a product owner or a scrum master? I want to be the team member too. Team member too. Okay. So this is... You keep that to yourself because that's who you are. Oh, good. I have four. I have my four. Nice to meet... Harsh. Who nice to meet you. I knew a harsh. Yang? Yangzi. Yangzi? Cool. Cool. Coolowat. Now that I see your name, yes. Okay. I'm going to just take you in order. Do you want to pick which one you think you might want to be? Team member? I'll be the scrum master. Scrum master, product owner. Okay. So when you flip it over, you have a description of who you are in this role that you're playing. Obviously you're not playing yourself. You're being that person. And so whatever you say is just going to fit with whoever that person is on that back who could be anyone. So let me do this. I need... Oh, we have some mics. We can pass it around. They're your product owner. You're scrum master. Scrum master. Okay. The play is about to begin. Who's one? One... Oh, you have two. Okay. One took two. There you go. And you're one. Okay. And we have a mic so that we can pass that around. I think what I would like to do, because maybe I'll just shut this this way. But of course that's not going to work, because go to sleep. What I'd like you to do is come... I know there's a little bit more light, but come together. And if you all want to be on that end, that's okay too. And yeah, so you go over there and then you'll be close to the mic that the product owner has... Right, the product owner has the mic. So scrum master. And I know I put this in a place where it's going to be part of your hair. Wait a minute. Yeah, you're stuck. So find a place for that that works. So scrum master, why don't you bring the meeting to order for the new whale feature? Okay. Hi guys. Hope you guys are doing well. So we're going to start our sprint today. So today we're going to have our feature kickoff for our new whale feature. So I think we're expecting to release this feature according to the release plan in six weeks. So I think it would be great if everyone kept that deadline in mind that we have to release in six weeks. So I think I would appreciate everybody's help in really kind of making the prioritizations and making sure that we get all the top features and get that release out in six weeks. Cool. We've been talking about this feature for a long time and the future of our company depends on this release. In the past six months it's been a hard work and I understand but if you just help putting a little more extra effort to make this happen, our boss would really appreciate it. And I know that I can trust this. Our excellent scrum master can make sure that we keep burning it down. Okay, before we start, just want to understand how the starters would be reported to the higher management and who would be managing the budgets and all. That's something I want to understand before we initiate the sprint. If you have any questions, go ask our master first. If she cannot handle it, she'll show you where to find me. Sorry, can I understand what your concern is? I think you wanted to know who is in charge of the budget and the other question was... How would we do reporting the starters? How would we like tracking it, the progress about the project and all? Right. As per how we work in this company, we have our two-week sprints. So six weeks, two weeks down to our release. Every two weeks we'll look at our burn down and see whether we are doing well or not, whether we can cover all the features that we need for this release. So I think the product owner you will be in charge of the budget actually. So the budget goes to the product owner and then as a team we are accountable to him and also to each other to make sure that we do our best to get the product out. And I'll make sure I'll come and see the burn down every day. Yeah, so, sorry, did you want to... Are we done reading? Okay, so all we need to do now is to prioritize the features. So product owner, do you have a prioritization that... can you show us a prioritization? Well, it's the same priority that we've been talking about for the last six months. Just follow that and make it happen. That's fine. Okay, so is everyone comfortable with the prioritization? Do we feel that we can complete this? Yes, we can go through it. No worries. Have you agreed on anything? Have you agreed on anything? Have you agreed on anything? We agree to make it work, of course. You know, the future of the company depends on it. It has to work. But I still feel that the time you're giving for testing for this app, it's too less because we need to do the regression, we need to do all the other things because we are adding the new features and it may impact the existing functionality and all. So we should think about the timelines because we are already discussing the last six months and now we are coming with the six prints only. So one sprint is only we'll take for solutioning and four sprints, I feel that it would take a development. And I will be left with only one sprint for testing. That would not be a suitable time. Yeah, so maybe if I interject now. So I think, you know, product owner, you have already prioritized the features in the list of priority for you and for the business. So I think, you know, given that we don't think there is enough time to finish all these features, I think, you know, part of our agreement with Scrum is that, you know, we will finish the highest priorities and you're free to come into, you know, to re-prioritize. But, you know, it's, you know, I think our velocity is, we're doing well right now and I don't think our velocity is unlikely to change from the work that we've been doing in the past few months. So, you know, realistically, it does seem that out of all the features that you have prioritized, maybe, I think, five will be done. So is that an acceptable thing for you? You know, we're not here to do Scrum, we're here to do software, right? I'm sure it would help but, you know, if we can't make this work, we have no work to do in the future. So I'm touched you guys will do your best. So let's do one thing, let's break out this whole release in different parts of release. Let's not target to send all the features in one shot. Let's break it down in different ways that may also help us out. Will the business okay with that or you can do the buy-in with the business? Yeah, so out of the seven features that you prioritized, maybe we can do five first in six weeks and then we'll save the two for the rest, right? Okay, I'm going to come to the end of the meeting and hold on to that, Mike, because I'm going to ask for some impressions. And I thought, I know what I wrote on that card. I think you did a great job. Very impressed. Let's see what our observers, I want to get a little bit of information, you know, just a couple observations. Anybody have observations about what they thought that interaction was all about? What were these people communicating? Any stumbles that you noticed? Yes? Some of them are really collaborating with each other, while one of them is more like just sitting there and meeting for a minute. Which one was just sitting there? The gentleman over there. Very good job. Team number two, why don't you read your role? So now you'll have a little more insight. For T2, I have a baby that is a few months old. Me and my spouse has been late at night, taking turns to turn to her. I'm very sleepy and tired. It's hard for me to focus on the conversation. Yeah, so she... So he was falling down on his knees, his head was... But in the meeting, it's very... If you're in the meeting and you don't know that background, it's not unusual for somebody to think, that guy's not doing anything. Why is he not participating? This isn't right, right? Yeah, other observation about one of our other members? Yes. So the product owner didn't seem to be very much interested in participating with the team. He kind of had to be coerced. So product owner, why don't you read a little bit about who you are? Product owner. The owner of the company has put a lot of pressure on you personally to make sure there is new product will be a success. You have been working with marketing, sales, and financial people in addition to this role with the development team. You believe it is the role of the scrum master to push things through and make it all happen? Yeah, so he was pushing and it was like, why are you doing the scrum thing? Why don't you just develop software? Get it out there. So yeah. What about our other two members here? Maybe we were neutral. More neutral, more neutral. Yes. Yeah, team member one seemed to be asking a lot of questions, maybe throwing obstacles in front of the team that didn't seem relevant. So team member one, why don't you read your role? So my role says that I'm a five-year experience as a project manager and I'm pretty new to the agile and I don't know who is actually sponsoring this project and how the status will get reported to the senior management. That's my role. So he asks a lot of questions to try and figure out where he fits in. Okay. What about our scrum master? Good scrum master? Pretty good scrum master, yeah. Well, scrum master, why don't you read a little bit about your role? You seemed very energetic to me. I have accepted a terrific new position in another company that will be a step up for my career. So I'm excited, but I have not announced yet I will be leaving, but a new position is on my mind. I just want to finish the work with the team for the next release which is only six weeks away, so I'm trying to really stay focused and get the work done for the release. Yeah. So now what I'd like to do, keeping the mic with the team, our meeting members up here, what I'd like you to do is go down the line, talk a little bit about your experience of being in this meeting. How were you feeling about the other people in the meeting? I mean, you knew you had a role, but what do you think was going on? If I'm wearing the product on my hat, I feel like the team doesn't feel the pressure. The team is not responding to the importance. I felt like I was caught between the product owner and the team, so on one hand I wanted to address the concerns of the team, but on the other hand there is this kind of pressure to get the product up. I feel that product owner doesn't need to listen to anything. I want to implement in six weeks no matter how it would be. And I have a team member who is not interested in supporting me. What was, okay, yeah. I just want the meeting to open over. There was all this kind of bickering or something going on. Right. So I want to thank you all. Wait, you cannot leave. So pick a color, any color. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you. Uh-huh. Green. And I will hold on to the other one. So, and I, oh, Scrum Master, oh, and the car. The sticky thing, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. That was very good. Okay. So we saw that there was, it was easy to kind of misunderstand what was potentially going on in the meeting. And I'm sure you've been in some meetings like that yourself. So somebody's password. Is she pink here? I'm sorry to let it sleep for so long. So what we're going to do is we're going to take a look at the Satir interaction model and what she observed. Thank you about the, what really goes on. So this is what she noticed. She said when she saw people interacting, if she kind of slowed it down, that people would say something. If you're in the same room, you observe facial expressions, body postures, things like that. So the first step was what, what did I hear? What did I see? Hopefully not what did I smell. But you could use all of your senses to interpret what, to take in the information. Secondly, okay, I've got this information. What meaning do I make of it? What does that mean? Could be innocuous. It could be something that seems like it has hidden meanings. It could be something else. They ask, well, is there any other meaning I could make other than the one I kind of came to quickly, like the team member who wasn't participating? What's going on for that person that seems to have them tuned out? Next step was how do I feel about that? So I'm going to pick on our team member two again. So how do I feel about that person not participating? But I don't know what was going on for that person. So I'm going to have some feeling about that. Is it okay? We're not okay. And then lastly, what rules do I have to respond? If I'm going to respond to something that was just said. And that those set of rules are based on the way your family brought you up, your culture, and your own personal experience. All of those things play into how we form rules about what's permissible to say or do and what is not. And then you respond. So if I took an interaction that I thought was troubling and slowed it down, you know, what might I discover? And furthermore, keep in mind this is going on for each person. So my first person is hearing something, saying, well, what is all the data that I have? What meaning do I make of that? Are there other meanings? How do I feel about that? And if I don't feel okay about it, I could have a pretty angry response. I would be surprised. One of the things that in taking Virginia Satire's work and using it in the workplace, well, we're all people. We're all human beings. We had some people who cared for us as we were brought up and helped form those rules and experiences. And we carry that to the workplace. Almost everybody does because those are the rules and those are the experiences you know. And so when you think about how does a family therapist's work apply in the workplace, it applies because a workplace is a collection of people. And they're a collection of people that you work with that come from different places. I know that as I went from working in an office where I was face-to-face with my friends and colleagues to working more and more and more online and more and more and more and more across the world, that was very hard for me because I like face-to-face communication, being able to see people, go have a cup of tea, a cup of coffee, something to talk about and learn who that person is. And that all helps us, I think, become more effective in terms of how we interact with people. And learning sometimes that something that you do is really annoying to somebody else. I remember when there was a time when, I'm sure there were a number of people that described to me as annoying, I'm fairly outgoing, fairly extroverted and usually pretty energetic, particularly when I was younger. And I remember being in a workshop with a woman who I just got this vibe that she might positively hate me, even though I know she didn't really know who I was. And she was reacting, as I learned over the course of the week, she was reacting to my exuberance and my willingness to jump in and say something and she was much more introverted. And it was a huge lesson for me because I began to appreciate that it's not important to put the energy in. Everybody brings the energy and it's important to respect other people's points of view. So this interaction model, there's ways that you can think about applying this. Number one, the banner is Listen Without Prejudice. That's very hard, by the way, because we all have these built-in perspectives and filters that tell us what we think we're going to think about something or the way that we might feel or react to things. But keep in mind that going through that process of those steps could be very quick for some people because the issue may not be a big significant one, or it could be very long, so it might take somebody a longer time to respond. It doesn't mean they're not interested. It means they're thinking about it, maybe going through the steps in their own mind. If you feel friction in that interaction, you might think about, well, what is really going on here? And maybe think about those four stages in your own mind and say, what did I hear? Did I miss something? What meaning did I make? Is there something else I could make? What feeling? Is that feeling okay or not okay? Do I have rules that might be blinding me to other ways to work through the interactions with people? You could verify with people. When you said XYZ, did you mean this or did you mean that? So you could ask questions. Questions help clarify so that you're not misinterpreting. And that sometimes can lead to a kind of a better understanding. And remember, just like our meeting up here, intent is invisible. There is so much that is invisible when you interact with people. So assumptions can get you in trouble. Experiences that we've had, color or interactions. So the woman that decided that I was jumping in too quickly, it turned out when I talked with her more thoroughly at the end of the week when both of us kind of calmed down. She worked in an environment where she was dismissed a lot. Other people were talking over her a lot. She felt like nobody gave her the space to enter and say what she had and what she could bring to the table. And that was big when I realized that I was triggering all of these bad experiences that she had. That was a big lesson for me. So you basically can expand your self-awareness of what you might be doing, my interaction with Jenny, who at the end of the week, we joked about it, but she called me the locomotive coming through the station. But once you're aware of that, you can do things differently. And what can I do to change the interaction? One of the best things, and this is a little mantra that I say to myself often when I find myself in a situation where things seem tense because I'm reacting maybe poorly to what someone has said, particularly if I'm on the phone and I can't see somebody's face and I don't know everything that's going on. And what Jerry Weinberg used to say is what people say is more often about them than it is about you, which also means that what you say is about you and how you represent. But that keeps me from jumping the gun and thinking, going back and thinking and slowing things down. So that is the Satir interaction model and some advice on how you can use that when you're in meetings. And I think I have five minutes left for questions. Thank you, everyone, by the way, for participating, for listening, for being observers. And what questions do you have? Yes? This one. The process. Yes. So is this working? I don't think it's on. I think it's working either. Okay. So in this funnel, if I have, for example, if we talk about abortion and someone has a very, very emotional response, where does the response kick in? Is it in how do I feel about that or what rules do I have? Well, everything that you're doing here, whether you're forming the meaning, whether you're thinking about the meaning, whether you're thinking about your feeling and you can move through these fairly quickly. What if somebody was talking about abortion? Is that what you said? Controversial topic. Controversial topic like that. There's going to be some probably very fast movement through here, and the response is basically formed on what are my rules and experiences that allow me to say something because I might be very angry and have a very strong feeling, but I might not feel like I'm permitted to say what I really feel. But your response is formed right here. Does this imply that the feeling is formed before the response? The feeling comes before the response. So usually people try to make some meaning of that, what was going on, and then they might check in with how they feel. Some people who go more on an intellectual mode might think the meaning is more important and jump right through to response. Some people who wear the emotional part is more important might not worry about the meaning as much as how they feel about it. So people will emphasize also different stages. Thank you. You're welcome. Other questions? I did give this presentation, by the way, in a PDF format to Stanley, and hopefully it will be shared with the rest of the agile volunteers who might post it somewhere if they're going to keep the pages up so that you could take a look at it too. Any other questions? Yes. Oh, sorry. Juan. My question is about the prejudice. Is it... My question is about the prejudice. Is it a tactic or method that you're going to help to share with us how to be less prejudiced? Without prejudice, yeah. Yeah, but it's the experience, it's the whole perspective. I think one of the things that you can consider is this might be something else. I'm interpreting a meaning based on my experiences and my thought, a process about what was going on. But there could be another meaning because I don't know that person and I don't know what's going on for them. So I want to remain open. So I think listening without prejudice is remaining open to other possibilities. And when there's a lot of emotion involved, I think that's hard. So that's when you kind of need to... I have learned through my interaction with Jenny where I was the steam engine. I learned to try to remember to slow down and take a couple breaths, put the mute button on my phone if I'm in a meeting, and just let things slow down a little bit. That helps. Other questions? I think I'm at the time. I have one minute if there is someone else. Or would you like to do the wrap-up? Okay, thank you, Becky. Thank you all for participating in this session.