 Hello everybody and welcome to episode 99 of the Agile podcast with me, Paul Goddard and my good friend, Jeff Watts. Episode 99, eh? So we got that far through our episodes now and it's approaching episode 100. We're still in lockdown kind of in the UK, many things have started to reopen including the pubs. So me and Jeff took this as the hopefully the last indoor remote at home podcast you're going to hear, hopefully for a long while, pending any second wave should we go back into lockdown. But by the time episode 100 comes along we're hoping we'll be coming to you from a pub somewhere in the UK. Since lockdown started back in March in the UK, Jeff and I have been pushing these episodes out thick and fast, almost one a week for the last 18 episodes. So if you're not already subscribed that's a great way to make sure you get all those episodes straight onto your device and you can catch up over the summer months with all the episodes that you might have missed along the way. But we're going to take a bit of a break for now during the next month or so just to get some time off with our families and enjoy some of the nice weather that we're hopefully going to get. But we'll be back for a big one with episode 100 at the end of the summer. So listen through to the end of this podcast to hear how you could get involved in our episode 100 when it does come out. We wish you a lovely summer. We hope you're all well. Take care and let's play the jingle. Now you can say hello. Hello. Hello, hello, hello. Well, my beer is frothing. Oh, it's got a little nipple on it, Jeff. Steady on. Yeah, I've got banks. Well, banks. Banks. Imported Caribbean lager. Caribbean lager. Caribbean. Memories of where you should have been in March. Exactly. This is from Barbados. My wife brought it here as a birthday present because I didn't get to go. Oh, yeah. So this is what I should have been drinking, but never got around to it. So here is my first sip of banks because I've never been to Barbados. We're going to Barbados. It's apparently legendary. And I can imagine that tasting even better in the sun by the side of the pool or on a beach. So is that like the kind of Barbadian, is that the right word? Barbadian stock kind of lager you'd find in most lager or beer? It's lager, which I mean, like I said, I've never been, but it's legendary. And, you know, in all the in all the forums of all the people who are so disappointed not to be able to go where we were all commiserating ourselves. Everybody was constantly there was a lot of mentions of missing out on banks. Oh, I see. So it's brewed there, it's bottled there, they're very proud of it. And I'm sure they sell a lot of it. And is it good? As far as lagers go? Yeah, it's, yeah, it does taste a bit, I'd say, more multi than perhaps your your English lagers. And that's not a bad thing. Yeah, I think a lot of it is association, isn't it? I think here, if I'd have had if I'd have had banks while in Barbados, it would be even nicer because it would be bringing back the memories as well as just the taste. Yes. But yeah, it's it's nice. It's do you have a strong, a good memory for tastes? It's just the it's just the the idea of cold lager, regardless of what type it was, remind you of being on a beach. And that's that's the memory you take away rather than the actual distinguishing taste of it. I mean, this doesn't taste like a carling. Right. Fosters or a Carlsberg or something like that. I'm pretty sure I could distinguish between those. And it tastes. Yeah. And if I had a few of these while sitting on a beach, then I would probably it would probably maybe even if it didn't bring back the memory, it would probably bring back the feeling of relaxation. I think that's quite strong because my memory itself long term isn't particularly specific, the brilliant. But I do I do I do associate things. But we talked to I think when we were in Dublin, we talked about the whether it's a myth or not, but the the the Guinness always tastes better in Dublin because it doesn't travel as well and all this type of stuff. Or the water that they use is fresh or whatever it might be. But whether that's true or not. But then I've heard about people like literally just been back to the pub saying, oh, the Guinness was just amazing. But that's probably because they'd forgotten how draft Guinness tastes. Rather, I was educated after that podcast by one of our patrons, Graham Williams, yeah, who's from Dublin. And he said, because it's such a source of local pride, you know, if you if you surfed Guinness, that would be absolutely. You'd be the talk of the town. It would be a nail in your coffin as a as a as a pub. Yes. And they're so keen on it being absolutely the best it can be that every every morning, they will let the taps run and actually waste a bit of Guinness every day to make sure that you know, it has its its at its optimum. And once you've got that sort of reputation, then it's it's a necessary cost to uphold that level of quality. So yeah, what are you drinking, Guinness? No, no, no, no, no, I'm drinking. I've had it before on a podcast, I'm sure. Maybe a long time ago now, but I've got Sanford Orchards, which is been delivered by my parents last weekend, because I've said on the podcast before, this is this is made literally about a mile from where my parents live, where I used to live in credit and in Devon, and it's now kind of become fairly mainstream as it and you can buy I think you can only buy in supermarkets in the Southwest or in Devon itself, but it's become pretty popular down there. And yeah, and it's a very nice drop. I've had it before and it's one of my favourites and my parents usually bring a big crate of it when they when they come and visit. So, um, yes, it's kind of a nice, yeah, well, I'm, well, I'm Ken and Viv, I'm Ken and Viv. So I doubt I'd listen to this, Jeff, so we can say it would like it by my parents. And to my wife as well for buying me. My wife Alison, good stuff. But whereas your wife might may well listen to some of these episodes, my cheese, I think she got bored. My parents definitely do not listen to this. So we can say we're like, God bless them. Has your, has your week been? Um, where are we now? It's Tuesday, isn't it? Um, pretty good, pretty busy, feel, feel, feel busy trying to get things tied up before I'm taking time off as of this time or Wednesday next week. I'm taking some much needed time off, um, because I feel like I've been more, more busy doing less than I have been, um, and you know what I mean in terms of there's been, it feels like there's been less actual work to do, but I feel like I've, I think it's mentally, I'm more drained probably. You've been working harder to, uh, stay afloat, if you like, rather than actually making progress downstream, you've been coping with, with a, with a current head current, maybe for, for ones of a metaphor or analogy. Yeah. So coping with, um, a little bit more uncertainty, I suppose that as we all are, and coping with a little bit more trying to think on my feet and trying to, um, plan ahead a little bit, um, prepare. So yeah, good place for, for a holiday. Yeah. I feel like I am. I feel, I feel much more tired than I think I would do at this time of year right now. But, um, so I'm looking forward to that. But I like trying to clear the decks, trying to, uh, tie up a few loose ends before I do, but I feel like I've been, you know, actually getting stuff done, getting shit done, Jeff, during the day. So how about you? Uh, well, yeah, I've had, um, I've had an interesting couple of days I've been playing product owner. Oh, um, I can't say too much at this stage, but, um, yeah, I've been working with, with some teams who have been exploring ideas for, for a new product. Um, uh, it's been fun collaborating. I've been getting into character. Yeah. Hence, hence the, the facial hair. Oh yeah. You're not quite as, as long as mine, but you know, case with it, but, um, yeah, I've been getting into character, playing, playing personas. And you require a beard for that character. Is that right? Yeah. Well, facial hair. Yeah. And, and hats and, oh, it's yeah. Yeah. So yeah, getting it. There we go. That's very good. What's that? What, what would you call that hat? Um, this is some good, some good audio, audio content now for our listener and the audience. Um, I'd say, oh, I don't know. It's kind of like a, You carry lots of them, but you don't know what they are. I think that's like a, a woolen Trilby. I was going to say Trilby, but I wouldn't have been confident. That's a Trilby, but that's more, that's a kind of a, just a black Trilby. Anyway, not great content. So we'll stop there. Okay. But you know, you literally, so you've been in, in character. I see. I'll go, okay. All right. We've been having, um, we've had a couple of little mini sprints in teams coming up with different ideas. So multiple parallel safety fail experiments, seeing where they go. And, uh, yeah, something, something really interesting could come out of it. Who knows? Watch this space. Very good. So there's a bit of a change of pace. Did you have to go back and read your book just to remind yourself? Well, um, I figure it's, no. Yeah, I figure I'll just play it as well as I can. Just be me. Do you know, I mean, you've, you've done all the roles over, over, over your time. Do you have a, I know you don't like favourites and you don't like talking about favourites, but do you have, um, off the, of the three roles you think you're, you perhaps more naturally sway with or have an affinity with, which would you say it was? Um, see, I've always said, whenever I've done these personality type questionnaires, I've always come out very split, um, very even, whatever it is, whether it's disc, whether it's Myers-Briggs, whatever it is. I always come out very mixed. And I, I, I, I, I worried about it when I did one or one, I remember actually voicing concern and saying, you know, am I just a jack of all trades master of none? Um, but then I sort of rationalized it as, well, I can, I can kind of play the role that's needed. Uh, and, and I like being needed, quite needy. And, and so I like, well, I like being able to add value. And if there is a, if there's a gap missing, then I'm, I'm happy to play that gap, uh, whether it's Scrum Master, Prototona, team and whatever. And the other aspect of my personality, as you quite rightly said, is I don't really have favourites. My favourite is the one that I've been playing least recently. Um, so, uh, another, I used, well, it's slightly annoying thing about me, annoying to me more than anybody else is that when we go to restaurants, uh, and if, if I look at the menu and think, okay, this is what I'm going to have, and then somebody else orders it. I don't want to order it anymore. Um, that I want to order something different. Yeah. Uh, and, you know, form. Yeah. Kind of miss out sometimes. I went out for dinner recently, first time for ages with, with, uh, with another, with another couple. And then, so my wife and those two all ordered steak and, you know, me, I like a steak, but the fact that they'd all ordered steak. I thought, well, I'm not going to order steak. That's boring. I'll give you an example of the complete opposite, which is, and she doesn't listen to this. It's my mother, and we've already talked about Viv, but we'll talk about this more. Um, go to the fish and ship shop with her, my mum and dad. My mum will say, Oh, what are you having Ken? Sit to it, to her husband, to that, to my dad. And my dad will tell my mum what he's having. And she goes, Oh, I like that as well. Or tends to, whether it's a restaurant, fish and ship shop, Indian takeaway, always tends to wait till my dad's to ask my dad what he's having and then just choose the same thing. Complete opposite to you. Yeah. Plus to follow the trend. Social proof. Everyone else is having it. Then it must be good. Yeah. Well, I suppose there's, there's some safety in that. Yeah. Um, but it's more of a robust strategy than a resilient strategy. So if there's something wrong with the fish, then you're all going to die. Yes, that's true. That's true. But if it's brilliant, you're all be happy. Yeah. Whereas I'm, I'm sort of, you know, I'm mitigating the risks at the global level. So we have greater societal resilience because of my independence. Yes. Very good. Even if I may run the risk of suffering as a result, I'll take one for the team. Exactly. Jump on the grenade, so to speak. I always came out as in those profiling things back in BT, back in the day, I always came out as a team player. So that kind of, I think, I assume that's my as Briggs type stuff, but it was Melbourne, isn't it? Yeah. I visited Melbourne team roles, always came out as a team player and I could almost spot my profile amongst all the others that came out. And I think that's kind of how I, to a greater or lesser extent, and to my advantage or disadvantage, I always played the other two roles as wanting to be one of the team roles. Now I can see where that would be useful when you're trying to build rapport and trying to speak to people on their level, but I can also see that that probably got me into more sticky situations when I needed to take more of a leadership role, I needed to take more of an authoritative stance that doesn't suit my natural place or my natural preference. Yeah. Yeah. So, people, please. Yeah, that's my problem. Always happy, mate. Always happy. Product owners, product owners, more than scrum masters, I think have to rein in that aspect of their personality. Their job isn't to be liked, their job is to build products that people like. And sometimes that's, they're not the same. And to iterate on ideas requires some honest feedback, and that's a tough thing because a lot of people associate feedback on an idea as feedback on a person. But just because you've tried something that I didn't like, the feature I didn't like or the design that I didn't like, doesn't mean that I don't like you. No. And doesn't mean that if I give you that feedback, you won't like me. And we have those sort of unconscious assumptions, which can limit our abilities to be effective. I had the, I'm doing some design work. Rather, I've contracted some design work for myself, for another little thing, project, side project I'm doing at the moment. And again, I suppose you class me as product owner within that sense. And that designer came back to me with three different concepts for a design that is of a bad use because it's going to do for me. And my first instinct is to say yes. And again, it's got me into heaps of trouble before, Jeff, but equally, it's opened many opportunities from way before. But my default tends to be, and it gives people pleasing, kind of rather than see confrontation is to accept what I've been given. Sometimes I need to push that back. But yeah, it's even, and I kind of defer that designer in this particular context has a lot more, well, not a lot more, but different experiences to me about what good design looks like and what tell me what I need or what I think I need. So it's difficult for me to sometimes say to disregard that specialist knowledge and say, you know what? I think I know. I think I've got, I think my gut instinct here is to say no and or something different. It's hard for me to do that. That's against my character sometimes. But when, and I'm talking about my book, Product Mastery, the one thing that springs to mind from that is I'm a big fan of a product and of being to some degree quite predictable because they can provide, regardless of what their style is, just being predictable. So a lot of energy is spent from by teams thinking, ooh, how's the product owner going to react? If they can be pretty confident how the product owner is going to react, regardless of what it is, then they spend less time worrying about it and just waiting for it. And that provides a certain sense of calm and allows the team to focus, put their energy where it's more worthwhile. But that product owner, as well as providing that certain level of predictability and stability for the team, being a little bit of a rock in the storm, if you like, they will have to flex their style as the situation requires. And if you've got that sense of confidence and that sense of trust and almost predictability, if you like, then when you do step into a different role, people pay attention to it. So people that work with you know that you don't rock the boat for the sake of it. So when you do say something, they think, okay, this is important to Paul because he wouldn't just say that for the sake of it. Do you know what I mean? So a product owner that's quite calm and easy going when they've, you know, every now and again, when they say, no, no, no, this cannot be like that. It has to be like this. It's not just, it's not a case of cry wolf that stands out as, all right, that's a little bit of a character so that must be important. But I still find it, you know, even though I mean this particular design I've only worked with maybe twice before. So he doesn't, you know, he's not a regular team member. He doesn't see me every day. So he probably doesn't know how I'm going to react. And even though that should give me a sense of it's okay to react differently to how I perhaps normally would. And again, my default is to aim to please and, you know, to not to make people feel bad for the effort they've put in so far. Yeah. And it's a very, very common trait. You're not special, mate. And then that one common tactic that I found quite helpful for people in that regard is to think, well, if I'm pleasing this person, who am I displeasing? And considering the amount of people that are going to be using whatever it is that this person is designing for you, putting their pleasing them above pleasing him makes it a little easier. But you've got the short term in your face. I can see him. I can, I'm speaking to him right now, whereas I'm not speaking to these potential future users. And probably never will in many cases. Yeah. So it's, it takes a little bit of perhaps visualization, a little bit of stepping back, a little bit of perspective. But well, at least conscious reflection to do that. And, you know, product owners that are aware of that and self-awareness is absolutely the first key step to managing any of our traits. And yeah, just giving yourself time to be a little bit more aware so that you can be making more conscious choice for your and everyone's benefit. So yeah, we've, we'll try and keep these episodes a little bit short because they have been creeping a little bit longer. We've noticed that the other day, don't we? But try and get back on a kind of 30 minute edit length here. But we need to talk about the fact that we were itching to inching towards episode 100. And itching. And itching. And itching because it's that. It's quite itchy. All right, so I had to shave under here because it was getting too itchy. Anyway, I'm speaking out of design here, literally just emailed me, but how coincidental. No, but we are inching towards and itching towards episode 100. It's an arbitrary milestone, but it seems important to celebrate. And we're, well, we need to tell the audience. We're probably, I don't think we're going to get to episode 100 before we take a little bit of time off over the summer, which we normally do during August just because of holidays and stuff like that. But we've been doing these every week now for probably 15 weeks. If it feels like a long time, but certainly during lockdown, we've stepped up our game and we've rattled through a few episodes. But we are approaching 100, aren't we? So it would be nice. What I thought about was it would be nice to include a few sound bites or quotes, whatever it might be from anyone who does listen, who would like to send in a little thank you or a thank you. Sounds really self-indulgent, but anything they'd like to say about the pubcast or maybe a question they'd like us to answer or ask us anything on our 100th episode. And we'll try and include them because we've been stitching together a few of those sound bites for the Scrum Mastery Challenge, didn't we? But it would be nice to hear a few voices. And I thought maybe we could make a game out of it by me playing you a voice and then see if you can guess who it is from one of our listeners. But anything like that would, and you've got any other ideas of anything anywhere to celebrate episode 100? Well, I'd like that. Maybe some favorite memories. People's highlights from the pubcast. It's quite easy to fall into a sort of retrospective mindset, but it's a good opportunity. Any opportunity that forces you to stop and think, and how can you inspect and adapt? We probably haven't really inspected and adapted too much recently. I've just been on a roll really trying to deliver as much as we could throughout this period. But yeah, maybe some feedback would be useful. How about some feedback in the start of the perfection game? That would be cool. Some from our listeners. And I don't know, maybe we'd be brave enough to play them without checking them first. Yeah, that would be, and yeah, certainly one of us is probably going to find a way for people to drop them into a, I suppose they could tweet it or DM us a link to it online somewhere, but that would be cool. Yeah, it'd be nice to hear some of those things. Nice to know they were not just talking to an empty theater every week. But no, I think people still are listening. I think they are. Well, the figures. But you're the one with the metrics. No, people still seem to be listening. But on that, I think people, I've met at various workshops, meetups, conferences before that have, even the guy who was on my CSBO class a month or so ago, I called up with him on a coaching chat the week and he said, I'm listening to the pubcast and he was talking about something we mentioned, which I can, I've got no idea. I couldn't tell you which episode it was and what was topic it was. But I think people obviously take away from it what they want to remember and what's particularly appropriate for them at that point in time, obviously. So yeah, we'll keep doing some more. You're taking a bit of a gamble. So I remember a few episodes ago. So this 100th episode has been a milestone that you had an eye on for a while. You were hoping at one point that we'd be out of lockdown by the time we got there and you were quite hopeless about it at one stage. And we are and we're allowed to go to the pub now. So we could, we could go to the pub for our 100th episode. But by going on holiday, you're putting that off. They're not saying it's a bad thing. But there is, there's a risk in delaying things, right? So it could be brilliant because we could have a lot, we could have a bit of time off, we could have a bit of energy, we could come back, re-energise, you'd have some stories to tell from your holiday. It could be a good way to restart the new series if you like or season. But equally, we could be back in lockdown again. And what a feeling that would be for you if we came back and episode was one, episode was 100 was our first episode back in lockdown, Mark II. Yeah, could be, could be in full second wave by September, I suppose. That's the risk I'm taking. But, well, yeah, it's just, I think time is against us unless we try and do something over the weekend. But yeah, I'm teaching on Friday this week and Monday, Tuesday next week. So I'm starting to run out of days. And when we go on holiday on Wednesday, so we might be able to sort something out. But we'll, we'll keep that under our hats for now as to when that might be. Oh, just marking that because you're editing this week. Just, just so you know, I'm actually down in Bournemouth this weekend with Cody. Okay, for fishing. Oh, going down Saturday coming on Monday. Anyway, back to the bus. So what's, what's your feeling after 100 episodes? You still got energy for this? You still think you've got something to give? Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think I'm, I think I'm feeling a little bit disconnected from real life. Because it obviously, even though you can do, you can do a lot from, I'm still working obviously via Zoom and what have you. But it doesn't quite feel like I've got so many, so much connection with companies themselves. Certainly people, but, but perhaps not with their environment, I suppose that's the missing part for me. I don't feel as connected to people's environment or people are talking about their situations. It's harder for me to visualize it and to empathize with it because I, I can't be in that room with them or they're in that building with them when they're going through that. I think that helps me a lot. But yeah, I think whether that will come in the awesome, who knows. But we're looking to get a bit more face-to-face if we can. So that way. So I think that would be nice. I think that would be give me a refresh on some content and some stories to tell. But yeah, I'm very lucky. Yeah. Yes. I know you are. I'm very lucky because every day I'm still, I'm still coaching. So today I was talking to one leader about the difference between local optimization and global optimization and how tribes actually is an interesting choice of word because tribalism is very defensive and segmenting when actually as an organization you want to go past the tribe. So it's, I'm still getting that which I know I'm incredibly lucky to have. Do you get it as much though? Because obviously you're in your shed and whoever you're speaking to are in their house, I'm assuming. Does it, because to me it feels, still doesn't feel the same, feels different. No, I know what you mean. And don't get me wrong. I would love to be back in their office and walking through their corridors and their canteen and so on. But I think it's been, so I've been used to this, this coaching remotely, doing it for years, whereas a lot of people aren't. And it's interesting to see how much more comfortable these people have become with this setup and actually how much more focused they've been able to be. Where when I know I absolutely understand and I can empathize with, they actually miss the going from room to room because I'm as well. I like novelty, I like change. And they're stuck in the same room on the same screen for a while. But we've actually been experimenting with different things, but they've become more focused. So when they've been going from room to room, actually takes them about five minutes to settle down because they've just rushed from somewhere else, some other meeting or somebody else has just left the meeting and they've sorted it on the out. And the next five minutes thing, well, I've got to finish now because I've got to leave. Even if it's not said, they're sort of mentally packing up their stuff because they know they need to be somewhere else. Whereas now it's a little bit easier for them to focus. And they've relaxed a lot more into the coaching. And actually, I think they've valued, if anything, I think they've valued their time with me more because it's so different. I'm not in their organization. All of their other calls are with people in their organization. And I know, although other meetings before were the same, but I think it's just that everything else being so the same in the same room with the same screen has highlighted the bigger difference. Okay, that's good. Well, let's call it there. And we'll let our audience sweat over whether we're going to be in the pub or not next time around, but I'm hopeful that we will be. Whenever episode 100 comes, and nobody will know when it will drop, we won't give anyone any warning. Well, if we want to give them some warning, if we want some input, we need to give them something. So we'll put the input. What's our request now? We need to give them the request now. So if you're happy for your voice to be included on our 100th podcast, send us a link to a short, and let's say no more than 20 seconds of something you'd like to say on episode 100. It could be anything as long as it's relatively clean and tasteful and inoffensive. But if you'd like to contribute and we'll pick out some of the better ones and it will give us something to reflect on, any of your reflection that you'd like to be part of our 100th podcast and send us a link to it online, the sound clip somewhere online, either DM it on Twitter to us directly or to me or Jeff on Twitter or whatever. However, if you've got our email addresses, just send it straight through. Yeah, we're on Instagram. We've got our own website, it's inspectandadapt.com, gelify.co.uk, so you can contact us various ways. Yeah. Yeah, I think that'd be pretty cool. I'd like to hear what people have to say. And I for one would play them blind. Would you? Yeah, I would play them blind. Because if it is offensive, we can edit them out. But I would like to actually hear them and respond to them genuinely rather than knowing what's going to be there. All right. Yeah, we can do that. We can arrange that. Okay, cool. Right then. Well, if I don't see you, if we go on holiday, have a great holiday, mate. Thanks, my friend. And you, if you're taking any time off, then you deserve it. Yeah. No matter what everybody else says, you do. Yeah, thanks, mate. And have a happy August to all of our listeners as well. Yes, and hopefully enjoy some of the good weather. And we'll see you on for the next episode, episode 100. We'll be there. Ooh, exactly. All right, then. Bye.