 Hello to you our lovely patrons and welcome to another edition of the Agile pubcast's prestigious pint series Raise my glass to you. You can see that Today Paul and I are chatting to two Dutchmen Barry Overeem and Christian of the vice From Holland and they are known as the liberators So a lot of you will probably come across their work in one way or another over the years They've been instrumental in bringing things like liberating structures more into the agile world To make meetings a lot less painful a lot more fluid They've also authored the zombie scrum survival guide, which is quite difficult to say but but very easy to read and Barry himself is also a bit contributed to the curriculum of the scrum.org pathway So our paths across a lot over the years and I know a lot of people that I know and Paul knows Requested that we we interviewed them for the prestigious pint series It was a really good conversation flowed very naturally and yeah, we talked a lot about liberating structures and also Partly because I was interested in it scientific experimentation So yeah, enjoy and we will see you all soon for another episode. Cheers. Cheers Well slightly earlier opening of the bar today Paul Very early Jeff. It's not very early Well, I feel guilty from I do the look I got from my wife when I took a can of cider out the fridge Technically technically we're in the Netherlands today. We're on European time. Can we say that? Yeah? Yeah, so this is it's almost five o'clock If we're rounding up, it's five o'clock. Yeah. Yeah The Sun is past the yard on So yeah, we've got we've got two guests with us today in the Netherlands Are you both in the same part of the Netherlands Barry Christian? roughly roughly Left in the city Utrecht and I live in the province Utrecht. So it's close enough. Okay. Yeah, yeah, 30-minute drive Between us cool. So, yeah, Barry Overeem. Have I pronounced that right? Yeah? Christian device Perfect. Very good. Yeah, very good. Very good. You're very Dutch. That's good I do I do practice the Dutch accent a lot at home, but so I won't do that online So what what can we get you to drink gentlemen? Oh, yeah, so like I already told you this is very boring It's like it's a pint of water or it's not vodka. Is it I've got it looks like vodka Yeah, no, either way, whatever is in there. We don't judge. We're a non-judge mental Social distance in and Christian. Yeah, I'll have a ginger beer Actually, I got one that says that it's from England But I think it's just a marketing department that decided that but it's it's a good ginger beer So very good. I do like beer, but this is different for once. That's alright. I've gone I've gone fairly standard Stock-sided today Jeff first one. I pulled out the fridge can of Stoford press. Yeah, they'll faithful I do like a cat. I do like a Stoford So did my local pub Here if it's your cider tastes like apples Jeff. Well Okay, well, I'm not going standard. Oh, I'm going for homemade The engineers dark side That sounds really good. Yeah, this is a home brew. It's a 6% dark ale Made by myself. Hope I haven't opened it yet. This is the first one. I've opened so it didn't explode. That's a good start I'll pour it. It's very curious to hear what it tastes like. It's very dark. Very dark. It is. It's like stout Yes, so this well, it looks like it. It shouldn't taste like it, but we'll see It's with it's got Bo to see a hops in it, but it should be dark It should have some kind of vanilla flavor apparently, but we'll see. Oh It does have a slight sweet Roll jealous now Yeah, it's nothing like a stout It's room temperature. Obviously that's that's why I've kept it but it is it's it's not it's quite It has a sort of texture of an ale rather than a stout. It's not very thick and Yeah, it has a little bit of a nice woody taste to it and It doesn't taste 6% so that's that'll go quite nicely. Yeah So do you follow a recipe with this stuff Jeff or are you kind of making it up as you go along both? So I haven't yet got into making my own malts So I will I will get my own malt from a shop, but I will mess around with with hops And I try different sugars as well. So this I actually put Brown sugar in rather than White glucose. Yeah, that's mainly because I lost the glucose. I don't know where it went It was kind of an innovation improvisation through necessity, but yeah, it worked absolutely fine. So that's that's nice I was a little bit I didn't know how this one was going to turn out. So And where can I or listeners get it if we want to order it is it available somewhere? Well, I don't have a license to sell Alcohol so I can't do that But I have been known to give out gifts to people And so you never know with Christmas coming up So Christian given your enthusiasm about beer is brewing your own beer on your bucket list as well Or I would love to but I don't you have to be super clean And I always respect people who are able to pull it off Especially as a beer like you just described Jeff from what I've heard. That's very hard to get right taste-wise So I would love to but too hard for me. I think I'm not clean enough for it Mm-hmm sterilizing agent. Did you underestimate how much sterilizer you need? Like buckets full and you have to keep cleaning stuff. Don't you everything has to be spotless, doesn't it? Yeah, I don't you mean Yeah, so that's whenever I go into the the local shop that sells the homebrew kits He always says and have you got enough sterilizer? Something he says every time do everybody. I've currently got two buckets of the stuff But yeah, it's it's nice to be clean But especially if you're going to be offering it to other people sure But I'd encourage you to give it a go. I think it's a it's a good especially if you're doing it yourself It's it's an inspect and adapting right? I may dabble with it at one point because I really a lot of friends of mine are doing it too Another thing I've been experimenting with recently actually, but I don't know whether this translates scotch eggs What is that? What is it? Scotch egg Paul knows what's got you it's in England. It's quite a good pub snack really basically it's a it's a boiled egg Mm-hmm, and then there's a coating of sausage meat and Then a coating of breadcrumbs. Oh Which is deep-fried I believe and it is deep-fried, but then baked as well So I've been experimenting with it So I've made some chorizo scotch eggs and I've been using different types of breadcrumbs panko breadcrumbs and things Just just trying lots of different things and experimenting and getting some feedback and Yeah, I get the impression Jeff you're actually running up running a pub And you're just telling me you've diversified and you actually that that shed that you're in now is actually a fully licensed bar Well, I think it's good to have options Diversify your portfolio, but we should we should properly introduce properly we should introduce our guests Barry and Christian who we will we will explore why but are known as the liberators from Holland the Netherlands Dutch land as Paul calls it And yeah, so I've known Barry for a while Christian for not quite as long through various means of The the liberating structures that they promote the zombie some survival guy. What used to be called the scrum Scrum team survey, but it's now called something else. I've got the wrong way around Yeah, it's now the scrum team survey and it was the zombie scrum survey. Yeah got you and also Barry and I collaborated a few years ago with regards to Curriculum between scrum alliance and scrum the org around the advanced trauma acidification So no each other for quite a while, but welcome. Thank you for joining us We're super glad to be here. It's a pleasure And I guess that that would be a good place to start. Why do you call yourself the liberators? I'm up with the name so This is No, it's a great name, but it's I it was very hard to come up with the name and very headed all of a sudden Yeah, we did it one wanted to have something boring like this this cliche Name, so we're looking for something that already sets the expectations sets the tone about If an organization or a team starts to collaborate with us what they can expect I think the liberator some I'm not sure. Yeah, it also describes what we want to achieve like liberate teams liberate organizations from outdated modes of working outdated modes of collaborating with with each other And liberate them in such a way that they can unleash their superpowers And we believe that each team has Superpowers that need to be brought to the surface and for some teams, it's quite easy the You just need to scratch the surface and you'll see Superpowers appear well and some teams you need to do a bit more work They were able to hide them quite well And how long have you and christian been working together? How long has this partnership been been in place? I think chris four years now four or five years. Yeah, and we started the liberators three years ago So a year before that we were just working together as freelancers I'm very started as a freelancer. I'd already been freelancing for a few years and We sort of connected because we have a similar style of writing. I think we connected mostly on the writing on the blogging And and from there on we started working together. It was a lot of fun And it still is by the way. Yeah Important to mention that. Yeah So teams need liberate are they are they prisoners then our teams captive in your experience more often than not I think we we both think so and And I won't say most teams but sometimes What we always like to do is when we enter an organization or visit it or talk to people from an organization Sort of to get a sense of what are the things that you're smelling when when you go into the office building or into the team room And that's that's not literal, right? Because we've used the term scrum smells before that those things that just don't seem quite right But you're not actually talking about what hang things actually smell, right? No, no, no not literal smells but more like what are the cultural smells or the things that people say or the sense that you're getting of being somewhere And one thing we've both noticed that that there are so many organizations where you have all these smells that radiate low autonomy people don't feel like they control anything like they own anything They're just doing what they're told and well for berry and me our background has always been that we work for organizations where we had a lot of control and a lot of autonomy and In a sense, we do want to help those teams experience that same level of autonomy as as we've done in the past Yeah So yeah, I think we want to liberate teams and many teams can do some help there I do recall an experience that we had at an organization whose name I will not session but when we entered the building they gave us a I'm not sure what the name is something to remove dust Yeah, um A duster. Yeah a duster. Yeah. Yeah, and that was the department that gave it to us because it was more like a symbol that they wanted to have every employee a duster so they could Revitalize their own organization Okay That was an interesting experience for us like okay, there's some work to do over here I'm sure it was Baz Vodder that I'm used to put on his business card something like agile janitor or something like that Yeah, I'm sure it was Baz that used to say that You got a lot of similar smells like I also remember the company with all the dead flowers everywhere In the team room and the the the welcome area. There were all these dead plans and that's always sort of It's just a small thing, but it's still something that you notice Can't keep basic things alive. Yeah, it doesn't tell you something I think so So what was the connection with the liberators was accidental with the liberating structures or was that deliberate? There you want to take this one or shall I do it? Yeah, but I actually not sure if it was accidental I think it was accidental But I think we were quite happy that once we came up with the name the liberators. Um at that time We already uh used liberating structures. Yeah, I think it was more like an extra Benefit that it's quite easy that Yeah, the connection with the operating structures is easy to make Sometimes people approach us because they think that we created liberating structures I think sometimes we have done a bit too much promotion and created too much content about liberating structures But just to also to clarify that one we did not Henry Lepmanovich and Keith McGandals those two awesome people they co-created and co-developed liberating structures And we're just a two humble guys from the Netherlands that learned a lot from them. I'm just very passionate and enthusiastic about it Yeah We have yeah, we but we we still do by the way, which is incredibly Awesome because Keith and Henry have so much experience And it's always a pleasure to talk with them and to chat with them We've done immersion workshops with them like about liberating structures But also we hang out with them every now and then on zoom more with Henry at the moment But with Keith also every now and then it's always a lot of fun But yeah, I think the name was accident sort of the connection with the name was accidental But it was also because we were doing a lot with liberating structures at the time But it's it's all it's sometimes a bit confusing for people to be honest. So No, I think it's very good. I think um, that was that was I certainly put those two together straight away thinking when I think of For all for wrong reasons. I when I when I hear about liberating structures Structures and I generally make that association with the two of you straight away Which is which is obviously great working well. So Yeah, keep doing it. What are Keith and Henry's backgrounds? It's not they're not they're not our job people Are they where do they come from? Keith has a lot of has a background in complex complexity science I think he was part of the plexus institute in the united states That's also by the way where he met Henry and the plexus institute is specialized in complexity science So a lot of people in that field were part of that institute are working for it um, and henry limanovich was one of the I think he was a vp for um, what's called a big pharmaceutical in the united states, but I think Yeah, murk. Yeah, he was a vp from murk and um, and um, he actually discovered he noticed there that every time There was a meeting it lacked energy people were not engaged and he wanted to change it But he didn't know how and that's when keith and henry met And keith was already working with this idea for liberating structures and henry thought let's try it at murk And that's what they did. I think 30 years ago or 25 years ago And from there they actually started developing liberating structures So there's quite a rich history actually of of both those two, but also liberating structures It's also interesting that within the plexus institute. Um, that's also where the kind of thing framework, um, was Develled so to say So it's all connected in a way So but but henry and keith have zero backgrounds with agile with scrum And when chris and I met them, they were pretty Overwhelmed with that there's this entire community out there as well And we I think what chris and I did and also of course not not only us but uh, also other people is that made the connection With scrum and liberating structures because we think that the connection makes a lot of sense And that you can get uh, way more efficient with scrum and all the scrum events, etc If you connect them with liberating structures So I haven't I haven't studied the um the evolution of it But it has evolved right there that these practices the 33 or foot however many there are at the moment they've evolved over time and I my my instinct tells me that it's been kind of a A symbiotic relationship the agile world and the liberating structures as well because you see things like open space in there you see things like effectively Effectively pairing in there right the trick you can sort that that kind of thing One two four these things. I don't think they've necessarily come from one space or another it's been a I don't know that emergence so At the risk of um slowing down a bit jeff apologies, okay Is it worth for maybe some of our listeners that perhaps haven't heard of liberating structures before? um barry um, hello christian Can you give us a brief kind of synopsis? What what is what is a liberating structure and how would what would it be used for? Well christ this is something that you can do because i'm terrible like Explaining liberating structures. I think that's also the most difficult thing So if christian is going to pull him off then I have huge respect for him Because liberating structures really is something that you should experience to like talking about liberating structures about uh jeff showing and his his beer and then you're like, yeah, that's a good example Got it. Okay. Tastes very good. Oh, so chris. Yes. Yeah. Well, you you said the expectations Well, I think we always like to describe liberating structures as the antidote to what you normally see when you put a group of people together in an in a meeting room normally you have people sitting around the table and then One person talks for a very long time. Everyone else listens or not even Uh, and then another person starts talking for a very long time, but you don't hear anyone else talking during the meeting um and liberating structures are are very simple alternative ways of organizing interactions between a group of people in such a way that all their voices can actually be included in the conversation and um, there are many liberating structures 33 in total and each structure does this in a different way But with a very specific purpose So for example, you have the liberating structure one two for all and berry Would you be able to explain the steps of one two for all because then we can sort of explain it together Yeah, so one two for all is one of the basic foundational liberating structures Its simplicity is also its strength Because the one two for all is One is one minute individually. So you give a group of people an invitation Something to think about and then they take one minute individually to get their thinking started Afterwards they form pairs and then as a pair they have a conversation About the same invitation for two minutes And then that pair goes on a double date and forms a group of four And then as a group of four they develop new ideas together And then the old part that's the part where if necessary then can then they can share some some of the The the insights that stand out the most with the group as all So you really scale up conversations In such a way but in such a way that everyone has had time to Contribute and to get their own thinking started as well And what you could do is sometimes we explain liberating individual liberating structures as uh lego bricks So one liberating structure is a is a lego brick and one lego brick is already pretty cool But the real magic happens when you start connecting all these lego bricks to each other and then the possibilities are are endless So the real strength of liberating structures becomes visible when you start creating strings Of liberating structures. Got it. Okay, so For the the meeting the workshop the gathering Your birthday party whatever take something in mind Try to identify the purpose that you want to achieve with it And then start playing with all these lego bricks aka liberating structures And try to create a string by which you can achieve that purpose And that's very cool. And that's became sort of the hobby of christian and myself as well And have you each got a favorite? Ah like i've got 33 favorites You wouldn't let a product owner get away with that would you you wouldn't let a couple of them. Um Shall I start chris? But sure go ahead Let me think critical uncertainties without any doubt. So critical uncertainties is about strategy making I'm creating strategies together with the entire group And maybe to make a connection with scrum you can use critical uncertainties to create To create a product strategy and then not one strategy But based on critical and uncertain things that might happen you create multiple strategies So that if one of these uh scenarios becomes a reality Then you already prepare yourself for that happening and then everyone knows what to do Um, that's it. You're gonna get one. Yeah, you only Okay, that's it. Yeah christ would be appreciative interviews. Um, it's a very simple structure basically Everyone finds another partner and they they they share a success story of something that went really well For them personally with one other person that other person then gets time to also share their story But you also they also have to listen carefully to each other and make some notes about what was that success story And what made it possible because in the next round They actually have to retell the success story of their partner to two other people from another pair that joins them And then in that group of four the question is if you've listened to all these success stories retold by the partners What are the factors that are common to all of those stories? And how can we invest as a group in those factors right here right now to make more of those successes possible? And I think that there's just so much good positive psychology going on in that structure It's also one of those things you have to experience appreciative interviews to see how well it works People are always smiling. It feels very good to share a success story It feels even better to hear someone retell your story in their words Everyone's always a bit nervous. Did I say all the right things? Did I repeat it correctly? But everyone's always very positive and the insights that come out of this are always useful. It's a very powerful one. Yeah Yeah, do you think do you think um some these um Can be some some of these are more deliberate than others And what I mean by that is that some some might be more formally facilitated But some of those Liberating structures could you could almost weave in without people appreciating what you're doing? Is that is that fair? I think so. Yeah, I think that well I wouldn't say necessarily that they're not all of them are just as deliberate because all all structures have a very clear purpose But what we like to do Barry and I and we didn't do this initially Is you can do liberating structures without even mentioning it without even saying what you're doing right now Of course, you have to facilitate it But you can still do appreciative interviews without mentioning that that's what you're doing And I think that that makes it even more powerful We did a lot of that in the past where we actually explained we're going to do liberating structures We're going to do this and that but that can also create resistance in groups that are like Why should we do all these things? What is what are all these fancy words that you're using all of a sudden? Right, so that's that's my experience and Barry. I'm curious. What do you think? Liberating structures should never be about liberating structures themselves So I think the only time when we do mention it is during these liberating structures immersion workshops Because that's the purpose of those workshops But otherwise we don't really emphasize it. It's more like let people just experience a liberating structure And if they're curious about what just happens then we might give a brief explanation about the structure that we've used But the pitfall is always to To emphasize it too much and also to be too strict in time boxing and explaining the steps etc. It should be more like help the group Just work naturally certain flow And we had a conversation yesterday Barry didn't we on a simple thing just about scrum in general agile in general just It it's you don't need to mention scrum. You don't need to mention agile any of those You just do some stuff in a facilitative way Yeah, exactly. And it's like you said Chris it's going to be less resistant says less need to worry about all this is a thing This is a this is a technique that someone's trying to no, no, no, no, we're just we're just going to have a facilitate this That's that's that's that's what it is and then it works May I ask Joe from Paul? What is your experience? What did you experience when you participated in a liberating structure? What was it like for you? All right, so it's funny. So I was saying to Paul Only recently that so liberating structure is something that we came across when we did a lot of research into facilitation and collaboration Quite a long time ago and it was something that was one of those things that came in and probably little bits of it seeded into Things that we did and then we probably didn't pay enough Detailed attention to a lot of the stuff and then it came back into our conscience Um, so things like one two four all things like fishbowl Things like that the the trucker consulted they formed part of our facilitation with that That's really probably if i'm being honest giving the credit where it was due um But I if I was to It wasn't your question was it but I was thinking it was only fair thing as I asked you your favorite What my favorite would be? I think my favorite would be 15 percent solutions I think what the part of scrum that I was brought up on that doesn't really seem to get spoken about enough in my opinion These days is the art of the possible So I was always thought that is effective your scrum is is the art of the possible I know inspecting the that bloop and things like that but for me Don't get caught up in what things should be focus on what things could be Um, and that fits very nicely with the other world that I operate in a professional coaching Which is just make some progress forget about the things that you can't control Focus on what you can control right? Yeah, 85 of it. Fine. You you can't affect that. All right, but you can affect the 15 So let's focus on that. And I think it works for product owners. I think it works for development teams I think it works for scrum masters. I think it works for leaders anyone involved I think just that 15 percent just gets that momentum that ball rolling I like that. I like that a lot and I fully agree with it 15 solutions is awesome And we almost always do it at the end Or even halfway when we do a workshop with teams. It's perfect Yeah, maybe one thing to mention and then Paul I'm gonna give it to you So one thing to mention is also the hope that Christian and I have and as Christian actually wrote a blog post about it Which is called top of my mind Liberating structures are not techniques for facilitators, but for users something like that My hope is and that's also a pitfall that we see is that liberating structures are being perceived as something For facilitators and trainers And things that you only use during training and workshops and that's it While the intention is that everywhere where two more than two or three people collaborate with each other interact with each other They benefit from using liberating structures So just in regular day-to-day conversations. You can already use impromptu network And you can already use one-to-four all etc So yeah, my encouragement especially to people listening to this one is just think about any kind of conversation that you'll have today tomorrow next week And just try one or two liberating structures and just go for the basic ones Because yeah, I'm quite sure that once you've tried the basic ones You'll be addicted as well and then you'll start exploring the other ones I think a lot of people actually find that they've used some of them already or certainly been involved with some of them They're not they're not crazy magic No Dark magic or anything like that. They're relatively Normal ways of working. Yeah. Yeah, they're simple They're also intended to be so simple that anyone can use them You don't need to get a license for it or a certificate or go to A very advanced training of any kind. You just read the website It helps if you experience it once or twice with other people and then you can do it Maybe not the super the more difficult ones like critical uncertainties that needs some practice But it's still not incredibly hard to do. So it's easy. Just give it a try And for you Paul, what what was your favorite one? Yeah, well, I think like like Jeff said we've kind of rift on a few of these in the past probably without giving them they're full They're credit where credit is due but I'd probably say the the what so what now what I think is probably that's that's um We've used that as a debrief quite a lot in our exercises that and I know that and it always goes down well because it's it's like you say It's just so simple. It just it's really easy to introduce And it's really easy to do debrief because there's just three simple questions Um, I'm the other one. I which again, I've always experimented with the five ways But I like the idea is nine wise isn't it the but basically you go that stage further again You keep which can be extremely frustrating for people that you're asking those questions to you But yeah, you're basically imitating a small six-year-old Child and just keep asking why until you to get that answer till you get reached the bottom Yeah, so yeah, they're probably the ones that I use the most often. I think really fair that you were able to pick To choose two Yes, see yeah, I'm just a bad product owner Okay, it's fine Well, it's nice that you mentioned product owners. Well, it makes a lot of sense with the both of you, but Especially for product owners. They're so useful to do with stakeholders and It's it's not happening nearly as much as we hope it would be because what we are seeing and and maybe you have a different Perception, but it's mostly scrum masters doing it sort of the in a way the facilitators But I would love to see far more product owners Do something with liberating structures and Yeah, all the power to them Use mean specs to have a critical look at your product backlog and see what's left after you've used mean specs Yeah, well, why do you think that is what in terms of the exposure? Is it mainly like you said Barry because it's been seen as this facilitation toolkit? Is it does it need to be Do we need to change our attack with that? Do we need to push it in a different direction to get more product owners involved? You think That's a good one I'm not sure actually why why that is could also just be because in general maybe scrum masters, edger coaches, facilitators might be just I don't know more For them it might be more convenient to try this kind of stuff It could also be that product owners are interested, but then they give their scrum master a call and say hey Have a look at this and let me know if it's Read that and let me know if it applies. Do I have a theory? Yeah, sure go ahead and and that is that since the the role of the scrum master was was brought in Facilitation was an explicit part of the role But the product owner has always been associated with product management That word management and one of the critical parts of a job description for product managers and I think it's also been adopted large Largely for product owners as well as stakeholder management that term stakeholder management But when I'm coaching product owners, I don't talk about stakeholder management as such I talk about stakeholder facilitation. I think that that difference of emphasis is important because The scrum master is facilitating people because they don't have authority now the product owner has some level of authority But quite often they don't have authority over the stakeholders. They need to facilitate them and and that phrase, you know Herding chickens is is or herding cats is is that it's chaos, right? and that those facilitation skills to be able to and a lot of these techniques as you say, chris will help massively In facilitating that group Um, that's my theory. Anyway Yeah, there is a package going to be delivered in a minute by the way, so I'll have to zoom out and So mute for a moment and be back in a minute. No worries. I'm just gonna google that that one. I'm afraid herding chickens Sorry Well, that will that make the bloopers real jeff? So now we have two minutes to talk about chris. So Well Oh, yeah, we you can tell us all all the secrets now Well, one of the um, one of the interesting conversations that we have with people in this series is is um inspirations So we we we started this track really in response to the fact that it was 20 years since the agile manifesto And you know how how things have progressed over the last 20 years since that event And the people that we've been talking to that we've considered In in various different ways to be inspirations to us, but also largely the community How how have you see well, I guess there's two questions. So I'll prioritize First of all, who are your inspirations as you as you are getting involved in the agile world and over the last 20 years or so Well, I shall I go first chris? Sure. Um So I think i'm gonna mention henry and geese once more. Um, but for a difference for a different reason I think they when I had a conversation with them a couple of years ago. They mentioned that they Moved into the direction of of developing liberating structures because they were a bit tired about all these frameworks and methodologies that were going on Also in their field of work Um, that's something something that I could really relate to because liberating structures doesn't tell you anything about What framework or methodology to use? Um, and I'm still Enthusiastic about scrum. I'm connected to scrum or talk as a scrum trainer and do quite a lot of work with scrum But for me, it's never about scrum. Um, so I use scrum from an agnostic perspective as well. Um, so Probably will hardly ever hear me Talk about scrum from a theoretical point of view Because that's quite boring you can read it in a scrum guide and then you'll just end up in a theoretical discussion that Sounds interesting, but it's pretty useless. Um, so I always try to uh, stay away from that from scrum as a Framework and more on a deeper level talk about empiricism How it ties back to complexity how it can help you with product delivery Um, and whenever we talk about Kanban agile extreme programming lean. Well, it's all fine by me But again, I'm also trying not to talk about Kanban itself. But again, so what does it make possible? So for me the inspiration was to Um, have a confirmation in what I already had in mind and just to strengthen it Yeah That's a good answer. Only plus one that by the way Um, I would have also said Henry and Keith maybe even more Henry because he's a bit older He's in he's really a senior citizen. I don't know his actual age into the 80s or 70s But the way he's he is still engaging with with professionals like us That's just incredible. I want when I have that age I want to do that to you know, just to be so engaged still with with with your work and what it makes possible Um, but also a lot of the people that inspired me when I started with scrum were not so much thought leaders or or anything But more like for example the owner of the company where I worked at the time Who was willing to give the teams that I was also a part of a large Degree of autonomy to make their own decisions which was risky because the products we were creating were quite It was important that they were of high quality but he still gave us autonomy and I think that That's still an inspiration to me and how you can lead a company and how how Different leadership often looks like in most companies I'm very spoiled in a sense by having worked for a company where I saw a good example of this But for me the the entrepreneurs the business owners to do that that make those kinds of decisions They are still very inspirational to me even now. Yeah, that's that's a really really good point I want to amplify that if I can because it's It is easy for us as trainers coaches podcasters, whatever we consider ourselves to be to say, you know, if you're running a business Then give your team's autonomy, you know inspected make mistakes, you know, try something get to market fail We can say all that stuff But actually when your money's on the line when you're you know, you're a director of a company you've got customers This is your baby. This is your life Actually doing that taking that gamble trusting those people And giving those people the space to to be themselves and and and that that is That is tough and and that will inspire more people deeper than any Thought leader like you say or author or Signatory of the manifesto not to put them down at all, but the people are actually doing the business I think that is a massive point. Yeah that have skin in the game if it goes wrong and Thought leaders can still contribute a hell of a lot to our community But sometimes it's easy to say something that sounds good, but you don't have any skin in the game But these are the people that are investing their money Sometimes their own money and I think that that's and and Barry You also work for a company where that was the case, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's the same and also again, uh, luckily a positive experience where I started experimenting with scrum at a web agency. I think it's already like eight nine years ago But I did organization also Made the jump towards autonomous teams And I was also able to see like the impact on on the owner and and what it's what kind of courage it took to make that decision And especially just to let go of control Because like you said, yeah, it's it's for us. It's quite easy to say just Just do it because I read in a lot of articles that it seems to be a good idea so let's just give a give it a try, but if it's your own company and and It can also. Yeah, it can become a success, but it can also go the other way around Um, but luckily. Yeah, I've also Had more positive than negative experiences on that on that area Where do you see it the next what's the next step? What's the new thing is the next Leap within an agile within the agile industry. Where do we need to go next? Where do we need to focus on? I can make a very, uh Poor connection to the scrum team survey I Is that okay? Yeah, what's your data telling you? Well, maybe not it maybe maybe just a step back is that our our hope for where we are going with our community is to be more evidence based to Whenever we decide to do something like apply a certain practice or even implement scrum or something else Look at the evidence. What is the evidence actually say when we talk about fluid teams? What is the evidence actually say? I think What in our community a lot of the things we do are informed by opinion are informed by what thought leaders say Which can be very true, but it can also be not true and it can also cause damage And I think that what would be really good is if in our community we use more existing evidence scientific evidence data evidence from data And also evidence from personal experience, but that should be just one part of it and that would be Perfect and awesome. And I think that that's what we're trying to do also in a small part with the scrum team survey Well, that I'm glad you brought that out because I know you've got a big passion for that And it's something that paul and I We touched on in a pubcast quite a while ago when we were in Dublin paul I can remember this one because it's something I've always wanted to come back to probably because it was in Dublin Oh, it was a dark ale. Um, but yeah, it was um No, there's just the idea that as a community as an industry we need to become a lot more Properly scientific, you know a lot more diligent and and and Careful and mindful about the experiments we run because you said about yeah, it may well be Opinions that are formed our decisions, but also we it's things that we see as facts, but actually Are influenced by our cognitive biases or things that we want to see We're so good at deluding ourselves as human beings and seeing what we think should be there or expect to be there And if we hold something as passionately as as a lot of us do in this industry You know, we believe that self-organizing teams are the right thing to do Well, then we will see evidence for that and we will filter evidence against that but in what conditions Um, I think it's really we do need to get a lot better at that I think that's a really good point the confirmation bias. It's so easy to fall into And and we fall into it all the time too, but Fortunately, there is a lot of research that we can rely on There is a whole lot of scientific research into agile teams into scrum teams into different practices But for some reason our community and the academic community that are both working on this area They don't know how to find each other And there are connections being made fortunately, but there's still far and few between so it would be great if we have way more of this In order for us to do that we one of the things that I've seen I tend to find either you get a lot of data that says positive things or a lot of data that says negative things I'm trying to get get the two perspectives together and being able to you know Rationally and objectively evaluate the different perspectives not hear two sides of the story Which is often what's put but rationally objectively evaluate all aspects of situations Try and take the emotion out of it as much as possible look for patterns look for connections But also strip out, you know, what appears to be Correlation or causality, but actually isn't That we talk about it But I don't think we've got the skills In the industry the discipline the rigor I agree not yet. I hope that's going to change And and we can work on this the four of us and others who are listening to this can work on this too, but yeah, totally agree with that There may be just one extra hope that I have it's more like a yes and so yes and more evidence based Work that we're doing and also a better connection with with the science that's available It may be new research that we can do an extra hope is that it also results in um Practices experiment strategies that the teams themselves can use to to create an environment where they can be successful So that the teams are put in a position that they have the self-managing capabilities to do something with To be the scientific findings that they have the autonomy and they don't have all these dependencies in their own organization Um, and I think as a community as a whole We can also do better in that area because I always find it a bit strange that Within our community everyone is preaching about autonomous teams self-organizing self-managing, etc, etc But then there's often this dependency like well, you do need me as the expert to make it work in your own organization while I believe that teams are Keep perfectly fine to to experiment for themselves what works in their own context Um, so just hope that as a community we can also move more in that direction Right to explain to my uh my 10 year old what um did the day what a a fad was um and a fad again, I'm not sure if that translates um went into dutch but um Basically we my wife described my work as a fad and I said well that that fad has been around for 20 years now So yeah, and I to explain to my 10 year old what I mean, but I yeah well on that point. I wonder if now that that um That that that initial that it is 20 years of course since the manifesto was signed um and created but That event that that's passion from a from a personal point of view has got us this far But I think you're right that it has to be backed up now and it has to be a lot more scientific it has to be a lot more evidence-based and it has to be Um proven I think people are looking to to prove or disprove those results within their own context And yeah, you can't do that just by telling people that they should do it Well, Chris, you've actually done this haven't you you've done studies and and So and a lot of people will have run tests But an experiment is different to a test, right? So what What would you what would you recommend? Anybody if you could give them some advice to make their tests more scientifically valuable or or empirically valuable? What would the advice be? That's such a good question I think there are two ways to go about this It kind of depends on what you're trying to test. So for example, if you're interested in testing, I don't know Is estimation a good technique to use in our organization or not? Then there is a lot of existing research that you can just read and and investigate and draw conclusions from So you don't have to necessarily do that yourself. I think Um, you can rely on really good high quality evidence. It's already there If it's more about uh, for example certain features in your product more product oriented testing that you're doing I think it's always really important to have a control scenario where you don't change anything And that you have a scenario where you actually enable a feature or disable it or make it different or change it in one way or another And then at least for a while measure as objectively as you can how that's impacting the users of your product And then you can actually compare it Use usefully. It's not a perfect experiment because doing a perfect experiment is hard Even in a controlled scientific environment, but I think this already takes out a lot of bias that could be in there Um, I think it's also important to learn at least some basic statistical techniques not just compare numbers But that you know what significance is and how you can calculate that. It's not hard You just have to know how to do this. I think that that would also be very helpful for people to know a bit more about yeah so I'm not necessarily I don't necessarily think everybody needs to go back to school and learn statistics and That's not but but I think just the basic premise of control variables dependent variables independent variable statistical significance sample size confirmation bias survivorship bias Those those factors if you can build those into what you're doing things will be better And I think that would be more than 15 percent going back to our 15 percent solutions That would be more than 15 percent and we would be better off as a result Mm-hmm Absolutely. Yeah, and maybe to add to this one thing that I've been thinking about recently is um, and actually talking about with a few people as well as it would be nice if For our community there would be an easier way to learn about scientific methodology And I don't mean necessarily all the details, but like what is actually an experiment? What is a controlled experiment? What is? um, what is a case study? What's the difference so that you can also determine what method you need to test your Hypotheses that you have about your product. I think that Learning a few of those skills would at least be helpful I think you're the perfect person to submit something like that to a to an upcoming contest Yeah, maybe Let me think about it. It would be it would be cool. Yeah I was gonna go but if I can chapters go back Just reintroduce the liberating structures aspect and I was interested um Really on how some of those things because obviously you mentioned you do some immersion workshops where you go through Those techniques have has the The remote working element changed or not changed but perhaps surfaced Some of those structures that work better for perhaps a lot teams Many teams won't have gone back to to face to face in person Work spaces yet. Is there anything that you found works really well that's easy to do online? Uh, yeah, um, I think for the past two years I've done quite a lot of we've done quite a lot of experiments with using liberating structures online Um, it is different. I think you cannot You can compare it but different using liberating structures online is different. They're using the same liberating structures face to face um I do give us an example well, um A lot of liberating structures have to do with uh body language With the way people are sitting in a small group the way people walk around the way People use the physical space. Uh, so to say so body language physical space that that that makes or breaks a liberating structure um That's completely different in an online setting um And it also makes it more difficult for some structures because some structures Can become more mechanical uh because then what if you take all of that away? What's what's left is the invitation or the topic that people have a conversation about Um, and yeah, it can still work. So I do I do I am convinced that if you do something online Liberating structures help you make the most out of it so it will drastically improve the online experience Especially if you use tools like zoom or recently Microsoft Teams also has this breakout room Option because then again, you can scale up and down the conversations that you have um, and yeah, some liberating structures Were maybe not better but are easier Um, because what we've done is um, for example, again critical uncertainties If you do it in a face-to-face setting Spotting the patterns across all the ideas that emerge in this exercise. It's quite difficult With an online whiteboard you just have to zoom out and then you'll see the patterns The same goes for eco-cycle planning. It's a lot of fun in the face-to-face setting In a way, it's just a healthy physical exercise Which requires a lot of walking, etc But again online is even easier Just create multiple eco-cycles Zoom in and out quickly and you'll see what's there and what you can learn So it's uh, yeah, it also has some advantages, but then again, it's it's different Yeah, I think we both prefer the in-person version of it Just because the energy in the group is so it's so cool to feel that energy that that happens when people usually Liberating structures, especially in large groups But at the same time during the COVID lockdowns, both Barry and I have been in multiple Conversation cafes where we had people from all over the world Sitting in conversation cafes, which is one of the liberating structures And just having that possibility to talk with anyone on the planet about a personal question with a well structured interaction like conversation cafe That was pretty cool. I have to say Yeah, good stuff Yeah, very good. I know I know paul what paul's about to say now He's going to tell me we have to wrap up jeff paul is my time boxer. He is my timekeeper Um, he is the one that manages to keep our episodes to a manageable length. Otherwise, I would be here all day That's because I've got an editor jeff So it is time and and generally the other time box that I have is that my glass is empty So That's that's my other way of my my non-clock watching method of time boxing But again, thank you both of you for what you've done, but also for joining us today um And yeah, cheers. Thank you jabs. It was a pleasure. Cheers. Cheers