 Okay, hi everyone. I'm Eddie. Welcome to our second virtual meetup here at Lean Agile Brighton We're still learning learning the ropes here. So bear with us this summer we've we've been very fortunate to rope in to two old friends of ours and You know very illustrious guests. They are too Jeff Watts and Paul who are here to chat with us and to answer some of your questions and I think You know Jeff and Paul don't really need any any introduction. They've They're just across so many different things books conferences training coaching podcasts apps Everything and there's like the two the hardest working men in Agile and we're very fortunate to have them here but I think not because we we They put so much stuff out there for us to consume I think we probably all feel like we know them already particularly if you if you're fans of the podcast and Well, I tell you a couple of things about them relation to lean Agile Brighton now You might not know so they've supported us for a while now. I think Jeff you did a Meetup way back a number of years ago and it was before I joined so you might remember and It's probably you know annals doing or something like that and But then also both Paul and Jeff Were speakers at the very first lean Agile Brighton conference that we ran So they've got that distinction credit to their name as well and I'm gonna give a special call out to Paul because and I really I don't know how he did it but or why he did it but That week he was also organizing the the London From gathering and yeah, I think that was a Monday to Thursday and then on the Friday He came down and spoke at Brighton. I was like, whoa, this guy is just This is amazing. So thanks for that. But that was a that was just something that always stood out for me Yeah, and Jeff and Paul have both kind of them supported us with prizes for our draw and You know, we've raised a lot of money for charity through the two conferences And they've definitely been a big help with that. So they're they're no strangers to lean Agile Brighton and we're delighted to have them here today Hi, Jeff. Hi Paul. Hello, mate. Hello. How are you doing? Very good. Yeah, enjoying the sunshine. It's nice good good and So we thought that it would be good to kind of kick this off in the manner of the Agile podcast which was to start off with a drink and and You guys tell us what what you've got there to to sip on throughout the show God Jeff you go first because I've got a bit more of an introduction to mine You're a little bit more interesting than me. I'm running a little bit low on stocks actually to be honest I've gone back to something that's pretty Safe for me. It's a brew dog punk OPA One of my favorites Never let you down as they call it here the beer that started it all got a lot of time for them So cheers cheers And if any of you have been following the pubcasts Do you mean Jeff have been in pub casting from our homes because our homes have become our pubs for the last Six weeks isn't now something like that if it was like six years, but I think it's about six weeks And I've been I've got a mystery box of ciders down here And I was gonna I've got six left of my mystery box of 12 And I was gonna hand over to you Eddie to choose one of my remaining Ciders for me to sample this evening It's a bit like question of sport if any of you remember question of sport There's a slight picture board. So there's there's six left to choose from you can have numbers What only the one of these eddy because it's a long night. Otherwise number one three six seven ten or eleven, please Go seven Good choice my friend lucky number seven number seven and we have oh this looks We have I'm putting in front of the camera. This is Lawrence's Somerset cider Original premium so I've never heard of this before And it's like It's two women on a Pressing apples Jeff standing around pressing apples It's it looks a bit kind of you know, it's got kind of those local labels. It doesn't look like it's mass produced at all six percent Yeah, so it's it's Caught in denim in Somerset. Have I heard that anyone caught in denim? I'll give it a whirl So there we are six percent there for me. It's quite it's quite strong I've heard you kind of wins at six percent in the past I guess what smells like one of those rough side is you know, that's kind of Give me a headache in the morning Yeah, yeah, I hope no one's expecting to learn anything on this call tonight Everyone cheers I'm gonna say I'm gonna tell you what I'm drinking but as a non drinker you you've beaten me by six percent Paul I've got a really next blue just to join in Have something to say cheers with Zero percent it may may contain a half percent I can see if you there's a few beer beers being there's some old speckled hen now. I can see being poured Raise a glass if you got something to cheers everyone which here's everyone. Thanks. Happy lockdown We do a podcast once Jeff on Bexblue. I'm sure Bexblue was a subject of a podcast want a way back When you when you sampled back, you know non-alcoholic beer, and I'm sure we managed to get 30 minutes out of that at one point I have got quite a bit of Bexblue in the fridge actually I think I remember you being not not very kind about it Probably when we first started I had a some friends of mine we have we used to have a little What do we call it? I think it was called like an ideas session So we used kids who used to go to school with just still live quite close to each other an excuse to get together And we just talk about random ideas that we might one day go into business with and One of my mates is a little bit eccentric and he's always had this passion for making wooden baths And that's the kind of level of thing that we were talking about But one of the things that we did mention a long time ago was that if there was a really nice non-alcoholic beer You'd be on to a winner because on the market was very little to choose from and As well as that if you could serve it in a pint glass rather than have it in a bottle So you'd lose the social stigma because some people feel a little bit of pressure Then you just look like you were drinking beer. It would taste all right. You wouldn't have to drink the alcohol So that was that was an idea that we were talking about a few years ago I never did anything with and now there's a whole Shell now I all full of different types of non-alcoholic beer and ale Alcoholic wine siding on alcoholic gin and all sorts. So, you know, we missed the boat on that one I think we also flirted with the idea of an alcoholic cow poll Remember that? That's like so if any of you have got kids or if you've Bought or sampled cow poll, which is like liquid paracetamol for children It tastes amazing because it's mainly just sugar Well, but we thought wouldn't we'd be great to do an alcoholic version of that obviously and call it Calpahol so kind of makes sense, right? But for legal reasons this isn't being already has been recorded. So we probably shouldn't say that but there we are We're not endorsing you My doctor friend did say it was a bad idea for your liver alcohol and paracetamol Okay, well that yeah in no way do we at the our child podcast endorse that. Thank you. That's that's the disclaimer Um So, uh, yeah, cheers anyway and cheers. Um, so before I before I am Warm you up with some nice easy questions I just put a quick call out to the to everyone who's on the call to say, you know Don't be shy send your questions in on the on the q&a and ben will Will feed them to me and we'll get them to jeff and paul And it'll help keep keep everything flowing But as well you might want to wait until we start chatting about something and it might pique your interest Something to chip in at that point, but don't be shy This is for you as much as anything so I wonder I kind of wanted to have a theme actually around the evening which was About embracing change considering the the situation we all find ourselves in and You know the fact that us as agilists we tend to talk about change a lot and and our ability to cope with change and to and to Influence change and all that kind of stuff So so I thought that would be relevant and hopefully that would kind of be a theme throughout the evening but I wanted to to first link that to topic of books Because we've got um We've got a couple of books that I'd like to uh to mention and give a shout out to so jeff you've got uh your your new book team mastery is just launched Thanks, mate. We've got a copy here. Look at that. There we go. So Get your chops around that everybody when you can And and why why I am all we've got another one if anyone's got theirs I've got to go find mine now Um, but There was something around change with this that I wanted to ask you about jeff is see if the kind of um If there's anything you'd like to talk about because it's quite different actually this it's a bit of a change from your usual books and from agile books in general, right? It's quite visual. It's quite um Uh Not playful I suppose Um, it definitely is a different feel to it. So I haven't I've only arrived yesterday. So I haven't I haven't finished it yet and or started it But yeah, tell us a little bit about that because it is it is a change, isn't it? You just take through and look to the pictures. Yeah, they were pretty No, it is it is different and uh, you can't help but respond to what's going on around you and You know, I started this process of this book when My wife was pregnant With our third child and so I was in a completely different state of mind then to what I was two years ago And not necessarily good or bad just different um, and you notice different things and You know, we were sent different things and picked up different things going to all the the classes and things And one of the things that stood out for me were these milestone cards And you know today, I took my first step or today I Uh, what's it? Shit myself in the bath or whatever But um little things that happen, you know, and you got this card you take it out and take a photograph with it You stick it on I thought that's cool. Um, and so that that just I was just sitting down And I started doodling away some things that I noticed teams go through and it's just something that yeah, okay Yeah, something happened today And that that were it might have been small But it was quite meaningful for us as a team And you you look back on it You think that was a not necessarily a turning point But a certainly a growth point and I thought It's not a maturity model because every team will reach different milestones at different points And some teams can become great without getting to any of those milestones So it's not Maturity model in that sense, but people look for that kind of thing And I thought well if there are a number of things that you could look for Um, and maybe the consciously work towards or just keep an eye out for Uh or reflect on like I think that just might might help teams That's nice. Yeah, and and but tell me a little bit about the um the visual nature of the book as well because that's a that's a Deviation I thought Well, yeah, the cards are the different thing really and they are massively pictorial very graphical and the idea being that Yeah, you you you can see something that's going on there. Yeah, you can read I want to try and Um, reach as many people as possible Some people like like images more than text and people like to read things some people like lists some people like diagrams and so on and Data and learning enters you in a different way So it was a combination of things. It's it's caused me logistical challenges You know, it would have been a lot easier if I hadn't done that. I knew that at the outset Um, but I think it was it was worth doing differently. I think Need to try different things I want to see it in action um Piloted it with it with a few different teams And the response was positive And so, yeah, see how it works in the in the wild that that's how you're envisaging that will will kind of work in the wild You see see teams kind of Displaying it all over there. Um, they're kind of physical spaces if they get ever get back to the offices Oh, that's it, you know, that's a great time to bring out something like that, isn't it? But um It's a digital sense to it as well Um, so I get the car the cars just came out on my app today as well. So that that um That gives you an opportunity for the digital so things But yeah capturing it in some way either on your social media or your internal wiki or on your team's base You whiteboard um, it's more more of a You know celebrate that moment take your time as a team to say right something has happened here This is a good thing for us Let's just log it. It's the idea iterated quite a lot. So it started off as like a team journal When you could capture, you know, what your highlights of each sprint and create something sort of like a an annual photo book type thing and with some with some pull out an interchangeable prompt for team charter and so on um And so I see a lot of teams actually capturing their story over time And their evolution as a team and so populating that I think is uh Is a nice thing to look back on as a team and say, yeah, this is this is how this is where we've come from And this is where we are right now. And this is where we're going That's good. I like I like that. I mean, I've I've been using the inspirational quotes deck from your app and Posting one of those in my team's slack up And slack space every day. Um, just kind of you'll keep people motivated keep people ticking over So I'll probably look at the virtual cards for this as well And I'm sure the slack the slack space going to replace the physical space for now or whatever your Your team is using but um, you know, we'll find ways of doing things. No, no doubt So, um, some good ideas in there And and as you say, it was good to to change things up and to look for some changes and improvements You could make as well, uh, which it leads me links me into the second book. I wanted to talk about which is Which is this one Which I just want to give a bit of a shout out to because I feel that it gets it gets overlooked um So that's paul's improving agile teams are improving agile teams book Um, and even says it's got a picture of paul on the back saying embrace change About embracing change improv and uh and agile and and I think everything that we're doing at the moment as well is about embracing change um But I think I think I I'll I'll I'll on up I'll fess up and I'll say that, you know I had this one on my on my on my bookshelf for a while Before I actually read it and I think I tweeted it at the time as well having having read it I said like, you know, I was disappointed in myself for not having read it sooner For leaving another shelf for so long, but I thought it was a really good one I'm particularly now when people are looking for creative ideas for things to do with their teams Just keep things fresh and keep people interested and and engaged There's a lot of wisdom and a lot of good good um kind of fun and creative things in there So I want to give that a bit of a plug to you there as well paul. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you Anything you want to um add on that No, it's something a lot of people since this whole lockdown thing has started that I've had a lot Probably is more questions more resurgence in questions about improv and how you can do a lot of it Virtually because it's always seemed like something that you would only ever experience if you were face to face with a group of people with it with your team, but There's actually a lot of fun you can have on zoom calls or or um or just small team sessions and just just basic kind of wordplay and what I what I have learned about it is that You have to perhaps work a bit harder with it being on zoom or or some kind of online collaboration tool that You have to work your those Kind of your those muscles those creative muscles are even harder because you don't have that nonverbal To fall back on because you can't always read people's body language and you can't see exactly what's going on So you have to listen a bit harder Um the tools themselves make it harder to listen anyway, but you have to your brain is not Using it's just using uh that that brain power in different ways So a lot of those kind of um techniques in that will should kind of help people's listening skills if nothing else Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean our last um Meet-up physical meet-up before we uh, we all went into lockdown was the improv night with Oh, yeah with the mayday. Was it the maydays? Yeah, it lives from the maydays and um Yeah, it was fantastic and it's kind of sad actually to think that we've gone from such an immersive close experience In one meet-up to everything subsequently being so distributed and virtual, but yeah But I have seen that i'm on their social media. They're doing Um, uh distributed they're doing zoom based Improv sessions. Yeah, you know where there's a where there's a will there's a way isn't there? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot so you can still learn even though you're not in the same room We're having a game of werewolves on Friday, aren't we? We are that's a bit of yeah role play and a bit of acting and a bit of influencing and negotiation skills throw it in So, yeah, that should be fun That might be hard. Good luck Yeah Okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna open it out a little bit because we've got a few questions flowing in now And that would change change things up a bit. So we had a um Great question from guy Uh, so what do you think the future of the scrum master position looks like? And I presume that's in relation to how is how is it changing what regards to you know the situation we're in That's a good question. It is a good question Uh, do you want to go first Jeff or shall I? Okay um, so I've been chatting to a few scrum masters about kind of just just chatting with them about what they're up to at the moment and some of the things that they're having to probably Work a lot harder at the much just given what how is it at the moment about keeping people in touch so a lot because you might have lost a lot of the non verbals a lot of the um The face-to-face element of the work It's probably not healthy to be on a zoom call all day and I wouldn't Not many of the scrum masters that I've spoken to are doing that but they are finding themselves Perhaps more checking in and and team members checking in with each other a lot more than they perhaps would do And trying to vary how they do it so trying to Because the whole thing around zoom fatigue that you can you can have too many of these calls in one day and it can be actually detrimental to team growth and to To team work because you just don't feel like you're you're efficient and a lot of people now I'm talking to start to multitask because they're on zoom calls But they're actually just doing other stuff and just nodding What and to make it look like they're listening but actually they're not even on the same screen so I think A creative scrum master now is thinking. Okay. How do I make how do I make these check-ins with my team right now? How do I how do I how do I get a sense a better sense if I can't see in here? The office Vibe, how do I get that virtually? um As to what it looks like in the future. It's very hard to say right now I think we're going to have to be much more shrewd about Because we might have limited time to be together as a team in the future with a lot of companies now are going to change their Their approach on how much? They invest in travel how much they invest in face-to-face meetings So good scrum masters are going to have to be a lot more Clever I think about how they utilize the time that they do have as a team So perhaps Facilitation will have to improve and kind of more efficiency around facilitation might have to improve Jeff any thoughts from you? I don't mute he's writing something He's asking Right. Yeah, he's actually he's not listening He's lost his Oh, is this basically dropped me any leaving it to me? I couldn't unmute myself. Oh, right. Okay. Last mission to be unmuted So I heard from you there Paul there's a couple of things that was um, you know being creative Again, definitely awesome. That's kind of why I'm club. Um, you know pointing people with these books as well Is that there's good ideas in there? So the creativity will definitely help and and I think that kind of being prudent and Mindful around people's time and how much video time and zoom time they have and how to be efficient It's facilitating things in the virtual world as well. It's really important um Because the stuff around that kind of not everything has to be asynchronous Synchronous, you know, they're kind of getting that balance right as well And I think that comes up to facilitation role of the scrum master I think it's generally going to be a lot of fear when when things do start and they've got to change very slowly obviously, but there's going to have to be a real trepidation about How often do we need to get together? Is it is it essential that we do get together a lot more teams are going to be working from home a lot more frequently So I think the scrum master's role is very different is to try and Not lose or not um, let a team Kind of a team ethos to spandle or decay But equally you don't want to go completely the other way and put people in an uncomfortable situation where You know what? We don't want to get together yet. We don't feel safe enough to be together yet Very difficult situation Yeah, I don't think necessarily The future the scrum master has changed. I just think the difference will be amplified so those people in the scrum master role and a lot of them aren't in scrum master roles As labeled right so some people will be in scrum master slash project manager roles Some people will be in them their free manager roles that but expected to be a scrum master There's all sorts of shades of gray and the people that that have the The more if you were to paint to the two extremes if you like and obviously it's not the two extremes But you've got the the sort of project manager minded scrum master's and you've got the servant leader minded scrum master's I think this this kind of situation will really highlight Really strongly those those different mindsets Because I think the people who have the more project management mindset by default or are in an organizational culture That is expecting them to have that Then you've got a massive excuse For coordinating people. Yeah To say right you can't be together anymore. So I will step in and I will Hand I'll look after this. I'll take I'll take this. I'll own this for you. I'll drive. Yeah But the the people with the more servant leadership Default or the organizational culture that really does believe in self-organizing teams Then those teams will flourish and thrive And and some of them are Because they know they don't have to be on zoom calls all the time And management know if they don't need to be on zoom calls all the time They can coordinate their day and check in with each other when they need to check in with each other pair When they need to pair with each other And actually they've got a lot more focus than they would if they were in an office being interrupted all the time So I think you're going to have quite a divergence and you'll really get to see the real Person in that role. Yeah Question then Jeff. Do you think teams within let's say, I don't know it's impossible to say But we're at six weeks or so at the moment Do you think a good team or a great team will have adapted to this way of working To a point where they won't go back at this point um I wouldn't say won't go back. I think the they will because they will be To me the best teams they will they will pick and choose the best bits from from The non extremes. They don't go to the extremes So they would probably like a physical space that they could go to optionally if they need it if they needed it rather than an absolute Base where they have to be And then you can work from home when you need to under negotiation. Yeah I think a lot of teams we we sort of touched on this not not long ago about the rise of sort of we work in workspace style environments That that sort of hub. Yeah There's going to be some kind of transition period And it may well last a long time. I don't know but to me the best teams will have adapted to this situation Pretty well by now. Yeah And they will adapt quicker when things change It's it's interesting just that point around the kind of you know, the The contrast between the more servant leader type of scrum masters more project manager manager control type I've even witnessed um with some some of my um Contacts, there's like some good scrum masters who who I would class as good servant leaders and they've They've lamented That just the situation initially meant things like, you know, that like stand-ups, for example We're reverting to like a progress update um Like that was not their intention and there was no one's intention But it was just it just kind of like reverted to that became a round table Here's my progress on everything initially. Um, so it was kind of interesting that that could happen naturally without anyone kind of feeling like It's my intention to do that That's fine not necessarily that it tends into a status meter That it's fine, but it's fine that those things unintentionally happen For me The great teams will call it They'll say hold on. Whoa. What's going on here? Hold on. Let's this whoa. This doesn't feel Something's happening here. Let's just check and think right. Are we getting what we want here? How can we do something a little bit more consciously a little bit more mindfully a little bit more deliberately? To be the kind of team that we want to be Yeah, it's easy for circumstances to unconsciously change your behavior Especially when they've got other things that are even yeah much more important than is our standard operating at peak efficiency Um, there's a hell of a lot more going on that's more important than that But when you do take some time out and think all right, let's let's just think where are we right now Could we have we slipped? Could we get back to where we want to be even though all this stuff is going on Some and I'll tell you what a lot of teams are even taking an opportunity to think Can we use this as an opportunity to get better and take advantage of the situation if you like without seeming Cruel or evil or whatever, but you know not just letting the situation define you but taking the situation Yeah, well that's that embracing change mentality, isn't it? Um, so I mean what's interesting there is you're kind of like framing that in the context of like good versus great and You know, I think we've probably all heard of um, you know all these various Ingredients that get put out there for what makes a great team and one of the important ones in psychological safety So our next question, which is from anonymous Um is uh, I've heard jeff speak about psychological safety How do you go about instilling that within a team in an organization that has failed them in the past? under a different leadership um because before before you You can't feel safe unless you have trust, but both safety and trust are not binary And they can both be built. So it's not a case of either. I trust you or I don't I just have different degrees of trust and I'm I can build on And and grow what I have in terms of trust and safety So I always ask teams and and individuals I try and meet them use this phrase meet them where they are All right, so understand where they are right now be able to understand their degree of distrust their degree of vulnerability Acknowledge that Recognize that don't try and make excuses for that um And then work out What their level of of trust is and and work with that until until I can Deserve more How do I deserve more? How do I earn more by keeping my word? But it does involve a certain level of vulnerability And the other thing so the other thing that goes along with that in my word I know Paul's a big fan of this is if I'm expecting somebody to be vulnerable i.e. trust me Why would they do that unless I'm prepared to be vulnerable? first So I work with leaders to to establish that sense of Walking the talk setting creating that environment and that's what that's what that effectively means create the environment Do as I do not do as I say And that's where psychological safety comes in a lot and the It's interesting how sort of public opinion I'm not political um, but public opinion has changed from from the sense of the prime minister as soon as he's experienced coronavirus firsthand He's talking from a very different position Um, I'm not saying that he's he's won over the other side of the house But I'm saying that people have a different view of him as a human being now perhaps um Because he's speaking they know he has this experience Um, that's quite an extreme example and a risky one to have involved politics But you're a fan of vulnerability. I call this idea of you go first Yeah, I think it's a sense of leadership if you're prepared to admit that you're not perfect and People that that kind of that creates a bond and a an empathy that human beings aren't perfect and I think I look at an organization a leader who's willing to admit that and willing to admit uncertainty and vulnerability will probably unite a lot of their Staff or teams behind them and I think rather than trying to admit they know all the answers and I was speaking to a scrum master just a few days ago saying the same thing how much their team and they're talking in their retrospective that that All their team needed was was to hear someone from the top of the organizations organizations that hear them speak and that gave them safety that that Yes, it's very an uncertain situation, but You know, we're all you know, we're in this for the long run kind of where we're we're learning as we go Things are coming out all the time that but we're prepared to pivot and change and and that that can be reassuring Just even if we don't know what's going on just a sense of Um, we're in this together or or you know, I'm experiencing the same things as you are right now That can that can build a sense of trust I want to pull out there Paul is is um, even if we don't know what's going on and One of the things that I encourage leaders to get comfortable saying is I don't know Yeah And that I think is a massive part in building psychological safety because when you're operating in a complex domain, we don't know but the human Tendency is to try and work out or at least give the impression that we know this sense of strong leadership That I need to present this sense that people are confident that I know what I'm doing And I think that I think we've gone in kind of that timeline. Again, I'm not an expert on this but That new normal that that's a phrase. It's going to come out a lot now in terms of what's the new normal but people are because There's a lot of the shock factor has probably As passed at this point people are saying, okay, they're accepting. Okay, so We're in a very difficult situation. We know that there's no certain answer to this So let's work together on how we can best make the best of the situation and I think It's probably easier that it's easier to find that safety now than it probably was four five six weeks ago I had a conversation with my daughter a few years ago. She's 17 now and she was probably about six maybe something We'd had some kind of I'm not necessarily argument, but she was upset. I probably told her off or told her not to do something or She's asked for something and I said no or something bad bad bad bad And she you know, she she was she was upset Um, and cut a long story short. I basically said look, I don't know what I'm doing as a dad I know it looks like I know what I'm doing because I'm big But I've never done this before You know I'm I'm I'm trying to work it out and it means I'll get it wrong sometimes um, and If I get it wrong It's not because I'm I'm mean. It's just because I'm a bit rubbish at this Yeah, um, and It was it was genuine It wasn't it wasn't an attempt to manipulate the situation because I genuinely did feel out of my depth at that point Um, and I think it it had a it had a big impact in our in our relationship Well, I think you're right there because I think even um, not to analyze your daughter too much, but there's an expert expectation from daughter to father that You must know you must know you must know what we should do. You must know what the right answer is and I think even in organizations The status divide the larger the status divide the more people expect higher status players to know what to do And I think if you can balance that status I think and admit by doing that saying I don't know and You know, I'm learning this as as as much as as fast as you are It equals that status and it allows you to to be more vulnerable as a as a as a pair as peers rather than as as leaders and workers Yeah, we need we need people to feel safe to try things and More that we people copy what you do more than what you say. Yeah Um, and so if you if you're acting and behaving as if you know things People think that's what you need to do Um, and so you're not going to take risks. You're not going to ask for help. You're not going to admit mistakes Um, and it's really difficult for people in leadership positions because their whole career Effectively have they've been told you need to you know act as if you can Fake it till you make it. Yeah Go and learn all this stuff and and do this follow this economic theory and all these all these different things Where you know the answer and they're having to unlearn that and put themselves in a really uncomfortable position Good question. Good question. Yeah, so that Just to loop back to the question. Um, so for that team that's in an organization That's perhaps a bit more an organization where they don't feel You know, maybe a high degree of safety um What you guys were saying was just making me think like, you know, kind of can can that be And should it be built? Um from within the team itself. So like, you know, kind of if you can build up the safe space within the team Even if the outside, you know outside the team is is less safe I'm sure that's a good starting point, isn't it if you can't influence your leadership if you've got a great team Then the the safety is increased because you know, no one person's going to be hung out to drive We either win or we fail as a team and that sort of collective Sense of well, even if it does go wrong, we're all there for each other that that does increase that sense of Safety, but they also have a part to play in that your leadership can can be genuine Um, and and actually do you know want to help and be trustworthy now have good intentions But if the team aren't prepared to take them at their word and and work with them, then it's going to go nowhere The and and that's the sense of you know, basically asking the team But what kind of relationship do you want here? Do you want one where? You trust you are able to trust your leadership Because if you do you're not going to get that unless you're prepared to trust your leadership Um, so you're a massive part of this equation So create the conditions where you feel safe to to to offer a certain level of trust Give them a chance to prove themselves trustworthy Um, and then build on it A funny situation that you've just reminded me of is when them When you get an organization where you know, the people in the teams are saying we we we need to be empowered Management need to empower us and let us make choices and do do what we think is the right thing And then management takes a step back and allows that to happen And before too long you start getting complaints from from the team saying, oh, there's no visibility of management They've just left us to our own devices Have you ever come across that? Yeah, yeah but Often that's not really had For me the big the big thing that's often missing is that conversation about what's happening Um, and so quite often you go to something you get this what I call motivational debt where An organization and management somewhat anybody Can create different types of motivational debt. So one two classic examples are You believe you're capable of doing this with autonomy, but I continue to to micro manage you I'm not giving you the space. You know, you you can you can you need and you want But equally when you need support or you don't feel confident enough And you need some backing and I know where to be seen. I'm saying, no, no, no, go for it. Go on. Go on. It's a union That's all I need Then that's that's motivational debt. Just a different kind because you're now feeling absolutely scared And and you want that conversation. So what what what level of comfort do you have what level of autonomy? Do you feel you couldn't cope with right now? What level of autonomy and support do you want? And what am I prepared to offer and what can we find that that balance that we can agree on? Have the conversations is the advice. Yeah Yeah Cool, great stuff. I'm gonna switch to the next question and just change direction a little bit. So, um question from some guy called anil that I heard of him He said he's just wondering how you guys Have embraced change in the daily work that you do during lockdown I think you've embraced him more than me. Well, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I suppose I've had to You obviously you were a leading question then Jeff, but but maybe you know more than I do um I think I've had so Again, as most people are it's if you are working from home I normally work from home when there's My kids aren't at home um So embracing change for me was embracing the fact that I'm not going to get a straight Two hours at a task without an interruption or without something else going on or without, um another task that I need to need to complete so I've had to I've had to adapt my working day. Um To fit in with my with family life, but to fit in with Home home learning. I'm not going to say homeschooling because I'm not a teacher but trying to help my kids Um adapt to to being at home a lot more and and the the attention span that that that inevitably has So I think my working practices at home have had to change And that's quite hard being self-employed Um, and especially some of the stresses around as most of I'm sure Almost everyone on this course is experience some kind of Anxiety or stress due to the current situation and then I'm no different and and Trying to manage that whilst trying to maintain a positive focus at home Um And adapt to how my kids need me to be around is is tough and it's had to Change my working day massively. Um, but also pivoting on what I can offer So embracing changing the and the actual work I do is trying to make more online materials Me and Jeff have spent a long time in revising and redesigning some of our Course material and and how we deliver stuff to allow it to be more appropriate for online audience And yeah Bringing out new offerings new ideas that I've had the kind of the social distance in the kind of the Staying connected with the community. Perhaps is is even more important now and And offering them different ways to keep keep in touch with us Yeah, it's massively changed Day to day my days are very different right now You know, you've not taken advantage of this, but you know, you've used this for good in that one thing that You enjoy doing is is facilitating like coaching teams facilities with perspectives and things like that And now you're freed up to do More of that online and you know you have online Is actually a lot easier. It's a lot easier than I thought. Um And I can also Jeff saloon today I've offered my services as a guest facilitator Basically, you can book an hour a couple of hours of my time and I'll come in and From a neutral standpoint and run your retrospectives without any kind of judgment or inside knowledge as to what's going on and It's gone down quite well. So it's things like that. I probably would never have thought of Um, if I just had head down and was going out to companies all the time But now you've got a bit of time to think about how you might use your day differently. It's actually quite a nice change You know, I say I haven't really adapted that much because The biggest area of adaptation for me would be if I was to change my training courses But I'm I'm really not doing much online training. I've done one course before and I'm going to do another one But that's pretty much it at the moment Um, and I've I've been This is the bigger part of my job is is the one-to-one coaching the leadership coaching the team coaching And I've been doing that remotely for a couple of years anyway Um, so I've been coaching over zoom for a long time. So that hasn't really changed It's just that there's been perhaps a bit more of it And I've been this is the first time probably ever that I've spent seven weeks at home And so it's completely different in that respect. Um, and spending Seven days seven weeks rather When even spending seven days having breakfast with the family in a row is a bit of a change. So yeah, but um Sort of adapting your mindset and and and finding different ways of working So I'm doing a lot more of things in the evening when when kids have gone to bed for example Um, so I can free up a little bit more of my daytime Just trying to flex really cool I think there's a lot a lot of um familiar themes in there for for a lot of people I'd imagine. Um We've got a another question which might um, you know, my Takes a little bit deeper. Um, it's quite a good one from Anne So she says what what about the very different needs for autonomy within a team? How would you work that out with leadership and the team? Do we mean Individual needs for autonomy Or one team's different need to another team Anne says yes Within the team, yeah So for me and uh, I'm jumping in here Paul, but for me, um The individual differences I think should be managed between the team within the team And then the team's level of autonomy should be handled between the team and leadership um That's my opinion And if I'm if we're if we're if five of us are members of a team Um, and I need a little bit more support than Paul Then it would be my teammates that I'd be having that conversation with so that we as a team Can can be a self-organizing autonomous unit Uh, perhaps some of us might need a little bit more direction than others a little bit more support than others But as a team, we've got this agreement with leadership about what we are going to be responsible for What we have authority for What we need permission for and so on Would you have a different view on that Paul? Have I misinterpreted that question? Do you know? No, I think I think you're right. I wouldn't disagree with it. What I would add is I'm I'm still perhaps occasionally still surprised at how few teams do Actually ask that those questions. So even of people they've worked with for years As to how much it's quite a deep question in itself as to how much autonomy do you need on a daily basis and very few teams that if I was getting a coach would If they're fairly new to to being a team would have that would have gone that far that deep that quickly so I think it's um It's not perhaps a straightforward question that you'd ask Without, you know, without a good scrum master or someone behind you trying to unearth those But yeah, I think a more mature team would would realize that maybe over time But it's probably not a question that gets asked Straight away and especially in the situation you are now A lot of teams are probably learning that very quickly As to how much time do we need to check in with each other? How much how much can I be left to my own devices on a daily basis? And there's a big role for the scrum master to play and that as well isn't there in terms of Um, you know that that scrum master's maturity as well and and the level of trust they have to allow Allow or to be comfortable with and You know certain team members being you're mostly silent throughout the day, but they're using and Versus, you know others who might be more active on All the channels, but you know, maybe maybe they're not getting work done or or maybe it's just that that's not even the priority right now Maybe it's just you know, they're they're they're psychological safety is the priority and then feeling Like, you know, they're still they still belong in the team and that the team still exists as a kind of a real Thing, you know, we're distributed Yeah, I You know from from my background that i'm not going to disagree with you there on You know a big part of the scrum master role, but i'm also aware that not not every team out there has scrum masters, right? so um, for me a lot of the teams that I If I was using a lot some of the teams that I was using as the basis of the stories and team mastery They wouldn't have scrum masters but the great teams It's it's the individual team members that are looking out for their teammates as well And I think that's even more important here. So I'm not seeing anybody like physically Every day it's a lot easier for me to go under the radar and my my state of mind my stress levels my productivity levels my engagement levels my My emotions all of that stuff to just not be noticed But it it it leaks out in lots of different ways and if you've been working with someone for a while if you And very differently, you know that they're in a slightly different place And I always used to consider that A sort of responsibility of mine as a member of the team regardless of my roles from master wherever If if someone was not quite Okay I'd want to just check in and say are you all right? Is there anything you need? What's going on? And so it doesn't need to be a scrum master that does that of course that's their role and they're very very important And even more important perhaps now But I think just whether it doesn't have to be anything formal But you know if you notice something Then don't expect somebody else to deal with it that's kind of Linking us in nicely to what I think is going to be our final question before we run out of time and it's um How do you it's from jordan k. Hi jordan? How do you coach team members who are coping with stress and anxiety because of lockdown? So kind of starting to drift into that anyway that last answer I think Any other tips or any other kind of um creative ways of Helping with that that you guys have picked up over the last few weeks Is it it's potentially a minefield, isn't it? Because it isn't it isn't and it's it's it's just a human thing really It's to acknowledge it humanize things Because people so I'm coming at this from my primary perspective is people can't be coached when they're stressed um So you need to you need to be calm before you can because when you're stressed you're thinking very very blinkered narrow it's it's sort of that um protection zone of fight flight fright flea that kind of thing um So people just really want to feel safe to begin with they want to be heard Even if there's no not an answer for them. They want to be heard. They want to be they want their feelings to be acknowledged They want to know that it's okay to be anxious to be stressed and and you know, maybe there's an element of normality there as well So some genuine empathy and not not fake empathy. Yeah, I know the same thing and certainly not one upmanship That's not that's certainly what they don't want of oh, you think you've got it bad, you know That's that's not what they want, but equally they don't want to be patronized. So it's just genuine. Yeah, I hear you. I hear you You know, I that's that's tough But you so much solve their problems but equally you've got to know my point was is that Sometimes I've got to hold my hands up and say okay. This is potentially out of my comfort zone here as a coach as a scrum master as a facilitator I feel like we're Dabbling into therapy now and that's something that I don't feel qualified to deal with right So Yeah, know your boundaries Um, but I think just being able to listen You know as long as you're not Channeling someone down a particular pathway Is generally okay and and asking the question of you know, is there anyone that can help you with this? Is the only one who's helped you need with this? Um is is a good thing, but I think generally just just helping them feel okay But it's normal and feel heard. I think is there's the place to start We even before you know As I saw some funny meme like my daughter showed me the other day in britain We don't we don't use the word cobit 19. We just say with all this shit that's going on Um, it's kind of our standard phrase, isn't it? Um, but even before all this shit was going on Um, there was still you there was still stress in life, believe it or not Um, and it would still affect people's ability to do their jobs And a really simple thing that people that I've seen the night and I've advocated and I've used Really simple thing before you have your you know evening Just your daily scrum before you get into the three questions thing or even just telling people what's going on Just a quick check-in Just you know what today the commute was horrendous I'm sweaty. I'm not ready to go yet. I haven't had my cup of coffee and I'm in I've got that off my chest now It's out there. It's not clogging up my brain Everyone's heard me And I can now Take information in Similar kind of thing. Yeah, if I'm just thinking about my stress. I can't be thinking about anything else And it might be I'd agree Jeff and it might be that those things may be now in the in the current Environment need to happen a bit more frequently. So maybe people need to be able to Download that more than once a day if it's if stress levels at home Do increase more frequently Maybe give people the chance to close out the day with it You know sense it to check out of what's what's happened and to to basically get rid of it Yeah So I think there's there's good stuff in there guys. Thank you because um, you know, there's there's realizing You know your boundaries and not becoming A pseudo therapist for anyone, but I think a lovely way to finish it off is to it's kind of think about that And focus on the human aspects Jeff as you rightly say Is um, you know recognizing people's humanity trying to be humane trying to you know Trying to help people to survive and and to thrive and in the new way of working Um, I'm not trying to replicate exactly what we used to do in the in the previous time Um, so in an effort to be humane, I'm going to um try and wrap this Pretty much on time. Just a couple of minutes over and give everyone some of their evening back and But um before I go I do want to just kind of thank Jeff and paul paul heartedly You know, I think Personally have learned a lot from you guys, you know, you give so much to the community You put so much good stuff out there that we can consume and get better at our jobs So definitely taking the opportunity from me and I know on behalf of the lean agile brighton and probably everyone else on the call as well Thank you very much. Keep doing what you're doing Keep producing stuff during lockdown because it's keeping us going. Um, you know, I think I said Um, whenever there's a new a new episode of the pub casts It's on the headphones when I'm on on my evening walk. So, you know, you're you're you're helping us just by doing all those things And uh, please keep keep going with it. It's nice to hear. Thank you. Eddie for that If anyone is um, how many tickets we've got left for werewolves. Jeff just a quick plug Five tickets five and there won't be any more. So it's like a limited stock So if you are interested in playing werewolves online on friday evening at five o'clock You're more than welcome five tickets remaining. It's all free obviously. So yeah Book on Jeff's have a look at Jeff's website for tickets There you go. Everyone can pass up that offer. Um, so thanks everyone Everyone for your attention and for your time and for dialing in and um, and we hope to see you as our future Virtual sessions. We're still learning this space. You know, we're used to being in the physical physical world But it's good to see people coming in from all kinds of locations including speakers. So that's great Next week we've got uh, Heidi helfand, uh, who's uh, who's quite a big name on the on the circuit and She's going to be doing a talk on metrics Um, and so that's again enabled by the fact that we're on zoom now. So that's fantastic Um, I definitely encourage everybody to have a look on meetup and check out the details of that And uh, it's going to be an excellent show. I'm I'm pretty sure so hopefully see you all again Next week or or you know as many of you as possible and um, Jeff and paul. Thank you very much Thank you. Cheers all the best everyone. Bye everyone