 Hi, I'm Jeff Watts and welcome to episode 89 of the Agile Pubcast We're still in lockdown. So this is another remote episode with Paul in his house in Bradford and Avon and me in my Shed in Cheltenham in the Cotswolds and this episode Paul and I just finished teaching an online advanced class And so we spent quite a bit of time talking about some of the conversations that came up during that class some interesting ones really Including what how to convince people within the team about the benefits of self-organization quite often We spend a lot of time convincing people outside of the team why self-organizing teams is a good idea, but there's an interesting Angle on that conversation And that led us to talking about talking about emotions within the team and how that's often very difficult and often doesn't happen and on the subject of emotions Paul and I even spend a bit of time talking about how we'd dealt with our fears as trainers and coaches over the years and Finally some of the interesting conversation we had about whether it was dangerous Going out as a fairly novice coach or fairly novice scrum master and practicing your coaching skills So yeah, it was quite an interesting episode all in all. We hope you find it of interest and If you're watching on the video, so if you're one of our patrons and watching the video Then we were using a new piece of software this episode. So that's why There's a slight lag between my audio and video on that side of the screen Because we will be using Paul's upload and his speed isn't the best and also that's really that's why my side was a slightly More pixelated as well because he was uploading my my feed through his channel We've we've learned from that and the next time we use it It'll be a bit better But bear with us that's why and if you wanted to watch some of the videos and get some of the other Benefits that we have then check out patreon.com slash the agile pubcast and Yeah, hopefully we will be raising a glass to you in this episode We're going to raise a glass to our newest patron Amy Lane over on the West Coast of America in Seattle Cheers Amy for being one of our biggest supporters. We appreciate that and For everybody else in lockdown. We hope things are starting to get a little bit easier a little bit more normal and Yeah, hopefully we'll be seeing you from a pub sometime soon Take care and stay in touch. I think we're recording. I think we're on. I think we're We're alive alive. Oh Fantastic Hello to you sir. Hello, my friend. I hope I'm not too loud He's using me new equipment today for a new new Software, I suppose you call it with new infrastructure. Maybe yeah, so when we're trying out a new record on remote recording piece of software That we've downloaded while we're kind of using it's called squad cast. We're gonna see how it goes Yeah, well done to you for setting it up so quickly. I know it's a bit of an experiment. We'll see what it goes What's what's the what's the drinks tonight chap? It's what I've been our room. I'm in the bar. What can I get for you? Well, I'm on I'm on I've gone to be the town Well, how have you indeed? Yeah, be the town. I've got a loop who Lloyd See pretty nuts it lupeloid IPA. I don't know what lupeloid stands for It's a six point seven percent And I'm gonna pour it into my glass and see what it looks like I've got it's another one of those I've gone for the packaging type thing the funky Then you know where he's you've been hoodwinked by that the funky packaging But I do I've had a I've had a One of their other beers before and quite liked it so but I give this one a try and Take it. It's nice and gold Little bit fizzy and a six point seven percent. So proper for IPA there Yeah, smell the hops Slightly sharp Not not sour sharp. Just it's got a good a taste to it. Got a little bit of a ting to it Um, yeah, it's sort of a little bit apply actually Quite nice Very good. What are you going for? I got a Choice for you left of my mystery box Lockdown sided in the box remaining our numbers with three Uh five It's like that. It's like the agile principles, isn't it? Now there's only four left three five Slowly getting less principled Three five ten and eleven Hang a minute. No, no can't count. It's been a long day six and say three six ten eleven a Number eleven You have chose all of ten. You have chosen Golden harvest your harvest riches riches side as in a person called rich premium summer sat cider Riches so far and high bridge, you know, how do you know high bridge? Never heard of it, right? I'm a set one of my friends from university comes from high bridge. I think what's it famous for? Um High bridge in Burnham. You might kind of north summer set coast Bristol Channel No, not heard of it But Richie's side of arms there Yeah Think green. Is it a green leisure park? Oh, yeah, people go surfing there, don't they? Yeah, do they think say Think some of my friends from school went surfing it's kind of yeah north summer set coast coastal town Can you hear that I can It's that ice I've gone for a bit of ice today because it's one of the hot it. Well the hottest day apparently since Horses hottest day of 2020 today, isn't it in the UK lovely? Yeah, I've put the fan on for the first day Yeah, and is on in the shed It's kind of a May as it is the towards the date today. It's the 20 20th of May. That looks fizzy It is quite it is quite a fizzy. It's almost like look kind of a larger kind of fizziness to it. Yeah, it's quite sweet Quite sweet, but quite clean It's quite quite an honor. I've probably got looking at it through kind of rose tinted glasses today, but Because it's a nice summer's day. I feel like a cold drink. So it's going down quite nicely apple tinted glasses Oh, so possibly your favorite of the selection so far or? It's it's up there certainly bitches cider and quite quite like that It's just a simple kind of sweet cider says medium on here, but I'd say it was more sweet Very nice. Well, maybe your pal it's developing my friend. I doubt it. I doubt that very much maybe so Yes, cheers And well done. We finished the course today. We were kind of celebrating. There it is. I think you went well Yeah, it's good Small online advanced class Good crowd Yeah, so I'm from a few different places lots of different experiences to share Yeah, some good discussions were had Some skills learned some techniques practiced few teething problems with kind of online Miro we use mirror for the first time didn't really on a on a paired course, but Generally People who seem quite impressed with the tool as well I think the feedback was that people liked the online collaborative Miro tool, which which went down quite well. Yeah. Yeah It well I What stood out for you? What was some of the more interesting conversations we had try to think back now? I think it's certainly in terms of Quite we thought it's a lot of techniques today and yesterday and It's a lot of questions around Product owners that seem to be a lot of how do I get my product owner to do stuff? Yeah, there were a couple Yeah, how do I get my? Product owner to take to look after the product backlog. How do I get? stakeholders to One of the questions was around how do I get stakeholders to take the scrum us to roll seriously. Mm-hmm That was one that stood out for me. Good conversation around that. Yeah It was good There's another one wasn't there around actually within the team itself of How how to help team members see the benefit of cross-functional teams? I thought it's interesting because quite often It's it's usually about convincing other people outside of the team the benefit of of cross-functional teams But yeah this idea that You'd have to focus a little bit more on Things that were slightly outside of what you would normally do your functional area of expertise perhaps Yeah And putting the team first rather than your own interests There was an interesting discussion Feeling jaded No, I wouldn't say I'm jaded I've been trying to sort of challenge myself to really Pay more attention to to how I feel at the end of different types of work that I do and we had a bit of a discussion about about me and my Sort of mindset if you like in how training isn't something that I would I feel I was born to do And I always found it very stressful running a training course used to lose sleep before training courses and things I'm trying to work out Little bit about why that why that is and I usually have a sort of Sort of mini euphoric feel at the end of a course I was wondering whether that was more a sense of achievement or there was more sense of relief That it didn't go badly As I am sort of someone who would plan for the worst but hope for the best if you like And do tend to You are you are a little bit different to me as I tend to let things probably Bit more spontaneous, but you like to know The next so we will sit and plan the next kind of module stroke sequence or session mini session and you're quite thorough about timings and Expectations and so that was I'm a bit more loose I think I I think maybe I've got a bit complacent Yeah, I overly worry about the The quality of and you know people's perception of it and how much you get from it, you know Yeah, go on my Main I fear I suppose my initial when I start I think we had a question today Didn't we about how did we get started with this and how do we become trainers and how do we? get past our beers and and our Lack of experience, I suppose it's obviously some of that with time and experience, but I Think certainly I used to be quite nervous about finishing early That was all we had my big thing about Well, we've kind of got I've gone because I when when I'm Nervous, I tend to rush Okay, so my tendency was to believe that I'm gonna finish like it that lunchtime on day what day to everyone will have to go home early, which never really happened anyway, but it's I suppose it's just how what you get used to and what my But in the back of my mind I worry that I'm perhaps not giving enough that are giving enough content or giving enough value Yeah There was trying to remember what it was now But there was some there was some questions today about you know, what if I was it about coaching? So if I'm scrum master, I'm learning my coaching skills And yeah, what isn't that a bit dangerous and to be going out there and coaching on people when you've really quite a novice Worried about doing damage if you like And my response to that was well the fact that you're worried about doing damage It reduces the chances of you doing damage It's the people that go into things blindly thinking that they're fully qualified before they've really Read a book even that term that are more at risk of doing damage So as long as scrum masters or anyone really is constantly reflecting and if possible Giving some reflection from some guided reflection with someone new or experienced Then the chances of damage are minimal Yeah, certainly, um certain something I've got Get used to Still remember Still remember the you know, the sweating and the mumbling and and Pacing was Racing pace a lot. He used to walk up and down the room Side to side And I think you while you were fully aware that you were doing it, but you didn't have a lot of control over at the time But now yeah, I Thought that was a coping mechanism for so one of my worries is that so I'm not a big talker I'd much prefer to listen than talk Not great at making small talk, you know the train or so and just wouldn't talk to people And so my worry was that I'd run out of things to say Yeah, but I found that if I was walking I had a sort of rhythm and I found it easier for my words to flow And then it became a habit Habit that I especially if you've got creaky floorboards and I've had that a few times Creaky floorboards or a creaky stage that you're on It's quite off-putting for people. So I made a conscious effort then of working out how to stay more still Because the attention shouldn't really be on me and where I'm moving but rather what we're talking about Yeah, I've probably got a bit lazy these days a bit more hands-in-pockets tight leaning on flip charts and things like that I do I'm a bit and I've just got into bad habits. I think I mean, there's an element of informality around there isn't there and you can relax people by being informal and comfortable and Relax yourself Yeah, as long as you're you're not slacking off, which I don't think you do then that sense of kicking off your shoes maybe and Look quite literally in your case. Yeah. Yeah, I hate having hot feet. I hate having hot feet So anytime you'll take your shoes off on day two of a training course Jeff Can show me to do that. I don't think this still does but he was a shoes off kind of guy, wasn't he? Yeah, he was yeah Training with shoes on I sometimes think yeah People might take offense to that smell especially it is it is Culturally offensive in some places. I couldn't tell you which countries, but I'm sure in some countries. That is that is a bit of a no-no Yeah kind of anything else going on for you do you enjoy it today any Yeah, I did. I love the curiosity There was genuine genuine Curiosity about not just What what could be done or what could be used but also how it could be shaped and reshaped and There were times when they were saying all we could could we use this technique in this situation? Yeah, we'd say oh hadn't really thought that but yeah, absolutely would work So and that's that's that's for me a really good sign of people who aren't just taking things as they hear them You know, they're not just taking whatever we say is gospel They're taking it and with the pinch of salt that it deserves if they can use it as as we're using it brilliant But maybe not maybe they've come up with something better or use it in a different scenario or change it And and you know the more you can make something your own the more more powerful it is I think really Yeah I think as well we noticed today that people tying to get there's quite a lot of Tying together one or two different techniques, which is nice to see as well that it's not just about One technique especially with coach that we're doing some coaching stuff today Where people were thinking about how they would compile an actual coaching session and Maybe tying two techniques into one or stepping from one technique to the other Rather taking it a very much a Sequenced approach, but how could you actually combine some of these things? Yeah Techniques are an interesting thing sort of exercises um I remember years ago when I was going through some of my professional coach training They were given quite a few coaching techniques that could be quite useful and I think a lot of people were Overly keen to put them into practice and sort of force them into a coaching session because they've been taught them They want to use them, but also It may made the coach and remember these are trainee coaches relatively new and inexperienced and perhaps not too confident in their skill set gave them a certain sense of safety to have a technique to fall back on to put a process and step one step two step three And rather than the the scary unknown of what we sort of call dancing in the moment Yeah, just letting trusting the process Uh and letting the conversation evolve And it's so often where on as a coach where on earth is this going? I have no idea where where this is going and you know, this put this person or this team is expecting something from me You know, I'm here as a coach. This is my profession um, we could just be wasting their time and talking about something completely inane And I don't think I've really got I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the times when that's actually that fear has actually come to fruition almost always something valuable emerges from that that What you might think of it or feel like at the at the time is is chaos or unstructured uh unstructured conversation really And that that craving of oh, maybe I should dig out a technique and they are open up a open up a book or put out a cut Yeah, this this technique here will save me trust the process Something that I remember Lee Simpson said that trust in the process Lee Simpson one of the comedy or comedy store players that He said to me during an interview I did for him with him for my book. He said it's just I think he said he's either trust in the process or You just follow the process or the process is the process it is something they don't on stage They don't really even think about there's there's there's no effort involved there's no um Stress involved that's a lot. That's a lot to do with the safety of being amongst your peers and your kind of trusted performers on stage, but that's also a belief and a reassurance In the flow of the process of just knowing That something will come to you something that comes to me something. I'll come to me or you've got four other people in your troop That um that also wants to extend But that that is true also in the sense of a coaching conversation Because you're not there alone and that the person your coaching is there With the same intent and with the same focus. Hopefully as you have Yeah, it's definitely a partnership Yeah, you're not alone But it can feel it can it can Incorrectly feel quite lonely. I know a lot of scrum masters a lot of coaches as well who Who take on their shoulders the pressure of of a successful coaching intervention or coaching conversation? um And you know that that I think I think that's a dysfunction. It's it's a understandable dysfunction but There's the having that conversation about Yeah accountability and ownership I think it is uh, it's an important we spend quite a bit of time actually more more time than normal on an advanced csn talking about the idea of contracting Yeah, and the idea of you know, who's responsible for what what can you expect from me? Where are my boundaries and being quite explicit if you if you're changing Stances from for example coach to mentor or facilitator or what have you So everybody knows what they can expect of one another and it's something that this it's just It's so commonplace And expected we're in the world of professional coaching that you don't really think about it But in in agile coaching That idea of contracting about what we expect from one another what we need from one another doesn't really happen I also think that's partly because there's still a The coaching element of a scrum master's role or job description or Whatever that might be objectives From a corporate point of view is still probably quite low down the agenda I think it's probably seen as a fraction a mere fraction of the The purpose of the role from in many organizations that I've spoken to Still see if they are hiring scrum masters. They see them as as maybe 10 15 percent coaches if they're you know but um, I think Only a few organizations would see them as a as largely a coach So would you Would you expect a scrum masters? performance to be judged on the Delivery or the success of the team? I think it's partly the team a part of the organization, isn't it? I think I'd certainly like to think a team has a as a say on the performance or the appraisal of a scrum master. I'm not sure if it happens a lot But or enough Especially I mean that gets even more cloudy if which is quite commonplace and exemplified on our On our course this week when a scrum master is is working with more than one team Yeah, you know, how do you how do you know how affected that scrum master is being? Are you setting that person up for success in the role? and also that was on that point is an interesting thing that One person So a couple of people introduced themselves as people who Was scrum master more than one team another course attendee also added in that Almost like an ambition Of theirs was to scrum master more than one team and I thought that was an interesting Like it like it was a Notice it's a strive for Seeing a position of status where you were scrum master for more than one team. I thought that was interesting Um, and I didn't necessarily at first hand Get the get the feeling that it was a matter of status, but I wasn't I suppose I wasn't really looking at it that closely um, I know from just speaking from my perspective, uh, where Um, I do like to focus and I do like to be part of the of a really strong focused dedicated team But I also really like seeing different things And so for me, there is a sort of attraction to being part of more than one team because I'm less likely to get bored Um, and it's not I wouldn't say that I would see Myself if I was scrum master for more than one team as as more senior or more qualified or more capable than someone who's just got one team I think it would possibly play to Play to some of my Maybe my weaknesses. I don't know but certainly my preferences No, I think you're right. There's um It's just the danger of being overloaded. I think and trying to in my from my perspective of thinking that what works for one team will work for another I'm trying to make my life easier my Managed my time more efficiently By trying to standardize how I scrum master three different teams, whatever it might be Yeah, yeah, it's not. I think it's certainly a lot easier when those teams are I'm not new and Yeah So then I suppose that brings us on to well How what's needed for that to happen and And we have there was a there was a question Yesterday, maybe About how to how to encourage members of the team to take on more self-organization Yes, how do you increase self-organization and how do you You can't tell someone to be self-organizing But like you I think you said at the time that there's it's not binary There are degrees of self-organizing. It's probably a A iterative incremental process in itself small Elements that you might notice I think I'm probably a little bit guilty of because I've been part of and I've I've coached. I've been part of great teams that would do some very what I would call very brave and very, um They'd call call each other out in terms of the accountability would be Quite trunk would be quite in your face that oh my god. That's quite confrontational But I think for a lot of teams that's a That's um quite a step Especially in some of the retrospectives that I've been facilitating lately when the the kind of Instinctive response from Scrum Masters when I was when we were talking about emotions just talking about talking about talking about talking about emotions Okay in a retro and they said that's a step too far That's my team and I we're near that right now and I think sometimes I get a little bit You know kind of pushed Pushed back by thinking really we are we are we back there now? The teams won't even talk about emotions, but to be Blunt with myself and a lot of teams don't talk about their emotions with each other and They're never going to get anyone near any sense of accountability If they can't admit any weakness or any flaws or any need Need to help Yeah, then they don't need to need to know when they there's a weakness that they can they can feel that they can help each other out Yeah, there's um, you know we spent we spent quite a bit of time with Scrum Masters a lot of teams are talking about I say two sides there may well be more more angles, but if you're keeping it really really simple the two sides Of of making a change so in this situation if someone someone in the team Is is resisting this idea of self-organization? Usually there's there's some some concerns underpinning that they're worried about some negative consequences Now whether whether I believe those those beliefs are true or not that person does and I think first of all just recognizing The fear that's that's driving the resistance is is a good starting point uh meeting them where they are they have to empathize with with their perspective and Seeing if you can help them reduce those concerns Tackle those concerns mitigate those concerns Some of them might not be true when we work it through some of them might be And we can do something about it pretty quickly Some of them maybe we can't do anything about and we should just acknowledge that this is Yeah, a hurdle that would need to be overcome But then the second side of that is is well, is there anything in it for this person To be self or part of a self-organizing team? Do they have anything to gain? Do they see that they have anything to gain? I remember in the certainly in the early days of scrum people were worried about their marketability If I if I become a jack of all trades by expanding broadening my skill set rather than focusing on becoming the most Experienced and qualified person in my functional craft then I would Not not get a promotion. I wouldn't be able to become a more highly paid contractor and so on Whereas the market has changed for that now you're looking you know full stack employees are much more in demand right because they they they increase the agility of a team they increase the the the resilience of the team I remember I think I thought about this at the time. I think this came up during the the course There's I remember at Nokia. I think when I just joined at Nokia There was a big backlash to the management team rebranding and renaming everyone as engineers Okay, I said you no longer a tester or you no longer a developer. You're an engineer And whilst that to me that sounds like quite a sensible kind of You know equalizing of status and reducing status, but Yeah, unfortunately it upset quite a lot of people because they felt like their identity had been Wiped out And their achievements and their specialisms and their talent and their interests had been ignored largely Yeah Yeah, so I think you've got to have got to be careful with things as very seeming as innocuous as job titles Yeah, and and what it means, you know, there's a there's a lot of history with civilizations There's now something being done to people as well Yeah, if that comes out of the I've no idea whether that did come out of the blue, but Um, the more that something is done to somebody the greater the resistance there will be regardless Of of how inherently that good that change is for that that individual or that group Simply because it compromises their autonomy, but that that sense of identity You know that they that is a tribe that they've been part of for a long time It's it's a tribe they put a lot of value into I'm talking tribe here in the sense of Not the Spotify model as such but Um tribe as in a tribal identity groups that we're part of Yeah Common interests and common skills. Yeah Yeah, it's a tricky tricky political game really and you know people are We're all we're all funny weird people With our own preferences and attachments and things and if we believe something to be ours We want to hold on to it simply because it's ours Yeah, unless it can be replaced or traded for something that we believe to be better And if we can initiate that trade Rather than have the trade initiated upon us It's more like to be acceptable We're in um, I believe we're in week nine I've locked down is it really So I was thinking about this today because um Um We are and people are avid followers of the podcast will know this that we are approaching our 100th episode I know it's kind of a we've talked about meaning meaningless milestones before. Yes. Yes But the nervous 90s are almost upon us so I kind of we always said that We would do start. I think even last christmas you said to me We'll have to start thinking about what we're going to do for the 100th, you know, the 100th rivers And uh party I've just all I'm my fear is that we won't actually be in a pub for episode 100 So that would be I reckon when it could well happen it could well happen. Yeah 10 weeks I think I think we'll have we should have greater freedom in 10 weeks time Although one of my friends text on on one of my whatsapp groups for rugby. Um this today this evening I kind of a red alert message said uh, there's a there's a beer garden open in uh in winsley At the pub in winsley, which is just on the road for me And I kind of thought is that allowed yet? Firstly, is he telling the truth? Secondly, if he is telling the truth, surely that's not allowed yet It's a trap blackheader But the amount of kind of response that a message like that got on whatsapp because oh my god, there's a beer garden open. Oh my god um, so Well, you have you have my commitment that we will do something special for episode 100 I think it'd be nice to gather some ideas So perhaps people can tweet in with some suggestions about Because what we don't what I don't want to go as much as I love Chelten I don't want to go back to the first place we did episode one because that's a bit predictable and a bit Yeah, so it'd be nice to do something a bit different like Yeah, I wonder where it will be and what and um different kind of pub maybe or a different kind of Yeah drinking because it could well be in the middle of the summer or maybe the end of the summer We'll have to see what how time is go, but It's certainly going to be in the foot next Few months. Well, I reckon it'll probably be close to my birthday Ah, okay, and you still haven't had your launch party yet either. That's true That's true So, um, yeah, maybe we can tie something together a big bash Hmm When's this going to go out you think next week? Yeah, so if you're listening to this Yeah, if you're listening to this on Wednesday You should try and put them out on Wednesdays now Okay locked out Wednesdays So we'll have done our open space, which is this Friday. Yeah, so I would say I would advertise tickets, but People have probably already already probably already happened Yes, that's why that's why I was asking. Yeah, maybe we maybe we cut that bit That didn't work for you as listeners Oh, I did a I did a little video for our pubcast this week. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was good Let's give a look at stats. It's quite staggering how much how much alcohol we've consumed in the and it's for over four years now I think we recently had our four-year anniversary Which was something that early may I think it was only a pint a week That's relatively Sensible between us half a pint a week That's something else Stephanie sustainable pace No, so have a look at see if you can search out our Our pubcast cartoon video Yeah, we had some we had some ideas for some some new features Did we for our listeners? Um for oh, yes for our patron listeners Um, so we'll see what what feedback that gets whether there's anybody's interested in some of those things being a guest on on the pubcast um Getting your questions personally answered each month for these kinds of things lock-ins have your own patron only Chat a little zoom call just for us So these kinds of ideas see what people think Um, okay. All right. Well Yeah, me too me too and It's uh, oh, it's hot Yeah, we had a barbecue tonight. I think I might go out and side and enjoy the rest of the sunshine Sounds like a good idea All right, well, um, take care me Yes, and yourself and look after yourself everybody Cheers everybody