 The next speaker on the stage, he's actually a very interesting person. He produces house music and his vinyl was a hit actually, the eighth place in the deep house music in the world. Yes, yes, I didn't believe that but it's actually true. And another interesting thing for him is that he was a construction site supervisor. But at the age of 24 plus 10, can we say that? 24 plus 10, he decided to reconsider his profession and what easier than becoming a WordPress developer. Why not? So today he will talk about, I hope I don't mess up this one, but he will tell us a little bit more about the positive culture that can support Agile software development framework. So let's welcome and applause Alexander Sapkovic. Hi everyone, do you hear me? First things first, why I decided to talk about the culture inside the Agile mind and not about Agile world, exactly. First of all, very often I hear that people say, we tried Agile, we tried Scrum, we tried Camden, but it's not working for us. Well, it's not possible. Why it's not working? Imagine that you are going to a gym one day and you spend one hour at the gym and you finish with your training and you come home and stand in front of the mirror and say there is no results. And then you go tomorrow again for one hour and you come home, back home and again, you stand in front of the mirror, you take your phone to take a selfie for Instagram, but it's still the same. But if you are doing that consistently for some period of time, I don't know for how long, but for some period of time you will see changes and that is the point with Agile. You will not see the changes instantly, first week, first month, I don't know when, maybe in four months, six months a year, but you will see changes. And in Agile, a huge problem is how to measure what changes, because it doesn't change in a day. It's not like how many blog post views you have today and you did something about marketing tomorrow and then two days later you have more visits. So it's easy to measure and in Agile it's not so easy. It's something that needs to be done consistently. This one is not working. Is it? Awesome. Because one of the girls from Bulgarian community gave me a lesson about that I shouldn't use words like bullshit, crap, asshole and that kind of stuff on WordCamp conferences because that is breaching code of conduct. That is why we have this claim today. So I would use bullshit only when it is crap when there is no better description and asshole only one time. So you know that I would use, so I already did my part of the job breaching code of conduct so we can move on. I will share zero statistics in this presentation. Why? Because 84% of statistics in presentations are fictional. We made them up. And imagine what? This is completely random number because I really don't know what is the real percentage of fake statistics in presentations. So my number is fake as well. We need to humanize IT industry. We are like robots more or less. We are doing things in some robotic way. We are like go to work, prepare coffee, then we have a meeting, then after meeting we will do something. Then we are coding, then we go home, then we play games, then we watch movie, so everything is robotized. And how to humanize IT industry of course by making it more robotized is that why we need frameworks and procedures? Because we lie. We lie and we lie a lot. And we lie every day, every morning, every minute, every hour. Why? We lie to make the world feel better. We are not lying just to protect ourselves. Sometimes and very often we lie to protect someone else. How? Imagine that your team lead, your front-end developer, and you have a team lead and your team lead asks you, can you finish this before Friday? And you say, yeah sure, sure we can. But you know that it's not going to be done before Monday or Tuesday. But you will make it feel better that day when it's yes. And you lie. The fact is that you lie. That is why we need to use frameworks like Kenden or Scrum. So no one will get into a position to ask you if something will be done or not. And not get your self into a position to lie. Because there is no structure how you are doing that. How you are tracking what is going to be done today or tomorrow. We are coming to that part about the couch. About the Kenden couch. If you ask top management, the first thing, the biggest bullshit that you will ever hear, this is the first one, sorry, that you will ever hear from the top management is if you ask them, and I did a research about this. There are many people in the workers' community who can confirm that I asked from top management to employees what is their company's culture. And they didn't know why I'm asking. And people know me and so they replied and they were honest. So top management said careful employees. Middle management said the same, like copy paste. Why to say something else? Why to be more inspiring? But when I asked employees, the story was a bit different. The first one said that he feels alone and under pressure very often. The second one said that more transparency wasn't hard. More or less he didn't know what is happening in the company, what is the revenue, how much money they earned and that kind of stuff and he really wanted to know more about his company. And the last one said that they have nice team buildings like going to cinema, playing some sport. That is not about the culture. So no one knew what is the company's culture and we talk so much about that culture. Your employees, if you're CEOs or in kind of middle management or something like that, are feeling that pressure and they feel in bed because you lack procedures. You need procedures, any kind of procedures like Kanban, Scrum any of those framework will work because they will know what are they doing and where they are going. Kanban as a framework, if you ever thought should we use Kanban or we should use Scrum. There are two, let's say the major players. In IT industry, in agile frameworks are Kanban and Scrum. Kanban is good for, let's say, visualization. If you're doing some tasks like hiring, let's say, your HR. So you have repetitive tasks. Like publish and add on LinkedIn that we are hiring, collect CVs, check CVs, call candidates for an interview. After interview, do evaluations. So every week they have repetitive tasks and they can use Kanban to visualize what are they doing because they're doing always the same thing and they got lost. They don't have that feeling that they did something. If they have visualization and they see some cards moving from one column or row like to do and then to done they can see that they're doing something and they feel more important. This is how it should look, actually. You have to do schedule interview for 48 and you see that you're doing something. You're moving cards from one column to another and when you're moving them you can see what is happening that week and how much you did. And in the middle of the week you can see if you finish the half of your task. So it's easier to track and that visualization is helping you to see are you slower than you should be or you're faster than you should be. For management there is a good thing called Daily Hub. We have in our company Daily Hub meetings for middle and top management and what is the point of Daily Hub? You gather and you're standing. You're not sitting, you're standing. What you need to say, each member, each manager and it lasts like five minutes. You just say what you did yesterday, what you're going to do today if someone is blocking you, who is blocking you and one number. The number is really important. What is the number? If you're, let's say, marketing a manager or director or whatever in your company your goal is to have 12,000 visits per day on your website. You're at the moment around 10,000 but your goal for this year is 12,000. Every day on the meeting you will save the number from yesterday. So 10,576. 10,565. And you will see if you're making some progress towards your goal or you have some problems. You're losing visitors. Not why this is important. Imagine that happened that one day you have, let's say, an average of 10,500 or 600 and one day you see that you have 8,000 visits. You would be panicking. What you did wrong to have 2,000 visits less today yesterday than two days before and you did everything in the same way. In these kind of meetings probably some guy from infrastructure some engineer will say, yeah we have problems with our infrastructure yesterday and that affected number of visits because our service was slower. So the guy from marketing will know or the girl, whoever will know what was the problem why she had less visits yesterday and that will reduce her stress. Scrub is more for product and development teams. It's something where you need to estimate tasks and you need to have finished part of the product at the end of each sprint and sprint is one part of Scrum as a framework. While I will not be speaking about Scrum in details there is one simple explanation about that while I will focus on culture and positive feedback that can support that culture than to talk about frameworks. You have on Scrum.org you have Scrum Guide, it's 21 pages download 21 pages of Scrum Guide and read it because in that way I will not waste my and your time by speaking about something that is available online. The more valuable knowledge that I can transfer is the knowledge about the positive feedback culture and how the positive feedback culture can affect positively your company. This is how Scrum looks like comparing to Kanban this is way more simpler than Scrum. When we are talking about the culture we have one problematic child there and that problematic child is your CEO. Why? There are many reasons for that. First of all the bottleneck is always on the top the bottleneck is not on the bottom of the bottom it's always on the top and why the CEO is a bottleneck when he should be a person that should motivate and inspire the entire company to work more and to work better there is a reason CEO knows the best if not best he knows at least better than anybody else. You need to listen to the CEO and the CEO is a role model why? He created the company he is the one who created the product he is the one with the idea he is the visionary so we should all look at the CEO and follow his trail it's not like that it shouldn't be like that but there is a simple explanation in IT industry why is that so? Because from the very beginning if you look at any IT company CEO was probably developed and he started some product because he developed that product or at least he ended the team of people to help him develop something that he can't do alone but always from the start it's very rare occasion that someone from the business from the economy or something like that started IT company the situation is that someone from economy from business will buy some IT company not to start they are starting like startups always so from the beginning CEO is everything he is developer, product manager CEO, recruiter, promoter he can do everything and he needs to do everything because he doesn't have a big team and this is working up to 5 in place this is a breaking point when the company reaches a number of 5 people CEO can't be everything he can be developer and he can be product manager but he needs to move out from these things CEO shouldn't be HR HR should be HR someone who knows how to do it someone who is empathic, someone who is different and we know that in IT industry we are not so empathic empathic especially for your developers and this is working up to 15 people 15 employees when you go over 15 he can be only product manager and that's it he can't be anything else that is the only thing that he can have the time for and this works up to 50 when you reach the number of 50 CEO is nothing he needs to be nothing he only have one thing that he needs to do he needs to keep all of you in line and you need to know what is the goal number one I will use your meal for the volunteer come come here there there going to straight line what she did what she did now no she knew what is the goal the goal is to reach Wapu but I was blocking her because CEO's are blocking many tasks and that is how I blocked her she came to me and she said can you go around you and said yes she went around me to her goal CEO needs to move because she can reach the goal otherwise she needs to ask me or to obey my instructions because I said going to straight line don't go around something go straight and she didn't do it so she needed to ask me that is why CEO needs to step up not to be someone who is important in any procedure except keeping people in line with the goal number one goal number one is not growth what is growth of course it is growth you will not close the company you would like to have your company to see your company bigger of course it is growth but what is the goal we had a simple goal in managed WP it was to send the rocket to the moon and to put RC toys inside application to drive those RC toys on the moon and that should cost us around 500 million dollars and that was our goal and we knew that we need to collect 500 million dollars to send the rocket to the moon with RC toys inside and that was our goal not earn more money for something but to send the rocket that is the goal number one not to have 50% higher than you next year that is not a goal the culture inside this first is the positive feedback culture second thing that you need to have to support all of this is strictly and clearly defined positions and the third thing is transparency across the whole company so everyone needs to know what is happening everyone needs to know how much money you have at the moment everyone needs to know everything in your company find a way how to do it positive feedback culture is really important so what is positive positive is something that makes you feel good and negative is something that makes you feel good so it's not a negative feedback when something needs to be changed or fixed but if it's good for how you set it so feedback needs to have three components that is something that you all need to learn feedback needs to have three components and those components are content what is the content content needs to have two things first one is confirmation so what is the confirmation confirmation is that if I need to give a feedback for how this swap is designed confirmation is I like the size I like the color of his dress but I would change his crown so what is good and sad what can be changed completely different feeling for the one who designed this would be if I said this crown is really crappy the rest is just fine it's completely different tone and I said the same thing I said completely the same thing what I like and what I don't like but in other tone and in another way so find a way to do it like this confirm what is good even though everyone knows what is good confirm it because people will feel better and then adjust what needs to be adjusted second thing is that you need to go from undermining to sport every time every day give positive feedbacks to people even if they know that they did something good and everyone know that they did something good give him a round of praise about what he did tell him oh great job for this yesterday you did a great job everyone knows tell him he will feel better he will be more productive by the end and the fourth very important thing about the form is clarity you need to be clear in the communication first of all communication styles differ if you talk with someone from UK and with someone from US and with someone from Australia the same phrase in three different native English speaking countries will have completely different meaning the guy the someone from UK will maybe laugh but someone from US will probably slap you for that maybe in Australia probably hit you with his fist so take care that communication styles differ second things are the language barriers also very similar to this but if you are not native English speaker as most of us are not we have the problems to understand some things especially if it's a call online call or zoom meeting often you will miss some things because you are not native English speaker cultural differences again the same problem it's not the same way how I accept something since I am from Balkans and how someone from Russia accepts something and how someone from India accepts something and we are talking about the same thing we will accept the same thing in completely three different ways as you misunderstandings don't get mad instantly assume that you may be misunderstood what someone told you so always go with assumption that someone didn't want to insult you maybe you just misunderstood basic rules be timely two times first time when you see that something is broken when you see that something needs to be fixed go there and say I can ask you something do you want my feedback I see that something is not happening good you should check this I think that this should be fixed because people don't like to work not like to do something twice so if you see that something some downside of something help them to see that immediately and to fix that immediately and the second don't kill a wind moment this is the asshole what is a wind moment imagine the time presenting you my wapu that I designed and I am so proud because I worked on this wapu for months he died I designed this wapu for months I tried to build it I changed colors I did so many things about this wapu and this is my wind moment I am showing to the world my wapu and there is some asshole in audience you have a typo there don't be an asshole let people enjoy the moment let your colleagues enjoy the moment if something is wrong and you see this is wrong oh that image is 2 pixels should be moved 2 pixels on the left because your pixel perfect right but let him enjoy the wind moment because he is presenting the product tell him tomorrow it can wait until tomorrow so don't be an asshole this is a secret so I lied review you for this this is also important they say your wapu is ugly it kind of hurts this wapu is ugly I will tear you because when you review you for this people will feel better it's not his cold she didn't give a bird to the cold she only wrote it's a cold if it is you if it is about someone assume that he is having hard time dealing with that and assume that he already knows and that you are kicking his balls by repeating the same thing that he already knows point and shift my name is Aleksandr you say Aleksandr you are ugly I know but what to do with that what to do with your ugly but if you say Aleksandr I don't like the way you look I don't like your hair and I don't like your nose and I don't like your ears but there is a good hairdresser in the Sofia mall and there is Belmadi clinic and it's a cheap one it's a cheap clinic and you can do surgeries and you will look better so point and shift tell me what is wrong and give me a solution for that if you can't give me a solution you are just piling up the crap so we don't need you to pile up the crap the most important thing is ask ask if they want to hear your feedback maybe they don't want to hear your feedback maybe they already know you are just wasting your time so always ask if they never ask for your feedback and you want to hear feedback don't go there and say oh I saw this, this is crap no one asked you, who asked you someone asked you for your feedback no, then keep your mouth shut if you don't want to keep your mouth shut ask if you want if you can't hear feedback strictly defined positions this is pretty much easy we'll skip a bit questions and answers strictly possibilities clear accountability and remove CO from production I explained why transparency keeps everyone on track builds the trust sense of belonging and reduces and removes imposter syndrome how many of you know what is imposter syndrome not enough very often we don't know I know what we don't know it's a culture kill read this together you don't need to do it how many times you felt like that too many times problem and you didn't even know that you have imposter syndrome that is something scientifically proved and it's in psychology it's not something that I invented right now what is the culture it's something that I agree with the sum of additives, customs that distinguish one group of people from another in IT world we have copy paste copy paste culture because when I start my startup my company I will copy paste the culture of some of side ground because they have nice page about their culture and side ground copy pasted their culture from someone else when they started 15 years ago and then before side ground that company copy pasted culture and more or less it's someone has bullshit detector here no one brought this is bullshit okay I'm Alexander if you have something to ask now because tonight you can't ask me because I have some beers and I have more beers and I probably have more beers and more beers any questions come guys don't be shy any questions I have one sure since you mentioned a lot about what's the role of the CEO of the company what's the best way for the CEO to keep all the people on the right path on the right track hmm well the point is that they need to know where they are going first and the most important thing to know where they are going because it will be completely different if I told you go anywhere in this room you will be confused you will be like where to go I don't care where you will go go where ever you want and where you will go you know that there is a fact in psychology with the donkey you know the effect with the donkey in the middle and you put the pile of hay on one side and the same pile of hay on the other side he will die hungry because he will not know where to go from which pile of hay to eat so if you are doing that with your employees it's a huge problem and the second thing that CEO needs to do very often you will hear people and the company say our customers are our number one concern so it means that your employees are at least second so your employees need to be number one concern and you need to care about your employees and we are employing someone you need to act like you are adopting a child because when you are adopting a child you don't go there and say give me some blonde one and some that will be 193 centimeters higher than his 25 and I want that he has green eyes so you just get the kid you adopt the kid the same way you need to adopt the employee and you need to love your employee and you need to trust you need to give them trust I think that is the best way for CEO to work thank you everyone thank you ok guys I bet some of you are still sleepy and some maybe too shy but Alex will be around so if you have questions for him just find him I am sure he will be more than happy to help any one of you