← Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
BONUS Mastering Your Own Career Success as a Scrum Master | Fred Deichler
00:35:25
Global Agile Summit Preview: Mastering Your Own Career Success as a Scrum Master with Fred Deichler In this BONUS , we explore the journey of Fred Deichler, a technology leader and the host of the product track at the Global Agile Summit (GAS). Fred...
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- [00:07]
Vasco
Have you ever wondered what it really takes to make Agile work well? At the Global Agile Summit, we're bringing you real life first person stories of Agile succeeding out there in the real world that will inspire you to take action. Whether you're a leader, a product innovator, a developer, you'll hear practical insights from.
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Fred Daikler
Those who've done it.
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Vasco
They'll be telling their own stories from the stage. I'll tell you more about this at.
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Fred Daikler
The end of this episode.
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Vasco
So stay back and listen to the full detailed description of what we have in store for you at the Global Agile Summit. But if you can't wait, you can go right now to globalagilesummit.com and check out our full schedule for now onto the episode. But I'll see you at the end of this episode with more details on the Global Agile Summit. Talk to you soon. Hello, everybody.
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Fred Daikler
Welcome to one more very special Global Agile Summit week episode. And joining us for today's episode is our amazing product track host, Fred Daikler. Hey Fred, welcome to the show.
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Hey, Vasco, it's great to be here.
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Absolutely. So Fred's been a guest on the podcast and link for his other episodes will be in the show notes, so make sure that you check those out. And for over two decades, he's been a technology leader who's been intuitively following Scrum values and Agile principles even before discovering them. And I'm sure many of our listeners will probably feel similarly attuned to to those values and principles. He has successfully led multiple teams on their Agile journeys, emphasizing the importance of a harmonious balance between people, processes and tools, and continuously striving for improvement. As he usually says, personal growth is as critical as professional development. And he's here to really focus on that personal growth. And of course, we are looking at you, Fred, to inspire us to action. This is exactly what we want to do at the Global Agile Summit, and Fred's here to show us how he does it already. So one of the things that you talk about and one of the things that you want to talk about in today's episode is how we need to own mastering our own success, right? Like we need to take ownership of that process. So what got you started personally thinking about this idea of mastering your own success?
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Yeah, that's a great question. And the thing that got me thinking about mastering my own success was when someone asked me a couple probably two years ago, fred, how have you achieved so much so fast? And I had to stop and think, and what got me to that place because at that time, I think I had just came come back from a conference that I was, that was at. In 2023. And 2023 really was my first year speaking, but I was my sixth conference of the year. And so I was like, how did you do it so fast? Which caused me to really sit back and think about that, that journey and you know, you know. Cause I always felt like I was no different than anyone else. But this person's type of question seemed to make me think there was something different about me. Now I will say I don't think I am that special. Maybe I have a different kind of drive. And so I start reflecting on that question and try to understand, like, what was that thing? What were those, those that secret sauce that got me to this place? That for me it was a very long journey to get there. But in the mind of others and the viewpoint of others, it was relatively short.
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Yeah. Actually that's an interesting contrast. Right. Like they usually say, the overnight success that took 10 years to create. Right. And of course, success looks so fast when you're looking at it from the sidelines, and it looks so slow and grueling and painful when you're trying to get it to happen to yourself. But tell us a little bit more about that. So you got that question and you started reflecting. Okay, but how did I get here? Right. Like, I guess that's one of the questions that you asked. And what did you come up with in that reflection?
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Yeah, absolutely. So I want to tell you about in this, as we talk to you, there's two important numbers I want you to keep in mind. I'll tell you the, the definition of the first one first and then we'll save the other for the other at 6 and 30. Now, for those of you listening, watching, watching at home, what six means is it's been nearly six years since I was sitting in my car in between jobs, like many of you have been there in your life. And I was listening to the Scrub Master Toolbox podcast. I was pulling into a meetup group a in person one about finding a new job. I pulled into a parking spot, still listening, and I hit my dash and I said, I'm going to be on that show one day. So almost six years ago. So really it has been a relatively short time. The other number 30, we'll get to at the end. Yeah. And so through this reflection, I thought about like, you know, there's distinct categories of things. Now, one thing, if people work with me, especially as they work in the strategy space, they Know, I love the number three. It's another number. But I just feel like for training, for knowledge acquisition, grouping things in three makes the most sense to me. And there's probably a lot of science out there about that. I researched it. But whenever I talk about, like change leadership with it, with a team, I always go into threes. And so for me, it's like, what are the three things that answer that question of like, how did you get here so fast? And I can. Yeah, let's, let's go into them. So the first thing.
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Yeah, yeah. What are those three now? Now we're, now we're on the edge of our seats. Fred.
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I. I gotta. I keep getting trailing me or following the story. So the first thing I thought about was continuing education, like constantly making yourself better. And one thing keep in mind is that if you're working at a big organization, early in my career, I always thought that my manager's job was to make me better. My manager's job was to feed me information, tell me to go read something, go look at something, go do a training. But after a while in corporate America, realized that's not their job. And I've now been that manager. I know that's I can help inspire people, but I can't point you, I can't give you all the tools to get there. And so that first pillar was like that continuing education. And one of the things that I always struggled with is there's so many different kinds of ways to consume media. And a couple years ago, I came across a survey I found online. You know, like one of those, like, answer these 10 questions to learn your learning style. It really was behind this is this theory of VARK. Now, VARK's acronym stands for visual, auditory, reading and kinesthetic, or like touching. And people might say this is not the only learning styles. You know, you're not exclusively one or the other. But through this, I learned that reading is not the top way for me to actually learn information. Prior to doing that little survey, I tried my hardest to read things and I would just, like, my eyes would cross a little bit and I'd have to keep rereading chapters. And it was very frustrating because I would see friends that would be reading and they'd be like, oh, yeah, I read this latest book that came out, and for me, it just didn't jive with me. And I beat myself up a lot because I thought, like, why can't I do it that way? And the big question as I went finish this up and learned that I am a auditory first, receiver of information. So I process how I learn visual second. The thing that I learned was that it was okay that I was different than other people because everyone. I intrinsically knew. Everyone's different. But if all the people are reading books in order to get better, for me, it's like I need to read books, read articles.
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Thank God you were born in the age of podcasts then, Fred.
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Oh, I don't even know my podcast statistics. I listen to so many podcasts, you know, many of them in the agile space, but also things elsewhere that I can do while, you know, cooking dinner or cleaning dishes or something, or doing gardening.
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Because I happen to know that you have a great garden there at home.
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Absolutely, Vasco. That's great to know. Yeah, yeah. Out there gardening. It's a great time to, like, disconnect my brain from my hands and I can use my hands to work the land while I'm consuming things in my headphones to give me that next level of, like, inspiration. Because one thing is, as you learn more in the agile space, or just like professionalism, there's not like a book that has every answer, every situation is unique. And combining different approaches and stories and ideas for what's successful at that point in time, which might not be successful six months or a year later is key. And that's where continuing the education, it's going to help make you be competent in areas that you've never been. And it's also going to actually bring you some humility because you'll learn a lot of different stories out there where people have been successful.
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Yeah. And also you get the courage to try different things yourself, because some things you can only learn on your own.
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Absolutely.
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All right, so we have these three things. First is continued education. What is the second?
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The second one is almost like this, which is what I call community involvement. And it's like, how do you take some of those ideas that you've learned and flesh them out with other people? It also be exposed to other ideas and community involvement. It also. There's two different approaches to it because you see people in a space. There's those that are very. They'll go talk to anybody and just start talking. There's others that are very. That wait. And what it comes down to is like, I was used to be a person who would wait, and then I finally got the courage to go up and just be a person, like a butterfly around the room. And the big question, like, with this community involvement is you have to think about it. What I Thought about was like, do I process information first internally and then speak, or do I speak to them, refine my ideas and what it is. If you think about it, it's do you think to talk or do you talk to think? And they're really the two different ways that people get uncomfortable in the situation.
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And they're both valid, by the way, 100%.
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And so in the, in, you know, in our agile space and the conference, like we're going to be putting on or we are putting on, it hits actually kind of both of those, because sitting in a talk with someone, that's that time to think, to then talk so you can process all this new information you got and then go talk to people about me, what you learned, you can talk at the conference, you can talk back at work. But one of my favorite things is not the, not the talks themselves, but the lunchroom where you get to go over a cup of coffee or whatever and bring up maybe something that's happening in your situation, something you haven't quite figured out and get the wisdom of the crowd of who you're with to maybe give you some ideas of directions to take. And that's that think or that's that talk to think space where you're actually talking to people. It's lean coffee sessions are a great talk to think place. And I had to get really comfortable with that because there's a lot of, for me, a lot of vulnerability in the talk to think space because you could be wrong and a lot of people are afraid of being wrong. But one of the biggest things that kind of got me out of my seat because I had my knowledge, I've been getting. So I had some good ideas was I was watching, I was watching Agile coaching training video with, I think it was Sherry Silas gave and there was one quote in there of many that stood out. But the one that stood out to me the most was have a strong opinion loosely held, which I've learned since might come from Jeff Bezos, but there's lots of attributions with that. And so that's for me, which that statement can be taken very wrongly. But for me that means not being afraid to come into these talking circles and say what I think without fear of being wrong, even if I am. But I hold this idea, this thought loosely enough that I can be influenced by others to help me navigate my direction.
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I really like that idea of developing knowledge in the community. Of course, at the Global Agile Summit, that's one of the reasons why we're putting it Together is exactly to create that kind of space. But also if you think about it, for example, when Agile started, it started exactly like that. When people got together in Snowbird to craft what was now, what is now the Agile Manifesto, they were really just reaching out to peers in the community, sharing their experiences, learning from them, and then coming up with something different that they could not have done on their own.
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Yeah, absolutely. And for those listening here today, do a little bit of time to reflect, think about, you know, do I prefer like lengthy LinkedIn discussions? Because that's a valid way. That's where you think, you sense and you respond, or you think and you respond, you read it, process and respond. Slack and Discord groups are another great space. But if that's just like not your cup of tea, that's perfectly fine. Find the other space. Find those lean coffee sessions. There's tons of meetups out there. Find them, maybe even in your local community. Or come find me in the lunchroom at the Global Agile Summit.
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Yeah, we'll all be there. So that's a great place. And there will be a lot more people there and exactly that kind of people who also want to develop knowledge. Right. Like this is the exact right type of place to be when you want to develop that knowledge.
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Absolutely.
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And so we got continued education, community involvement. And what is the third, the third.
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One I've been hinting at all along? Self reflection. One thing I found like in management space and in Scrum Master space is end of the week, how do I know I did a good job? There's not always a lot of metrics that say you did well. You can look at team metrics, you can look at employee growth, employee retention, all these things that can be inferences of how well you did. But on a week to week basis it's very easy to down on yourself, like, did I even matter this week? And so the thing to think about is like, how are you reflecting? Are you reflecting in your car at the end of the week? Are you reflecting after meetings? Like let's, you know, as whenever you facilitate a meeting outside of, let's say Scrum ceremonies or Scrum events, you probably have an outcome, you have an idea about how it's going to go, you have a plan going in. And if you don't have a plan, I would say start with a plan. But what you do after that interaction, end of the day or end of the meeting, did it go how you expected? That's a huge thing because an expectation is an unverified assumption. And so in Your mind, you have an expectation of how the conversations can go, how the people are going to work. You have, maybe you're doing activities. You're like this activity, like 10 minutes and 10 minutes and 15 minutes. Did it actually take those time boxes? Yes or no? And if it didn't, what could you do differently? Was it okay that you let it go longer? From 10 minutes to 20 minutes? This reflection helps us analyze our past decisions, those interactions, because we want to improve future outcomes. Now, there's lots of reflection frameworks out there, but the couple that really sit with me is there's the Kolb's experimental learning cycle, which is learn by doing. I'm a very much an experiential learner. What happened? What did I learn so that I can then improve the next time? And then the other one is the Driscoll cycle, or I don't know, cycle. It's the Driscoll method, which is really being specific about. It's the what model. And it's, it's like it says, like a guided reflection through structure questioning, which is what worked, what didn't, what worked, what patterns do I see? And once I saw the word pattern, I knew that one was for me. And there's other ones out there. So you know, the era cycle, Gibbs reflective cycle. So the thing is, end of the day, reflection is key because that's how you take your, your preconceived notions, your ideas of what's going to happen, your theories, which then you, then you practice, you figure out, okay, you had a hypothesis about your theory and then you say, okay, what actually happened using that scientific method that, that we all love here in agility.
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So, you know, we talk about empirical management all the time. And nothing more empirical than self reflection. Of course, boosted or superpowered, if you wrote down some expectations ahead of the event so that you can go back and reflect on those. What has been your experience of establishing that kind of, you know, self discipline, I should say, because self reflection isn't something that just happens. There's so much stuff coming at us all the time. And if there isn't stuff coming at us, you just open up your phone and then social media is throwing stuff at you all the time. So we're kind of being overwhelmed with information all the time. How do you, Fred, how do you make the space so that you can actually do this self reflection?
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Yeah. So for me there's two ways. One was a learned pattern. It was worked at organization, where every Friday we had to fill out a recap of the Week it was very simple. It was like what did you accomplish that week and what's your goals for the next week and how did you feel and anything for your manager? And I was having one on one meetings with my manager every week. So we actually used that to inform the next meeting. And so this got me into this pattern end of the week reflecting on what I had accomplished and thinking about what I wanted to do the next week. So setting it's like writing down those notes ahead of time like what's my plan for next week? Understanding a plan may change. So it was a couple years of regimented every Friday doing this. Since I've left that organization, I still practice that. Probably not as consistent as there because it was kind of part of the job that you do and I love that. Where it kind of got me into that reflection mindset and the other way I do it is by talking to people like you, Vasco or other friends that I have about things which is, it's almost like a coaching relationship. Like do you have a coach? It's a talking through these things and then once you do that for a while you start to spot those opportunities and others like instead of giving unsolicited advice, you might say when a colleague mentioned something didn't go as planned, our first nature might be give unsolicited advice. You know, I got that advice monster. I like to calm, calm him down. But now I now say, hey, if you'd like to talk about this in a coaching session, not being afraid of the word coaching, it's kind of what I, what I do. It's not my main focus but it's a skill set that I have that I can help people practice that self reflection which that practice of me helping coach people through situations that they, they guide them, they, I'm just their guide. They handle all the hard work. It helps me think about being in that seat and asking myself those questions. But I'm also unafraid to reach out to a friend, a colleague to say hey, can we talk? Can I give us a few minutes to talk about this thing that happened to me? It's okay. It's okay.
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Which of course then kind of links back to that community involvement because that's how you get these friends and potentially mentors that help you through your journey.
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Oh my gosh. As I think about, let's go back to that I said two numbers, 6 and 30. Let's talk about 30. 30. It's been 30 months since I applied to speak at the Agile Online Summit. Less Than three years into that time, I've been lucky enough to travel the world, meet so many great mentors, countries like Finland, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Romania and even Estonia. And all these conferences I've been able to go to, it's grown my speed dial pool of my phone to enable me to then continue to rapidly evolve. Because I know I have all these friends around the globe that they've probably, they've seen that situation, heard about it, or have some potential advice for something tangential. I can say, hey, I'm facing this challenge. What are your thoughts?
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Absolutely. And this is what you get when you go to these conferences, when you participate in meetups, whether it is in person or online. So all of those things kind of grow our network. That's a great thought. So you've shared that you've taken the kind of initiative to go and participate in conferences around the world and that's how you grew your network. But what other thoughts, ideas do you have to share with those that want to start networking and really take advantage of that fact that there's that community out there that is facing the same problems, that wants to strive to improve just like you do? Like what, what are some tips you can share with us?
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Yeah. So from a community involvement standpoint, first thing, figure out how do you, how do you process thought first, you know, reflect back onto what you have been doing. Are you more likely to engage in long form discussions over text or do you like to talk face to face in either of those? Whichever one is where you're most comfortable. I guarantee there's other people that are more comfortable with that too. So you find those spaces, feel free to, you know, reach out on, on LinkedIn to ask questions about which ones are where, but you kind of already know, like if you like, if you like writing. LinkedIn's a great spot. You can interact with people from all around the world who have this, who are going to give you great ideas, challenge your thoughts. And then there's other places, like I said, slack discord groups that are set up for, you know, whatever your personal passion is, or if they're in the agile space, then if you're actually more of a verbal person, if you talk to think, then meetups are that great place. And look for ones that are lean coffee. Lean Coffee is where you're going to thrive and then get the courage to speak. I know it's hard, but courage is one of the scrum values. Realize that other people in the audience are actually just like you. They're not that different as soon as I start speaking, I realized speakers aren't that different. They're just like. They're just like you and me. And so you can approach them, you can talk. They've done that job you're doing. You're not the first person to do something. Your situation might be unique, but you're not the first person to face this type of challenge, rely on the wisdom of the crowds, figure that out and then start engaging. I know it sounds easy, but, you know, I'm a introvert by nature, but I push myself outside my comfort zone, which has enabled me to do all these great things. Enabled me to, like I said, travel the globe, meet great mentors from all over, enable me to come to Talent Estonia to help put on this awesome conference where we're focusing on first person, real world situations, things that audience members can go home Monday and try something different.
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Yeah, absolutely. And that's actually a great point. Right. Like the conferences should be there to inspire us to action. Right. Whether that is to start speaking publicly ourselves. Right. Because we finally recognize that speakers aren't that differently from me. And also, hint, hint, they're not that book authors are also not that different from us either. They just sat down and wrote it. That's the most important aspect. And if you like writing, for example, starting a blog, I remember talking to a friend of mine many years ago and suggesting that, hey, you have so many great questions. Why don't you start writing blogs about it? And eventually it became a huge thing for him and he got several jobs because he, he was publicly known in the community for the work that he had been doing and he had been writing about.
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That's great. Yeah. I will say, like, following these three things like continuing education, community involvement and reflection helped me actually bridge a job situation where I was let go, like many people here have been that situation. And within five weeks I'd start up at a new place. And it was by doing these things, building this global community network, that enabled me to bridge that gap in the most efficient way I'd ever had in my career.
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Absolutely. And it is about also. And you've spoke to that, but I want to highlight it, Fred. It is also about losing the fear of being judged. Because actually the people you're interacting with in the community, they have the same fear. They don't want to judge you. They also don't want you to judge them. We want to feel part of the community. And the worst thing we could do is to start judging people if that's what we want. So as we want to be part of the community. We also want to welcome others in the community. And that's the beauty of conferences with that kind of people. Right, the people who are struggling with and debating and learning about the same challenges that we are learning about as we continue in our careers.
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Absolutely. That's a great recap. You know that we're all out there, no matter how confident we might appear on the surface. There's a little bit of self doubt that's in the back. And if you've had the courage to have conversations with people and you both realize that you're both kind of got a little bit of fear and you say there's actually some camaraderie to say, like, oh yeah, I was in that situation, I messed it up. Here's my story of where I failed. Because those stories of failure are probably more valuable than the stories of success.
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Yeah, that's why we started the week here on the podcast. Always with that kind of story. All right, Fred, if there is out there someone who wants to go deeper, understand this better, maybe develop their own self reflection habits. What kind of resource do you have to share with us for the people who want to take this three laws of success in mastering your own success to heart?
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Well, if you want any guidance, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. This is not a. I don't have a published blog on this anywhere yet, but gives me some idea to just start writing because maybe I'm. I can be a writer just like anyone else. But the way to the resource is I'll just say those three things that power of three continuing education, Figure out like how, what's the best way you're going to absorb information, Community involvement, find your place based on are you talk to think or think to talk. And lastly, that reflection piece. So if you can remember three things, remember that. And from there you can branch out. End of the day, don't be afraid to connect with me on LinkedIn or if you see me at a conference, come talk to me. I'm really not that scary.
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Definitely not. Fred's a wonderful person. All right everybody, you heard it. So reach out, ask a few follow up questions. Fred mentioned some resources there. Some what? What were those, those self reflection cycles. I'm sure he can share that with you if you reach out to him on LinkedIn.
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Absolutely. That kind of gives me an idea. I should probably just make some LinkedIn posts on that. So when you listen to this, you can look back into my history of LinkedIn posts because I love to share things out there. All these experiences I've had to hopefully inspire others to action.
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Absolutely. Fred, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much for your generosity with your time and your knowledge.
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Thank you. Vasco.
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Vasco
Hey friend, thank you for staying here. Is all you need to know about the Global Agile Summit if you've ever suffered or know people who are suffering from Agile fatigue, this event is for you.
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Fred Daikler
Agile fatigue is that feeling that settles.
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Vasco
In when we can't really see a light at the end of the tunnel. We get discouraged, especially when conversations revolve.
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Fred Daikler
Around the same old frameworks, the same.
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Vasco
Old buzzwords and theories.
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Fred Daikler
We don't feel that energy anymore.
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Vasco
Well, the Global Agile Summit is a different kind of event. We're bringing you real life first person stories of agile succeeding out there in the real world that will inspire you to take action and transform the way you work. The Global Agile Summit will happen in Tallinn, Estonia May 18th. That's the workshop day. Then 19th and 20th the conference day and Tallinn, Estonia is one of the most innovative tech hubs in Europe. The Global Agile Summit is hosted together with Latitude 59, which is kind of a citywide celebration of software startups and groundbreaking ideas. And we'll have a shared ticket for you to attend those events as well. So who will be speaking? Well, we've got an incredible lineup of thought leaders in software and agile. For example, Clinton Keith, the person who wrote, literally wrote the book on game development with Scrum and is busy bringing Agile to the world of game development. You must check his session. The very famous and well known Jurgen Apello, author of Management 3.0, will be talking and exploring about AI's impact on leadership. We also have Goiko Atsic, who's taking an unconventional look at product growth with his Lizard Optimization keynote. Other speakers include, for example Sig Sven Dietz, who's challenging everything we know about software development by ditching, literally ditching contracts and estimates. Can you imagine his teams deliver software before their competitors are even done with the contract, contract negotiation?
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Fred Daikler
How Agile is that?
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Vasco
But there's more. We'll cover engineering practices in our developer track with talks on for example AI assisted test driven development, developing products in minutes with a different approach to how we develop, configure, deploy platforms, and much more. We also have a product track where we cover cutting edge ideas around product discovery, delighting customers with product delight frameworks. We'll have a talk about that. And we also have an Agile business track where we will talk about, for example open strategy, a very agile approach to managing organizations and delivering software faster to clients faster than you can even write a contract. Literally. I mean, I already told you about Svendeet's story is amazing. It definitely is a must see. I'm sure you'll be inspired and get a lot of ideas for your own software projects and software delivery. Now, whether you're a business leader, a product innovator, or a developer, you'll definitely find value in our three focused tracks. That's Agile Business for those working with businesses and organizations Agile Product for product managers, product owners and innovators and Agile Developer for the builders making Agile work in practice. The coders, the testers, the designers, the producers, the Scrum masters, you name it. If you join, you will meet over 200 agile professionals from all over the world. People who just like you, want to grow, want to share, and want to learn by challenging the ideas that don't work anymore. At the Global Agile Summit, you'll get new connections, fresh ideas, and the energy to take your own Agile to the next level. And who knows, maybe even find your next career opportunity. So don't miss out. Check out the full program and grab your ticket now at global agile summit.com I'm really looking forward to seeing you all in Tallinn, Estonia in May. I'll see you there.