Breaking Remote Agile Team Divides Through Unscripted, Informal Connection | Gosia Smoleńska

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode: Breaking Remote Agile Team Divides Through Unscripted, Informal Connection
Guest: Gosia Smoleńska
Release Date: November 18, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte welcomes Gosia Smoleńska from Poland, an experienced Agile Coach and Certified Scrum Master. Gosia shares her journey into Agile methodologies, her diverse background, and a poignant story about overcoming significant challenges within a remote Agile team.

Guest Background

Gosia Smoleńska brings a unique perspective to the world of Agile, having started her career in the IT sector in 2013. Unlike many in the field, Gosia's academic background is in land measurement, mining, and geology. Her transition into the tech industry began with an internship at a small startup, where she embraced various roles from QA automation to project management. This diverse experience eventually led her to her first Scrum Master position, where she was instrumental in fostering an Agile culture within the company. Gosia is proficient in multiple Agile frameworks, including Scrum, Kanban, Nexus, and Lean, and is also a certified professional Kanban trainer.

Gosia Smoleńska [01:13]:
"I started in a small startup with seven people. I was the only one not a programmer, so I had the opportunity to explore roles in QA automation, Python development, project management, and business analysis. This diverse exposure naturally led me to becoming a Scrum Master."

The Challenge: Divided Remote Teams Before the Pandemic

Gosia recounts a particularly challenging period when she was part of a dispersed team working across different locations—a scenario that predated the widespread adoption of remote work during the pandemic. The team, consisting of five to seven members, was fraught with interpersonal conflicts and a lack of effective communication.

Initial Attempts to Bridge the Divide

Efforts to conduct retrospectives were ineffective as team members were disengaged and uncommunicative. Conflict manifested in Slack conversations and code reviews, creating a toxic environment where open dialogue was stifled.

Gosia Smoleńska [03:22]:
"We couldn't go through any retrospective. Even sitting in the retrospective room was quiet. When you opened Slack, you'd see all the fights and unpleasant comments in code reviews."

Physical Meet-up: A Misstep

Seeking to mend the fractured team dynamics, Gosia and her team traveled to another country to meet in person. However, the attempt at informal connection fell flat. Their invitation to lunch was ignored, leaving Gosia and an office manager to dine alone, leading to increased feelings of isolation and awkwardness.

Gosia Smoleńska [05:09]:
"We went to the office and suggested going for lunch, but no one responded. We ended up staying alone with the office manager, and it didn't feel right."

The Turning Point: Uncovering Cultural Misunderstandings

The situation reached a critical point when the team leader, recognizing the tension, organized a casual gathering over beers. It was during this informal setting that the root cause of the discord was revealed: a mistranslated nickname that carried negative connotations in the local language, leading team members to harbor unwarranted fears and misconceptions about one of their own.

Gosia Smoleńska [07:00]:
"In our team's native language, the nickname had really bad connotations. They had created an image based on a nickname without understanding its true meaning."

Key Insights and Takeaways

From this experience, Gosia highlights several crucial lessons for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches:

1. The Importance of Cultural Sensitivity

Understanding and respecting cultural nuances is vital in diverse teams. A seemingly harmless nickname can have unintended negative implications, leading to misunderstandings and friction.

Gosia Smoleńska [09:27]:
"There was a lot of cultural differences among us, and we realized that Baltic countries are not as similar as we initially thought."

2. Facilitating Open Communication

Creating a safe space for team members to express their concerns and misunderstandings is essential. Retrospectives and casual interactions should encourage honesty and transparency to address underlying issues.

Vasco Duarte [09:40]:
"As Scrum Masters, we need to create the space for team members to talk to each other, to introduce themselves in a comfortable way, even if it might not always feel safe."

3. People Over Processes

Agile frameworks are merely tools to guide teams, but the success of any Agile implementation hinges on the people involved. Building a cohesive team requires emotional intelligence, empathy, and proactive efforts to foster trust and collaboration.

Gosia Smoleńska [10:25]:
"As individuals and as a group, building a team requires a lot of skills and willingness. It's not just about following the framework."

4. Adaptability of Agile Practices

Agile methodologies should be adapted to fit the unique dynamics of each team. Rigidly adhering to processes without considering the human element can hinder progress and team harmony.

Host Vasco Duarte [09:49]:
"It's not only the framework that we should go through. This framework is just a guidance and information on how to do things, but the people part is crucial."

Conclusion

Gosia Smoleńska's story serves as a powerful reminder that the human aspect of Agile practices cannot be overlooked. Effective Scrum Masters must prioritize building strong, empathetic teams and remain vigilant about cultural and interpersonal dynamics. By fostering open communication and understanding, Agile leaders can navigate and overcome the challenges that arise within diverse and distributed teams.

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Notable Quotes:

• Gosia Smoleńska [01:13]:
  "I started in a small startup with seven people. I was the only one not a programmer, so I had the opportunity to explore roles in QA automation, Python development, project management, and business analysis."

• Gosia Smoleńska [03:22]:
  "We couldn't go through any retrospective. Even sitting in the retrospective room was quiet. When you opened Slack, you'd see all the fights and unpleasant comments in code reviews."

• Vasco Duarte [09:49]:
  "It's not only the framework that we should go through. This framework is just a guidance and information on how to do things, but the people part is crucial."

• Gosia Smoleńska [10:25]:
  "As individuals and as a group, building a team requires a lot of skills and willingness. It's not just about following the framework."

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This episode offers invaluable lessons for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches aiming to build resilient and harmonious teams, especially in remote or culturally diverse settings. Gosia's experiences underline the significance of addressing human factors to successfully implement Agile methodologies.

Transcript

[Vasco Duart]

Hi, I'm your host, Vasco Duart. Welcome to the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast where we share tips and tricks from Scrum Masters around the world. Every day we bring you inspiring answers to important questions that all Scrum Masters.

[Host]

Face day after day. Hello everybody. Welcome to one more week of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast. And this week, joining us from the beautiful country of Poland is Gosia Smolenszka. Hey Goschia, welcome to the show.

[Gosia Smolenszka]

Hello. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

[Host]

So, gosh, pardon me. Has worked in IT since 2013, beginning in a small startup as a manual tester. She has explored many roles in qa, project management and of course, Scrum Mastery. Her passion lies in sharing agile knowledge and helping startups build agile cultures. She's experienced in Scrum, Kanban, Nexus, Lean, and also a certified professional Kanban trainer. So, Goshia, that was a short intro. Tell us a little bit more about yourself and how did you end up becoming a Scrum Master?

[Gosia Smolenszka]

Sure. So it's a long story because as you read, I started in a small startup, however from my university. I am a land measurer, so surveyor and I was studying mining and geology and I actually worked in the field in the coal mines and there was a time in the university I had to do some internship outside of the mine. So I did this internship in the small, small startup with seven people, seven other students. I was the only one not programmer. So I stayed there three years and I had opportunity to check all the roles I had. So to QA automation, to do the Python work, as a developer, to be a pm, to be a business analyst. And finally I started doing more and more PM work and then I was like, I don't know if it's something for me, but this is going into right direction. So right after that I found a job as a Scrum Master. This was my first Scrum Master position. I was the first Scrum Master in the company. So it was for both of us, first person in this role. And this is how it started. This is how I became a Scrum Master. I just started with the company who learned from me and I learned a lot in this company. I was there for more than three years. There were many opportunities to learn and yeah, this was really great starting for me.

[Host]

And it's quite interesting how many of us in this field have come from other areas of industry and business and I think you're the first mining student that I interview here on the podcast. But tell us Gosia, of course, when we are Starting out, there are things that go well, but there are also challenges. And today's failed Monday here on the podcast. So we want to explore one of those challenging, difficult stories that you went through. So tell us that story. Like, we'll go into the details and the takeaways later, but walk us through that story first.

[Gosia Smolenszka]

So I was in the team who worked in different locations. This was way before pandemic. This was when remote work was not fancy and remote work was not really up to date. And the team was, I think it was like five or seven people and they hated each other. We couldn't go through any retrospective. We even had situations that we were sitting in the retrospective and it was quiet. Whole retrospective was quiet. Then you open the slack and you see all the fights in the conversations. You see the comments and the code reviews like they are not nice. And then people doesn't want to speak. So I was figuring out what to do, what to do. We cannot bring it up on retrospective because no one speaks. We cannot bring it up in the code reviews because they will say, oh, it's just a comment. It's. It's nothing bad. So we got that money from the company and we actually went to the different location to the different country to visit part of our team. And we are there. We are coming to the office and we are like, hey, guys, oh, it's lunch time. Maybe we can go for lunch. Because we had long, long travel here. It would be really nice to eat something. No one answered. No one went with us for lunch. So we stayed up going alone with the office manager. He was just, oh, I will go with you. But it was like it was our first day there and it didn't felt right. We were not really happy about that.

[Host]

You definitely did not feel welcome for sure.

[Gosia Smolenszka]

Oh, yes, we didn't. Yeah. And the funny situation was that the office manager took us to the lunch to a nearby restaurant. We started eating and then the whole office, so the whole our team, because the office was only our team. So all of them just joined and they sat next to us, but not really on the same table. They were eating next to us, but they didn't spoke with us. So.

[Host]

Ouch.

[Gosia Smolenszka]

It was not cold.

[Host]

That was very cold.

[Gosia Smolenszka]

It was. And it was awkward. It was also awkward. We had no idea what to do. So we went back, we started some, some workshops because we've done it workshops. And it didn't went well. So it didn't went according to the goal. We didn't achieve any of the planned steps because the plan was to have some roadmap of, okay, what are we doing? Where are we going? What is the plan for this team? What is the strategy? We actually didn't hit any of the goal. And then in the afternoon, the boss of the company said, okay, so let's go for beers. I'm taking you for beers. Because he also felt this awkwardness of the situation and he wanted to do something. And finally, after a few drinks, they open up and they said that they were not sure what to expect. They were not sure who will come because of the nickname of one of the person in our team. So everyone in Poland knew this person by this nickname. And then it turns out that in the native language of our team members, the nickname had really bad connotations, and they were expecting some cycle joining their office.

[Host]

So they had created this whole image of that person being some kind of evil psycho just from the nickname. And they had not tried to ask, what does that mean in your language? Or they did not try to clarify or even communicate, hey, that nickname is not so good in our language. Could we just use another name? So they were just kind of creating this. I guess we could call it Image of a Dragon Coming to Eat Them.

[Gosia Smolenszka]

Exactly, exactly. And this is how it felt. Yeah, this is how it felt. And it was. The first reaction for us was to laugh because we had no idea what to do. But then the day after, we were able to go to some consensus. So the day after we actually did the retrospective, and we were like, hey, you said that maybe we should speak about that maybe we should speak about what is going on. This discussion didn't fix all the problems. This discussion didn't fix the team itself. And after all, after six months, the company decided to split the team for different. To mix them with different people. However, we did try, and we did end up with having some kind of understanding of what is going on, why the situation is like this. And actually, it was a lot of cultural differences among us, and we had no idea because it was all Baltic countries. So we thought, all Baltic countries are really similar, and they are not.

[Host]

Yeah. So one of the cool things about this sad story in the end is that it highlights in a very graphical way how people create stories about each other without any or almost any information. In this case, just a nickname. Right. And what I was thinking about is that for us as Scrum masters, we need to be especially sensitive to this type of expectations and create the space for team members to talk to each other, to introduce themselves to each other in a let's call it at least comfortable way, even if it might not always feel safe. Because of course the poor person who had the difficult nickname, they wouldn't know about it because they didn't know what that nickname meant in the other language.

[Gosia Smolenszka]

Yeah, yeah, that is true. And also as a Scrum Masters, we need to remember that it's not only the framework that we should go through. This framework is just a guidance and I think an information how to do things but. Or what to do but actually the whole part of us being in the team is people part. And no one teach you that.

[Host]

Yeah. I'm reminded of a book that just recently came out, Shift from Product to People. And there's a lot of personal anecdotes about relationships and how those develop in that book as well. It's a fiction book about agile transformation, so check it out if you're interested. The link will be in the. In the show notes. But. But one of the things that is really important, which you just said, is that we need to recognize that no matter what process we're using, it's the people who make it succeed in the end.

[Gosia Smolenszka]

Yeah, that's true. And it's not like people, but I. As individuals, as people, as a group, as people, as a dynamic, as one team. Maybe it's easy to say team, but actually to build a team, you need to have a lot of skills and willingness.

[Host]

Yeah. To build a team, you have to have a lot of skills. Indeed. Very well said, Gosia. Thank you for sharing that story.

[Gosia Smolenszka]

Thank you.

[Vasco Duart]

Monday is about what we learn from our obstacles and our failures. But tomorrow is Team Tuesday. Here on the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast, we explore teams and their journeys, the habits they develop that threaten their performance, how each of our guests help their teams evolve, and the one key lesson they learned from that experience. We really hope you liked our show, and if you did, why not rate this podcast on Stitcher or itunes? Share this podcast and let other Scrum Masters know about this valuable resource for their work. Remember that sharing is caring.