Context Diagramming, Helping Agile Teams See Their Complex Communication Network | Zvonimir Durcevic

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches
Episode: Context Diagramming, Helping Agile Teams See Their Complex Communication Network
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Zvonimir Durcevic (Tsvone)
Release Date: April 1, 2025

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte welcomes back Zvonimir Durcevic, affectionately known as Tsvone. The discussion delves into the challenges agile teams face when their internal dynamics inadvertently create barriers with external stakeholders. Tsvone shares a compelling real-world story and introduces the powerful tool of context diagramming to help teams navigate complex communication networks.

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Inspiration from Literature

The conversation begins with Vasco asking Tsvone about the book that most inspired him in his role as a Scrum Master. Tsvone cites "Agile Transformation: Using the Integral Agile Transformation Framework to Think and Lead Differently" by Michael Spade and Michelle Mador as a pivotal influence.

Tsvone [01:29]: "The book that really inspired me a lot is from Michael Spade and Michelle Mador. It's Agile Transformation, using the Integral Agile Transformation Framework to think and lead differently."

Tsvone emphasizes the importance of viewing systems through multiple lenses to grasp their inherent complexity. He explains how this framework aids not only in personal growth as an Agile coach but also facilitates meaningful dialogues within teams.

Tsvone [01:56]: "Key lessons how to look at systems, how to use different lenses to go deeper into the complexity of systems... focusing from these different perspectives can really give new insights."

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Identifying Team Challenges

Shifting focus to team dynamics, Vasco prompts Tsvone to recount a scenario where a team's internal harmony masked deeper communication issues with external stakeholders. Tsvone describes working with a five-member team responsible for developing crucial internal products for their organization.

Tsvone [04:36]: "I worked with a team of five people developing important products for the organization. They had great internal interactions but lacked effective communication with stakeholders outside their immediate group."

Despite the team's satisfaction with their internal processes and consistent delivery, Tsvone observed a decline in their organizational visibility and perception. The team recognized that while they were fulfilling their primary goal of product delivery, their detached communication approach was painting them as "difficult teams" within the broader organization.

Tsvone [07:16]: "They noticed that their visibility and perception in the organization was going down. People saw them as not transparent enough and difficult to engage with."

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Introducing Context Diagramming

To address these challenges, Tsvone introduced context diagramming—a strategic tool designed to map out a team's relationships, dependencies, and the broader impact of their products on customers and stakeholders.

Tsvone [08:18]: "Context diagramming is a really simple and very powerful tool to map out the team's relationships, dependencies, and the product's impact on customers and stakeholders."

Using a whiteboard, the team placed themselves at the center and charted their interactions with various stakeholders and systems, both within and outside the organization. This visual representation highlighted the intricate web of communications and dependencies they maintained.

Tsvone [09:00]: "We started building a context of this team within this organization and also outside of the organization. We indicated how much communication they have, where the problems were, and what the inputs and outputs were."

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Revelations and Strategic Adjustments

The completed context diagram served as an eye-opener for the team, revealing the extensive complexity of their communication network. They realized that their initial response—creating a communication bubble—was an unconscious attempt to manage this complexity by reducing the number of interactions.

Tsvone [10:21]: "They realized that cutting off connections was not the answer. Instead, they needed to address the complexity head-on."

Adopting a strategic approach, the team decided to rebuild their stakeholder relationships incrementally, focusing on one stakeholder at a time. This methodical progression allowed them to re-establish trust and improve communication without becoming overwhelmed by the system's full complexity.

Tsvone [10:25]: "We started focusing on one stakeholder at a time, taking small steps to reestablish these communications."

The context diagram was not only transformative for the team but also impressed the stakeholders, fostering a mutual understanding of the team's challenges and the broader organizational context.

Tsvone [12:25]: "Stakeholders saw the context diagram and realized how complex our situation was. It was an eye-opener for the entire organization."

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Key Takeaways

• Context Diagramming as a Tool: Visualizing team relationships and dependencies can uncover hidden complexities and communication barriers.

• Incremental Relationship Building: Addressing stakeholder communication one relationship at a time prevents teams from feeling overwhelmed and allows for sustainable improvement.

• Holistic Perspective: Understanding the multifaceted nature of organizational dynamics enables teams to navigate and adapt more effectively.

Vasco [13:02]: "It's a powerful idea to visualize the complexity around us because it helps us manage that complexity deliberately."

Tsvone's insightful story underscores the significance of strategic communication and systemic thinking in agile environments. By employing context diagramming, teams can break out of self-imposed silos and foster more transparent, effective interactions with their stakeholders.

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Conclusion

This episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast offers valuable lessons on overcoming internal communication challenges through strategic visualization and incremental relationship-building. Tsvone's experiences and methodologies provide actionable insights for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches striving to enhance their teams' effectiveness and organizational integration.

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Listen to the full episode here to gain deeper insights into agile storytelling and effective team management strategies.

Transcript

[Vasco]

Have you ever wondered what it really.

[Unknown]

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.

[Vasco]

Those who've done it.

[Unknown]

They'll be telling their own stories from the stage. I'll tell you more about this at the end of this episode. 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.

[Vasco]

Hello everybody. Welcome to our Team Tuesday. This week we have with us Tsvonimir Dursevich, also known as Tsvone. Hey Tsvone, welcome back.

[Tsvonimir Dursevich]

Hi Vasco.

[Vasco]

So Tuesday is of course Team Tuesday and we'll talk about teams and how sometimes they become their own worst enemies in a second. But before that, Svone share with us what was the book that most inspired you as a SCRUM Master?

[Tsvonimir Dursevich]

Thank you Vasco for this great question. The book that really inspired me a lot is from Michael Spade and Michelle Mador. It's Agile Transformation, using the Integral Agile Transformation Framework to think and lead differently.

[Vasco]

So what were the key lessons that you got from that book that you still carry with you?

[Tsvonimir Dursevich]

Key lessons how to look, how to look at systems, how to how to use different lenses to go deeper in the complexity of systems and especially these lenses or different perspectives that we can take into understanding what is going on. Is it a team? Is it a part of the organization department or even the whole organization? Through focusing from these different perspectives can really give new insights. And not only for me as a SCRUM Master Agile coach, but also for the team. I also used the Integral Agile Transformation Framework and these different quadrants as a tool to talk with the team about different aspects of how do they function, where they are now with their, let's say, looking at problems in the middle. If you put the problem in the middle of the map, what different perspectives can tell us about this problem? For example, what are some behaviors that we noticed? What are, for example, maybe organizational policies or structures that influence the problem? What are the cultural influences and the problem? So this is a really good tool to help us as spammesters and Digital coaches, but also teams to have a dialogue about what is currently happening in.

[Vasco]

The team Integral Agile Transformation Framework. We'll put the link in the show notes as well as to the book, of course, make sure that people can find it. That's a great recommendation. Thank you for that, Svane. So now we turn our attention to teams and how sometimes they create their own problems and the problems can really escalate. Of course.

[Unknown]

So tell us the story of a team.

[Vasco]

You work with them, like, what was the context, how big they were, so that we understand a little bit where the story comes from. And then walk us through those small behaviors or approaches that the team took that eventually created problems for them.

[Tsvonimir Dursevich]

Yeah. Thank you, Oscar. So I worked for a while with the team. It was five people in the team developing important products for the organization, internal product for the organization. And one of the problems that I noticed started working with them is that they had a really good interaction in the team, but they didn't notice a lot of interactions with stakeholders, like with the external, with the rest of the organization. And I started talking with stakeholders and I noticed that they also didn't have a good communication with the team. So there was kind of, you know, first I noticed, okay, the team is delivering, the team is satisfied, how they communicate in the team. But I noticed that they were kind of, they were building like a bubble.

[Unknown]

Was the team aware or were they.

[Vasco]

Did they think that. No, no, everything is fine and we're talking enough with the stakeholders. Like, how are they looking at that?

[Tsvonimir Dursevich]

No, no, they knew. And they also told me that this communication with the stakeholders was kind of cut off. They were aware of it. What they said is that it should be enough that they deliver a good product. So they were really experts in the field, they were really good at delivering and they had a good communication with what we could call a product owner, somebody who was, who was basically delivering the requirements that the organization needs for them to deliver. So if you look at that each team has a purpose and that this purpose is being fulfilled is very important for the team. Of course they were fulfilling their purpose because they were delivering. And they knew that they had problems with the stakeholders. And with time, they noticed that their visibility and perception in the organization was going down. So they not.

[Vasco]

So they started to realize that the organization did not look at them as like, great professionals. They look at them maybe as not transparent enough, not engaged enough, whatever that might be.

[Tsvonimir Dursevich]

Right, exactly, exactly. Kind of, you know, like kind of difficult teams. Okay, so the teams that they are delivering, but they're difficult to have a good communication with. It's not easy to get information from them. It's not easy to ask questions or ask difficult questions. So this is where I came in and had of course, different interviews, different assessment points in the organization. The most important thing that we did or I did with this team was context diagramming.

[Vasco]

Explain that to us.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Vasco]

What is context diagramming?

[Tsvonimir Dursevich]

It's a really simple and very powerful tool to map out the team's relationships, dependencies, and what if the product impact on customers and stakeholders. Basically what you do is you put the team or the product in the middle. We took one whiteboard, we put the team in the middle and said, okay, so with whom do you communicate or need to communicate? And we started putting different names of persons, also teams, also some systems they needed to provide information for different systems. So we started building a context of this team within this organization and also outside of the organization. They were building internal products. So they were mainly communicating with different stakeholders and systems within the organization. We started putting relationship lines between the team and the stakeholders and systems. We indicated how much communication they have, where are the problems, which communication relationships they have problem with, what were the problems? What were kind of input and outputs. So when we finished this, all of a sudden they realized how complex their world is. And it's not only that, yeah, they built the bubble, but it was basically a reaction on the immense complexity that they were dealing with. So what kind of unconsciously they did is they tried to reduce the complexity, complexity, just cutting off the relationships, the connections.

[Vasco]

And did they realize that, was that like a conclusion they came up with?

[Tsvonimir Dursevich]

Yeah, they said to me, oh gosh, look how, how complex our, our world is and how complex our communications and relationships are. And this was this for me, it was kind of, you know, I always say there are some wake up moments. And I think this was for this team. They realized that cutting off the connection, the relationship is not the answer. We started a conversation about what could be approach that could help them to reestablish these communications. And well, we just said, I think focusing is one of the most important thing. And we just started focusing on one stakeholder at a time and say, okay, for now it's important that we, that we re establish the connection with this stakeholder then with this stakeholder. And it was these small steps that they did. It was not, it was not easy because some of these relationships were, well, basically damaged. But they could do this step to stage.

[Vasco]

Absolutely. And I really like that approach of just taking one stakeholder at a time. Because it's very easy to think, okay, now we need to work on this whole picture. But it isn't like that. Right. Like when we naturally grow relationships with the people and the stakeholders around the team, we do it one by one. We don't do it all at the same time. Right. Like it's one meeting, one conversation, one presentation, whatever that might be. And it's a really useful kind of mental model to think about. Okay, this is how it looks in its full complexity. But we can't work with the full complexity we already know because we started breaking off some of those relationships. So let's step back and take one at a time. What's the next most important stakeholder or team to involve in how we work?

[Tsvonimir Dursevich]

Exactly. And you know what happened is they started showing this context telegram to other people in the organization, to the stakeholders. And then the stakeholders said, oh, wow, you have really a complex situation. Your kind of context, your systemic view is really big. And this is where they started to understand their situation. So we had kind of, you know, it was not only an eye opener for the team, it was and eye open also for the rest of the organization.

[Vasco]

Yeah, it's a really powerful idea to have in mind either through this context diagramming or some other way to visualize the complexity around us because it really helps us to be deliberate and careful about managing that complexity. Right. Like the complexity isn't going away, but we can, once we see it, we can tackle it explicitly and deliberately.

[Tsvonimir Dursevich]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[Vasco]

Great story. Thank you for sharing that, Svane.

[Tsvonimir Dursevich]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Unknown]

Hey friend, thank you for staying here.

[Vasco]

Is all you need to know about.

[Unknown]

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[Vasco]

Around the same old frameworks, the same.

[Unknown]

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