Dual Focus, Balancing Agile Team Health with Value Delivery | Chris Sims

Summary

Episode Summary: Dual Focus, Balancing Agile Team Health with Value Delivery | Chris Sims

In this enlightening episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte engages in a deep conversation with Chris Sims, an experienced Agile Coach, to explore the delicate balance between fostering a healthy Agile team environment and ensuring the delivery of value. Released on April 24, 2025, this episode delves into practical strategies, insightful anecdotes, and actionable advice aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches.

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Introduction to Agile Success

Vasco Duarte sets the stage by emphasizing the importance of real-life Agile success stories. He introduces the upcoming Global Agile Summit, highlighting its role in combating Agile fatigue by presenting actionable insights from global Agile practitioners. This episode serves as a precursor, promising listeners valuable takeaways before delving into the main discussion with Chris Sims.

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Favorite Agile Retrospective Format: The Dixit Retrospective

[01:14] Host: "So let's continue the conversation then. Hopefully it will be even more enjoyable today as we need to tackle the big question of the week. Of course, what success means. But before we dive into that, share with us what is your favorite Agile retrospective format and why?"

[01:30] Chris Sims: Chris reveals his preferred retrospective format inspired by the game Dixit. He explains, "It's just the Dixit retrospective. So if people do a web search for Dixit retrospective, I'm willing to bet it will come right up."

Key Insights:

• Engagement through Visuals: The Dixit retrospective leverages the game's vivid imagery to stimulate discussion, making retrospectives more engaging.
• Inclusivity for Introverts: By incorporating visual and written elements, this format provides a platform for quieter team members to contribute thoughtfully.
• Encouraging Diverse Perspectives: Using pictures allows team members to express their experiences creatively, fostering a richer dialogue.

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Defining Success as a Scrum Master

[03:20] Host: "So, Chris, share with us. What is success for you as a Scrum Master?"

[03:20] Chris Sims: "Success for me really comes down to kind of two factors for me. One is creating a healthier, happier work environment, and number two is creating more value. At the end of the day, I think those are the two things that really matter."

Key Points:

1. Healthy Work Environment: Prioritizing team well-being and fostering a positive, collaborative atmosphere.
2. Value Delivery: Ensuring that the team consistently delivers meaningful value to stakeholders.

Chris emphasizes that Agile tools like Scrum are only effective if they contribute to these core objectives.

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Measuring Team Health and Value Delivery

[04:20] Host: "When you think about Scrum Masters reflecting on their work... how do you help Scrum Masters these days to understand what that means, maybe translate it to their context and then also keeping themselves accountable?"

[04:20] Chris Sims: Chris discusses qualitative measures for assessing team health, such as regular surveys and tracking team members' growth and collaboration levels.

Notable Quote:

"How often in the past week did you ask a teammate for help?" [06:39]

Strategies:

• Regular Surveys: Implementing periodic surveys to gauge team sentiment and well-being.
• Monitoring Collaboration: Tracking instances of team members seeking and offering help to assess collaborative efforts.
• Evaluating Daily Scrums: Ensuring that daily stand-ups are used for collaborative problem-solving rather than mere status updates.

Value Measurement: Chris critiques the overemphasis on velocity as a metric and advocates for focusing on the actual impact of delivered work.

[06:40] Chris Sims: "Often we're measuring the wrong stuff... My favorite slash, least favorite is velocity."

Anecdote: Chris shares a story illustrating the pitfalls of measuring what’s easy versus what’s meaningful, likening it to searching for lost keys under a streetlight because the light is better.

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Enhancing Stakeholder Engagement and Feedback Loops

[09:59] Chris Sims: Chris highlights the importance of involving stakeholders in Sprint Reviews to create a robust feedback loop.

Key Practices:

• Stakeholder Involvement: Engaging stakeholders directly in Sprint Reviews to gather immediate and relevant feedback.
• Impact Sharing: Encouraging stakeholders to share how delivered features impact their work, fostering a sense of ownership and satisfaction among team members.

Anecdote: Chris recounts a project with a large company managing retirement accounts. By involving frontline users in Sprint Reviews, the team received direct feedback, leading to higher user satisfaction and improved team morale.

[12:29] Chris Sims: "Few things help people feel more satisfied in their work than hearing from the people who are benefiting from the work."

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Conclusion and Takeaways

Vasco thanks Chris for his insightful contributions, reinforcing the episode's focus on balancing team health with value delivery. He reiterates the importance of real-world Agile success stories and promotes the Global Agile Summit as a venue for further learning and inspiration.

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Global Agile Summit Promotion

While not part of the core content, Vasco provides detailed information about the upcoming Global Agile Summit in Tallinn, Estonia. The event promises sessions from renowned Agile thought leaders, covering diverse topics such as AI in leadership, unconventional product growth strategies, and advanced engineering practices. This promotion underscores the podcast's commitment to continuous learning and community building within the Agile ecosystem.

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Key Takeaways:

• Balanced Focus: Successful Scrum Masters prioritize both team well-being and value delivery.
• Effective Retrospectives: Innovative retrospective formats like the Dixit Retrospective can enhance engagement and inclusivity.
• Meaningful Metrics: Shift focus from easily measurable but superficial metrics (like velocity) to those that truly reflect team health and value impact.
• Stakeholder Collaboration: Active involvement of stakeholders in feedback processes leads to better alignment and increased satisfaction.
• Continuous Improvement: Embrace real-world stories and community events, such as the Global Agile Summit, to stay inspired and informed.

This episode serves as a valuable resource for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches seeking to refine their practices and achieve a harmonious balance between nurturing their teams and delivering impactful value.

Transcript

[Host]

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 those who've done it. 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. Hello everybody. Welcome to our success Thursday and this week we have with us Chris Sims. Hey Chris, welcome back.

[Chris Sims]

It's great to be back. I've been really enjoying this.

[Host]

So let's continue the conversation then. Hopefully it will be even more enjoyable today as we need to tackle the big question of the week. Of course, what success means. But before we dive into that, share with us what is your favorite Agile retrospective format and why?

[Chris Sims]

So my favorite retrospective format, kind of like my favorite book, is a little self serving. A bunch of years ago we got inspired at Agile Learning Labs to create a retrospective format or structure out of the game Dixit. Dixit is a game that has these very interesting drawings or pictures and then you play the game with those pictures and we made a retrospective out of it, essentially where people take turns picking a picture that represented some aspect of, you know, the sprint that just happened or whatever time period you're retrospecting on and really have ended up liking it. Having good good luck with it, in part because it gets people engaging in a different way, right. Visually, there's a writing aspect to it as well, and it gives time for people who aren't extroverts to think, which I've learned is really important because if you, if you just use approaches that are very talk based, then people like me who talk a lot tend to dominate the conversation. But that doesn't mean we're the smartest person in the room, right? Very often we are not.

[Host]

So and how do you call this retro format?

[Chris Sims]

It's just the Dixit retrospective. So if people do a web search for Dixit retrospective, I'm willing to bet it will come right Up.

[Host]

All right, we'll put the link in the show notes to make sure that people do get it easily and learn more about it. But of course, today is Thursday and we're going to talk about success as it is the key question for us as we self, as we reflect and improve ourselves. So, Chris, share with us. What is success for you as a Scrum Master?

[Chris Sims]

So success for me really comes down to kind of two factors for me. One is creating a healthier, happier work environment, and number two is creating more value. At the end of the day, I think those are the two things that really matter. And I think the tools that we use, like Scrum, for example, really only have value if they help us accomplish those things. Right? Creating a healthier, happier work environment and helping us create more value.

[Host]

When you think about Scrum Masters reflecting on their work, maybe looking at certain things, signs, metrics, insights that tell them if we are moving in that direction, like, how do you help Scrum Masters these days to understand what that means, maybe translate it to their context and then also keeping themselves accountable?

[Chris Sims]

Yeah, I think in terms of the happier, healthier work environment, there are qualitative things you can measure, you can do, you know, surveys of the team and things like that to get a sense of, like, how are people feeling about that? You can be monitoring their growth and development, right. Are people learning new skills? Are they doing new things? Are they contributing in new ways? There are some interesting questions that you can ask the team over time and watch the data. One of my favorite, favorite, which actually was a friend of mine, Luellen Falco, who turned me on to this one, and I really love it, is asking team members on a somewhat regular basis so you can look at the data. How often in the past week or whatever time period did you ask a teammate for help? And I really love that one because, you know, my initial instinct would be to ask, oh, how often in the last week have you helped a teammate? Right. People are likely to be like, oh, yeah, helped lots of people, whatever. But I think asking how often you asked for help speaks more to the culture and I think might even get you better data about, like, how much collaboration is going on. You can also monitor, like, oh, what's going on at our daily Scrum. Is it a status meeting where people are just sharing, I did this today, I'll do that. Right. Or is it collaborative problem solving? Right. Where together we're working out, like, what would be the best work plan for the day? So those are all ways I think we can kind of monitor and measure and start to track, like, you know, healthy, happy environment. The second thing, the value aspect is really interesting because I think in the workplace, all too often we're measuring the wrong stuff, and it drives a bunch of bad behaviors and, oh, goodness, do I have time for this joke?

[Host]

Maybe.

[Chris Sims]

Okay, so there's a little funny story that illustrates this. So there's a young couple kind of walking home from the bars one night, and they encounter an older gentleman, obviously very intoxicated, and he's crawling around kind of in the gutter under a street light. And so they cautiously approach, and they're like, sir, sir, is everything okay? Do you need some help? And the intoxicated man says, I lost my keys. And they're like, oh, we'll help you, right? And so they start looking, and they're looking and they're looking, and eventually they become pretty sure there are no keys in this area. And so they come back to him and they say, sir, are you sure this is where you lost your keys? He says, oh, no, I lost them back in the alley. And they're like, well, why are we looking here under the street light? He says, because the light is better. And I think we do this in the workplace a lot where we measure things that are easy to measure, but they're kind of meaningless. And my favorite slash, least favorite is velocity. Right? I still see this, like, hyper focus on velocity as a metric and people touting how many story points were done. But story points are meaningless, right? No stakeholder wants story points, right? They want their stuff. They want the value.

[Host]

Unless you call them ideal team days. Go check the Tuesday episode for that. Then they really care about that.

[Chris Sims]

Yeah, I suppose. I suppose so. Finding things to get stakeholders and team members focused on that are healthier. So things like how often are we delivering stuff, meaningful stuff, to our stakeholders, Focusing on how frequently do we deliver, Focusing on the value of what we're delivering. There are techniques for business value estimation that I find very useful and helpful. I'll share a link with you where folks can, you know, peruse some of those techniques. But fundamentally, like, it's a way of getting stakeholders involved so that they can help estimate the value of things so that we can show that we're delivering the stuff that was identified as more valuable by the stakeholders. And then after we deliver, there are techniques we can use to actually measure the value. Right? Like, how successful were the things that we delivered? Right. Are we getting data that's showing us, hey, we really are delivering the right things and getting More of a focus on that is really, really useful because it shifts people's focus from how much are we doing to like, what's the impact of what we're doing? And that's way more important.

[Host]

So beyond the Sprint Review and involving the right people, like stakeholders, maybe customer representatives in the Sprint Review, what other ways have you found are useful to create that feedback cycle about? Is what we are delivering really impactful?

[Chris Sims]

I found that getting stakeholders more involved with Sprint Review is vital. And both getting their, their initial feedback on what we produce this Sprint, right. And having conversations about that, making discoveries based on that about things we want to change, getting them involved in conversations about the product backlog, like, hey, here are the things that are coming up. Are these the right things? Do we have a really good understanding of these things? These are all great conversations for Sprint Review, but then beyond that, looking farther back and getting stakeholders to share the impact of things that we delivered. You know, not this Sprint, but several Sprints ago, there was a group down in Texas at a big, well known company that manages lots of people's retirement accounts. And we were working with a team that built all of the software that the support people used. So when you would call up and have questions about your retirement account, the people you were talking to were using this software package as they were working with you. And despite the fact that those people, the support people and the folks developing all of the products that they used were on the same campus, they almost never spoke. And so one of the things that we got them to do was a couple of weeks after each kind of release of the software internally, at the next set of Sprint reviews, they would bring in kind of a random sampling of folks from the front line, right? Folks who are using the software and just get them to share their stories of how did the new release affect them. Right. What are the things that made a really positive impact? What are the things that are really annoying? And by getting that loop closed, the teams became much more responsive to the actual needs of the people. The users became much happier and more satisfied because they felt like, oh, this isn't just happening to us, like we have a say in it. And it turns out in terms of morale, it was a huge win for the team members because few things help people feel more satisfied in their work than hearing from the people who are benefiting from the work. Absolutely. Seeing that the work has impact.

[Host]

And there's so many stories like that that people get to meet each other and then they get incredible insights that would have been so easy to get had they talked to each other before. Great story. Thank you for sharing that, Chris.

[Chris Sims]

You're welcome. Happy to talk with you.

[Host]

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. Agile fatigue is that feeling that settles in when we can't really see a light at the end of the tunnel. We get discouraged, especially when conversations revolve around the same old frameworks, the same old buzzwords and theories. We don't feel that energy anymore. 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 Tali Nestoni 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 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 Adsic, who's taking an unconventional look at product growth with his Lizard Optimization keynote. Other speakers include, for example 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 negotiation? How Agile is that? 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 Svendit'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 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 [e-mail] I'm really looking forward to seeing you all in Tallinn, Estonia in May. I'll see you there.