Podcast Host (5:57)

And the real cool thing about this story is that of course, as a Scrum Master, a lot of what we need to do is exactly what you did to get to that point, which is to sow the seeds, to talk to people, to understand what their needs are. But it isn't always an easy job to be a Scrum Master. Sometimes we, we do bump our heads against the proverbial wall, as they say. And today's Monday Fail Monday here on the podcast. So we want to explore one of those stories. Simina, share a story of how you faced the Scrum Master role and perhaps had, I don't know, a failure, a difficulty, a challenge, something that was hard in that role. And walk us through that story. We'll take the takeaways later, but first, walk us through that story.

Simina Fodor (6:43)

Sure. It was one of the most interesting experience I've had so far. So I have a lot of experience in the corporate settings type of scenario. I spent most of my career in corporate settings in one role or another, not necessarily a Scrum Master or a pm. And at some point in time I was given an opportunity to join a startup. So this was a really interesting opportunity for me because I pretty much almost never say no to change and interesting things. So I'm driven by challenge, but I think most Scrum Masters and Agile folks are. So I basically want full force into it because I had the feeling that all of my corporate experience along the way would help me. So I had the whole toolbox. I had all of my information, all of my vocabulary, all of my experience. And I went in thinking that this is something that I could do. I mean, these people only need structure. It's a team that's fresh. I get to influence it. I get to implement processes, I get to work through strategy to the actual product vision. But I got it all wrong. So it was a start.

Podcast Host (7:49)

So tell us a little bit more. So you went in with a lot of motivation and energy and a lot of ideas, and then you say I got it all wrong. But what was happening? Like what were the things, how was the organization and the people around you reacting what were you trying? How did it go?

Simina Fodor (8:07)

I went full force in, and I wasn't that patient looking in, in retrospective, meaning that I was expecting. I was comparing my experience to the experience of a corporate setting where you would have more mature teams, teams that are already performing. And we had no roles defined. There weren't any metrics, there weren't any events, any meetings. We were still hiring people. While we were discovering things about the product, we were actually changing things along the way, like week by week. And I basically tried to scale up way too fast. Rather than starting small and listening to people and going through that discovery phase, I went in full force thinking that I knew better.

Podcast Host (8:51)

By going in full force, you say you started telling them what roles to have, exactly what meetings to have, how to manage their backlogs, like, is that what you mean?

Simina Fodor (9:01)

Yes. And we were doing so just to give you a little bit more context in terms of the people that were part of the Scrum team. We had developers that were really young and haven't interacted with the Scrum Master before, so they didn't know anything about the role. People that maybe have never been into a retrospective or did planning. I even introduced planning poker, which is a total failure when you tell people about story points. I went in thinking that I had assumptions, thinking that people knew about Agile, they knew about the framework, they knew what we were already doing in terms of all of the days in and days out, rather than maybe starting with a workshop, presenting them what agile is. What's the difference between a product owner and a Scrum Master, how the team should react to change. What's the difference maybe between waterfall, traditional waterfall and Scrum and more agile approaches. So I did everything wrong. Everything that you can think of, I did it wrong. But I learned.

Podcast Host (10:03)

So if I understand you correctly, there were two things kind of going full force and maybe too fast for what people were ready for. But it sounds to me that you're also saying that you were actually putting a lot of expectations on them, right? Like, even though they were new, they were just starting. Some developers were juniors, some were not familiar with Scrum. You were still kind of implicitly expecting them to understand what the sprint planning is, what retrospectives are and all of that, right?

Simina Fodor (10:36)

Yes. Yes. So that was the mistake number one that I did. I should have talked to people beforehand, I should have talked about expectations, I should have tried to observe things. Rather than going in full force with all of the meetings and all of the documentation and everything that we did, I should have spent more time in that discovery phase that I was mentioning about, and the thing that actually got to me in this whole experience is the original idea that I got from the founders, from the leadership team was that we needed speed. So it was a startup, they needed to react, to change like really fast from one me to another to keep the product competitive. Especially being a startup of having a really tight budget for everything. And that was the thing that basically resonated with me each morning. We have to have speed. We have to be able to deliver, like really, really fast. So rather than building the team first, I went into full delivery mode. Way too fast.

Podcast Host (11:33)

Yeah. And that's also a very important kind of realization and takeaway for our audience that as Scrum masters, we need to understand that it's the team that is going to build the product. And if we try to build the product without building the team, we're kind of doing things in the wrong order.

Simina Fodor (11:50)

Yep, definitely.

Podcast Host (11:53)

That's a great story. Thank you for sharing that, Simina.

Simina Fodor (11:56)

Sure.

Host (11:59)

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 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 Adsic, who's taking an unconventional look at Product Growth with his Lizard Optimization keynote. Other speakers include, for example 6 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.

Podcast Host (15:08)

Literally.

Host (15:08)

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@globalagilesummit.com I'm really looking forward to seeing you all in Tallinn, Estonia in May. I'll see you there.

Podcast Host (16:37)

Sam.