How A Product Cancellation Tests a New Scrum Master's Growth | Season Hughes

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode: How A Product Cancellation Tests a New Scrum Master's Growth
Guest: Susan Hughes
Release Date: February 24, 2025
Host: Vasco Duarte, Agile Coach, Certified Scrum Master, Certified Product Owner

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte welcomes Susan Hughes from Las Vegas to discuss her journey as a Scrum Master, particularly focusing on how she navigated the challenging scenario of a product cancellation early in her career. This episode delves deep into the real-life experiences of Scrum Masters, offering valuable insights and actionable advice for both novices and seasoned professionals.

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Guest Background: Susan Hughes

Susan Hughes shares her path to becoming a Scrum Master, highlighting her organizational skills and passion for collaboration. Her journey began unexpectedly when a manager at Amazon placed a book titled A Breathtakingly Brief Agile Introduction on her desk in 2012. Although she had been involved with Scrum teams in the tech industry, it wasn't until 2018, during her tenure at Atlassian—a company renowned for Jira—that she fully embraced the Scrum Master role. Susan recounts how her skills in training and fostering collaboration led her to her first Scrum Master position, coinciding with her Certified Scrum Master (CSM) certification.

Notable Quote:

"I was just. I've always been a very organized person. I've been very good at giving training and encouraging collaboration." — Susan Hughes [03:26]

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Early Challenges and Initial Failures

Vasco Duarte prompts Susan to reflect on her initial struggles as a Scrum Master, emphasizing the importance of sharing stories of failure for communal growth. Susan candidly discusses the constant learning curve, admitting that every day presents new challenges and mistakes. These experiences, though daunting, serve as opportunities for personal and professional development.

Notable Quote:

"I'm still Discovering, and I'm still making mistakes. That's why it's really hard to answer this question." — Susan Hughes [05:35]

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The Defunding of a Project: A Pivotal Moment

One of the most significant challenges Susan faced was during her second Scrum Master role, where she encountered the abrupt defunding and disbandment of a project she was overseeing. Newly appointed and with only a year of Scrum Master experience, Susan found herself in a precarious position, seeking to support a team grappling with the sudden termination of their project.

Key Points:

• Team’s Reaction: The team’s disengagement was evident when they stopped attending Daily Scrums following the project defunding.
• Scrum Master's Dilemma: Susan struggled with balancing adherence to Scrum practices with the immediate needs of her disheartened team.
• Retrospective Session: In a final retrospective, Susan pivoted the focus from traditional sprint reviews to addressing the team’s emotions and lessons learned, despite there being no subsequent sprint.

Notable Quote:

"What can we try that might be able to meet those needs. Things like meeting people individually in one on ones and just talking about like, hey, how you feeling?" — Susan Hughes [13:45]

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Lessons Learned and Growth

This challenging experience underscored the critical role of empathy and adaptability in Scrum Mastery. Susan emphasizes that the essence of being a Scrum Master lies in supporting the team members rather than rigidly enforcing processes. She learned to prioritize the well-being and emotional states of her team, recognizing that people drive the success of Agile methodologies.

Notable Quote:

"Our job is not to somehow make the team work. Our job is to help the people within the team because it is them who make the team work." — Vasco Duarte [11:03]

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Practical Advice for Scrum Masters

Drawing from her experiences, Susan offers actionable advice for Scrum Masters facing similar challenges:

1. Focus on People Over Processes: Prioritize understanding and supporting team members’ needs.
2. Adapt Retrospectives: Modify traditional retrospective questions to suit the current context, especially when standard frameworks may not apply.
3. One-on-One Meetings: Engage in individual conversations to gauge team members' feelings and aspirations.
4. Embrace Coaching Techniques: Develop coaching skills to better support and empower the team.
5. Continuous Learning: Invest in personal growth through reading, practicing new techniques, and learning from each unique situation.

Notable Quote:

"You will only get to, I guess those next levels are beyond what is Scrum through practice and through having these really challenging opportunities where maybe you were just doing the best that you could." — Susan Hughes [12:07]

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Conclusion

Susan Hughes’ story is a testament to the resilience and adaptability required to excel as a Scrum Master. Her ability to transform a potential failure into a learning opportunity provides invaluable lessons for Agile practitioners. By focusing on the human element and continuously refining her approach, Susan exemplifies the essence of servant leadership in Agile environments.

Vasco Duarte wraps up the episode by encouraging listeners to embrace their unique experiences and share them within the community to foster collective growth and improvement.

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Stay Connected:

For more insightful episodes and to enhance your Scrum Mastery, stay tuned to the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast. Engage with the community, share your stories, and continue your journey of growth and excellence in Agile practices.

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Notable Quotes Summary:

• Susan Hughes [03:26]: "I've always been a very organized person. I've been very good at giving training and encouraging collaboration."
• Susan Hughes [05:35]: "I'm still Discovering, and I'm still making mistakes. That's why it's really hard to answer this question."
• Vasco Duarte [11:03]: "Our job is not to somehow make the team work. Our job is to help the people within the team because it is them who make the team work."
• Susan Hughes [12:07]: "You will only get to, I guess those next levels are beyond what is Scrum through practice and through having these really challenging opportunities..."
• Susan Hughes [13:45]: "What can we try that might be able to meet those needs. Things like meeting people individually in one on ones..."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the essence of Susan Hughes’ experiences and the profound lessons she imparts, making it a valuable resource for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of Agile practices and Scrum Mastery.

Transcript

[Pasco Duarte]

Hi there. Pasco Duarte here, your host. I wanted to share a story with you. You know how sometimes Agile just feels like following another checklist when like processes and frameworks feel more important than what we are trying to achieve and sometimes even like handcuffs. I was talking to a customer of the Global Agile Summit and he used a term that kind of stuck in my he said, I have Agile fatigue. And I've heard that a lot from people since then. But here's the thing, it doesn't have to be this way. So we started thinking and at the Global Agile Summit, which is happening this May, we're bringing together practitioners who've actually done that, who've broken free from this, you know, install the framework kind of mindset. We want to focus the summit on real life, first person stories of Agile all succeeding that inspire you to action. We're talking real experiences, practical solutions, and of course, amazing insights from leaders like Gojkoacic, who will be one of the keynote speakers, and Jurgen Apelo, who will be one of the keynote speakers as well. If you're ready to leave the Agile fatigue behind, just join us in Dalit. The early birth tickets are now available@the globalagilesummit.com and mark your calendar. We will have workshops on May 18th, that's a Sunday. And then the conference itself will happen on May 19th and 20th of 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia. So let's make Agile exciting again. And remember, go to agile globalagilesummit.com that is, and get your early birth ticket. Now, it will only be available until early March, so grab it now. And now onto the episode. Hello everybody. Welcome to one more week of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. And this week, joining us from the beautiful city of Las Vegas is Susan Hughes. Hey Susan. Welcome to the show.

[Susan Hughes]

Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here. I have listened to this podcast for years and it is nothing short of surreal and amazing to be on the other side. So thank you for having me.

[Pasco Duarte]

Yeah, and thank you very much for taking the challenge and sharing your experience, because that's how we grow as a community.

[Susan Hughes]

Agreed.

[Pasco Duarte]

So Season is a strategist and creator who empowers customers and teams to excel. From designing clever fandom inspired apparel at the Tomorrowland Transit Authority to coaching high performance teams, Season is passionate about delivering value and driving growth. And now focused on e commerce success. Season's mission is to turn goals and I love this part, into epic adventures.

[Susan Hughes]

Gotta get that video game reference in there.

[Pasco Duarte]

You know, I could definitely, definitely, definitely. All Right, let's go into a series of epic adventures here on the podcast during this week. But first season, tell us a little bit more about yourself and how did you end up becoming a Scrum Master.

[Susan Hughes]

Yes, it's been an interesting journey, and I would say it really started when I was working at Amazon and a manager put this book on my desk and the book was called A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction. That was back in 2012, and I'd kind of been around teams that had been practicing Scrum and agile, so I worked in tech, where it was pretty natural for teams to do that. But I didn't really get into it full time until 2018. I was working in Technical Search Engine Optimization, SEO at a company called Atlassian, which makes Jira, who everybody loves. And I was just. I've always been a very organized person. I've been very good at giving training and encouraging collaboration. And the head of a department saw that and said, hey, do you want to come apply to be our Scrum Master? And the first day that I got hired, that was the day of my CSM workshop getting my certification. So I really kind of got thrown into that. Funnily enough, years later, I ended up working with the author of the book that introduced me to everything, Chris Sims. They turned out to be a really awesome person and it was just a full circle moment, but that's how I got into agile and stuff.

[Pasco Duarte]

Absolutely. And when we start, we are usually enthusiastic, but also that's the point at which we know the least about the role. Now, I don't know if you have a story to tell us about those early moments as a Scrum Master, but we do want to look at a story of failure, not because of the failure itself, but of course because it shows. It illustrates that we are all learning and that's part of the process. So we share the learning because we all want to grow together as a community of Scrum Masters. So share that story with us. Share a story of a moment that was difficult. We'll dive into the takeaways and the lessons learned later. But share that story first with us. Susan.

[Susan Hughes]

Absolutely. And I love that we're getting right into it. It's like when you first meet someone and you ask for their entire life story instead of making that small talk. I appreciate that. I just want to dive right in to all the details. So failure. Love it. Making mistakes. You said when we first start, that's when we know the least. I feel like I still know the least about things. I'm still Discovering, and I'm still making mistakes. That's why it's really hard to answer this question, because I feel like all day, every day I'm failing and making mistakes, which I celebrate that opportunity. It means I have more opportunities to learn and to grow. It does make it hard to come up with specific examples around it because I just feel like, oh, my gosh, I just asked the wrong person on Slack for something, or I forgot to invite someone to a meeting. All day, every day, small mistakes. And I just kind of learn from them, move past them all day long. It's amazing. I love it. And thinking about a big failure, like a big moment in my career as a Scrum Master, or maybe the most difficult moment I faced was in my second job as a Scrum Master. And I came into an organization. I came into three teams that I'd be working with. And the first team I worked with, I had been there for about a month. They were given the news that their project would be defunded and the team would be disbanded. So basically saying, like, hey, the product that you're working on we believe will not work in the market, or we're going to other priorities could be seen as a failure in some ways. I really hope that it wasn't by the team because they were doing something really, really amazing. But the business just didn't see the market for that product. And I was fairly new as a Scrum Master. I'd only been doing it for about a year, and it was really hard for me. And I was new to the team and I can't even imagine what the team, the developers, the product owners, the stakeholders who had been doing it much longer than I had, were going through at that time. And I can remember specific moments that happened. Like, I can remember going into a Daily Scrum and just we were kind of talking about, what is Daily Scrum? What's the purpose? And I said something like, you know, these. If you have higher priorities than coming together, collaborating on the plan, like, go do those priorities if you're not finding value in this meeting, like, go do the things that you are finding value in. And it was like the next day and nobody showed up to the Daily Scrum. And I think now what I know is, I mean, I don't blame them and I probably would have worked with them to say, like, hey, this is a tricky situation. It's still important that we come together and we plan. How can we make this more valuable? But, yeah, if this project is getting defunded and we have to Talk about it every single day. I don't blame you for not coming. And it was on me as a Scrum Master, to kind of figure out, how can we maybe be doing this better and giving more value to the people involved. Another key moment that I remember was in our final retrospective for the team. And coming into it as a Scrum Master, you have this, like, okay, sprint retrospective. What did we learn in the last Sprint, and what can we do to apply these learnings to the next Sprint? There is no next Sprint for this team. And I just had to think, what does this team need right now in this moment? And I really turned it into, like, how are we feeling right now? How are we feeling about what happens? The questions I asked were things like, what did you really value about this project? What did you learn from the work that you did? How will you apply that work in the future? What do you think was really cool about this project? What do you think that we could have done had we more time? And what do you want the legacy of this work to be? You're not going to find that in the Scrum Guide. And I still hope that that was the right thing to do for the team. But this was a situation where I truly felt like, I have no idea what I'm doing. Again, not in the Scrum Guide. How do I help people through this very challenging event? I don't know if you would call any of this a failure. Certainly there were opportunities for improvement from me, and maybe I think it was a failure from the business to be adverse to taking risks on something that was very cool. But even this was a learning opportunity, and I'm grateful for the people that I got to learn from and learn with. Yeah, it was tough.

[Pasco Duarte]

Well, one of the things that you said, like, I took this and turned it into a learning opportunity. I think none of us is free from facing a difficult situation just like this one. I mean, projects get canceled all the time, right? Like, it can happen to any of us. And to have that presence and that ability to kind of, okay, what? How can I make this something that is productive, positive for the people involved? Because obviously the product was going to be discontinued, so that's not the focus anymore. And that reminds me of a phrase that I use quite often, especially with younger Scrum Masters, which is that our job is not to somehow make the team work. Our job is to help the people within the team because it is them who make the team work. And to have that focus of, okay, what do these people need right now? Allows us to be present independently of how hard the situation might be.

[Susan Hughes]

Exactly. And something that I would tell myself when I was a newer Scrum Master first starting to listen to this podcast is you're going to try to do everything by the book and by the Scrum Guide and there are situations that just will not be in there. There's so much as a Scrum Master about people and understanding and empowering them. Whereas as a newer Scrum Master, your first instinct is to try to go by process. And the thing is that is fine, that is okay. And you will only get to, I guess those next levels are beyond what is Scrum through practice and through having these really challenging opportunities where maybe you were just doing the best that you could. And then as times go on, you'll be able to say, here's what I would do now, knowing what I know now and having that experience of knowing this is about the people.

[Pasco Duarte]

And then we can turn things into a very, how could I say, like very practical and context specific solution by using techniques like the retrospective to talk about, just as you said, like, you know, what do I want to learn as an individual rather than what can we do different for the next sprint since there isn't the next sprint. But when the lessons learned are kind of created by the people in the team, then they stay with them. Right. And it's almost like capital. You invest in yourself and it stays with you forever.

[Susan Hughes]

Exactly. So we do have some interesting tools that we can play with as Scrum Masters and one that is taken right out of the Scrum Guide is the retrospective. And it is something where you have to go outside of that process and just figure out what knowing what you know right now and the people on the team, what is it that they need and what can we try that might be able to meet those needs. Things like meeting people individually in one on ones and just talking about like, hey, how you feeling? How are things going? How can I support you as a Scrum Master? What are you wanting to do next? How can we help you arrive at that plan that gets into a little bit of coaching as well, which is a key skill for Scrum Masters too. I think that just something that you will again learn with time and also by learning about different techniques of coaching. Things like ORC are really good. Reading books and trying different techniques. But yes, we do. This is the Toolbox podcast.

[Pasco Duarte]

That's what it is indeed.

[Susan Hughes]

Here's your toolbox.

[Pasco Duarte]

We do need to have a huge toolbox because we're going to be facing a very large number of different situations, all contextually specific, that we need to be ready for. But this was a great story. Thank you for sharing that with us. Susan.

[Susan Hughes]

Yeah, absolutely. It's starting out with the toughest moment of my entire career, so I guess it'll only get easier from here.

[Pasco Duarte]

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.