How to Break Through the 'Not My Problem' Mentality | Joelle Tegwen

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode: How to Break Through the 'Not My Problem' Mentality | Joelle Tegwen
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Joelle Tegwen
Release Date: July 15, 2025

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte engages in a meaningful conversation with Joelle Tegwen, an experienced Agile Coach and Scrum Master. The episode delves into overcoming the pervasive "Not My Problem" mentality within teams, emphasizing the power of storytelling and creating reflective spaces to facilitate change.

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The Power of Storytelling in Agile

Key Insights from "How Minds Change"

Joelle begins by discussing her inspiration from the book How Minds Change by David McRaney. Contrary to typical Agile literature, this book focuses on cognitive biases and the mechanisms behind changing people's minds.

• Creating Reflective Spaces: Joelle highlights a pivotal lesson from the book:

  “We don’t change other people’s minds. No amount of arguing or facts or anything like that is going to change somebody’s mind. What we need to do is make space for other people to reflect and change their own mind.”
  (01:38)

This approach shifts the role of Agile practitioners from being change agents to facilitators who create environments conducive to personal reflection and self-driven change.

Deep Canvassing Technique

Joelle introduces the concept of deep canvassing, a method developed during California's Prop 8 campaign. This technique involves:

1. Personal Story Sharing: Asking individuals to share their personal stories related to the topic.
2. Mutual Storytelling: The canvasser shares their own story to humanize and relate to the other person.
3. Reflective Questions: Concluding with questions that encourage individuals to reflect on any changes in their perspective.

“Tell me your story, Tell me what's happening for you, and then I can tell you a story that humanizes myself and relates to where you are so that you can understand the perspective that I might be trying to share.”
(06:03)

Joelle adapts this method to Agile coaching by encouraging team members to share their experiences and challenges, fostering a deeper understanding and empathy within the team.

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Overcoming Team Dysfunction: A Real-World Example

Context of the Problem

Joelle shares a case study illustrating how teams can become their own worst enemies due to entrenched behaviors and lack of communication:

• Issue Identified: Developers and QA teams were stuck in a loop where each took an entire sprint to complete their tasks, leading to prolonged cycles before any feature reached production.
• Leadership Blindness: Leadership failed to recognize this as a problem, believing that delivering work with "quality" was sufficient, regardless of the time taken.

“...some of the leaders didn't see how on the IT side didn't see that this was a problem, because in their mind it worked, they delivered work, it was fine...”
(08:47)

Strategic Intervention

To address this, Joelle focused on supporting the QA team to articulate their struggles and the value of improving their processes:

1. Articulating Pain Points: Helping QA express the frustration of repeated manual testing cycles.
2. Technical Improvements: Facilitating training on automated testing and effective story splitting.
3. Building Collaboration: Enabling QA to share their experiences led developers and leaders to recognize the need for change.

“...helping them talk about how they were going to improve their automation, doing a training on how to split stories. Then they were able to see, and also helping the QA people tell their story about the pain that they were experiencing...”
(09:14)

Outcome

The intervention resulted in:

• Enhanced Efficiency: Automated testing reduced manual workload, allowing for smaller, more manageable stories.
• Increased Buy-In: Success in the QA team's processes convinced skeptics within leadership and development teams to adopt similar changes.
• Sustainable Change: The improvements became ingrained, leading to ongoing efficiencies and collaboration.

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Strategies for Scrum Masters to Foster Change

Focus on Change Seekers

Vasco and Joelle emphasize targeting team members who are already inclined to embrace change. By nurturing these individuals, Scrum Masters can create ripples that encourage broader team transformation.

“You have to focus on the people who already want to work differently and work with them to find how that could be possible.”
(12:16)

Celebrate Small Successes

Joelle advises Scrum Masters to concentrate on achievable goals rather than overwhelming challenges. Success in smaller areas can build momentum and demonstrate the value of change.

“Focus on what you can do, not what you can't do. Don't keep trying to push the rock up the hill. Just focus on the place where there's a little flat spot...”
(12:28)

Leverage Storytelling

Utilizing storytelling to share experiences and relate to team members is crucial. It humanizes challenges and fosters empathy, making it easier for teams to navigate and embrace change.

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Notable Quotes

• Joelle Tegwen:

  “We don't change other people's minds. No amount of arguing or facts or anything like that is going to change somebody's mind.”
  (01:38)

• Joelle Tegwen on Deep Canvassing:

  “Tell me your story, Tell me what's happening for you, and then I can tell you a story that humanizes myself...”
  (06:03)

• Joelle Tegwen:

  “If they can't see the impacts of it, then they're not going to change.”
  (08:47)

• Joelle Tegwen on Success:

  “Nothing boosts your cause more than success.”
  (12:28)

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Conclusion

This episode underscores the importance of empathy, storytelling, and creating reflective spaces in Agile environments. By focusing on the intrinsic motivations of team members and celebrating incremental successes, Scrum Masters can effectively overcome resistance and foster a culture of continuous improvement. Joelle Tegwen's experiences and strategies provide actionable insights for Agile practitioners aiming to break through the "Not My Problem" mentality and drive meaningful change within their teams.

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For more actionable Agile insights and community support, consider joining the Scrum Master Toolbox Membership.

Transcript

[Vasko]

Hey there, agile adventurer, just a quick question. What if, for the price of a fancy coffee or half a pizza, you could unlock over 700 hours of the best agile content on the planet? That's audio, video, E courses, books, presentations, all that you can think of. But you can also join live calls with world class practitioners and hang out in a flame war free and AI slop clean slack with the sharpest minds in the game. Oh, and yes, you get direct access to me, Vasko, your Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. No, this is not a drill. It's this Scrum Master Toolbox membership. And it's your unfair advantage in the agile world. So if you want to know more, go check out scrummastertoolbox.org membership. That's scrummastertoolbox.org Membership. And check out all the goodies we have for you. Do it now. But if you're not doing it now, let's listen to the podcast.

[Podcast Host]

Hello everybody. Welcome to our Team Tuesday here on the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast this week we have Joelle Tegven. Hey Joel, welcome back.

[Joelle Tegven]

Hi Vasco, thanks for having me again.

[Podcast Host]

Absolutely. So Tuesday is Team Tuesday here on the podcast. But before we dive into the team story, share with us. Joelle, what's the book that most inspired you in your career as a Scrum Master?

[Joelle Tegven]

The book that I really like is not a book about agile at all. It's called How Minds Change by David McCraney and he runs a podcast about cognitive biases and his earlier books were all about that. But then around the time of the pandemic, he wrote this book, How Minds Change. What is important about this for me, kind of relative to what we talked about yesterday, is that we don't change other people's minds. We don't. No amount of arguing or facts or anything like that is going to change somebody's mind. What we need to do is make space for other people to reflect and change their own mind. And I think that's such an important thing that has really changed for me in my career is moving much more towards allowing space for people to reflect and to present maybe questions that would help, but also knowing that and believing that they have good answers, they know their system better than I could ever possibly know. And so it's not up to me to push them to do a certain thing. It's up to me to help them understand the best thing that they can do for themselves.

[Podcast Host]

That's a great reminder. Exactly as you said, based on the podcast episode from yesterday, we need to understand that the part of our work as change agent is really to create that space, to allow that space for others to reflect. So what are some interesting tips or concepts that David McCraney shared in the book that you still remember and you want to highlight from the book?

[Joelle Tegven]

So one of the things he talks about is this process called deep canvassing. And they started doing this in California during the. There was a vote called Prop 8 that was about allowing for gay marriage. And they thought it would. The people who were pro gay marriage thought that it would succeed and it failed. And they couldn't understand how they could have been so wrong. And so over the course of time, they sent out people to go door knocking just to try to understand why people voted the way they did. And through this, they did a lot of analyzing of what was said and the discussions that were had and how people responded, whether people thought they might have changed their mind. And they came up with this concept called deep canvassing. And not all of those pieces apply to Scrum Mastering. They do things like asking people where they are on a scale of 1 to 10. But the other thing that the one thing they do that really applies is they ask the person to tell their story about why they feel this way or ask them if they knew someone who was gay. And often they did. They had some kind of interaction, some sort of personal thing story that they told about it. And then. And then the canvasser would also share a story. And then they would ask them at the end, like if their number had changed and why that was the right number. And then they would leave. And then they would leave. And they found this process to be incredibly effective. But the piece of it that I bring into coaching is, tell me your story, Tell me what's happening for you, and then I can tell you a story that humanizes myself and relates to where you are so that you can understand the perspective that I might be trying to share.

[Podcast Host]

Stories are how we relate to each other and to ourselves even. Right? Like, there's a lot of storytelling that goes on in therapy, for example, and I really like that approach. So the book is How Minds Change by David McRaney. And the link is in the show notes for everybody to go and check it out. Now we turn our attention to teams and how sometimes they become their own worst enemies. So, Joelle, when you think about that one team, that transformation that for the worse, tell us a little bit about the context of that team. But then how those behaviors or patterns kind of started small but developed and over time became a problem for the team.

[Joelle Tegven]

So as a consultant, I often kind of get brought in once things are already not in a good place. And there was a time I was working, I was coaching teams under several leaders, but a lot of them had the same problem where the developers would take an entire sprint to do a story, and then the next sprint, the QA would take an entire sprint to do the story, and then it would inevitably have to come back. And so it would take them months to, to get anything out into production. And on the business side, they were so frustrated about how long it would take them to get to the stories and even. And one of the problems that we had here was that some of the leaders didn't see how on the it side didn't see that this was a problem, because in their mind it worked, they delivered work, it was fine, the work was of quality. That was all right. Why should they change what they were doing? And sometimes the QA folks were happy with this too. They would this piece about from the start, you don't change other people's minds. If they don't see what they're doing as a problem, if they can't see the impacts of it, then, then they, they're not going to change. And so that was what I was really up against. There was, was I had a leader who, who told me in a one on one, he said, this is not a problem for me. I don't understand, you know, I'm not, I have no desire to change what I'm doing here at all because, because it works for me.

[Podcast Host]

That is a difficult thing to kind of come back from. Right. Like you're talking to a leader in an organization, you're describing a problem as is seen by others. And this leader is in all comfort, probably and confidence or trust in their own perspective, I should say that, you know, but this is not a problem. How do you come back from that, Joel?

[Joelle Tegven]

Well, the place I ended up coming back to was that the QA team was actually, they were struggling with it. They were feeling really frustrated because they always had to test and retest because things would come back. And so what I ended up doing was supporting them and helping them articulate the value of, of them being able to complete the work easily in one sprint. And it turned out that one of the problems that they had was that they didn't know how to split stories differently. And they had a lot of manual qa. And so by helping them talk about how they were going to improve their automation, doing a training on how to split stories. Then they were able to see, and also helping the QA people tell their story about the pain that they were experiencing, then that helped convince the developers and the leaders that, oh, it would make sense to at least try this out. Let's try it and see how it works. And so they were able to do that and it ended up sticking for them.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, because they did like that in the end. That's actually a great example, like finding the people that actually want the change within the team and then just helping them to voice their experience. Right. To translate into concrete words the pain that they are suffering. Because I imagine it was a pain for those QAs, especially if they were doing mostly manual QA.

[Joelle Tegven]

Yes. And it was the manual QA that was causing part of the problem. Right. Because when you have that, you know, if you have small stories and you need to test the same things over and over again, then it starts making sense to, to do that. Those big cycles. But if you can, the, if you can move into automation and automating some of the work, then it, you can do smaller stories because you don't have to do all that manual work every time. You just have a script running it. And so then you can do the smaller iterative movements.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And that's a very important. I guess we could call it trigger for then the change to happen. Right. Like, one of the tips that I usually give the scrum masters or teams that I coach is that you have to focus on the people who already want to work differently and work with them to find how that could be possible. Right. And then after that, things will spread. Because if things really work, they spread. Once we are talking, when we are talking about things in the theoretical level, you're going to get resistance. It's normal and it's expected. But some people will actually say, hey, that's a great idea. Work with them.

[Joelle Tegven]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

Like, help them grow. How that would become a reality in their context. Because when that becomes a reality, the benefits will be clear and others will come along.

[Joelle Tegven]

Yeah. I've moved to this place where, like, focus on what you can do, not what you can't do. Don't keep trying to push the rock up the hill. Just focus on the place where there's a little flat spot and whatever size rock you can get to flow, you can get to roll there. Because nothing, nothing boost your cause more than success. And so get to that place, get to that little success even.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, nothing boosts your cause more than success. I think that was very beautifully said, Joelle. Thank you very much.

[Joelle Tegven]

Thank you, Vasco.

[Vasko]

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[Podcast Host]

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