Selecting the Appropriate Agile Values for Organizational Impact | Pascal Papathemelis

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches
Episode: Selecting the Appropriate Agile Values for Organizational Impact | Pascal Papathemelis
Release Date: July 10, 2025
Host: Vasco Duarte

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte engages with Pascal Papathemelis to explore the critical topic of selecting appropriate Agile values to drive organizational impact. The conversation delves into various aspects of Agile retrospectives, defining success for Scrum Masters, ensuring sustainable Agile adoption, and tailoring Agile principles to fit the unique context of an organization.

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Favorite Agile Retrospective Formats

Pascal begins by sharing his preferred approaches to conducting Agile retrospectives, emphasizing the importance of context and simplicity.

Key Points:

• Contextual Flexibility: The choice of retrospective format depends on the team's current situation and objectives.
• Simplicity and Visualization: Retrospectives should be easy to understand and visually engaging to facilitate idea generation and data collection.
• Variety to Foster Insights: Rotating retrospective formats can prevent monotony and encourage fresh perspectives.

Notable Quote:
"I like the sailboat retrospective very well because you can have different kinds of visualizations from what is the starting point, so from where the sailboat started..."
— Pascal Papathemelis [01:38]

Pascal highlights two primary retrospective formats:

1. Sailboat Retrospective: Utilizes a metaphorical sailboat to explore various aspects such as motivations (wind), obstacles (anchors), and potential risks (cliffs or thunderstorms). This format allows teams to visualize and discuss multiple dimensions of their work.
2. Timeline Retrospective: Ideal for project-wide or long-term reviews, this format maps out significant events and their impacts on team morale and learning over time.

He advocates against repetitive use of the same retrospective questions, noting that it can lead to boredom and hinder fresh insights. Instead, varying the questions and formats keeps discussions engaging and productive.

Additional Insight:
At the end of each retrospective, Pascal recommends soliciting quick feedback from participants to continuously improve the facilitation process, acknowledging that different teams may require tailored approaches.

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Defining Success for Scrum Masters

The conversation shifts to defining what success means for Scrum Masters, emphasizing a balance between effectiveness, value creation, and sustainability.

Key Points:

• Effectiveness Over Efficiency: Focus on achieving meaningful outcomes rather than merely optimizing processes.
• Outcome Over Output: Prioritize delivering value to customers and stakeholders over the sheer volume of work completed.
• Value Creation: Understand and deliver value for end customers, employees, and the organization.
• Sustainable Practices: Implement changes that can be maintained with minimal hassle and energy.

Notable Quote:
"When I've been talking with people, effectiveness over efficiency, outcome over output and create value added value for the customer..."
— Pascal Papathemelis [06:11]

Pascal underscores the importance of sustainable change, advocating for transformations that organizations can continue independently once the consultant's role concludes. This approach ensures long-term success and adaptability.

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Sustaining Agile Adoption Over Time

Ensuring that Agile practices endure requires a combination of measurable metrics and deep-rooted understanding of Agile values.

Key Points:

• Metrics as Indicators: While metrics can track improvements and guide focus, they should complement a foundational understanding of Agile principles.
• Agile Values and Principles: Emphasizing the core values and principles of Agile can naturally lead to effective practices without over-reliance on metrics.
• Contextual Adaptation: Align Agile practices with the organization's current maturity and specific challenges.

Notable Quote:
"Understanding the Agile values and principles and working based on those is perhaps even more valuable than different metrics that you can think of..."
— Pascal Papathemelis [08:33]

Pascal advocates for a holistic approach where Agile values guide actions, ensuring that teams remain aligned with overarching goals and can adapt to changing circumstances.

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Adapting Agile Values and Principles to Organizational Context

Tailoring Agile principles to fit the unique environment of an organization is crucial for meaningful impact.

Key Points:

• Agile Manifesto as a Foundation: While the Agile Manifesto provides essential guidance, it's important to adapt its principles to the specific context and maturity level of the organization.
• Customized Value Statements: Pascal shares how his current organization has customized its Agile values to prioritize customer value, continuous learning, collaboration, and visual transparency.
• Gradual Implementation: Change should be introduced incrementally, allowing the organization to mature and gradually adopt more comprehensive Agile practices.
• Contextual Terminology: Translating Agile concepts into language that resonates with the organization's specific context (e.g., "working services" instead of "working software").

Notable Quote:
"If we're talking about a change, you cannot go from A to Z because that would be a too big step. So you need to find what are the smaller steps and gradual one."
— Pascal Papathemelis [11:59]

Pascal emphasizes the necessity of understanding the organization's current state and selecting Agile principles that address its immediate challenges, such as limiting work in progress or enhancing communication.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with a reinforcement of the importance of context-aware Agile practices and the need for continuous adaptation. Pascal's insights provide valuable guidance for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches striving to implement sustainable and impactful Agile transformations within their organizations.

Closing Remark:
"It's important to understand the context of the organization and therefore choose the aspects of those sources of inspiration that fit the context that we are in at the time."
— Pascal Papathemelis [12:34]

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Final Thoughts

Pascal Papathemelis offers a nuanced perspective on selecting and adapting Agile values to maximize organizational impact. By emphasizing flexibility, sustainability, and contextual relevance, Scrum Masters can lead effective Agile transformations that deliver lasting value.

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For more actionable insights and inspiring conversations with Agile practitioners worldwide, stay tuned to the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast.

Transcript

[Vasko]

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[Pascal Papatemilis]

Hello everybody, welcome to our Success Thursday. The big question of the week this week with Pascal Papatemilis. Hey Pascal, welcome back to the show.

[Pascal]

Hello again.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

So Thursday is success day. We'll talk about success in a second and what that means for us grandmasters. But before we go there, share with us what's your favorite agile retrospective format and why?

[Pascal]

I My favorite retrospective depends perhaps on the context and on the situation the team is and what we are doing currently. So I want to have two things in the retrospective when I choose them. First is to have it simple for the people to understand so that they can come up with ideas and it's easy to collect data. And the second is that it is good visualized so that it is equal for everybody. Everybody can take have the same space there and contributing to the retrospective. If I think like from visualization perspective and association as a metaphor, I like the sailboat retrospective very well because that you can have different kind of visualizations from what is the starting point, so from where the sailboat started, what gives energy to the sailboat? So what is the wind that drives it further? What are the anchors that might keep back the sailboat, where there might be the risky waters with cliffs or thunderstorms. If you want to have different stop in between, you might be able to visualize targets in between and so on. And this kind of retrospective helps quite well explore different aspects of the work and where we are going. So the sailboat retrospective helps in the sense that you can add numerous different aspects to it by visualizing them and then you can look into them and you can have Less aspects if you want to focus on certain questions. So it's not. It can be done very flexible from that aspect. Other retrospectives I like to use, for example, when I did a project retrospective or perhaps retrospective over a longer journey of a team, then I've used timeline retrospectives where we could see the different events and the relationships from the different events and things that took part to how was the mood of the team and what we learned. And so that helps getting a perspective over a longer period, which might give different learnings than looking into a sprint. One thing related to retrospective, I try not to have the same retrospective many times on the row. I've seen teams that put the same questions retrospective after retrospective. So that might become boring and might also hinder the people from getting new perspectives into their way of working. So changing the questions keeps the discussion more likely more interesting and also helps taking a step aside and seeing the whole thing from a different perspective and getting new learnings.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

Yeah, I think that ability to bring new insights is really important because otherwise we get stuck in the same old things and we don't bring a different perspective that can lead to new insights. So I think that that is important variability over time, even if it's just asking the different set of questions or using a different format like the sailboat for example.

[Pascal]

Yeah, and a good thing is that at the end of the retrospective to have a quick feedback or enable people to to provide feedback to the facilitator about the format or the way it was facilitated. That's also I think very important in order to learn and reflect. Different teams and different audience might require different way of facilitation.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

So of course we do this retrospectives because we want teams to be successful in their work and we want ourselves to be successful in the work that we do. So Pascal, if you would have to define success for us as Scrum masters, how would you define it?

[Pascal]

Over the recent years I been more having a mantra of when I've been talking with people, effectiveness over efficiency, outcome over output and create value added value for the customer, which of course you need to know who is the customer. And like now in the organization I've currently been working, we've been introducing a new digital platform or the organization has been taking the digital platform. So we have been asking the question what is the value for the end customer? What is the value for the employees, the professionals working with that digital platform? And that's the value for the organization and that's what we should be striving off for. The main Priority, of course, is for the end customer, but of course the organization also needs to get a benefit out of that. Yeah. So doing that with as less hassle as possible, with as less energy as possible, and doing it in a sustainable way, that would be then, then it would be successful. Of course, different assignments might be different. So there might be assignments where it's like that implement the change, help us get value. But ideally I would see that as I'm working as a consultant nowadays, doing a change into the organization, that they can like keep on working on their own after I'm gone from the organization, then I've achieved the best.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

So how do you, when you think about that, right, like kind of making the adoption of agile ways of working sustainable over time, making that focus on customer and value and outcome sustainable over time, what are the things you're looking at to make sure that the work you're doing right now will sustain over time?

[Pascal]

You might think of metrics and measure things and you might be able to measure different things where you can see even improvements, because what you measure is what you get and what you're striving for. But I would put it perhaps in a more complex or more fuzzy thing. For me, understanding the Agile values and principles and working based on those is perhaps even more valuable than different metrics that you can think of, because if you have the values and principles in place, then the, the other things will follow.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

And when you think about Agile values and principles, are you referring specifically to the Agile Manifesto or do you have a set of values and principles in mind?

[Pascal]

I found the Agile Manifesto as a very good source of information for me and I think it's very, very valuable. Now in the organization I currently working with, we have kind of adopted and when we made an introduction slide set for them that has been distributed around the organization or is available for the organization we focus, the first thing we put there is value for the customer and the organization and the professionals, as I mentioned. The second thing is continuous learning and improvement. So start small and try to learn and improve over the time. The third thing we've put there also is collaboration between different parts. So having active communication and I think in that organization that has been the biggest pain point I currently feel there and also limit the work in progress, so don't try to do too many things. So we've kind of adapted that. But I would not say that in my mind Agile Manifesto principles are still valid, but they need to be adapted into the context and also into the maturity of the organization.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

So it's also about understanding where the organization is and then kind of highlighting the values and principles that fit that context at that time.

[Pascal]

Right? Yes. So when I talk to them, I would not say like working software, but I would tell working services over, you know, comprehensive documentation.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

So it's, it's, it's. But it's not just translating. Like you gave an example of a translation, but it's not just translating. It's also to figure out what are the principles that would help the organization where they are at that point. Like, for example, you talked about focusing on the work in process, which is something that of course a Kanban organization would focus on naturally, because it's part of the Kanban set of ideas. But you're also, if I understood you correctly, you're also talking about, okay, here's where we see some problems, some challenges within the organization. And this principle, this value, would help with this type of challenges.

[Pascal]

Exactly. Yeah. So if we're talking about a change, you cannot go from A to Z because that would be a two big step. So you need to find what are the smaller steps and a gradual one. If they would become more mature, probably I would follow more the Agile Manifesto because they would understand it better. But now we have adopted it. Yeah. And I think one thing I forgot also, which I put there in the high thing, is like visualize work, make things clear and transparent.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that's a really important takeaway, which is this idea that no matter where we might start from, like for example, if we start from the Agile Manifesto or the Kanban method or Lean, it's important to understand the context of the organization and therefore choose the aspects of those sources of inspiration that fit the context that we are in at the time.

[Pascal]

Yeah.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

Thank you for sharing that, Pascal.

[Pascal]

Yes.

[Vasko]

All right, I hope you like this episode, but before you hit next episode, here's the deal. This podcast is powered by people like you. The members who wanted more than just inspiration. They wanted real tools and real connection to people who are practicing Agile. Every day we're talking access to over 700 hours of agile gold, CTO level strategy talks, Summit keynotes, live workshops, E courses, Deep dive interviews, books. And if you're into no estimates, we got the pioneers of no estimates in those deep Dive interviews as well. Agile businesses, intelligence, creating product visions, coaching your product owner courses, you name it. You'll get invites to monthly live Q&As with agile pioneers and practitioners, plus a private Slack community which is free of all of that AI slop. You see everywhere. And of course, without the flame wars, it's a community of practitioners that want to learn and thrive together. It's the best place to connect with community and learn together. So if this podcast has helped you before, imagine what you will get from this podcast membership. So head on over to scrummastertoolbox.org membership and join the community that's shaping the future of Agile. We have so much for you, so check out all the [e-mail] membership because listening is great, it's important. But doing it together, that's next level. I'll see you in the community.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

Slack 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.