Skipping the Vision, How Not to Introduce Kanban To An Agile Organization | Richard

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode: Skipping the Vision: How Not to Introduce Kanban To An Agile Organization
Host: Vasco Duarte, Agile Coach, Certified Scrum Master, Certified Product Owner
Guest: Richard Brenner, Enterprise Agile Coach
Release Date: April 14, 2025

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte welcomes Richard Brenner, an experienced Enterprise Agile Coach from Vienna, Austria. The conversation delves into Richard's journey from a software engineer to an agile coach, highlighting his real-world experiences and the challenges faced while introducing Agile methodologies in organizations.

Guest Background

Vasco Duarte introduces Richard Brenner as a versatile technology leader with a background in software engineering, product ownership, and agile coaching. Richard is passionate about building software that excites users and thrives at the intersection of technological change and leadership.

Richard Brenner shares his transition into Agile methodologies, starting as a software developer at Porsche Informatics in Salzburg. His journey from a developer to a product owner, and eventually to an agile coach, was driven by his desire to have a more significant impact on product development and client satisfaction.

“I could have more impact on the product from that position. So more impact on what are we creating, what are we building, how do we delight our clients there.”
— Richard Brenner [04:32]

The Challenge: Introducing Kanban to an Agile Organization

Richard recounts a pivotal experience where he was part of a coaching team tasked with introducing Kanban to a client’s department. Despite the client's enthusiasm for Agile methods, the implementation faced significant hurdles.

“...they just got the Kanban process now from top down and they needed to start with Kanban. And of course some were more open to it and some were really against using it...”
— Richard Brenner [08:44]

The primary issue stemmed from a lack of understanding of the underlying problems the organization aimed to solve with Kanban. The solution was imposed without involving the team members in the decision-making process, leading to resistance and ineffective adoption.

Detailed Story of the Failure

Richard elaborates on how the absence of clear objectives and insufficient engagement with team members led to the initiative's downfall. Despite conducting Kanban training and workshops, the teams questioned the necessity of changing their workflows without a clear rationale.

“They said look, we have some teams there, we want to introduce Kanban there and to start the way of working and to start a mindset shift...”
— Richard Brenner [06:39]

When team members asked, “Why do we need to work differently? What are we doing wrong now?” Richard struggled to provide business-centric answers, relying instead on methodological justifications that failed to resonate with the organization's specific needs.

“I couldn't say, the company is trying to achieve this and that and this. So this was the problem that I just couldn't use the pure Kanban methodology and argue for myself, which is not, I think the right approach.”
— Richard Brenner [09:19]

Lessons Learned and Takeaways

From this challenging experience, Richard emphasizes the importance of understanding the "why" behind implementing Agile methodologies. He highlights several critical lessons:

1. Define the Purpose: Always clarify the overarching goals before introducing new methodologies.

   “The first problem is that we didn't define the why... What do we want to achieve.”
   — Richard Brenner [11:52]

2. Engage Stakeholders Early: Involve team members and leadership from the outset to ensure buy-in and address concerns collaboratively.

   “They just got the Kanban process now from top down and they needed to start with Kanban.”
   — Richard Brenner [08:44]

3. Effective Communication: Transparently communicate the reasons for change and how it aligns with the organization's objectives.

   “You need to communicate, you cannot under communicate the reason why you are changing...”
   — Richard Brenner [12:25]

4. Comprehensive Contracting: Establish clear agreements between the coach and the organization, as well as with individual teams, to ensure alignment and mutual understanding.

   “There's still nowadays not enough emphasis on spending enough time on the contracting between the organization that hires you and you as a natural coach...”
   — Richard Brenner [13:32]

Best Practices for Agile Coaches

Building on his experiences, Richard offers actionable advice for agile coaches aiming to implement methodologies like Kanban or Scrum effectively:

• Conduct an Exploration Phase: Start with comprehensive conversations and observations to understand the current state of the organization.

  “The first phase is really, we call it an exploration phase... conversations with multiple people in the organization to get a good picture...”
  — Richard Brenner [13:45]

• Assess Cultural Dynamics: Pay attention to team interactions, openness to change, and existing communication patterns.

  “...we get a feeling, a sense of the culture. How do people talk to each other?...”
  — Richard Brenner [14:20]

• Identify and Address Contrasts: Recognize discrepancies between different levels of the organization, such as Agile teams coexisting with Waterfall practices.

  “...we have agile scrum teams, but we have a waterfall business still in a project world...”
  — Richard Brenner [15:59]

• Set Meaningful First Steps: Prioritize initial actions that can create momentum and demonstrate value within the first few months.

  “We say, okay, what do we see on team level?... What could be a meaningful first step?”
  — Richard Brenner [16:13]

Conclusion

Richard Brenner's candid reflection on his challenges in introducing Kanban underscores the necessity of a thoughtful, purpose-driven approach to Agile transformations. By prioritizing clear objectives, stakeholder engagement, effective communication, and thorough contracting, agile coaches can navigate organizational changes more successfully.

“...what I learned is that Kotter's Leading Change book is really good and also applies in practice for what I learned.”
— Richard Brenner [12:25]

This episode serves as a valuable resource for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches seeking to deepen their understanding of effective change management and avoid common pitfalls in Agile implementations.

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Key Quotes

• Richard Brenner: “I could have more impact on the product from that position. So more impact on what are we creating, what are we building, how do we delight our clients there.”
  [04:32]

• Richard Brenner: “They just got the Kanban process now from top down and they needed to start with Kanban. And of course some were more open to it and some were really against using it...”
  [08:44]

• Richard Brenner: “I couldn't say, the company is trying to achieve this and that and this. So this was the problem that I just couldn't use the pure Kanban methodology and argue for myself, which is not, I think the right approach.”
  [09:19]

• Richard Brenner: “You need to communicate, you cannot under communicate the reason why you are changing...”
  [12:25]

• Richard Brenner: “The first phase is really, we call it an exploration phase... conversations with multiple people in the organization to get a good picture...”
  [13:45]

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of Richard Brenner's insights and experiences shared during the episode, providing actionable lessons for Agile practitioners aiming to foster meaningful and effective Agile transformations within their organizations.

Transcript

[Vasco]

Have you ever wondered what it really.

[Unknown Host]

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.

[Vasco]

Hello, everybody.

[Unknown Host]

Welcome to one more week of the.

[Vasco]

Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. And this week, joining us from the beautiful city of Vienna in Austria is Richard Brenner. Hey Richard, welcome to the show.

[Richard Brenner]

Hi Vasco, thanks for having me.

[Vasco]

Absolutely. So Richard is a versatile technology leader with experience as a software engineer, product owner and agile coach. Passionate about building software that excites, he thrives at the intersection of technology change and leadership.

[Unknown Host]

Lately he's been focusing on collaborative modeling.

[Vasco]

Bridging disciplines to drive innovation and create meaningful impact. So, Richard, that was a short intro. Tell us a little bit more about yourself and how did you end up becoming a Scrum Master?

[Richard Brenner]

Yeah, thanks for that. So actually, to be honest, I never worked as Scrum Master. My job title now says Enterprise Agile Coach. I started being a software engineer. I studied software engineering and came to Agile Methodologies when I started working for a product company called Porsche Informatics, like the car dealer Porsche holding in Salzburg. So we were working as Scrum teams there and I was a developer in one of those Scrum teams. That was my first touch point with Scrum. And later when this project got bigger and bigger, they were looking for new product owners. And that was my shift from being a pure developer, which always had in focus, becoming a software architect, sometimes shifting to the product on a roll. And because I thought, and I think this is a pattern in all of what I'm doing, I could have more impact on the product from that position. So more impact on what are we creating, what are we building, how do we delight our clients there? And I think from my shift to, to another company where I developed then software for other clients, I also worked in Agile teams and from there, that was my first request from another client who said, look guys, we have some agile teams that work for us. How do we scale this in our organization? That was my first assignment where I was partnering a more experienced agile coach back then to consult this client. And I would say from there on I shifted more and more into a pure agile coaching role and the development part faded away.

[Unknown Host]

So if I understand that your story.

[Vasco]

Is related to this idea of how can we help develop software better than you first started with that product owner, like, you know, shifting to what needs to be built. Why is that important? And then later on in the consulting role, you understood that actually being a product owner helps, but there's so many other things and being an agile coach is probably a better position to be in order to help develop better software. Did I get it right?

[Richard Brenner]

Exactly. Yes, exactly. And I always reflected a bit on my motivation because I shifted between management roles and agile coaching and also software development. And I think it was always that what you said my passion was to create, stop the products ultimately that matter and be part of it.

[Vasco]

Absolutely. And one of the things that really interests me is of course this kind of shifts in career. Right. Just now writing about that for, for the blog and for the newsletter where we talk about what are the things we need to focus on. And I focus exactly on what you said, right. Like thinking about what do I want to bring to my community at work. And in your case it was this developing better product. But, but of course this isn't easy. Even when we are clear about what our purpose is, sometimes we do get in trouble. And today's fail Monday here on the podcast. So we explore. So Richard, share a story of a difficult moment you had in this case as an agile coach and walk us.

[Unknown Host]

Through the story first.

[Vasco]

We'll dive into the takeaways and the lessons learned later, but share that story first.

[Richard Brenner]

That is of course also a very personal question. And for me, when I reflect, I mean, I'm now, I think more than 10 years in the business already, but I think when I started doing this coaching assignments where I have been an external agile coach for a company introducing agile methods, I think the one story came into my mind and I think it has a lot to do with leadership and how I also live this role as a leadership role because I think all the failures came out from a, of a personal stance of, of being complacent or not being in an active leadership role. And let me be more precise now, I think I started.

[Vasco]

Tell us the story, Richard.

[Richard Brenner]

Yeah, I started at this client, very enthusiastic about Agile and all the methods and Scrum and, and, and the client said look, we have some teams there, we want to introduce Kanban there and to start the way of working and to start a mindset shift. So back then I also asked already what is the bigger goal behind that? What are you trying to achieve with that? But they said it's to get started. Let's, let's start doing that and start a different thinking process. And I think ultimately this was already the failure.

[Unknown Host]

Tell us a little bit about that.

[Vasco]

Okay, so you started with that idea, you tried to introduce it to someone. I imagine you had a couple of conversations. How did those conversations go?

[Richard Brenner]

Yeah, because I was part of a coaching team and this coaching team introduced Kanban in a department and we decided, okay, who takes which team? And then we started with the Kanban training and board creation workshop like the typical Kanban intro. What I learned the hard way there is change management I would say and how to involve people in the change because those people were not part part of the change process. They just got the Kanban process now from top down and they needed to start with Kanban. And of course some were more open to it and some were really against using it or they just did it because management said so and this was a bad place to be in my position.

[Vasco]

How does that show up? So I understand when you are looking at that story and you're reflecting on it, okay, so this was the wrong approach to take but how did that show up in practice? For example, how did the teams react when you had that introduction workshop? What were some of the comments or feedback that you were getting?

[Richard Brenner]

Sure. So first of all questions like why do we need to work differently? So what are we doing wrong now so that we need to do something different? That was.

[Vasco]

It's a great question by the way.

[Richard Brenner]

Yeah, and it's a very valid question. I would probably also ask it when I'm in that position now. And I couldn't answer it from a business company perspective. That was the first problem I could just answer from a method perspective, very general and say look, listen, this could help us to focus and limit our working process. But I couldn't say look, the company is trying to achieve this and that and this. So this was the problem that I just could use the pure Kanban methodology and argue for myself, which is not, I think the right approach.

[Vasco]

So basically what you're saying is you were brought in by someone who already knew what the solution was, but you were not Told what the problem was for which the solution was being hired. Is that so?

[Richard Brenner]

Exactly.

[Vasco]

This for me kind of highlights one of the maybe even crucial responsibilities we have in our profession as agile coaches or Scrum masters, which is not to try to solve problems we don't understand. I. E. In. In practice. Meaning, you know, don't apply Scrum, first understand the problem, then apply Scrum or don't apply Kanban, first understand the problem, then apply Kanban, right?

[Richard Brenner]

Exactly, exactly. And I think this has taught me a lot how I approach projects nowadays and how I also approach clients nowadays. So because there were many patterns in that situation. For example, the. The first problem is that we didn't define the why, the reason why we do what do we want to achieve. And also the problem was that the people have not been involved in this whole change very late when we already had the solution for something. And the third problem was also that this was not the top management level we started. So the top management level was not really involved in that change. So they accepted it, but they didn't understand what does it mean and how can they support the change, what is needed from them. And I think I had a lot of learnings from that situation.

[Vasco]

Yeah, absolutely. It's a great reflection, right? Like when we're brought into a team or to a department or to talk to a leader, our first job should be to understand what they want to achieve, right? Like, because when I think about your story, I'm thinking that I. I could have had the first workshop not about the Kanban method, but about what they want to change, what are the things that they think are not working and why aren't they working? Because the teams might have had a completely different perspective from the leaders who had hired you to bring in Kanban. Right?

[Richard Brenner]

Exactly, exactly. And so I think what I learned is that Kotta's Leading Change book is really good and also applies in practice for what I learned. So that you need to communicate, you cannot under communicate the reason why you are changing and what is it, what you try to achieve. And also I think there's still nowadays not enough emphasis on spending enough time on the contracting between the organization that hires you and you as a natural coach and also the contracting between each team that you come into. For example, when I join an organization, I try to clarify the overarching goals and how can we then work with the teams, how can we make sure that we derive from that overarching goals, goals that make sense for them and then come up with a solution that works for Them, of course, often.

[Vasco]

And that contracting is very important aspect of us coming into a team or an organization. Do you have some tips on how to start that conversation?

[Richard Brenner]

I mean, yes. I mean we as a company we have now like a coaching approach where we say the first phase is really, we call it an exploration phase and we say let's and we even talk with the clients. We hire you as actual coach. We want to achieve something and we say okay, please, but let's please have a first phase where we have conversations with multiple people in the organization to get a good picture about the status quo of your company. And also let us please have a conversation with sponsors, top management, what they see so that we really understand who is trying to change what and why. And then we usually have conversations. We take part in ceremonies, like retrospectives of teams of daily standups, usually a very good place to be and learn how the conversations are going. You get a feeling, a sense of the culture. How do people talk to each other? Are cameras on or not? Is there cynicism going on or not? How often are we talking about failure here? And we get a big picture of the organization. What we come up with usually is that we say, okay, what do we see on team level? What do we see when we have the inter, we call it the inter team level. So when multiple teams work together, do we see there any issues? And what do we see on organizational level like the organizational conditions? Sometimes we have agile scrum teams, but we have a waterfall business still in a project world where we say, okay, we have a fixed plan for one year ahead, resource plan and a fixed score scope, deadline in the year.

[Vasco]

Find those contrasts, right?

[Richard Brenner]

Yeah, exactly. And then we try to focus. So let's say what is the first focus? What should we do in the first, let's say three months. What could be a meaningful first step?

[Vasco]

The conversation for the contracting. Because once we know that focus, we can bring it up and have the feedback right.

[Richard Brenner]

And you also get like good conversations and see how far is the change really going now. Because when we say listen, you have still your project steering committees and you have your fixed budgeting. That would be a huge lever. If we do something there and talk to people there. And then you sometimes hear, no, no, no, no, not now. We need to make sure we did our homework with the agile teams. And if you're good there, then we can have this conversation.

[Vasco]

And it's really important to know like how these things build up.

[Unknown Host]

But thank you for sharing all of that, Richard.

[Vasco]

If you have a link to that guide that you just referred to. And if that's public, just send it to me. We'll put it in the show notes for people to look at.

[Unknown Host]

Thank you for sharing your story.

[Vasco]

Richard.

[Richard Brenner]

Welcome. Thank you.

[Unknown 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. And 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 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 Appello, 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 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 [e-mail] I'm really looking forward to seeing you all in Tallinn, Estonia in May.

[Vasco]

I'll see you there.