The 90-Day Rule—Building Trust Before Disrupting the Status Quo | Joel Bancroft-Connors - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode Summary: "The 90-Day Rule—Building Trust Before Disrupting the Status Quo | Joel Bancroft-Connors"

Release Date: June 4, 2025
Host: Vasco Duarte, Agile Coach, Certified Scrum Master, Certified Product Owner
Guest: Joel Bancroft-Connors, Agile Practitioner and Change Leader

Introduction

In this compelling episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte welcomes Joel Bancroft-Connors to delve into the intricacies of leading change within an entrenched organizational structure. Titled "The 90-Day Rule—Building Trust Before Disrupting the Status Quo," Joel shares his firsthand experience of introducing Agile methodologies in a traditional manufacturing company.

The Challenge of Leading Change

Joel begins by recounting his first role post-certification, where he was hired as a program manager at a longstanding hard drive manufacturing company. Despite his background in program and project management, Joel was eager to apply his newly acquired Scrum and Agile knowledge.

Joel (01:22): "I was being hired into a decades-old hard drive manufacturing company. They had bought a startup to lead their branded products group, essentially building consumer hard drives. My role was to bridge the traditional enterprise with the agile startup."

The company's rigid adherence to Six Sigma processes posed a significant challenge to implementing Agile practices. Joel recognized that a direct, forceful introduction of Scrum would likely face resistance and failure.

Building Trust Through Patience and Listening

Joel emphasizes the importance of trust in facilitating change. Drawing inspiration from a principle he learned from ManageTools, Joel adopted the 90-Day Rule, which advocates for doing no harm in the initial phase and formulating a change plan subsequently.

Joel (08:35): "In the first couple of weeks, I didn't try and do anything other than sit down and listen. I scheduled interviews with every single person I'd be interacting with, asking the same questions to understand their perspectives."

This approach allowed Joel to build credibility without making immediate disruptions. His methodical listening and understanding fostered a sense of trust and openness among team members.

Joel (09:58): "I created trust because they didn't try and change stuff right away. About three weeks in, my boss noticed that everyone was happy with my approach, even though I hadn't implemented any changes yet."

Streamlining Communication Processes

One of Joel's early initiatives involved overhauling the company's cumbersome reporting process. The Vice President of Product Development was spending excessive time updating a massive PowerPoint presentation for weekly status reports.

Joel (03:00): "I turned that 100-megabyte PowerPoint slide into a single Excel spreadsheet that could be printed and distributed. This streamlined our communication and focused our discussions on actionable items rather than mere status updates."

By adopting principles from the daily Scrum meetings, Joel shifted the focus towards achieving tangible results, enhancing both efficiency and effectiveness in team communications.

Introducing Scrum and Achieving Remarkable Results

After establishing a foundation of trust and streamlined communication, Joel identified bottlenecks within the software team responsible for adding value to the hard drives. Recognizing the need for structured Agile practices, he proposed Scrum training to enhance the team's commitment and delivery capabilities.

Joel (06:30): "I suggested bringing in Scrum training to help the software team meet their commitments more effectively. My boss trusted my judgment, so we proceeded without prior Agile mentions."

The introduction of Scrum transformed the software team's productivity, reducing product development cycles from six to nine months down to just three months. This significant improvement underscored the effectiveness of Joel's strategic and patient approach to change management.

The Importance of Purpose and Ownership

Joel underscores the role of purpose in motivating teams, referencing Dan Pink's "Drive" which highlights autonomy, mastery, and purpose as key motivators.

Joel (10:28): "Purpose connects us back to 'Start with Why.' If people don't know why they're here or why their work matters, the initiative will fail."

He echoes John Doerr's sentiment, advocating for creating missionaries, not mercenaries—individuals driven by understanding and belief in the organization's mission rather than mere obligation.

Joel (10:45): "If you want to build a ship, don't tell people to cut down trees; inspire them with the longing for the endless wonder of the sea."

This philosophy fosters ownership and intrinsic motivation, leading to a more engaged and productive team.

Key Takeaways and Insights

Patience is Crucial: Building trust before implementing changes ensures smoother transitions and greater acceptance of new methodologies.
Listen and Understand: Engaging with team members to comprehend their perspectives lays the groundwork for effective change.
Streamline Communication: Simplifying reporting processes can lead to more focused and productive meetings.
Introduce Change Strategically: Timing and method of introducing Agile practices can significantly impact their success.
Foster Purpose: Ensuring that team members understand the 'why' behind their tasks enhances motivation and ownership.
Continuous Learning: Emulating practices from experienced Agile practitioners and ongoing education are vital for sustained improvement.

Conclusion

Joel Bancroft-Connors' journey highlights the essence of leading change with empathy, strategic planning, and a deep understanding of team dynamics. By adhering to the 90-Day Rule and prioritizing trust and purpose, Joel successfully transformed a traditional company's approach to product development, showcasing the profound impact of thoughtful Agile implementation.

Listeners are encouraged to adopt similar principles in their Agile transformations, emphasizing patience, communication, and purpose-driven leadership to achieve meaningful and lasting change.

For more insightful episodes and actionable Agile practices, visit scrummastertoolbox.org and explore the Scrum Master Toolbox membership.

Transcript

Vasco (0:04)

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.

Joel Bancroft Connors (1:11)

Hello everybody. Welcome to our Wednesday the Leading Change episode this week with Joel Bancroft Connors. Hey Joel, welcome back.

Unnamed Speaker (1:20)

Thank you, Vasco. We're halfway there.

Joel Bancroft Connors (1:22)

We're halfway there indeed. So Wednesday is change day. I like to call it change leadership day here on the podcast. So we want to hear a story of a change process you were involved with and tell us a little bit about the context. Maybe small company, big company, what kind of change was it? And then walk us through the steps right like this happened and that happened so that we understand how the process unraveled. And also as you go through that highlight for us, some of the tools, the tips, the tricks and the techniques you learned back then that you still applied today.

Unnamed Speaker (1:59)

Yeah, so for this one, I actually ended up going all the way back to my very first job after I got my CSM from Chris Sims, as I thought we talked about on Monday. And I got a job working for a hard drive manufacturing company. I was hired on to be a program manager for their branded products group. And I'm still very much steeped in my program and project management background. I've got this, this new Scrum knowledge and Agile Knowledge and I'm just diving into it. I'm going to meetups and I'm reading book and everything. And fortunately the San Francisco Bay Area agile community had some really great people. Still does, but I mean, Ron Lichti, Chris Sims, Ainsley Nees, Roger Brown, some really, really great people. And I learned a lot of patience and a lot of don't just go in guns blazing. And so I get this new job and it's like I could have just been this idealistic and just come in and just tried to change everything and and that would have just fallen completely flat. I was being hired into a decades old hard drive manufacturing company. Very stayed in its ways. They had bought, they had been trying to get into consumer products for a while and they ended up buying a startup to lead their branded products group, their consumer products group basically building hard drives you'd buy in a, in a store like Best Buy or whatever the equivalent is in Europe. And they then promptly handed that company, they bought their entire Six Sigma process and said here we want you to be agile and innovative and here follow all these processes. And so I was ostensibly hired to basically be the interface between the enterprise and this startup so the startup could just keep running the way it wanted. Well, that's what I started with. But even the startup was having had challenges and I realized they need a lot of help. And I realized I couldn't just go oh well, you need to use Scrum. That wasn't going to work, especially with a lot of hardware stuff. I focused on principles and I literally went to the how do I create greater transparency? And I streamlined the meeting structures, I streamlined our reporting meeting. My boss, the VP of product development spent literally a day, a week updating a 100 megabyte PowerPoint slide. This is 15 years ago. And to do these weekly status reports. And so I took that and I worked on streamlining that and I turned it into a single Excel spreadsheet that could be printed out and handed out to people. And we really refocused how we were communicating and I used principles from the daily Scrum in our weekly status meeting and kind of changing it to things like what do you need from somebody? What does anybody need anything from this person? And really focusing on getting to done as opposed to talking about status.