A (4:01)

Yeah, absolutely. Especially when as a developer your mind quickly focuses on problem solving, finding problems, solving them and so on. And as an agile coach or a Scrum Master, your job is to help teams own the solution, not solve the problem. Right. Like that alone would be a great difference and I can imagine that that didn't get any easier at least in some point in your journey. Because of course today's Monday. We're talking about fail Monday here. So we want to hear that story. A story where you tried your best but in that moment the best just wasn't good enough. So tell us that story. We'll dive into the takeaways and the lessons learned later. But tell us that story first.

B (4:46)

Yeah, sure. Like it's actually like there's nuts. I wish there was only one story. There are lots of to pick from but I would also like to stay relevant. So one of the biggest challenges that I had is as also like agile coaches or like even like Scrum Masters agile coaches. It doesn't matter what role we have, it's basically the scope that we are actually influencing or like having an impact on. As an agile coach it was like super hard for me to figure out the correct facilitation or like coaching or position to coach the organization, to coach the teams. Because if you get too involved then like you're becoming, you're over overstepping the boundary of a Scrum master. If you're like too far away then you are non existent. And I had like problems with both. Like in some cases I overtook the Scrum master role and like it also like created some type of an authority which was not like pleasant. And at some point I was like too far away which was like I was out of reach or like out of touch with the community of the, of the organization. And the biggest problem there was like yes, like we were creating tools and solutions but we were not co creating them. We were not like we were like conducting the transformation but like A project. It was not like transformation from bottom up and something.

A (6:40)

What do you think? Like from your experience, what do you think leads us in. In each of those directions? Right. Like where sometimes as agile coaches we want to kind of step in and take over and get it solved and maybe because we're in a hurry and there's a lot of pressure on us and then other times we're kind of stepping back, maybe we're too busy, whatever. Like what, what takes us in those two opposite directions?

B (7:05)

I think it's about the expectation, basically. What like as an agile coach or as a scrum master, what you can do to make things better is always like having like an expectation matrix or like expectation facilitation. What can I do for you? Or how can I assist solving this problem with you or like help you solve the problem or for you to own the problem, as you also said before, and not just taking things in our own hands in every time and just solving it. Of course there is always an urgency. There are certain urgency topics inside every organization that if you have the capabilities to fix that out and if it's actually it has like a lower sla, then you have to take it over. But of course, like not every single time.

A (8:10)

Yeah, absolutely. I like how you talk about setting expectations, clearly having a discussion about expectations because we all come in with a lot of history, right? Like the people we are coaching have their history. Ourselves, we have our history. And there's a lot of expectations that are inbuilt into how we look at the role we have and how we look at the role others have. But if we don't discuss them, we can't get to that negotiated agreement. Right. So I really like how you phrase that. Do you have something to share with us on how that has worked well for you, setting those expectations, negotiating those expectations with your stakeholders?

B (8:53)

Yes, actually something that like we had a call. Okay. And we with the scrum Masters. And honestly that call was just like, like structured as like an alignment call. And like it was not. The information was not flowing both ways or V. Did not like, it did not feel for me or. And like some of the also like more senior scrum Masters, it did not feel for us that like it was an even ground. Like, it felt like there was like an authority. It felt like we were not peers. And I had to also, like, as the facilitator of the, of the session, I took over the initiative and like created a facilitation on. Okay. Like we have this like, structure, but based on the Prior experience is also like, based on your feedback, I feel like this is not working. So I want to approach this in a way where we actually co create the flow of the session where it will be more functional. Let's just like structure the session in a way that would benefit the both of us. And please state where do you need help? Where should I step in as an Agile coach and how can I actually take an action? One small action from my side can actually bring their problem to the solution in two or three steps. But if I don't get the request, I don't know about it. So I cannot just proactively try to solve problems.

A (10:44)

Absolutely. One of the things that you said there, like, stop the session, set the stage, hey, this isn't being helpful for me, right? Like what I need is can we talk about and then list the things? Because often, especially in corporate settings, we are often kind of pushed to this implicit acceptance of the structure that is there and we never get to challenge it. And because we get involved with it, then later on it's too late because we are already part of it. We're already part of that implicit expectation setting that was done when we didn't raise the hand and say, hey, wait, wait a minute, this isn't clear enough for me. Can we please have a conversation about and then list whatever like responsibilities, boundaries, whatever that that might be really like that story. So thank you for sharing that with us, fa.

B (11:35)

Of course. Thank you.

A (11:41)

Hi there friends. Thanks for sticking around till the end of the episode. So let me tell you what's coming on May 4th. We're running the Global Agile Summit. It will be online and I want you there this year. We have four tracks and each one is built around real conversations with practitioners. No slides, no keynote theater, just honest interviews with people doing the work, just like you. The first track is AI in organizations where practitioners show what actually works. No hype, just AI that makes your Monday better. Happy Monday everybody. And then we have the People track. Honest conversations about putting humans at the center of how we work and keeping them there. And third is Agile in construction. And yes, I really mean brick and mortar construction. Lean and Agile. Actual job sites. Field leaders removing waste. Teams transforming how buildings get built. Stay tuned for what I think will be a super track on Agile in construction. And the fourth track is is Agile in Gaming. How Game Studios Ship without Burning out Agile Inside the Creative Pressure Cooker. Over the years, we've had more than 12,000 participants. Since 2017, the time of the first summit organized with the podcast and this year we're making it easier than ever to join. You can register for free and get access to the summit sessions live during the event week. That's May 4th to May 6th. Or you can grab the Practitioner Pass and get immediate access to last year's keynotes from Jurgen Apollo, Gojko Adzic and Mirette Cangas right now, even before the summit starts. So grab your Practitioner Pass and start learning today. Head on over to Bitly GlobalAgile 26. That's 2, 6. The numerals 2 and 6 sign up and I'll see you on May 4th. And one more time, here we go. Bit. Ly. GlobalAgile 26. All lowercase, all one word. And 26. That's the numeral 2 and the numeral 6. I'll see you on the conference floor.