When Architects Push Solutions—Learning to Disagree but Commit in Agile Teams | Lilia Pulova

Summary

Episode Summary: When Architects Push Solutions—Learning to Disagree but Commit in Agile Teams

Podcast: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
Host: Vasco Duarte, Agile Coach, Certified Scrum Master, Certified Product Owner
Guest: Lilia Pulova
Release Date: June 23, 2025

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Introduction to Lilia Pulova

Vasco Duarte kicks off the episode by introducing Lilia Pulova, a Scrum Master based in Montreal, Canada. Lilia’s journey from a business intelligence analyst to an Agile Coach is both inspiring and relatable, especially for listeners who have transitioned into Agile roles.

Key Highlights:

• Career Transition: Lilia moved to Canada and shifted her career path, obtaining a diploma in Business Intelligence and database analysis. This education paved the way for her initial role as a Business Intelligence Analyst.
• Entry into Scrum Mastery: An open Scrum Master position in her team sparked her interest. Under the mentorship of an exceptional team PM, Lilia learned the fundamentals of Scrum and discovered her passion for Agile coaching.

Notable Quote:

"After that try, I realized that's what I want to do because my natural organizational skills came very handy here." — Lilia Pulova [02:07]

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Fail Monday: Navigating Conflict with Senior Architects

The conversation delves into a pivotal experience Lilia had while working as a Scrum Master, highlighting the challenges of balancing team dynamics with organizational decisions.

The Conflict Scenario:

• Senior Architect's Dominance: A senior architect on Lilia’s team was insistent on a particular solution, which Lilia believed was not the best fit, especially for her diverse team comprising both junior and senior members.
• Proposed Alternatives: Lilia offered two alternative solutions tailored to her team's varying levels of maturity and experience, aiming to facilitate a smoother transition for less experienced members.

Key Insights:

• Disagree but Commit Principle: Lilia emphasizes the importance of voicing disagreements constructively and the necessity of committing to team decisions once they are made.
• Adaptation and Support: Despite her reservations, Lilia committed to supporting the architect’s solution, leading to modifications that better suited her team's needs.

Notable Quotes:

"The story was like when I once told my manager, I do not agree, but I accept your decision." — Lilia Pulova [04:02]
"Sometimes you do have to let go. You do your best to coach, to convince on the best solution. But sometimes if there's too much resistance and too much stubbornness, you have to let them try." — Lilia Pulova [06:50]

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Managing Team Dynamics and Feedback

Lilia shares her strategies for handling team frustration and ensuring that feedback loops are maintained between the team and management.

Strategies Employed:

• Transparent Communication: Lilia held a presentation to explain the proposed solution, ensuring the team understood its implications and value.
• Hands-On Support: She provided detailed guidance to her team, helping them navigate the new processes and methodologies introduced by the senior architect.
• Feedback Mechanisms: Recognizing the team's frustration, Lilia engaged in one-on-one and group conversations to gather feedback, which she then communicated to management to seek further adjustments.

Outcomes:

• Team Acceptance: While initial resistance was high, the team gradually accepted the solution as Lilia adapted it to better fit their capabilities.
• Solution Refinement: Through continuous feedback and iterative adjustments, the final implementation was more aligned with the team’s needs, demonstrating effective Agile adaptation.

Notable Quotes:

"I had to take this frustration on me and to make sure that it doesn't hurt the team." — Lilia Pulova [07:39]
"Sometimes we don't have a choice. We just have to accept it." — Lilia Pulova [11:28]

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Lessons Learned: Embracing Flexibility in Agile Teams

The episode wraps up with key takeaways from Lilia’s experience, reinforcing the importance of flexibility, communication, and commitment in Agile environments.

Core Lessons:

• Flexibility is Crucial: Even when leaders push for specific solutions, Agile practitioners must remain adaptable and find ways to tailor strategies to their team's unique context.
• Effective Communication: Clear and empathetic communication helps in managing team morale and ensuring that everyone is aligned with the project goals.
• Commitment Beyond Agreement: Embracing decisions, even those initially disagreed upon, fosters a unified team effort and drives collective success.

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Conclusion

Vasco Duarte and Lilia Pulova conclude the episode by reiterating the value of the "Disagree but Commit" principle in fostering resilient and cohesive Agile teams. Lilia’s story serves as a powerful example for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches navigating similar challenges in their professional journeys.

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Join the Community

Before signing off, Vasco promotes the Scrum Master Toolbox membership, highlighting the extensive resources and community support available to Agile practitioners. However, as per the episode summary guidelines, promotional segments are acknowledged but not detailed here.

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Stay Connected:
For more insights and actionable advice, tune into future episodes of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast and consider joining the vibrant community at scrummastertoolbox.org.

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. Hello everybody. Welcome to one more week of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast. And this week it is my pleasure to host Lilia Pulova. Hey, Lilia, welcome to the show.

[Liliya Pulova]

Hello everyone.

[Vasko]

Lilia is joining us from the beautiful country of Canada and in Montreal specifically. She's a former business intelligence analyst. Discover her passion as a Scrum Master by chance and I guess many of us will definitely resonate with that. And she's also a natural communicator with a love for languages and she now bridges the gap between business and tech where language is very important to bridge that gap, of course, translating complex needs into streamlined processes that help with productivity and keep teams aligned and focused. So, Liliya, that was a short intro. Tell us a little bit more about yourself and how did you end up becoming a Scrum Master?

[Liliya Pulova]

That was a very interesting story. I have a couple of educations in my life. When I immigrated to Canada, I had to choose a new path of career because new country, new opportunities. And I decided to join it at certain points. I went to college, I got a diploma in Business Intelligence and database analysis and that's how I started my career as a business intelligence analyst. After a year or so in my company, there was an opening under our pm, our team pm. He had a position of Scrum Master opened and I asked him to try if I can. He said yes, sure, let's go, let's do it. And I have to say, he's an amazing man. He teached me the basics of the Scrum, of the project management in general, and he showed me a direction of the career where I can go. And after that try, I realized that's what I want to do because my natural organizational skills came very handy here. Although when I was little I was saying, look, yeah, no bossy lady is not going to do any good for you. You have to watch your temper. Now that's actually to all people who listen in, that can be really a career, not just something irritating for other people.

[Vasko]

Absolutely, absolutely. Now, of course, when we start as Scrum Masters, there's a lot to learn and I don't know if that's a story you're going to share with us, but today's Fail Monday here on the podcast. So we want to explore one of those stories, Liliya, of where you know you did your best but at that time you were still learning like happens to all of us. And of course you had then a lesson learned. But before we dive into what you learned, share that story with us, Liliya.

[Liliya Pulova]

The story was like when I once told my manager, I do not agree, but I accept your decision. We had a senior architect on our team that was pushing his way on a solution. Although I was offering two other solutions to choose because I had three teams in my group under my umbrella, I'd say, and they all were very different level of maturity. Some were very junior, some were more senior. And in my solution I was focusing more on a junior members of the team to make sure that their transition is smooth and easy because some solutions are not that easy to get right away, especially in if it's administrative and stuff for administrators.

[Vasko]

You were worried about how this team, which was starting or had not, did not have the same level of experience in that domain. You were worried about how they would take to the solution that the senior architect was proposing. Right.

[Liliya Pulova]

And then how, yeah, how it will affect their day to day operation because it was more for methodology and organizational administration, stuff like JIRA tickets creation because they, let's say two days ago, started using jira, something like that. And for them I did understand it was hard and I was not agree and I told that to my manager. But I told him we'll exercise one of the Agile principles, fail fast. At certain point I understood I just have to let go, let them try. If it's a failure, it's a failure. We'll reorganize and we'll find some other solution. But if it's a success, okay, let's do it, let's continue. It of course created a lot of overhead for other teams, a lot of confusion, but we managed to find slightly different solution. To make it easier for everyone.

[Vasko]

And when you think about that story. So you had the option of creating a conflict like, okay, I don't think this will work. I think we need to go with this other solution. Or you had the option of letting it go, but you also approached it with, as you said, let's fail fast, let's learn quickly. Right? So when, when you look back, when you look back at that story, what did you learn about that experience of. Of letting it go, letting the, the idea of trying to counter the proposal from the architect go, and then focusing really on helping the team learning. Like, what do you take out of.

[Liliya Pulova]

That story that sometimes you do have to let go? You do your best to coach, to convince on the best solution. But sometimes if there's too much resistance and too much stubbornness, you have to let them try.

[Vasko]

Absolutely. And once we start going in that path, of course, then we need to be not necessarily discouraging, right. But we need to be clear that, okay, hey, this might not be easy and it's okay if it's not easy, but we're here to learn. So let's try to get the feedback rolling and whatever needs to be changed and we will need to tackle it. Is that how you approach or how did you approach communicating that to the team, which was less experienced?

[Liliya Pulova]

First I had a conversation with my manager. I told him, I'm going to support it on every step of this journey, but I do not agree with the solution. Then I did a presentation to the team how it's going to work, and I had to technically hold their hand on every step to make sure that they understand what they doing, they understand where we heading, what value it brings for us as a team, as an organization. And of course there was a lot of resistance because overhead complication, it's not easy. But I had to take this frustration on me and to make sure that it doesn't hurt the team.

[Vasko]

And how did it go then in the end, like, did the team take it well? Was there like lots of conflict? How did it go?

[Liliya Pulova]

They accepted it, but I managed to find it slightly reorganized the solution. I managed to find different. Slightly. I changed the way, let's say I shifted the focus of the solution to make it easier for the team.

[Vasko]

So basically you were kind of adopting but also adapting the solution to the context of that team, right?

[Liliya Pulova]

Pretty much. Because people ambitions. Some people are more ambitious than others, but I understand they maybe want to show that they are experienced, they know it's easy for them. But we not all at the same level. And we have to accommodate everyone's level when we making a decision and finding a solution for something.

[Vasko]

And what kind of feedback did you get from the team? Because I imagine that this went on for a while, and then at some point, either the solution was kind of accepted and just became work as usual or business as usual, or then it changed, right? Like, it was thrown away and then replaced with something else. So how did that happen over time? Like, how did the team react, what kind of feedback did you get, and how did the story end?

[Liliya Pulova]

First, it was a lot of frustration. I did a lot of conversations in group, one on one, to listen, to understand their pain. Although I could say that I pretty much understood it from the very beginning, what pain it could give, and then to bring it up to the manager level for him to understand. Because sometimes what happens to managers, they don't really understand the level of our frustration and difficulties we see on a daily basis when they make a decision.

[Vasko]

Yeah, absolutely. And that's very important because, of course, if we don't provide that feedback first, if we don't get the feedback from the team, and then if we don't provide that feedback to the. To the leaders in the organization, then there's nothing they can do. So it's really important for us to take on that responsibility of, okay, we are going to adopt, we are going to do it as we agreed we would do it, but then we're also going to collect feedback, we're making adjustments, whatever those might be, and we need to communicate that to, in this case, to the managers or to other teams or stakeholders, whatever the context might be, so that they are ready to understand what happens in the team. Because, I mean, I imagine that that frustration also came out, right, like in maybe not so easy conversations and. Yeah, absolutely.

[Liliya Pulova]

On a daily basis.

[Vasko]

Yeah, that was a very informative story and shows quite a lot of the, I would say, kind of the different aspects of this principle we talk about quite a lot, which is this. Disagree but commit. Right. Like, it's okay to disagree, but then if that's the decision, then we need to commit and we need to do it to the best of our abilities.

[Liliya Pulova]

Sometimes we don't have choice. We just have to accept it.

[Vasko]

Sometimes we don't have a choice. Very well said. Thank you, Liliya. All right, I hope you liked 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 practical. 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 Business 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 like, 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. 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.