← Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
Why Agile Teams Need the Right Support, And How We Can Help Them | Robert Finan
00:13:34
Robert Finan: Why Agile Teams Need the Right Support, And How We Can Help Them Read the full Show Notes and search through the world’s largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website:...
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- [00:04]
Vasco Duarte
Hey, how are you doing? I'm Vasco Duarte, your host on the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. And I've got some exciting news. So right now, as I record this, I'm holding in my hand the signed contract for our very first Global Agile Summit. We're all in and I couldn't wait to share this news with you. So mark your calendars. May 18th, 20th of 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia. We're gonna have a transformative experience. We're putting together an event that is all about real life Agile. It's not theory or buzzwords. It's practitioners sharing what's working, what's making an impact, and how they've overcome challenges that you too will have to face, or maybe even facing. Right now, we're bringing together the best stories in Agile. From product leaders to engineering wizards to business visionaries, these will be stories that will inspire you to action. This isn't just another conference. It's a chance to connect with the people that are shaping the future of Agile. And here's the best part. Right now, we're in our super early bird phase. And that means you can grab tickets at just 25% of the final price. Look, that's not just half off, it's half off of the half off. It's an incredible deal for our dedicated community members, just like you listening to this right now. So at the summit, day one will be all about hands on workshops. And days two and three, we'll dive into leadership, product strategy, coding, testing, and everything that makes Agile thrive in organizations. Right now remember, these are all first person, real life stories. Now whether you're a leader, a developer, or part of a consulting company, this event is built to take your Agile game to the next level. So don't wait. Go to globalagilesummit.com and grab your ticket. Today, let's all make 2025 the year agile truly transforms your teams, your business and our industry. I'll see you all in Tallinn. And Remember, go to globalagilesummit.com and get your super early bird ticket right now. It only be available until the agenda is announced, so don't wait. Grab it right now. Right now that that's out of the way, onto the episode.
- [02:40]
Robert Finnan
Hello everybody.
- [02:41]
Vasco Duarte
Welcome to our team Tuesday. This week we have with us Robert Finnan. Hey, Robert. Welcome back.
- [02:48]
Robert Finnan
Hi Vasco.
- [02:50]
Vasco Duarte
So Tuesday, Steam Tuesday, of course. But we also always start with the book. So share with us, Robert, the book that most inspired you in your career as a Scrum Master.
- [03:02]
Robert Finnan
I could be saying you Know Coaching Agile Teams by Lisa Atkins. You know, I could do this kind of thing, but honestly, the one that was the most help to me, I think was actually Crucial Conversations. It's actually one of my favorite books, and I recommend this on a both a personal and a professional level. But it's Crucial Conversations, which is by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Schwitzler, and it's basically tools for talking when the stakes are high. Now, as a scrum master and a coach base, you find yourself facilitating an awful lot of meetings, an awful lot of meetings, and you're involved yourself. And what I love about this book is basically it addresses what happens when people feel threatened, when emotions are running high, when there's differences of opinion, and when there's basically this tension that comes up. And we're dealing with this all the time as scrum masters and agile coaches the whole time. And it has to do with change as well, because whenever you're bringing in change, very often people's reaction to this, is this a reward or is it a threat? And if it goes into the threat side of things, they're going to fall into their defensive mechanisms, which might be violence or silence or whatever it might be. And I just found this, you know, when we talk about individuals and interactions as the first thing. Okay. I just feel this addresses so many points about how to talk to people, how to be curious about where they're coming from and why they're saying what they're saying. I just found this was such a useful book for. And I recommend this to lots of different people, not just like scrum masters or coaches or something like that. I think everybody could benefit from reading this book. Yeah.
- [04:34]
Vasco Duarte
And it's a great book. I would add to that. So Crucial Conversations. The link will be in the show notes, so make sure to check that out. And I would add to that the nonviolent communication, which we've also tackled here on the podcast, including having some episodes specifically about nvc. So check those out. The links are in the show notes. So, Robert, of course, these crucial conversations are awesome when we need to talk to teams about things that are perhaps not so nice to hear or confront. I don't know what story you're bringing us, but let's dive into that. Share with us a story of a team that you work with and how did those small little behaviors evolved over time that eventually made a big mess of that team situation?
- [05:22]
Robert Finnan
I'll be honest with you, Vasco. I struggled with this question because what I've often found and has Actually surprised me over time is that very often teams really, really want to do something. Well, want to change something. And what I have found in general, I'm going to say this, is that the management support or the environment that would allow them to become a performing high performance team is actually missing. But an awful lot of the basics that you would sort of require to get a team up to a team level is very often failing. So maybe this is to do with my experience of being as an external coach in particular, where you'd be brought in and quite often you're told, this is the scrum team. Okay, here's the scrum team, help them get better kind of thing, or help the scrum master work with this. But you're in an environment where basically they've taken a group of people and rebranded them as a scrum team, or they've brought the business analyst in from a different group and said, ok, you have a.
- [06:17]
Vasco Duarte
So they're not a team yet. Right, exactly.
- [06:19]
Robert Finnan
And if I was brutally honest, I'd say I had two really good scrum teams in the last 14 years, that I'd be like, really? I would put them up on a poster, say, look at these guys, they were brilliant. Okay. And in both cases we had exceptional environments. Okay. In both cases, we were allowed to do stuff that wasn't being done largely in the company. Okay. And I had also some very good teams that were able to work well within the environments that they found themselves in. The constraints that they found themselves in were still able to perform quite well. And then I've had. I don't know what phrase you like to use for this when it's like, well, they've been branded. It's the, well, look, we have a po, we have a scrum master, we have people and we're calling them Scrum Team. And we have sprints. Therefore, it's a scrum team kind of thing where you go, oh, this is going to be difficult. And they're actually the most challenging as well, because sometimes people have been sold this vision of where they're going to, how they're going to be working, and then the reality of the organization not changing with them means that they can't actually deliver on that. So I have less. I would say I have less cases of optimism with which some teams will. The optimism with which some teams will attempt to get stuff done and not seem to learn that they're not going to deliver on this. I know that not everybody's a great fan of story points and velocity. All this kind of stuff. But I find it super useful our teams to give them boundaries, to say, guys, look, this is what you know. And what I like is in one team, like where literally the developers turned around at some point and said, we're going to stop taking stuff in, we're not going to be able to do it. So that's where I saw this kind of you want to bring it up in retro, you want them to become, to work it out themselves that they should change, that they should do this kind of thing. You're always, if I'm seeing something happening then generally speaking it's something where I'll go, I think I've got a topic for this week's retro. And then it's a case of do I dedicate the whole retro to this? I just bring it in subtly myself or how important is it to change this? And stuff like that. And then there's always, I mean, I think self destructing habits of teams. Very often there can be a person in the team who doesn't want to be in this team, doesn't want to play with the team. And this is the hardest, one of the hardest things I find dealing with this. You can have a lot of well wishing people, people who want to get something done. There can be one person who really doesn't want to play ball. You know, they think scrum is ridiculous, think Agile is ridiculous, they want to program on their own, they just want to be, leave me alone, give me my tasks. And this is where crucial conversations is very useful because you need to sit down and have a one on one with this person. And I think it's perfectly okay if at the end of the one on one you decide, hey, you know what, this isn't really your thing. Do you want to move to a different team? Do you want to do something else? What else do you want to stay? Do you want to work on this? What would help you? What would help for you for this to be better? What is it you don't like about it? Because on a one on one they're going to say stuff to you that you will not get in the meetings. So there's always this running around, talking to people individually and that's where crucial conversations comes back into it again. Because if you have that in the back of your head when you talk to people, even though you might be really frustrated that you feel like they're bringing the whole team down, you try and find out where are they coming from? Why is this? What would help to improve the situation?
- [09:39]
Vasco Duarte
So when you think about this specifically the aspect of the environment, right? Like when there's lack of support, when perhaps the rules of the game, as you were talking about yesterday, aren't there for the team to actually excel in, whether it's Kanban or Scrum or xp, whatever that might be. How do you work with these teams? Because I'm sure that many of our listeners out there are probably facing a situation like this right now and they would welcome some tips. So you've been there before, Robert, so what would you do?
- [10:15]
Robert Finnan
Pick your battles. Pick your battles. Choose. Take a look. So I sort of see, when I'm coaching a Scrum master, I sort of see myself like the product owner for team improvement and the one sort of deciding which improvement for the team would bring the most value for the team. So I'm trying in my head, I'm kind of mentally putting in, look, the reviews aren't great, but honestly, that's not really our problem at the moment. We really need to get estimation down better. We need to get, you know, we need to start landing our goals and stuff like that. Be more important to do that. And so I think you need to look at the environment you're in, look at the constraints that are around there, decide what are the bits you think you can get changed and what can you not get changed. I'll give you an example. I was working with a company where the product owner and the testers were in a different building. Okay? It was 15 minutes walk, okay, between the two buildings. So this was not something, wasn't like a couple of floors or anything. It was a distance. And I was lucky that I was able to, to convince the guy above the product owner that, look, this isn't great for communication. This is, you know, this is pretty Covid. But basically, you know, we got the guys to come Monday to Thursday, we got those three guys to come and sit with the developers, okay? And that worked really, really, really, really well. And that was something that we could change. We weren't able to change deployment processes or how other things and pieces like that, we couldn't. There's certain things we couldn't change, but those were the things that, within our sphere of control, our sphere of influence, what are the things that you. There's no point railing against the, raging against the machine. One of the bits you can actually do something about, what can't you? It could be at the end, you think, I've done all I can do here. That's also okay. Those constraints are, you know, you can't Fight everything. You'll go to where I went that first time where you basically, you know, you bite your teeth out trying to change something which was never going to change, and recognizing that it's okay. It's not a failure. It's not a failure.
- [12:11]
Vasco Duarte
That's a great point, actually. And something. We need to remind ourselves constantly that once you've done everything you can do in an organization or in a team, that's it. It's not a failure. And it's okay to move on as well. Right? Like, and. And not burn out like you shared yesterday.
- [12:29]
Robert Finnan
Yeah. And I see. I see people who. I see people who feel like, this, this, this, and I understand it. It's like, yeah, but I want to stay with the team. I want to help them. You know, I get that completely. That's. That's also completely valid. It's. We all have choices, you know, you have to decide for yourself what's right for you. But I think this recognition of when does it make sense to keep pushing and to keep trying something. When is the time to say, we tried that? Then you draw your own conclusions after that.
- [12:56]
Vasco Duarte
Absolutely. Very well said. Thank you for sharing that, Robert. 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.