"You're Not Listening": A Scrum Master's Wake-Up Call | Karen Suarez

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: "You're Not Listening" - A Scrum Master's Wake-Up Call with Karen Suarez

Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Karen Suarez
Release Date: March 17, 2025

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1. Introduction to Karen Suarez and Her Journey as a Scrum Master

Vasco Duarte welcomes Karen Suarez from Paris, France, highlighting her extensive experience in driving agile transformations and fostering high-performing teams. Karen shares her path to becoming a Scrum Master, emphasizing her initial roles and the motivations that led her to embrace Scrum methodologies.

Quote:
"I always feel motivated by the why are we doing this?… I needed to know the sense of it, which was the goal."
— Karen Suarez [01:47]

2. Challenges Faced: Bridging the Gap Between Business and Technology

Karen recounts her early career in Colombia as a developer, where she grappled with understanding the purpose behind projects. Her move to Paris as a QA engineer exposed her to a divided environment where the business and tech teams were in constant conflict, making communication a significant hurdle.

Quote:
"The communication was really hard. And I started working with the Scrum Master at the moment."
— Karen Suarez [02:34]

3. Failure Story: Pushing Too Hard on Splitting User Stories

In a candid discussion about failures, Karen shares a pivotal moment where her attempts to enforce best practices—specifically splitting user stories into smaller tasks—backfired. Her insistence on rigid methodologies led to resistance from the team, culminating in feedback that she wasn’t listening to their needs.

Quote:
"They started telling me, 'Karen, you are not listening, you are not listening, you are not listening.'"
— Karen Suarez [04:50]

4. Lessons Learned: The Importance of Listening and Timing

Reflecting on her experience, Karen acknowledges that her approach was misplaced. She emphasizes the necessity of aligning her initiatives with the team’s readiness and the importance of self-reflection before imposing changes.

Quote:
"What I teach my team, which is welcome feedback doing introspective, it must first start with me."
— Karen Suarez [06:15]

5. Understanding Resistance as Information

Vasco delves deeper into the concept that resistance from the team is valuable information. He explains that such resistance can indicate whether the team is ready for a particular change or if the approach needs adjustment.

Quote:
"Resistance is information is also important from the perspective of what we are doing. It's also telling us, are we pushing too hard?"
— Vasco Duarte [10:00]

6. Adjusting Approaches: Emphasizing Team Autonomy and Communication

Karen discusses her evolved strategy, moving away from rigid user stories to using the backlog merely as a communication tool. This shift grants the team greater autonomy in deciding how to manage their tasks, fostering a more collaborative and responsive environment.

Quote:
"I just use the backlog as a tool of communication and that's it. Sometimes user stories can be heavy on the writing, on the reflection, on the thinking."
— Karen Suarez [11:00]

7. Key Takeaways and Advice for Scrum Masters

Vasco synthesizes the conversation, highlighting the importance of adaptability, active listening, and ensuring that changes are introduced at the right time. He underscores Karen’s advice to prioritize team feedback and self-assessment to enhance the effectiveness of Scrum practices.

Quote:
"Backlog as a tool of communication. That's a great perspective."
— Vasco Duarte [12:33]

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Final Thoughts

Karen Suarez’s episode serves as a profound reminder for Scrum Masters about the delicate balance between guiding teams and allowing them the space to grow autonomously. Her journey underscores the significance of listening, adapting, and continuously reflecting to foster an environment where Agile methodologies can thrive harmoniously.

Transcript

[Vasco]

Have you ever wondered what it really 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. Hello, everybody. Welcome to one more week of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. And this week, joining us from Paris, the beautiful city of Paris in France, is Karen Suarez. Hey Karen, welcome to the show.

[Karen Suarez]

Thank you, Vasco. Thank you for having me.

[Vasco]

Absolutely. So Karen is a dedicated Scrum Master with a long experience driving agile transformations and fostering high performing teams. She's passionate about continuous learning and excels in aligning agile practices with organizational innovation. And don't we all need a little bit of that? Karen, that was a short intro. Tell us a little bit more about yourself and how did you end up becoming a Scrum Master?

[Karen Suarez]

Actually, I started in my first years as a developer. I always feel motivated by the why are we doing this? And back in the moment I was working in Colombia, which is the country I'm from, and culture there is a bit different. So it was hard to have this vision of why we were doing things. And it was really frustrating for me. The technology I was learning wasn't enough. I needed to know the sense of it, which was the goal. And so I started looking, digging a bit of methodologies, frameworks and tried to use what I learned with my team, with the scope we had. And later I was working as a QA engineering in Paris in France. And the context was the business world and the team and the tech world was kind of in a war. They were always kind of fighting. The communication was really hard. And I started working with the Scrum Master at the moment. And then later it was an open opportunity for me to stay in the same team and then now as a Scrum Master. So when I had the time to do a little more digging, finding why this was the situation was this hard between these two words, and that's how I became a Scrum Master in the first place.

[Vasco]

Wow. And in the middle of conflict between technology and business, that must not have been easy.

[Karen Suarez]

It was my motivation in either case. And yes, at the beginning I started working within the improvements I saw inside the team, which was the easiest part. And then later my goal was to improve the communication between these two worlds.

[Vasco]

And of course, these two worlds of business and technology don't always come together in a very simple or peaceful way as you just described, and they can create quite big challenges for us as Scrum Masters. Now, I don't know if you're going to talk about that specific challenge, but a challenge is of course what we're going to talk about now. After all, it is Fail Monday here on the podcast. So, Karen, share with us one of those stories where you tried your best as a Scrum Master, but obviously sometimes not even our best is good enough. We'll of course interested in that story from the perspective of learning, so we'll dive into the lessons learned later. But first, thank tell us that story, Karen.

[Karen Suarez]

Yes, it's kind of the same story. It was the same team and the part I thought it was going to be easier with the team, it became hard at some point when the tools I brought to the team, the autonomy was a bit developing thanks to the work I did. But when I started to push a little bit too strong on the splitting stories, splitting items, everything has to be really, really small best practices, forcing the user stories and not the way the team wanted to write it, I started adopting a posture. Now I look at that and I don't like it. But at the moment, yes, I was blocked. I was forcing something to the team, which maybe wasn't the right answer and wasn't the right moment in any case. So they started telling me, karen, you are not listening, you are not listening, you are not listening. And I couldn't change my posture, so I changed my improvement. I started working with the, with the business team, but I kind of forget at the moment what, what was blocking me with the team in that kind of, in that context. So now that I look at me with more experience, what I learned is not everyone is ready at the same time. And what my role is, Scrum Master is to facilitate, to bring tools, to sometimes challenge the people, but the expectations must match what the team and what people is ready to do. Not always. And accept that sometimes, yes, I forced something, but it wasn't the right time. I have to Back up. And most important, what I teach my team, which is welcome feedback doing introspective, it must first start with me. And so now I try to do the best I can to look at myself first and what I can change before other access. Because it's hard when you involve more people and bring that to the team members, to the stakeholders, to first look at them of themselves and then let's see what we can do.

[Vasco]

This is I'm sure a very common story for many of our listeners out there trying to help the teams by, you know, splitting the stories down because big stories usually create big problems. The bigger the story, the more likely it is to be delayed, to have misunderstandings, et cetera, et cetera. So even though that is a great practice, as you said, it may not be the right time for that team to tackle it. Now. One of the challenges you faced, according to what you described, was to kind of be able to stop and reflect. Okay, am I pushing too much? And what am I pushing that is too much for the team? Right. Like when you think about that story, what are the things you wish you would have done differently at the time in terms of your own self reflection?

[Karen Suarez]

Yes. Really Stop, stop. Because I was attack tackling too many axes of improvement and I wasn't looking it on myself. I was a junior and I was in a context where I was the most mature in terms of agile. So I believe it was everything on my power to change. And now I have to, I, I can look at myself and tell you are not always the one who knows better and take some time before going too far with something you want and adapt your expectations. With this something I try to do with the product, I teach the product owner how to adapt the product vision with the, with what the team is capable to do at the time. So why not do it with my improvement access?

[Vasco]

So if I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that sometimes we're trying different things, like you were at that time in different directions so with different people and we might find an obstacle like something that isn't working, like in this case the splitting stories. And if I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that at that time we may find that there are other areas where people are receptive and we should perhaps like move the focus to those areas. Is that what you're saying?

[Karen Suarez]

Yes, yes, thank you. That's really what I would have wanted to do and what I've been lately doing when I confront that kind of situation.

[Vasco]

Yeah, there's one thing that we've talked about here on the podcast quite often, which is that resistance is information, right? Like when we go to a team and say, hey, we should split the stories, our stories are too big, let's split them this way, or whatever we're saying to them and we get pushback, that is resistance. We should look at it as information. Now, often we think about it as information from the system, like how the system is set up, who is leading the team, maybe what, what's their opening? Or are they open to taking in new ways of working, whatever that might be. But it's also information about us. And typically what it means is that we're pushing something too hard, right? Like if we're not pushing too hard, we're not going to get resistance. If we're pushing too hard, we're for sure going to get resistance. And the idea is to think about, okay, but is this resistance something that needs to happen? Right? Like it's part of the process of the change and maybe we just need to bring in new tools, new insights, whatever. Or is it something that shows that the team isn't ready yet? Right? Because maybe that's the case, right? And if the team isn't ready yet, for whatever reason, maybe no one is bothering them about not delivering at the end of the sprint. Like, why would they split the stories in that case? Right? So the thought that resistance is information is also important from the perspective of what we are doing. It's also telling us, are we pushing too hard? Right?

[Karen Suarez]

Yes, yes. I haven't thought it that way. Transistence, disinformation. But yes, that's what I meant by stopping and observing, just to take some time to see. I'm a change agent, I should be making noise. But is the noise position in the right way with the right approach at the right moment? And that's what I believe. For example, lately I stop using user stories as primary item of the backlog, of the backlog. I just use the backlog as a tool of communication and that's it. Sometimes user stories can be heavy on the writing, on the reflection, on the thinking. So now I'm more open to other approaches. And then I thought, at the moment, back then, I thought it was the only solution. So I was forcing a solution. And what I'm trying to instruct my team is that they have the autonomy to decide how to do things. And when I'm forcing something too much, I'm taking that out. From that, I'm taking that possibility out of their hands.

[Vasco]

Excellent. That's a Great tip for to end this episode backlog as a tool of communication. That's a great perspective. Thank you for sharing that. Karen.

[Karen Suarez]

Thank you.

[Vasco]

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. 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 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 Apello, 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 the product growth with his Lizard Optimization keynote. Other speakers include, for example Sig 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 development 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. I'll see you there.