The first value expressed in the Manifesto for Agile Software Development is "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools."
In this episode of Arguing Agile we are joined by Yadi Caro, host of the Hardcore Soft Skills Podcast for an exploration of practical and actionable ways to put people over processes and tools.
Listen as we discuss how to build empathy, facilitate effective meetings, foster team collaboration, and customize processes to fit your unique teams. Discover actionable tips from experienced practitioners to help your team thrive, including:
- How to invest in building relationships and empathy across the organization
- How to better facilitate meetings, with clear goals and equal voices
- Why you should reward team success, not just individual performance
- Why allowing teams to customize processes is important
agile, scrum, people over process, empathy, facilitation, collaboration, team wellbeing, psychological safety, agile coaching, product management, leadership
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AA170 - How to Prioritize Individuals & Interactions (Over Processes & Tools)
00:00:01 --> 00:00:11 welcome to the Arguing Agile Podcast, where Enterprise Business Agility Coach Om Patel and Product Manager Brian Orlando argue about product management, leadership, and business agility, so you don't have to.
00:00:12 --> 00:00:14 When I listen to your podcast, you actually do introductions in this.
00:00:14 --> 00:00:16 Introductions are very difficult for me.
00:00:16 --> 00:00:17 Hardcore soft skills.
00:00:17 --> 00:00:18 Yadi is your podcast.
00:00:18 --> 00:00:21 If you wandered into the wrong place today.
00:00:21 --> 00:00:21 Thanks for coming.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:26 But also this is a crossover with the, hardcore soft skills podcast.
00:00:26 --> 00:00:26 That is correct.
00:00:26 --> 00:00:29 And I'm Yadi and I'm the host of the podcast.
00:00:29 --> 00:00:31 So yes, for the listeners of my podcast.
00:00:31 --> 00:00:35 You're listening now, discovering, or they're probably listeners of your show.
00:00:35 --> 00:00:36 So thank you.
00:00:36 --> 00:00:38 Happy to be here on your studio.
00:00:38 --> 00:00:45 Cause I usually, as I was talking offline earlier, you guys have a nice, fancy microphone studios.
00:00:45 --> 00:00:49 I'm usually at home with a tiny headphones and a computer.
00:00:49 --> 00:00:49 this is great.
00:00:49 --> 00:00:51 Whatever works, Yeah.
00:00:51 --> 00:00:52 No, we're glad to have you on.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:53 So thank you for coming.
00:00:53 --> 00:00:56 we did our normal brainstorming to come up with the topic.
00:00:56 --> 00:01:06 And the topic that we really liked based on some, some of Yadi's previous guests is the how to of people over process because people over process we hear about people over process.
00:01:07 --> 00:01:17 People over process, you don't hear a lot about people over process on, on the interwebs or on LinkedIn or on random influencers yelling at each other, you don't hear a lot about that.
00:01:17 --> 00:01:19 So I think this is a super interesting topic.
00:01:19 --> 00:01:29 When you come to the right podcast if you want to figure out how to do this so by the end of this podcast you'll have some Significant takeaways that you can start to implement starting tomorrow morning.
00:01:29 --> 00:01:35 Yeah, and that was part of the reason I started a podcast because I've been Working in the tech world for a while.
00:01:35 --> 00:01:38 And it's a lot of focus on the process part.
00:01:38 --> 00:01:43 And particularly in Agile, it's like all about frameworks and about scrum and about following SAFe and everything else.
00:01:43 --> 00:01:55 But the part of focusing of, okay, how do I actually, when I engage with people, I am able to have a good communication or have good collaboration, conflict occurs, how do you resolve it?
00:01:55 --> 00:02:02 So it's, you're expected to be a natural at that person is a good people person, but how do you achieve that?
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 it's skills that you need to develop just like any technical skills.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:07 I deeply believe that it's it.
00:02:07 --> 00:02:11 Any quote unquote soft skills are things that you need to practice and become better at.
00:02:12 --> 00:02:19 These aren't, The sort of skills that you are taught necessarily in college or whatever it is, in your trainings, right?
00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 That you get former trained at all.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:22 I was going to say, yeah, really.
00:02:22 --> 00:02:23 You're right.
00:02:23 --> 00:02:27 He's just suddenly thrust into the world of work and then you have to deal with people.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:28 Yikes.
00:02:28 --> 00:02:34 I remember when I came up through the ranks of QA analysts, QA engineering QA team lead, right?
00:02:34 --> 00:02:42 And then suddenly now you're a manager but at no point in my journey did the company ever say like, okay, Brian, now we're going to teach you about.
00:02:42 --> 00:02:51 Interviewing and teach you about what motivates people and teach you about how to better communicate with your employees and teach you about exerting influence throughout the rest of the organization.
00:02:52 --> 00:03:01 But since you're not managers of the people, here's how to exert influence without authority to like nobody, I never went through a single training, all that it was just like, it was me just being screamed at.
00:03:02 --> 00:03:03 Screamed at right?
00:03:03 --> 00:03:09 I could have said yelled at I chose screamed at intentionally of you're not doing good enough about Fostering relationships with this other team.
00:03:09 --> 00:03:13 I'm like, well, I mean I'm good at QA engineering.
00:03:13 --> 00:03:19 Yeah, and because I was good at that you made me a manager And now my job is not to do QA engineering.
00:03:19 --> 00:03:29 It's to do QA engineering at scale, which I can only do by motivating Other people to do good engineering, but you never trained me how to do these other things, but you're saying I'm doing a bad job.
00:03:29 --> 00:03:35 So now I feel attacked on all fronts, and like the way out of that is.
00:03:35 --> 00:03:37 People you can't process your way out of that, right?
00:03:37 --> 00:03:43 So this whole idea of you getting trained in the core skills when you first come into the market, right?
00:03:43 --> 00:03:47 To whatever skill set you bring, you mentioned QA, it could be anything.
00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 It's really the focus is on me.
00:03:49 --> 00:03:57 So going from that to getting to the point where whether you're promoted or whatever, you become a lead of some kind and the focus shifts.
00:03:57 --> 00:04:07 From me to we, and you're no longer thinking about what do I bring to the table as opposed to what do I bring to the table that makes us collectively successful.
00:04:07 --> 00:04:10 There is nothing that enables that formally.
00:04:10 --> 00:04:13 The organization, as you said, doesn't really provide that.
00:04:13 --> 00:04:15 Neither does any kind of training.
00:04:15 --> 00:04:16 That's what we're created on.
00:04:16 --> 00:04:24 You know so this podcast is all around shoring up those skills that aren't necessarily core technical, right?
00:04:24 --> 00:04:30 These are about skills you need to acquire over the course of your career, not necessarily even a role.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:31 I mean, it transcends roles.
00:04:32 --> 00:04:37 When you come in, it's you dealing with just What you're brought in to do, right?
00:04:37 --> 00:04:47 As you go forward in life, you are now working with people and that's where things get tricky because people are these dynamic, unpredictable beings.
00:04:47 --> 00:04:52 That require certain tact a certain way that you approach them, that you deal with them.
00:04:52 --> 00:04:54 And none of that is taught, as you said, right?
00:04:54 --> 00:04:58 So this podcast is going to tackle several different facets of how.
00:04:58 --> 00:05:07 You can get into it and how you can improve those skill sets so you can be more successful not just you It's also making your organization more successful.
00:05:08 --> 00:05:23 I do have a question for you brian were describing about the when you came into management roles, what was the most difficult skill that you feel you didn't have like the quote unquote soft soft skill that you felt you need to acquire And how did you develop it?
00:05:23 --> 00:05:27 There's this old saying about before you can coach somebody, basically.
00:05:27 --> 00:05:28 People need to know that you actually care about them.
00:05:29 --> 00:05:34 you're not just ticking check boxes that you actually do care empathy, basically, is what I'm saying.
00:05:34 --> 00:05:43 I'm going to say it was empathy because everything that we're about to talk about in this podcast that we kind of, talk through and made notes about it's going to fall into that empathy building.
00:05:43 --> 00:05:56 now that I'm in product management building empathy for other teams, building empathy, for stakeholders, building empathy, for your customer, potentially even building empathy for leadership because sometimes they don't really have great strategies and goals.
00:05:56 --> 00:05:59 So you, you have to kind of Hey, we're doing the best we can.
00:05:59 --> 00:06:02 With what you've given us, I'm not I'm not trying to come across accusatory.
00:06:02 --> 00:06:05 I'm trying to do the, best execution of the mission I can with what I've been given.
00:06:05 --> 00:06:13 And maybe they're involved in a million different things, but you'll never know about it because they're not going to say, Hey man, look, , I'm involved in a million different things.
00:06:13 --> 00:06:14 I'm really stressed out.
00:06:14 --> 00:06:15 They're never going to say that to you.
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 So you have to build empathy.
00:06:18 --> 00:06:27 And at that stage where I moved from a team member up to management where I was hiring team members and bringing them on and kind of building a culture around what we wanted to do.
00:06:27 --> 00:06:27 Yeah.
00:06:28 --> 00:06:28 Yeah.
00:06:28 --> 00:06:29 It wasn't very good about.
00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 Empathizing with other teams specifically.
00:06:32 --> 00:06:32 Yeah.
00:06:33 --> 00:06:33 Makes sense.
00:06:33 --> 00:06:34 Absolutely.
00:06:34 --> 00:06:35 What you're describing in terms of.
00:06:35 --> 00:06:35 Yeah.
00:06:36 --> 00:06:41 Particularly empathy with leadership is something that sometimes we feel like we don't, we need to build more.
00:06:41 --> 00:06:45 If they have bad habits like command and control, that kind of stuff, like because they, not because.
00:06:45 --> 00:06:49 It works or not because of any specific thing just because that's the only thing they know That's right.
00:06:49 --> 00:06:50 We on this podcast.
00:06:50 --> 00:07:10 We go like on the arguing agile podcast It's the only thing they know that's like you can't come down hard on someone if they're like a like the a lot of this stuff came up from Taylorism like going back to her Podcasts our two and a half hour podcast on Taylorism like it The, the, the idea of Taylorism is you can write down a checklist of everything that someone needs to do to do the job perfectly.
00:07:10 --> 00:07:10 Yeah.
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 And as long as they're following the checklist every time.
00:07:13 --> 00:07:14 Yeah they should just follow the checklist.
00:07:14 --> 00:07:19 So if they're not following the checklist and getting success, obviously they're doing something wrong.
00:07:19 --> 00:07:19 Okay.
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 but in our work in the modern day, knowledge work.
00:07:22 --> 00:07:23 That's not true at all.
00:07:23 --> 00:07:34 You meet some people that can develop and they're 20 times faster than another developer and that's no fault of any individual person or processor or whatever.
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 That's just the way the work is now.
00:07:36 --> 00:07:38 I agree with that.
00:07:38 --> 00:07:43 I think the biggest difference really today is I think you nailed it when you said knowledge workers, right?
00:07:43 --> 00:07:47 We're actually empowering people to bring their brains to work.
00:07:47 --> 00:07:52 We're not simply saying, here's a checklist, go do all these 16 things and go home at the end of the day.
00:07:52 --> 00:07:58 People are empowered to bring their thinking, right, their creativity, their ingenuity to work.
00:07:58 --> 00:08:08 And if we're gonna do that, there's a certain something that management, going back to the original point, they have to let go, which is this idea that I know everything they need to do.
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 And if I tell them everything they need to do, then they should jolly well go do it.
00:08:13 --> 00:08:14 And if they do it, then we're successful.
00:08:15 --> 00:08:16 That's old thinking.
00:08:16 --> 00:08:17 It's not just recent old either.
00:08:18 --> 00:08:19 that goes back a long way.
00:08:19 --> 00:08:23 They need to relinquish that and say this, they know best what they need to do.
00:08:23 --> 00:08:23 I don't.
00:08:23 --> 00:08:28 So why don't I just get out of their way and say, what's stopping you from delivering?
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 I'll get rid of those roadblocks for you so you can deliver.
00:08:31 --> 00:08:33 And when you deliver, you succeed.
00:08:33 --> 00:08:34 I succeed.
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 We all succeed in the organization succeeds.
00:08:37 --> 00:08:43 I think that realization is not really prevalent in these big monolith companies.
00:08:44 --> 00:08:48 You know that are still structured the old way you can't fault people if they are where they are.
00:08:49 --> 00:08:56 So they're in these environments where the structure doesn't really encourage them to empower their teams to do the best work they can.
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 The structure simply says this is how the structure is.
00:09:00 --> 00:09:04 And you need to get these things out of these people by these timeframes.
00:09:04 --> 00:09:08 And we fall back into the old ways of thinking that that's really the thing.
00:09:08 --> 00:09:19 So I think today in some of the other topics that we'll deep dive into we will explore areas how you can get out of This trap, Leaders, like you said before, we say that pretty much on every podcast.
00:09:19 --> 00:09:28 Leaders got there by being in their space and they don't want to be in the agile space or agile ways of thinking because why should they change the way that they think has worked for them?
00:09:28 --> 00:09:29 Well, Things have changed.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:36 We're in the knowledge space now and the cycle, the competitive space has changed a lot.
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 We often talk about companies that fail to recognize that.
00:09:39 --> 00:09:40 And they're gone.
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 They're not there anymore, right?
00:09:42 --> 00:09:47 There's all these big, big, big companies and they're not there anymore because they didn't change fast enough.
00:09:47 --> 00:09:53 We also know another thing, thinking about it the old way, Isn't really aligned itself to you changing fast enough.
00:09:53 --> 00:09:55 So then something else is needed.
00:09:55 --> 00:10:00 To enable your teams, enabling your teams isn't simply just saying, okay, well, they're being successful.
00:10:00 --> 00:10:05 Enabling your teams should be seen upon as I am actually doing my job better.
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 By having them succeed in their job.
00:10:08 --> 00:10:09 That's what we should be thinking about.
00:10:09 --> 00:10:13 We're going to get into a section on enabling teams.
00:10:13 --> 00:10:17 segment number one, Yadi, you're already like, you're already hinted as segment number one.
00:10:17 --> 00:10:19 So now I'm doing things out of, this is what we do on the podcast.
00:10:19 --> 00:10:23 We do things out of order, like almost hinting at the, let's talk about enabling the teams.
00:10:23 --> 00:10:24 Right.
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 Where you are a starter with was.
00:10:26 --> 00:10:27 Investing in relationship building.
00:10:27 --> 00:10:32 See, I went from cultures like I had described, whereas like I didn't really have empathy.
00:10:32 --> 00:10:33 I had to build a skill.
00:10:33 --> 00:10:38 I had to understand how to make my team more valuable to other teams.
00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 And the people on my team, more valuable to other teams.
00:10:40 --> 00:10:46 You do that with empathy that you understand what leadership needs and you really connect with them through empathy.
00:10:46 --> 00:10:48 And all those were underdeveloped skills.
00:10:48 --> 00:10:53 So I had to quickly learn how to develop those while I was also managing the organization.
00:10:53 --> 00:10:54 So of course.
00:10:54 --> 00:11:00 I was a manager in the organization, so the people in leadership were looking at me like, I don't understand why do, how did you become a manager?
00:11:00 --> 00:11:00 You don't have these skills.
00:11:01 --> 00:11:03 I'm like, yeah, but you guys don't promote based on these skills.
00:11:03 --> 00:11:05 you promote based on individual performance.
00:11:05 --> 00:11:09 And then now you're expecting that I have a different skill set anyway.
00:11:09 --> 00:11:10 And it was weird.
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 the investing in relationship building, I worked at that company.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:14 I left that company.
00:11:14 --> 00:11:16 I worked at a bunch of different companies.
00:11:16 --> 00:11:24 I finally ended up at this one company that when I onboarded part of the onboarding in the first 30 days, it was like 20 something people, 22, 25 people.
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 Part of my onboarding checklist was, have you had a one on one.
00:11:28 --> 00:11:29 There was a 30 minute one on one.
00:11:29 --> 00:11:33 You could talk about anything you want except anything directly work related.
00:11:33 --> 00:11:42 So they don't want you talking about work projects and work software then you had to do a one on one with everybody in the company within your first 30 days.
00:11:42 --> 00:11:43 That was their rules.
00:11:43 --> 00:11:43 Okay.
00:11:43 --> 00:11:52 And, and after going through all the experiences, everything I just talked about being a manager, having a team, et cetera, I got introduced into this culture and and I was like, well, this is.
00:11:52 --> 00:11:53 Wonderful.
00:11:53 --> 00:11:59 I was like, this, is what I wish somebody Would've taken me off to the side and been like, Hey Brian I see you have some deficiencies.
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 Maybe you should try this.
00:12:01 --> 00:12:02 Wouldn't that be wonderful?
00:12:02 --> 00:12:06 which basically is just, I mean the funny thing is if you go to the like the, IC Agile.
00:12:07 --> 00:12:12 Trainings or whatever, they have exercises they recommend in their training that would like map your friend or foe.
00:12:12 --> 00:12:15 Like these are, these are the people that are helpful to me as an agile coach.
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 These are the people that are like against me.
00:12:17 --> 00:12:20 Like when I come in just to figure out what the, like the playing field that you're playing on.
00:12:21 --> 00:12:30 And this is that exercise like times 10 Cause it's basically take, take, take a, like a red string sticky board of all the people in the organization.
00:12:30 --> 00:12:31 Just in your segment.
00:12:31 --> 00:12:32 These are all the people that lead teams.
00:12:32 --> 00:12:34 These are all the people that make decisions.
00:12:34 --> 00:12:44 And then start having one on ones with all of them people will hear this and be like, well, I can't do that in my organization because people say that's not work related.
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 I'm not you're just talking about nonsense for 30 minutes.
00:12:46 --> 00:12:53 I think if you actually do it, I think there'll be a lot more leniency than you think there will be for this type of activity to say, Hey, I'm relationship building.
00:12:53 --> 00:12:54 It's super important.
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 I need this empathy to be able to do my job.
00:12:57 --> 00:13:03 And whether you're a scrum master, product manager, agile coach, middle manager member or leadership.
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 I feel I just ran through the Holy Gamt, the cycle.
00:13:06 --> 00:13:07 the later I got in that cycle.
00:13:07 --> 00:13:11 The more Okay it is because if you start and you're like a VP of software development or something.
00:13:11 --> 00:13:11 Mm-Hmm.
00:13:12 --> 00:13:14 . It's, this is going to be an expected activity.
00:13:14 --> 00:13:18 I think it's, it, what you mentioned is very, very important.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:23 I like that they kind of build it in as you become a new manager in the organization or in the role that they have.
00:13:23 --> 00:13:26 Checklist, have 30 minute meetings with people that are not work related.
00:13:27 --> 00:13:28 And that's very important.
00:13:28 --> 00:13:35 I think the first step to anything that you do is the connect part because I did it with and it was helpful in this big military organization.
00:13:35 --> 00:13:39 So I was walking around and there was this different divisions and branches.
00:13:40 --> 00:13:49 I was literally walking around with a org chart and I, To, to understand what everybody was, but then I made an effort to go like, I'm just going to do meet and greets.
00:13:49 --> 00:13:50 Cause I don't know what they do.
00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 I'm just going to knock on doors and be like, Hey, I'm the new scrum master.
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 So it was very helpful to create those connections with folks.
00:13:56 --> 00:13:58 I'm like, I'm just trying to understand your work.
00:13:58 --> 00:14:07 Find commonalities between the people and in moving to remote work as I recently I am now the meet and greets were very important to us Hey, I live in Florida.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:17 I know you're in Colorado or whatever you are, but those were really helpful to help build trust with the team when you come to work, you already have that water cooler conversations and it becomes a little easier.
00:14:17 --> 00:14:22 So I think it's important to, to build that part first of connecting and building empathy.
00:14:22 --> 00:14:23 Yeah, I absolutely agree.
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 And even in this day and age, when we're.
00:14:25 --> 00:14:31 Working remotely, One of the things that I find that we miss is that physical kind of opportunities, right?
00:14:31 --> 00:14:34 Meeting people at the water cooler or the coffee machine or whatever.
00:14:35 --> 00:14:36 But you can have digital equivalents now.
00:14:37 --> 00:14:41 You can have these trusted channels in whatever you use, Slack or Teams or Google, whatever it is.
00:14:42 --> 00:14:54 And just tell the teams that this is just for Everything outside of work and you'll be amazed how quickly that takes off I tried it and on a large program and I start seeing people put pictures of the new dog.
00:14:54 --> 00:15:01 They just adopted You know it people Actually building relations Whether you know it or not, they're doing that through that, right?
00:15:01 --> 00:15:07 So when they're face to face in a meeting this could be virtual, obviously they talk about, how's your dog doing, right?
00:15:07 --> 00:15:09 It's like you know the person you're working with.
00:15:09 --> 00:15:12 And to get to that point remotely is hard.
00:15:12 --> 00:15:16 You can also do other things like team building exercises and whatnot, right?
00:15:16 --> 00:15:17 Relationship building, you absolutely can.
00:15:17 --> 00:15:27 If you're really giving it an effort, like you know, one of the things I said, this is somebody and they thought it was so revelatory that they wanted to bring it to the company immediately at my company.
00:15:27 --> 00:15:37 One of the things they do is they go around and they will ask, People that are trying to think of what level in the organization that they'll ask for they're not necessarily at the team level.
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 They're really more at like the leadership level and above.
00:15:41 --> 00:15:45 They'll ask them for baby pictures or like small child pictures.
00:15:45 --> 00:15:48 And then they'll go to a channel on Slack.
00:15:48 --> 00:15:57 And they'll say, guess who this is, and they'll give them like, they'll give them like three or four choices and everyone can vote and then it's up to the person that revealed themselves, once a certain number of votes has come in.
00:15:57 --> 00:15:59 But that's like, they do that every week.
00:15:59 --> 00:16:06 And that's a great, I mean like think about places that you've been in where it's like, you're coming in, you're sitting in your desk and you're sitting in your cube.
00:16:06 --> 00:16:07 And you know what I mean?
00:16:07 --> 00:16:10 Like you're expected to be there and you're watching the clock or whatever.
00:16:10 --> 00:16:15 Like that's what I just described is a different place than the place where you opt into the random coffee channel.
00:16:15 --> 00:16:20 and if you, and if you opt into the channel every week, it's going to set you up with a new person to talk to in the company.
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 so that after a year.
00:16:22 --> 00:16:25 you've had 40 plus introductions to different people.
00:16:25 --> 00:16:35 Some of these people you work with in your normal circle, but some of them might be from well outside of your circle, but they're valuable contacts nonetheless, up and down the chain of command or whatever you want to call it.
00:16:35 --> 00:16:35 I agree.
00:16:35 --> 00:16:42 And there are so many different ways that you can spend this too for example, one of my programs, we started a awesome sunset channel, right?
00:16:42 --> 00:16:43 On Slack.
00:16:43 --> 00:16:50 So wherever people are, they're all remote and they would take a picture of the sunset where they're at and then say, well, today we saw this.
00:16:50 --> 00:16:52 And then people would start saying, where was that?
00:16:52 --> 00:16:53 Right.
00:16:53 --> 00:16:57 And so one of the pictures was from an area where they have A telescope, right?
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 And so Palomar, Palomar, whatever.
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 The, the where they watch the space.
00:17:02 --> 00:17:03 I'm not technical today.
00:17:03 --> 00:17:07 So one of the people was like, Okay, so, can you go in there and visit?
00:17:07 --> 00:17:08 Like, yeah, people are allowed.
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 You have to go through security, all that.
00:17:10 --> 00:17:14 So they did that, and they took pictures through the telescope of the outer sphere.
00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 And they start to, I don't know about a sunset, but look at the sun, right?
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 And it's amazing how much gravity that has.
00:17:22 --> 00:17:24 People start aligning to this.
00:17:24 --> 00:17:27 I'm going to go find a picture of a sunset around where I live.
00:17:27 --> 00:17:31 You know, so we had a lot of people from Colorado was mentioned earlier.
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 We have people from Colorado, people from Hawaii.
00:17:34 --> 00:17:36 They would put pictures of awesome sunsets from all over the world.
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 But how you get to know another, and they go, what do you do?
00:17:39 --> 00:17:39 I do this.
00:17:40 --> 00:17:45 And you make these connections that appear to be random, but you never know when those connections are helpful to you.
00:17:46 --> 00:17:46 Yeah.
00:17:46 --> 00:17:46 Yeah.
00:17:47 --> 00:17:48 So it has happened.
00:17:48 --> 00:17:53 It it's very important to to build that because that's what people remember.
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 One day you move to another company or whatever that is.
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 And it has happened to me, for example, like people will.
00:17:59 --> 00:18:02 Recommend me for a job or something like that.
00:18:02 --> 00:18:05 I was like, they don't know what I'm working or what I do.
00:18:05 --> 00:18:07 How are they recommending me for this job?
00:18:07 --> 00:18:11 But it's the fact that we build a relationship and they feel they have that trust and like, Oh yeah, you're good.
00:18:11 --> 00:18:13 Recommend you for this particular role.
00:18:13 --> 00:18:19 This is a great category for us because like in product management where I'm not anyone's direct boss, I only.
00:18:19 --> 00:18:24 Have these relationships to leverage, to influence, to move things forward.
00:18:24 --> 00:18:26 I only have these real, I don't have any authorities.
00:18:26 --> 00:18:27 That's an awesome point, Brian.
00:18:27 --> 00:18:29 Because I mean, there are many roles like that, right?
00:18:29 --> 00:18:31 So scrum masters are other ones.
00:18:31 --> 00:18:34 You don't really, you're not really the boss of anybody.
00:18:34 --> 00:18:35 You're leading through.
00:18:35 --> 00:18:38 Influence without authority honestly, right?
00:18:38 --> 00:18:49 and how to do that effectively is through these ways of making connections with people as people work with people right at the end of the day, so I think it's good It's like you're really not going to be able to tell someone.
00:18:49 --> 00:18:51 Hey you do this or else, right?
00:18:51 --> 00:19:01 but You really need them to work with you and you need to work with them So this is a really good way to do it because it's a quid pro quo at the end of the day basically Well, how can I help you?
00:19:01 --> 00:19:01 Mm-Hmm.
00:19:01 --> 00:19:02 , right.
00:19:02 --> 00:19:03 How can you help me help you?
00:19:04 --> 00:19:04 Right.
00:19:04 --> 00:19:04 Exactly.
00:19:04 --> 00:19:12 Those are the sorts of conversations The other category that I wanted to make sure that actually the first category that I wanted to talk about, which we didn't talk about is the first category was.
00:19:13 --> 00:19:17 Facilitation, meaning, Hey, a lot of people are saying you need to come back to the office.
00:19:17 --> 00:19:21 A lot of people are saying, Oh, I prefer in face to face conversations, whatever.
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 However, those face to face conversations are now status meetings.
00:19:24 --> 00:19:26 And now we're all checked out and zoned out.
00:19:26 --> 00:19:30 And when I think about it, when it's, when you say like, Oh, we're going to do the three questions.
00:19:30 --> 00:19:31 What did you do yesterday?
00:19:32 --> 00:19:35 Like, you don't listen to anybody when they're saying what they did yesterday.
00:19:35 --> 00:19:38 You're waiting for your turn because you're thinking about what you're going to say during your turn.
00:19:38 --> 00:19:41 Like there is a better way to facilitate those sessions.
00:19:41 --> 00:19:48 And I feel if there's a reason to bring people back in the office, and we said this on the podcast before many times, if there's a reason to bring people back in the office.
00:19:48 --> 00:19:52 you need better facilitation for your meetings that are in person.
00:19:52 --> 00:20:00 I only bring any of this up under the banner of fostering better slash more open communication.
00:20:00 --> 00:20:04 You'll hear psychological safety, you'll hear in this category, and a lot of people will hear that and they'll zone right out.
00:20:04 --> 00:20:07 so many people throw so much stuff under the banner of better.
00:20:07 --> 00:20:14 Psychological safety, but if we're gonna, if we're going to talk about something and say, we should have a higher quality of communication.
00:20:14 --> 00:20:15 What does that mean?
00:20:15 --> 00:20:17 If you're going to start right away with what does that mean?
00:20:17 --> 00:20:21 And you're going to start with, well, it means all of our meetings are better facilitated.
00:20:22 --> 00:20:29 They have a clear purpose up from the start and then when we show up, we have someone who can kind of corral us and get us moving from point to point.
00:20:29 --> 00:20:31 If you're going to have somebody like that, Great.
00:20:31 --> 00:20:34 I got a, look forward to showing up to that kind of environment.
00:20:35 --> 00:20:41 the problem is a lot of companies, especially with scrum masters, they see that, well, that's just overhead and where's the ROI in that it's not.
00:20:41 --> 00:20:43 immediately visible.
00:20:43 --> 00:20:48 I mean, to me, it is because I'm a product manager, But better communication, better communication.
00:20:48 --> 00:20:53 that skill set, facilitation, is another one that you're never really taught anywhere.
00:20:53 --> 00:20:53 Right.
00:20:53 --> 00:20:54 That is a hundred percent true.
00:20:54 --> 00:20:59 it's something that, it's up to you to acquire that, but it's worth its weight in gold.
00:20:59 --> 00:21:00 You're a good facilitator.
00:21:00 --> 00:21:01 You can tell.
00:21:01 --> 00:21:06 One of the first things that I notice when I see a good facilitator is they're not vested in the outcome.
00:21:06 --> 00:21:07 They don't care which way the meeting goes.
00:21:07 --> 00:21:13 all they're doing is opening the space up, making sure everybody has equal opportunity to share, right?
00:21:13 --> 00:21:18 And when somebody's anchoring the situation, they're gently tamping that down.
00:21:18 --> 00:21:19 That's a facilitator.
00:21:19 --> 00:21:22 They're not really thinking, well, here's my outcome out of this meeting.
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 So I'm going to favor certain aspects of it, right?
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27 When you have that, that's not facilitation.
00:21:27 --> 00:21:28 It's, it's rare.
00:21:28 --> 00:21:29 Those skills are rare.
00:21:29 --> 00:21:31 I think they should be, but they're rare.
00:21:31 --> 00:21:32 That's interesting.
00:21:32 --> 00:21:33 So a question.
00:21:33 --> 00:21:34 I have a question about that.
00:21:34 --> 00:21:43 If you have a vested interest in the topic being talked about, like if you have a strong opinion of something I'm going to go into a meeting and I have something I'm bringing to the table.
00:21:43 --> 00:21:45 I have my experiences or I have evidence.
00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 I'm saying, hey, we should make this decision because I see this evidence.
00:21:48 --> 00:21:50 And if we don't do this, then I think these things are going to happen, whatever.
00:21:50 --> 00:21:53 Those might be assumptions, but I'm bringing some data to the table.
00:21:53 --> 00:21:55 I probably should not facilitate that session.
00:21:56 --> 00:21:57 I probably should try to get somebody else.
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 Ideally, ideally.
00:21:59 --> 00:21:59 Yes, that's correct.
00:22:00 --> 00:22:07 And if you were forced to facilitate because there's nobody else available, one of the first things you could do is, like you said earlier, be evidence driven, right?
00:22:07 --> 00:22:10 So you say, here's what I think we need to decide on.
00:22:10 --> 00:22:11 Here's why.
00:22:11 --> 00:22:14 And here are the repercussions of not deciding on that.
00:22:14 --> 00:22:15 It'd be better to get help.
00:22:15 --> 00:22:17 But again, I'm the product manager.
00:22:17 --> 00:22:19 I should be evidence driven.
00:22:19 --> 00:22:19 I know that.
00:22:20 --> 00:22:24 But I also am aware of my own personality and it'd be better to just, no, I'm just going to get help.
00:22:24 --> 00:22:25 Self awareness.
00:22:25 --> 00:22:26 Definitely get help.
00:22:26 --> 00:22:26 Yeah.
00:22:26 --> 00:22:27 Yeah.
00:22:27 --> 00:22:29 I think what you mentioned, it's not necessarily not true.
00:22:29 --> 00:22:44 Not caring about the outcome is like how to keep that balance between we have an outcome to get from this meeting or from this particular situation, but also making it seem like you're not rushing through and getting like, okay, when you guys get, let's get together, let's get back to the outcome.
00:22:45 --> 00:22:50 great facilitation takes a lot of eliciting the conversation in terms of.
00:22:50 --> 00:22:57 Being able to allow others to listen, because listening, sometimes people think that facilitation is like you facilitate a conversation.
00:22:57 --> 00:22:59 You speak, you interject it, and all those things.
00:23:00 --> 00:23:06 But it's more about how to elicit the conversation between folks and making those voices that are usually not heard heard.
00:23:06 --> 00:23:26 Heard more as well while getting an outcome as you mentioned, Brian, in terms of if you're the product owner or product manager trying to get to the outcome, you'll probably rush through and you know, you won't get to the I need this, give it to me now and that, that kind of balance between outcome and also making sure that all the voices are heard too.
00:23:26 --> 00:23:30 Having someone that is stating the goal of the session.
00:23:30 --> 00:23:39 Upfront having someone that's driving us to the goal of the session and then having someone who's checking Every presentation to say hey are these facts or these your assumptions?
00:23:39 --> 00:23:42 That's that's one part of it that I that I really value Yeah, right.
00:23:43 --> 00:23:44 I don't mind getting called to the carpet.
00:23:44 --> 00:23:47 I have no problem with that Other people might not though.
00:23:47 --> 00:23:51 They might be there first time Being called to be like, Hey, I understand your opinion.
00:23:51 --> 00:23:52 Can you present evidence with that?
00:23:52 --> 00:23:54 And they might see that as a challenge.
00:23:54 --> 00:24:02 That's the other side of this, which is the fostering, the it's safe to speak out and not seem like you're getting smacked down when you're speaking out.
00:24:02 --> 00:24:17 That might be very difficult for people, especially when they're doing it for the first time if you're a facilitator and you know your audience, which you should, and you have somebody who's there maybe for the first time or whatever you're going to ask people to be evidence driven, and they may not have the evidence.
00:24:18 --> 00:24:19 Because they've never done this before.
00:24:19 --> 00:24:27 One of the things you could do is if you know your audience, right, you could say, well, ahead of this meeting, here's what we're expecting you to bring.
00:24:27 --> 00:24:29 That way they're not caught unawares.
00:24:29 --> 00:24:30 Because that would be terrible for them, right?
00:24:30 --> 00:24:32 They're just like in the crosshairs.
00:24:32 --> 00:24:33 let them know up front.
00:24:33 --> 00:24:36 bring everything you know and say here's what we want to do.
00:24:36 --> 00:24:43 Also the other thing I was saying earlier about a good facilitator not being vested in the outcome is it's not that they don't care about the outcome.
00:24:43 --> 00:24:45 The outcome is the outcome.
00:24:45 --> 00:24:47 But what they're not doing is anchoring the outcome.
00:24:47 --> 00:24:50 They're not coming in saying, well this is what I really want.
00:24:50 --> 00:24:50 Right.
00:24:50 --> 00:24:51 Them to decide on.
00:24:51 --> 00:24:53 They're coming in saying whatever the decision is.
00:24:54 --> 00:24:55 It's fairly done.
00:24:55 --> 00:24:59 that was where I was saying is that I probably am anchored in an outcome before the meeting starts.
00:24:59 --> 00:24:59 Yeah.
00:24:59 --> 00:25:01 But you have a vested interest and that's valid.
00:25:01 --> 00:25:03 So a good facilitator knows that.
00:25:03 --> 00:25:03 Right?
00:25:03 --> 00:25:09 So they're going to balance you against the others that have different interests and say is this right?
00:25:09 --> 00:25:10 Is this wrong?
00:25:10 --> 00:25:18 Why is that as opposed to the essentially what they're doing is this that a good facilitator is tackling the problem and not the people.
00:25:18 --> 00:25:20 So they're saying, well, here's the problem.
00:25:20 --> 00:25:21 Brian says this.
00:25:21 --> 00:25:22 Does everybody agree?
00:25:22 --> 00:25:23 Why do you say that, Brian?
00:25:23 --> 00:25:24 Do you have evidence to back it up?
00:25:24 --> 00:25:24 Yeah.
00:25:25 --> 00:25:26 Looks like he's saying these things.
00:25:26 --> 00:25:28 Does anybody have anything to refute against that?
00:25:29 --> 00:25:32 Like, try and be as unbiased and as fair as possible.
00:25:33 --> 00:25:39 So whatever the outcome is, it's because of the interactions of the people and not because where the facilitator wanted to take it, right?
00:25:39 --> 00:25:39 Sure.
00:25:40 --> 00:25:40 It's an art.
00:25:40 --> 00:25:41 That is an art.
00:25:41 --> 00:25:47 That is not something that you can learn easily without Trying it out and then experience over time.
00:25:47 --> 00:25:53 you will fall, you will stumble over time and before you become a good facilitator, you can read all the books in the world.
00:25:53 --> 00:25:55 That won't make you a great facilitator.
00:25:55 --> 00:26:04 When I first started interacting with the Agile community and I started going to events and stuff like that, that would be a common question how do you get quieter team members more engaged?
00:26:04 --> 00:26:06 you have to have better facilitation.
00:26:06 --> 00:26:18 You have to have people who can see them at the end of the table Kind of shifting in their seat They want to say something but they're uncomfortable because the meeting size is more than three people to you know there's a number that once it's above that number.
00:26:18 --> 00:26:29 They're not comfortable talking anymore so but If you can spot that and then draw them into the, Hey Ohm, don't you know something about this thing in the database?
00:26:29 --> 00:26:37 Oh, yeah, and then then you can kind of draw that draw out Their contribution whereas otherwise they wouldn't have they would have sat silent.
00:26:37 --> 00:26:50 yeah, when I went to because you mentioned that you get better at doing it, but Perhaps not necessarily because you have to be open for feedback because you could say like at facilitated meetings I'm awesome at it and the people that do not participate.
00:26:50 --> 00:27:00 They're just whatever they don't care and you could imply that So it's important that as a facilitator you're doing it, but you're also like conscious that How do I get better at it?
00:27:00 --> 00:27:01 Oh, I need to get feedback.
00:27:01 --> 00:27:02 Was this useful?
00:27:02 --> 00:27:06 Also, read facilitation books or whatever you may need.
00:27:06 --> 00:27:07 So it's not a matter of just by doing it.
00:27:07 --> 00:27:14 You could be doing the same job for like 10, 20 years and throw down your years of experience, but you could suck at it.
00:27:14 --> 00:27:17 or you could just be welcoming feedback and trying to become better as a facilitator.
00:27:17 --> 00:27:18 That's a really good point.
00:27:18 --> 00:27:22 A good facilitator should absolutely be open to feedback.
00:27:22 --> 00:27:22 In fact.
00:27:23 --> 00:27:29 If you facilitate a session and you get no feedback, it means you're living in a vacuum because you have no idea how that went down.
00:27:29 --> 00:27:29 Exactly.
00:27:29 --> 00:27:35 So you should be soliciting the feedback and leave that expectation up front before people come into the meeting, right?
00:27:36 --> 00:27:38 So you're going to let me know how this is for you.
00:27:38 --> 00:27:38 Yeah.
00:27:38 --> 00:27:39 You know?
00:27:39 --> 00:27:42 That's my product management worst nightmare is no feedback.
00:27:42 --> 00:27:42 Oh yeah.
00:27:42 --> 00:27:44 No feedback is negative feedback to me.
00:27:44 --> 00:27:45 Mm hmm.
00:27:45 --> 00:27:47 no feedback is bad feedback.
00:27:47 --> 00:27:55 There's a whole section of the wellbeing of the team, the team meshing together, the team feeling safe to contribute in meetings and whatnot.
00:27:55 --> 00:28:02 there's a whole track of things that we can talk about today that have to do with the team as opposed to an individual, right?
00:28:02 --> 00:28:06 Like the entry point into this that I'd like to talk about is.
00:28:06 --> 00:28:14 emphasizing collaboration, meaning your contribution to the team and your ability to work with a team to achieve a goal, right?
00:28:14 --> 00:28:15 we don't have heroes here.
00:28:15 --> 00:28:18 We have team players here, right?
00:28:18 --> 00:28:20 people might be strong team players.
00:28:20 --> 00:28:26 And people might be strong on their own, but overall, like there's a mix of that, that we value.
00:28:26 --> 00:28:28 It's not just one or the other.
00:28:28 --> 00:28:38 emphasizing collaboration over individual performance, like that, that's a tough one especially for people who are used to being the rock star or whatever Yeah.
00:28:38 --> 00:28:46 And particularly for in organizations that they reward individual collaboration or, or they reward the rock stars of the team.
00:28:46 --> 00:28:52 I was with a company that though they were, they would give you positive ratings on your own work.
00:28:53 --> 00:28:57 On your annual review if you were contributing to other teams.
00:28:57 --> 00:29:03 So it was the ability to, they encourage a lot of cross collaboration, even across contracts, because I'm a contractor.
00:29:03 --> 00:29:08 So it was, if you were able to collaborate across contracts, that was something that was seen very positively.
00:29:08 --> 00:29:11 So I think that would be the good way instead of being the.
00:29:11 --> 00:29:18 The common trend, which is like we reward the person who saved the day, who, who broke, something was broken and they came in as a hero at the end.
00:29:18 --> 00:29:21 So, yeah, I kind of like using the sports analogy here.
00:29:21 --> 00:29:25 You know, when you have a team, the team wins in the sports, right?
00:29:25 --> 00:29:26 Not the individual.
00:29:26 --> 00:29:29 Let's just take American football as an example, right?
00:29:29 --> 00:29:32 And the quarterback is often the glory guy, right?
00:29:32 --> 00:29:35 but they can't win the game by themselves.
00:29:35 --> 00:29:37 they've got to get the team behind them.
00:29:37 --> 00:29:40 They have to rally the team and the team as a whole wins the game.
00:29:40 --> 00:29:42 The defense plus the offense.
00:29:42 --> 00:29:44 It isn't just one or the other.
00:29:44 --> 00:29:53 You could have strong players either side, that's fine, but they have to collaborate in and a good team facilitator for want of a better expression could be a scar master.
00:29:53 --> 00:29:56 Anybody needs to recognize that and say.
00:29:56 --> 00:29:57 We are in this together.
00:29:57 --> 00:30:12 It's like the other analogy I use is the, I call it the Hawaii five Oh they had with Lee Garret they had this, this, these people rowing a boat across to the one of the islands, I guess, in Hawaii over sunset, very nice looking, but everybody had to row in the right direction.
00:30:12 --> 00:30:14 So imagine what happens for a second.
00:30:14 --> 00:30:18 If some people row in one direction, some people in another, That was going nowhere fast.
00:30:18 --> 00:30:19 Right.
00:30:19 --> 00:30:27 So individual team members have to contribute in order for the greater organization, the team in this case to be successful.
00:30:27 --> 00:30:29 where do you start for this?
00:30:29 --> 00:30:30 Because in a lot of organizations.
00:30:30 --> 00:30:36 It's individual, like the individual metrics are tracked and like things are not tracked at the team level.
00:30:36 --> 00:30:42 So like at your, like your year end reviews are individual level, your incentives are individual level.
00:30:42 --> 00:30:43 everything seems stacked against.
00:30:43 --> 00:30:46 You trying to make progress in this category.
00:30:46 --> 00:30:47 You're absolutely right.
00:30:47 --> 00:30:50 People are incentivized and rewarded based on individual.
00:30:50 --> 00:30:52 And that's the old way, right?
00:30:52 --> 00:30:54 That we've always done that for decades.
00:30:54 --> 00:30:56 And that's, so that's still prevalent out there.
00:30:56 --> 00:30:57 very prevalent.
00:30:57 --> 00:31:05 So I think one of the things you need to do is really try to move the needle and say, the team is the entity that's delivering things.
00:31:05 --> 00:31:06 It's not the individual.
00:31:06 --> 00:31:12 The individual has their hands on a set of oars and they're rowing and that's fine.
00:31:12 --> 00:31:23 But you're going to find yourself against this tide, which is management and HR, people that have put these policies in place and procedures in place of how you reward and incentivize people.
00:31:24 --> 00:31:28 So if you're a coach, if you're any of these roles, I would say, think about it this way.
00:31:28 --> 00:31:31 When you deliver something, don't call out an individual.
00:31:31 --> 00:31:34 First of all, don't say, Hey, Fred, you did a great job.
00:31:34 --> 00:31:35 Mary, you did a great job.
00:31:35 --> 00:31:37 They may have, but they couldn't have done it by themselves.
00:31:38 --> 00:31:49 So always pull out the whole team in front and say, I sometimes do this when the teams are smaller, I'll call out every single team member and say, you did a great job, you did a great job, you did a great job.
00:31:49 --> 00:31:49 everybody.
00:31:49 --> 00:31:52 And then at the end, cap it by saying any one of us.
00:31:53 --> 00:31:55 Could have faltered and we wouldn't have succeeded.
00:31:55 --> 00:31:58 That means you need people to your left to your right Link arms, right?
00:31:58 --> 00:32:08 This is a team effort Now reward isn't there yet But that now you got to work with management and hr to say how can we change this, right?
00:32:08 --> 00:32:14 That's a tall order But what you can do is you can say things like well as a team this team delivered, right?
00:32:14 --> 00:32:16 So can we perhaps give them a chance?
00:32:17 --> 00:32:17 This is the whole thing.
00:32:17 --> 00:32:19 Give them a bonus, right?
00:32:19 --> 00:32:24 And if you can get some money out of it or whatever it might be, it doesn't even have to be money all the time.
00:32:24 --> 00:32:25 It could be, it could be money.
00:32:25 --> 00:32:35 I've been in organizations that do like spot bonuses on like because you achieved an objective, you get a pool of money and that's divided evenly or whatever.
00:32:35 --> 00:32:38 Divided evenly and then celebrate success as a team.
00:32:38 --> 00:32:41 Although I could almost see that, right?
00:32:41 --> 00:32:48 there's a, the other part of if there's a team and not all the team members have necessarily have been pulling this necessary weight.
00:32:48 --> 00:32:55 And there's some resentment involved of like, okay, the three of us collaborated, but this fourth person, you just took the credit.
00:32:55 --> 00:32:59 So there's a balance to striking that too, but perhaps it's good.
00:32:59 --> 00:33:16 I guess you have to weigh the risk of doing that in the sense that you're promoting collaboration, but also If there's another team member that happened to have the reward and they were not pulling their weight, but eventually that could be a learning behavior eventually that they realize they start feeling the pressure and feel bad.
00:33:16 --> 00:33:20 I like, you know what I should collaborate better or maybe they end out of the team eventually.
00:33:20 --> 00:33:26 But I think over time, and it's a valid point over time that tends to be self correcting because team members will see that.
00:33:27 --> 00:33:29 And they'll say, well, this person didn't collaborate.
00:33:29 --> 00:33:31 We're going to bring them in because they should be part of it.
00:33:31 --> 00:33:31 Right.
00:33:31 --> 00:33:33 I mean, they're getting rewarded too.
00:33:33 --> 00:33:35 So the teams will self correct that over time.
00:33:35 --> 00:33:36 Yeah, exactly.
00:33:36 --> 00:33:37 Yeah.
00:33:37 --> 00:33:47 if the team's wellbeing, the cohesiveness of that one team is a priority the manager or the, a resource manager, hiring manager, whatever, A chapter lead, a million different things.
00:33:47 --> 00:33:56 Like basically the, the person who hires all the engineers in the organization that person will start becoming hyper aware of divisions within individual teams.
00:33:56 --> 00:33:56 Yeah.
00:33:56 --> 00:33:58 Because they're talking to everyone individually.
00:33:58 --> 00:34:01 Going back to our empathy thing that we open the podcast on, right.
00:34:01 --> 00:34:03 They're having one on ones.
00:34:03 --> 00:34:06 They're having 8, 12, 15 one on ones a week.
00:34:06 --> 00:34:07 This is their job.
00:34:08 --> 00:34:12 Is making sure that everyone's interpersonal relationships are good.
00:34:12 --> 00:34:19 and performing and growing, and if there's problems, they're hyper aware because every week they hear aware, whatever, every month, whatever it is, right?
00:34:19 --> 00:34:34 So there will be some kind of awareness and whereas this could be a completely separate podcast of like, what happens Intra team, inter team, inter team, how do we deal with inter team strife and come out as a stronger team on the other side?
00:34:34 --> 00:34:40 but if you're prioritizing the wellbeing of your team, the team members are doing it, your managers are doing it.
00:34:40 --> 00:34:43 And if you're matrix or whatever, matrix, where's my camera?
00:34:43 --> 00:34:52 So if you're matrix, then all your managers are all aware Oh, there's some strife on this team.
00:34:52 --> 00:34:55 Like, I guess what I'm saying is it's of all the teams I've been on.
00:34:56 --> 00:35:01 Most of the people that are like the managers of the team, they're pretty aware of the people that are dragging.
00:35:01 --> 00:35:02 They know, they know.
00:35:02 --> 00:35:09 Yeah, at that point where you're playing like the corporate HR game, it's a matter of documentation over time to correct the issue.
00:35:09 --> 00:35:13 It's better to let the team kind of sort it out amongst themselves.
00:35:13 --> 00:35:16 To say, Hey, we're going to have more code reviews to this person.
00:35:16 --> 00:35:21 We're going to push this person to present more for us because we know that they're uncomfortable with it.
00:35:21 --> 00:35:23 Maybe they just need to learn the skill.
00:35:23 --> 00:35:26 If it's a skill problem, the team will vet it out.
00:35:26 --> 00:35:29 If it's a personality problem, we need management's help.
00:35:29 --> 00:35:38 And if your management is functioning properly, kind of like we outlined earlier you can get through this stuff and it won't drag you down for years You can get it done and get it dealt with.
00:35:38 --> 00:35:44 But prioritizing the wellbeing of the team and understanding that the team needs to be developing and the team needs to be cohesive.
00:35:44 --> 00:35:46 Is that something people are on board with home?
00:35:46 --> 00:35:47 I don't know.
00:35:47 --> 00:35:48 People should let us know.
00:35:48 --> 00:35:50 Oh, is that where we're going to leave that one there?
00:35:50 --> 00:35:54 No, we're going to leave that one there, but let us know, because whatever we say is going to be conjecture.
00:35:54 --> 00:36:08 The other one that came up in the, in the team category that I really want to talk about is if you're doing people over process, customizing your processes to fit each team, which is funny because we give a lot of flack on the podcast.
00:36:08 --> 00:36:09 So that's, that's what I say.
00:36:09 --> 00:36:25 We, instead of cursing, we give a lot of flack on the podcast about a, my situation is unique, but also like, I mean, is it really, you're kind of like, you're kind of cookie cutter with every other team doing the same widget production that you're doing, If you're newer, you need a few more rules.
00:36:25 --> 00:36:30 If you've been doing the same thing with the same people for a long time, you don't really need that many rules.
00:36:30 --> 00:36:36 You kind of all fall into a rhythm, and you can dial the process back and this customizes, the processes.
00:36:36 --> 00:36:39 To really fit the team and how well they work together and that kind of stuff.
00:36:40 --> 00:36:41 This is not talked about enough.
00:36:41 --> 00:36:43 I feel it's a whole different podcast that we could talk about.
00:36:43 --> 00:36:49 I think there's a little bit out there where people talk about the team's maturity and shu ha ri and all that.
00:36:50 --> 00:37:01 But I think the reality is in most cases, people gravitate toward the framework or the scrum guide and then say, If we install these things, we'll be suddenly magically so much better.
00:37:01 --> 00:37:05 And it's not like that because we always say things like, well, every team's unique.
00:37:05 --> 00:37:09 Well, if every team's unique, why should the processes they use be the same?
00:37:09 --> 00:37:10 They can't be the same, right?
00:37:11 --> 00:37:11 They're unique.
00:37:11 --> 00:37:17 So tailoring to a certain degree, granted, you have to have the foundations, but tailoring it is important.
00:37:17 --> 00:37:19 You may have teams that are just as unique.
00:37:19 --> 00:37:22 doing back end work or API work or, or just doing front end work.
00:37:22 --> 00:37:23 I've seen that too.
00:37:23 --> 00:37:26 Ideally that shouldn't happen, but it does happen.
00:37:26 --> 00:37:32 So then you might want to look at that and say, well, we need to get feedback for every team, but at what level, right?
00:37:32 --> 00:37:35 And how deep is that feedback?
00:37:35 --> 00:37:41 How the team gears themselves to delivering, like maybe the API team is simply sitting back and we'll.
00:37:41 --> 00:37:42 We're not done yet.
00:37:42 --> 00:37:56 We'll deliver when we're done, as opposed to another team that's also doing APIs that say we're not done, but we can still deliver the payload and stub out most of it, and we'll just have what we did in the sprint that's live and everything else is a stub.
00:37:56 --> 00:37:59 And then next time we deliver a couple of sprints or next sprint, hopefully.
00:37:59 --> 00:38:06 There's more live and less stub and keep going like that I I think you need to look at it and say are we moving in the right direction?
00:38:06 --> 00:38:07 Is it adding value?
00:38:07 --> 00:38:09 Are we on the right path?
00:38:09 --> 00:38:11 Do you need to tailor the processes to suit the team?
00:38:11 --> 00:38:18 that brings to mind a few things because some teams may be saying we've done it, we don't want any feedback.
00:38:18 --> 00:38:25 So I guess it depends on the team, but there are other teams that are kind of asking for just tell me what to do.
00:38:25 --> 00:38:27 Tell me, tell me what to do right now.
00:38:27 --> 00:38:28 I'll do whatever you want.
00:38:28 --> 00:38:30 And they don't think necessarily accountability.
00:38:30 --> 00:38:44 So I think it's, as you're going into the team and you start navigating and seeing like, Hey, I'm either in your scrum master role, possibly that you go in and mention to the team okay, I want to understand how you're working, your current way of work.
00:38:44 --> 00:38:50 And they, they think they are automatically, you're going to establish all these rules, which is what usually happening in, when it comes to Agile roles.
00:38:50 --> 00:39:00 So, I think it's important to first establish that understanding with the team that hey, you can tell me we could customize that open communication.
00:39:00 --> 00:39:05 I am open as a lead, as a scrum master, to customize the process.
00:39:05 --> 00:39:07 So, let's work together and take accountability.
00:39:08 --> 00:39:14 And it gives the team a little bit more, perhaps, Consciousness about hey, maybe we can improve we have ownership.
00:39:14 --> 00:39:20 So let's improve our processes a little bit more So it's establishing that to that communication like hey, it's okay.
00:39:20 --> 00:39:24 You can you can set it up So I think it's important to define that with the team as well.
00:39:24 --> 00:39:27 Definitely agree with that I think it gives the team a bit more autonomy as well, right?
00:39:28 --> 00:39:29 So, yeah, that's a valid point.
00:39:29 --> 00:39:38 But perfect example of a team that says we don't need feedback or just tell me what to do in one team that might be your team that's doing break fixes, for example, right?
00:39:38 --> 00:39:39 we don't need any feedback.
00:39:39 --> 00:39:40 We'll break, we'll doing break fixes.
00:39:40 --> 00:39:42 The defects we're fixing them.
00:39:42 --> 00:39:43 If they're fixed, they're fixed.
00:39:43 --> 00:39:48 Why do we need feedback or the other side of it, which is tell us what to do, right?
00:39:48 --> 00:39:53 Tell us which bugs to fix or whatever, or which tech debt to fix or whatever, and we'll fix it.
00:39:53 --> 00:39:55 But they're wrong both in both cases.
00:39:55 --> 00:40:01 They need feedback because if you're delivering something, it's impacting somebody or somebody's a lot of people, right?
00:40:02 --> 00:40:03 You need feedback on how well you did that.
00:40:04 --> 00:40:05 You need feedback on other things.
00:40:06 --> 00:40:10 You need feedback internally to say, well, we fixed all these bugs and the customer said they're good.
00:40:10 --> 00:40:11 We'll move on.
00:40:11 --> 00:40:12 No, that's not enough.
00:40:13 --> 00:40:15 That's just the bare minimum, right?
00:40:15 --> 00:40:19 What we need to do now is to retrospect and say, how can we avoid those things?
00:40:19 --> 00:40:22 So we don't repeat the mistakes in the future, right?
00:40:22 --> 00:40:26 what about the process that we used to put these into production?
00:40:26 --> 00:40:28 How could we have made that more optimal?
00:40:29 --> 00:40:30 There's a lot of things you can learn.
00:40:30 --> 00:40:32 The other side of it is tell us what to fix and we'll fix it.
00:40:33 --> 00:40:37 It's like, why not get ahead of that and work with your developers and do pair programming, et cetera.
00:40:37 --> 00:40:40 So you can avoid these things from being bugs in the first place.
00:40:40 --> 00:40:43 I want to jump in on this one as the product manager here to say.
00:40:43 --> 00:40:48 If I were to scale myself if it would have been like, Hey, Brian, it's your organization.
00:40:48 --> 00:40:51 Now we're going to hire five teams.
00:40:51 --> 00:40:54 Now you like, well, five, like I can barely stick with two teams.
00:40:54 --> 00:40:54 Right.
00:40:54 --> 00:40:57 And I got like, now you're going to hire five more teams.
00:40:57 --> 00:40:57 Right.
00:40:57 --> 00:41:05 So now I have a whole program basically. And I'm going to say, listen, like it's now it's more crucial for me to just communicate what my broad goals are.
00:41:05 --> 00:41:10 and then to push decision making of how to meet those goals to the teams.
00:41:11 --> 00:41:19 If you're waiting around to be told what to do, I'm assuming decision making has not been empowered to your teams, to team.
00:41:19 --> 00:41:19 Yes.
00:41:19 --> 00:41:29 or you don't know what my goals are as leadership we have this thing, a hundred plus podcasts ago, we talked about accountability and responsibility being together.
00:41:30 --> 00:41:38 And once you start dividing the two and splitting the two and like, Oh, I'm going to keep the responsibility, but you take the accountability, like now you have all kinds of weird problems.
00:41:38 --> 00:41:44 Strange problems and then you need all kinds of fixes to deal with the problems, whatever, just keep the accountability responsibility together.
00:41:44 --> 00:41:46 It'd be like, Hey, I put that on an OMS team.
00:41:46 --> 00:41:48 Let's go figure out where OMS team is now.
00:41:48 --> 00:41:51 And let's go see how they're going to solve the problem.
00:41:51 --> 00:41:52 They're both responsible and accountable.
00:41:52 --> 00:41:54 Now let's go talk to OMS team.
00:41:54 --> 00:42:00 And now we get with OMS team and we figure out what they're doing, OMS team's not sitting around waiting to be told.
00:42:01 --> 00:42:03 What the next thing is to do, I've given them the problem.
00:42:03 --> 00:42:06 They're both accountable and responsible for that problem now, right?
00:42:06 --> 00:42:20 The business outcome is his now to deal with, and I'm checking in with him and I have to trust that he's having communication with the customers, the proper people other people internally that also are experiencing the problem or helping solve the problem or whatever.
00:42:20 --> 00:42:21 Like he now owns.
00:42:21 --> 00:42:26 The whole problem, which includes all the outcomes and everything that we're trying to do.
00:42:26 --> 00:42:30 If I'm empowering him, I'm empowering him fully, or I'm playing a game.
00:42:30 --> 00:42:33 This is one of the issues I have with the old style racy matrix.
00:42:34 --> 00:42:39 Where we say, well, there's one accountable, but there could be multiple responsible, different people.
00:42:40 --> 00:42:42 As soon as you do that, to your point, yeah.
00:42:42 --> 00:42:42 We're playing a game.
00:42:42 --> 00:42:44 We're playing a game.
00:42:44 --> 00:42:44 Right.
00:42:44 --> 00:42:45 Exactly.
00:42:45 --> 00:42:47 Does the accountability and responsibility go together?
00:42:47 --> 00:42:51 And then I'm handing them off or is there other things going on that we need to solve?
00:42:51 --> 00:42:54 I've typically seen the latter, unfortunately.
00:42:54 --> 00:42:55 Well, don't do that.
00:42:55 --> 00:42:56 Exactly.
00:42:56 --> 00:42:56 There you go.
00:42:56 --> 00:42:59 That's the lesson learned out of this podcast.
00:42:59 --> 00:43:01 We talked about, what you can do to empower your teams.
00:43:01 --> 00:43:06 We talked a little bit about what you can do with empathy to empower your ability to influence.
00:43:07 --> 00:43:10 We talked about a few other things that you can take these things back to your organization.
00:43:10 --> 00:43:13 And I mean, you can make an impact pretty much immediately with any of these things.
00:43:13 --> 00:43:15 You can just decide to start doing them in the end.
00:43:15 --> 00:43:18 And if you're listening to podcast saying.
00:43:18 --> 00:43:23 Well, I can't do this in my organization because X, Y, Z, whatever reasons are.
00:43:23 --> 00:43:40 I mean think about that and really , think if those reasons are really, really, if they really are a roadblock or if they're just kind of like, yeah, it's important that you mentioned that because sometimes we, we feel limited by, oh, it's the organization, but I think it's important as individuals to just like, okay, let's take that first step.
00:43:40 --> 00:43:41 let's be accountable.
00:43:41 --> 00:43:56 communicate or like reaching out to call people or just like hey in this meeting I'm gonna make sure that if I have the role of the facilitator this time I'm gonna go ahead and you know, make sure that I give while I'm on the stand give the voices in the the That need to be heard the opportunity to be heard.
00:43:56 --> 00:44:08 So I think it's small steps that you can take and you could blame the organization all day long, but perhaps, if you start modeling those behaviors and other people could kind of gather in and, and imitate possibly as well.
00:44:08 --> 00:44:28 Well, that's that lead by example category we didn't go into is I think a lot of organizations that I've been in, and again, I'm a product manager, so it kind of follows the career path, but a lot of organizations that I've been in, the bias for action over, I guess, inaction or following rules or whatever that, that is seen as in a more positive light.
00:44:28 --> 00:44:36 I think it will be seen more positively than you might be thinking because the organizations I've been with Have respected a bias for action over anything else.
00:44:37 --> 00:44:38 Yeah, I agree with both of you there.
00:44:38 --> 00:44:41 And the last thing I'd say closing is try all of that.
00:44:41 --> 00:44:48 If you still feel like you're shackled by your organizational structure then Take that advice that we always give on the podcast.
00:44:48 --> 00:44:49 Keep that resume updated.
00:44:49 --> 00:44:49 Exactly.
00:44:50 --> 00:44:51 Yeah, absolutely.
00:44:51 --> 00:44:51 All right.
00:44:51 --> 00:44:56 Thank you all for staying with us this long and let us know down in the comments below what you'd like us to tackle next.
00:44:57 --> 00:44:58 Don't forget to like, and subscribe.
00:44:58 --> 00:45:02 That's right and subscribe hardcore soft skills podcast.
00:45:02 --> 00:45:04 go to any podcast platform and find the episodes.
00:45:04 --> 00:45:06 So it's hardcore soft skills, podcast.
00:45:06 --> 00:45:12 com and you could find all the episodes about agility, conflict resolution, listening.
00:45:12 --> 00:45:17 So in each episode is actionable skills that you can take in and how to improve on each.
00:45:17 --> 00:45:23 I feel this is the place that you're going to get it people that are living in the roles people that that's been their careers.
00:45:23 --> 00:45:24 Like this is where you're going to get that.
00:45:24 --> 00:45:26 Cause again, trainings and whatnot.
00:45:26 --> 00:45:29 I just don't see a lot of this out there floating around , but.
00:45:29 --> 00:45:40 For anybody listening to this, who says, Oh, you're wrong, Brian well, get in line because , if I'm wrong and you do see this in, in different training spheres and there are people that train on this and there's places to go, like.
00:45:40 --> 00:45:43 I want to hear about it in the comments.
00:45:43 --> 00:45:55 I have not experienced a lot of places that start with this people or process as a concept to say, Hey, rather than teach you these concepts of processes and teach you, this is the right quote process.
00:45:55 --> 00:46:01 Let me start with these people's skills and maybe you can figure out how to work the best, even though the process is not that great.
00:46:01 --> 00:46:02 That's a unicorn.
00:46:02 --> 00:46:03 . It doesn't exist.
00:46:03 --> 00:46:05 It's like unicorns, , . Thanks all.
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