Hi Everyone,
I hope you’re doing ok,
The picture has no relevance. It’s just a nice pic of our old rescue dog, Dai. We got him at aged 11 and he died at 16 years old. He was so nervous when he first arrived at our place but became confident over time and seemed to have a separate life with some of our friends! Here’s to old friends and family, lost but not forgot!
Last week I wrote about how I felt about writing the terms of reference. The big moment came this week, the presentation to the board. I already said it went well and it did. I have no idea what people were thinking, but their words and body language were positive. When I’m anxious or feeling like an imposter it helps to put myself in other peoples shoes. It’s possible that they’re feeling the same.
I used clean feedback this week. I felt someone was being overly critical about something which affected me so I highlighted what they did and how it made me feel. It appeared to have a powerful affect.
Some of us Heads of Professions (HoPs) have been working really closely late. We all lead professions that make up the core of our Scrum teams, which along with their associated Leads (developers, analysts, agile delivery managers, etc.) make up the core of our squads alongside other roles such as architects and service managers. There are a couple of interesting things about this HoPs team before I get to the point. We are not all in the same department, we self organised based on the needs of the team. We don’t have a leader, we self manage. We challenge each other but support the decision of the team. We speak as one, that is to say it doesn’t matter which of us is speaking, you can tell we’re united. We seek feedback from our stakeholders regularly. We work openly. We develop stuff (capacity plans, squad growth plans, etc.). We exhibit all the Scrum values… but we don’t actually do Scrum. This isn’t me saying Scrum is not great. I think Scrum is great. This is me saying that at the heart of Scrum is a blueprint for how a team should feel to be in and work with. And I think that’s great too.
Time for a new paragraph. The point I was trying to get to above was about the squads. Since we launched the squads we’ve been searching for a way to bring them to life and to make the feel real for the people that are in them. Recently we made a little course correction which involved an intervention (sounds dramatic, it’s not though) and some leadership by example. A few of us HoPs picked up the role of leading our Filing squad review and planning meeting that happens once a sprint. This is not a scrum at scale framework thing. This is applying some of what we have learned from leading Scrum teams to a larger group. Who knows where it will lead but I don’t feel the need to apply a scaling framework. I’m a fan of working with teams and discovering what they need to be successful when it comes to scaling. We tried something new this week and that was to do something other than the regular planning meeting. We invited all of the Squad leads and their stakeholders to join two one hour meetings on consecutive days where we described some work we were doing on behalf of the squad and presented some blockers. We then then split this large group into breakout rooms to discuss them and come back with some questions which we provided answers to to help with the next session. The idea of giving a 24 hour break until the next session was to allow people time to process the information and stimulate creativity. We did a similar session the next day, this time asking the breakout groups to come up with some impediment solution ideas along with associated benefits and risks/issues. Each group summarised back to the main group and there was some discussion. This gave us HoPs some great ideas to work with in representing the squad but more importantly it started to make the squad feel like a team. We had really great feedback about the inclusive and open method as well as a way forward.
Elsewhen (I’ve never used that word before) I joined our culture change community meeting where a bunch of colleagues did a brilliant talk about confidence. It was really surprising to hear about how these outwardly confident people put time and effort into preparing to be confident. Don’t confuse this with appearing confident although both can exist. It resonated with me. When I preparing for a talk or a presentation I’ll often practice out loud in my office several times until the key messages are locked in so I don’t need notes. When I give the talk, I’ll use different words and sometimes the order of things changes, but none of that matters if they key messages come through. That’s how I prepare to be confident.
I found aspects of this week really tough so it was really nice when someone in the profession checked in on me over a coffee. It made me feel loved and gave me a real boost.
I spent some time thinking and discussing how to give my senior agile delivery managers more space to lead our profession. More on that soon.
I held a mentoring session which I enjoyed. This person is working in an Agile consultancy and doing great things with their clients. Seeing them grow as an agile professional is an immense pleasure and an honour (being asked to be someone’s mentor… Wow!).
There was no biking this Friday. My wife and I headed to Ikea to start getting some ideas for our new kitchen. After a 40 minute drive which should have been 20 min (seriously, Friday 3pm, where does all the traffic come from?!) we arrived. 30minutes later the Ikea effect kicked in (why is it so tiring to do an Ikea lap? I think I’d rather run up a big steep hill for 30 minutes) and we were ready to leave.
I met some friends at the Forest of Dean for a mountain bike ride before heading back to their place for the rugby (what an exciting game in Cardiff!) and some food as well as the delivery of an overdue birthday present!
Be excellent to yourselves and each other,
Si
