Walking Their Talk, Sustainability, Inspiration
Robert Galen
Sustainability

I saw this wonderfully courageous and informative post by Sabine Canditt the other day where she wrote about Sustainable Scrum. 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sustainable-scrum-responsible-choice-sabine-canditt-x0gef

After just completing a The Week program facilitated by the amazing Ann-Marie Kong, it touched my heart.

That said, I wanted to highlight one comment reaction/interaction between Sabine and Erich Bühler 

Erich said—

Thank you for bringing this approach into the world! Scrum does provide an iterative approach for teams to create value, but its scope is limited to the product level and struggles with dynamics across the whole organization for several reasons.
Without updating the underlying business and financial model at a strategic level, Scrum alone cannot transform organization-wide sustainability.

Sustainability
Short-takes, Inspiration
Robert Galen
Sandy’s Take
Sandy’s Take
Short-takes, Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
The Human Aspects of Agile Coaching
The Human Aspects of Agile Coaching
Coaching, ACGW, Personal Thoughts
Robert Galen
Keys to Building your Coaching Relationships

I talk a lot about the first step in coaching any client (individual, system, team, etc.) is to build a relationship, gain empathy and understanding, and then gain an idea of where/how to help initially. So, do NOT start to coach until you’ve done some relationship-building. 

But what does a coaching relationship, or a professional relationship in general, look like? What are aspects of that? Here are a few things that come to my mind—

  • Making + taking the time.

  • Explaining what you do—what is Agile Coaching.

  • Building some empathy; walking in their shoes; understanding where they are coming from.

  • Meeting them where they are.

  • Listening; reflective listening; building metaphors together.

  • Connecting with their language, not yours.

Keys to Building your Coaching Relationships
Personal Thoughts, Short-takes
Robert Galen
Privilege Awareness

I recently replied to a LinkedIn post by David Pereira. It was a wonderful post, and I applaud David’s boldness and courage in sharing it. 

Here’s a post comment from Stefan Wolpers—

While I agree fully with your personal stance regarding professionalism, David Pereira, some people will shy away, given the current economic climate. Some of the previously aggravated people may seek an opportunity to settle scores.

And here’s my comment—

I love the clarity (No BS) here. Clarity for David and clarity for those who want to work with and who don't want to work with him.
That said, David has the unique privilege that allows him to adopt this clarity. Many don't.

This post is not about David per se. Instead, he inspired me to write it.

Privilege Awareness

Meta-Cast

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Is Getting Fired the Goal?

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Is Getting Fired the Goal?

I almost always make this disclaimer in my agile classes for Scrum Master and Coaching roles. Yes, we want to be principled and challenge the organizations in our Agile Coaching, Scrum Mastery, and Product Ownership. But only up to a point.

An agile change agent who is fired doesn’t do themselves or the organization any good. So, some cultural, political, and situational awareness is important. No, required, in these roles.

So, I was a little taken aback when I read this article by Simon Kneafsey on Scrum.org. The title is—How I got Fired as a Scrum Master.

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Finding a job as a Scrum Master without Experience

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Finding a job as a Scrum Master without Experience

I agreed to speak at a Scrum Masters of African Descent meetup group yesterday (Sunday, February 21st) in an Ask Me Anything / Fireside Chat format. One of the questions (and some of the reactions) has stayed with me. So, I thought I’d write this post to share some additional thoughts on one of the questions. Here’s the question—

If you don’t have any prior Scrum experience on your resume, how can you show companies that you are capable of doing the job?

My First Reaction

Let me start by saying this.

Finding and landing ANY job without direct experience is hard. Heck, looking for work WITH experience is hard. So, the first thing to think about in addressing this question is—it’s not going to be easy. And, you will get a lot of rejections. So,

  • Get your courage up;

  • Get your persistence up;

  • Get ready to work really hard at it…really hard;

  • And thicken your skin a bit.

Because it will be a bumpy ride. I’m not joking or trying to make it seem unattainable. It isn’t. It IS attainable, but it won’t be EASY!

Looking for Production Help with our Meta-cast

Josh Anderson and I have been doing the Meta-cast for 10+ years. And it’s been a labor of love for the two of us to “give back” to our agile community. Most (all) of the production effort has fallen to Josh, which Bob realizes is totally unfair. And it’s time-consuming.

Josh and I have often talked about taking the Meta-cast “up a level” in a variety of ways, but we both lack the time. But the other day we had an epiphany. Why not ask folks for help? So, here we are…we need your help.

Tactical Help

  • Help with the editing of new episodes

  • Posting new episodes with related links and content

  • Transcribing new episodes

And…

Strategic Help

  • Helping us figure out how to better activate our Agile Podcast Network

  • Increase our Patreon funding

  • Help us with monetizing our content

    • Transcriptions, English and others

    • Capturing themes & bundling

    • Reordering content

    • Re-edit / improve content

    • Marketing the value

  • Helping us on the Diversity & Inclusion front

What’s in it for you?

Frankly, we’re not quite sure. But we think…

  • Getting the chance to work with us in crafting the go-forward nature of the Meta-cast

  • Getting a chance to work with 2 (arguably fun) agile experts—learning and growing

  • If we generate sufficient revenue, we’ll come up with some sort of sharing model

Wrapping Up

We’re looking for serious help. Please don’t reply if you don’t have the time to commit and the passion to be a part of something that can be BIGGER than it is now. Please reach out to Bob Galen and/or Josh Anderson with your interest and any questions… 

Come be a part of…The Meta-cast!

Josh & Bob

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Leaving Your Nest!

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I can’t believe our Meta-Cast podcast, brainchild of myself and Josh Anderson, is approaching it’s…

150th Episode

WooHoo!!!

We began it in 2010 and will be celebrating our 10th Anniversary in January 2020.

So, yes, this is a PLUG for the Meta-Cast.

Leaving Your Nest…

But it’s also a plug for a recent 3-part series that Josh and I recorded about leaving your nest. That is, if indications are that you need to.

I’d recommend listening to the whole series…in order. And we hope it nspire folks to either Stay or Go.

Stay agile my friend,

Bob.