Collaboration 2.0 with Maria Chec

The Agile Within starts now . I hope everybody's having a great day out there . This is Mark Metz with the Agile Within . For another episode Today , I have a guest that you may be familiar with . Her name is Maria Cech . Maria , welcome to the Agile Within .

There is a street named Passeig de Gracia and on that street you have two houses of Gaudí , and then you go straight a little bit farther and you can also see Sagrada Familia , and also on the way there are a lot of tapas places , so you can have a break and eat some good tapas , and I think that will be like the best thing you could do in Barcelona if

you only have one chance .

So that's a tip because people might not know that .

But now I noticed there is like a shift happening in the world and , uh , and I noticed that you don't need to know scrum really well as per the scrum guide .

More valuable is to know different practices and respond to what is actually a determined problem that you have in a company and look more at what are the needs and what are the challenges a company , a team , has . And I thought that in the end , it all boils down to collaboration . But in the end , it all boils down to collaboration .

So I remember that before , when I was talking about myself , I was presenting myself that I have a bias for collaboration . So whenever I go to whatever project I take at work or at my personal project , I always have this bias to help people collaborate , to drive alignment , to drive collaborative vision and how to get towards a goal .

That's like the why behind this , and I thought that I would like to create a community or some learning path for people to get there , because , on the other hand , we also have this crisis of on one hand , we have the layoffs and on the other hand , people also say that they stop seeing the value sometimes of an agile coach or a scrum master .

And for me it's very strange that even now , people ask themselves what does a scrum master do ? Have you seen that ?

That's why there is a lot of facilitation , because , in the end , we are making it easier for people collaborate , help solve their problems . That's why there is a lot of facilitation , because , in the end , we are making it easier for people to achieve their goal right .

So there is a lot of things that go into it , but I think it's really what we should be going towards not preaching save or scrum , but more checking what you know .

Scrum of scrums is a really interesting meeting for teams to come together or I really like the daily from as per scrum because it really helps the teams plan their day and look at those things . I'm really curious what do you think about this ?

So what I'm curious to know about Maria , was there a specific instance , situation , was there a story to tell here that was very key to you starting this Collaboration 2.0 movement ?

And now that I'm going to Dallas for the Agile 2024 conference , I was very surprised to see something that I haven't seen by the date , which is the crisis of Agile identity .

I saw there will be quite a couple of talks about the identity crisis , the Agile identity crisis , and I thought , oh , look , that's precisely what I am also seeing and what we are talking about , not to maybe call it as if it was an Armageddon , and then it's dead and Scrum is ending , so they call it an identity crisis .

So I'm very curious to also go and see those talks . They usually also another . I saw that they mostly are like fishbowl structure . You know , yeah , one is called like aquarium , other one is a fishbowl . So I'm also curious . I love liberating structures and seeing them when you can actually see so many people in place .

You know and use them as they were designed for . So that would be very curious . You know and use them as they were designed for . So that would be very curious . And yeah , and at some point I was like , oh my God , I have always thought that I really like helping people and I don't mind if they don't like Scrum or they want to do now Kanban .

I'm like I think we can do some hybrid , just so it helps where we are . And I think those posts about the end of agile were like oh , suddenly I think that what I was thinking about is coming to some shape and I was a lot thinking about this part of collaboration 2.0 beyond frameworks .

Thinking about this part of collaboration 2.0 beyond frameworks , because it's actually like you , don't we ? I think it's also like we were talking . I'm saying a lot that I really love shuhari . You know I've never done a martial art , but the way they explain getting to a mastery by the shuhari is really rings a bell in my head .

So my son is doing taekwondo , so now I will see if they actually mentioned that Okay . Mentioned that . Yeah , so shuhari is where you follow the rule , right ? I think as the society , or tech society , tech crowd , we were following the rule of Scrum or Save or Kanban or XP for quite a long time .

The next level is HA , where you know the rule and you can start breaking the rule because you already know it so well , right ? So you start breaking it and we already are a bit here and re is where you set your own rule . You are a master , you now dominate the field . So I think this is where we are also as agile people .

We agile people , but also the tech industry . You know the developers , the QAs . They already know Scrum . They don't need a Scrum master that will come and make sure they do everything by the book and tell them off if they were doing a sprint retrospective for sprint review and calling it a demo . That's like the worst thing you can do , right ?

So we all did it at some point and now and now I think it's um , it's that part where we , being mature , we can start developing our own , our own frameworks or our own ways of doing it and we don't need to do everything as per the book .

Give us some details about how you really foster that collaboration , because that's something that doesn't justroverted and willing to speak , but many times and I'm a former software developer myself so I can live and see this Software developers many times they're very happy doing the work of writing code , not so much actually talking about the work and communicating and

coordinating with others . So how do you foster that collaboration ? Are there tools , techniques ? Are there anything that you use , maybe specifically for when you go into a new team and as you're working with a mature team as well ?

. I think I'm good at reading the room , even if it's a virtual room , so my touch points are team leads , are product owners and designers , and then on the part of the leadership , of course , the leaders who set the , the goals , the architects that define a little bit how and where we are going to go .

And I remember it was very strange for me that people , when you start talking to people a bit offline and that's , I think , the strength of this collaboration you make allies and you reach out to people casually and asking them do you understand what's needed ? Do you have everything you need ? And then you suddenly see that no , they don't .

They have a big , they have big gaps . There is some high level design by an architect , but it was never discussed , it's just there . People have a lot of questions and not everybody is even you , you speak about talking to people , but not everyone is even like empowered enough or brave enough to just add comments to the chief architect design , you know .

So what I do is like I go to the leadership and I say I don't think that we are in a good place . We can't make any plan of what to do next place , we can't make any plan of what to do next . And I spoke .

So I went to the UXers and I said if we could do some kind of a user journey and they have user journey presented in Miro and just have a meeting where we go through this user journey so everybody can understand what's expected , and just have post-its and add post-its to where we don't understand something .

And when I went there at the beginning I was like I have no clue . I am not a technical person . This is very technical . It was like cloud native solution , you know . But if you just as a facilitator , it's like really facilitator skills . You know a few things and you just try to make it happen . And people started .

I tried to understand what are the main groups that work together when it comes to those POs or team lead . And then I said so now that we know already , let's go into breakout room and let's discuss those answers and get those questions .

So I just made sure there are the architects , there are the UXers and the people that will do the job , the team representatives , and it was such a great . You know , it lasted days , because it was like one two hour workshop one day , another , another day , but there were almost like 100 people on it .

But still , you know , getting all those people together , you could see that this is why you like your work and this is what brings you this joy and satisfaction , because you are learning something new and understanding it . And also , from my side , it was amazing to see .

I was so stressed before it and then I saw how people directly jumped in because they know each other , they collaborate . They just needed this basis , somebody to bring them together . And this is how I think we can do like a really important and valuable job , as agile people , as facilitators , as people that foster collaboration .

There are some very important questions that you can see formulating but nobody is bringing it up for any number of reasons up Maybe they don't want to . I'm giving air quotes here , get someone in trouble for asking a question .

But as coaches , I think we can really show our value by bringing those elephants in the room , announcing those and then giving people the freedom to be able to okay , it's out there , now I can actually talk about it , but before until it's actually stated , it's very tough to get someone to break the ice and to actually talk about it .

What do you think about that , maria ?

Yeah , definitely agree with you , and this is also at the same project that we had , where there were so the us and then we had people from portugal working together and they were not used to working together , not to mention used to working cross-culturally . So , yeah , so there was also this cultural gap and I thought so .

I decided to create an AMA session , like ask me anything , where the VP of technology that was leading this project and the main architect and other architects were there to answer questions from the teams . So I was expecting people to come with questions , but people were coming to just questions from the teams .

So I was expecting people to come with questions , but people were coming to just see what will happen . They were , for sure , having their questions on their mind , but they were not feeling comfortable enough to share them .

So , because I talked to those people and I know what their questions are , I was like , okay , to those people and I know what their questions are . I was like , okay , so I will be asking those questions even though I don't need those answers for myself .

Like , so I started asking those questions for them just what you described and I started a conversation so those technical leads could start understanding where my questions go and start giving the answers , giving more context , and then , when they were explaining people out , okay , to also ask their questions .

But it really was necessary for me to be this person to ask them for them at the beginning . So , yeah , I agree , it's , it's really important , um , it's very important to to get those skeletons out of the closet and get the elephant in the room and and not be but .

But , yeah , but , for that you need to have this connections with people previously so you know what are their questions , even though they're not asking them right . So this is all this work of getting familiar , talking to people . Sometimes I would see somebody like not happy on the meeting .

That you can already see by facial expression , and I always work in remote so I don't see these people . I've never met them , but I could see that . And then I see by the questions they ask that they don't get it .

They are not getting the answers they expect , and this is all the work that , like you , do in the background so that later on you can help them you mentioned knowing people and having a relationship .

And I noticed that there was some work going on . And as we were going through daily scrum and we were walking the board , we were looking and this one very senior person on the team was mentioning some work that he was doing , but it wasn't on the board and I didn't have a relationship with him at all .

And I didn't have a relationship with him at all and probably the way that I brought it up too . I just was matter of fact , just kind of , hey , is that work on the board ? And he was like , well , no , it's just something I'm working on .

And I was like , well , I think it would be helpful for visibility to put that on the board so that everybody is aware of what's going on . And that came across as very confrontational , very challenging to him , and we started off on a little bit of a rocky road in the beginning .

It took some time to get to know this person and for them to get to know me . I just had to be very humble and just say hey , I really didn't mean to put you on the spot , I apologize . I was probably in my get it . You on the spot , I apologize , I was probably in my get it done . Mode is what I say sometimes .

I just like to sometimes just cut right to the chase and let's just get to the point and get it done . But I said that's not me . If you know me , I'm a very likable person , or I like to think that I am . People tell me that . So if you just give me another chance , I think we could work together better . So we've repaired that relationship .

We actually have a very good working relationship now and kind of understand each other . But I think that just sheds some light on a way that we're trying to do the right thing . But if you don't have a relationship , my admonition would just be very careful in how you enter that because it could come across the wrong way .

If somebody doesn't know you Does that ring any bells to you ?

So the customer is the developer and it's hard , it's very technical , and I went to the whiteboard and started saying you know , guys , I think we should do it in like three steps and this is how we should explain this .

And those were obviously technical people with me and they were like looking at me and saying , maria , but I thought you were just this agile person .

So yeah , and I was like okay . So you thought I'm like this flower power agile coach and suddenly I can understand what's going on in the room , surprise . So yeah , I think that's that's the .

And I really liked what you said because it shows what we preach . We preach that we should give feedback , we should try to do something better and , you know , act on something that we so continuously improve , basically , and you did that . You went back and you said , said hey , I think we might have started off on the wrong foot and I'm not like that .

I would like you to know me better and I might have did something not great . And this is how we also lead by example , right . So we really give an example of how it's okay . We all make mistakes and we just acknowledge them and move on , and I think it's great that you did that , and it's hard to do it .

I met them once and when I started working and we did all that stuff that I explained this workshop , I haven't met anyone ever . So I noticed that , yeah , but I noticed that there are people that are like really born leaders and other people follow them .

When you know and identify who those are and those are really the people that will ask more questions , will have more opinions , will maybe be sometimes the more like you would think it's a log art or like very skeptical person , but those really help because they you can see that they care .

So I usually try to find , to identify those people and I think now I'm trying to like , dissect it how I do it .

For me , it's just natural that I try to talk to people that talk most or have most opinions , even if they disagree with what I do or with how we do stuff , and I try to create relationships with them because once you have them on board , it's like the when you go with the adoption right and and you have the early adopters .

You have the innovators , the early adopters and then the late majority . They will follow after those early adopters . So I try to understand which are those , and also especially the ones that seem like laggards . You know , those having the most skeptical people , those that give you everything that might go badly .

This is like the best person that you should be friends of , because they will tell you everything that you need to find solution for resolve , and this way your work is so much easier . So , as opposed to people who usually look at those like , ah , this person always is a troublemaker . No , listen to them when you get to .

And I remember once there was a guy that was like that and he was a product owner and I thought he hated me with his whole life and I only thought that and I started talking to him every time I had some problem or I didn't know how to announce something or I needed some input , and I was always asking him and I think he started appreciating that and he

also saw that . You know , this is why she is doing this . She really tries to understand it and he was giving me advice and I remember that later on we were really , we had the great collaboration and he was sometimes asking me like how would I do something ? You know , that was for me the biggest praise you can ever get .

And you just always saw them quiet and maybe didn't interact with people . And many times those people have a lot to say because they're not busy talking , they're taking all the information in and they're not spending their time talking .

So I frequently like to go to those people and try to open them best of the best that comes forth , and not just the ones that are always talking .

And I think there's a place to employ both of those strategies , if you will , from what you were talking about , because I do think it's important for you to identify as a coach , to identify who are the leaders of the team , to see what they are seeing .

But I would also say , don't forget about the quiet ones , because they're sitting back observing and they probably have a different perspective . What do you think about that ?

So definitely good observation and good advice and that's why we also do all those liberating structures right . Trying to make sure , or when we do a retrospective , we ask everyone to put their post-its , not only the the leaders , and that's actually something that I remember .

I was doing a workshop in a different company and there were always the four or five people speaking and you know , because I already had a good relationship with them and I knew that they are like , they like joking and so on , so I was just like , yes , so right now I would like to ask these questions and please , tiago , you like and ask tiago not to

answer it . Okay , so sometimes you can just add some um , some jokes and some fun to it . It recently I saw a post from evelyn , and she's from sevia and she was asking that , yes , yes .

So she was asking about something that happened to me as well that when we do workshops and just by doing a workshop you would imagine , people know that there will be interaction , but by the moment you get to hello , so now we will do some breakout room , half of the people drop , yeah , but then you know .

So there are two ways of this , because when I responded to her and I said you know what I did recently , a workshop Like this happened to me once that people dropped before the breakout rooms .

So recently I did a workshop in my company and I told people so there will be some breakout rooms and I will disable the leave button by then so that we stay here sneaky , sneaky you're right .

But you know , just getting this elephant out of the room helped that people really didn't drop and I said , if you don't want to collaborate , it's OK , you might not do it , you don't have to , but it will be great to just see what others did , you know .

So I think , yeah , we have to think about ways to involve the quiet ones is to involve the quiet ones , but then also and it's something that I learned yesterday because I was reading the chat from the conference , from the Agile 2024 .

And they said that they are trying to identify the talks or the workshops , like the talks that don't have much interaction , because there are people that just don't feel comfortable and they really shrivel at the moment of thinking now turn to your neighbor and discuss , and it's where they don't feel comfortable and I remember how many times I didn't feel comfortable

doing that . So now I see that we are also doing some tables that could be like you know . Know , there are , I don't know , let's say , seven tables only in the room that I will be facilitating and I'm thinking about putting one or two of them and saying those are the quiet rooms for your own work .

You don't have to interact , but still , you can still take some value of the workshop . If you do it on your own , it's not a problem . And then there are tables where there will be interaction with the others .

So I think it's also something I haven't thought about , that I remember I actually once asked somebody who was never participating in those sessions and he told me that he just doesn't like to speak Publicly . And even asked , you know , even asked directly , he wouldn't say anything .

He was so uncomfortable and I would never want to put somebody , you know , in such an uncomfortable position . So I think this is also something important to take into account .

There are people that are okay to talk and interact and there are those that you can go and ask privately and they will be happy to share their opinion , but not just asking everyone to contribute if they don't feel like .

But it can be very jarring to somebody who is very introverted to just throw them into a breakout room , especially an in-person one , and say , okay , now we're going to collaborate and we need for you to speak and we need to hear your opinions on this . That can be quite scary for some people .

But if they have the opportunity to ease into it and see , observe that maybe they might be willing to be more open to participating later on . Have you seen that ?

We have those people that that will not speak if you ask them , and I think there are those that just don't , will not . And then you have those , this third group , that they are not yet comfortable but they might be in the future . Right , there is a potential and they just need to overcome some shyness . And it's actually interesting .

I was talking once I have an interview when I was doing interviews with engineering managers for my channel . I spoke to my brother and we are the most opposite people you can find . And yeah , and it's interesting because he said , you can learn to be extrovert . It's not that you are introverted forever .

So he says that , even though at our family , if you ask anyone , they will tell you he's an introverted person . He said that if you ask people from my company , my teammates , they would say I'm an extrovert and it's also based on at work .

He feels that he is an expert , he knows what he's talking about , he sees how he can contribute and help others if he speaks because he already knows the solutions and he knows that there is a different way to do things .

But at home , you know , especially when you have , like , a family dinner and the conversation is about the newest series or vacation , where he's not the expert or knows best , he just doesn't contribute so much . So I think this is also interesting to know .

That it's also like when we talk about facilitation you don't have to be an extrovert that has high energy and looks everybody in the eye . You can learn to be even being introverted .

You can learn some techniques and tools , like , for example , the liberating structures or any other templates that are there , and you can be a great facilitator without being a super extroverted person . So I think this is interesting , but , yeah , it requires us to pay a lot of attention .

It's a membership but you can just try for a month and see what we are talking about . I think LinkedIn is a very good place to just send a message , very easy to find and , yeah , I'm happy for people to reach out and talk . It's great to exchange ideas .

I almost feel like we need a second session because there's so much I want to get into and start talking about some of the other details of all this regarding collaboration and otherwise that we've talked about , but I really appreciate your time . Today has been very helpful for me and hopefully it has been for our listeners as well .

If you haven't already , please join our LinkedIn page to stay in touch . Just search for the agile within and please spread the word with your friends and colleagues Until next time . This has been your host , mark Metz .