Agile, have you ever wondered what it takes to break into agile and actually have a job get paid for it? On this episode, we'll talk with my good friend, Tommy post on his journey into becoming a scrum master in breaking into agile. It's easier than you think, but not as easy as you think, find out what we mean on this episode of the agile within
[inaudible]
welcome to the podcast that challenges you
Inside and discover the agile within. And now here's your host, Greg Miller. Okay. Welcome to another episode of agile within as always it's Greg today is , uh , we're in January here today, January, 2021. Welcome to new year, everybody we're still in the pandemic, but have a lot to be grateful for grateful for this show. Uh , grateful that , um, it's nice and sunny was snowing a little bit here today. Um, today I have a very special guest, a very good friend of mine.
I've worked with him in agile for a couple of years now. And uh , his name is Tommy post. He is currently a scrum master on an agile team. And Tommy is here to talk about how he got into agile. So welcome to the show, Tommy. Thanks, Greg. Very excited to be here. Great. So I have been with you, I think on most of your agile journey. I think I remember when we sat next to each other, I believe at a company we worked for years , as I sat says that sound right?
Yeah. Wasn't even a scrum master at that point. I was very green in my it career , uh, as , uh , working as a software quality analyst. Yeah. I remember that. I remember, I remember when I first got introduced to you and uh, the person said you don't have Tommy posts . I was like, no. Oh yeah, you got to meet Tommy post. He's awesome. And you are awesome. So when you were in QA, I know that was your first, I think you were, you were an intern there. Is that right? First?
Yeah, I , uh, I interned with this with the company before I actually became a full-time employee and , uh, it was my second, second co-op per se within my it career.
Okay. So how did you , uh , for people that are listening that might want to get into agile? I know a lot of , um, I came across a lot of people in my career that wanting to make the transition to at least get into the agile environment or, or become a scrum master. So how did you get, why did you want to get into it? What , what drew you to it? I guess we can start there.
Well, working as a software quality analyst, I really liked that from a technical aspect and getting to know, you know, the dev teams and, and everything technology. That's where my focus was to begin with. Um, but I've always been a very people oriented person. Uh, just, just working with people. That's one thing that energizes me and slowly over time, I just found myself kind of , uh, moving towards that side of the house.
So working with business , um, and just kind of that, that aspect of the it organization drew me there, but I didn't necessarily know what I wanted to do. I didn't know what a scrum master was, even, even when I graduated from college and it wasn't until I really started getting into, you know, working with dev teams and, and getting into the kind of full stack , um, it aspect of life that I figured out like, wow, here's a, here's a position that I've never heard of. Right .
School never taught me this.
No, they don't teach you that. Although I think, I think I've heard some places are starting to teach.
Yeah. I , I look back at it and really wish I would've known about this , uh, coming in college, coming from, from, from college.
So do I would have gone to it right away. I would have, yeah. I could have had a twenty-five years in agile by now or so. Exactly. So you , so you got into it. So what , um , yeah, I remember when I first heard about , uh, agile, it was 10 years ago. I , I heard a manager mindset. I overheard it in Congress. I was working on, on the team. I didn't know what it was. I'd never heard a name to it before. He said he was, he was talking to somebody else.
He said, Oh, if we're agile and I was like, agile, what the heck is that mean? And just took, I was the same , like you, I was QA and just started looking into it from there. And I , and I realized we were doing stand-ups . I didn't even know what it was. I didn't know why we were doing it. We started doing something. I realized that turned out to be a retro, as I look back on it, it was a Racho cause he was saying, start, stop, continue.
And somewhat , my friend of mine said that feels like agile. I was like, really? I don't . I had no idea what that was. So what about the , um, so you were drawn to , you're drawn to agile.
Um, talk to me
About , uh , what about the behaviors and the , uh, the mindset . Is there anything there that you've had to change while you've gone through this? I know it was big for me when I realized that that there's values of more than just the process. Is there any changes you've had to, to I'm sure there are, that you've had to examine as you go through this.
Yeah. One thing that kind of drew me to it to get back to that point is every scrum master that I worked with when I was a software quality analyst, they were just always so energized. Like they were like the , the hype hype man and they would always, you know, if there's problems that we were having or, you know, if you brought your grievances to retro, like they just always seem to have really, you know, comforting ways of saying, yeah, it's okay.
We can, we have, we have ways of working through them, like thank you for, for bringing it up. But like, they just always brought a sense of like, I just, I can't even think of the words. Just a sense of calm. Yeah , for sure. Um, but looking into it, like one of the biggest things that I had to learn is just being very open-minded , um , to it hearing different ideas. There's not always going to be one idea or one way that's perfect.
So it's kind of a mind shift from that , uh , point of view that be open to everyone, even, even if the idea seems radical , um, give it a chance and if it doesn't work that's okay. So that for sure was one of the, kind of my first , um, shifts when I was like looking in to becoming a scrum master. Um, it definitely, it kind of drove me to saying, okay, just think of things differently and just be open to what other people have to say, even if you don't want a hundred percent agree with it.
Yeah.
That's, that's what I found is that yeah. I mean, yeah . Try new things like running the idea of running experiments and everybody has an opinion on the team, right. That , uh , uh, yeah, you're not the, you're not the leader of the team. You're, you're there to the team, the team is driving it. We're just there to support them. Like you said, that sense of calm. And , uh , everybody has an idea and opinion we respect is one of the values in scrum that respect their opinions.
Yeah, definitely. Um, that servant leadership aspect though, was also very appealing to me. Um, learning to empower your team, to actually take charge , um, and, and get, get done. What they're , they're talking about. Uh, and you not taking ownership of it a hundred percent was also appealing to me. And it is a big mind mindset to , to try to grasp that. Like what, what does it truly mean to be a servant leader? You can be a leader, but you need to give that empowerment to your team.
You need to give them a path, a pathway to, to actually achieve it.
Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. There , are there any , uh, big, big moments of revelation that you had , uh , as you were making your way to a scrum master or big things that you said, Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's uh , like an epiphany is that you've had that you said, Oh my gosh. Yeah. I didn't realize that I need to be doing this.
And as far as your behavior goes and your, your mindset and the , you know , failing and learning, maybe some, some examples of something where you've , uh, you fail that turned out to be a big learning curve, learning, learning moment for you.
Yeah. I think for me, it was stepping back and seeing the bigger picture. Um , when we're talking, when I'm talking about my journey as going from a software quality analyst to a scrum master, I was very focused from the day to day work within my sprint. Like I got to get this done and you know, I have to have this done. I don't really care too much about what's going on over here, as long as I'm getting my work accomplished.
But as soon as I started stepping back and looking at how all of these pieces integrate together, like it really made me understand like, look, you're just one part of this really massive , uh, organization, this , this complex piece of work.
So just be patient with what's going on and the other team spaces or with your developer, if , uh, if something's wrong, like, it's, there's a lot more going on behind the scenes so that it really kind of helped me take a step back and just looked at everything that was going on rather than just me focusing on my own pieces of work.
Right. Yeah. You said something there, you said patients have patients like that. That could be a big, a big part too, right?
Yes. Yeah. Patients, patients everywhere from a tech side to a business side, I mean, from gathering requirements, people don't have the answers all the time. Um , I hate to say it, but sometimes it's, it's a lot of hurry up and wait.
Yes. Yeah. I've definitely found that , uh , I'm kind of in a situation now at my current role as a scrum master it's , um, as, you know, most places I've , I've been are going through, you know, everyone calls it agile transformation, you know, they've a couple of years in, and it may not be going as fast as they, as, as they want it to. And , um, of course every place, every place I've been nowadays, no one seems to have patients .
It has to go quick, quick, quick, and agile can make it go faster. But the, sometimes the changes don't happen fast enough. And , uh , I realized that you have to, especially with management upper-level executives, they want to go, they don't understand that it does take patience. It does take time and sometimes way longer than they, than they expected if you've run into anything, any things similar to that?
Yeah, I think it's, I think it would be fair to say that everyone has run into situations like that. Um, and it doesn't have to be an it or a business. I mean, I think any profession would, would face some of that. Um, what has helped me kind of identify and, and kind of break down , uh, that picture is setting goals and building the objectives out to actually achieve those goals. If you have a plan set, I find it does help , um, alleviate some of that, hurry up and wait weightness.
Um, so working through that, it it's, it's just kind of, it's a, it's a coping mechanism almost
Sure. Sure. Yeah. Now , and this kind of leads in , you said something to me , uh, before we, before we started recording here earlier , uh , you said , uh , you realized you had to get comfortable being comfortable, comfortable. How did you say it? Get comfortable being uncomfortable, uncomfortable being uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah. So how does that, how does that , um, how has that gone for you?
Well, you know, I think it's , it's going well, there's, there are still times that I'm uncomfortable, whether it be presenting information or metrics to , to high-level , you know , leadership , um, or, you know , even bringing unsavory news, bacteria teams saying like, sorry, we're going to have to pivot on this. Like, it's , uh, it's just something that we should get comfortable with. I know it's hard to do it. Um, and I don't, I personally don't feel like it's ever going to become natural.
Right. But the longer I feel like I do it, it just, it, it will become better.
It helps you grow. Right. If you get out of your, I was just reading something about that the other day that are actually, it was today, I think about comfort zone and it said , um, what did it say? You're something about you're stepping out of your comfort zone and trying new things , uh, Oh, growth growth starts , uh, at the end of your comfort zone. So for you, if you hadn't , uh, I mean, that's, that's taken off , you took a big leap, I think, right. Going from, Oh yeah .
Going from QA to scrum master. Now you're in a , uh, a lot bigger role. You're seeing a bigger picture. You're, you're leading over some teams there and that's , uh , for people that want to get into it, it can be scary as anything.
Yeah. And, you know, that's a very good segue into also, don't be afraid to fail because honestly, you know, you're going to fail. I, the first time I took my PSN test, I failed and I studied for months. I'm not a solid dress taker. Um , and I only, I failed it by like one or two questions ,
Uh ,
The bright side, like you didn't bomb this and I've studied and studied and read blogs and been in the chats on scrum.org and all of that. And seeing people like, Oh, I passed a hundred percent first time now
Shut up.
You know , I, it wasn't, it was, it wasn't deterring me from being where I want it to be, because I knew how to execute , uh, you know, the plan of being a scrum master. And it's not always, it's not just following the, the agile manifesto. It's, it's really getting to know your teams and what they need and how can you as a scrum master actually empower them to achieve goals.
Um, that's probably one of the things that excites me the most , uh, is when my team is facing issues, wherever, whatever they may be, and I can help step in and either facilitate or provide a pathway to actually unblock or, you know, fix whatever is ailing them.
Right. Totally. Yeah. And, and , uh , one thing you were saying there is that, well, first of all, yeah, so I don't feel bad. I took the , um , I took the PSM to , uh, beginning of this year I passed it. It took me three times. Wow. I took it. I took it twice last year about , uh, it was about this time, I think January, February, I failed it and I got frustrated and I was like, all right , how am I going to pass this? So I took a class last year and I passed it. I failed it last year.
Like you buy , I needed 85. I got like 84. Wow. And I was like, what the hell? Oh my gosh. And this year, and this year I took it. And, you know, I wasn't one of the, I didn't get like a hundred or 95. I got like an 86, so I just passed it. But I was like, I thought I did great. But yeah, that was funny that you said. Yeah. So I don't, yeah. I don't think people should feel bad. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, it is what it is.
But , um, one thing you were saying there is about your teams and I believe you to know your team. I mean , um, I've taken different approaches with different teams, like the team I have now , uh , I'm finding out that I have to, I, I tried the soft approach and it didn't, it didn't go as well. And that , that's a , that's a big debate too.
That's another kind of show I'm going to do, but taking a soft approach with your team or taking the hard approach, I have to be a little bit , um, well, this team is so really new. I can't really coach. I have to teach and I have to be a little more , um, I don't want to say forceful and, and hard, but a little more , uh, no, this is what you have to do type attitude.
I think there's certain situations as a scrum master where you need to take charge, but never take 100% of the ownership , uh, getting the ball rolling and kind of paving away just to, you know, as , as painful as it may be sometimes showing, showing you an example, and then hopefully somewhere along the line, the team starts adding their flavor to it. And you start letting them kind of take the ball while you're still being the bumpers for them and helping them where they can be.
Yeah. I say, I even said it to you though , and it's not, it's not my idea. I think , uh , the , um, about being the bumpers, the bumpers on the bowling alley, you know, when they put those up for the kids, that's what I like to, I like to use that. I think I lifted that from somebody and , uh, but yeah, the bumpers on the, on the bowling lanes, when the ball goes down, that that's what we are keeping it from going in the gutter.
I always walk the fine line of when to step in and when not to step in and when to let the team, I like to use the wind to let the team , uh , do I tell them you're going a hundred miles an hour towards the cliff? Or do I R do I , um, let them, let them find out on their own? And , uh , I haven't been to a place yet a company yet that is , uh, has been willing to let me let the team go off the cliff.
That's, it's been a , it's usually going to have a financial consequences to the company in India . No one in management has allowed me to do that yet. So, yeah ,
I think that's a good point.
There's, there's been teams I've been on, especially where we're in sprint planning, where all I'll have to raise my voice up and say, you know, we're pulling in a lot of work, you know, we may, we may have a lot of carry over work coming in, or maybe there's a couple of large stories that it's going to take some pair development, like just, just simple reminders to the teams like that actually spur conversation, you know, from the dev team or from the PO side or UX side, wherever it may be,
where they may look at the story and rethink like, yeah, this is going to take multiple sprints. Can we break this story down at all? Or, you know, do we have to do pair development? If we want to try to get it done by, you know, whether it's due day driven or sprint date driven, whatever it may be.
Yeah, yeah . Have dealt with due dates too. So, yeah. And , uh , agile doesn't work well with dates. We, you know , we try the best we can. Um, so what are some of the , uh, what are, what are some big , um, behavior added mindset shifts that you've had to coach to your team?
And he certain, a certain team members that you've had to help turn around their mindset when they're struggling with , uh, being new to Andrew , maybe not even new to agile, maybe, maybe resisters that's a resistance is always a big topic. Um, anything that you've experienced that you've had to personally step in on and help someone change their behavior.
I think some of the biggest ones I've had to help kind of step in on maybe not so much with individuals. Um, but within the teams is, you know, it's okay to pivot away , um, requirements , change directions, change all the time from the business. And that's one thing I really love about agile is everything's not set in stone. You know, it's, it's is almost harmony of the dev teams working with the product owner to , to really get that.
But sometimes that attitude is not there and it's understandable, you know, sometimes it can be frustrating , um, context switching so much , uh , but just bringing it up that it's okay, like we're not losing that work. We're not losing that value that's being added. We will come back to it. Um, there's this something more precedented at this time?
Uh that's I think that's one that comes up often and then the Superman Superman kind of mentality of, I can take both of these crazy large stories and I can coordinate it all. And I can reach out to this group in that group and I can work 15 hour days for two straight weeks, and I'm not going to get burnt out. Right. I can be pretty detrimental at times, especially if the team realizes it saying like, well, you said you were going to get this done.
And here we are six weeks later, two weeks later, you know , and we could have had it done if you just opened up and said like, Hey, I need, I need help on this. I'm stuck on this part. Like that's , it's, that's kinda where the courage part of agile comes in. It's something I never really understood probably until about my first year until you really start seeing that and can get that experience.
Like, that was one thing that didn't quite click with me at first , uh, you know, reading through the , the agile manifesto, like why, why is courage in here? You know, like w you know , we're talking about work and, but it comes into play like knowing no, and this goes for any position, not, not developer or anything like that. It's , it's just knowing when to ask for help.
And it's not, it's not showing weakness, you know, to me, it's showing, you know, just really good teamwork and collaboration. If I don't know how to do something, I'm going to reach out to my team. Or if I, if I come up , um, to a situation I've never been in, and I don't quite know how to handle it, I I'm going to reach out.
I mean, it's , it's, to me, it's, it's not natural to admit that you don't know something doesn't necessarily feel good, but after you go through that experience, it's, it's, it's almost calming to know like, okay, I got this. People are willing to help me and because they want to see you succeed. Right. That's what pretty much everyone wants.
Yeah. That's it . You brought up a great point. That's cause I'm in the traditional, I mean, before I was in agile environments and I even worked in a PMO and I experienced that firsthand that , um, you know, the idea that people want to succeed and , and having that courage to admit weakness, that was a big no-no, you know , you meet your weakness. That's like blood in the water and the sharks are swimming around. And, you know, people, you turn to the bus and lose their jobs.
If you, if you admit weakness that you don't know everything, even though most of the people don't know what they're talking about at all, but they walk around acting like they knew.
Well, even if with failure, you know, I think that's another piece that's, that's hard to teach or just hard to grasp. Like it's okay to fail. I mean, if you're not failing, I don't think you're going to be growing as much as you could be potentially. You know, it , when I didn't pass the PSM, it just, it made me look saying , okay, what could I have done better? Like, I didn't spend as much time on this section.
And it showed like, I missed questions here that I probably should have got if I just focused more and you know, it's that's, to me, it's how I grew at least.
Yeah. Oh yeah. It it's a bad word failure, especially in business, but we're not going to fail. We're going to succeed every time. It's I worked for a seat co one time and you know , that was not an option. You were always, you always had to succeed, but in agile, it's quite that it's the exact opposite failure is okay. And I'm trying to help. I'm trying to help my team understand that cause they're there and they're coming from waterfall to , and they, you know, failure.
What, what do you mean failure? But I I'm realizing , uh , like you were saying, I'm realizing that , um , it's how big of a failure, I think as you , I mean , are we going to fail delivering the project? Well, we can't do that because there's consequent financial consequences of maybe even people's jobs. So there's still resistance to that. But failure, smaller failures, I think within the team, like, okay, if we didn't get this story done, this sprint is a huge deal, right?
Not, not always, I mean, yeah ,
We can, we can deliver , uh,
Small slice of that story and still have value and talk with your product owner. But , um, overall, even if you talk to successful people, I was talking with someone earlier today about this too, that , uh, it's like the tip of the iceberg. You see people that are giant successes out there, Apple and Amazon and the people that created those bayzos and , um, all that, all the people that are big successes, they'll tell, they talk about how , how much they failed throughout their life.
I mean, it, it, it truly is what, what, what grows us and in our learning experience , um, I really like Elon Musk and you know how he's just, he's just so out there, he he's, he goes for , for it. And even if he fails, you know, he's still considered next success. Like, we'll learn from this . We learn like , yeah , we can, we can focus on this area. These are the things that we did, right.
These are the things that we totally missed or, you know, we may have hit , uh , somewhat, but yeah, it , it truly does drive us. Um, I think another talking point to that is try to fail early. You know, if you're working on a story and we're missing, you know, requirements, or you identify something that's not in our acceptance criteria, but it's going to derail the whole story or make it, you know, 10 times bigger, like, bring it up.
You don't want to go all the way to the end and finally bring it on and be like, Oh yeah, this was a requirement that wasn't in here anyways, because I, I don't feel that too many people like I do that. Um, but it happens. I've seen it. I'm just like, what about this? So why didn't we pull it up to be a PO with the team in general? Um, and it , sometimes I get flabbergasted by it. I'm like, wait , we knew about this two weeks ago and we didn't do anything to change course
Courage. Well, the person didn't bring it up to you. Right. As a scrum, I said , he didn't have the courage person to not have the courage to, to expose that. Right.
Yeah. I try to, I still try to figure out like those situations of where we could have done better. Um, if, you know, if it's something with just being honest or yeah. That going back to that courage point, you know, it's, it's not on you as a, as a person , uh, that you may not know. What's like how to do it. I mean, these are complex problems that businesses are working on every day. There's very few people in the world that have all the answers to them.
I mean, it , it, it truly is a team effort to get these, you know, these problems issues fixed , completed, or delivering new enhancements, whatever it may be. Right .
And they fail as a team, right? It's not, you don't blame in the individuals for any failure, even though, even though we know it was one certain developer who maybe actually did cause the story to fail, we don't call that out. We say the team fail, right. The team found , yeah ,
The team failed. And it's, I've been in retros where if it was, you know, one or two people they've actually brought up and said, you know, this is where I could have worked on, I I've had issues this week, whether it be personal, you know , uh , taking on too much work. And that's another big part of that whole courage aspect is just being open with your team. If, if your team is, is kind of jiving like that, you know, they feel they're in a safe spot and this is even outside of retro.
If they can talk about it as a team and stand-ups , and just everyday life like that is a major, that's a core component of having a very well-working team is just having very clear conversations. And just being honest with each other, like, I'm just not going to get this done, you know, just bringing that up alone. It, it, it really, really helps.
You said a lot that you said , you've mentioned all the honesty fair . I was thinking back to when you were talking about failures, that Elon Musk, he, he and he enjoys failure. And I was just thinking, because they, they have that, they, they may not even call it agile. I'm sure they do agile at Tesla, but before there was agile, they ha they get, they use that failure as feedback like that feedback loop.
I tried this, I failed instead of dwelling on the failure, they take the, they take it as a learning opportunity incorporate back in like we do at the end of our sprints and take that feedback back into the next sprint and try to do better. And that's, that's what they do. I think that's what makes people like that such a great success.
Yeah. And I think it really is, you know, you go back to the mindset of like what it is , um, that you need it , that I need to kind of be a scrum master and kind of teaching that or coaching that mentality is, is, you know, very key. It's definitely not easy. No . Cause you know, we're, you're working with all sorts of different personalities, the entrance and extroverts, you know, some people just like to be left alone and that's okay.
But trying to get that mindset and that shift to stick, I think is , uh , is one of the harder pieces , um, that we work towards. Yeah. Yeah .
I've experienced the same thing too. So most, have you found that most teams that you have most people are receptive to the process, but more resistant to the behaviors and mindsets? Have you found that?
I think pretty much every team I've worked with has been very receptive to the process. Um, I think when it comes to trying new things and changing things is that's where the uncertainty comes in. Because a lot of times we recognize when things aren't going well. Um, but they're , you know, sometimes it gets kind of dicey there cause people feel like, Oh, well, are they going to be pointing fingers at so-and-so?
Like, I don't want to , I don't want to step on anyone's toes and , and be that person. Um, but that's, that's, that's the furthest thing from possible. Like just bringing those concerns up and then identifying them to say, okay, we know this is a problem. What can we do as a team to change this for next time?
That's where, you know, it's, it's easy on , it's easy to write that down on paper, but it's harder to enact it because you're actually, you know, it's, it is a shift and what you're doing day in and day out, it could be a mindset shift or, you know, just a , um, just a life change in general. If you have a meeting at eight 15, and you're not a morning person, you really got to work.
Sometimes you're a morning person to wake up seven 30, get ready, be there, be, you know, actually be awake, be attentive to the , like the problems that are happening.
Exactly. I'm not a morning person.
Yeah. It can be difficult at times.
Totally. Totally. Yeah. So, so , uh, you're a scrum master now. Uh, how many teams do you have ,
Uh, currently working with three teams, kind of four teams? Um, a smaller, smaller team. There were about three people. Um, but mainly mainly three, three teams.
Okay. So what are your goals currently to stay as Chromecast master ? What are your long-term , what are you working towards now?
So I really like being a scrum master currently. It's, you know, I get energized when I can help people and help teams solve these complex problems that they're having. Um, ultimately kind of for this year for 2021, I'm actually writing out my goals right now. I'm working towards getting my PSLP or the professional scrum product owner. Yeah. I think that would just be round more.
So being a more well-rounded , um, scrum master or a person in general, like I get intrigued by the business and , and the product , uh, on how they work. And for me just having that, it's not so much having that certification. It's, it's just something that I think will , will help me in the longterm . Yeah. Yeah.
You mentioned , uh, yeah . Your goals for anybody out there who , um, is on LinkedIn, which is most of us, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy posts, posts his goals to LinkedIn at the beginning of every year. And I've always enjoyed that even, even when you and I worked together, I like to see Tommy's goals. And then you do like the year in review to see it , to see what goals you accomplished and what you did. And I really, I really respect you for doing that.
I think that's really calling you and if there's a goal you didn't meet and you say that you didn't meet it, you know, things, things come up. And , uh,
I like that. Yeah. I mean, it's , it's kind of like having your own little retrospective from first of the year. And my , my , my goal was really to try to do it , uh, in the middle of the year, but it's it. I failed. I failed, Oh God, you're done. You failed. Never again. Give up , I'm running out my 20, 21 goals, both professionally and personally. I know I'm an open book .
I don't really mind throwing my personal goals out there, whether it comes to finance, you know, family, things like that. I, I think being transparent is one of the greatest things ever. Yeah.
I know. I know. You're a , I know you're a big car guy. You were telling me , uh, we had lunch at B dubs last year. And you had a new, well new for you. You got a Mercedes wagon.
Yeah. So one of my goals was to save up for a sports car. I'm expecting to my first child. So two seat sports car, doesn't really go hand in hand car seat in the back. Right. So different, different , uh, different time in my life. But you know, you talk about pivoting and changing and changing. So it was a little bit different change, but yeah, I got a , I got a station wagon and I'm actually really excited about it. I like it. A good car for, for the family. Um, yeah .
W when you told me that I went, I went and looked them up. I didn't
Look up yours , but I was like, you got me interested , like , man, I wonder if I can get a Mercedes. I was like, Oh , that's a little ambitious. But yeah, I looked up, I looked up the wagons kind of like the year you told me that your guy , you got to get, you buy you . Right .
Resell value. I could talk all day about that.
I know. Yeah, they totally do. But yeah, that's a good example of pivoting. Tommy's having a baby and, well , there goes the sports car, right? We were down this path and now we've got to flip off you still, but you still got a decent, a decent car there. I would say Mercedes. Mercedes is still a good compromise, I think station wagon, but you got the Mercedes,
It still draws eyes. There's not too many filter our station wagon.
No . Are there even any many out there? I don't see many out there, but when I looked, when I looked on the internet , um, I saw quite a few came up. Cause I mean, I focused on it, but I saw a lot come out .
Yeah. They're out there. Uh, they're not that popular of a car, but I really like them.
You know , you know where they are popular is the Mercedes , uh, in Germany.
Oh yeah. Europe. That's still a big hit. Any European car. Yeah .
Yeah. They don't have the minivans. I was in Munich five years ago in it , but it's the wagons. I mean anything Mercedes BMW, Audi. Those are the big ones over there. Wagons four-door wagons. I was like, what? Yeah , no, over here. It's SUV's Oh yeah. So yeah. I don't know why I asked you. I said you just, you just sparked my, when you said that, I was like, yeah, Tommy's a big car guy. And that's, that's a good example of a pivot. Right. Pivoting having a baby.
So I'm sure you're playing the baby though, but they'll pivot. Yeah .
Well even COVID with this year, you know, when we hear so much about it and I feel like it dominates our airwaves still, but there is a lot of things this year that unfortunately we, I couldn't do, I wanted to, there's a nonprofit organization. Um, that actually does a, I think it's story. Right . I'm trying to remember. They enjoy ride cars, they have super cars and they people donate their time to children's children with disabilities to drive them around in their super car.
We're talking, you know , various cars that cost as much as houses like Ferrari's and Lamborghini's like very exotic cars. Sure . Um , and I wanted to volunteer my time to help with organization and just kind of giving back. But unfortunately all their events were canceled. Um , so pivoting in different ways of , uh , of how to give back, but like, COVID did a lot of that, a lot of rethinking to , to different businesses to people's lives.
And so I really think using agile and a , in a lightweight way, and, and in my life has helped out quite a bit. Just organiz organizing around that chaos, whatever life throws at you.
Yeah. Uh, yeah. D yeah. That's uh , uh, do you , do you use agile much because I've heard a lot about, and that's really interesting to me, I've, I've heard some people have been in some online seminars since COVID about people using agile in your life. Uh , things like retrospectives and planning. Do you , do you do that?
So this year I'm going to get more intentful about doing it. Um , not like in the sense of what a business would do. Like I want to achieve this goal and every two weeks, like two weeks, a little bit longer. Yeah. But like, one of my goals is to read two books this year. I I'm not a reader. I don't like reading. It just doesn't, it doesn't click for me.
Okay . Lots of big goal for you then too , is , is good.
Yeah. So I want to read one book in six months. So that's, that's my goal essentially , uh, that that's my lightweight agile, there's no plan to get there. I'm not making a schedule of saying, okay, read one hour every week. Sure. Um, so I'm going to try to give it a go and, and just be intentful about doing it. I think that's the biggest thing. It's one thing to write goals out, but then having it on display and then actually acting on those is another thing.
That's the big I was reading a book about. Oh, actually when I was thinking about starting this , uh, it was, I, I can see it. It's sitting on my nightstand.
It's that's about, I think getting it's called getting, getting unstuck when you're stuck, it's about finding motivation to take action for anything in your life, instead of just like you just set , set of thinking about something, put it on paper and it walks you through the steps of , um , how you can get unstuck to take action, to get motivation, to do something, anything in your life. So, so my question in my head is, do you have the books planned out yet?
I do. Uh, one's actually an older book from my previous company that I think we were trying to read called the Phoenix project. And I chose it one because it involves dev ops , you know, working in an agile environment, but also know just accomplishing a really big goal set by that organization and how dev ops and agile work together to accomplish it.
So I'm looking forward to, to actually finishing that I start rereading it , um , because I have no idea where I left off, but I did enjoy reading, reading it. So that's why I put it on my list. And then the other one is professional coaching for agilest . Um, and we talked about this a little bit before we did , um, I haven't been in like a total transformation per se before, but I think this is going to give me insights.
If I ever do go into a company that's moving from to agile or anything like that , uh, the kind of the mindset that you're going to need. And I'm hoping that book is, is good when it comes to asking the right questions. Um, and just being a tactful about that. So, yeah,
And that is , uh , that is written by my friend Damon pool . Uh , the book you're talking about, Tommy , um, he's going to be actually, he's going to be a guest coming up on a couple more episodes. Damon will be coming up, talking about a topic we talked about. I just interviewed Damon last week, so cool. Nice . So cool, Tommy. Yeah. So anything else?
Nothing, nothing comes to mind. Uh, uh, it's been a really interesting journey. Um, coming from, I came from the automotive world. I didn't start in it. I wanted to, since he stayed for their automotive program and worked in that for a couple of years and, you know, its has always interested me just from the complexities and the cool things that technology can do. Um,
Yeah, yeah. That, that, that is helpful to know too . Uh, people out there listening, if you want to get into agile, I've seen a lot of , uh, comments on LinkedIn and people asking, how do I get into, how do I change careers or in any career, how do you get into something? And , uh , especially with COVID people, entire industry is going out of business. Maybe people having to change careers completely. Tommy was in the automotive industry and he's in agile now. So , um , just what I did.
Yeah. You got it. You started off QA. I started off QA
And I think that's one of the, one of the things that helped me the most because you gotta be able to relate back to your it team. Um , just not saying that scrum masters need to be technical, but understanding what developers QA is , UX , uh, what they go through. Sometimes some of the hardships that they had faced within the sprint, like knowing that you can empathize with them and know where they're coming from a bit more.
So, yeah , I was a big plus that I necessarily didn't, you know , intend to kind of transfer over, but I think it was, it was really big a to B or it was, it was really important to be involved with dev teams first and actually working on code base and understanding like the complexities that go into it, you know , simple asks to change a box from red to blue, but you got to do it on 30 different pages and it's not, you know , all connected together.
That's what the business doesn't understand. Oh, it's just a simple request and that they don't understand. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I never started off wanting to be a scrum master either. And , uh, heck I was in agile and it was an agile scrum. I didn't even know what I didn't even where we're doing scrum. So there's, there's hope out there, people who want to get into it. So great Tommy . So , uh, yeah, thanks for joining us. So we're gonna , is it still snowing in your area?
It was snowing here earlier today. It's snowed this morning a little bit, but it's been, it's been just gray all day. I got to , uh , I got to go walk my dog and then they got to pick up my kids today. So I've got a fun weekend involved. So yeah. Uh , thanks for joining us Tommy . So our guest today has been my good friend, Tommy Post's , scrum master, and a former QA former teammate of mine at one of our companies. So thanks for listening everybody.
This has been another episode of the agile within , uh , if you need to reach out to me, please do at , uh, gregMiller@theagilewithin.com is my email address. I'm on Twitter, the agile within I'm on Facebook, Instagram, the agile within , uh, get ahold of me for comments, questions, show suggested
[inaudible]
.