Easy Agile Podcast Ep.28 Team23! + the world of work

"Really enjoyed my conversation with William and Riz, I'm looking forward to implementing their recommendations with our team" - Angad Sethi

In this epsiode I spoke with William Rojas and Rizwan Hasan from Adaptavist about the ways we can enable high performing agile teams:

• The significance of team alignment
• When and where you should be using tools to assist with your team objectives
• Prioritizing what conversations you need to be apart of
• Advice for remote teams

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Thanks William & Rizwan!

Transcript

Angad Sethi:

Good afternoon/evening/morning everyone. How you guys going?

Rizwan Hasan:

Oh, good. Thanks Angad.

William Rojas:

Yeah. How are you?

Angad Sethi:

Yeah, really good. Really, really stoked to be having a chat with you guys. Should we start by introducing ourselves? Riz, would you like to take it?

Rizwan Hasan:

Sure. My name's Riz Hasan, I'm based in Brussels, Belgium. Very newly based here, actually used to be based in New York, not too far from William. We usually used to work together on the same team. My role here at Adaptavist is I'm a team lead for our consulting group in EMEA. So in the European region and in the UK. So day to day for me is a lot of internal management, but also working with customers and my consultants on how our customers are scaling agile and helping them with tool problems, process problems, people problems, all the above.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah. Yeah. Sounds awesome.

William Rojas:

As for myself, William Rojas. I'm actually based out of a little suburban town called Trumble in Connecticut, which is about an hour plus northeast of New York, basically. And as Rez mentioned, yeah, we've worked for a number of years we've worked together, we were running a agile transformation and scaling adoption team for Adaptavist. My new role now is actually I took on a presales principle, basically a presale principle consultant these days. It's actually a new role within Adaptavist, and what we do is we have, actually all of us, I think most of us are all like ex-consultants that support the pre-sales process, and work in between the sales team, and the delivery team, and all the other teams that support our clients at Adaptavist.

Angad Sethi:

Awesome, awesome.

William Rojas:

I help find to solutions for clients and make the proposals and support them through, get them on through delivery.

Angad Sethi:

I'm Angad, I'm a software developer and I'm working on Easy Agile programs and Easy Agile roadmaps, two of the products we offer for the Atlassian marketplace. We're super excited to speak to you guys about how your teams are operating in, like what's a day to day. Riz, would you like to answer that?

Rizwan Hasan:

Sure. Yeah. So apart from like the internal management stuff, I think what's particular to this conversation is how we walk clients through how to navigate planning at scale, right?

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

Rizwan Hasan:

I'm working with a client right now who's based in the states, but they're acquiring other software companies left and right. Which I think is also a trend that's happening within this SaaS ecosystem. And when that happens, they're trying to bring all that work in together. So we're talking through ways of how to visualize all that in an easy way that isn't really too much upfront heavy with identifying requirements or understanding what systems we want to pull in, but more so what do you want to pull in? So really right now, in this phase of the data that I'm working with this client, it's really just those initial conversations about what are you planning? What are you doing? What's important to you? So it's a lot of these conversations about that.

Angad Sethi:

And so you mentioned it's a lot of internal management. Are some of your clients fellow workmates, or are they external clients?

Rizwan Hasan:

They're mostly internal because I manage a team, so I have different people who are working on different types of projects where they might be doing cloud migrations. They might be doing some scripting work. In terms of services, we cover everything within the Atlassian ecosystem, whether it be business related, process related, tool related. So it's a big mix of stuff at all times.

Angad Sethi:

Cool. And is it usually like you're speaking to all the team leads, and giving them advice on agile ceremonies, and pushing work through pipelines and stuff?

Rizwan Hasan:

Yeah, actually, so a story of when I first moved to Brussels, because we've... So professional services started at Adaptavist in the UK, and this was maybe like seven-eight years ago, and it's expanded and myself and William were part of like the first group of consultants who were in North America. That expanded really quickly, and now that we're in EMEA, it's almost like a different entity. It's a different way of working, and a lot of leadership has moved over to North America, so there's new systems and processes and ceremonies and then all that's happening. But because of time zones there's a conflict.

So what I started to do when we got here was to reintroduce some of those habits and consistent conversations to have, to really be much more on a better planning cadence. So interacting with people who would be, say, bringing work to delivery in presale. So folks who are, who work similar to William's capacity over here in this region, and then also project managers who would be responsible for managing that work. Right? So on the equivalent of like a scrum master on an engagement or like an RTE on a big engagement. Right?

Angad Sethi:

Yep. Yep. That's awesome. Just one thing I really liked was your terminology. You used conversations over ceremonies or speaks about the agile mindset in that sense, where you're not just pushing ceremonies on teams, where you actually embody being agile. Well, I'm assuming you are from your conversation, but I guess we'll unpack that. What about you, William? What's your [crosstalk 00:06:32]

William Rojas:

I was going to say, one of the things that's interesting challenge that we face, because Adaptavist has an entire branch that does product development and there are product developers, and product managers, and product marketing, and all sorts of things like that. And they set plans and they focus, deliver and so forth, as you would expect a normal product organization to do. On the consulting side, one of the things that's very interesting is that a lot of our, like we have to answer to two bosses, right? Like our clients come in and say, "Hey, we need this," and we have to support them. In the meantime, we have a lot of internal projects, internal procedures and processes and things that we want do as a company, as a practice, but at the same time, we still need to answer to our clients.

Angad Sethi:

I see.

William Rojas:

So that's actually one of the interesting challenges that from an agile perspective, we're constantly facing having to balance out between sometimes conflicting priorities. And that is definitely something that, and although consulting teams at different levels face this challenge. Right?

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

William Rojas:

So as Riz mentioned, we're constantly bringing in more work and like, "Okay, we need you to now adjust and re-plan to do something different, then manage." Yes. It's an ongoing problem that's just part of this part of this world kind of thing.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah. Okay. I see. And so if I heard that correctly, so it's, I guess you're constantly recommending agile processes, but you may not necessarily get to practice it?

William Rojas:

But more so we're both practicing for ourselves as well as trying to tell our clients to practice it or trying to adjust.

Angad Sethi:

I see, yeah.

William Rojas:

You know, a client comes in with needs and says, "Okay, now we have to re-plan or teach them how to do it, or re-accommodate their new emerging priorities as well." So we ultimately end up having to practice agile with and for our clients, as well as for ourselves. It's that constant rebalancing of having to weave in client needs into internal needs, and then the constant re-priority that may come as a result of that.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

William Rojas:

And then we're constantly looking for like, how do we make this thing more efficient, more effective? How do we really be lean about how we do the work and so forth? That is definitely one thing that we practice. We try to practice that on a daily basis.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah. And I guess that's a very, a tricky space to be... not a tricky space. It can be tricky, I guess, but adding to the trickiness is remote work. Do you guys have a lot of clients who have transitioned to remote work? And I don't know, has it, has it bought to light problems, which can be a good thing, or like what's your experience been?

William Rojas:

So that's interesting because so I've been doing consulting for over a couple decades, and traditionally, so I've done a lot of that, that travel warrior, every week you go travel to the client to do your work, you travel back and you do that again next week, and you do that month after month. In coming to Adaptavist, Adaptavist has historically always been a remote consulting company. So five years ago it was like, wow, we would go to clients saying like, "Okay, we need you to do this." And we're like, "Yeah, we can deliver that. And no, we don't need to, you know. We may come in and do a onsite visit to introduce ourselves, but we can deliver all this work remotely." So we've always had that history.

Angad Sethi:

Okay.

William Rojas:

But nonetheless, when COVID hit and everybody went remote, we definitely experienced a whole new set of companies were now suddenly having to work remotely, and having to establish new processes and practices that basically forced them to be remote. And I think we've had the fortune of in a sense, having always been-

Angad Sethi:

Yep, remote start.

William Rojas:

... S8's.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

William Rojas:

I know whenever we bring on people into the company, into consulting particular, that's one of the things we always point out. Remote work is not the same as being in the office. It has its ups and downs. But we've always had that benefit. I think we've been able to assist some of our clients, like, This is how this is how it's done, this is how we do it." So we've been able to teach by example type of thing for some of the clients.

Angad Sethi:

There you go.

William Rojas:

Yeah.

Angad Sethi:

Awesome. That was actually going to be my next question is what's the working structure at Adaptavist and what sort of processes? I'm sure that it's a big company and therefore there'd be tools and processes particular to teams in themselves. Just from your experiences, what are some of the processes or tools you guys are using?

Rizwan Hasan:

So, in terms of planning and work management, because we started off as a remote first company, and since COVID, business is good. I'll be frank there, it's been good for us because we specialize in this market. We've had a huge hiring spurt in all these different areas, and one thing that I noticed internally, as well as problems that... I wouldn't say problems, but a trend that we're seeing with a lot of other clients is that because of this remote push, and the need for an enterprise to be able to give the teams the tools they need to do their work, there's a lot more flexibility in what they can use, which has pros and cons.

On the pro side, there's flexibility, the teams can work the way they want. On the con side, administration might be difficult, alignment might be difficult. So we're seeing a lot of that with customers and ours. So we're almost going on this journey with customers as we're scaling ourselves, and learning how to navigate this new reality of working in a hybrid environment.

William Rojas:

I think in terms of some of the tooling and so forth that we get to do. So we obviously internally we have, we're pretty, pretty much in Atlassian. Atlassian stack, that is very much how we work every day. All our work is using Atlassian tools. All our work is tracked, all our client work is tracked in JIRA, all our sales work, basically everything we do, we use JIRA and Confluence, we're really big on Confluence. We have a lot of customizations we've done to our instance over the years, things that we just have developed, and so that's internal.

I think the other aspect is often, depending on the client that comes to us and the type of work that we're doing for that client, then the types of tools that we use can pretty much run the full gamut. We have a lot of Atlassians, we do a lot of work in JIRA with our clients, like work in Confluence. Sometimes we're working on helping them scale, so we bring on some of the add-on to support some of the scaling practices within to support JIRA. We'll do a lot of JSM work. We do often DevOps work, and then we'll bring on a lot of the DevOps tool sets that you would expect to find, so things to support delivery pipelines.

So it really depends quite a bit on the client. We even do some agile transformation work. And then there, we do some a lot of custom build things, practices and so forth. And we bring in surveys and tools that we've been able to develop over the years to support that particularly. So a lot of the tools often are dictated by what the client and the specific engagement call for.

Angad Sethi:

In my personal experience recently with COVID, I find myself in a lot of meetings, we are experimenting with, with Async decision making. Have you experimented with Async decision making processes yet?

Rizwan Hasan:

I'll start by saying I hate meetings. I think most meetings are a waste of time, and I tell my team this. And I'm like, "If we don't need to meet, like we're not going to meet."

Angad Sethi:

Yeah. Awesome.

Rizwan Hasan:

And I think that really comes. Yeah, awesome, for sure. Awesome.

Angad Sethi:

I love it.

Rizwan Hasan:

But it comes down to really is when you do meet, are you having the right conversation? And I think a key component being like an agile team, quote-unquote, is you have an understanding of what we all are doing collectively and what the priorities are. Which is tough to actually get. So when we talk about like asynchronous decision making, with a team that has some degree of understanding of what priorities are, what goals are, it gets easier. And you can have more low impact interactions with people.

So we use Slack a lot and we have a lot of internal bots on our Slack to be able to present information and collect feedback at asynchronous times, because there's voting features, there's places where you can comment. And I think when we talk about teams that are growing across the globe and also time zones and flexible working, that's a real thing now. There's a practical way of how to do that, that we're starting to dig into what does that look like?

Angad Sethi:

Do you find yourself in a million Slack groups?

Rizwan Hasan:

Yep.

Angad Sethi:

Yep. You do. Do you see any extra hurdles you've got to skip because of that? Because you maybe, do you find yourself hopping from conversation to conversation, whereas it would just be easier if everyone was in the same conversation? Does that happen a bit?

Rizwan Hasan:

Yeah. Yeah. All the time.

Angad Sethi:

I hear you, yeah, there you go. Okay. Cool.

William Rojas:

But I would say we have a lot of impromptu. I think we do have a lot of impromptu meetings. And sometimes we may be in a Slack typing away. It says, you know what? [crosstalk 00:17:29]

Angad Sethi:

Just jump in a huddle.

William Rojas:

Into Zoom and then let's chat or Slack conversation, and then just face to face conversation, and then just address it then and there. But I think we have been looking at, it's almost like I think a balance between the time spent on the meeting, and the amount of people that need to be in the meeting, and the benefit and value that comes out of that meeting. And a daily meeting where work was people would pick up work or support from a sales perspective. And it was very, very much necessary as per part of the work coming into the consulting pipeline. But it felt very inefficient.

So that's one of the means, for example, we did away with, and it's now a completely asynchronous process, by which work comes in and it gets allocated, people pick it up, people support it, we deliver things, we track where things are and so forth. And we now use all of that is basically all done through Slack. So we did away with all the meetings around, "Hey, who can help with this?" But meantime, we have another meeting where we're trying to get people on projects. And that is very much a, we need to negotiate on that often. So that's a meeting that's still very much done.

Angad Sethi:

Yep.

William Rojas:

Everybody comes in, we all talk, we decide what we need to get done. People balance back and forth. So that trade off I think is really important to really understand what, there are meetings that are necessary, very valuable, and they should remain. And there's ones that really a Slack is a much better mechanism to be able to make those kind of decisions

Angad Sethi:

Yeah. Very true. Yeah. And does it well, sorry, firstly, pardon the location change. I'm sitting right next to the router now, so hopefully the iPhone holds. What sort of a scale are we speaking about here in your Slack? The reason I ask is with larger organizations, it can be harder to scale. Therefore I'm just trying to get a gauge of what scale your Slack is at.

Rizwan Hasan:

So we just hit, we are just over the 500 mark, that'd be in terms of employees. With basically our general, which seems to be, I think, I don't want to say universal, but the standard across any organization that has Slack general as the best indicator of how many people you have logged on. So we're just about the 500 mark, which I would say is probably around mid-size, but it's definitely getting to the point where we're starting to see, it's almost a little bit too much in order to disseminate information, find their information, etc.

We're actually partners with Slack also. So we work with them pretty closely on some opportunities. [crosstalk 00:20:39] Yeah, exactly. And we're starting to talk with customers also about the same problem, about how much is too much, and when do you start to form communities around people that are delivering the same type of value. So those conversations are more aligned and there's not just a whole lot of chatter and people get confused, like when they read Slack and like, "Oh, is this the priority now? Or am I supposed to be doing this or change in process?" That communication is harder now, I think, really. And this is where a lot of folks, I think, who are moving to this remote environment are struggling with, is that alignment communication.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah. Very true.

William Rojas:

And it is, I would say fairly organic, like our channel proliferation. We do have, I would think even for company of our size, we're pretty loose about how channels get proliferated, who gets to create them, what they're for and so forth. But then it gives the flexibility of based upon your interests or the context of what you need to communicate on, then you can either join a channel that supports it or create a channel if necessary to support it. So it is, in that sense, pretty organic. But it is true that there are hundreds, if not thousands of Slack channels that we have, and so kind of staying like which one should you be on, is definitely one of our biggest challenges.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah. Well, that just blows my mind just because like 500 people on a Slack. Our whole company is 35 people and I'm pulling my hair out being in too many Slacks. So well A, that blows my mind.

William Rojas:

It does allow us, for example, to have client specific Slack channels. So anybody, if you need to talk about, if you're working on a particular account, you're working for a client, then there's a channel for that. And if you're working on another client, there's another channel. The thing I find helpful about it is that it gives you that context of if I want to communicate with so and so, if I communicate with Riz on a particular account, I will go to the account channel. If I want to talk to Riz one-on-one, I go to a one-on-one chat.

Angad Sethi:

I see, yep, the flexibility.

William Rojas:

So we do have that benefit of where to put the information. But it does mean that I have probably over a hundred channels in my roster of things that I follow, and I'm always behind.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

William Rojas:

Well, yeah. So the next level of it is, then you begin to prioritize which channels should I really be notified about, and which ones are most important. I want to track those. And I try to keep that list to a minimum in terms of unread messages, and the stuff that I try to get to, and I'm bored and I have nothing else to do so, but yeah.

Rizwan Hasan:

I've been leaving a lot of channels too. I've been just really cutting the cord with some channels. You know, I had some motivation to really help out here, but I just can't and it's just too much noise. And just got to cut the cord and be like, if it's empty, there's no conversation happening or if it's slow, then move on.

Angad Sethi:

Yep.

William Rojas:

We also have the ability to, you can get added back in. So sometimes you leave and then somebody will put you back in, like, "I need you to talk about this." But it is pretty organic. I know we do leave it up to the individual to decide how best to manage that.

Rizwan Hasan:

Yeah.

Angad Sethi:

That's awesome.

Rizwan Hasan:

We had a instance today, actually, where there was an old, it was basically a sales opportunity, a customer who had reached out to us for a certain ask, and we hadn't heard from them for months, like eight-nine months. And someone posted, someone who I'm pretty close with on our sales team posted, "Hey, this is kicking back up again, but I don't have the capacity." And I just left immediately as I saw that message. I was like, "I can't help out. Sorry."

Angad Sethi:

Yeah. The old so-and-so has left the group is a bit of a stab in the heart, but yeah.

Rizwan Hasan:

Yeah.

Angad Sethi:

We will get over it. Just coming back to a point you mentioned, Riz, you said you used the words, alignment and communication. Both of you when consulting with clients, are those the two main themes you guys like to base your recommendations around?

Rizwan Hasan:

I'll give you a very consulting answer and say it depends.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

Rizwan Hasan:

But when we engage with a customer, one of the toughest parts of our job is understanding if there is even alignment in the group of people that we're talking to as well, because at the scale of projects that sometimes we work with, we have like 20 to 25 people on a call. And of all of those people, they may have different motivations or objectives of what they're wanting with their engagement with us. So I would say, that's primarily what's driving what we're trying to find out, what we're trying to do with them is get some alignment between the group and ourselves, and communicating that is not always easy.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

William Rojas:

Let's say, adding on what Riz, that also depends quite a bit on the specific engagement with that client. So in particular, if the engagement, because if an engagement is like, "Get me onto the cloud." Okay. You know, come in. Often there's much better alignment for something like that. If the engagements are more about, "Hey, help us scale agile, help us get better at how we deliver." Then the need for alignment, the need to make sure that we're all communicating correctly, we all understand, we all come to the meeting with the same objectives and so forth, is so much more critical.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

William Rojas:

So in those kind of engagements, we're constantly realigning. Because it's not even like we had the alignment. It's like yeah. Okay. We have it, next week it's gone. We got to go back and get it again. So that keeping, making sure that everybody's marching towards the same set of objectives, defining what those objectives are, letting them evolve as appropriate and so forth, all that becomes so much more critical.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

William Rojas:

And that's where the tools, that's where things like JIRA and then again, like how do we scale? How do we show what everybody's doing? And so forth, that's where it becomes that much more important. And in those kind of engagements, the tooling becomes essential. Not that the tooling's going to answer it, but the tooling becomes a way by which it helps us communicate, yeah. This is what we all agree we're going to do. Okay. The tool says so because that's the decision we've made.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

Rizwan Hasan:

It's really interesting that you say cloud migration, William, like when you say, "Okay, I'm moving to cloud, we know what the alignment is," but even then, I'm finding is that, especially within the Atlassian ecosystem, because that's what we're exposed to all the time, but when we're moving data from a completely old infrastructure to something brand new, it's not going to be the same. And you have folks who are thinking that, "Oh, we're just going to be taking all this stuff from here and putting it over there." But what usually doesn't come along with it is that you're going to have to also change the way you work slightly. There's going to be changes that you're not accounting for.

And that's where the alignment conversation really is important because we work with small companies who understand, okay, moving to the cloud will be completely different. We also work with legacy organizations like financial institutions that have a lot of red tape, and process, and security concerns, and getting that alignment and understanding with them first of what this means to move to a completely different way of working, is also part of that conversation. So it's a constant push and pull with that.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah, yeah. It's really heartwarming to hear the two of you deal with the JCMA, which is the geo cloud migration system.

Rizwan Hasan:

Quite a bit, yeah.

Angad Sethi:

That's awesome, because yeah, that's something we are working on currently as well. So I'll end with a super hard question and I'll challenge you guys to not use the word depends in there. And the question is the number one piece of advice for remote teams practicing agile. Start with you, Riz.

Rizwan Hasan:

Get to know each other.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah, okay.

Rizwan Hasan:

Keep it personal. I think one of the hardest things about this new reality is making that connection with someone, and when you have that, that builds trust, and when you have trust, everything's a lot easier. So I'd say that. People really aren't... The enemy. That's not the right word, but work shouldn't be a conflict. It should be more of like a negotiation, and if you trust each other, it's a lot easier to do that.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

Rizwan Hasan:

So yeah.

Angad Sethi:

That's awesome.

William Rojas:

It really is.

Angad Sethi:

I'm going to definitely take that back with me.

William Rojas:

Yeah. And just if I could quickly add to that. That's like looking for ways how to replace the standing around by the, having a cup of coffee. How do you replace that in a remote setting?

Rizwan Hasan:

Yeah.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

William Rojas:

How do you still have that personal interaction that maybe there's an electronic medium in between, but there's still sort of that personal setting. I think that's one of the things you're looking for. Because yeah, it is very much about trust. And I think to that, I would also add, back to the alignment. Right? Because in some ways that strong interaction helps build and maintain the alignment, because often it's not so much that you get alignment is that you stay aligned.

So it is this constant, and having those interactions, having that trust and so forth, is what in a sense allows us to stay aligned. Because we know each other, we know how to help each other, we support each other, so we stay in alignment. So the trust and so forth are a good way to help build and maintain the alignment itself that you're looking for. That's absolutely. In remote world, you don't have the benefit of seeing each other, the whiteboard, all those things are not the same.

Angad Sethi:

Very true. Getting cup a coffee, yep.

William Rojas:

But we still need to stay in sync with what needs to get done. That's so important.

Angad Sethi:

Very true. And so would you guys want to drop any names of tools you're using to facilitate that trust between team members in a remote setting?

William Rojas:

So I would say, like I mentioned from my role, one of the things that we do is in the presales area, we support some of our larger accounts, almost as more of like a solution account manager, per se. So we come in and help make sure that the client is getting the solution that is meant to be delivered. So we work with the delivery teams, we work with the client, we sit in between.

There's one large client that we've been working on for years now, and we basically, to the point that they're moving towards some flavor of safe. That I wouldn't call it fully safe, but they do have a lot of safe practices, but they do PI planning, and so we come in and join the PI planning. That's actually one of the, like I said, how do you stay alive?

Angad Sethi:

That circle. Yeah. [crosstalk 00:33:15]

William Rojas:

You pull up your program definition, you look at what features you want to deliver in the PI, who's going to deliver that feature in the PI, and then in your readout, go back to the tool and say, "Look, this is what we've agreed to." Others can ask questions and so forth, and constantly going back to... For example, just last week, we're doing now sprint planning and saying, "Actually, okay, this feature's going to drag on another sprint. Let me go back and readjust in," this client is using the Easy Agile programs. The original plan of saying this features not going to be, not two sprints, but the three sprints instead, for example.

So that habit of getting into using the tool to communicate what we decided and what we just had to make changes to. So it becomes this, a communication vehicle, it's really important. Yeah, they use programs, they use the roadmap piece of programs to help them do their PI planning, and stay in sync with what it is that ultimately gets communicated out at the end of PI. And then during the sprints of the PI itself, and it's very helpful for them. Again, there's I think they have seven trainings, and they all use that to help stay in sync, stay aligned.

Angad Sethi:

Awesome. Awesome.

William Rojas:

One other quick thing I'll say is, I think there will be, some of where we've gone will now become status quo, become permanent. So I think that this has been as shift across the market, across the industry, across company, how people work. So the idea of remote work, the idea of using tooling to really establish communication, and help facilitate communication, all that, while it's been around, I think the big difference is now everybody, like you have no choice. Everybody has to do it.

Angad Sethi:

Has to. Yeah.

William Rojas:

And I think we've definitely seen a big shift across the entire industry because of that. That will now solidify and let's see what the next level brings. But I definitely think that we've reached a new stage of maturity and so forth pretty much globally, which is pretty cool.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah.

Rizwan Hasan:

Yeah.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah, it is. Thank you guys. I won't keep you too long. I think, has the sun set there, Riz? I can see the reflection going dark.

Rizwan Hasan:

Yeah. It is getting there. Yeah, for sure.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah. Yeah. I won't hold you guys for too long.

Rizwan Hasan:

All good.

Angad Sethi:

But thank you so much for the conversation. I honestly, I took a lot away from that. And yeah, I hope I can add you guys to my LinkedIn. I would love to be in touch still.

William Rojas:

Definitely.

Rizwan Hasan:

Yeah, sure.

Angad Sethi:

Yeah. Trying to establish a point of contact, not to add to one of your Slack channels, but yeah. Just so that we can be in conversation regarding the product and improving it.

Rizwan Hasan:

Yeah, sure. And we have a partner management channel. I know we've been talking to Haley a little bit.

Angad Sethi:

Awesome.

Rizwan Hasan:

She was reaching out, that's about some other stuff.

Angad Sethi:

Beautiful.

Rizwan Hasan:

Yeah, happy to. We engage with your product and it's in our white papers too, and we're going to put out another white paper this year where we're going to talk about Easy Agile too. So yeah. We'll stay in touch.

Angad Sethi:

Cool.

William Rojas:

I just gave you, so my LinkedIn is under a different, my LinkedIn is not with my work email. Because that way I can keep the same account place to place.

Angad Sethi:

Sounds good.

William Rojas:

Yeah. You can look me up on LinkedIn with that.

Angad Sethi:

Wicked awesome. Thanks guys.

William Rojas:

Awesome. All right.

Angad Sethi:

Have a good day.

"The episode highlights that Interaction, collaboration, and helping every team member reach their potential is what makes agile work" - Terlya Hunt

In this episode join Terlya Hunt - Head of People & Culture at Easy Agile and Caitlin Mackie - Marketing Coordinator at Easy Agile, as they chat with Jazmin Chamizo and Rakesh Singh.

Jazmin and Rakesh are principal contributors of the recently published report "Reimagining Agility with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion".

The report explores the intersection between agile, business agility, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), as well as the state of inclusivity and equity inside agile organizations.

“People are the beating heart of agile. If people are not empowered by inclusive and equitable environments, agile doesn't work. If agile doesn't work, agile organisations can't work."

📌 What led to writing the report
📌 Where the misalignments lie
📌 What we can be doing differently as individuals and business leaders

Be sure to subscribe, enjoy the episode 🎧

‍

Transcript

Terlya Hunt:

Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Easy Agile podcast. I'm Terlya, People & Culture business partner in Easy Agile.

Caitlin Mackie:

And I'm Caitlin, marketing coordinator at Easy Agile. And we'll be your hosts for this episode.

Terlya Hunt:

Before we begin, Easy Agile would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land from which we broadcast today, the Wodiwodi people of the Dharawal nation, and pay our respects to the elders past, present and emerging, and extend the same respect to any Aboriginal people listening with us today.

Caitlin Mackie:

Today, we'll be joined by Jazmin Chamizo and Rakesh Singh. Both Jazmin and Rakesh are principal contributors and researchers of Reimagining Agile for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, a report that explores the intersection between Agile business agility and diversity equity and inclusion published in May, 2021.

Terlya Hunt:

We're really excited to have Jazmin and Rakesh join us today. So let's jump in.

Caitlin Mackie:

So Jazmin and Rakesh, thank you so much for joining us today. We're so excited to be here with you both today, having the conversation. So I suppose today we'll be unpacking and asking you questions in relation to the report, which you were both principal contributors of, Reimagining Agility with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. So for our audience tuning in today who may be unfamiliar the report, Jazmin, could you please give us a summary of what it's all about?

Jazmin Chamizo:

Absolutely. And first of all, thank you so much for having us here today and for your interest in our report. Just to give you a little bit of background of our research and how everything started out, the founder and the owner of the Business Agility Institute, Evan Leybourn, he actually attended a talk given by Mark Green. And Mark who used to be, I mean, an Agile coach, he was referring to his not very positive experience with Agile. So this actually grabbed the attention of Evan, who was a big advocate of agility, as all of us are. And they decided to embark upon this adventure and do some research trying to probe on and investigate the potential relationship between diversity, equity and inclusion and Agile.

So we had, I mean, a couple of hypothesis at the beginning of the research. And the first of hypothesis was that despite the positive intent of agility and despite the positive mindset and the values of Agile, which we all share, Agile organizations may be at the risk of further excluding marginalized staff and customers. And the second hypothesis that we had was that organizations who actually embed diversity, equity and inclusion directly into their Agile transformation and then strategy may outperform those organizations who don't. So we actually spent more than a year interviewing different participants from many different countries. And we actually ended up seeing that those hypothesis are true. And today, we would like to share with you, I mean, part of this research and also need to encourage you to read the whole report and also contribute to this discussion.

Terlya Hunt:

Amazing. And Jazmin, you touched on this a little bit in your answer just then, but I guess, Rakesh, could you tell us a bit more about what was the inspiration and catalyst for writing this report?

Rakesh Singh:

Yeah. So thanks for inviting once again. And it's a great [inaudible 00:03:51] talk about this beautiful project. The BAI was actually into this activity for a long time, and I happened to hear one of the presentation from Evan and this presentation actually got me interested into business agility and associated with DEI. So that was one thing. And second thing when Evan talked about this particular project, invited all of us, I had been with transformation in my job with Siemens for about three decades for a very long time. And we found that there were always some people, whenever you do transformation, they were not interested or they were skeptical. "We are wasting our time." And okay, that was to be expected, but what was surprising that even though Agile came up in a big way and people thought, "Okay. This is a solution to all our miseries," even though there was a focus on culture, culture was still our biggest issue. So it appeared to me that we are not really addressing the problem.

And as Jazmin talk about our goal and our hypothesis, and that was attractive to me that maybe this project will help me to understand why some [inaudible 00:05:12] to get the people on board in some of the Agile transformation.

Terlya Hunt:

Thank you. That was awesome. I think it definitely comes through in the report that this is a topic that's near and dear to all of you. And in the report you mentioned, there's a lack of consensus and some misalignment in defining some of these key terms. So thought to frame the conversation today, Jazmin, could you walk us through some of these key definitions, agility, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Jazmin Chamizo:

That's a great question now, because over the last year, there's been a big boom on different topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion, I mean, especially with the Black Lives Matter movement and many different events that have affected our society in general. And with the rise of social movements, I mean, there's been a lot of talk in the area of diverse, equity and inclusion. And when we talk about agility, equality, equity and inclusion and diversity, I mean, it's very important to have a very clear understanding of what we mean with this terms. Agility is the mindset. I mean, it's really about having the customer, people, at the very center of the organization. So we're talking about agile ways of working. We're talking about more collaborative ways of working. So we can bring the best out of people and then innovate and put products into the market as fast as possible.

Now, when we were thinking about agility and this whole idea of putting people at the very core and customer at the very core of organization so we can respond in a very agile and nimble way to the challenges that our society presents at the moment, we found a lot of commonalities and a lot of similarities with diversity, equity and inclusion. However, when we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, there's some nuances in the concepts that we need to understand. Diversity really refers to the mix. It refers to numbers, to statistics, all the differences that we have. There's a very long list of types of diversity. Diversity of gender, sexual orientation, ways of our thinking, our socioeconomic status, education and you name it, several types of diversity.

Now, when we talk about equality, I mean, we're talking about applying the same resources and support structures, I mean, for all. However, equality does not actually imply the element of equity, which is so important when we talk about now creating inclusive environments. With equity, we're talking about the element of fair treatment, we're talking about social justice, we're talking about giving equal access to opportunities for all. So it's pretty much about leveling the filed, so all those voices can be part of the conversation and everybody can contribute to the decision making in organizations and in society. So it's that element of fair treatment, it's that element of social justice that the element of equity has to contribute and that we really need to pay attention to.

And inclusion is really about that act of welcoming people in the organization. It's about creating all the conditions so people, everybody, can thrive and everybody can succeed in an organization. So I think it's very important, I mean, to have those definitions very clear to get a better understanding of how they overlap and how there's actually, I mean, a symbiotic relationship between these concepts.

Caitlin Mackie:

Yeah. Great. And I think just building on that, interaction, collaboration and helping every team member reach their potential is what makes Agile work. So your report discusses that there are lots of overlaps in those values with diversity, equity and inclusion. So I think, Rakesh, what are those key overlaps? It seems those qualities and traits go hand in hand. So how do we embrace them?

Rakesh Singh:

So if you see most of the organization which are big organization and being for about two decades or so, and you compare them with the startup organization, so in the traditional setup, normally people are working in their functional silos, so to say. And so the Agile transformation is taken care by one business function. It could be a quality team. It could be a transmission team. And DEI normally is a domain of an HR or people who enter the organization. And the issue is that sometime these initiatives, they are handled separately and the amount of collaboration that's required does not happen, whereas in a startup company, they don't have these kind of divisions.

So looking that as a basis, what we need to look at is that the organization should be sensitize that they work together on some of these projects and look at the underlying what is the commonality, and we can possibly either help each other or complement each other, because one example is, if I can give, it's very easy to justify an Agile transformation relating to a business outcome, okay, but any people related change is a very long-term change. So you cannot relate that to a business outcome in a shorter timeframe. So I call Agile and DEI as symbiotic. An Agile can be helped by a DEI process and DEI itself can be justified by having an Agile project. So they are symbiotic.

Now, what is the common thing between the two? So there are four items. I mean, there are many things which are common, but four things which I find are most important. Yeah? The first thing is respect for people, like Jazmin talked about being inclusive. So respect for people, both Agile and DEI, that's a basis for that. And make people feel welcomed. So no matter what diversity they come from, what background they come from, they're feeling welcome. Yeah? The second part is the work environment. So it's a big challenge to create some kind of a psychological safety. And I think people are now organizing, the management is now understanding that they think that they have provided a safe place, but people are still not feeling safe for whatever reason there. That's one thing.

The other thing is that whatever policies you write, documentation, policies or announcement, the basic things that people see, is it fair and is it transparent? Yeah? So I used to always see that if there are two people given bonus, if one person get 5% more, no matter how big is the amount, there's always felt that, "I have not got my due." Yeah? So be fair and be transparent. And the last one is that you have to invest in people. The organization need to invest in people. The organization need to invest in enabling them with opportunity to make use of new opportunity, and also grow and through learning. So these are four things that I can see, which actually can help both being an agile, and also having inclusive environment in the company.

Caitlin Mackie:

The report mentions that some of those opportunities to combine agile and diversity equity inclusion are being overlooked. Why do you think this is?

Rakesh Singh:

So I think that the reason why they're being overlooked is that, it's basically, educating the leaders. So it's just, if I'm in the agile world, I do not really realize that there are certain people related aspect. I think, if I just make an announcement, people will participate. Okay? So that's the understanding. On the other side, we got an input from quite a few responders saying that some of the DEI projects are basically words, are not really sincere about it. It's a waste of time. "I'm being forced to do certain training. I'm forced." So the sincerity part, sometime there's a lacking, so people have to be educated more at a leadership level and on at a employee level.

Caitlin Mackie:

I think a really interesting call out in your research is that many agile processes and rituals are built to suit the majority, which excludes team members with diverse attributes. Jazmin, what are some of those rituals?

Jazmin Chamizo:

Yeah, that's a great question. Now, if you think about agile and agile rituals and for example, I mean, daily standups, a lot of those rituals have not actually thought about diversity, or the design for diversity and inclusion. I mean, agile is a very on the spot and is a very, who can talk, type of rituals. But there's a lot of people, I mean, who might need more time to process information before they can provide inputs, so fast. So that requirement of processing information or giving input in a very fast manner, in daily standups, that might be overlooking the fact that a lot of people, with a different type of thought processing styles or preferences may need more time to carry out those processes.

So that would be, I mean, number one; the fact that it's very on the spot and sometimes only the loud voices can be heard. So we might be losing a lot of opportunities, trying to get feedback and input from people with different thinking styles.

Now, also, if you think about organizations in different countries, where English is not the native language of a lot of people, they may also feel a lot of disadvantage. This happens a lot in multinational organizations, where people whose, you know, first language is English, they feel more confident and they're the ones who practically may monopolize now the conversations. So, for people who's first language is not English, I mean, they might feel at a disadvantage.

If you think about older employees who sometimes may not be part of an agile transformation, they might also feel that are not being part of the team and they may not have the sense of belonging, which is so important in an agile transformation and for any organization. Another example, I mean, would be people, who because of their religious belief, I mean, they need maybe to pray five times in a day, and I mean maybe a morning stand up might mean very difficult to adapt to, or even people with disabilities or language differences, they feel a little intimidated by agile. So there's a lot of different examples. And Doug report actually collects several lived experiences, by the respondents that we interview that illustrate how agile has been designed for the majority and for a more dominant type of culture and that highlights the need to redesign many of these rituals and many of these practices.

Caitlin Mackie:

Yeah, I think just building on that in your recommendations, you mentioned consciously recreating and redesigning these agile ways of working. What are some of the ways we can rethink and consciously create these?

Jazmin Chamizo:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, the good news is that, during our research, and during our field work and the conversations that we had with some organizations mean there's a lot of companies and organizations that have actively implementing them different types of practices, starting from the way they're managing their meetings, their rituals, their stand ups, giving people an opportunity to communicate in different ways. Maybe giving some room for silence, so people can process their information or providing alternative channels for people to communicate and comment either in writing or maybe the next day. So it doesn't have to be right there on the spot., and they don't feel under that type of pressure.

Now, another example would be allowing people, I mean, to also communicate in their native language. I mean, not necessarily using English, I mean, all the time as, I mean, the main language. I think it's also important for people to feel that it can contribute with their own language, and also starting to analyze, I mean, the employee experience. We're talking about maybe using non-binary options in recruitment processes or in payroll. So, I mean, starting to be more inclusive in the different practices and analyzing, I mean, the whole employee journey. I mean, those are some examples that we can start implementing to creating a more inclusive environments. And the one that is the most important for me is encouraging leadership to intentionally design inclusive work environments through the use of, like creating environments that are really where people feel safe, where they have this. Psychologically safe.

Terlya Hunt:

The whole section on exploring and challenging existing beliefs is so interesting. And I would definitely encourage everyone listening to go and read it. I could ask you so many questions on this section alone, because I think it was full of gold, and honestly, my copy is highlighted and scribbled and I read it and reread it, there was so much to absorb. The first thing that really stood out to me as a HR practitioner in an agile organization was this belief that focusing on one or two areas of diversity first is a good start. And from your research, what you actually found was that survey respondents found this method ineffective and actually harmful for DEI. And in your research, you also reference how important it is to be intentional and deliberate. So I guess, how do we balance this need for focus and creating change with these findings that being too narrow in our focus can actually be harmful? Might throw this one to you, Rakesh.

Rakesh Singh:

So actually, thanks to the reform data report, very interesting, in fact, we presented to quite a few groups. And one of the thing that I observed when we are talking about some of the beliefs and challenges, there were immediate to response say, "Hey, we do experience in our area." So, what we realized is that this whole aspect, as Jazmin talked about, many dimensions. So if you look at inclusiveness, and diversity and equity across organization, there are many streams, and many triggers. As diversity, we understand, okay, in very limited way, it may be gender, or it may be religion or country, but actually, it's much more in a working environment, there are many dynamics which are [inaudible 00:22:15]. So the challenges, what we saw was that if you pick up a project in a very sincere way and say, "I'll solve one problem, okay?" Let me say I solve problem of a region or language, yeah? Now the issue is that most of the time, we look at the most dominant and identify that problem.

So what happens is that you actually create an inequity right there, because there are other people they are suffering. They are, I won't say, "Suffering," but they're influenced by other factors of diversity and they felt, "Okay, nobody's really caring for me." Yeah? So you have to look at in a very holistic picture, and you have to look at in a way that everybody is on board, yeah? So you may not be able to find solution to every specific problem, but getting everybody on board, and let people work in some of the environment or either psychological safety or the policy level, so create an environment where everybody can participate, and issues can be different so they can bring up their own issues, and make sure they feel that they they're cared for. And that's what we actually observed.

Terlya Hunt:

And the second belief I thought was really interesting to call out was that this belief that we will adapt to somebody's beliefs if they ask. And your research found that not everyone is able to disclose their needs, no matter how safe the working environment, so that by relying on disclosure is the first step in the process,. Organizations will always be a step behind and, and also place the burden of change on marginalized groups. What are some things we can do, Rakesh, to remove this pressure and to be more proactive?

Rakesh Singh:

So there are a couple of things that we need to look at when we talk to people, actually, they discussed about the problem, and they also recommended what could be right, we are doing it. And we also discussed among ourselves. So one thing which was very clear that there was a little doubt about the sincerity of leadership. And so, we felt that any organization where leader was very proactive, like, for example, what is the basic reason, if I have a problem, if I talk about it, I am always worried what will happen when I disclose it? And is it the right issue to talk about it? So, these are the questions would inhibit a lot of people not to talk about it at all. So, that's where the proactive leadership can help people to overcome their inhibition and talk about it, and unless they discuss about it, you'll never know if there's a problem. So, that's the one thing. So, that's the approach.

So there are a couple things that we could also recommend, is proactive leadership to start with, and something which can be done is there are a lot of tools available for the managers, yeah? People leaders, I would call it. Things like coaching, so you have a grow model where you can coach an individual person, even as a manager or as an independent coach, then having a facilitation techniques. When I started my career, they were not a training on facilitation, just going to the room and conduct the meeting. But they're very nice tools, facilitation techniques, which can be brought out to get people to participate, and so things like that can be very useful for being proactive and drawing people out of their inhibition. That definitely is with the leader. That's why we call it servant leadership. It is their job to initiate and take the lead, and get people out of their shell.

Terlya Hunt:

It ties quite nicely into the next question I had in mind. You both actually today have mentioned a lot of challenging beliefs, and calling things out. We need to build this awareness, and create safe spaces, and create psychological safety in our teams. What are some examples of how we can create safe spaces for these conversations?

Rakesh Singh:

The examples of someone creating safe places is ... I would say that educating people and the leaders. What I have seen is that if the leadership team recognizes that and educates the managers and other people ... You need to actually train people at different level, and create an environment that everybody's participating in the decision making, and they're free to make choices within, of course, the constraint of the business.

The focus, where I would put it, is that there are many educational programs and people would like to educated, because I normally felt that I was never trained for being a good leader. There was never training available. But these days we find that a lot of educational programs highlighting a various issue, like microaggression, unconscious bias, psychological safety. People should understand it. Things like being empathetic. These terminologies are there, but I find that people don't really appreciate it and understand it to the extent that they need to do, even though they are in a leadership position.

Caitlin Mackie:

Thanks for sharing, Rakesh. I really love what you mentioned around proactive leadership, there. Your research found that 47% of respondents believed organizations who achieved this unity of Agile, and diversity, and equity, and inclusion will reap the benefits and exceed competitors. Jazmin, what did these organizations do differently?

Jazmin Chamizo:

Yes. That's a great question. Actually this ties very nicely with idea of servant leadership, inclusive leadership, and how leaders have this incredible challenge of creating workspaces that are psychologically safe, as Rakesh just mentioned. This is really everybody's responsibility, but it has a lot to do with a very strong leadership.

We found that several other organizations that we interviewed, they had a very strong leadership team, that they were really committed with diversity, equity, and inclusion in their agile transformation, and they were able to put DEI at the very core of the organization. That's number one, having a very strong leadership team that's actually committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and that does not perceive DEI efforts as isolated actions or initiatives.

This is something that we're seeing a lot nowadays. As a DEI coach and consultant, sometimes you see, unfortunately, several organizations that only try very isolated and very ... They don't have long-term strategy. What we have seen that actually works is having this committed leadership team that has been able to put DEI at the very core of their strategy.

Also a team that has been able to serve as an advocate in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and agility, and they're able to have advocates throughout the organization. It's not just one person's job. This calls for the effort of the whole organization and individuals to commit to DEI and be actively part of the agile transformation.

Also, I would say, leaders that embrace mistakes and embrace errors throughout the process. This is something that came up a lot during our conversations with people in different organizations, that in many cultures and in many organizations, mistakes are punished. They're not perceived as a source of opportunity.

One of the tips or best practices would be having leaders who are able to show the rest of their organization that mistakes are actually learning opportunities, that you can try things out of the box, and you can be more innovative. That even if you fail, you're not going to be punished, or there won't be any consequences because of that, and, quite on the country, that this is actually a learning opportunity that we can all thrive on.

Caitlin Mackie:

Yeah. I completely agree. What benefits did they see?

Jazmin Chamizo:

They definitely saw a greater working environment. This is something that was quoted a lot during our interviews with respondents, that individuals saw that they had the chance to try new and innovative ideas. Definitely greater innovation, more creativity. Business morale actually ultimately went up, because they saw that the organization was actually embracing different perspectives, even if they fail. This definitely called for greater innovation.

I would say innovation, more creativity, and a better working environment. Absolutely new products, new ideas. That if you think about the current circumstances with COVID, this is what organizations have to aim at. New products, more innovation to face all the challenges that we have nowadays.

Terlya Hunt:

Powerful things for the listeners to think about. Here at Easy Agile, our mission is to help teams be agile. Because we believe for too long the focus has been on doing, when the reality is that Agile is a constant journey of becoming.

There's a specific part in the report that really stood out to me that I'd like to read. "Agility is a journey with no fixed endpoint. The road towards creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive environments is the same. Agility and DEI can be pursued, but never fully achieved. They are a process of ongoing learning, reflection, and improvement. A team cannot enter the process of improving business agility or DEI with a mindset towards completion, and any model that unites Agile and DEI will ultimately be ineffective if those taking part are not ready to embark on an ongoing quest for self improvement."

I absolutely love this quote. Rakesh, let's explore this a little bit further. What more can you tell me about this?

Rakesh Singh:

Actually there's an interesting thing that I would like to share to start with. We wanted to look for a organization who would help us interview their people and talk to their people. The way organizations responded ... Some responded, "Shall I allow my people to talk to somebody? It could be a problem." But then we got other organizations, they were actually chasing us. "We would like to be part of this, and we would like to get our people interviewed." They were very positive about the whole thing.

I happened to talk to the DEI corporate manager, a lady, and the way she was talking was ... She was so much, I would say, passionate about the whole thing, even though at least I felt that they were very high level of awareness of DEI. But the quest for learning and finding out what they could do better was quite astonishing and quite positive.

That's where my answer is, is that ... If you look at the current pandemic, and people realized that, "Okay. We have to work from home," initially some people found it great. It's a great thing. Work-life balance. "I can attend my home." But after some time they found it's a problem. There's other problem.

The point is that, in any organization, where it's a business or a social life, or people, it just keeps changing. There's no method or policy which is going to be forever valid. There's a continuous learning process that we have to get in.

What we need to do is focus on our goal that we want to achieve. Depending on the environment, that's what we call business agility. Now bring it to people as well, because it is a people ... We talk about customer centricity, and all that. But finding it's the people who are going to deliver whatever organization want to. You have to see how their lives are getting impacted.

We are discussing about getting people back to office. The problem is that, a city like Bangalore, it's a very costly city and very clouded city. People have gone to their hometown and they can work from there. Now, to bring them back, you have to approve them back again. To cut short the explanation, our life is changing, constantly changing, and technology and everything is putting ... People have to look at methods and approach of how they can be adapting themself on a continuous basis.

Learning is a continuous process. In fact, when I got into Agile and people ask me, "How many years of experience you have?" I generally say five years, because anything that I did before five years is actually the wrong practice. You have to be continuously learning, and DEI and Agile is no stranger to this situation.

Caitlin Mackie:

I love that. I think fostering that continuous learning environment is really key. I suppose, on that, a few of the recommendations from the report are centered around getting deeper training and intentional expertise. Jazmin, what further recommendations, or courses, or practitioners are there that people can engage with after this episode?

Jazmin Chamizo:

Sure. An important part of our report was a series of recommendations to the entire agile community, and practitioners, to organizations, and agile coaches. You can see that. You could get more specific information in our reports. I would like to encourage all of you to read. Definitely when it comes to agile coaches and consultants, we're encouraging people to learn more about diversity, equity, and inclusion because one of the insights and the learnings we drew from this research is that diversity, equity, and inclusion is not specifically included in the agile world.

When we talked to the respondents in many different countries, they did not spontaneously made the connection between agility, Agile, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the more we talk about it, they discovered that, indeed, they were very closely overlapped. There was a symbiotic relationship between them, because you're putting the person and everything that relates to that individual on the very core of the organization, on the transformation.

Definitely we do encourage ... Leaders and agile coaches need to start learning more about our DEI, building that proficiency, learning more about unconscious bias and the impact of unconscious bias, and discrimination, and racism that we'll continue to see in organizations. They're more mindful of those voices that are not being heard at the moment in the present conversations. They can learn different techniques or different methods to be more engaging and more inclusive.

When it comes to the agile community in general and influencers, it is important to mention that Evan Leybourn, the founder of the Agility Institute, is having at the moment some conversations with important institutions in the agile community, such as the Agile Alliance, because we are looking for ... That's what Gen Z-ers are looking for. There's a big call out there for organizations to embrace this type of transformation, but putting DEI at the very core of the organization. That's what I would like to say.

Contribute to the discussion. This is a pilot project. That we are hoping to conduct more research on other DEI areas related to agility. We would like listeners to be part of the conversation, and to contribute with their experience, to improve the state of agility in the current moment.

Caitlin Mackie:

Thank you both so much for joining us today. Thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I can't wait to see how Agile and diversity, and equity, and inclusion evolves in the future. Thank you.

Jazmin Chamizo:

Thank you so much for having us. It's been a pleasure.

Rakesh Singh:

Thanks a lot to both of you. It was nice to share our experience. Thank you very much.

In this episode, we dive deep into the challenges of aligning teams with strategic goals across organisations of all sizes. From fast-growing startups to large enterprises, teams everywhere struggle with the same fundamental issue: translating high-level objectives into actionable work that drives real value.

Our guest Andreas Wengenmayer, Practice Lead for Enterprise Strategy and Planning at catworkx (the #2 Atlassian partner worldwide and #1 in EMEA), shares his 11 years of experience helping organisations bridge the gap between strategic vision and team execution.

Want to see these concepts in action? Andreas and Hayley hosted an interactive webinar where they demonstrated practical techniques for strategic goal alignment using Easy Agile Programs. Watch the recording here→

About Our Guest

Andreas Wengenmayer is the Practice Lead for Enterprise Strategy and Planning at catworkx, one of the leading Atlassian Platinum Solution Partners globally and the #1 in EMEA. With over a decade of hands-on experience helping enterprise teams scale agile effectively, Andreas specialises in bridging the gap between strategy and execution. His work focuses on guiding organisations through complex transformation programs, optimising portfolio planning practices, and helping teams adopt frameworks like SAFe with clarity and purpose. Known for blending pragmatic insight with systems thinking, Andreas brings stories from the field - ranging from fast-moving startups to complex, multinational enterprises.

Transcript

Note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity, readability, and flow while preserving the authentic conversation and insights shared.

Recognising the signs - when teams aren't aligned

Hayley Rodd: Awesome to have you here. So I'm going to start with a bit of a reality check. We've worked in organisations across the spectrum from really fast-growing startups to really big enterprises. From your experience, when you walk into a PI planning or quarterly planning session, and I'm sure they're pretty hectic, what are the telltale signs that teams aren't truly aligned on what success looks like?

Andreas Wengenmayer: That's a great question - one I hear frequently. You can imagine, especially post-COVID when teams returned to in-person planning sessions. Back in 2017, we'd have huge arenas with hundreds of people in one place. People are happy to see each other, excited to chat with colleagues from different locations. This became even more pronounced after COVID, when everyone was working from home more frequently. That's a good sign - the mood is positive.

But you also notice some teams under pressure. They'd rather be working on actual deliverables. They know they have to be there, and it takes two full days to complete all the planning. Meanwhile, they're carrying a mental backlog - technical debt, unfinished work from the previous PI, catching up on delayed items.

This is what I often observe: teams get bogged down discussing minor details. People debate specifics, and you can see they're frustrated about something deeper - but they're not addressing the root cause. This creates its own negative momentum and can derail otherwise solid planning sessions.

Teams get bogged down discussing minor details. People debate specifics, and you can see they're frustrated about something deeper - but they're not addressing the root cause. This creates its own negative momentum and can derail otherwise solid planning sessions.

Sometimes you have to step in and ask what's really underneath. What's the actual cause? People say, "Yeah, I have to be here because that's the format, but I'm not engaged." Maybe it didn't work well in the past and there's lingering skepticism.

The prevailing attitude then becomes: "This isn't really collaborative. Leadership plans from the top anyway. The outcomes are predetermined - here's the plan, just make it work and update your boards." When people feel they can't meaningfully contribute or influence direction, they simply go through the motions.

My favourite example happens at the end when teams must formulate their objectives. It becomes a box-checking exercise - create something that satisfies the coach or Release Train Engineer so everyone can "get back to real work."

What good alignment actually looks like

Hayley Rodd: You've touched on so many things there. I can imagine walking into that room and feeling the pressure. People getting caught up in minor details rather than talking about root causes, or not asking the five whys to get to that root cause. You also touched on getting buy-in across the organisation. When people are really nailing it, when alignment is really there, what does that room feel like?

Andreas Wengenmayer: Yes, I've fortunately experienced those environments, and they're actually more common than you might think. When companies genuinely commit to grassroots planning, truly investing the time it requires, and ensure teams aren't overwhelmed from the start with everything marked "priority zero," you create the foundation for successful planning.

When companies genuinely commit to grassroots planning, truly investing the time it requires, and ensure teams aren't overwhelmed from the start with everything marked "priority zero," you create the foundation for successful planning.

You can see it immediately in people's body language and interactions. The energy in the room is palpable. If people appear resigned or intimidated, afraid to speak up, that's typically a red flag. The opposite creates magic.

Think about high-performing teams, like being a Scrum Master with an exceptional group. The best teams aren't just collections of highly skilled individuals in specific roles.

The best teams are those who communicate openly, genuinely enjoy each other's company, maintain positive energy, and actively support one another. This dynamic enables remarkable achievements. Maybe someone knows a contact in another tribe, release train, or department who can provide crucial answers and facilitate communication. Communication is absolutely fundamental.

That collaborative spirit is the hallmark of truly effective teams.

Hayley Rodd: Absolutely. We would know it in our day-to-day work, right? If your teams aren't communicating, if they're too overburdened as you said, it's not a good place to start. But if you can get that starting point right, if you can get that communication right, so many things will flow after that.

Andreas Wengenmayer: Absolutely. Looking back at any planning cycle, the real test is: did you plan the right things? You only know at the quarter's end whether you estimated capacity accurately.

Here's the crucial question: How does your organisation respond when goals aren't met? Do stakeholders focus on finding solutions? Do team members feel safe asking probing questions and seeking answers? Or does the blame game begin, searching for scapegoats?

How does your organisation respond when goals aren't met? Do stakeholders focus on finding solutions? Do team members feel safe asking probing questions and seeking answers? Or does the blame game begin, searching for scapegoats?

When you're permitted, encouraged, even, to be genuinely open and honest, you become much better at assessing realistic capacity. What makes stakeholders universally happy is predictability. You want confidence that your plans will actually materialise, that your commitments will be fulfilled.

Success breeds success, creating a positive foundation for the next PI. It's a continuous cycle that can spiral upward toward excellence or downward toward dysfunction.

The startup vs. enterprise spectrum

Hayley Rodd: Let's talk about the two ends of the spectrum. You've got a lot of experience, so I love hearing about this. Small companies will often say, "We're agile, we can pivot quickly, we don't need formal goal setting." Then enterprises are going all out on OKRs, cascading objectives, saying they're aligned because they've got those things in place. Yet both struggle with the same core problem. What's really going on?

Andreas Wengenmayer: You're absolutely right. I've been in agile projects since 2014, 11 years now, and I've seen a lot of companies pre-COVID, post-COVID, different sizes.

Starting with the really small ones, startup companies - what's really astonishing is that some very small startup companies tend to become overly complex, which is amazing. Some want solutions that are way too overblown. Basically, they need a sailing boat, but they're thinking about ordering an aircraft carrier.

Some startups want solutions that are way too overblown. Basically, they need a sailing boat, but they're thinking about ordering an aircraft carrier.

Maybe that's part of startup CEO culture - where everyone's a CEO on LinkedIn, and they think, "We're corporate, we have to be like that." They mostly get to their senses in the end, but small companies tend to be overly complex and overblown when it comes to technology, tooling, and organisation.

On the other end, large corporations sometimes seem to try their best to become truly agile - living the values everywhere. Still, it's a challenge. In most cases, there's some kind of hybrid planning going on. There's still a roadmap, which is good, but at some level, some people still stick to classical approaches, have some waterfall going on in the back.

I personally have never seen, for example, a full SAFe organisation where it's done truly at every level. There's a good balance and it should be healthy, but it all comes down to execution.

I feel like mid-sized companies are often the healthiest when it comes to that.

There's a balance of method and tooling, but you still need a solid understanding of goal setting and tracking. This includes pivoting when goals aren't right and learning from how you did things in the past. The gap between management and teams isn't that huge, and it's easier to bridge.

Avoiding death by KPI

Hayley Rodd: You've touched on so many fundamental things around getting the method and tooling right, but also that cultural aspect. I love the insight around mid-size organisations often striking that balance well. When we're thinking about the enterprise risk - which could be "death by KPI" or OKR, do you agree? Can you paint a picture of what that looks like and how it actually makes teams less focused?

Andreas Wengenmayer: Absolutely. There is such a thing as "death by KPI." KPIs are important to get a clear picture - you do need metrics, and there's merit to it. But as always, it's about choosing the right KPIs, the right metrics.

My favourite example is comparing story points across teams or ARTs. You measure velocity, and I have to repeat again and again: it's only individual to one team. You shouldn't compare it to another team or across tribes or ARTs - that doesn't work because you're creating the wrong incentives.

You see what will happen: "Well, okay, my stakeholders want higher amounts of story points. Let's estimate the stories bigger." Of course, that's a continuous loop, but it doesn't give you anything. Story points as a metric are just guidance for a team to get a better feeling for estimations.

You see what will happen: "Well, okay, my stakeholders want higher amounts of story points. Let's estimate the stories bigger." Of course, that's a continuous loop, but it doesn't give you anything. Story points as a metric are just guidance for a team to get a better feeling for estimations.

You want predictability - you want to meet a certain range. So it's not a great KPI when it comes to monitoring progress across teams. They have better KPIs in place.

Other metrics tend to create what I call bureaucracy. If you spend too much time creating reports, you have less time to create anything of value.

Hayley Rodd: I think there's so much in what you're saying about people being realistic and honest, open to pivoting or changing a goal if it's not the right one. Admitting to that is really difficult because no one wants to admit that what they set out to do is failing. But understanding that failure can sometimes be a benefit - you can learn from that. There's so much in that cultural aspect, right?

Andreas Wengenmayer: Absolutely. Coming back to goals rather than KPIs - KPIs are like being on a boat in your control room. You see what the engine is doing, the temperature - those are KPIs. Goals, on the other hand, are the course that you set.

KPIs are like being on a boat in your control room. You see what the engine is doing, the temperature - those are KPIs. Goals, on the other hand, are the course that you set.

You could be a small company like a startup - you're in a canoe, you're rowing. Or you're a large company - you're like a big freighter. Still, if you don't set the right course, the right goal, you will never reach your destination. Your team can be as proficient and perfectly working as they could be. If the course isn't right, hopefully you have enough provisions on board to survive a long journey.

Where organisations get stuck in goal setting

Hayley Rodd: Where do organisations typically get stuck? Is it defining the goals, communicating the goals, or translating them into action - that execution point you made before?

Andreas Wengenmayer: It could be basically any one of those. If you have a smaller or mid-size company, it's easier to communicate - you don't have to bridge as huge a gap. But still, you have high-level goals that have to be translated into real work. Real value is created in the teams.

If you have a high-level goal that's highly abstract and sounds good on paper - "increase customer satisfaction," "create better products," "make the world a better place" - people still have to understand: What does that mean to my daily work? If I'm a developer, what's my stake in that? How can I contribute?

If you have a high-level goal that's highly abstract and sounds good on paper - "increase customer satisfaction," "create better products," "make the world a better place" - people still have to understand: What does that mean to my daily work? If I'm a developer, what's my stake in that? How can I contribute?

That's when communication and breaking down goals becomes really important. Breaking them down the right way, having them visible and transparent, and creating that feeling of contribution. You make it visible that you're not just working for yourself or your team, but you're really contributing. You understand what you're working on and why you're doing it. Purpose is critical.

Bridging the strategy-to-sprint gap

Hayley Rodd: That's a really good segue into the next question about translating strategic vision into team-level objectives that people can grab onto and execute. Leadership will often say something like "increase customer satisfaction," and teams are left going, "What does that mean for me in my sprint this week?" How does an organisation bridge that gap between the high-level leadership view and what we can do in our sprints as a team?

Andreas Wengenmayer: First of all, you as company management need to take the time. There have been, and still are, a lot of approaches with company values, putting posters on walls, creating marketing. Those are all values - that's what a company is like. Then you link it with your products, services - great services, customer satisfaction. Okay. Then comes the real challenge: we want to succeed and create the next service, software solution, or product.

The goal is clear on a high level, but how do we break it down? That's when the real work comes into play - breaking down the goals into smaller pieces.

It's like building a LEGO space station when I was a kid. You have the picture on the box in the beginning - 'Oh, that's what we're going to build.' Then you have to start putting together all the small pieces. You need a plan, you need the little pictures of the steps. You start with the big picture, then you're breaking it down one piece at a time. You create different parts, and they come together at the end. Same goes for goals.

It's like building a LEGO space station. You have the picture on the box in the beginning - 'Oh, that's what we're going to build.' Then you have to start putting together all the small pieces. You need a plan, you need the little pictures of the steps. You start with the big picture, then you're breaking it down one piece at a time. You create different parts, and they come together at the end. Same goes for goals.

Hayley Rodd: Nice. A colleague of mine often says you eat an elephant one bite at a time - similar thing, right? When you see that big goal, it's really overwhelming. But if you can break it down into those chunks and smaller pieces, it becomes so much more manageable and achievable. People can get behind that vision.

Managing moving targets

Hayley Rodd: In fast-moving environments, goals often shift. We're agile, we're always moving. How do you help teams stay connected to a moving target without either ignoring changes or constantly thrashing around?

Andreas Wengenmayer: Back in the nineties and early 2000s, there was a computer game that wasted a lot of time in offices where you were shooting at geese in Scottish Highlands. It was a big phenomenon because people were trying to get the next high score.

If you think of moving targets, it's a bit like that. Imagine you're doing your work - whether you're a hunter or developer doesn't matter - but you approach, you take aim, and the geese keep flying up. You miss the target. Same thing if you have moving goals.

It's harder to aim and approach them right. What you should avoid as a company or someone in charge is constant interference. Stick to your goals or objectives that were agreed upon during PI planning. Don't change them midterm during a PI.

What you should avoid as a company or someone in charge is constant interference. Stick to your goals or objectives that were agreed upon during PI planning. Don't change them midterm during a PI.

That doesn't mean you can't learn from mistakes or wrong goals. You can adjust them, but you have to adjust them in the right place and time, which is during planning. Of course, if something security-related comes up, you have to act, but it has to be agreed upon, and you still have to communicate it and create understanding.

Keeping goals visible and actionable

Hayley Rodd: Even when goals are well-defined, keeping them visible and actionable throughout a PI is tough. What practices or tools have you found most effective for maintaining connection between daily work and high-level strategic objectives?

Andreas Wengenmayer: Good question. Having the goals present at all times helps a lot. If you just meet for planning, have your goals set, and never look back during the PI, it doesn't do you any good.

That could be a piece of paper on the wall like we had back in the day - and still could be if you're working in the office. Also, choose the right tools to track the goals and create acceptance for tools. Really use them. Look into them - whether it's an OKR tool or some other solution, even PI objectives. Are we still on track?

What really helps is if it's not static but shows progress, and especially shows the link of what you're contributing - like what you achieved in your last sprint and how it plays into the objectives or goals, progress moving ahead. There's always a good feeling - everybody loves a green bar moving ahead or a checklist.

What really helps is if your tool is not static but shows progress, and especially shows the link of what you're contributing - like what you achieved in your last sprint and how it plays into the objectives or goals, progress moving ahead. There's always a good feeling - everybody loves a green bar moving ahead or a checklist.

It helps keep the vision and goals present.

Hayley Rodd: When I was a teenager in my final year of high school here in Australia, I wanted a specific score on my final exams. I had a big poster in front of my desk that I sat at for hours every day studying. Looking back, I didn't know what I was doing - I just wanted to visualise my goal, and I didn't know the psychology behind it. But I'm happy to report I got that mark and above.

I think it was as you were saying - that constant reminder, that piece of paper worked for me. In organisations, we're looking for something a bit more complex sometimes, but I like your "keep it simple" advice. It doesn't always have to be super complex. It can just be a checklist, progress bar, or piece of paper - something that helps you feel connected to the goal and reminds you of it often.

When good work doesn't align with goals

Hayley Rodd: Have you seen situations where teams were delivering lots of work - good work, but it wasn't clearly contributing to company goals? What tends to cause that disconnect?

Andreas Wengenmayer: Yeah, that happens quite a bit. I can think of one example with very technical teams, like in semiconductors. Very smart people - everyone has a PhD in physics, material science. Awesome, smart people who tend to love their job. They're awesome, but they're also perfectionists who can still improve things and want to make them even better.

If you're in the business of producing machines used to produce semiconductors, for example, it's a complex task with a complex supply chain or value chain. You're creating lithography machines to create wafers used by other companies, and in the end, you have a customer planning the release of a new phone.

Your customer waits, the end customer waits, and you have to deliver on time. Sometimes this creates a challenge because teams still want to improve and make it even better. That's when economics come into play - the view of the big picture. You still have to communicate it. You shouldn't discourage such a great team, but you need to get the bigger perspective back to the teams and create acceptance instead of saying, "Hey, stop what you're doing, it's good enough." You don't want that. It all comes back to transparency and communication.

On the other spectrum, what you sometimes have is just too much workload on teams. Time for planning gets cut short, and if you don't take enough time to plan well, no wonder the results don't work out. It's just a lot of busy work - a lot of things getting done, but not necessarily the right things at the right time.

On the other spectrum, what you sometimes have is just too much workload on teams. Time for planning gets cut short, and if you don't take enough time to plan well, no wonder the results don't work out. It's just a lot of busy work - a lot of things getting done, but not necessarily the right things at the right time.

Hayley Rodd: If you don't do that planning at the start, you're setting yourself up for misalignments. If you're not communicating that plan regularly, you're setting yourself up for that busy work and people getting distracted. It's just so common. That planning part is so fundamental to getting it right.

One piece of advice for frustrated leaders

Hayley Rodd: We're on the home stretch now. If you could give one piece of advice to an engineering or product leader who's been frustrated because their teams seem to be going through the motions of PI planning or quarterly planning without real buy-in, what would it be?

Andreas Wengenmayer: I can resonate with that so well, and many can. I'd say: take the time to find out what's really going on. Investigate the root cause. It's like if you have a house and you're trying to fix a crack in the wall - you can look at the crack and do some superficial fixing or use a thick layer of paint, but you still have to find out what's causing that issue. Maybe something deeper.

You mentioned the five whys - that can be one way, but you have to have some understanding of the right way to approach people. You don't want to put anyone on the spot. Looking for a scapegoat doesn't help anybody.

We need to look at what's behind it, what's causing it. It all comes back to investing enough time for planning, but doing it with purpose. Not doing the whole planning like theatre, where everybody acts their part - that doesn't do you any good.

It all comes back to investing enough time for planning, but doing it with purpose. Not doing the whole planning like theatre, where everybody acts their part - that doesn't do you any good.

People have to understand why they're doing it. There has to be purpose and understanding - enough time, no distractions, and a positive atmosphere where everybody can contribute and be open.

You don't want people saying nothing because they don't dare to criticise or say no.

The connection between goal clarity and team motivation

Hayley Rodd: What's one thing you wish more organisations understood about the connection between goal clarity and team motivation?

Andreas Wengenmayer: We could get back to the boats we mentioned before. You want to arrive at your destination. If you're not clear about the destination, or maybe some people in your rowing boat don't want to go there, they might not join the rowing. If your crew is not invested, it will take you longer to reach a destination, or you won't get there as well.

It's the same thing. Motivation is key, and I don't talk about superficial motivation that just annoys everybody. Motivation is a positive environment where people rely on each other. They really like spending time with those people.

"Hey, I really like to go to lunch with you and talk to you" - not "I'd rather be home and not talk to anybody." You're not annoyed if your teammate asks you a question; you're happy to help. You're feeling safe that when you have a problem or question, you will get help.

That creates the right kind of motivation - that positive environment, and that can make a lot of things happen. It comes back to openness and transparency, not as buzzwords, but to get the clear picture. As a stakeholder, you get the correct current state because you get true answers.

I've seen strange situations in major corporations where people really didn't report what they were working on or show the right results. I've seen complete shadow Jira environments - one for internal use and one for external use with customers. There can be huge misalignments because people didn't dare to show real progress. In the long term, it will backfire. If you don't have trust in your environment, in your company, you will have a hard time.

I've seen strange situations in major corporations where people really didn't report what they were working on or show the right results. I've seen complete shadow Jira environments - one for internal use and one for external use with customers. There can be huge misalignments because people didn't dare to show real progress. In the long term, it will backfire. If you don't have trust in your environment, in your company, you will have a hard time.

Wrapping up

Hayley Rodd: There are so many key themes coming up throughout our conversation. You've talked about ongoing communication across teams, really planning with purpose, getting that context and buy-in to help with motivation, and allowing for radical candour - being really open if something's not working and being okay to call it out. So many cultural and communication elements are critical to the success of quarterly planning, PI planning, and organisations generally. Great takeaways.

We're going to end it there, but I want to end with a teaser for our interactive webinar that you and I are doing together on September 4th, which dives deeper and shows how to operationalise the ideas we've chatted about here using Easy Agile Programs and linking back to the fundamental services that catworkx provides organisations.

Andreas, it's been super wonderful to chat with you. I look forward to our webinar coming up on September 4th.

Andreas Wengenmayer: Thank you so much for having me. Looking forward to September 4th and seeing you again, talking more about tooling, boats, duck hunt, and anything in between.

Ready to transform your strategic planning?

The conversation doesn't end here. Andreas and Hayley hosted an interactive webinar where they showed how you can put these strategic alignment concepts into practice.

They spoke about:

• Practical techniques for breaking down strategic goals into actionable team objectives
• How to maintain goal visibility throughout your PI cycles
• Real-world examples of successful alignment transformations

Watch the webinar recording here →