Easy Agile Podcast Ep.33 How to Align Teams Through Strategic Goal Setting
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
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Dave Elkan, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Easy Agile is joined by Jean-Philippe Comeau Principal Customer Success Advocate at Adaptavist.
"Hearing from JP is a sure-fire way to get excited about Atlassian Team '23. We spoke about where we are hoping to see conversations focus + more."
JP is passionate about teamwork, meeting new people, presentations of all kinds - loves a microphone and a captive audience, new technologies and most of all problem-solving.
In this episode, JP and Dave are talking about one of the most anticipated events in the tech calendar - Atlassian’s Team23! They’re talking about what to expect, tips for first timers and what they’re hoping to take away from the event.
They also dive into the future of work and the significance of coming together as a team.
We hope you enjoy the episode!
Transcript:
Dave Elkan:
Hi, all, and welcome to the Easy Agile Podcast. My name is Dave Elkan and I'm co-founder and co-CEO here at Easy Agile. Before we begin, Easy Agile would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land from which we broadcast today, the people of the Dharawal speaking country. We pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that same respect to all Aboriginal, Torres State Islander and First Nations people joining us today. Today I am joined by Jean-Philippe Comeau or JP. JP is the principal customer success advocate at Adaptavist and is passionate about teamwork, meeting new people, presentations of all kinds, loves a microphone and a captive audience, this podcast definitely fits that mold, new technologies, and most of all, problem-solving. JP, thanks so much for being with us today.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Thanks for inviting me.
Dave Elkan:
Hey, no worries. It's great to have you on. We want to take some time today just to talk through Atlassian Team '23. The ecosystem is gearing up for one of the biggest events of the calendar and the ultimate event for modern teamwork. You've been to a few Atlassian Team events before and last year being the first one back in a while. Quebec to Las Vegas is quiet a gear change. What are your tips for people attending Team for the first time?
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Ooh, yeah, that's a good question. I mean, yeah, Teams to me is a massive event. It's a beautiful moment to actually take in everything that has happened in last year for Atlassian. What I mean by that is actually more and more what's happening with Atlassian is actually what's happening in the world of work. So I think it's just a great time to reassess where you're at. So for me, it's about planning out the main things you want to hit and don't overcrowd your schedule. That's a mistake I made the first time was just I wanted to see the most of everything and I was like, "Yeah, I can absolutely do back to back to back. It's going to be fine. I'll be walking from one thing to another." Truth is after talk, you'll have some questions. Some things will popped-up. "Oh, that's interesting. I could maybe explore that."
You're going to want to do maybe some floor hunting, which is like, hey, looking through the partners. Maybe you've heard about something like an app that you really want to go look at or something like that. So, that's always going to happen and then you're going to miss that next talk. So make sure that what you highlight is really things you want to see and plan according to that. That to me is the number one thing. Don't try to do it all. Do what you feel is really, really important than the rest. Try to make it work because it's going to be a lot of walking, a lot of listening, a lot of talking. The second thing which I remind everybody is to hydrate, get a bottle of water. There's going to be plenty over there, but everybody's going to have their own branded bottle of water, so don't worry about having one or not, but get one and just hydrate. I mean, we all get very busy during the day and we all know how the nights can go, so keep drinking some water. Yeah, those are my two tips.
Dave Elkan:
That's great advice. I think hydration is certainly something to consider. I remember particularly a wall of donuts at one point distracting me from good habits like that. So yeah, it's really important to make sure you've got the basics in line. What are you most looking forward to from the lineup at Team '23?
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Yeah. I mean, every year the keynotes are what's going to hit the most. Obviously, getting a chance to hear James Cameron talk is going to be very, very interesting. I think especially in the year of Avatar 2 is just great timing, obviously probably planned. He's probably on a tour, but it's going to be really great to hear some stories of how that movie came about. It's been a long time in the making, probably the closest thing we got to really long development on a film. It feels like a long software development cycle thing. That's a very long time. And then hearing Van talk about some of the things that he's seeing in today's world. Van Joseph, I believe, is the name of the second talker, and remember seeing him a lot on the CNN broadcast and stuff during the elections and the impact that he brought to the whole broadcast was quite something. It'd be very interesting to hear them talk.
And then as far as maybe not the big ticket items, really interested to... I think this is the year where the practices on the different tracks that Atlassian usually promotes, I think this is the year what they really start to hit. What I mean by that is I think before this year, so when you look at last year's Team and then before that, tracks were kind of like wishy-washy. Now, they actually have the products to back them. I think JSM's in a very, very good spot. I think their agile tooling is in a very good spot. I think their DevOps, which is what I expect, is going to be pushed the most, or DevOps tooling with the Jira product discovery and all their Point A stuff is got to be where it's at. So I think you're going to get really good talks on those practices. I think that's going to be the year where the tracks actually make a ton of sense and are very valuable to people.
Dave Elkan:
Absolutely. Thanks for sharing. It's really interesting. Yourself, you're a Canadian and James Cameron is a Canadian and he's talking about creating the impossible, and I think that's a theme that's coming through and what Atlassian is promoting and bringing that through. It's really interesting to see or hear you talk about the both building movies and media and CNN, the reference there, and how that can apply with a strongly software development-based audience. It's really interesting to see that building a movie is a very much a waterfall process in that you have this huge deliverable at the end, but I know that there are Pixar, for example, use this concept of Demo Trusts, we call them, or the Pixar Demo Trust. Yeah. So essentially you can test along the way as you go before you deliver this huge thing. It's really intriguing to think what we're going to hear from James in regards to how he builds these amazing projects.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Yeah, I think you're spot on. So I'm actually a huge Marvel fan. I don't have my book with me, but the Creativity, Inc. is a book that I love by Ed Catmull and how they built Pixar as a business, as a delivery team, not just about the movie side of it, the creative side of it, but how do you bring creativity into a more structured world that is the corporate world kind of thing, which they're now a part of? So, very interesting that you bring that up because I'm very fascinated by their process as well. I think they were the pioneers in the movie-making business or industry into bringing the agile methodologies or thinking to movie-making.
Now, what would happen historically in movies? Okay. So you don't know this, but my background is actually enacting. So when I started, when I studied, when I was a young lad, young adult, let's put it that way, I wanted to be an actor and then things changed. Obviously, I am not a prolific actor. So I'm very, very passionate about the movie-making industry. Movies historically has always been about you shoot, you shoot, you shoot, to develop, develop, develop, and then at the end, you cut it. So you make mistakes. So like we said, very, very waterfally. I think now that technology is almost like 50 to 60% of a movie now more days... If you look at Marvel movies and all that, you could argue it's 50 to 60% is going to be computer-generated, which can be a bad or good thing. Now, that I'm not going to get into that debate.
The nature of previz and all the animation work that goes behind it makes the process more agile, meaning that what they're going to do is they're going to build for a week and then they're going to review the film that's been made and then they're going to correct and do it again, right? So already you got your feedback loop going. You got your process. You got your sprints going. I can map all that out to some agile processes and I wouldn't be surprised that you're looking at something that are looking to scale up. You could even argue what are you guys going to do for your scaling methodologies? There's a lot of things that are very interesting.
I think going back to our first point, sorry, I really went on a tangent here, but going back to Avatar, when you have such a long cycle and you have a movie that's built, that one is heavily computer-generated. I mean, every actor has stuff on their face and they're acting in a blank studio. Now you're talking about agile processes because if you're building hours and hours and hours of work and you're just building and building and building and never review, I can't... Maybe James will say that's how they did it, and I'll be like, "Well, you guys were... It's very difficult. You made your life very, very difficult." But it'd be very interesting to hear because I cannot imagine them not going into some type of an agile way of building this movie.
Dave Elkan:
Oh, of course. I think that if you imagine the cutting room floor, it's an old adage and literally they used to cut the film and they'd leave it on the floor as that's something we're not doing anymore. And so, I dare say that there's a vast amount of film which is thrown away and redone. I feel that if we could see past that to this beautiful thing that they're doing behind the scenes, which is testing and iterating on their shots, it's actually quite a simple concept to apply these agile processes to filmmaking. It's just at the end you have got this big bang, same in game production. When you produce a game, you cut back. People do early access, which is fantastic. You can't early access a movie.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
No, exactly. Yeah.
Dave Elkan:
Yeah. Going back to Pixar, that reference, I actually made the mistake. It's not actually the Demo Trust. So this is the Playbook by Atlassian. There's a play called Demo Trust, but it's the Brains Trust and it's bringing together the team to talk through does this fulfill the vision of Pixar? Does this make Pixar Pixar? And helping the team understand, so directors get that ingrained Pixarness through that process. So yeah, there's a whole team behind the scenes here. There's not one person who's just driving this at the director level. There's actually a whole team of people collaborating on this movie. So I'm really intrigued to hear that from James to hear how the teamwork comes out.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Yeah. I think when you look at a movie like Avatar, again, another thing that we don't think about is the connecting remote teams, which is a big, big part of what we do in 2023 is connecting remote teams so that they feel they're working on one project. When you have a movie like Avatar, your VFX is going to be somewhere. Your actors are going to be another place. And then you're going to have music and sound's going to be somewhere else. Your editors are probably going to be somewhere else. And so, there's a lot of remote work that you do. How do you bring all that together?
I remember watching the old documentaries around the Lord of the Rings movies, and they were literally flying people in and out with the actual roll of films because they were so afraid that people would steal them and so that they wouldn't put it on the internet and they would actually carry them around. So they had to fly from London to New Zealand to... It's kind of nuts when you think about it in 2023. Really, you had to take a 10-hour flight just to get your film across? It's probably easier also with the data, just the bandwidth and everything. So I think that's also going to be an interesting part is how did you connect teams?
You brought up a great point around the Pixar way or that's how they call it, the Pixar way. When you think about that, there's some really, really cool ideas behind bringing a team together and rallying them around one project. I think as teams get more remote and distanced from products and things that they're working on, and I do it myself at work. Things become generic. At some point, you're just doing the same thing over and over again. You lose touch a little bit with the work that you do. I think it's a beautiful thing to be able to rally a team around a project and say like, "Do you believe in this project? I believe in this project. Do you believe in this project?" And making sure the team does and if they don't, why don't you? What's preventing you from that? I think there's a lot of good conversations, sorry, that can come from that. Yeah.
Dave Elkan:
Absolutely. So yeah, you talk about going more remote. Is that a trend you're seeing, that we're continuing to see more and more teams go remote, or are we seeing a reversal of that to some extent?
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
It depends on what sphere you're working with, or in my position, I get to touch everything. I tend to gravitate towards the more creative teams of gaming and software development and stuff. I do work with banks. I do work with, well, corporate America, the classic suit and tie kind of places, everything. I see everything. There is absolutely out right now a battle of old versus new, old ways of working, new ways of working. There's a huge clash happening. I to this day do not know who's going to win, because even the big Silicon Valleys, I mean, we are all seeing what's happening with Apple and them putting mandatory office dates and stuff like that. You see that from an executive that is leading maybe one of the more bleeding edge companies in the world, but he's still an old school vibe of creativity.
I hate bringing it back to Pixar. I'm going to bring it back to Pixar. They have such a great office. So like I said, I'm very fascinated about what they do. They call it unplanned creativity. They truly believe that unplanned creativity happens in the office, and when you have unplanned meetings, unplanned interactions. So one of the things that they did, it's now very common, but when I was 14 years old and I was reading about them, I was like, "Oh my God, these are such cool things to do," they were doing those ping-pong places and activities and games to get people to play together and start talking about what they were doing.
And then all of a sudden you got an engineer talking to a VFX artist that's talking to a 3D or conceptual artist, that's like they would never meet in a meeting or anything like that. But because they're playing ping-pong and throwing ideas around and all of a sudden they're like, "Hey, maybe we could build this thing. That'd be amazing." Because the artist saying, "Well, now I could do clouds this way. Yeah. Nuts, I could create clouds that look like this." Then the engineer goes, "Well, you can just tweak a little bit of things."
Anyways, so I think there's this old school mentality at this. It's a question I've asked myself in our Slacks and where we talk about work. I don't know what the future is for unplanned creativity. I don't know how you recreate that in a virtual world. I think it's a big problem that some software companies have tackled with some tools. I don't know how you force someone to sit behind a computer and do something that's unplanned. How do I stumble across some... I don't know. But yeah, I think there's a bit of that in the old school mentality. I need people in an office so that they can meet and they can interact together. I still struggle to find where they're wrong, let's put it that way. I don't know where they're wrong about that theory of when you're with someone, when you're with people things happen in a different way.
Dave Elkan:
I can't agree more. I think that if I have any perspective on this, it's that there is not... Often, it's not a black and white or a zero sum kind of game. It's a combination of things that will occur and that will move forward for better or for worse. You can look back in history to Bell Labs and the creation of the semiconductor and the way that the building was designed essentially to allow people to walk past and have cross-collaboration and cross-functional conversations. Have you ever considered that the unplanned creativity that Pixar was talking about was actually planned-unplanned creativity, so they made these spaces on purpose? How can we make things on purpose to have things unknown to us happen?
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, you're absolutely right. I mean, yeah, they built the Pixar offices this way because of that. To me, that is the secret. If someone finds it, it's like the caramel milk or whatever, just bottle it up and sell it to people, I guess. I don't know. I have no idea what the answer is. I've looked and it's... There's an app out there. I can't remember the name of the app, but you're like a 2D sprite and it looks like an NES game and you're moving around from places to places. You can decorate your office. It's got this vibe of Animal Crossing, which is a game by Nintendo where you can just create stuff and people can visit your island and all that.
You can do that with your office space and then you can create a common area where people walking. When you look at it in a video, it's brilliant. Great, I can actually be in the office without being in the office. It has this whole technology of proximity. So if you're having a conversation with someone in an open area, people could walk by and hear what you're saying and join in. Beautiful technology, doesn't work with the humans when you really think about it. Why would I go online to walk around an office to go talk? I'll ping you on Slack, it'll be easier. All right. I don't need to walk through your office. So it's like I don't know what the secret is.
Yeah, you're right, it is planned in a way. I think we do that. I don't know for you guys at Easy Agile, how you do it. In Adaptavist, we do like to travel with teams. So whenever we do things, even if it's customer work or if we're going for an event or something, we try to make it a point to make it about also us and what we do. So we rarely traveled alone. If I'm going to a customer, we're trying to get two consultants in there, or what I'm trying to say is bring more people. It's a point, I think, Adaptavist is trying to make and I think that's what Simon, our CEO, is trying to make is use these opportunities to be with people. I think it's a beautiful thing, but it's one of the myriad of solutions. I don't know. I really don't know. What do you think? What are your thoughts on this?
Dave Elkan:
Oh, I can share how we work at Easy Agile. So here I am today in the office. This is a great place for me to do this recording. We have a room for about 50 people here in the office in Wollongong, south of Sydney. We have about 10 to 15 who usually arrive on a daily basis, and that's great. We don't mind. We love people working from home and working away, which is more convenient and relaxing for them. At the same time, we do have quarterly plan, like planning sessions that we go to. We have Advanced Easy Agile every quarter. We come together in person. We've strategically ensured that we hire in a way so that's possible, so people aren't flying across vast sways of ocean to get to this conversation. In a way, it's planned-unplanned. So we do our planning ahead of time.
When we come for Advanced Easy Agile, we'll have something that we want to either upskill the team with or whatever, and then we'll have some team bonding where people can choose from a range of different activities they want to do together. And so, for us, it's more about getting together in person because we know that's really valuable to both build an understanding of each other as a team and to build that rapport. It can't be done over Zoom to an extent. So, absolutely, our business runs entirely in a remote-friendly way and we don't rely on people to be in person, in sync in person to move forward. However, we do see there's a great value there. So we try to live in both worlds and we get the benefit from both of them. Yeah. And so, that's one thing that can work. It's not for everybody. If you have a truly distributed global business, it's not exactly easy or affordable to bring everybody together on a quarterly basis.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Yeah. I think it's beautiful though. So I've been in Adaptavist for close to six... I'm on my sixth year now and we used to be able to do... We didn't do quarterly. We did a yearly thing at the end of the year where everybody would get together. We called it Winter Con for the last two years, which I actually loved the idea, which was very much we could pitch ideas of what we wanted to talk about. It could be about work, could be about customers, could be about last year, whatever you wanted to talk about, could be about yourself, could be about a cool thing you did this year, whatever. We had a voting system, but really pretty much anyone that said any, you could get in.
You could just walk around and it was literally a conference center. We'd set up some rooms and you could walk in, look at a presentation, literally like Teams or whatever. It was the best experience every time that we did that. I love these because there's value. There's an ROI in having everybody learning and upskilling and breaking down these silos of, "Hey, I never worked with marketing, but here's an hour talk around something we did in marketing. I really want to join," and all these things. That's great. There was also the unplanned ROI, where you were coming out of there with multiple ideas of like, "Oh, I could explore this. We could explore that. I got this meeting set in Jan now that whenever I come back in January, we're going to be talking about this thing that we talked about for cloud migrations." All that was happening at Winter Con.
Now, we grew exponentially post-COVID, well, during and post. So while COVID was happening and all of a sudden everybody wanted work. And then as companies that were remote, I think a lot of the companies that were remote grew during COVID versus because companies that were local or anything, they slowly diluted down a little bit, let's put it that way. As we grew, we can't support that anymore as a one-time thing where you'd have... We're close to a thousand now. There's a lot of people to move and a lot of conferences, a lot of conference rooms and presentations and stuff that we just can't accommodate. So, I miss it a lot. We've been doing it remotely, but like you said, it's not the same to go on a Zoom call.
I remember sitting down in these presentations and you're sitting down next to people that someone from Arkansas, someone from Cambridge, and you start talking. Yeah, you're listening to conference, but we all know what happens when you're listening to a presentation. You start talking like, "Yeah, that's an interesting idea. What did you do last weekend?" You start talking. Those are things you can't do on Zoom. You can't really reproduce that on Zoom. It's not going to happen really and I miss that dearly. I don't know what the solution is when you have these kind of global distribution. I mean, I guess you do in a smaller way, maybe all of North America meet up or things like that, but it's just not the same, not the same at all. I think it's beautiful that you guys can still do these because everybody's close by. I think it's really nice.
Dave Elkan:
Oh, thanks. Yeah, it's something we're hoping to hold onto as long as we can. We understand that these things don't scale. At one point, we'll have to break it into different events so that people can have, I think, a higher level of involvement in that. If you have too many people at the same time, it can be just a bit read only, the way I see it. It's as if to seek participant.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
That's nice. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Yeah, you're right.
Dave Elkan:
So I'd love to just quickly touch back on Atlassian Team '23.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
I'm sorry.
Dave Elkan:
You did mention at the beginning... That's all right. We'll get there. There's these new apps, especially in the DevOps tooling space that Atlassian's working on, so Discovery. Can you just talk to me a little bit more about what you see there and why that's coming to fruition now?
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Yeah, I think it's all about cloud. I'll be the first to say that big fan of data center, big fan of on-prem. That's how I learned the Atlassian tool set. So, a little skeptical when cloud came about. As it grew and it got better, it got better, that was great. I think it's now at a mature spot where the Point A program, which is where all of these tools are coming out of, so the product Discovery, Atlas and all that, those are the fruits of cloud. That's because now that we have cloud, they can churn out products and try things and see if they stick or not. I think that's why I think this year is the year where I think the program is mature enough. Migration's ready. I mean, we're one year out of server end-of-life. I think we're finally in a place where we can actually talk about all these opportunities. Most of the people at the conference will be able to get value from it.
I remember last year where talks were heavily around JSM and all the cool things it would do, but you still had a lot of people on server, still had a lot of people on data center. So it fell a little bit on deaf ears. A lot of people in the crowd were just like, "Yeah, it's not for me." Both keynotes were about that. So anyways, I think this year it's going to be better because of that, because everybody's bought in. I think it's right now because yeah, it's cloud. You can ship easier, faster. You can ship better. You can iterate better. You can get a product ready much, much quicker than if you're on-prem, and I think that's why you're seeing this blow up. I also think they're great ideas. Big fan of Atlas specifically. Big, big fan of Atlas.
Dave Elkan:
Yeah. Fantastic. So, how are your customers seeing the migration to cloud? On the larger end, is that something that they're open to? Is that something that they support?
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Everybody is intrigued, I'll start there. Everybody's intrigued. Now, the level of interest depends on the industry and the size. When you have a massive... I'll use banks because to me, banks are kind of like countries. So if you look at a massive bank where you have 30, 40,000 users, usually they have solid infrastructures. They have solid administrators. They have teams that are kind of living off this. It's built its own economy, basically. It runs itself. When you go in there and you try to teach them about cloud and all the great things it'll do, they start asking questions that are very technical and they're very good. There's not really an answer in cloud for yet, and so it gets skittish. Whereas if I go to a 500,000 people organization and they start asking questions about cloud, and usually we have more answers for that. It's just easy, an easier conversation. They don't have the same worries or the same thing troubles on their mind than the admin of 40,000 people. It's just not the same reality that they're seeing.
So I think for now, and I know Atlassian's making a big push into that enterprise space, I think for now you're going to see that growth. But as long as we don't have full autonomy of where our data is and how accessible that data is, it's going to be a problem, as long as FedRAMP isn't available to all, as long as all these different SOCs and compliances aren't available to all. These are very difficult because you've built an ecosystem around a lot of integrations and Easy Agile being to me, one of those integrations because their third-party app, however you want to look at it. Adaptavist has their own third-party app. So you have script runner and all that. We all have third-party apps. So Atlassian can't be like, "Oh, yeah, I'll make a blanket statement. We can do all these things." It's not really true. I'm like, "Hold up, you got to take into account all these different app partners out there that are doing their things and you can't put us all into one roof."I think they're victims of their success. What still making Atlassian great is the partner ecosystem, apps, solutions, sorry, everything, but it's also what's causing the adoption and the speed to which adoption of cloud is happening. It's making it slower than they would want to. I think that was maybe the misstep a little bit when everything got announced was like, "Oh, you guys do rely on these apps a lot." Yeah. A lot of our customers actually would say that the apps are even more important to them than the core. It's just a thing that you're seeing. So to go back to your question, depends on the complexity of the instance. The bigger the instance, usually the more complex it is. So if I go to over 10,000 users, it's going to be a very long conversation. Very, very long conversation.
Dave Elkan:
Yes, it is. It's funny that Atlassian did ship this and say, "Hey." Well, actually, there was a presumption that the apps were covered by SOC 2 or the like as well, and that was a missing... But it was this misunderstanding. But I say as a business owner going through SOC 2, it's a very rewarding and good process to go through. It's hard. We are doing it far earlier than Atlassian did in their own journey, but the sooner you do it, the easier it is. Ideally that as a smaller company, you have less things to worry about and the processes you put in place will be easier to maintain and monitor. So we're excited to really go down the SOC 2 path and to provide that peace of mind to our enterprise customers. So yeah, very good process to go through.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Yeah, you guys are going through it right now. Have you acquired it yet? Did you get your compliance yet or you're on your way to getting that?
Dave Elkan:
No, we're on the way to SOC 2 type 1 at the moment.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Wow. Nice.
Dave Elkan:
Yeah.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Yeah. Yeah. We got security group now in and they're handling all that. I'm not good with the compliances. I'll say it right now, right off the bat, I don't know them very well. I know they're like letters I would like to see next to every apps. That's what I know. I don't know how in depth the processes, but I know it's very involved to the point where you need to have a team dedicated to making that happen. So what have you guys seen so far? It's coming along great. What are some of the challenges that you've seen maybe? I'm just intrigued.
Dave Elkan:
Yeah. Oh, look, so our cloud apps are all architected in the same way, so they all use the same code base to an extent, like the deployment methodology. We haven't done any acquisitions which have bolted on to make that more complicated, so we're making the most of that situation. We've done a fair bit of work over the last quarter or so to put in all the checks and the controls around that deployment. The next thing is to really put in place the processes to ensure that our team understands how to deal with different situations and the like. So, that's something we're going to tackle in the next quarter. I'm excited to go through that and do a bit of a sprint with Nick, my co-founder and co-CEO, to really see how much we can get done in a period of time and really focus on that. I think that the benefit will be that we have a much more understood and clear way of running our business, which is obvious to our customers as well, which is a very good thing. I'm all in favor of it. Yeah.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I think we're seeing some of the similar things, but we did acquire a bunch of stuff and so that is making everything a bit more difficult, for sure.
Dave Elkan:
I can understand. That would be very tricky to try and bridge those gaps and to homogenize enough to be able to have a really clear statement going forward. Yeah. Okay. So we touched quickly on the Atlassian apps that they're bringing. Are there any apps in the marketplace that you have got an eye on that you'd love to go and talk to, of course, Easy Agile aside?
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
I mean, of course. Yeah. A big need that I'm noticing now in the market... I don't know if it's a secret or something, I should wait because I know Team '23, they're going to be doing some stuff and I'm really excited for them. So one of the things that we're noticing is... So backups, so enterprise support, basically. Right now, when you're on the cloud, most companies, again, in the 40,000 and plus have strong backup needs and they actually have requirements, laws, things that they need to abide by as far as how long they maintain data, how long they have backups of data and all that. Right now, the way that it's done in cloud isn't nice at all. You actually have to go into the UI. You get a backup. If your backup is large, it's going to take multiple days to process and you got to remember to... It's all manual. There's nothing that really automated.
So, there is a growing market for these kinds of apps. I've been talking all that to these people at Revyz, R-E-V-Y-Z. What they do is they basically automate that process for you and they host your data. Right now, they only do it for a year, but it's still much better than what we're seeing out there. There's a lot of need for services like that, where they... Because I mean, part of the appeal of cloud is obviously hands off, don't have to worry about things anymore and Atlassian only guarantees backups for 21 days. So if you're an enterprise and you're looking for six months at least of data recovery, at least you're not going to get that. So by having a partner like Revyz or all these, there are other apps out there, I'm talking about Revyz specifically because I talk to them a bunch, but a lot of interesting things are happening.
Also, what's amazing about these apps, what these developers have found, and once they've have that process, they now get access to the structure of the data and they've started building tools around that structure. So for instance, that app can actually restore projects and issues and custom fields and configurations. So you don't need to do a full restore. You can actually pick what you want to restore, which is brilliant. It's something that even in data center wasn't easy to do. You couldn't just say like, "Hey, give me that issue." You'd have to restore the snapshot, go into the system, find your stuff. Now being able to go into my UI and Jira, go into my backup app, go and look the issued I deleted by mistake, find it, restore it the same day, it has comments saying, "This was restored by revisits, so make sure blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada." It's just brilliant and I'm really excited to see that grow this year.
Dave Elkan:
That's amazing. Yeah, it's a really intriguing part of this piece that I've never really thought through that that's actually a really important part of running an enterprise, that you have those continuous backups. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, that's a great insight.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Yeah, it's going to be an interesting market to dive into because we've been asked, even as a service partner, "Can you deliver on this?" The truth is without an app, you can't. There's no real way for me to get a backup. I'd have to go into your instance every day. I don't think you want a consultant going into every day your instance, downloading a backup and throwing it. I'd rather spend my money elsewhere. So these apps are going to be very... I think they're going to be big and I'm really interested to see what happens with all these different ventures.
Dave Elkan:
Well, certainly, a booth I'll be popping by to see if we can include the Easy Agile data in that backup as well.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Yes, exactly. So they are looking at other app partners and seeing what they can do. So I think, yeah, absolutely, if you want to have a chat, they're great people.
Dave Elkan:
Beautiful. Thank you so much for your time today, JP. That's a wrap. Hey, is there anything else you wanted to touch on before we wrap up? Is there anything you are hoping to get away from the event, to take away from the event? Anything on the sidelines you're going to see when you're there?
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
I mean, obviously, App Day is going to be a big thing. Really excited to meet y'all in person, see everybody. So App Day is the time where I get really technical, get my hands dirty. I don't do that a lot these days. I miss it sometimes just sitting down and doing some good old admin work. So anyway, the App Days are usually when I really get back to the nitty-gritty of let's talk about script runner, where we're at now, and let's meet with Easy Agile, with Temple, with all these different app vendors and talk about what's coming up and what they're seeing. So really looking forward to that. But other than that, no, just looking to have a good time. I'll hopefully get some good social time as well at the evening. Like I said, we won't get ourselves half the fun is also after the events every day, so really looking forward to that, for sure, and meeting all my fellow ecosystem partners and talking to everybody and seeing what they've seen in the past year.
Dave Elkan:
Likewise. I'm at least 1,000% more excited now having talked to you about it. So thank you so much for taking the time today, JP, to talk through that and I can't wait to see you there.
Jean-Philippe Comeau:
Yeah, I can't wait to see you. Thanks for having me.
Dave Elkan:
No probs. Thanks, mate.
PodcastEasy Agile Podcast Ep.33 How to Align Teams Through Strategic Goal Setting
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
PodcastEasy Agile Podcast Ep.20 The importance of the Team Retrospective
"It was great chatting to Caitlin about the importance of the Team Retrospective in creating a high performing cross-functional team" - Chloe Hall
In this episode, I was joined by Caitlin Mackie - Content Marketing Coordinator at Easy Agile.
In this episode, we spoke about;
- Looking at the team retrospective as a tool for risk mitigation rather than just another agile ceremony
- The importance of doing the retrospective on a regular cycle
- Why you should celebrate the wins?
- Taking the action items from your team retrospective to your team sprint planning
- Timeboxing the retrospective
- Creating a psychologically safe environment for your team retrospective
I hope you enjoy today's episode as much as I did recording it.
Transcript
Chloe Hall:
Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Easy Agile Podcast. I'm Chloe, Marketing Coordinator at Easy Agile, and I'll be your host for today's episode. Before we begin, we'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land from which I am recording today, the Wodi Wodi people of the Dharawal Speaking nation and pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. We extend that same respect to all Aboriginal and to Strait Islander peoples who are tuning in today. So today, we have a bit of a different episode for you. I'm going to be talking with Easy Agile's very own Content Marketing Coordinator, Caitlin Mackie. Caitlin is the Product Owner* of our Brand and Conversions Team*. Now this team is a cross-functional team who have only been together for roughly six months. And within their first few months, as a team, mind you they also had two brand new employees, they worked on a company rebrand.
Chloe Hall:
A new team, a huge task, the possibility of the team being high performing was unlikely at this point in time. So, the team was too new to have already formed that trust, strong relationships, and psychological safety, but somehow they came together and managed to work together, creating a flow of continuous improvement and ship this rebrand. So, I've brought for you today Caitlin onto the podcast to discuss the team's secret for success. Welcome to the podcast, Caitlin.
Caitlin Mackie:
Thanks, Chloe. It's a bit different sitting on this side. I'm used to being in your shoes. I feel [inaudible 00:01:45]. I feel uncomfortable. [inaudible 00:01:46].
Chloe Hall:
Yeah. It's my first time hosting as well, so very strange. Isn't it? How are you feeling today?
Caitlin Mackie:
Yeah. Good. I'm excited. I'm excited to chat about our experience coming together as a cross-functional Agile team, and hopefully share some of the things that worked for us with our listeners.
Chloe Hall:
Yes, I know myself, and I'm sure our audience is very excited to hear what your team's secret to success was. Did you want to start off by telling us what was this big secret that really helped you work together as a team?
Caitlin Mackie:
That's a great question, Chloe. And that's a big question. I'm not sure if there's one key thing, I suppose, it is that ultimate secret source or that one thing that led to the success. I'm sure we all want to hear what that is. I would also love to know if there's just this one key ingredient, but I think something for us, and probably one of the most memorable things that really worked for us, and there was a lot for us to benefit from doing this, was actually doing our retrospectives. So that's probably the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to what led to our success.
Chloe Hall:
Okay. Yeah. In the beginning, why did you start doing the retrospectives?
Caitlin Mackie:
So, we were a new forming team, like you mentioned before, and we seen retrospectives as another Agile ceremony, and we saw other teams doing it and they were having a lot of success from it, so we became to jump on that bandwagon. And I think with being a new forming team, there are so many things that come into play. So, you're trying to figure each other out, how we all like to work and communicate with each other, all of that. And we were the first ever team dedicated to owning and improving our website. And we also knew it was likely that we'd be responsible for designing and launching a rebrand.
Caitlin Mackie:
So when you try and stitch all of that together, and then consider all those elements, we knew that we needed to reserve some time to be able to quickly iterate and call out what works and what doesn't. And what we did understand is that retrospectives are a great opportunity for the whole team to get together and uncover any problematic issues and have an open discussion aimed at really identifying room for improvement, or calling out what's working well, so we can continue to do that. So, I think retros allowed us to understand where we can have the most impact and how to be a really effective cross-functional Agile team.
Chloe Hall:
Wow. That is already so insightful. Yeah, it sounds like the retrospectives really helped you to gain that momentum into finding who your team is, becoming a well-working, high-performing cross-functional team. So, how often were you doing the retro? Were you doing this on a regular cycle, or was it just, "Okay. We have a problem. Some blockers have come up, we need to do a retro"?
Caitlin Mackie:
Yeah. I think initially retro, we kind of viewed retros as this thing where like, "Oh, we've done a few sprints now. We should probably do a retro and just reflect on how those few sprints went." It was kind of like this thing. It was always back of our mind. And we knew we needed to do it, but weren't really sure about the cadence and the way to go about it. So now, we do retros on a Friday morning, which is the last day of our weekly sprint. And then we jump into sprint planning after that. So after bio break as well, so let the team digest everything we talked about in retrospectives. And then we come into sprint planning with all the topics that we're discussed, and we will have a really nice, fresh perspective.
Chloe Hall:
Yeah.
Caitlin Mackie:
So, I think this works really well for us because everything is happening in a timely manner. We've just had a discussion about the best things that happened in the sprint or what worked really well, so you want to make sure you can practice the same behavior in the following, and vice versa for the improvements that you want to make. So, that list of action items that come out of a retrospective provide a really nice contact, context, sorry. And you have them all in mind during sprint planning.
Caitlin Mackie:
So for example, in the previous sprint, it might have come up that you underestimated your story points or there wasn't enough detail on your user stories. So, with each story or task that you are bringing into the sprint, you're then asking the question, is everyone happy with the level of detail? What are we missing? Or we've only story pointed this or two, is it more likely to be a five? So, everything is really fresh in your mind, and I definitely think that helps create momentum. When you've got the whole team working to figure out how you can be more effective with every sprint.
Chloe Hall:
That's such a great point that you just made Caitlin. And I love how going from doing the team retrospective, that you actually can take those action items and go into your sprint and put them into place straight away. It's really good. Otherwise, I feel like if you do the sprint retrospective on the Friday, and you're like, "Okay, these are our action items," get to Monday sprint planning and you're just thinking of the weekend. That [inaudible 00:07:20]
Caitlin Mackie:
Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. They're super fresher mind for everyone. So, it might not work for every team, but we find it works really well for us, because we're being really deliberate with how we approach sprint planning.
Chloe Hall:
Yeah. And then with that, I could see how doing the retro, how it could easily go over time, but then your team has sprint planning scheduled after. So, it's like you can't go over time. How have you managed to kind of time box that retrospective?
Caitlin Mackie:
Yeah, that's a really, really good question. And it is on purpose as well that they are scheduled closely together. Som as mentioned above, the discussion you've had in the retrospectives provides a nice momentum going to the sprint planning, but it does mean we have to watch the clock. And initially, this can be quite awkward, because you want to make sure that everyone feels heard and that everybody has the same opportunity to contribute. And I think this responsibility falls on the scrum master, or the product owner, or whoever's facilitating the retrospective to call it out and make sure everyone has the chance to be heard. You'll naturally have people tell the longer story or add a lot of extra context before getting to the point. And then you'll have others that will be a lot more direct. And I'm a lot like the latter. I struggle to get to the point, which doesn't work well when you're trying to time box a retrospective, right?
Chloe Hall:
And I can relate, same personality.
Caitlin Mackie:
Yes. So with this, I think it really comes down to communicating the expectation and the priority from the get go. With our team and with any team, you will want to figure out who you can perform really well and continually improve to exceed expectations and be better and learn and grow together. And I think if you all share that same mindset going into the retrospective and acknowledging that it's a safe
space to have difficult conversations. And as long as you're communicating with empathy, the team knows that it's never anything personal, and it's all in the best interest of the team. And that then helps the less direct communicators, like myself, address their point more concisely and really forces them to be more deliberate and succinct with their communication style.Caitlin Mackie:
And that's really key to being able to stick to that time box, I think. And it does take practice, because it comes down to creating that psychological safety in your team. But once that's there, it's so much easier to call out when someone's going down a windy track, and bring the focus back and sort of say, "I hear you, what's the action item?" And just become a lot more deliberate.
Chloe Hall:
Wow. I couldn't even imagine like how hard it would be, with the personalities that yourself and I have, just trying to be so direct and get rid of all the fluffy stuff. I mean, look at what it's done to form such an amazing team that we have. So, you mentioned that aspect of psychological safety before. And how do you think being in a new cross-functional team... Only six months together, you had those new employees, do you think you were able to create a psychological safety space at any point?
Caitlin Mackie:
That's another fantastic question. And I feel like, honestly, it would be best to have a team discussion around this. It'd be interesting to hear everybody's perspectives around what contributes to that element of psychological safety and if everybody feels the same. So, I can't speak for the team, but my personal opinion on this or personal experience is that creating an environment of psychological safety really comes down to a mutual trust and respect. And at the end of the day, we all share the same goal. So, we all really, really respect what each other brings to the table and understand how all of these moving parts that we are working on individually all come together to achieve the goal. So, when we're having these open discussions in retros, or not even in retros, just communicating in general really, it's clear that we're asking questions in the best interest of the team and individual motives never come into play, or people aren't just offering their opinion when it's unwarranted or providing feedback, or being overly critical when they weren't asked to do so.
Caitlin Mackie:
So, none of those toxic behaviors happen, because we all respect that whatever piece of work is in question or the topic of discussion, the person owning that work, at the end of the day, is the expert. And we trust them, and we don't doubt each other for a second. And I think the other half of that is that we're also really lucky that if something doesn't go as we planned, we're all there to pick each other up and go again. So, this ties quite nicely into actually one of our values at Easy Agile is commit as a team. And this is all about acknowledging that we grow and succeed when we do it together, and to look after one another and engage with authenticity and courage. Som I may be biased, but I wholeheartedly believe that our team completely embraces that. And there's just such an admiration for what we all bring to the table, and I think that's really key to creating the psychological safety.
Chloe Hall:
I love that your team is really embracing our value, commit as a team and putting it into place, because that's what we're all about at Easy Agile, and it's just so great to see it as well. I think the other thing that
I wanted to address was... So again, during this cross functional team, and you've got design and dev, how do you think retros assisted you in allowing to work out what design and dev needed from each other?Caitlin Mackie:
For sure. So, for some extra context for our listeners as well, so in our team, we've got two developers, Haley and David, and a designer, Matt and myself, who's in the marketing. So, we're very much a cross-functional little mini team. So, we all have the same goal and that same focus, but we also are all working on these little individual components that we then stitch together. So,, I think... We doing retros regularly. What we were able to identify was a really effective design and development cycle. So, we figured out a rhythm for what one another needed at certain points. For example, something we discovered really early was making sure that we didn't bring design and dev work into the same sprint. We needed to have a completely finished design file before dev starts working on it. And that might sound really obvious, but initially we thought, "Oh, well, if you have a half finished design file, dev can start working on that. And by the time that's done, the rest of the design file will be done."
Caitlin Mackie:
But what we failed to acknowledge is that by doing that, we weren't leaving enough capacity to iterate or address any issues or incorporate feedback on the first part of that design file, or if dev started working on it and design then gets told, "Oh, this part right here, it's not possible," so the designer is back working on the first part. And it just creates a lot of these roadblocks. So in retros, this came up and we were able to raise it and understand that what design needed from dev and what dev needed from design in order to make sure we weren't blockers for each other. And the action item out of the retro is that we all agreed that a design file had to be completely finished before dev picks up the work.
Chloe Hall:
I think it's so great that you were able to identify these blockers early on. Do you think like doing the retro on a weekly reoccurring basis was able to bring up those blockers quickly, or do you think it wouldn't have made a difference?
Caitlin Mackie:
No, definitely. I, a hundred percent, think that retros allowed us to address the blockers in a way more timely and effective manner. And we kind of touched on that before, but yeah, retros let you address the blockers, unpack them, understand why they're happening and what we need to do to make sure they don't happen again. So, for sure.
Chloe Hall:
Yeah. Yeah. I guess I want to talk a little bit now about the wins, the very exciting part of the retro, the part that we all love. So, how important do you think the wins are within the retro?
Caitlin Mackie:
So important. So, so, so important. It's like, when you achieve something epic as a team, you have to call it out. Celebrate all the wins, big, small. Some weeks will be better than others, but embrace that glass half full mentality. And there's always something to be proud of and celebrate, so call it out amongst
each other, share it with the whole company, publicly recognize it. Yeah, I think it's so important to embrace the wins. It just sort of creates a really positive atmosphere when you're in the team, makes everybody feel heard and recognized for their really positive contribution that they're making. And I think a big thing here as well is that if you've achieved something epic as a team, it's helpful for other teams to hear that as well, right? You figured out a cool new way to do something, share it. If it helped you as a team, it's most likely going to help another team.Caitlin Mackie:
So I think celebrating the wins isn't even just reserved for work stuff either, right? If somebody's doing something amazing outside of work or hit a personal goal, get behind it.
Chloe Hall:
Yeah.
Caitlin Mackie:
To celebrate all the wins always.
Chloe Hall:
Yeah. And I think it's so good how you mentioned that it's vital to celebrate the wins of someone's personal life as well, because at the end of the day, we're all human beings. Yes,, we come to work, but we do have that personal element. And knowing what someone's like outside of work as well is an element to creating that psychological safe space and team bonding, which is so vital to having a good team at the end of the day. Yeah.
Caitlin Mackie:
Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, you hit the nail in the head with that. We talked about psychological safety before, and I definitely think incorporating that, acknowledging that, yeah, we are ourselves at work, but we also have a whole other life outside of that too, so just being mindful of that and just cheering each other on all the time. That's what we got to do, be each other's biggest cheerleaders.
Chloe Hall:
Yeah, exactly. That's the real key to success. Isn't it?
Caitlin Mackie:
Yeah, that's it. That's the key.
Chloe Hall:
So, you've been working really well as a new cross functional, high performing Agile team. How do you think... What is your future process for retros?
Caitlin Mackie:
We will for sure continue to do them weekly. It's part of the Agile manifesto, but we want to focus on responding to change, and I think retros really allow us to do that. It's beneficial and really valuable for
the team. And when you can set the team up for success, you're going to see that positive impact that has across the organization as a whole. So yeah, we've found a nice cadence and a rhythm that works for us. So, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.Chloe Hall:
Yeah.
Caitlin Mackie:
Is that what they say? Is that the saying?
Chloe Hall:
I don't know. I think so, but let's just go with it. [inaudible 00:19:02], don't fix it.
Caitlin Mackie:
There we go. Yeah.
Chloe Hall:
You can quote Caitlin Mackie on that one.
Caitlin Mackie:
Quote me on that.
Chloe Hall:
Okay, Caitlin. Well, there's just one final thing that I want to address today. I thought end of the podcast, let's just have a little bit of fun, and we're going to do a little snippet of Caitlin's hot tip. So, for the audience listening, I want you to think of something that they can take away from this episode, an action item that they can start doing within their teams today. Take it away.
Caitlin Mackie:
Okay. Okay. All right. I would say always have the retrospective. Don't skip it. Even if there's minimal items to discuss, new things will always come up. And you have to regularly provide ways for the team to share their thoughts. And I'll leave you with, always promote positive dialogue and show value and appreciation for team ideas and each other. That's my-
Chloe Hall:
I love that.
Caitlin Mackie:
That's my hot tip.
Chloe Hall:
Thanks, Caitlin. Thanks for sharing. I really like how you said always promote positive dialogue. I think that is so great. Yeah. Well, thanks, Caitlin. Thanks for jumping on the podcast today and-Caitlin Mackie:
Thanks, Chloe.
Chloe Hall:
Yeah. Sharing your team's experience with retrospectives and new cross functional team. It's been really nice hearing from you, and there's so much that our audience can take away from what you've shared with us today. And I hope that we've truly inspired everybody listening to get out there and implement the team retrospective on a regular basis. So, yeah, thank you.
Caitlin Mackie:
Thank you so much, Chloe. Thanks for having me. It was fun, fun to be on this side. And I hope everyone enjoys this episode.
Chloe Hall:
Thanks, Caitlin.
Caitlin Mackie:
Thanks. Bye.