Who is Ester?
Ester Ledecka, the world champion snowboarder from the Czech Republic, delivered one of the biggest upsets in Winter Olympics history on Saturday afternoon, coming out of nowhere to win the women’s super-G. Ledecka, is the first ever athlete to compete in both skiing and snowboarding at the Olympics.
What about agile?
Recently I made my first retrospective with a team from which I had only the following information:
- they work in the field of R&D
- they have a PO who brought agile into the project
- they have a part time ScrumMaster
- they are in sprint 40
- the team mood is good
- the project runs fine
- their last retrospective was 2 months ago
Ok, the last info made we wonder, but I made the following assumptions before I prepared the retrospective with the ScrumMaster:
- as researchers they are used to Plan-Do-Check-Act
- as researchers they are curious
- as researchers they are able to transfer an idea
Together with the ScrumMaster I prepared a retrospective along the five phases described in Esther Derbys book “Agile Retrospectives”.
What could be observed during the retro was that they weren’t open for exploring their situation. They were fixated around the idea, that they were „clearly“ spending to much time in meetings. What was easier as to get rid of some?
Their suggestion was either skip the dailies or skip the review as they worked on an Action Template. At first they were not even willing to find a metric, so that they could „proof“ that they achieved a better status for the team after that change.
The PO looked like a beaten dog. I felt really sorry for him at that moment.
How could it have come to that?
Besides some other problems inside the organisation that were later revealed to me, my hypothesis is, that this team has not developed an agile mindset so far.
Three stages to agile maturity:
Kata
In the beginning you have to practice the same things over and over to get them right.
Transform your new habit into a deep understanding
After implementing the Katas into their DNA, a team gains a deeper understanding through their experience.
Be comfy with what you do and find your own way
With an deeper understanding a team can develop from there a unique way of doing things.
Why Ester would be an Olympic Champion in Agile as well?
Ester Ledecka is for sure a big talent. Usually this is not enough for championships. Successful athletes like her spend hours, month, years to prepare.
You lost track on that icy ground beneath the left turn? Try it again, and again, and again – until you don’t have to think about it, but just do. She has for sure a deep understanding about her sports. This is the point where the feeling of flow sets in – or to finish with her words:
“I was probably the only snowboarder on site. All the other girls didn’t risk a lot. There must be a lot of pressure on them. I was just trying to do my best run.”
#belikeester #flowlikewater
What do you think?
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