Lindsay Velecina: 0:03

Welcome to the scrum.org community podcast, a podcast from the home of Scrum. In this podcast we feature professional scrum trainers and other scrum practitioners sharing their stories and experiences to help learn from the experience of others. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Dave West: 0:20

Hello and welcome to the scrum.org community podcast. I'm your host Dave West CEO here@scrum.org. Today's podcast is focused on the journey of one of our amazing PSPs professional scrum trainers. We're very fortunate. I'm very lucky here, I feel very lucky to have Ryan Ripley to join us, Ryan is not only a PST is also a bit of an author fixing your Scrum. Some of you may have read in the Pragmatic Programmer series awesome book around some of the challenges that people have with Scrum and how you can fix it. And then recently published in the professional scrum series and a book on evidence based management with a couple of other authors amazing books. Welcome to the podcast, Ryan.

Ryan Ripley: 1:14

Hey, thanks, Dave. I appreciate that. It's good to see you.

Dave West: 1:17

It's great to see you as well and talk to you today. Also, yes, you you may have heard his dulcet tones. He's a professional podcaster. He also has a podcast called Agile for humans, which I've been lucky to go on once or twice and it's a really amusing and intelligent and there's some great things that come out of it. So So yeah, he's got that voice. Yeah,

Ryan Ripley: 1:45

we accidentally say a few smart things every once in a while.

Dave West: 1:49

Just in spite of who's there? Yes. I do appreciate this. So first before we get into the sort of details of the of the of the podcast, tell us a little bit about your where you from? Were you talking to us from Ryan? I

Ryan Ripley: 2:06

am currently sitting in a chilly Valparaiso, Indiana which is Northwest Indiana, just below Lake Michigan. How about that?

Dave West: 2:16

Wow. I've never been to vous vous Ciresi, Rausser Valparaiso, Valparaiso.

Ryan Ripley: 2:22

We just say Valpo. We can't really say it either. So we just say Malkin,

Dave West: 2:26

if

Ryan Ripley: 2:27

it's the they call it the region. So it's Northwest Indiana. And we most of us just say we're a suburb of Chicago. How about that?

Dave West: 2:35

Oh, that makes that makes a lot of sense. And it. It is a little chilly here in Boston as well. I guess it's the time of the year. So. So let's lean into this whole background and your journey. Becoming a professional scrum trainer. Let's start with your experience before Scrum. What were you doing just before you discovered Scrum.

Ryan Ripley: 2:57

So I was a software developer for a number of years, I think I spent 10 or 12 years as a Java developer, working in startups working in Fortune five hundreds. And throughout, you know, as a developer, there were certain opportunities when project managers would quit that I would kind of dive into that role for a little bit, to kind of help the team keep moving along. I enjoyed that. And so at some point, I moved from software development into project management. And when you land a few projects pretty well. And of course, it's because the team did great. It's typically not just a project manager making it happen. They move you into some management and leadership roles and along the way, and so they keep promoting you well past your competency. At least for me, it was I got I got rocketed way past what I was competent to do. But during my project management stint, I was fortunate enough. Well, look, I suffered. I think most people suffer through projects, you suffer through Gantt charts, you suffer through project plans. There's always the as a former developer, there's always that little tinge of guilt of like, Hey, we got to do Saturdays we got to go on this death march we got it and it just never felt quite right. And so I tried to, to do things in a certain way to alleviate some of that, but could never find the one thing that would that would solve that issue. And then I was fortunate enough to attend a ALM conference. I think it was in 2010 where Ken shaver was presenting a course along with, you know, HUD housing and Steve Porter and a whole cast of PSDs with them. And I got to go to the one day of that, and then my company paid extra for the extra day with Ken and after that, like it, trajectory changed completely. Right. So it had to be right up until That moment. Kind of, uh, okay, was waterfall still comfortable with software. But after that experience like leading right up to that introduction to Scrum, like, after that I was I was hooked.

Dave West: 5:13

Yes, I was I was at that conference, by the way, just as a, as a as a bizarre coincidence, either. I was working for a company called Tasktop at that time. And we were we had a booth. And I spent quite a lot of time with Ken at that conference. So it's maybe a had a big impact on both of us because I, that was when Ken and I increased the rhythm of our of our meetings as we started talking about the future. And so long time ago now, but pretty awesome.

Ryan Ripley: 5:46

Yeah, no, it was a great event. Like I, what shocked me was that day to you, too, because we paid for like a half day to just sit down with Ken and ask him anything and work through Scrum, super patient. And so just, you know, I was asking very stupid questions, and he was giving very great answers. And he was very patient with the group. And it just seemed like if you were, well, what I really appreciate it was, if you were honest about trying to figure out what he was saying he was very patient with you. If you were wasting his time, he was very direct about getting rid of you. And it was a real like it was, but it wasn't a good way. Like it was a really good lesson learned. And he was just so patient with the teaching. And by the end of it, a lot of stuff made sense, gave us a couple books, and it was just an awesome, awesome experience.

Dave West: 6:38

Yeah, it is the that's definitely true of Ken, that if you're actually if he sees that you're in pursuit of that outcome that he cares about, which is delivering valuable software, software and products in a in a way that doesn't destroy the humanity of the team. If you're on that pursuit, I think that he's an incredibly patient teacher, he was for me as well over the last 20 years that I've I've worked off and on with him, which is incredible. Alright, so now, you've got Scrum. You've had that moment, you've had that epiphany. You've had that like, Oh, what did you do? Then? I

Ryan Ripley: 7:20

went back to where I was working. And I was that crazy guy running around, we do everything different. And my boss pulled me aside. And he said, I'm really glad you're excited, Ryan, I think this stuff is gonna work great, slow down. And so I just went back to the and we just made very after I kind of like calmed down a bit. You know, I was still in contact with, you know, guys like Steve Porter. And with Honda Hausen, and a few other trainers and classmates. And you know, after a few phone calls and emails, we decided, hey, let's just do a definition of done, let's start doing a daily scrum, let's kind of ease into this. And within a few months, we were we were utilizing the whole framework, probably not well. But after a while, our teams that were under our, my boss, and, and my, my, as a project manager, you know, my direction, we started out delivering other teams. And we started getting and people actually started asking to join our teams. And so it was just, it kind of, it started quiet. And then it got a lot of attention. And so that then moved me to my boss, he left the company, I ended up getting promoted, ended up bringing scrum to a whole department and worked through it. But I was the scrum master manager, like I would go in and I would be no one else had the training. And so we started mentoring and teaching others but I would do both roles. And I did that as a director as VP is, you know, through various companies large and small, and it just worked that way. But it getting back to that company. Initially, I was the crazy guy. But then we kind of calmed down and just started getting quick wins. And that was a I think that was a big turning point for my career.

Dave West: 9:10

So incremental value being delivered on top of each other over and over again. And then that created the environment where everybody wanted to work in this way. Absolutely. Yep. Yeah, maybe a precursor to some of your EBM kind of thoughts, which will, which we'll talk about in a little while. I do want to pick up on something that you said there, which is a little contentious, a little scary. Maybe your manager and Scrum Master.

Ryan Ripley: 9:40

Yeah, I'm a big fan. I recently put a blog post out on the scrum.org site that got a lot of attention. A lot of comments out on LinkedIn, a lot of positive a lot of negative. I'm really coming around to this idea that a a manager or leader with the right mindset could be a great scrum master If only because they have the positional authority to get rid of impediments quicker. And I found that when I was in the roles where when I, when I had the manager title when I could walk in a room and get someone's attention and get something fixed, I was more effective. But that is a scary thought to some people that oh my gosh, my manager is also the scrum master. But I I think that authority is helpful. I can also people will say, but that could also be abused. Absolutely. I think that is true. But yeah, it's a it's a thought that's evolving, at least in some circles, that maybe that's a way to go.

Dave West: 10:40

So the biggest criticism, obviously, in that I don't want to spend the whole podcast talking about this, I want to get back to your journey in a second. But the the biggest criticism that's leveled is that they say it in it discourages transparency. Sure. Because ultimately, manager you report to this person, you're not going to tell them when things are bad, you're going to tell them when things are good. What's your perspective on that?

Ryan Ripley: 11:07

My perspective is, I always take this back ever since having kids I started thinking about because I'm not saying that people at work are children. But I think there's some good behavioral parallels. When I tell my kids, you can bring anything to me, actually, let me take it out of my kids. I worked for a great VP. And one of my last roles before going independent. And he had a situation where his son was out. They had been drinking. He called his dad, he called his VP, his dad came and got him no questions asked, got his son home, everybody's safe. And we're sitting down and talk because my kids were little, and he would give good advice. And we talked a lot about life and kids and, and relationships. And he said, Hey, well, actually, I went to him and said, How did you get that? I mean, how did you get him to where he trusted you completely to call you. And he said, Ryan, I sat him down when he got his license. And we started going out with his friends. And I said, Look, if you're ever in a spot to where you have to get into a car with someone who has been drinking to get home, or if you're in a spot where you have to get into a car with someone, and it's dangerous, if you call me I will come and get you, I will never ask you any questions about it, you will go straight to bed and you'd better not wake your mother up. Right? Like that was the deal. And he said, All I did was follow through on the deal. I picked him up, we didn't say a word in the car, we got home, he didn't wake his mother up, no problem. Now, of course, he talked to his wife the next day and explain what happened. But we weren't going to cause a scene that night was his he wasn't deceiving his spouse, he was just not causing a scene that night. And it was a very impactful story on me it was, you know, you make a deal, you keep it. And so I think as a manager, you sit down with your team and say, Look, I'm going to fill this role because I'm going to be able to get rid of the problems and the impediments quicker. If something comes up, if there's a mistake, if there's a bad check in, if someone does something stupid, you're never gonna see it on your report or on your annual report, you're never gonna see it in your review. It's not going to impact your compensation. You know, and that's it. And then you have to follow through on that. And if you follow through on that, I think you can get rid of the majority of the negativity, or the concern around transparency, if you don't follow through, it doesn't work at all.

Dave West: 13:25

I mean, I have the exact same opinion about the role of Scrum Master. In fact, if you read that seminal piece that that came presented at Uppsala in 95, the the the he talks about the sort of agile manager, the manager plays the role of the scrum master or takes those accountabilities we would say now, and I see you know, bad managers, I crap Scrum Masters as simple as that. But that having that the most successful Scrum Masters have had have the ability to get things done. And that's the my experience and that, that that ability is crucial. Now how they do that sometimes it requires you to be a manager in an organization. Sometimes there's some sort of other status power or authority model. You know, these things, these things are very sorry, but I did want to lean into that because I think it's really interesting your perspective because your experience because you've done that you were in that in that role. Okay. So now suddenly, you've you've now got a throne and a crown and you're like managing lots of people and and being a sort of not that bad scrum master when what happened next?

Ryan Ripley: 14:46

Yeah, I continued working. So I did a number of years in that scrum master manager ish kind of limbo, and there are a few companies switches along the way right mergers acquisition. shins and downsizings. And I might have done a few things to get fired along the way.

Dave West: 15:06

But I can't I can't believe that no,

Ryan Ripley: 15:08

I might have like, sparked too much of a rebellion a few times. But no, I mean, I think life happens and you move around and your parents get older and you switch positions to get close to them. And along the way you kind of weave through different companies. But all the while trying to get better at the core SCRUM masters like I never went for the Agile Coach stuff. Like I never tried to fashion myself as a life coach or Agile coach, or any of that stuff. I really loved being a scrum master. I thought that was and so I really worked hard to improve my skills, I took a lot of courses, a lot of professional a lot of scrum.org stuff before I was a trainer. And I really just tried to like sharpen the saw, you know, just want to try to be the best manager, leader director I could be, and just got a ton of experience worked in companies for the better part of 20 years, through varying levels of responsibility, but always connected to a team. I never wanted to get promoted away from working with teams. And so I wouldn't take positions that they would that would cause that. And so after a while, I just the the allure of working for myself, you know, because I really think I could have gone through and around the corner office and done all of that. But that terrified me. You know that that whole another 20 years dedicated to working inside orgs just frightened I it wasn't it wasn't appealing. And I I was very encouraged by scrum.org. So Dave, you've always been a huge encouragement. And you've always spoken well into my career. There have been other PSPs like checks us check. Steve Porter, Richard Hunt house, and Todd Miller. Always super supportive. And I'm missing Stephanie Ackerman, Jill graves, rich Stotsky. Like there's just such a wonderful community of people who have always been encouraging to become a trainer and helped with that process. And so I finally took that plunge and got a wonderful education, especially from Stephanie, and your staff. You know, Daphne leveled me up as a definitely Harris leveled me up as a trainer and Scrum Master as well. And through that time and effort and support, ended up transitioning to my own company for a while. And then partnered with Todd Miller, a fellow PST out of the Pennsylvania area too. Now we run agile for humans, full time, we're in our second or third year now, third year, I think. And we just haven't looked back from there. But I just spent a lot of time working. Like I really just put my head down and tried to get really good at the craft before doing anything else. And I think that's paid off.

Dave West: 18:05

It was interesting, I first saw you, at a conference, though we were at conferences, it turns out at the same time, and maybe walking past each other in line for the beer, you know, for the beer at the reception. The first time I actually remember seeing you really paying attention to you, you were speaking I can't remember which conference, I think it was in Orlando, it might have been somewhere else. Maybe Vegas, and you were talking about new estimates. And you know, and I sat down, you know, and listen to you, and that not only was it quite an entertaining talk, which I always liked, you know, me, I there was also the fact that it was pragmatic. And I think one thing that's really important about our community and you embody this, you know, we just had the conversation about managers, right? That we aren't telling you, you must be a manager or you mustn't, but what we are telling you is from our experience, you need to the best Scrum Masters have the ability and the power to actually shake down impediments get rid of impediments as it were, right? And so, as pragmatic, you know, the reality is, depending on your organization, depending on the situation, what that really means is going to play out very differently. And I remember listen to the no estimates talk. You know, because there's there is some there is a religion in the broadest sense of the word around estimates, no estimate story points, no story points. And you managed to be very pragmatic, focusing on the most important thing about about any of this stuff, which is delivering value frequently to customers, and to users to stakeholders deliver getting that stuff out, and the estimates and and all the other things we do are part of this journey, and I thought that pragmatism was key.

Ryan Ripley: 19:56

I appreciate that that talk I think was 27 tene or agile 2017 in Orlando. And if I remember that talk correctly, that was slammed full of people very angry with me for giving that talk. I was surprised I got out of there unscathed. Like they were there were literally people shouting questions and rebuttals. And yeah, that was a wild talk, I didn't even realize you were there. So that's pretty cool. That, but you know what that is that I was speaking as much as I could at conferences, I spent, you know, and at times my wife was even, like, what are we doing? I was spending, you know, 1000s and 1000s out of pocket to travel around. But I think that even that, you know, handling a room like that teaches you how to be a good trainer, I think. And so I was always trying to, to level up by speaking, making sure that I could present making sure I could handle criticism, which I still struggle with, to varying degrees today. You know, working through all that, but, um, but yeah, that was a wild one. And if I'm honest, it was fun to like, it was fun to just have people so riled up, but, but at the end, they couldn't, to your point, couldn't argue with the pragmatism of delivering value. And it's like, and that was the the crux and I, maybe to a fault, I lean more towards the getting something shipped, and then we'll make everything look pretty later. But I think that pragmatism is what makes a lot of what we do, as PSPs. I think that's why we do do well in the marketplace.

Dave West: 21:42

Yeah, I think so. I mean, there is the there's always this tension. And in scrum.org, between, we like a consistent terminology. We like good, we consistent language, we like the the consistency of our training classes, for instance, is one of the things that sells and we would argue, however, we also have to balance that with the reality is and Ken says this over and over, again, really, is that your Scrum is going to be different from my scrum because of the environment and the context in which you're executing. It's a framework, not a methodology. And you navigated that, No, you weren't talking particularly about Scrum. In that in that room in Orlando, you navigated that so well, I then became, you know, a fan and stalked you for a little while, right?

Ryan Ripley: 22:37

I'm glad you did. Dave, I'm, I'm forever grateful to you and Ken and Chris, and, and all of the staff, I mean, the the life that this path is enabled is wonderful. So I'm glad that I'm glad that we were inadvertently bouncing between conferences together and the it's the it's like serendipity, right?

Dave West: 22:57

Serendipity. It's like that tech, blending of power to film was it sliding doors or whatever. Without the attractive people fabulous cast, fabulous script, etc. And a lot more beer was consumed. All right, so as we bring this podcast to an end, I want to, you know, I'd like to just quickly talk about evidence based management. So, you know, professional Scrum, you got introduced to the community you started working with, you know, people like Patricia and Kurt betnow. And all these people are and suddenly you discovered, maybe something that could deliver a context to professional Scrum. Talk a little bit about your experience and why you why you've written a book on EBM Todd made me do it. Very passionate about EBM do not get into a room and and say Oh, I don't like EBM we've taught me a lot just

Ryan Ripley: 24:00

now. So Todd is so my business partner, Todd Miller, we co wrote fixing your Scrum. He's one of the authors. On EBM, I think he's probably one of the along with trician. Kurt, one of the foremost experts on it in the world. He's got so much experience on it. I wasn't initially bought into it. And it was Todd who really convinced me that this was a thing. And part of it is you know, you kind of look at it and you think well, I've done that kind of stuff before I've tracked things and I've used data, but then you really dig into EBM, and it's the goals. It's such a goal driven framework. And that that insight didn't really click with me early on, Todd really has has convinced me of that, that it's really the goal is not the evidence that is important. Now you set these great levels of goals, you measure that you're making progress towards them. And that appealed to me, because there's this underlying assumption that I think we all make that Oh yeah. ScrumOrg Yeah, agile works, why wouldn't it? It's like, Yeah, but how do you know? And that's an uncomfortable question for every trainer, every scrum master every Agile coach, and I just I like uncomfortable quiet. Let's just answer it. And for me, after a lot of work with Todd, I give Todd all the credit on being that driving force for EBM, after working with him quite a bit, we run our company from day one, we've run our company from day one with EBM, I've seen the power of it firsthand as it has impacted our income. And I don't want to go down this path of you know, make a ton of money with IBM. I don't think that's the point. The point is it forced us to ask a lot of good questions. And that's when it clicked in my head that there's really something here. The questions that it drives as you try to achieve goals is, is just phenomenal. And at that point, I was hooked. Read every white paper on the scrum.org website. I've annoyed curtain Trish to the point to where I'm still surprised the answer my emails titled talk to me all day about EBM. And so between those influences just really dug in and said yeah, this is how we could potentially answer is are the things we're doing smart. And are they leading to the outcomes we want? And I think that is actually you know, everyone asked us what's after scrum what's after scrum it it's I don't think it's what's after Scrum. It's what what's the next thing to enhance it? What's the thing that that proves the efficacy of what we're doing? Like when we say a scrum master is supposed to amplify the effectiveness of a scrum team. How do we know they did that? I think EBM can answer that question. And that's why you'll see Todd and myself and others. I think that's where there's a lot of interest growing it's well hey, wait a minute. Did I actually do something good? So let's try to figure that out. And I think that's the hook. Like that's the allure to it.

Dave West: 27:02

Yeah, I think that you know, I I'm in awe of the idea of empirical processes. The idea of of that, I think that is a fundamental tenant and most organizations aren't I think they deliver product accidentally, almost, I hate to say that choices are complicated, and they're definitely not driven by clear goals. I think smaller startups, that's less true. But the bigger the organization gets, the more complicated it is to decide what to do. And I'm in pursuit of that. I discovered EBM, I was introduced to it by Ken. He said this is more important than Scrum. I was like, well hang on a minute here. You know, the scrum pays my mortgage, what's this thing. And over the last probably 767 years, I've been fortunate enough to spend time with Todd and see it and we ourselves try to do it badly. But we try@scrum.org have to very clear goals and measure the outcomes that those goals are delivering and have reframed. backlogs to be more in line with that. So it was great that we managed to add that book to the professional scrum series. I was really excited that you all wanted to write it. And I'd like to thank you. Thank you for that. Oh,

Ryan Ripley: 28:31

it was all our pleasure. We got access to your staff and able to spend a lot of time with Trish and Kurt. And now feeling's mutual. We were happy to do it. And we just hope it gets in a lot of hands. Neil, it's great to write a book, but it's we'd love to see it get out there and used by the world. I I agree with Ken to an extent that and I know you do, too, that EBM is important. And I just wish people would use it. It's your but you did kind of there's a thread there that I pull on just for a second that it is scary for a big company to look at this stuff. And that is the nut that we have to crack. Like we have to figure out how do we make EBM non offensive to a large corporation. And that's something that because it is offensive, it'll it'll point out this was not a smart thing to do. This did not lead to the outcome we wanted. This was not this was budget we could have spent better elsewhere. And that is terrifying to people. And we have to sort out how to make it but I think it also comes back to Dave that discussion about the manager Scrum Master. How do we not punish people who I'm also being a scrum master for and if it wasn't for all this people stuff? These frameworks would work just fine when they

Dave West: 29:49

Yeah, I mean, the issue I see over and over again is that status position and power and authority are tied not to the outcomes the organization not to the customers. The organization serves, they're tied to the systems and processes the organizations have created to serve those people. And then ultimately, what ABM does and to be and to some extent scrum as well is it comes along and breaks out or at least encourages us to break that, which makes it almost impossible to drive that level of change. Because it is, it's, it's scary, it scares the BGB is, I think, is an American expression that I've never used before. I'm probably never use again, but the bejesus out of people, I think, I

Ryan Ripley: 30:35

think, you know, I wholeheartedly agree with you, I think that is the problem to solve. And we might end up in an economic climate and environment where it's not going to be optional to solve, like, we have to solve that. If it's consolidation continues and in corporations, if winning and losing truly depends on getting great products out the door, you know, to me, Scrum isn't, or at least an agile method, or framework is no longer optional. In development. If you're not working iterative and incrementally, closely tied to a customer, or, or product person, you're dead, like things are not gonna go well, I think we might be entering into this new digital era, where good stewardship of funds and the continuous drive to be aligned to the goals and the outcomes. It may just not be optional, right. And that that might help us and hurt us in the short run, but it could lead to some of these ideas rapidly getting adopted as well. So we'll see my crystal ball is broken. So I don't know quite yet how it's gonna work. So I

Dave West: 31:46

asked. Yes, i If only I could find my crystal ball. But I seem to have lost it. The Yeah, I think that's a really, I agree. I mean, ultimately, I think our mission@scrum.org is, I mean, it's enabled by scrum by ABM. But ultimately, it's about helping these these people in teams deliver on that promise in spite of the environment that they're in. So I'm very glad that you're part of this journey. Ryan Ripley, thank you so much for spending the time with me today, and sharing with our listeners your journey to become a professional scrum trainer.

Ryan Ripley: 32:27

Well, thank you, Dave. It's always great to get a few minutes with you. And I hope we talk more next year as well.

Dave West: 32:34

I'm sure we will. So they gentlemen, this is the scrum.org community podcast. I was am your host, Dave West, CEO here@scrum.org. We were very lucky. I was very lucky. And hopefully you shed some of that look to be listening to Ryan Ripley, one of our VSTS author of fixing your Scrum and recent book evidence based management, also a fellow podcaster agile for humans, I recommend signing up for that podcast. It's it's an entertaining ride with Todd and Ryan. So thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed today's come back for more. We've got a great library of some very interesting podcasts over PST sharing their journey but also some other other people talking on this podcast about professional scrum agility and how it's changed their lives and the value they're delivering to their stakeholders to their customers and their teams. Thanks for listening. Scrum on