Lindsay Velecina: 0:00

Steve, 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. Hello and welcome

Dave West: 0:21

to the scrum.org community podcast. I'm your host, Dave West, CEO, here@scrum.org in today's podcast, we're lucky to talk to David Spinks, a professional scrum trainer, and he's gonna be talking to us about transparency, and when transparency hurts, that sounds that sounds awful, doesn't it? But anyway, welcome to the podcast, David.

David Spinks: 0:41

Thank you very much. Dave, pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me on the podcast.

Dave West: 0:45

It's great. I actually the reason why we invited you and scheduled this was because you recently wrote a blog about transparency that I was fortunate enough to read. The title is when transparency hurts in toxic environments, right? So the the word toxic and hurt made me instantly read it, which probably says awful things about me, but I was, I was really intrigued by it. So tell me a little bit about why you wrote about transparency and in particular, how it hurting rather than helping. Yes, it's

David Spinks: 1:27

it was a there's an idea for a blog that's kind of been in my head for a while. You kind of see these sort of posts and comments on things like social media. If you've never been fired as a Scrum Master, you're no good kind of insinuating that you've kind of got to die on your sword for, you know, to push things like transparency. So it kind of got me thinking. I mean, first of all, transparency is a core part of Scrum, right? If the team and the organization is healthy, transparency is brilliant, right? It means that we can make better decisions. It means that our decisions are going to be based on good evidence and data. Because it's transparent, it means that we can take the right actions. Transparency is a great tool for building trust, so the list goes on. But if we can't just shout about transparency and expect miracles to happen if the culture is not right for it. So I'm thinking that, you know, and I've seen it myself. In a lot of environments, people might be punished for making mistakes even if they're trying to do the right thing. Or in other environments, people being micromanaged. Some organizations, there's a lot of politics involved, or the culture is such that people are just kind of out for themselves, really like that. You know these reward systems that reward individuals rather than teams that we often see in organizations. So in these sorts of places, full blown Transparency can become a bit of a weapon. So if the environment does have that toxicity to it, if the scrum values are not really followed, if we push transparency too hard, some people can be burned for being open, for being transparent. So like I say, when I see this advice out there about Scrum Masters and agile practitioners, we should die on our sword in the name of full transparency, I feel maybe that's a bit idealistic, and I kind of just wanted to sort of counter opinion out there with the blog and to say, hey, need to be a bit more pragmatic.

Dave West: 3:27

I think I've heard many Scrum Masters talk about their desire to, you know, be so supporting of the scrum values that if an organization can't live up to them, that they will leave and and that, you know, fair play to them if that's what they want. However, ultimately, how many opportunities are we not delivering on and how many situations are we not helping? Because transparency is a trait of an environment. You know, how transparent can you be in a particular environment, that each environment is very different, and the culture of those environments, what we what we reward, both literally with bonuses, promotions and and less visibly with power and status. What which of those is important, what we reward is important so and, and I think transparency is something that is incredibly important for scrum to succeed, however, to get there is is a journey, right? And I think that's what you were talking about around how you can be aware of the environment and manage accordingly. Talk a little bit about that. I mean, all right, you're in this toxic environment, working this investment bank where everybody swears at each other and they're, you know, they're all wearing big suits. Actually, I probably they don't do that. I was thinking of Wolf of Wall Street there for a minute, which is probably or Wall Street the movie with Michael do. Ugly. That's probably not the world now, they're probably wearing, you know, Lululemon or something, but, but they're in this, you know, investment bank, high, you know, high energy, lot of swearing, a lot of shouting, very what you describe as toxic. You know, you're trying to build a product for them. We know that transparency is crucial to Scrum and the product to be successful. What do we do? David, I think

David Spinks: 5:28

just thinking about what you've said there, I was thinking, you know, transparency is at all, it's, it's, I don't see it just as the goal, like we're just not doing being transparent for the sake of it. So what we trying to do with transparency, and as I said before, it's about making the right information available, making decision making better. It's about building trust. So you're right. It's, it's part of a cultural thing, right? We can't change the culture overnight. Implementing Scrum is maybe the easy bit. We can get people up to speed with their scrum events, what the accountabilities are, etc. That's the easy part. But I think what we're talking about here is changing the culture to enable the right level of transparency that we need, and that takes time. So my advice is, a scrum master as a as a change agent, it's, it's it's doing these little things over time. It's being the model for transparency in the way that you act as well, and that sort of stuff can start to influence other people. So it's these things to influence, rather than sort of waving the scrum guide around and saying, we need to follow these values. It's being that example of transparency, you know, admitting when you're uncertain or when there's uncertainty in the environment, embracing that, it's also understanding the context as well, right? Where is the team? Where's the organization at where are they? Meet them, where they are. And you know, that's a that's a saying we often say, in our in our in our realm, I suppose. So it's looking out for those small opportunities, even if it's on a one to one basis. Is there an opportunity to give someone the opportunity to speak out or be transparent a way that they might not have been before? And again, it's building up that trust and safety, sort of over time. It's working with the right people, with the right authority to look at how you know, they behave, how how people are rewarded. Are people rewarded for individual heroics? Maybe that's something we should sort of look and point towards and say, hey. The consequence of that is this sort of follow on behavior. So again, I think it's changing agents and Scrum Masters. Part of what we need to do is there's a line that I used in the blog, which was about transparency, isn't about shouting the truth, it's about illuminating the way. So it sounds more of a softly, softer year approach, but I think it's like I say, holding up a mirror rather than, you know, shoving a light in people's face, if that makes sense.

Dave West: 8:13

Yeah, I think that what's interesting is, let's use that investment banker bank as an as an example. This is a fictitious bank. We are not going to be sued by any large Wall Street organization. I'm just making this up, but let's use this investment bank. So, you know, in a culture where it is incredibly aggressive, where it's very, you know, very, I want to say a boys or, you know, that kind of bro kind of culture, transparency will look quite different to in a culture, you know, even just down the street at maybe a health insurance company or or or a hospital or something where there's a different kind of a kind of environment, For instance, an investment bank, I would encourage us to the transparency through documentation, make it all about the system, not about the individual, becomes an incredibly powerful tool there, because then you're not positioning yourself as weakness. In fact, what you're doing is you're highlighting and obviously data is important to investment bankers, whereas maybe at this health insurance company down the road, the, you know, there it is more about allowing people to share things in a in a facilitated, liberated structures kind of way. You know, there's, I think it, and I think that's the crucial thing, right? You have to look at the environment and respond to it.

David Spinks: 9:47

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Context, context matters, right? And, you know, I've worked as a software developer, and there's a certain culture of teams in that place. You know, in. Commerce versus, like I say, working in a team in finance, even though it's the same industry, even you still get very different cultures across different companies. And again, I think that's something that we should all be learning as Scrum Masters, change agents. It's recognizing that, you know, a lot of organizations, a lot of teams are different culturally, and something that worked with one team might not work with another. Some teams might need you to go in and be what's the word I'm looking for? Dictatorial. I don't want to Yeah, a little more

Dave West: 10:36

context. A little bit more loud, a little bit Yeah, a bit more confident. Have you seen this a little bit more confrontational

David Spinks: 10:43

and and sometimes teams do need that, right? But some teams you could maybe just get the, not get the reaction that you're looking for. But you could have seen, you know, you could have experienced that working with one team. But then you go into another team, that health insurance, that you know, that E commerce team, whatever it is, and you know, you might push them over an edge, and again, you break, you broken that trust. So yeah, taking that little bit of investment, that bit of time just to understand the context. And I remember reading Ken's first book, he kept talking about Scrum being the art of the possible, right? So if you don't understand the context, how can you even start to figure out what's possible was, where am I overstepping? Where am I? Where am I going? Too far, too fast?

Dave West: 11:30

Yeah, I think, I think that that's interesting. You know, the the art of the possible is only possible because of the people in the environment and the culture around it and and the situation is everything you know, and I think that is, is super important that we often, you know, apply, particularly as a scrum master, there is a there is a desire to apply the playbook that you're interested in and You've learned, but actually, and one that maybe errs to your strengths when actually you need to apply the playbook that your audience needs in the in the situation and experimentation is crucial, right? David, I mean, ultimately trying things and understanding the impact of those things,

David Spinks: 12:22

right? I mean, we talk about inspection and adaptation in scrum all the time, right? Our other two pillars, and that should apply to our own approaches, right? We come in, we've we're taking some approach, we've maybe taken on that more confrontational approach, and we've not got the reaction that we're looking right? We've got the feedback that actually this has not been effective. We need to adapt our approach. Think of something else. Try something else

Dave West: 12:48

and and this is where It's turtles all the way down, right the how transparent should you be about your transparency? That's an interesting question onto itself, because there's been situations where I've been very upfront, and by the way, I'd like to officially say I'm not a scrum master. Should never be a Scrum Master. Don't allow me to be a scrum master. I am not. I do not have those aspirations or skills. I'm your product person. I love product ownership. But there are situations where, you know, I'm very explicit about my plan and why I'm approaching things in a way like this. And there's other situations where that actually would be counterproductive, you know, and and I I tend to look like I'm making it up as I go along. And by the way, sometimes that is totally the case. But do you agree that? Because, yeah, I mean, you say walk the values, but sometimes that can be challenging unto itself.

David Spinks: 13:54

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if we talk about organizations going full transparency, I think at the very least it could just be overwhelming for people, right? It's like there's too much information, there's too much going on. Oh my god, what about this? And again, people that might not fully embraced the complex world that we live in and the uncertainty that could actually be demotivating and scary for for some people, in a way. So yeah, I can, I completely buy into that as well. But yeah, full transparent. I mean, I know some come I've heard stories of some companies where they're saying, Yeah, full transparency, let's make everybody salary transparent to everybody in the organization, right? And, okay, fine, if that works for you, okay, but I suspect in most organizations, that was going to create more problems. So it's not transparency for the sake of it, right? It's like, what? Why enabling that transparency? What? How is it helping for building trust? How is it helping for better decision making? You,

Dave West: 15:00

it's funny, the salary thing we talked about that@scrum.org and the biggest reason why we didn't do it sto, because we're willing to experiment with crazy ass ideas. Here it was, because context is everything, and it's really hard to share all the context. You know the market rate, the experience, the you know the loyalty, the all of that, because those things are very nuanced and require high bandwidth communication, which isn't possible to do to broadcast and and I know that sounds like an excuse, and we have members of our community, the wouldn't, wouldn't agree of that. However, the reality is the new the context is everything in the example and, and that's true about other things as well. You know, there's nuances, and some of them, nobody can know everything. And one of the biggest challenges I have with the word transparency is, where is that boundary? When? When does it become private? Privacy, for instance, when is it private? When? So for instance, a great example. You're working in a team. Somebody has a very personal problem that has affected their performance. You're in a retro situation, and that person doesn't want to share the fact that his son or daughter had a drug overdose, or is, you know, something that was very private. However, the you know, it did affect the outcome of the increment. You know, we undermined our ability to deliver the increment because that person wasn't available, or when they were, they were very fairly thinking about other things as a leader, you know, that that was communicated to me, but I can't tell the team. That's an example of, what the heck do you do in those situations?

David Spinks: 17:04

Yeah, yeah. And that's even if you've got the best culture in the world, right, where people are collaborative, and they are, you know, working well, and they have got that sort of right culture in place, there's still a line there, right? You know, there's a there's that, there's that personal boundary and, you know, and again, I think transparency is going to be very personal to individuals as well, right where, you know, I'm, I'm a relatively introverted person. There's things that I don't particularly like, wouldn't want to be transparent about. You know, there's a separation for me between the teams that I work with them, you know, my personal life. So, yeah, I think there's a there's these, these personal values come into it as well, and these personal boundaries,

Dave West: 17:51

yeah, and the word professional is an interesting one in that context, because, you know, when I started work in 92 gosh, I feel ridiculously old now. And it was, there was a separation of work and home was very, very important. But the the, you know, over time, that's become less important, maybe, but there are certain things where it's still incredibly important. And I think it an environment can be just as toxic. And you use the word toxic when we force people that aren't comfortable in that to be like, because that's the norm, you know, like, Oh, what did you do at the weekend? Who are you? You know, what's your partner's name? Where does it you know, what you know, etc, etc, and it you understanding how to create a team that's high performing, that's delivering incredibly well, that's being appropriately transparent when necessary, that that is the skill of the scrum master, right? Or the delivery lead, or whoever's leading that team. And it's yeah, it's

David Spinks: 19:05

hard, yeah, yeah. You made me think of someone that I know, and they have this meeting, this team meeting, that I have on a Monday morning. And it's the pretense of something that looks like a daily scrum, but effectively, it's the what did you do at the weekend meeting? And it's like for team bonding and team collaboration, and it goes on for like half an hour on a Monday morning. And even though, on the surface it looks like, you know, it's creating great team morale and team working person I'm talking to, they dread it. It's like, I just want to get on with my work. I don't want to, yeah, at the weekend, I just, I just sat and watched TV the whole weekend, because I just felt and then I'm gonna be judged. Yeah,

Dave West: 19:55

Joel, I went off and did a triathlon. And, you know, pickled. 400 herrings, and yeah, and you always feel like you're being judged. And it's funny, because in some environments, you'd think that was a really great thing, and it's, yeah, it's like that the jokey culture. You know, when you take it apart, there's always somebody that doesn't particularly like it. And, and that's the reason why@scrum.org we try to follow the golden rule, that actually the platinum rule, not the golden rule. We do unto others as they want to be done onto, not how we want to be done onto. So we, we try to be empathic. We try to, I mean, whether we always succeed, David, because I can be a bit of a bundle Bush, you know. I tend to, oh, what about this? And, oh, let's get and I get overly excited, you know. So I think that the, you know, there's a there's an opportunity. The other thing that you said, and I'd sort of want to bring it back, it takes time, and I think that's something that we don't kind of understand. Humans are actually quite slow to change, unless there's some sort of major crisis, you know, like there's a fire or something. But in general, behaviors, particularly these ingrained, often culturally and behaviorally, you know, defined, you know, these behaviors that are defined by the culture they come from that or, you know, some of the experience of the human being that they take time to change, right?

David Spinks: 21:29

Yeah, and I think it's even bigger than that, because it's not just the psychology of an individual, it's the sociology of a group, right? Is that? Is that, is that group? So, again, we talk about, you know, Scrum Master as a coach, Agile coach, but that's just, that's not just coaching people, individually, one to one, one on one, it's we, you can then scale it up to the team, and then the organization as a whole. So I think that's one of the reasons why it's hard to change culture, because it's not just individuals, it's that whole sort of herd mentality, if you like. And yeah, that takes time, and it takes leadership bandwidth, I believe, because it's about messaging. It's about that consistency. It's how you look at the reward system does. You can't do it overnight, with a with a with a with a cultural workshop, or putting up some posters on the wall night. It's something that has to sort of become ingrained into the organization. And the more the environment is, a is a difficult one. The more toxic is, the harder it is, because trust has been broken, because people are reluctant. They've been burnt in the past. Why would I? Why would I speak out again? I just want to keep my head down and, you know, get, get through the day,

Dave West: 22:56

through the day. Yeah, I'm here to work, not for anything else that kind of situation. So, right? So as we come to end of this podcast, and you know, we try to keep these relatively short, and we could talk for days about this, I've got a filing cabinet of examples of when I've done completely the wrong thing and created the opposite of what I was trying to achieve. I have to say, I, you know, from after reading your blog, and you know having this conversation in previous conversations, sometimes I do worry that it makes it look so hard. Being a scrum master or being any kind of manager or leader in an organization looks because it's you're dealing with people, and people are complex, and you know that they how they show up and what they bring to the table, and is influenced by all sorts of a million variables that you have no visibility. Or, dare I say that we use the word transparency of and, and even if you did, you wouldn't understand them, because people behave odd, right? You know, so what if it looks so hard this stuff? What would you tell somebody not, you know? I mean, they're doing the job. How can what are the couple of things they should take away and start working with

David Spinks: 24:22

again? I'm just gonna, I'm gonna quote Ken again, right? Think of it's about the art of the possible, starting small. Take that time to understand the context. If you're new to a team and organization. And this about picking the battles. You know, we've been talking about transparency. It doesn't mean everything has to be made transparent now, right? So it's about waiting for the for the right moment. And you kind of start to know when they come along, there's an opportunity to protect or support that team member, make it safe for that one person to speak honestly. So building these little pockets of safety, celebrating the right you know when people are. Area, celebrating the right behaviors, you know, asking questions instead of, like, demanding answers all the time. And I think as well, it's finding those supporters and building those alliances. I'm sure that investment bank that we talked about right even though there's people sort of going along with a culture inside, they might feel this isn't right for me. This isn't how I want things to be. So it's finding those little alliances and help guiding people and building up those sort of coalitions. And you know, Jason little talks about this in his lean change management stuff like, if you get to a certain threshold, things start, you start to build momentum. So, yeah, it's, it's a, you know, we talk about this in liberating structures, right? The 15% solution, right? What's, what's the first steps we can take? And, yeah, like, I say, being that model of good transparency, right? Being open about your answers. He's being open when you don't know something, and yeah, last thing I would say is recognizing as a Scrum Master, you're not alone. There's so many people that I see on my training courses that are in similar situations. What do I do? What do I do that I can't change things. You're not going mad. You're not alone. The final thing I would say is keep to your own values and keep your humanity in the process.

Dave West: 26:28

Yeah, I think that's good, good words. And wrapping all of that is Be mindful of the culture that in the environment and what Transparency means. And one size does not fit all. And I think that you have to evolve a system and a solution that is exactly the art of the possible. I think is the phrase that you use, David, which is, which is really, which is really good. And I forgotten that, that I read that, you know what, 20 something years ago, and and I, every five years or so, I reuse those that phrase the art of the possible, because that's ultimately the heart of Scrum, whether it's about how your team functions or the product that you're delivering. And amazing things are possible. Hey, thank you for taking the time today, David, I really, really do appreciate it. I always, yeah, always feel a little bit more wiser after spending some time with you. Lot to learn from you, that's for sure. So thank you for taking the time and talking about a little bit of a tricky topic.

David Spinks: 27:36

Yeah, thank you for having me. Yeah, it's not easy, but yeah, hopefully some people have taken some inspiration, and I wish you luck with the dog as well. I know, I know how you feel. Mine's similar.

Dave West: 27:47

Yeah, I have lost that battle. He is incredibly cute and gets away with anything. And you know, in our house, we only have one product owner. It is not me. Turns out, I'm not even an Inspire, not even a stakeholder, often in our scrum team, but I am a developer, that's for sure. So thank you David, and thank you for listening to today's scrum dot augmenting podcast. I was joined today by David Spinks PST extraordinaire, talking about that very tricky topic of of transparency toxic cultures, and how far can you go as a Scrum Master? How far should you go? Should you resign when people won't do it exactly the way that you have written about? And I think the answer is that's just giving up, obviously, stay true to your values. But I think there's always a way the art of the possible, as Ken Schwaber would say, if you liked what you heard today, please subscribe, share with friends, and of course, come back and listen some more. I'm lucky enough to have a variety of guests talking about everything in the area of professional Scrum, product thinking, and, of course, agile. Thank you everybody, and Scrum on you.