Talk: “Here be dragons” – a journey towards agility in a command-and-control environment

Talk description

Title:	“Here be dragons” – a journey towards agility in a command-and-control environment
Short synopsis:	The first years as agile evangelist and Scrum Master in an agile transition, finding my way and letting the team find theirs while fighting off expectations from “Scrum Police” to “General Dogsbody”. The talk will give room to compare notes on the various pitfalls and lures away from being rather than just doing agile while highlighting some of the measures taken to get back on track. Max size: 500 chars
Long synopsis (optional):	Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Of course, I knew and had used this rather glib quotation myself often enough. Since embarking on the venture of an agile transition in a rapidly growing e-commerce company I have acutely felt it to be so true on many occasions though. I don't suppose I am alone in this. While this talk will be a very personal travel blog about my journey towards self-organisation and agility I am also looking to compare notes and share insights. "Will this Scrum thing make our software development faster and cheaper? - If not, I don't see what good it could do." That was one of the less encouraging comments after first introducing Scrum values and concepts on "Head of" level. "It's easily ridiculed - but this micro-culture you have achieved in your agile projects is really something." That was the most encouraging comment that I received at the last company get-together from someone who had just come aboard one of the agile projects. In between these two there have been a lot of traps potentially leading to Scrum abuses or even "Dark Scrum". Some are not so obvious and therefore a lot easier to fall into. Ever thought if you might have become the "Scrum Police" rather than the Scrum Master to fulfill a very deep-rooted need - yours or the team's? Which images would be helpful to counteract that of Scrum Police then? Servant-Leader - not very vivid with an additional risk to totally misinterpret servant to mean general dogsbody. Sheepdog - strong, but do I really see my Scrum Team as a flock of sheep? Maybe another pitfall? How do I notice if we are just doing agile not living the values? Is the product owner or Scrum Master the only person who talks? Is the PO or SM "pushing" the work to team members? Does the PO commit during or even the sprint planning without seeking team input? And what if the answer is "yes" to a lot of these questions? Maybe we have also skipped the retrospective to save on time ... We will talk about these and other challenges and see how we can slay some of the dragons that we will come across on a journey towards agility. Max size: 5000 chars
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