As many of you know, I have twin four-year-old boys. I try to give them as much freedom as they can handle. I believe that everyone, regardless of their age, learns best by being given the space to try and potentially fail. I give instructions that hopefully lead to success, and then allow them to follow or not. I do this with the teams and individuals I work with, and it’s one of the foundational principles of how I parent.
This week, I took my boys to a park that has a large playground. I setup my camp chair nearby, leave them to play, and give myself some time to sit in the sun and write. In the adjacent car park, there is an ice cream van. Most times when we go to this particular playground, we go for an ice cream before we leave. However, this time, I had arrived unprepared for lunch, and we had to go to the nearby supermarket to get some sandwiches. As we packed everything up to return to the car, I explained the schedule to the boys. Both were already chanting “Ice cream van”, and J, in particular, was hangry.
The boys and I picked up our things and started walking towards the exit. When we reached the park gates, J bolted towards the ice cream van. I called after him and continued to walk towards the car with D. I could still see J, but as I loaded our things into the boot, he went out of sight. I locked the car, and we walked towards the ice cream van to find J.
When we reached the van, J was nowhere to be seen. I spoke to the sellers, and they hadn’t seen him. We went back into the park, along to the playground and still no sight of J. My heart rate started to increase, and I was talking myself down from the big feelings rising. I was talking with D about the situation and thanking him for staying with me. As I walked back to the car, hoping that J had returned there, I could see some adults nearby looking around. I couldn’t see J, but I hoped that he was behind them.
As I got closer, J spotted me and ran over. I gave him a big cuddle and thanked the strangers for staying with him. They told me that he was trying to open the car door and gave me all the information J had provided them to help us find each other.
When working with teams new to Agile or Scrum, I often find myself watching them run towards an ice cream van. When a team coach sees this happening, we make a decision about how safe it is for the team to fail. There are three responses we can have when we see our young teams run towards an ice cream van and out of our sight:
1. Do nothing. Let them go because we know they have the tools to find their way back to the car. This is best played when there is little danger and the cost of failure is low. Let them act on what they’ve previously learned and hopefully learn a little more from this event.
2. Warn them, then let them go anyway. You’ve pointed out that you’re walking in the other direction, but they’re certain they'll get an ice cream if they go towards the van. This is best played when a team is safe to fail, the cost of failure is moderate to low, and perhaps when they’ve started to doubt your expertise. If they’re wrong and you’re right, be gracious and support them in understanding how you knew the pitfall was ahead. If you’re wrong and they’re right, thank them for teaching you something new.
3. Stop them. Do everything in your power to stop them from doing the thing. Lay on top of them if you have to because there’s a truck about to crash into the ice cream van. This is best played when the team is heading towards such a well-known anti-pattern that there is no complexity to untangle; cause and effect are obvious before the fact. For instance, the team (or, more likely, the team’s manager) wants to run backlog refinement sessions before anyone fills the Product Owner role.
The difficulty we have for ourselves is staying calm. This is the self-mastery that is at the centre of the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel. We need to hold our feelings tight and have the courage in our convictions. No matter which option you’ve chosen, you have made a choice, and now you must wait to see how it plays out. Whether the outcome was as expected or not, hold the team gently and help them understand how the decisions they made and the actions they took resulted in the outcomes they see.
We learn more through failure than through success. Experience helps us decide when it is safe to fail and how much warning we should give about potential failures ahead. Just like our teams, we have to fail at giving the correct level of warning in order to understand which of these decisions is best for a given situation. Finding a community of peers to help you make the best decisions you can and then reflect and learn about your decisions is essential. Hopefully, you have other team coaches in your organisation so you can group together to discuss your challenges and celebrate your wins.
If you’re looking for a community and are currently employed as a Scrum Master or team coach, then I’d like to help you. Below is a link to my FREE experimental community for Scrum Masters. If you’re interested, go ahead and fill in the form and I’ll be in touch!
Did I miss the link??? :(
Also - do you have a recommendation for a resource on anti-patterns?