This is Agile: Give if you can, Take if you have to

I have practiced art since I was a child. I studied, exhibited, and sold art. I even did a Ph.D. and taught a few courses. That is way more experience than I have been practicing Agile since 2018.

Art and Agile continue to teach me about the human ability to collaborate and create. Both practices rely on emergence. Emergence is the rapid elimination of wrong decisions and the incremental growth toward higher-quality choices. Emergence is iteration, trying and trying again, and getting comfortable with getting a lot of things ‘wrong’.

When I recall my first Agile public speaking experience at the Women in Agile Europe (WiAEU) conference on 14 November in Eindhoven, the image of a stone sculpture by Jacek Tylicki appears in my mind: “GIVE IF YOU CAN, TAKE IF YOU HAVE TO” (2008).

The Agile community is built upon a gift-giving culture. Needless to say, the concept of a gift economy is influenced by open-source software, but that's not the part I am experienced with... Agile just 'feels' like art, and that 'feels' like home to me.

After one month of applying, I received an invitation to join as a "New Voices" speaker and do a 7-minute lightning talk. I got paired with my mentor, Faye, and my two other mentee colleagues Gergana and Danique , to practice as much as I needed before delivering my final talk in front of a large audience.

Collaborating with Faye was great from the start. I turned my camera on pretending I was an experienced speaker, and after each hour of mentorship, I turned my camera off feeling excited I had a long way to go. That sounds like an oxymoron, but that’s how comfortable Faye made me feel: Success emerges from failure if you keep your mind open to learning.

In addition to the gift of mentorship, I had the best opportunity to network, meet future mentors and coaches, and discover new ways of practicing Agile. I also collected a few other goodies, and my favorite is of course the Scrum Accountabilities playing card deck by the awesome Scrum Facilitators.

My 7-minute talk was inspired by a drawing created during one of my team retrospectives. A senior developer on the team wanted to express the stress of failing to merge his code after midnight. Research since early 2010 suggests three things need to be in place for teams to learn better and succeed: less stress; more psychological safety; and more collective intelligence. (See John Medina's Brain Rules for Work , 2021).

These patterns that emerged during the past few years of working as a scrum master made me realize how much it matters for humans to share their experiences. Our desire to share is a form of gift exchange by itself.

Reciprocity has been calling since the conference. A few things happened already in the new year...

• Three ex-colleagues, a product owner, a scrum master, and a designer asked for my help to ace their upcoming interviews. We practiced as much as possible. Let's see if they land the jobs they want!
• A new product owner colleague reached out, I did my best to connect her with the right people, and she landed her first interview.
• I discovered the book “Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know About How Artists Work ” (2003). Whatever I conclude after reading it, I will make sure to cross-check with a developer colleague. Super curious what s/he is going to say.?That dialogue will likely be the topic of my next post or talk - let's find out!

Enjoy the new year; give if you can, and take if you have to.

ps - Thank you, Maarten Dalmijn for caring and helping me with my first article. Humble is your second name for sure!