Prologue
It’s slightly after midnight Sunday morning as I write this and I can’t sleep. It’s the start of a new week on the heels of, if I’m honest, a really difficult week after several months of difficult weeks. Difficult on all fronts.
There are challenges in the Scrum & Agile community that, I think, have been a long time coming. I’ve spent the last few months, like any “committed agilist” trying to inspect and adapt to a completely new and different world from the one I’ve worked in for 11 years, 8 months, 2 weeks, 4 days and 30 minutes (as I’m writing this sentence).
There are greater and more serious challenges in the larger world due to a particularly nasty virus the likes of which hasn’t been seen in more than 100 years and which has caused untold suffering, division and general nastiness that I’ve never experienced in the 50 years I’ve been on this planet.
In the midst of all that in the country I was born in and have lived in for the vast majority of my life (barring educational exchanges, work travel and personal exploration) it’s a presidential election year with two powerful political parties on the “left” and “right” each convinced that the other is an existential threat to the “American Way of Life” (a topic I’ll leave for others to try to hash out somewhere else).
I’m not sure why I can’t sleep. Actually…I should modify that slightly. I’m pretty damn sure why I can’t sleep! What follows is nothing more and nothing less than a brief (for someone who basically talks and writes for a living) personal reflection on a difficult period in an already somewhat crazy (to anyone who knows me) personal history. I am hopeful it will be useful to others whether as inspiration, commiseration or simply a cautionary tale.
Before the “Crash”
In mid-March of 2020 I was facilitating a workshop for a roomful of eager Boston participants trying to earn the “Certified ScrumMaster” (CSM) credential. I’m a “Certified Scrum Trainer”. It’s something I’ve done more than 400 times (408 but who’s counting).
And yet this time was noticeably different. It was the beginning of a journey I was not seeking and didn’t even know I needed to take.
After class I went back to my hotel room and collapsed. It was the last public workshop of a long road trip and I was finally headed to The Lakedick Chalet (our name for whatever cabin my partner Katrina Lake and I rent during ski & snowboarding season) for some much needed downtime.
As is usually the case after a long run, I was mentally and physically exhausted and mostly oblivious to the rest of the world.
It had been an unusual workshop. For one thing there were bottles of hand sanitizer on every table of the hotel conference room. Everybody was talking about some kind of virus named after a beer.
A thing I find challenging about being a CST is spending so much time in hotels, conference rooms, on airplanes and running through airports that most of the time, except when I’m interacting with the participants of my workshops, I feel like a ghost floating through a world that I observe, but of which I am not really a part.
An Alternate Reality
This ghost-like feeling (If you’ve felt it you know what I mean and if you haven’t I’m sure it sounds nuts) was dialed up to 11 when I got to Boston Logan Airport.
“On March 13, 2020 a national emergency was declared in the United States concerning the COVID-19 Outbreak.” - CDC Press Release
Like most road warriors I’ve been through the same airports an uncountable number of times. Boston Logan is no exception.
I’m a creature of habit. I go to the same Legal Seafoods counter, order the same lobster roll and, often, answer the same question, “So what d’you do, buddy,” with any of a number of nonsensical replies.
“I’m the world’s foremost anti-mattress-label activist.”
(Explaining to a non-CST what a CST does is next to impossible. I’ve been doing it for almost 12 years and my mother still doesn’t know what I do for money.) Anyway, Pandemic? Fine. National emergency? Fine. No lobster roll at Logan‽ THE END IS COMING!!!!!
The End of the World as We Knew It
As I was spending time with family, hanging out on the mountain, trying to set a personal record for number of days snowboarded in a row and generally trying to unwind, it was becoming clearer and clearer that my next workshop which was scheduled 2 weeks(ish) later was not going to happen as major portions of the country began to close up shop to try and slow the spread of Covid-19.
I’m ashamed to admit I wasn’t particularly concerned about it. I was already pretty much sequestered with family in a tiny little mountain town on Mt. Hood about 90 minutes from Portland, OR). I don’t have a regular office job to worry about. I’m not an essential worker. When I’m not teaching workshops I’m at home reading, occasionally writing, thinking about new workshop ideas and doing the odd podcast for a friend in the community.
I didn’t really realize at the time that it was going to be the end of the world as I knew it (or I wouldn’t have felt fine.)
A (Not So) Brave New World
When Aldous Huxley wrote the novel Brave New World in 1932, he described a dystopian future that revolved around advanced technology as a way to criticize what he considered the naive notion prevalent at the time that in the future technology would solve all the world’s problems.
While Huxley definitely took it to the extreme, I’m not sure we’re that far away from his nightmarish vision (about 415 years too early).
Don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely not a technology-hating luddite. I’ve spent most of my career trying to build and facilitate high performing teams using Agile methods.
Luddite NOUN A person opposed to new technology or ways of working.
That said when the Scrum Alliance, the governing body that administers the CSM credential, announced that due to the shut down, after something like 17 years (depending on who you ask) they would, at least temporarily, allow certified trainers to conduct virtual online workshops I completely lost my sh…
It disturbed my normally peaceful frame of mind.
I, along with my partners at Fearless Agility and others, scrambled to translate what I had spent more than 10 years developing as a high intensity, immersive, completely hands-on experience into a virtual format.
I mean initially I refused, raged with righteous indignation, wrote and then deleted several angrily worded letters to the Scrum Alliance and otherwise pitched a fit worthy of an annoyed 2-year-old.
Fortunately my managing director and business partner talked me off the ledge and with help from a few sources and a lot of heads down work locked down in The Lakedick Chalet we put together a workshop in a virtual format that I feel pretty good about.
But none of that is why I’m suffering insomnia and writing this post.
Finding a “Middle Path”
So here it is, August 30th, the pandemic is seemingly not under control, the politicians and TV talking heads are chewing up huge amounts of media time and in my own community of Scrum trainers, coaches and related people and organizations there is chaos.
Now several years ago I would not have been well suited to deal with any of this skillfully. I have for many years had somewhat of a reputation as a loose cannon with a habit of exhibiting peculiar behavior and generally being an occasional pain in the ass. But a couple things happened that changed things…at least for me.
Firstly I spent a full year not that long ago in a skills building program (called DBT) that emphasizes something called the “middle path.”
“To Walk the Middle Path means replacing “either-or” thinking with collaborative “both-and” thinking.”
“A primary objective in DBT is to walk the Middle Path. This means recognizing dialectics (opposites) in our daily lives and finding a balance with them.”
Secondly I crashed my OneWheel literally the first time in more than a year that I wasn’t wearing my helmet (long story) and suffered a “traumatic brain injury.” (Don’t worry dear reader. It got better…ish)
Anyway, the result of these two things in the context of the current circumstances has led me down a different path than I’ve ever been on before. I feel great compassion for all the suffering going on in these troubling times AND I can’t find any real “middle path” thinking going on in any of these circumstances. Including my own. I feel like the Agile and Scrum community is a microcosm of the larger world.
Tithe Your Time
I started down the path of Agility using Scrum (co-creator Ken Schwaber once called Scrum a “pathway” after all) because I saw a brokenness in the corporate tech world that I believed (and still believe) I could help. I feel like this same brokenness is still present and maybe even more pronounced. Not just in the tech world, but in the larger world.
I see organizations in the Scrum training market either taking advantage of these difficult circumstances or struggling to find competence in this new world. Either way that unskillful behavior at best helps no one and at worst damages reputations and, possibly, careers.
I see individuals in the Scrum and Agile community bickering on social media, being seemingly complicit in the abuses of a small handful of “bad actors” in the reseller community or just really struggling to make a living and do some good in the world but in an unhelpful way.
I include myself in that. I’ve been “checked out.” I’ve been complacent. I haven’t contributed to the community as a whole in years. For that I’m sorry. I will try to be more mindful. I will try to walk a middle path myself. I will try to contribute more. As my grandfather Dreyfus suggested frequently, I will “tithe my time.” Stayed tuned…
