Jutta Eckstein

Transcript 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  00:42

Who is Jutta Eckstein?

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  00:45

Oh, my God, where should I start here? Well, really I don’t know where to start. So I started off actually as a teacher. So having an education as being a teacher, but I never really like completed everything, but then never really worked in that. However, I benefit from this a lot. Because teaching, training is also part of what I’m doing. So I’m protective about that. And then I’m an engineer. And as an engineer, I kind of lost my heart in programming. So I then started off as a software developer, which I really loved. I think my first real language was actually C++. And then I encountered small talk, which really became my love. And you can tell by that it’s quite some time ago. And then there was a time in a project I was working on where the project managers said will I know, but something has changed for the better since you are here on the team. And this made me think that maybe I can also offer something else than developing, it’s not that I was fed up, but just it opened a door or so it should just some possibilities. And then I first went into more like design, and then more architecture.

And then more into well, what is needed to ensure that teams pull together, and not apart from each other. And all of that actually happened, which is kind of my encounter with agile, with me being active mainly in two communities. So the one was the small talk community and the other one was patterns. And in both of those actual kinds of originated in I don’t know, not everyone who is listening might know that, but it’s really kind of two of the main roots of agile, are like small talk and design patterns. So like the, I don’t know, it’s a kind of that the first really important agile approaches like extreme programming and Scrum, they both discovered in small talk projects. And also they have been published at first as designed, as pattern languages actually, before, it has been publishing out of ways. So that’s why it was kind of a natural. So now we’re speaking at the moment, like back in 97. I learned about XPS. Again, you can see how old I am. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  03:43

No, it’s very important. I want to come back to this stuff. But it’s very important, I think, to acknowledge that. And not many people know that. So

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  03:51

That’s true. Yeah, and maybe I try to make the rest a little bit faster. So then I discovered agile stuff. And I used to work at the time also more in large projects. And so in naturally by the end of 2001, I was in a large project, and just thought well, which was a failure. And therefore they kind of free started and I got in and I don’t want to say like it’s of course I saved it. There were more people and more changes that were happening at that time, right. But one of the changes I brought in was well let’s do that actual stuff. And because the pain was so high, people were really open for everything. And for me this was also cool because well again, it was by the end of 2001 beginning 2002 Well whole 2002 Definitely. Nobody spoke about scaling agile, right? So we just learned about the manifesto that has been created. Both Scrum and XP were around a bit, scrum not knowing so much at the time. So this is kind of exciting. And it all worked out and well, there were other projects following however, the trigger for me to write my first book, actually so which was on scaling agile and publish it in 2014. And of course, nobody was interested because people had other problems.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  05:30

Well, that’s the case, I think a lot of your books and I wanted to come back to that, too, is like that they’re a little bit ahead of their time, and a little bit you know, not necessarily what people are currently looking for. But what they will be looking for. But what they will be looking for in the near future.

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  05:45

That so my hope was the bossa nova book, which I think yeah, the first publication was in 18, but this was much more timely than my other books. I absolutely agree. Because like the second book on distributed agile that was published in 2010. And at that time, people started looking into scaling, but not into global stuff, right? What do we do? How do we organize distributed and dispersed teams and all of that? So.. Yeah.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  06:20

So it’s interesting from a perspective that, agile, I mean, it was born, but really like the practitioners that started this movement, I think, understood complexity. So they just probably understood people and complexity. That’s why even if we go to Agile Manifesto, I think we have described and others, it’s a value system more than it is practices and frameworks, right? Yeah.

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  06:51

I thought more like value system, and maybe guidelines or so.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  06:57

Yes. So when you reflect back, what is important today, to you, from a perspective of agile, from perspective of where it is, what do you consider important? What motivates you currently around the work that we do?

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  07:15

Okay, so these are for me two different questions. The one is, do think about reflecting back, which it sounds to me more looking at, okay, what kind of changed, did we really bring, or so and the other thing is, yeah, what motivates me today or what do I think, where is it now. So, which one is more important? Which one do you want to go first?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  07:38

It’s almost like what I wanted you to do is almost like retrospect, right? Like, if you’re looking back in a context of what has happened over the last 20 years, right? And then if you kind of look at the next 5 to 10 years, what do you want to focus on? What’s important to you, based on the experience, I guess? So, it’s more forward looking. But don’t forget where coming from.

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  08:02

Yeah. I think I really have actually a clear answer. So for me, the Agile Manifesto has always been super important. But I started off with XP but still, once the manifesto was out, it was really more the manifesto that guided what I’ve done, which was also the reason because a lot of the stuff that I did, there wasn’t really anything out there. And so there was no scaling something or distributed, agile, whatever. And so what I always did was I looked at the manifesto, at the values and the principles and thought, okay, what do they mean, in the context I’m in right now, like in this large context, or something we haven’t talked about yet is like, remember the first hardware project I did. So well, the manifesto was created for software. So what do I do now? And so I always I kept coming back to the manifesto, and it’s kind of wearing different classes, looking at the principles through those classes. So like the hopper, large to global whatever and thought okay, but can they provide some guidance there? And I still felt they could. And in starting with the in the distributed one, if you think of this one principles, that says they like the face to face conversation is the best way to convey information right. That people often said, at least way back when that well, that’s a reason why you cannot do Agile in a global setting, right in a distributed setting. And for me well we still want to aim for that. So let’s look how we can aim for that. And of course, we cannot do this like all the time we don’t have a common ballroom, of course not. But what can we do to still see this as our guidelines and seeing that this is really important for us to build the trust and to connect and to ship really also right?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  10:31

And to communicate I think a lot of times, it’s becoming even more now like, and I think that’s specific principle of, you know, face to face is like, people don’t fully understand that it was never about face to face, it was always about communication, collaboration, trust, right, relationships, but the most effective and the richest way to communicate, especially when it was written back in 2001, was face to face. 

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  11:00

Yes. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  11:01

So I think, you know, and this goes back to the patterns, right? You have to understand the why behind the pattern, and be able depict the pattern, rather than just assume the practice or principle for what it is.

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  11:17

That’s true. Yeah. So we haven’t answered yet. The forward looking. So and the thing is, really, I keep coming back to that. And that’s what I do right now. So what’s my big passion is at the moment is sustainability in the sense of like, social, economic, and environmental. So also fighting the climate change. And I think, well, even here, the manifesto can provide some guidance. And I know well, more and more people start talking about that. So my take is not so much on saying, okay, well…, we sorry, I think I have to say it this way. Agile is the hammer, and therefore also sustainability is a nail. That’s not what I mean. What I mean, is, well, there are forecasts that say by 2030, IT will consume about 21% of the overall energy consumption, which means it’s not that software, IT whatever is the resolution, as a lot of people think, to the climate change, but it really can be, and is in some areas, but it also has a bad impact. And so actually, it’s more like coming back to the thing that we do with agile, which is developing software, delivering it making the customer happy, and all of that, but now looking at the principles, what does this actually mean? If we take sustainability serious. So what is the carbon footprint of the software that we are writing? How ethical is the software that we are creating and well, there’s a lot of discussion about like, algorithm bias and stuff like that, which plays into this. And even in will once we are back in the offices, even in the offices like is the carpet glued with a toxic glue to the floor, right? Do we have natural light there, natural plant this all piece into the same thing. And interesting this about like the competent staff. So this is what I see in that principle where it says, like, trust motivated individuals and give them the environment to get the job done. So looking at environment, all of a sudden, it has a different meaning. And this is again, what I mean with I keep coming back to the principles and look at them. What do they mean through this glasses that I’m wearing right now, right?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  14:09

So what you’re saying like, I want to use the metaphor of glasses and back to the values and value systems is that  when we look at the different glasses, we’re also looking through different set of values and principles and beliefs, right. So that requires us to believe what we’re seeing through those glasses and buy into what we’re seeing through those glasses. Right? So when we talk about like sustainability when we talk about exactly what you just described, I can just say, I have to believe that putting that toxic glue on the carpet is something that is wrong. And I’m not going to tolerate right, it’s not just saying Oh, yeah, but screw it, you know, it’s making my company more  or saving my company more money.

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  15:02

Yeah, right, which is kind of the same as what we saying in agile in general. And I’m not sure I guess more people have heard discussions about that even things like, well, creating all those tests that takes time away from shipping to the client or whatever. And, well, we just say like, they’re the value, these are important for us. And that’s why we have those principles guiding those values.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  15:36

It’s individual decision to embrace those principles of values, I guess. 

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  15:42

That’s true. Yeah. And, to me, this was just always a really big help. So and, yeah, I think it can just be a great guidance, if you think Agile is for you important, because you want to be or have to be flexible, adaptive, responsive, fast, nimble, whatever else, right. So really agile more in the literal sense. And then what do you need to do to behave like that or to show that or become that? And this is what I think the principals do, at least. That’s what they offered to me. And it might be perhaps even boring for other people, because, well, it’s not the Bible. And no, it’s not. But it gives some great ideas. And it can really trigger deep thoughts. Again, wearing different glasses.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  16:46

Yeah. And like we’ve gone, maybe just to kind of summarize this, and to kind of come back to what’s coming, or maybe what in addition to what you describe about sustainability, but last 20 years, of Agile Manifesto, and from small talk, the pattern language, the pattern communities that you discuss, all of that was, at least that community understood the importance of patterns, complexity, right. And a lot of what we’ve seen over the last 10-20 years, is shift towards more of processes and practices back to what those people were running away from. Because if you see all the frameworks now, all the you know, focus on practices, do you see that as well? And do you see the shift back to understanding or is it more balanced approach?

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  17:41

So, yes, and no, and the no comes more from it than I think this has always been the case.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  17:51

The pendulum always swinging.

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  17:54

That’s, that’s one of the things that also, people always have asked for recipes. And the frameworks are giving you that they give you a recipe and therefore you feel much safer, than without one, so you just follow that, and then it’s the recipes fault if it’s not working out. And that is easier than saying, well, you actually have to think for yourself, what is appropriate, what would help you here, which also, then, especially in cultures, where you think, like, okay, who’s accountable? Right. And then the ones who are not following some predefined path, they have a problem then right? If it’s not working out, and the reason probably is more that it’s seems to be difficult to really embrace this kind of experimental approach, or what we call with person over the probing thing where you always reflect what we see, while we add what’s difficult right now, what’s our hypothesis that’s actually happening, and will happen if we do this and that change? And then thinking of the change you do thinking about how you measure it also, in order to be able to tell, well, that hypothesis was true or not, and then start reflecting again, but it’s actually the probing is actually more a scientific approach to running experiments. It’s nothing.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  19:32

Yeah, it’s like dealing with complexity. Like what I really liked about Bossa Nova is like, it’s collections. So you have like with Beyond Budgeting with open space with sociocracy with agile, these are all combination of patterns to deal with complexity, right. And it’s just still collection of patterns. And how would you describe the patterns in the context of that recipe and cooking analogy is almost like, Oh, here’s a barbecue sauce. If you need barbecue sauce, here’s how you.. but you’re still putting things together based on your context like, how do you define patterns in that context? 

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  20:20

Well, I’m not sure if I have a good answer. The thing that we discovered when we worked on bossa nova, so John Beck and myself, we found that most of those people have those different patterns or streams, how we often call them as well, that most of them said, Actually, we have the answer. And from their perspective, that is true, it’s, again, a kind of a recipe. So if I talk to people who are really deep into sociocracy, they were saying, well, you don’t need anything else, because you are just ensuring that the power is distributed and not centralized, that equivalence is there or was scattered, and then it will all resolve itself. And it is kind of true. In the same way as it is true that you could also say, from an agile perspective, well, all you need is a retrospective, and you keep retrospect thing and changing into it better. And which is also true in a sense. And in the same way as beyond budgeting. They say, well, we all know money rules the world and as long as we use money to control all the work, there’s no way of being more agile. So the budget has to really deal with that complexity and address it and otherwise you will not getting anywhere. And again, so they are all true from their perspective.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  21:57

So let me ask you this then is the idea… I get it, I get it. So I want to get your answer on this. So do you see Bossa Nova is more integrative holistic, like where it considers multiple truths or is that the idea behind bossa nova.

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  22:15

So I would say so. So it is this holistic view, it’s a synthesis without being a close synthesis. So if you think about the, well, I have the book back there, right? If you think about the kind of the logo that we are using, the thing is where I have the arrow, there’s the Nova, which has an arrow going further. And what we meant with that is although we see all those four streams are really providing each a different view on a company. They are also not the sole true. So the buzzer is not a soul truth, we need also to know that because we know new stuff will be developed and new stuff is also out there, use it and apply it but always kind of yeah, don’t forget to have that holistic view on the organization.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  23:15

But Nova also apply. I really liked that that’s what resonated with me. And like I think what Nova, and exactly what you indicated there is symbolizing emergence and complexity, right? So it’s that like, hey, embrace the emergence in what’s coming through these patterns or wherever you’re seeing. That’s why I say like, a lot of this stuff, it’s beyond, it’s done, because I think this is probably for the last five years, that people have thought and I don’t think a lot of this stuff will be understood. Or mainstream in the next 10 years, at least that’s my like, looking at things, you know, because.. 

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  23:57

Yeah that could well be true. So maybe kind of, I don’t know if it’s really a closure, but to add to this point. So when we created that holistic view and that synthesis, we really struggled to move on because we knew the reader will sit there and say, John, Jutta tell me, now what? So what is it that I can do now, I understand that this is a holistic thing, and I have to have a different perspective on things and change the perspective and look for the patterns and all of that. But now tell me what to do because it was obvious for us that people still ask for a recipe.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  24:49

And coming back to that maybe just to explore this because I’ve written on this and the talks about it but like it’s an issue where what ingredients in organization keeps changing daily or all the time, right? And you always have to that emergence that Nova is coming up with a recipe that currently works for you in your context, right? And if we rely on Jutta and Miljan to come in and say like, Hey, you know, here’s your recipe, here’s your recipe, right? Then you’re really not embracing developing your own chefs and getting people to figure things out on their own, and maybe just to come to a different question, then. Is that why agility is so hard? I mean, why do you think, what are some of the things that you’re seeing where, and from your perspective, you’ve worked on big projects. What are some of the things that you see when it comes to companywide agility and why companies struggle?

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  25:53

So the one thing first, this that I think with the probing be found a kind of breach to a recipe, and with all the sample probes that we are having here, and we still collect them, also having them on our website. So it gives examples. And this, I think, makes it easier also for companywide agility to kind of learn through examples. And what we see is that people are asking for that. But then they look at an example probe and say, well, but actually, my situation is different. So I need something else. And we said, yes, exactly. You need something else. And that’s, perfect. So this is not to your question. So this is more like, okay, it is still a kind of recipe by those example probes in the idea of probing, reflecting and coming up with a hypothesis, and then an experiment. Yet still, it is also difficult. And I believe the main reason is that you need this holistic perspective, to really think of companywide agility. And most of people just think of one area and even in that so what I’ve seen, maybe this is a good example, although it’s bad. So a company so well I  was only be there for a day or something.

So very short, they just want to hear like, what do I think about this or so and they were using Scrum for quite some time in their IT department. And pretty well. So it’s not that you could say, well, this was whatever. Yeah, Doc scramble, however you want to call it, yeah, Scrum pact or anything. So this was all fine. And the company decided to really go more agile more towards companywide agility. And which meant to have what I call real cross functional teams. So not only that we say, testers together with developers and back end with front end and stuff like that. But real cross functional through over the across the silos of the company, meaning the business, the sales, marketing, whoever is part of that team. Guess who had the biggest problems with that? The scrum teams. They said, well, we really want to have that product owner who tells us and we don’t want to know maybe this goes volunteer to fluency. We don’t want to be in that position that be explore new markets together as a team, right? We want to have somebody who tells us, and I thought this quite interesting. And with that Derrick was more the other side, not IT side. They were more ready for that.  

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  29:02

Well, exactly. And I think I see same thing. And I think there’s two forms. There’s the people side, the value system that’s going on with the lenses that people are looking through, right. So if I’m not open to that. The other thing is, I think the limitations of Scrum. I don’t see scrum as a true high complexity framework. Right. So when we have a lot of high levels of complexity, I don’t think Scrum is a good recipe. And a lot of times that backfires on people. So, do you see it that way? Or I mean, what do you think about those two, between the people and operating systems that are running in our heads or the things that we’re seeing through our lenses.

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  29:47

No I think you are right. And it’s also I guess, now staying with this example when this request was made to go to what real cross functional teams. The scrum teams, they felt like oh, but this is not how Scrum is described. And they are right. That’s true, right. And from that perspective, again referring maybe more to actual fluency. If you’re like using Scrum, then you are kind of at the beginning. So now flowing into agile, but only if you really go into companywide agility then scrum doesn’t help you that much anymore.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  30:31

It’s the patterns, right? It’s understanding what’s underneath what’s good about Scrum, what’s your context and then contextualizing. But it’s tough for organizations to do that. But yet, we see a lot of scaling frameworks. And I’m not picking in a lot of people pick and save, I think, you know, there are contexts and there’s, you know, less than that, all of these different frameworks, they have a lot of good patterns. But if your context, or your environment is not set up for that, you know, it’s tough.

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  31:05

Yeah. I think this is not the only thing. So the main thing is the people more or less try to implement it, as they learned it, got educated in it, read about it. And it’s exactly what you’re saying they are not contextualizing. And then those frameworks are not working anymore. Yeah, so it’s probably not necessarily the framework’s fault. But on the other hand, they often also don’t motivate too much to contextualize, which I also understand now say, okay, here it is, this is what we offer. And if you just follow that, then it’s all fine. Yet, you still have to reflect and adapt.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  32:01

Yeah. So just to keep stay on this topic of companywide agility, I wanted to get your thoughts on the importance, and how do you get trust in alignment? When you’re scaling, right, because those are two really important things, if you want to scale up or scale down, scaling doesn’t necessarily mean Right, like just scaling up, you could be scaling down. So from your perspective, what is the relationship between trust and alignment?

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  32:28

Hmm, yeah, well, one of the key thing is that trust can only be given. And also what I think I learned, this one’s from Tom DeMarco, who had shared story where he was saying, like, well, trust always has to go ahead, which is sometimes discussed in a different way that people think, well, you have to earn the trust or so, is what people say. But actually, you can only show the trust if somebody trusts in you. Otherwise, you cannot, because then there will be always control and therefore you just don’t have the leeway to show that you are trustworthy. And so this is, I think, one of the difficulties and there, again, from a personal perspective, or companywide perspective, I would say, all of those four streams are really paying into that starting with sociocracy thing. Well, we really ensure every voice gets heard, is getting heard, and also how we make decisions that we really want to ensure everyone is with us here without being completely slowed down, like with a consensus decision, right? So that helps already because it shows the trust, I show the trust, I know you can be part of that decision. And we believe in you there. And definitely same with open space. So open space as a strategy meaning well we trust you that you understand what the next features or the next product we should work on or what kind of even if you start small like with self-selecting teams, we trust you that you select the teams in a way or come up with a team emergent structure in a way so that we can be successful it’s not somebody else deciding we trust you all, right?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  34:43

That takes a different type of leader to actually let go of that right.

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  34:48

Being courageous probably. Yeah, well NPM budgeting, same thing. It’s often you control most of what’s going on in a company through the numbers, but to you say, well, we trust you. And  actually I have a great example. That was way before I knew about [inaudible] [35:11], I think it’s kind of the second biggest software company at least way back when into money. So not comparable to like IBM or whatever. But still. And I was there, maybe 15 years ago or so. So it’s really long, though. And so my client took me to the canteen for lunch. And I was completely surprised to see what was going on there. So people kind of yeah, went up and look for the lunch, which they then got handed over from the kitchen staff. And then there was an open cashier. That people put in their money and collected there exchanged, there was nobody sitting there no camera, watching it. It was completely trusting everyone who’s roping in that company, that they will just pay what’s requested and being Yeah, trustworthy on that. And that really was sticking with me and I said well, what a strong signal to the people. And on the other hand, you could also say, well in companies, we all trust the people to run those million dollar projects, but we don’t trust them to pay for their lunch? What is this. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  36:37

Well it goes back also to what you just said, what was it? Like trust is leading or trust is always ahead. Yeah. So it’s like you get to show trust especially from a company perspective. That goes into and I know that this is also close to you, architecture and design and policies. So when we talk about companywide agility, what are some of the things when it comes to design and architecture and policies, that we need to also look through different set of eye glasses?

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  37:15

So now, probably, we are also shifting more towards alignment, what I haven’t really talked about much. And there for me is really, I would say more provided by the structure you’re setting up with and again, I think [inaudible] [37:33] is just offering a great deal here so that you elect those people who you as a team, for example, trust that they make the right decisions on your architecture, if you need something like an enterprise wide or company wide, which is not always required, which is also a thing that definitely needs to be professional. Because sometimes these things are rule although they’re not really necessary. And they’re more in the way then them being helpful. But they’re also good reasons why you really want to have that and you need it. And if you have like product line development or something like that. And so it is really for me more, how do we structure ourselves? How do we organize ourselves so that we have this structure where we know there are people who can make that decision together. And it’s not a decision made on the ivory tower, but more like a bottom-up election of representatives coming together and making those decisions. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  38:37

Yeah, and really what I want, again, coming back to the alignment, coming back to the complexity, and where we started here, we talk about emerging architecture and software development, but we don’t really have emerging architecture and organizational design. Right? 

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  38:55

Yes. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  38:56

Do you think we’re going to get there because, you know, most of the companies are so used to kind of what we’ve seen with IT systems like, you know, big, don’t change it, and sociocracy is just one of the… I like really s3 and s3 specifies is similar to, you know, I’m referring to sociocracy 3.0. Like they are different patterns for scaling or different patterns for architecture and structure. And this is, in my opinion, something that’s ahead of its time. But do you also do maybe see it differently from a perspective, what’s coming? What’s going to work in complexity when it comes to alignment design architecture? Well, how design and architecture can help alignment I guess,

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  39:47

Yes, it can. I really assume that we will have more network structures and the network structures in the way that they help us in sense to scale down, and not up. So a bit of what we hear from some companies like WL Gore that they say will not bigger than 120 people. And then we start a new branch and where we organized ourselves. And so then the different branches are connected, which is, yeah, one way of having such a more network structure. So it’s more autonomous areas, maybe and then those autonomous areas being connected them again.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  40:38

Exactly. I was talking to Dave Snowden, maybe a couple months ago on my podcast, and he was saying, like, why this is important. I really liked how he described and in a sense, if you want innovation, if you’re dealing with complexity, you’re going to have emergence, right. So the best way to have an emergence is to decentralize, and lead those agents, whatever you want to call it, self-organize. And, again, this goes back to alignment and trust, if we don’t trust our people, and help them or help structure alignment, then we’re back to where we were, which is not a very good way to deal, with increasing complexity, right?

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  41:24

Well, actually, you can also think this way about like a big open space. So thinking of companies really like big open spaces, you have that common theme that what is the company’s purpose, what is the thing that holds us together? What do we want? What kind of difference do we want to make in the world, and then you have people who want to work on different areas that constitute or pay into that purpose. And they come together make that happen, and once they are done then they look for other stuff they want to work on. So which is, open space is an emergent structure, right? Which has that alignment with that theme. And I can’t imagine that something like this is really more happening in the future, just because it’s needed. And I also know, well, the bigger the companies are getting that the more they feel like, oh, we have to have this carved in stone almost. And there are sometimes also people asking for that kind of, okay, where’s my role description or something? Well, maybe you define it, and maybe you define it today different than you would do tomorrow. And, of course, which comes with a lot of uncertainty again, so we are back to sometimes it feels just safer to have that kind of recipe.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  43:01

Exactly. And it goes back also to I guess talking about, some of us are more comfortable with uncertainty. Some of us aren’t, and there is no one size fits all right. And then also cultures, I mean, like, I grew up in Boston and Sarajevo, in that whole Balkans areas, you probably know, the environment there is a lot different than it is here, United States, so your environment shapes what you see through your glasses. So I think, you know, having that context is really important too. As we become more in global society, we start collaborating and having themes, or why certain people see things different way. And understanding that. So…

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  43:51

Which is a different topic and interesting one by itself.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  43:57

Oh, yeah, so that’s why I said, so most of this is like, just trying to like, if we’re sitting in the coffee shop and just talking, we could deep dive into a lot of these and you know, their topic by themselves, but it’s interesting to hear your perspective on some of this stuff. And what’s even more interesting to me is, as I’m talking to each of my guests, there are patterns emerging in a sense of what people are saying. And it’s really helping me understand, like here are different people with different backgrounds and perspectives. But in a nutshell, they’re saying the same thing. And I don’t know how much it has to do with other biases, or you know what, we’ve been conditioned, but it is interesting. Having a background in teaching and learning, what do you think, how can companies become learning organizations? I know you’ve talked about this in the past, but what have you learned and what would you like to share around becoming a learning organization?

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  45:03

Yeah, well, actually, it’s thing we have talked already about, which is having this approach to probes or to experiments being open and courageous to do that, because that’s the only way you will be innovative, actually trying that, trying things out, but maybe even a controlled way, by having that hypothesis first. So you know, what you’re actually trying and what you can learn from it, right. And I sometimes struggle. And you might have seen me struggling with that before, with the thing that we say in agile very often that it’s so important to fail fast. But I just think this is so wrong. It’s such a wrong message. Because the goal is not to fail fast. The goal is to learn fast. And you do what you need to do in order to learn fast, and sometimes it implies failure. And sometimes it implies not failure, or whatever it is, yeah. But the failure is not your goal. It’s a means and that’s struck with it always. However, having said that, it means for learning organization, it must be well, more than okay, it must be understood that in order to learn, we have to run experiments and look at them, but they teach us back. And then with what they taught us back, we do the next step where and the next experiment and try to learn from that.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  46:48

So empiricism in a nutshell, in a sense, learn through experience, right? I really like you know, to stay a little bit on the probing piece, because you described it as a ha moment, and also something that you think is necessary in order to deal with the current environment. So, this probing is all about experience, it’s all about learning what you just described. And it gives, unlike recipe, I think probing, I wouldn’t call it a recipe, I think it gives people permission and encourages them to create experiences. Because you’re not saying like, here’s a recipe or saying like, here’s an idea, if you want to make barbecue sauce, here’s an idea of how you make barbecue sauce. But don’t assume that, what you do here is going to work. Like here’s just an idea. So you can get started, is that how you see probing in the sense of, like, encouraging experience?

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  47:52

So what you described was, I would more refer to, that’s a prob. Now, probing for me is the whole approach. And the whole approach is well, and that is the kind of a recipe really start with reflecting on your situation, then come up with a hypothesis that you have based on that reflection, then with that hypothesis, develop an experiment that can validate or invalidate your hypothesis. And when you run the experiment, measure before and after, so you know, what you really learn. And then the kind of last or additional step, which I think is really also super important, is please talk about it, publish about it. And that goes back to what you said earlier. So we don’t know much about emergent organizational architectures. Well, we don’t because not much is talked about that it’s not much talked about what have people tried, and how did it work out, in which context? And maybe my context is similar and therefore I might try that, or maybe I change it completely, or whatever. So it’s that yeah, learning from your peers and your peers can be the club.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  49:15

Well, is it the peers, but it’s also I’m assuming the customer because there’s customers at the center there as well. So how do we get closer to the customer to right because… So maybe, I don’t know as a last question or just the statement like, what would you share? I really love your forward looking and that motivates me in the sense of just seeing other people that kind of have expressed what’s in my head better than what I have been able to and see things what’s going. So what would be your message to somebody that’s, learning about agile or wants to learn more about these patterns driven. What message would you give to those not necessarily that are familiar with the patterns, but the ones that are not, which is the vast majority of people?

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  50:27

It seems to me that, yeah iterated around that already yet. So the key thing for me is probably really taking time for reflection. And too often, we feel, or we are push to go into action. And just going into action is the same way as delivering stuff. So which is delivering output but not outcome, right, and, therefore not making much difference. So action doesn’t really help us. So take time to reflect and then go into action based on your reflection. So again, that’s why I say I kind of iterated about that already, which is, again, the probing thing. Or if you stay in the actual perspective, just think of using retrospectives in various ways. So with your team, but also maybe on different organizational levels, so that you can also reflect on what’s helping you in the structure that you’re having in that organization. Or maybe also, it’s an individual kind of retrospective. Where are you with your ideas and stuff like where do you want to go next. So yeah, I think the intentional stillness is what too often missing. And this is me saying that, who is talking all the time [inaudible] [52:12]

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  52:14

No, but I think that’s something that we need to come back. And then like, the whole I think reflection, contemplation, in a sense, it’s what you’re saying is working on ourselves. Like, you know, we talked about understanding organizations understanding, but we really don’t know much about ourselves, it goes back to emotional intelligence, it goes back to self awareness, it goes back to a lot of these things that were very reactive. And I think what you’re saying, and what I understood is more like, take a time this, I used to play soccer. And my dad was always telling me, and my coach, you got to stop and lift your head up and look at the field, understand the field, you can’t just be, you know, dribbling and looking down. 

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  53:02

Yes. Exactly. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  53:03

It’s kind of like that. 

Speaker: Jutta Eckstein  53:04

Yeah. And actually, this reminds me of what we talked about earlier, which was maybe a bit short how we talked about it, the learning organization, which connects really to that because the key is a learning organization will only emerge by the individuals starting to learn. An organization is not a thing. It’s the individuals who make that thing really and so it starts with individuals learning.