Bob Sarni

Transcript: 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  00:38

So Bob, how did you meet Mike Beedle? What was your first encounter with Mike? 

Speaker: Bob Sarni  00:44

Well, I’m trying to remember because as I get older my memories not as good. But I know I met him in an elevator, which is kind of weird, right? Because you don’t talk to people on an elevator, right? But I’m pretty sure I might be wrong about it. But this sticks in my mind, it was at a scrum gathering in Chicago, I think around 2008. And it was one of the early scrum gatherings and we were at this place called the Allerton hotel. And people that were at that scrum gathering will remember it because scrum gathering was on the upper floors, not like down on the main part of the hotel like they usually are. And there was like two or three elevators to get up to the upstairs. So and we had open space and the open spaces were on different floors. And it took forever when you got on the elevator. I mean, you would miss a session just because you’re waiting for the elevator. And I got on the elevator, a bunch of people, we’re crammed in there, and I was next to this guy. And he started talking to me, I’m like, wait, you can’t talk to me on the elevator, right? But it turned out it was Mike Beedle. And I just found him interesting right away, because he started talking about Scrum, and his history with Scrum and how he wrote a book with Ken Swaybar about Scrum. But then he also started talking to me, because we kind of hung around the rest of the conference together, started talking to me about Scrum patterns, enterprise Scrum, and just brought me in even more. And he’s the one that really opened my mind to Scrum, because I took my training from Ken Swaybar years before that. But I didn’t really get scrum until Mike introduced me to the scrum patterns. It kind of opened up my world and the possibilities of how we can use scrum in different ways. But that’s how I met Mike. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  02:35

That is awesome. And yeah, I remember you, I think introduced at least some of the patterns and especially like when you were here on the East Coast and talking about the blob, I remembering classes with the department that you’ve taught here, in what other ways did Mike influence you? 

Speaker: Bob Sarni  02:58

Probably the biggest way Mike influenced me was through the scrum patterns, and I do a lot of work in the Chicagoland area. I lived in Illinois for a while and kind of lived all over but I still do work in Chicago land. And so Mike lived in Chicago, right? I can’t remember where but the outskirts of Chicago, so we would get together often. So we would have these long discussions, we would get together, his favorite thing was sushi. Right? So for sushi and drink hours and hours we would talk about Scrum patterns and enterprise Scrum. And he got me more interested in enterprise Scrum. And eventually, I became a certified trainer in enterprise Scrum. But we just kind of had this relationship over the years, just getting together and talking about Scrum and eating sushi. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  03:50

And apparently drinking a lot to, right?

Speaker: Bob Sarni  03:52

Well, yeah. Well, we won’t talk about that too much. But yeah, there were some of that. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  03:56

Everybody that I talked to it’s like when Mike is eating and drinking after the trainings, you’ve done some cool trainings with him as well. What was that experience like? 

Speaker: Bob Sarni  04:05

Yeah, it was kind of interesting. So I think he approached me, so I met him in 2008. And he approached me around 2011 because I was doing some classes close to where he lived. And even though he co-wrote the book with Ken Swaybar, the first book on Scrum and he had been implementing scrum for years. He decided he wanted to become a certified scrum trainer. And so, during that time, the scrum alliance had a requirement that if you wanted to become a certified scrum trainer, you have to co-train with people, which was kind of weird to me, so he came and co-trained a lot with me, the local classes around by where he lived, he would come in, do some of the topics, talk about enterprise Scrum. Then we would go out for sushi and drinks after the class. But we did a lot of that together and eventually he became a certified scrum trainer. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  05:00

So this criminalize didn’t make any exceptions even for Mike. 

Speaker: Bob Sarni  05:05

Yeah, well, they make a couple of exceptions for some people, but not for Mike for some reason. So he had to go through the whole thing. And so we did a lot of co-training together. So we got to know each other even better.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  05:18

Nice. When it comes to enterprise, from my perspective, many people I’ve talked to, they saw Mike, the way that he was thinking and looking ahead, as far as what’s coming as far as scaling business agility, what are your thoughts on business agility in general and his foresight or what he was doing with enterprise scrum at that time? And it’s probably been on his mind way before he started popularizing or trying to put it into a framework. 

Speaker: Bob Sarni  05:59

Well, if you had the chance to talk to Mike, he been coming up with enterprise scrum since the Adam and Eve, right? But from the first time I met him even though Ken Swaybar came out with a book enterprise and Scrum years and years ago, he’s the first one that really was really talking about enterprise Scrum. Others were as well, but in a way that really made sense to me, that we could take these concepts and this mindset and we can spread it throughout the whole organization, right? And achieve the business agility and get better at understanding our market and our customers and the people in our organization, right? He’s the first one that really kind of brought me into that world and, again, changed my life, he changed my life in so many different ways. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  06:54

I think we live in the world where a lot of frameworks are prescriptive, and they’re based on patterns, but they’re a lot more prescriptive. And I think, kind of where we had it too is like, what enterprise Scrum is about, which is contextualizing those patterns. And I was never part of that group that you guys were as far as like the trainers and like, but to me, it seems like the future and what really works is contextualize these patterns in your context, doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. Do you see it that way? How do you see enterprise Scrum living on after Mike in what ways? 

Speaker: Bob Sarni  07:38

Yeah, unfortunately, I think for those of us that were really involved, we’ve embraced the concepts, we’re using them in our own way. Because that’s really what patterns are, I mean, a pattern really is a solution to a problem in a specific context. And it’s not meant to be prescriptive. So you just really have to understand what is the essence of that pattern? How might you use it? What benefit you get from it, and you adapt it to what works for you, right? And you can create sequences of these patterns. And so I think Mike just had a really good understanding of how these fit together. And they’re not meant to be prescriptive, mean that they’re just meant to kind of show you some light, right? Show you a way, right? And then you make them your own. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  08:26

And you evolved and I’m assuming too, as you go, right? 

Speaker: Bob Sarni  08:30

Yeah. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  08:31

You had a dinner just before Mike Smarter. What did you guys discuss? 

Speaker: Bob Sarni  08:40

Well, we discussed a lot of things, but typically our discussions were about enterprise Scrum, business agility, Scrum patterns. So if I remember correctly, we went to one of his favorite places, that we went to a lot called The Real Club. It was in Oak Brook, Illinois. Sushi, right? And I can’t remember when we had it, but it was probably a couple months before unfortunately his life was taken from him, but I’ll always remember that dinner and I think about him often, even today. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  09:14

Yeah, I mean, it’s just I know, I was shocked. My first encounter to him, well with Mike was in Dublin. I think it was 2016 maybe, whatever that conference, global gathering was. And it was just interesting how humble he was. What other, I guess experiences have you had or things about Mike, maybe that you would like to share? If there’s anything.

Speaker: Bob Sarni  09:47

Yeah, most of our get togethers and they were frequent for quite a while were mostly about enterprise Scrum and Scrum patterns and the world of work, how can we make things better for people in their lives when they go to work. We did have some experiences at scrum gatherings and things like that. One that really stands in mind was a scrum gathering in Amsterdam. I really can’t go into all that we did there. But I think that was the one time we didn’t really talk about Scrum patterns or enterprise scrum we just enjoyed the atmosphere.