Jon Jorgensen

Speaker: Jon Jorgensen  00:22

I’m going to call this a Mike Beedle quote, agilize everything. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  00:33

How did you meet Mike?

Speaker: Jon Jorgensen  00:36

Yeah. So Mike was just starting to tell the world about his enterprise scrum framework and looking for people that want to learn it and train it. And I was on a coaching engagement with Harold Shin Sato. And I remember just turning to him and saying, Harold, let’s talk to Mike, let’s, let’s support him on this. And so I think I just answered or posted something in LinkedIn, or Facebook, I forget which, but we set up a phone call the next day and we started talking in easily, we went over an hour. And I had agreed, like, I’m going to fly out to Chicago and I’m going to take your first course and your second course. They are offered in the last week of January. And it’s really funny because there were other people just kind of in my circle that wanted to go, but couldn’t be there for the very first one. And so they’re like, tell me who’s there. Who shows up for the first class? And I went way early, it was this beautiful hotel downtown. And I remember sticking my head in the room and thinking like I’ll help him set up and stuff, be useful. He’s a great guy and nobody was in there, I’m like, oh my gosh, it must be the wrong hotel, go and check the room, is it the right room? And I’m thinking how is this actually going to happen? Anyway, people started to trickle in. And Michael Herman was one of them. And so we started talking about open space and then more people came in, I found out like, you know what? He had gifted this class to other people, maybe some of them were in transition between jobs, I’m like, oh my gosh, I paid full freight for both classes but with the intention of eventually training it and I started to realize there are a lot of people that Mike Beedle cares about and wants to make a difference through in the world. And so anyway he came before it’s time to begin, and kind of a big entrance, he’s bigger than life. And he commands a presence. And I remember him asking me, John, you’re all into open space, I was part of the open space agility community at the time. Do you want to open space in the class? I’m like, oh my gosh, like Michael Herman’s sitting right there. He’s asking me, absolutely, I would never pass that up. And the rest of the class, it was an unfolding of that same kind of attitude and really personable connection that characterized our relationship all throughout. And so we had lunch together that first day, that was when we started talking one on one, mostly about community building and purpose. And I think I remember seeing, his children came by with his significant other and I could see, what a warm father he is to his children. And there were some other people at the table with us and just yeah, everything he would do and say would be so considerate. And I think it was in that moment at that lunch, thinking this is the kind of guy I want to be when I grow up. I mean, he’s up to something, something good and so inclusive. There were people in my class that I think that they were maybe restaurant tours or restaurant owners, operators and they’d seen that there are things that they could maybe use from scrum in their own organization, their own restaurant. And other people, maybe it’s just his infectious energy and optimism. Yeah.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  05:26

That is awesome. And I’ve already interviewed several people and that’s a reoccurring theme. In what ways has Mike impacted you? You said, you want to be like Mike when I grew up, what did you learn from him? What do you think when you look at yourself today, what are some of the things that you maybe credit to him? 

Speaker: Jon Jorgensen  05:58

Yeah. Well, the first thing and I’m going to call this a Mike Beedle quote, agilize everything. He said that and he really meant it, which is looking at the values of the Agile Manifesto and putting the relationships, the interaction, your way of being with other people in any aspect of your life, is the way of being with everyone in your life. And it’s the relationship between you that makes all the difference. And so putting that first at the front of my mind and being with people, really being with people and letting them know, through your way of being that they matter. And that was the biggest impact that Mike had on me, is after Mike was gone, Facebook, I used to hang out a lot on Facebook, I don’t anymore, but Facebook sometimes would give you this announcement, how many years you’ve been married or how many years you’ve known somebody or an anniversary, whatever. This one came up and it said, your best friend according to how they’ve liked your posts, Mike Beedle. Yeah, I’m like, that’s not a coincidence. Mike would see the best in you and the way he would make you feel, was that you mattered.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  07:42

That is such a, not necessarily skill. I guess it is a skill, because it is that empathy that everybody talks today about empathy and all of that but to truly embrace it and live it in everything, I’ve known people like that too, you can separate the BS from real stuff. Enterprise Scrum, I was talking to Rick. And just enterprise Scrum and where is it today? And he was describing this, who owns enterprise Scrum? And he’s like I can see parts of enterprise scrum everywhere in the sense of people, even with business agility and everything. What are your thoughts? I mean as far as, what was the potential of enterprise Scrum and in what ways does it live today and other things?

Speaker: Jon Jorgensen  08:44

Well, so for me. I think I’d have to look at a timeline. I believe that Daniel Mesic and I and Mark Sheffield announced Leadership Scrum after Enterprise Scrum. It could be close, I don’t know. But all that I want to say is that, in the ways that I have worked with executive teams, and that they have embraced Leadership Scrum, which is probably just Scrum now, with the new scrum guide, it’s not a way of saying Scrum. But that’s the way that Enterprise Scrum is living, which is to say, Scrum teams everywhere. Scrum teams throughout the entire enterprise. And not dividing the enterprise by disciplines or line function silos, whatever you want to call it. And I’m seeing that, where I’m working today, we have these crosses discipline game developer teams and if you would have asked them several years ago, certain teams, they would tell you, no, there’s too many disciplines to fit on one team. There’s artists, there’s animators, there’s background artists, there’s voice and sound effects artists and producers and programmers and all these things. And so already, you’re over the head count for a scrum team. But then it works like you do find ways to have people maybe overlap a little and swarm. Anyway, so I’ve discovered that in movie production as well, I was just on this Scrum Alliance page the other day. I don’t know if the people who did that heard of Enterprise Scrum and that’s why they brought scrum into Newfields. But when I see it, I think of Mike and I think of Enterprise Scrum and he was just so straightforward about that. Basically, divide your organization by user demographic, by persona if you will, and have Scrum teams focused on satisfying the needs of the persona. And if you want to have more personas then slice the demographics that are great, have more sprinting’s, but that was his thinking. And I would like to see more business agility in the world in general, I think it’s easy to talk about and very hard to do.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  11:44

But I think the next 10 years will be about that business agility, where the last 10 years were all about, we talked about business agility, but really, it was just getting in trying to understand Scrum. And I think the next 10 years will be trying to understand what business agility is. And then maybe after that is actually understanding how to do it well or the concept that we’re talking about, probably what Mike and others have talked about is the whole structural change or factual change, the whole cultural change. I think that’s probably what we’re going to start seeing and pasting more and more on what we’ve been talking about, what people have been talking about for 30 years or so.

Speaker: Jon Jorgensen  12:30

For sure. And one idea there, I don’t know, if I would imagine some of the people you’ve talked with, they mentioned subsumption architecture. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  12:38

Exactly.

Speaker: Jon Jorgensen  12:39

And in the beginning I thought like, oh, come on, this is another gimmicky thing and we’re just pulling that out because it’s part of the origin story of Scrum, right? Like the little robots, that just settled in, I guess was making in Boston or whatever. And maybe it is, maybe it’s not. And there was this big thing about like, okay, how can we define and explain subsumption architecture to a business person that is not necessarily program robots? And the cool thing about the way that Mike asked that question was, he put it out to the community, just like defining what’s the definition of enterprise scrum as a thing. He made it a collaborative process, which I think would be difficult, the community enterprise scrum community was not small at that time. But what I started getting out of it is that, there is a certain kind of empirical mindset, something that, we get out of our head, which is what contains our model of how the universe really is how, what so, what’s the physical reality out there, we get out of our model, and then we go, we get the information, and we operate and behave based on the information out there. That’s my version of what subsumption is, and I think organizations, maybe that goes by different moniker, maybe they call it like market mindedness or customer centrism or something like that. And I think that there is a lot of room for organizations to be outward facing rather than inward facing workplace. Yeah.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  14:31

And that’s kind of not just, the people that interviewed for this initiative for remember Mike but in general, I think everybody’s collectively saying the same things which could be part of group thing, but which could also be part of this paradigm truth, I think at the end of the paradigm we’re going into this new way of thinking, how do we structure organizations? Not just talking but actually doing it, and learning from and evolving from it. So I think at least, I’m excited about what’s going to come and like even COVID is going to force us to rethink and give us a kick in the butt to rethink and redo things. So what other stories do you remember? Do you remember stories that Mike would tell, I mean, anything that you think would be?

Speaker: Jon Jorgensen  15:31

So the funniest memory I literally have of Mike was, in his training, it really had this entrepreneurial spirit. And I don’t know whether that was just a function of the economics of the time. People are between jobs sometimes. But also, there was these big booms, Facebook being a unicorn and acquiring other unicorns, and the curriculum was focused on the meantime, the unicorn is shrinking it like an exponential rate. So all this is unicorns, that’s unicorns and  we would make these business models, business plans as part of the course. So there’s a lot of, what would you call that? Like Fractal design to the course. And anyway, so there was the first conference of enterprise Scrum. We also did an open space and in the open space, we were kind of just talking about different memes and phrases that come up a lot. And Mike said, because I want to get one of those, what do you call it? I guess a costume. I’m forgetting the name and he goes, I’m going to put on this unicorn hat or unicorn and walk up to the mic and say like, so do you believe me now, guys? It was just the dry pan look that he said it with and I couldn’t stop laughing. I just completely just, my sights were aching and everybody that was there to hear the joke, I just thought was the funniest thing. And we really were saying yeah, we got to do this. But that’s kind of his undying optimism. He was really serious. He keeps saying to people, we give our presentations to the rest of the class, like share back. And it’s like an execution ready, like operational model right there. He goes like, if you don’t do it, someone else will. Go on, make that business right now. And I think the people that had over the course just a couple of hours, you made this business plan, like really? Could I do that? He’s like yeah, like seriously. That’s the next unicorn. There’s a unicorn, there’s a unicorn. And yeah, and so, it was half in just, but half really serious, like he really could see these incredible organizations arising just out of people doing what we’re talking about like, say it now do it, execute, learn, rinse, repeat. And then I think like him also saying, you hear me saying go do it. But I don’t think you really hear me. Hear me now. What are you going to do? Dress up like a unicorn? So all of that, it’s my most vivid memory of Mike is enough humility to laugh at himself. But also the authentic belief that people are creative and people are industrious and people are brilliant. And they can.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  19:14

It’s possible. Yeah. And you remind me, I’ve had that feeling in the past. And I know how, it’s a fine line. And I think after a period, at least in my own experience, you lose the will and hope. But I know that there were certain startups that I was part of, where it’s a small, small part that made us and things that made us less successful than industry leaders. And when you taste that, when you see that, it is possible, I think and that’s probably where he was coming from, like go do it. It is and having people in your life to motivate you like that, and just to say it is possible, I think it’s priceless. And I tell all these people like having mentors and coaches in life, at least expedite my learning journey so much, because go ahead, do it. And I’m like, what’s the worst thing? Let’s do it.

Speaker: Jon Jorgensen  20:23

Yeah, that was another thing that I, so what’s the worst thing that could happen? He wouldn’t say it, the way that he would say it is like, it’s all funny money anyway, like, investors, they don’t know what to do. They just want to see something grow and get a return; you’ve actually got an idea. It’s like, if you just tell them, the organization that you envision, the problem that you’re trying to solve, they’ll throw the money at you. Because it’s to them, it’s all just funny money anyway, what do you got to lose?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  20:56

Exactly.

Speaker: Jon Jorgensen  20:58

Yeah. That is coming from that kind of mindset. Because he was the CEO of an organization that he actually grew through running Scrum. And I think maybe that’s where a lot of his optimism came from, is like look, I’ve seen this actually work in real life. And so I’m not going to just kind of back down and say, well, it was a good idea. Or I’m just trying to cheer you up. No, it was real and palpable for him. And he really wanted that reality to connect with people so that it inspired them to action, not just like, oh, I got a job, I got certified. He it got me a job interview, he wanted to see people really run with it.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  21:48

Exactly. And be happy. Just remind me, I don’t know if you’ve had friends but I’ve had, I always used to hang out with older kids. And I remember first time I jumped off the cliff, right? And it was like for lot of them, it was really what at least I remember specifics in situation, where I think it was just you get a feel this great feeling that we’re feeling and they’re pushing me to experience that, because they’ve experienced it. And I think that’s what reminded me of people that have seen scrum work, especially at the agile, they’ve done it. And I think, almost part of your mission becomes to get others, you get motivated and fulfilled by seeing others actually experience what you experience. And when you said that, that reminded me of that and there are certain things that I wanted others to experience. Because what I experienced in my belief in that experience.

Speaker: Jon Jorgensen  22:57

So there was another moment that for me, it’s a crystallized moment in time. So, I had finished the two courses, it was like a Friday night. And the candidate trainers were all in a semi-circle around Mike. And this was where he’s going to ask us the question, which is, do you feel like you’re ready to be an enterprise scrum trainer? And I don’t remember whether I was first or not. But I remember how I felt and it was like Mike, I’ll be ready soon. There are so many books that you mentioned, that are part of the curriculum now. And I can’t teach this course without having read those books. Whether I said that, I don’t remember but that was going through my mind. And I remember on the other side of the horn, he’s going around the room and Michael Herman was there. And I hope I’m not misquoting or miss remembering. But Mike was like, Michael Herman said, yeah, I’m ready right now. And I could just see Mike Beedle’s eyes light up. He’s like, okay, we’re off to the races, go train this class. And that was really his energy, his intent and his mantra like, great. So we have all these trainers. And there were classes, people were running them. I think Simon Roberts was one of them. But he’s like, come on, you guys. I want to see more classes, offer them up and I’ll give you the support, whatever it takes. And he’s like, and if you don’t, I’ll go find some more trainers. Trainers are supposed to train and that was a good kick in the pants. That was I mean, he was taking huge risks financially and with his time, attention and health. And I think it was the right thing to do. I think it’s the right approach to take. And the other side of that is, so both boisterous, if you ever seen Mike or maybe I don’t know if you’ve heard this, when Mike Beedle wants to get attention in his class, he doesn’t put his fingers in his mouth and blow whistle. He just goes, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, big booming voice. I mean, he will have you pause, and then make his announcement. So very loud volume to get attention. But when he talks about Jeff Sutherland, he gets very quiet. And there’s a sense of reverence in his voice. And he told us, I think it was in the training, maybe the train the trainer, he said, I drove out to Jeff Sutherland’s home. And I told him, this is what I want to do. And I’d like to have your approval, I’d like to know that this is something that you see as being good for the world. And just so and gave me that approval. That’s what he told me. And maybe Ken Swaybar too, I’m not sure. But that said a lot for how much gratitude he has towards the people that made scrum available to the world. And it was years later that I learned the personal sacrifices that Ken Swaybar made, that he took out a second mortgage on his home. And he didn’t have income for a year as he would go and present Scrum to all the people. And I’m sure that there are more stories that Jeff Sutherland could relate about how he made sacrifices to make scrum available for the world. What’s important and relevant to me is how seriously Mike Beedle took that throughout his entire life and had gratitude towards Jeff Sutherland.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  27:21

I don’t think it’s just Jeff Sutherland, I mean, I think that says a lot about character. I think whoever it was, it’s probably not just Jeff and Ken that he was. It’s who he was probably. And it’s just that that speaks volumes in my opinion about the character and…

Speaker: Jon Jorgensen  27:43

Yeah. Genuinely grateful human being. Yeah. And another thing, so we had dinner at, I guess it was one of the conferences, and I happen to be sitting directly across from him at the table for dinner. And it’s no exaggeration to say I didn’t know much about his family, his children until that dinner, and he began telling me about his oldest, his son. And obviously, brilliant. I mean, gifted, brilliant and a great students. And we probably talked about his children and how much like, they were really great children, brilliant children with a wonderful bright future for like, hours. And I just thought this so great to see such I mean, a proud father doesn’t just describe it, like he was really a part of their lives. And they brought him so much joy, and so much gratitude.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  28:57

Yeah. I mean, it makes me think even stories like that, either it’s sometimes makes me feel guilty of like, do I spend enough or it’s just because, it’s a personal choice and for him to do that again, I’m sure he was busy and could have picked to do other things and I make excuses, I got to do this, I got to do another podcast. I got to prep for this. And it’s a good reminder. I think before everybody just, that we do have a choice of where we focus our times.