Zuzi Sochova

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  00:28

So Zuzi, how did you get started? How did you get introduced to agile and what was your journey?

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  00:37

I started this all in five, I was actually working for a medical company in the US in Minneapolis for Medtronic, and they switch to scrum at the time. And that was a really interesting journey because I was a developer at the time, got used to certain way of working, but that scrum was like, okay, Americans something, right? And then when I came back, my manager at the time, he said, now you have to be a scrum master. I was like, I don’t want to be a master. He’s like, yeah, but you have to, you’re the only one who ever seem strong for my company, right? Do something, right? I was like, yeah, but I don’t like Scrum. He was like, yeah, I don’t like it either but you just started. So that’s how I started, right? I got no other choice. I guess. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  01:32

So you were willing to.

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  01:34

Yeah. So I started with something which nowadays, I would not really see as a good start, but I guess I was lucky. And eventually, step by step we figured it out. And I also realized, like what should I do differently, right? So my beginnings were like every other I think, people who started without really like caring about it that much. There is this process, follow it.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  01:58

Yeah, exactly. How did you get into training? So you started with that company, I’m assuming you gain some experience. And how did you dive into training?

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  02:10

I did training on scrum much later on. So we got some coaches in the US at that time as the team, but I didn’t know I’m going to be Scrum Master. So it was just a team training and then practicing, right? And then when I came back, my company was pretty small so we were not really up to training, you should learn everything yourself. So within a year, I realize the Scrum is really working, which was surprised because I didn’t expect that. So okay, that thing is working. So maybe I should just start reading about it. So I just start reading, going to conferences, meeting with people, eventually, I have this dream, right? That I will help everybody in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, maybe a bit at that time as well. Like understand what Agile is about, know that vert even, like know that is Agile, right? And now I actually recently rephrase it, so my mission now is not let them know that agile exists, but actually let them know what it is. So they really understand. But we started Agile community, have a couple of other guys here in Prague organizing an agile project conference every year. 

And actually, I went to a CSM training again, because one of my colleagues at the time he said, like, I don’t have that many people. So don’t you want to come so I give you a discount. So I said, Okay, why not? I can. So I joined a CSPO actually as the first one. And then Danko Kovatch came at Brock and we have a drink. And he was like, don’t you want to go train? It’s like, I don’t know. But we don’t say no to that thing. So I said, Okay, why not? I mean, yes. So we actually did a class together, which was really fun. And those type of things just happened to me. So over all, I ended up being there. And then I was in India at a scrum gathering. And I talked to a couple people, Carol at a time as a managing director, but also Bob Hartman. And they both told me, why don’t you apply for becoming a CST? Is like, I don’t know, I never thought about it. You should do that, both of them. It’s like a chat at the conference is like no prior or anything. It’s like, okay, so I Google it up that night. And it’s like, okay, I’ll apply today. So that’s my starting, right? Usually just not say no to things which were coming to me.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  04:37

That’s awesome. But those people, I don’t know Dan [inaudible 04:40] that much. But I know Bob, I don’t know him personally. But based on what I know of them is that they’ve done that for others where they encourage others and nudge others. So that’s awesome to hear that. It was a little bit of nudge from others that got you into this space. So you wrote a book on this Scrum Master, then you just released recently another one, what is the agile leader and which I want to come back to but I would love to know, what’s your process for writing? How do you go about? Do you have a specific time of the day or how do you go?

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  05:22

Well, no, It’s, I guess gone. But what I was doing, I started drawing. So when I was able to draw the pictures, and doing some small blog posts, etc. When I was able to digest that message in a picture, and combine those pictures together into some map, which was discovered all or half of it at least, then I thought I’m ready to write a book. So I actually started writing around the drawings. And I was writing the first book, the Great Scrum Master, I wrote mostly during our diving trips, and the morning and around land river diving, in the afternoon when we were sort of resting. So I was writing a book. And the second one and the translation of it back to Check because I wrote it in English. And then I was translating back the Check. I was actually doing like, we’re sitting at the beach. And that time it was Miami beach with my daughter, and she was enjoying there. And I was drawing those images on the beach and trying to write overnights. So I was always writing when I was traveling. So that’s simple to me and now I’m struggling writing a blog because I’m not traveling anymore. So I don’t have enough time.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  06:35

Exactly. It is tough to find. But yeah, it’s interesting as I talk to people that have written and I’ve started writing couple years ago, and for me, it’s that routine, whatever time it is, if it’s in the morning or afternoon so, and everybody has, but I don’t think I’ve had anybody describe it as sketching first and then I’ve seen your drawing, which are really good. So I can see how you’re maybe thought process for that is. So maybe to come back to your latest book, The agile leader, what is agile leadership about? How do you describe? 

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  07:21

See it as being an agile leader is like a state of mind, right? It’s up to you to decide, I want to be a leader, I’m ready to take the ownership of things and have that vision and go for it. And of course, you need to hear that feedback from a crowd like other people ready to follow you, is it clear enough for them? Is it motivating enough for them? And things like that. But at the end of the day, it’s a state of mind. So the subtitle of that book is leverage the power of influence. So I don’t see leadership being anyhow connected with any management position. As a manager, you need to be a leader. But you can be a leader or you are a leader, even without being a manager, it’s just your own kind of mind, which is important to focus that way.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  08:12

So the mind, I guess, I’m assuming you’re alluding to awareness and I think he talked about that in your book. Why is that awareness so important? And could you give us maybe some examples of the mind and may be mindset of, hey if I want to I can step into this leadership role. I talked about, like in sports, a lot of times you might have team captains, but other people step into that leadership role, like, hey I’m going to make this stop, or I’m going to motivate this other team member that might be down. Those are some examples of actually stepping into a leadership role. But how would you describe that awareness, leadership, or just awareness around?

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  09:03

I think it starts with this dream, you have somewhere deeply inside their passion. And they asked me about [inaudible 09:14] or how I read this book, but it’s also, before those pictures, it starts with a dream, is that strong message, which I believe I have to tell the other people. And I feel like even though they all go to my classes, how many people can I teach in my life, right? Not that many, I can write it into the book, and they can read it, and they don’t even have to meet me. So this type of thing, like this passion, if you have that message or that’s something you’re really passionate about the dream. And when I was still taking care of the developers, I was a director of that engineering group and HR director at some point over time. So I was wondering like, how can get more people growing from bottom up, right? Helping them to take over the ownership and become leaders. I wouldn’t have call it that way at that time. But nowadays, looking backwards, it was exactly what I was doing. I was trying to encourage them to speak, encourage them to take over the ownership and say, hey, I want to do that. So we were as an example of those initiatives, we were trying to figure out, like, how can we help each other to learn? Because we were doing quite weird business which if you go to regular class, people don’t teach you those type of things. So we were thinking, okay, maybe we should learn from each other. So how can we start this? So we actually asked people like, what are you willing to share with others? 

What do you think you’re great at? And the other question was quite the opposite. What do you want to learn from and whom would you like to learn from? And we actually came out with this nice ecosystem where people say, no, I don’t think I’m great at that. But then I say, Okay, I’ve got the five or six or 10 people saying that they would like to learn an agile from you. Oh really? I’ll think about it. And they actually, because they got that support and feedback, they start doing it. And then when other start the first one doing it, they start saying, hey, maybe I’m not sure but if somebody is interested, I might offer this. And again, make it happen. So I think sometimes it’s just about having the dream, having enough self-confidence to speak up and say, I’m going to do this, anyone interested? And they’ll say, yes.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  11:38

Yeah, that takes courage. And you talk about courage as well, why courage so important? It’s one of the strong values to so…

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  11:45

It’s one of the most important things, because we are always afraid of doing things and why are we here anyway? I like courage. I was never really caring too much about other things. So I always did a lot of what I wanted to, of course, you take a feedback from people, but you have that strong vision somewhere but it was actually shifting. But I was never afraid to speak up at the end those type of occasions, I guess.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  12:12

Yeah. Nice. So I was looking at it and you’re using, I’m assuming from Bill Joiners, leadership agility, the expert achiever and catalyst. Is that where you were, I haven’t read the book yet. As I said, I just learned, but what are your thoughts on obviously, using those labels that Bill pulled from research that he did, and actually just interviewed Bill recently, what kind of impact did that have on you if that’s the case?

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  12:57

I’m using it as one, I have this habit of having those books as a tasting my new kind of thing. If you go to that fancy restaurants you get like 12 course Menu, and some of those will speak to you more, and some of those not that much. So I tend to have those various different concepts, and trying to combine them together and show how they relate to what I want to say. So Bill Joiner is one of those. For leadership program, I’m using either Bill Joiners 360 or leadership circle 360. I found that Bill Joiner is, I would say, easier to do for corporate world, when you have like a traditional organization where you have those managers and managers of managers and the traditional structure of hierarchy, it works really well. But if you try to apply it for people without that structure in their lives, working blights like entrepreneurs, they have their own company with very little employees, maybe like contractors, but it’s more like a network than anything, then they sort of feel like it’s too hierarchical, and they don’t fit. So currently, I ended up [inaudible 14:15] when I teach or coach organization, which is more like traditional corporation, I would do Bill Joiners 360 because it’s really valuable and help people to reflect. And I’m most likely to do a leadership circle for all the other agile coaches who are like floating around the world and being everywhere, nowhere and don’t have the fixed structure in their main current position, right? 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  14:44

Yeah. It’s interesting and I’m assuming I think when I was just looking at the questions to ask you and looking at the contents of the book too, you have reinventing organizations, and all of those are based on what’s called Agile development stages, right? That Bill talks about. So how important is it for Scrum masters to leaders to understand psychology and these agile development stages in the way that they lead because essentially you have to switch and change your approach based on the situation and cognitive development of the group or person that you’re working with.

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  15:30

I have my internal belief that if we have Scrum Masters coming from like this psychological, sociological background, we would actually have great Scrum Masters. The problem is, I tried to actually start the relationship as a faculty here in Prague, but it’s not been really successful, because for some reason, and I checked then later on with one person who actually made that shift, he has this background and he is working as a scrum master now, so we chatted about it, I was asking him why it wasn’t successful. And he said, most of my colleagues from school, they feel actually I betrayed what I was studying. Because I should be here helping people with issues in their minds and sort of healing people, doing some important stuff. And now I’m just doing some business for money. 

And so I can’t repeat his own words right. But that was like a stick in my mind was like, oh, maybe this is just not appealing for them. They can get a good job but they don’t care about it because they have a higher purpose, higher mission. So we’re stuck with those technical developers like I was, right? Biggest Scrum masters and relearning everything from scratch. So of course, I don’t know enough about all those things. On the other hand, having a technical background gives you some sort of maybe same language with people, which makes it easier to connect, etc. But otherwise, I think I was always thinking if I should go back to school, and study some sociology or something like this, to understand this more.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  17:14

Yeah, I dug into him, like I tell people. And I’m still learning, right? A lot about psychology, a lot about just how do you understand people better because Miljan can go in and understand, like how to facilitate this or how to do this or what’s the best technique for that. But if you don’t understand people, you can’t really be good scrum master or effective, you’re not a holistic scrum master. And this goes same for the leaders. And a lot of times people see that as a soft skill. It’s harder to measure, for instance, how do I know how to motivate Zuzi versus somebody else? And you might be motivated differently than somebody else. For you, money might not be an issue, for somebody else they might want more. And how, if you have a group of people or a team that you’re working as a Scrum Master, how do you align their needs? So what are you doing in that situation? How do you based on what you know currently? How do you show up and lead or maybe when you’re mentoring and coaching Scrum Masters, what are some of the things that you do to help them understand the importance of understanding people and culture?

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  18:32

I actually put most of this, I think the biggest game changer, maybe let me rephrase. Because game changer for me was going to oversee organizational relationships, system coaching. And I was waiting for around, going around it for a long time, actually went to Lisa Atkins, Agile Coaching Institute for all their classes. And when I finished that year by year, eventually I asked Lisa like, Hey, I finished everything you offer. What’s next? Where should I go next? And she looked at me and said, you know, we’re doing ours. And we like it, you might like it as well. I said, okay. Thanks for advice. And I was thinking about it for a year, reading the orc website. And at that time, that website was sort of like not really appealing to me. It was not saying anything about what is inside. I was like, I don’t know, she recommended it, but it’s a lot of money, a lot of time, should I go there? Should I not? And then one day, I just said okay, I go and then you realize there is a discount if you buy all five classes. So I was thinking about it for about an hour and said okay, buying all five and just go for it. And so I went to Toronto for the classes and it was really nice, nice group of people and I enjoy it. I still have friends from that cohort by the way, and it completely changed the way how I look at things and how I do my coaching, how I do my classes approach, a lot of things, right? 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  20:03

What are some of the biggest difference if you reflect back? What is something that you did and now you wouldn’t do that again after that class?

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  20:10

I think the biggest difficulty was, like I was looking at the organization from bottom up, thinking [inaudible 20:17] teams need something so that you have to understand, it was this overlying mindset, I wouldn’t have call it that way. I was trying to just give advices, talking to executives and give them advice as tried. It’s like useless, right? They no matter anyway. So when I start actually asking him questions and coaching them a little bit more, and be more reflective of the entire system, which is going on there in that organization, I was finally able to work with them. And there was behind me starting this CAL program and Kel to right now, and those other things. So I think I became more patient as well, because of that. And kind of there is this rule, right? System rules saying like that, who knows what is right and what is not? Which I learned in or spread. And so I think that’s the overlying principle, I tried to apply to most of those situation, it just looks like a perspective, there is a 2% of truth on every perspective, that’s cool. What else is here, right? And try to listen to the voice of a system, try to be more curious about those type of things. And having a technical background, originally, when I was starting, I knew in one plus one is always two right? Mathematics. So that’s how I look at life. 

And there’s this, there’s this, that’s that, it’s wrong, or it’s right. And I think over the years, I shifted from like, okay, well, it doesn’t have to be either, right or either wrong. It’s actually both at the same time, either way. So how can I help those people to see that, to be aware of that, to accept that? So that’s what actually started at the beginning of the CAL classes, which emerged into the book, but it’s always like, I did a class where I talked to hundreds of people about their topic and try different stories and different things. And once it’s fits, I am ready to start drawing it and write pages of text and trying to describe it and sort of pull it out. But that the picture in my head is sort of coherent. So that was behind it, right? I try to feel like how can I help people to make that shift? And sort of understand that organization is a system, human relationship system and can you be aware of it? Can you stop judging it all the time? Like, this is right, this is wrong, this should be this way or this should be that way. Because who knows?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  22:56

Exactly. And that’s so hard, right? And goes back to the awareness to. And then what resonated with when you said, like look at it from different perspectives, because there’s truth in all of these perspectives, right? Versus us being just tied to our own perspective. And I can also like, in my CAL classes, I’m also piling stuff down, writing about and getting immediate feedback from people. So I can relate to that. It’s really good to like, hey, I’m thinking about something or how would I explain it, you actually put it into class and…

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  23:35

And see what happens, right? Exactly. I did a couple of those classes to sort of consolidate it because you have it in your head, but they explain it in one way and the right is the other way. And those things are interesting, right? But I think all over like being able to feel those relationships and focus on the relationships and see the impact of the work was a very important for me.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  24:03

How much of coaching do you do? What does agile at the executive level look like? Because when I work with executives, it’s a little bit different, right? It’s themes at least that they don’t have time for a lot of the stuff and you have to influence, you talked about influencing, right? Influencing is a huge, huge part. So what are some of the things that you do and maybe talk about in classes when it comes to influencing and agile at the executive level? 

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  24:37

Agility. I did two things. I like to fix this functional teams at any level. So I have some clients that are over at this level, and its agility in a way in a sense, because agile brings transparency, collaboration, team spirit, etc. So I’m using this agile background for fixing those teams to be high performing, or at least performing, right? That’s one part of it. The typical question I got recently in capital classes was, what should I do with my managers? How should I explain them? Well, I don’t think you do explain them. They either feel the need or not. So can you make that need really visible? Can you make it painful? Can you make it emerge from space? So they say like, Okay, we have this problem. Once you know what problem they have, then you can say, hey, I know how to fix it. If we collaborate more, we might be more creative for whatever else, [inaudible 25:44] sort of advice or first organizations, but I’m there sort of step by step, step back, stop and reflect, think like, where are we? 

Are we happy about this or not? And sometimes they actually say we are happy about it. And I’m saying, I know that it’s fine. I’m leaving, right? Yeah, I don’t think I have a job here. And that’s fine, right? And sometimes, they actually say, yeah, that’s exactly, they want me to leave, we just don’t know how, we were trying ourselves, and then you can help them, right? So I think it all started with that [inaudible 26:19], it says create a sense of urgency. But if there is no sense of urgency, then just unable to work with that. I just get out. I learned that through the years, I really worried about this organization who is struggling, not failing, falling completely not like bankrupting, that’s too much. But struggling, right? They slow down, they used to be super successful or successful, whatever, growing, growing, slowing down, slowing down, and now they see how it looks like down the hill, right? Looking back down the cliff. And they’re scared, they try to fix it themselves, like three times four times. They said no, those practices, right? They don’t help. So those are ready.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  27:01

And there’s that sense of urgency there, right? They don’t want.

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  27:06

Yeah, exactly. So very often, vigorous, funny conversation, like this afternoon, about some clients, right? Has been asking about something like new potential clients, right? They think that you actually are here to sell, I was like, I’m not selling, I’m waiting until somebody is here and say I want to buy, right? So maybe there’s the shift, right? I’m waiting for organizations until they’re at that cliff ready. And before that, I just check them a little bit, are you ready yet? Hey, that’s very kind girl, interested? No, not yet. No worries come later, right? 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  27:45

Exactly. 

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  27:46

So that’s part of what I do. But of course everybody has a different lesson, I try to catch those type of people who are like, ready.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  27:54  

It’s not waste of your time. It’s not waste of their time, if they’re ready. And I think we’ve been in situations where they talk about it but there’s no sense of urgency and so it feels you’re not contributing, so it feels at least when I go in and coach, I feel like I’m wasting their money, I’m wasting my time, I’m not motivated, it doesn’t feel good. 

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  28:23

It’s not helping them either.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  28:24

Yeah.

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  28:26

That’s the problem. They feel like they’ve been better without it. It’s too painful, right?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  28:34

Yeah, exactly. It’s tough and maybe to pick it up a little bit. And you’ve written in your book about the need for organizational structure change, like HR, Finance. And I think especially like finance and HR, those are the last ones to go or to understand or shift their mindset. What are your thoughts? I mean, again, I haven’t read the book, what do you write in your book about HR? I’ll go back and read it, I promise. I didn’t know that you’ve wrote a book. I knew about the Scrum master one. But I talk a lot about finance and HR. So what did you write in the book and what are your thoughts on how finance and HR needs to look at things and maybe change their perspective?

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  29:19

So I see HR much closer to me because I was working as an HR director for a while and it’s easier for me to imagine that. I’m not really a number person and mean numbers. I was good at mathematics just like numbers. I know it doesn’t make a sense really better. So I have a hard time to talk to core finance people because I feel like they’re from a different planet. But for HR, I think it’s really simple because they are here to help, to guide employees or their employee experience and make it really full fails. And that makes him satisfied and help everyone. Now, employee experiences in that sense, right? One of those things I want HR to look at is what is our culture? Currently right now, and where do you want to go? Miss it culture. So to give a few examples, rather than ever shifting, we really want to make it highly collaborative so people help each other, learn from each other, support each other, even across the teams. And the second thing want more innovation, they have no innovation at all, we had this mindset, like, do exactly what the customers say. And then we got this vision that we need to go back to mission, we used to be and start offering new ideas, innovations, etc. So we were shifting in those two quadrants, like collaboration, innovation, and we were like going a little bit backwards in competing, really tried to almost avoided, we didn’t like competing culture, because it was against a collaborative one. And the controlling culture was [inaudible 31:04].

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  31:05

And when you say we, who’s we?

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  31:09

There was a company where I was working [cross-talk 31:13]. And then, when I was working with the clients, it was a big finance institution and they actually their shift was, we want to be more innovative. That was a business needs to get more innovations from people and creative ideas, etc. There isn’t one of those they’re controlling, not even competing, just want to get more innovations. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  31:43

It’s like a lot of times, like, oh, we need more innovation. So we’re going to create an innovation department to [inaudible 31:48] for us, rather than embedding innovation in something that everybody does, right?

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  31:55

Yeah. So that was really fun. Because we were able to work on that, applying bit of Agile and Scrum and Kanban, or whatever they requested. But really, the ultimate goal was regularly be able to come up with different innovations, and have a lab for that and do all that stuff. So it really depends where you want to go. And then the message for HR is all the processes you have, recreating position scale and career path, all those things are sort of a reflection of your current culture and desired culture. So for example, if you want more collaboration, and more or less controlling culture, then maybe having a manager being the only one and HR and the interview might not be a good fit. Maybe you should involve the team more. And maybe your positions should not be that fixed, like exactly defined, right? But more like general ones. And by the way, if you go even more, you don’t even need the positions. Now speaking of our organization, we didn’t need a position, we still have some because I wasn’t able to sell it to the board fully. 

So we got an engineer position, not a software developer anymore, not a tester anymore, not anything else anymore. We got an engineer position, which was good enough. I was aiming for team member, but we didn’t. But step by steps, right? It is step by step. But then the bank, for example, no one will ever go for [inaudible 33:32] all the institution, we have to. So you don’t even open that conversation. Because it’s not in your way of do things. So always like where you are, are your practices supporting the current culture or do you need to shift them and sort of move to different directions? So I really like no positions, because this position some of the stuffing people in their boxes and don’t allow them to really be who they are. I like no KPIs, religious, like this purpose-oriented thing. On the other hand, I don’t think every organization is ready for that. I like radical transparency. But again, transparency is scary, right? If you don’t have trust, so those things are sort of interconnected, and you have to find a good match. It was really interesting. I got one of the people I was coaching, they actually got one day this is brilliant idea, that they asked the team, it was a high-level team of people who well, actually they got some issues in between of them which we knew, it was no secret, no secret in that. They say you’re on our team, we are now agile organization. So you guys distribute their salary yourself. It was a great brilliant idea from [inaudible 34:49] like a really, really bad way, right? They were somewhere here so and actually didn’t [inaudible 34:55] well on the first loom. Now going back to is it right or is it wrong, right? You might say that it was really a bad idea because those guys actually have a big fight. And through like, ugly, and it got escalated back to the leadership team again. And they didn’t want to talk to each other or even sit in the same room together. So they have to fix it and talk about it. 

On the other hand, those individuals who started that fight or who were fighting, they learned something about themselves, eventually. And they were able to fix that through some external coaching, and be able to work with each other again after some time, so they learned something about themselves as individuals. The leadership team learned something as well that maybe they are not such a good team and maybe they should do something about it. And by the way, as a result of that, they change the CEO. Major was there on their table for two years, and no one was doing anything about it. So then it happened like this, by the way. So was it a bad thing or was it a good thing? That’s what I really like working with complexity, because there is no right, no wrong, no good, no bad, they’re just different things which eventually, we’ll have it out somehow and you can look at them as better or good, the learn from them. And if yes, well, we know that they survive. And if yes, well…

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  36:25

Exactly, in context is also so important, right? Like, in that good or bad, because the context dictates a little bit as far as like what’s good or what’s bad? For instance, I know everybody talks about and I brought it up, but from reinventing organizations, Frederick talks about morning star, right? So context for them, when it comes to HR, the transparency of salaries has existed for a long time. And in their context, that works, right? Where people actually see each other’s salaries, when you want to raise, you talk to your peers, you don’t talk to the HR. And in that context, it works perfectly. But good luck trying to do that in an insurance company or bank, like I said. It’s not going to work right away and the context needs to change to some extent, right?

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  37:28

That’s true. And you need to raise a trust a lot. So you can’t raise a transparency without having enough high level of trust. And that’s tough, because people trust each other because he did his job. That’s not enough. You need another party to really trust them on a higher level.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  37:48

So how do you grow trust? You’ve written about that to.

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  37:52

Building relationships, right? Religious like doing those different team buildings, it’s the issue over the virtual now, a lot of teams are now living on deck, I think, from what they created before. Now you have a lot of team members in many organizations where they never see their colleagues. They just pick up a laptop and never seen anyone except zoom, then I was having recently a scrum master class, and she was saying, what shall I do? I was hired in March last year. And I never seen any of my team members. They’re saying they will never, they won’t started a video camera because their CEO said it’s not necessary. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I should be a scrum master. Now you’re telling me how this scrum master is doing. But I technically can’t do it. But I was like, I’m not quite sure I have the answer for you, right? So we have a nice conversation with the other guys as well, like, what do they do to really help people to show up on camera and build that relationship virtually? Yeah, at the end of the day, it’s about relationships. So how can you build a relationship if you never see anyone, right? For some people, it’s easier, for some people, it’s harder. It’s easier to go for a drink, but we are all friends.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  39:12

Exactly. No, but it is. And I think it’s also easier for younger kids and older kids. I was recently doing a class and just something that stood out to me, so I’m doing the class in Euro, right? And I’m facilitating and all the sudden there was a group of younger people, they start taking notes on my mural, and I’m like, what’s going on? Like people putting notes, taking notes, as I’m saying, and I’m like, what’s going on guys? And they’re like, yeah, this is what we do, it’s now collaborated. They’re talking in the chat. I’ve seen the talk in the chat but I’ve never seen people actually taking notes. As they got people commenting on theirs. And I’m like when I was in college, its long time ago now but it doesn’t feel now long time ago, like I was joking, I would pay for the notes, you pay if somebody took good notes in lectures, you pay for it. And now it’s all transparent, they’re collaborating, as I’m talking and it made me think about just like, a lot of times, I’m saying like, oh my dad has a way of thinking because just in the environment that he grew up, and now I’m seeing myself being that guy, the younger kids are like, yeah, it’s been interesting to. So I started teaching undergrad scram in undergrad, [inaudible 40:37] and like, that’s another thing that’s so amazing, like, how they don’t have all the baggage, they don’t know what waterfall is. They never had, a professional job in a sense where what we consider and what we see mostly in there. So I’m thinking for those people that are so used to working and building relationships in the physical space, it’s easier but I’m also thinking that it’s going to be easier for people that are used to now building relationships in a virtual world. But they might have a better luck of developing that trust and relationship. But I don’t know, do you have the same? 

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  41:21

I think so. I think it’s also a bad culture, like very [inaudible 41:27] but also very abrupt. So there are some people from organizations they’re saying, no, we can’t use this. It’s funny. All those organizations went to virtual now, right? They asked people to be in a home office, etc. But they’re restricting them from, you’re not allowed to use Zoom, you’re not allowed to use Google, you’re not allowed to use Dropbox. And then it feels like how those guys can really collaborate. Come on, you’re making their life almost impossible. I remember one of my friends had a boss was actually telling how you have to be visible on the camera, from nine to five, like, all time, I want to see you just like bringing the kids from school or something. Can I work later? No, nine to five. Those companies just didn’t really realize this world is changing. And eventually, those young graduates, they don’t want to work like we used to have, I still remember my grandfather, when I was going from a college to the first job, he was like, maybe your father can find you a job. And you can stay, I hate to say that, like almost one sentence, and then you will have a job for the entire life. And it I was like, first of all, I don’t want my father find me a job, I can find myself. I don’t think I have a job for life. And now I’m playing like fourth or fifth things, it completely changed. And it’s so funny, because still my grandfather was saying there is a thing like [inaudible 42:56] I know he was working in that thing for the entire working life. But that’s ridiculous now, right? The graduates are not even knowing what they do. So they do here and here and here. And in 10 years, what I was doing is irrelevant, because they’re different technologies. And they don’t…

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  43:15

So this is maybe a good last question then or maybe some that we can discuss, what’s next? What’s in the next five years when it comes to agile and agility? The podcast I named is shifting from Agile to agility because we’ve focused last 20 years on agile, not so much in agility. So I hope that the next 20 years or at least 10 are focusing on the agility. But what are your thoughts, what’s next?

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  43:45

I think we’re going to hear more about business agility, and more about the stories from all those weird departments like finance, sales, marketing, using this agile and I’m not meaning using Scrum or any framework at all. I mean, having that mindset of collaboration, transparency, trust on one hand, but also business value driven on the other hand, because without that, it doesn’t really make sense. I also hope that the profession of agile coaches will become more and now I’m looking for drivers not really structured, but maybe more defined. So we know what to expect from or what they need to do as business people and what to expect from them. And sometimes tired of having this thing, those project managers with agile, right? So I hope that those things will disappear. Eventually. I mean, you can be a project manager, nothing is wrong with it. But just don’t combine and pretend like those type of things. I would like to hear more stories like [inaudible 44:47] or those type of companies who are trying something different. Zappos, Menlo innovations, right? 

One of my favorite it’s those type of companies who are ready to start experimenting at the organizational level. Who are able to try different things for another [inaudible 45:08] just say we try it now and see what happened in spite of that from that, right? That’s the agility at the organization level. So we don’t have positions now, but they actually realize they might need some positions so we do a few. But they’re going to be looking for a difference. So the organization’s currently, what I hear, there are a lot of discussing, like doing it office space anymore, right? So when this whole pandemic is over, do we force people to go back? And how are we going to do that? Because they don’t want to go back. I mean, some of them want to go back, but some of them don’t. And what are we going to do? Europe is in a way fragmented by a lot of things but if everything become virtual, you can actually hire any team in their time zone from anywhere in the world. And there are some places where you would work in different time zones. So for example, I like to work in the US time zone, because it allows me to have a free day, it was my daughter [cross talk 46:07] right? It’s not that bad, actually. Yeah, you might realize that working in a different time zone is actually an advantage. Because then we’ll change completely this work life balance. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  46:24

It gives you options, right? And I was thinking because, I’m originally from Europe, and like, I spent a lot of time in Croatia and Montenegro, not so much in Boston, where I’m from, but summers are obviously, at least on the beach but I was thinking same thing, hey, I can work for four to midnight, and have most of the day and still asleep, from midnight to eight, nine, if I can. If I can get six hours, I’ll be happy to. And it just gives you options. And I think that’s something that’s going to be interesting. Also, you can find talent now, a lot of times people have been hesitant to outsource, at least for the area. And you guys are not too far from us. But I think you’re probably in the same situation where you have a lot of talented people, right? And now if I can get better people at the same rate here, why not? Everything’s virtual, they don’t have to be. So I think that’s going to be a game changer as well.

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  47:36

That’s going to be tough. And also there’s people who are sitting in their living rooms and homes, right? They don’t have that strong relationship in that company they work for anymore. They have a relationship to the computer, and maybe the few of their colleagues, but those faces could be a lever. And it started to be interesting, what’s going to happen with that. Because then I’ve worked for this company, this company, who cares, right? Before that you ever going to get that office, I get a flower there and a few pictures on the wall, right? I got my friends, they’re like colleagues, behave, like a friend and I will love to go there. But actually, once we become all virtual, that whole thing is gone. So it will change and shake really significantly the organizations. And there are some who are able to adapt and take advantage of every crisis, by the way, right? Of course. And there will be some which will struggle. Let’s see, who knows.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  48:37.

Yeah. And I was talking to, you’re probably not having heard of him, Andy singleton here in Boston. Yesterday, I interviewed him and he’s been doing software development for a long, long time. But he’s been doing distributed teams for 20 years or so. And I asked him as far as like, what do you think is going to be some interesting stuff that we’ll see in the next…? And he said, you’ll see more of communities, like you’ve seen, like with Wikipedia, where people just teaming up more virtually to solve world problems, or to create companies or what we’re seeing with cryptocurrency and some of these other things where the collaboration at the virtual level is going to go to the next level, essentially, he said. You’ll see a lot more innovation and a lot more going on, what he calls these communities. So I was like, yeah, that makes sense. We’re all speculating, nobody knows.

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  49:42

I think you will see a very different way of working, we’ll see more agility in a space, essentially, we’ll see agile data spaces where it was not before because it was not really needed before that much. Now it might have been needed much more. But who knows, maybe everything goes back to something and we will be surprised where we end up. You never know what’s coming anyway. And that’s such fun because it’s not predictable. So it’s more interesting. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  50:17.

Yeah. So maybe as a last question here is, what do you for aspiring Scrum Masters, leaders? What is an advice stepping into maybe mentor role? What is the couple of advices that you share with people for aspiring Scrum Masters and leaders? 

Speaker: Zuzi Sochava  49:42

I have maybe one in mind, which was struggling with me like last week because of some other things. I think what they need is have their own dream, not just given a vision of something but their own dream, why is it important? And if you ask yourself, what happens if I stopped? Say, I don’t want to stop because I believe that that thing is important. So that’s kind of dream is at the beginning there and the dream could be, I want this team to be able to do this or that or work like this or have energy and be happy and burned or anything right? Then once you have that dream, then you might need to have a lot of self-confidence and courage to go for it and optimism. So the last thing will be the optimism, because if you give up. It’s going down. So don’t give up. It’s going to be better.