Joe Justice: Managing a Collaborative Multi-National Team in Real ...

62:15 Q: To help fund WikiSpeed, where can e get a T-shirt with the Gorilla high fiving the shark. A: ….
64:30 Q: What is your longer term vision for the care manufacturers. Do you see this scaling up to a larger car
manufacturer. Would it then turn into a for-profit car operation. A: …Were not against profit but that’s not what we do
…….we want to make a difference for the environment … more customer relevant, more environmentally sustainable,
and lower overall cost of ownership, we’ve done the right thing. We see all of our current competitors as future
partners.
69:43 Q: I’ve been coaching, so facing the pain of transformation, and view this work as disruptive. What do you see
of current manufactures succeeding with this instead of new disruptive manufacturers growing up around them and
eating their lunch? A: That’s Steve Denning’s point exactly, if I followed you. He’s saying it’s very painful for an
existing organization to change methods, and so what seems to be happening, and what has historically happened, in
the pace of business turnover that’s accelerating, is that some other company comes up, is radically disruptive, takes
over the space, and then they become the complacent one. Then they’re raided and disrupted, and they’re raided and
disrupted. My guess at what the answer is, what I’ve observed and have some evidence of what the answer might be,
is that companies need to be good at change. Not be good at agile, not be good at scrum, not be good at line
manufacturing, not be good at lean, although all those things do help them change quickly; but the actual good is not
to figure out how to be an awesome scrum master. The actual good is to figure out how to make your team do
something different next week that’s better than what you’re doing now. That’s what all these practices are all about.
We all know this. But sometimes it’s easy to get dogmatic, and we know when that happens, the excitement starts to
leave the team. The other part of that is, if there’s anything Team WikiSpeed is doing that’s actually new – because
everything we’re doing is common across the agile space, it’s just the agile space is still booming, it’s still flying open
and expanding – is focusing on moral as a multiplier for velocity. That’s not very common yet. I’ve heard a few
sessions about it [here at the conference], and I didn’t come up with it either. But we apply that very seriously, and
we apply that paired with reduced cost to make change. I bet that that’s what might serve these companies, being
good at having highly motivated teams that are making changes quickly. They may be able to stay on top of their
markets. But that doesn’t address how to convince or encourage or support an existing company try to make change.
There’s the thought that you have to give someone at least five compliments before you can ask them to change. It
might be finding out what’s really good about the companies we’re in before we find out what we might want to
disrupt, and disrupt it very gently, and with support. And come at it, I amagine, from a loving angle at what the
company’s already good at, and a loving angle for the people in the business and what they’re already doing, and help
them do it better – to be higher morale, and to be able to make changes quickly. Then maybe we will see all
companies being continually disruptive. And we’ll all benefit from having a radically different, maybe, pace of new
product development that is customer focused. Did that talk to your question at all or did I go sideways and talk in a
rant?
72:42 Q quy responds: No, actually that was really good. But I think when you were talking there about, um, some
people think I’m a nice guy. I’ve got them fooled. When you’re looking at trying to transform them, it seems to take
an awful long time. So they think “I’m going to get this coach in, and oh by the way I want you to take these hundred
teams and get them agile before the end of the year.” I just kind of start to shiver and shake when I hear them talk
that way, because it’s a lot of talking, helping. When they feel like you’re there to help, then you get the ability to
influence them. And that, to me, takes a long time to be able to build that up. That’s my fear, of them not actually
transforming. Then it takes a 2x4 to the head and that’s a lot more painful for them then a nice transformation.
73:39 A: I used to feel that level of resistance at the clients I’d go to in my day job. I don’t any more. That example
at Tait radio – they were already doing some strong practices that they had found by working with Mary and Tom
Poppendieck, and Henrick [Kniberg] . Then when Tim Meyer and I were able to come in, we were able to set up a
team on day one. We were able to have visible, radical progress in that team. The team was, and Tim and I were able
to support it (we didn’t build those radios, we’re not radio engineers) in five days. We’re beginning to see the pace of
adoption, the pace of culture change, go through the roof too. What I see as a – I will get on my high horse for a just
a minute – is I see people come in and talk about organizational change as if it’s this road map in this cycle. What?
We’re agile.
[excitedly] I run into a client and say “You have permission to do what you need to do. They do, right? [said
sideways, to management presumably]. Okay – and you won’t be fired for at least one week. Now we’re going to
do something really different and here’s the practices that support it. See that Q ball, just for this week, we’re
going to move it against the wall, okay? Please take these things over here . Who has the clearest vision of what
we’re doing? Who can imagine a day in the life of the customer,a nd what they’re doing that day when they’re
using your product or service, and what they ate for breakfast, and how it relates to the rest of the tings they do
that day? Who is that? It’s your tester?! Oh wow, imagine that, it’s not even someone from marketing but they
really do. Do they? They do. Let’s talk about how to vote as a team. You’re now this thing called the product
owner. Who’s going to run get everybody screwdrivers and lemonade? Okay, for today at least you’re the scrum
master. Do you have a background in team psychology? No. Well maybe go to a coaching clinic next week.
Week one we have results. That starts to have people from other teams come in and look, saying “what’s going
on.” And we have an all hands session saying everything you gave this team once a year, you’re no going to give
them a little piece of it once a week, and everything you used to get from this team once a year, once a quarter,