AgileTHIS

I recently had the pleasure of working together with a very skilled guy – and just for the record: i will not mention names in this post! This post is about how wrong an impression you can get of people, and how fast that can ruin any reputation.

We were doing release planning using jeff pattons story map, and we had the 10 most valuable co-workers around us – product owners, program managers, technical leads and chief designers.

People were doing a great brainstorming sessions were stories came in from left and right. Suddenly a senior manager decides to show his rank – a guy junior to him came up with a good surgestion that was quickly swept off the table with the words: “you know… I have been doing this for 8 years – There IS a reason why god gave you two ears and only ONE mouth” – I was totally chocked!!! A few minutes later the manager rushed out of the door to another meeting leaving a crumbled session behind… It wasnt the first time that I have heard about this saying “two ears, one mouth” and when I came home that same night, I remembered my old teacher from high School who really liked hearing himself, and how he always was right in his oppinions – he said the same thing: “listen and learn – do not reflect over history hence my words are the only truth!”

One of the biggest issues with Team failure is the lack of communication or simply that only few members of the Team are participating in the public talks.

It is crucial to any project – agile or not – to respect the word of the individual and to listen and learn – even when the least skilled man or woman talks. The saying with “two ears, one mouth” is about the individual having to learn how to crawl before it can walk – but what if there was a better approach to the problem?! I have NEVER met a single individual who were perfect and just knew everything – you can always do better!

So when you are doing an open session, Daily scrum or brainstorm remember why people are there and perhaps even invited to the event. Use the “talking stick” and make sure that everybody is being heard. This is one of the finest tasks of the scrum master and product owner – if they really want the best end-result.

Thank you for reading
Chris.