Failing in a major Agile community gathering: a lesson to remember

Transparency is awesome… until it’s about you.

One of Agile’s core values is transparency, and that sounds awesome… Up to the point when you realize that means you also have to be exceedingly honest about your flaws and mistakes.

I guess that is the main reason we keep saying that Agile takes courage. Because yes, it takes courage to stand up to an organization that is failing to see the harm its bureaucracy and excessive focus in processes over people is doing. Yes, it takes courage to stand up to your boss or your client and say they have to stop telling you what to do, but instead tell you what they need so you can come up with the best solution you can.

However, nothing compares to the courage you must have to look in the mirror and wholeheartedly accept continuous improvement, inspection and adaptation and the ghoulish feeling you failed and will continue to do so.

Failure, the horror movie

We say we’re human, and humans make mistakes, but we seldom feel that way. In the nature versus nurture conundrum, I believe part of this is biological, part cultural and part educational. Our socialization enables us to define ourselves by our victories, which is awesome if you never make mistakes. Otherwise, it is a very complex, self-layed snare. We do not dislike failure; we abhor it, because it defines us as failures ourselves.

I suffer from anxiety and am an extremely talkative introvert who learned to sound self-assured, which makes it very hard for people to see through and realize how low is my self-esteem. This year I lectured in Rio Scrum Gathering for the first time.

Host a lecture, they said. It will be fun, they said.

After preparing the presentation alongside my partner during a very (yet unrelated) stressful period, we decided for an approach that was meant to take people from their comfort zones. They knew we were there to talk about people and how to change culture, and that usually includes motivational talk and fluffy bunnies. Instead, we went for their guts, exploiting the gruesome aspect of harassment as something all of us have experienced from both ends: the abused… but also the abuser.

Our main goal was to get people to stop expecting culture change would be made for them, being by the organization or someone with power. Top-down decisions are very helpful in changing processes and incentivizing the adoption of frameworks, but changing culture is something much more visceral. It must come from within.

Apparently people don’t like being the villain in the story… Go figure.

I had an awesome friend who passed away due to brain cancer (and to this day my theory is that he overclocked the damned thing) who used to say nobody is the villain in their own story. I love that proverb because it helps me reach empathy even when I am not particularly inclined to. During the lecture I could hear some laughs, I could see people nodding, so I thought we were doing good. Far from perfect, but yeah, the message is coming through.

Several people approached us after and the following day, speaking about their cases, seeking advice or just someone to assure them they weren’t crazy, and it felt awesome to help.

Metrics will keep you humble

I hate dealing with numbers, although there are people who say I do that well (I disagree). However, I am very obsessed with results, and they are very hard to interpret without numbers. So I go, and I check and I always try to have metrics on everything I do.

There I was, thinking “so… yup, there’s a lot of room for improvement, but that went well.” And then I went searching for our lecture’s feedback, which is measured by how many chips the participants put in green, yellow or red buckets.

It humbled me.

93 people were there. 48 liked it (green), 41 thought it was meh (yellow) and 4 hated it (red).

I understand there are perfect good reasons for people to have hated it. Maybe because we didn’t present well, or the theme was not of their interest, or we sucked at controlling the presentation timing (which we painfully did). But what really got to me were the people who thought it was meh.

I wanted to find each of those 41 individuals and ask them “what should I have done better? How can I improve??”

But I couldn’t. I was devastated, with a sense of having failed people I could have enchanted, if maybe I had started the making of the presentation earlier, if I had rehearsed better (or at all), if I hadn’t gone for such a provoking approach or if I had simply controlled my anxiety and shut up at some points. Not knowing what would have made that difference is what killed me.

Elephants and continuous improvement

I have a very good memory for facts and events, and that is especially true when it comes to failing. I grow attached to that failing experience, and it has always been so, with periods of depression and self-loathing that find their way back from time to time. Nonetheless, remembering failure constantly also means it bothers you, and you get to do something about it. You learn to say “I won’t make the same mistake again” and try to at least be innovative in your personal disasters.

Being an elephant and remembering things most people don’t empowers you to at the very least find new mistakes to make. And guess what? Failing faster so you fail less is the stepping stone for pivoting and finding what does work.

Finding the agilist within

This is one of the main reasons I consider myself a lifelong agilist that found these things had names and frameworks not too long ago. And I believe I am no special snowflake. Deep down inside, I trust most people share this sense that something is not right, that things could be different, could be better. WE could be better.

That’s why we fear failure. Because it forces us to find the courage to do something about it, and reject a mediocre existence. It enables us, empowers us. This is why we are agilists. This is why we reach for the stars.