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Exploring how humans connect and get stuff done together, with Dan Hammond and Pia Lee from Squadify.
We need groups of humans to help navigate the world of opportunities and challenges, but we don't always work together effectively. This podcast tackles questions such as "What makes a rockstar team?" "How can we work from anywhere?" "What part does connection play in today's world?"
You'll also hear the thoughts and views of those who are running and leading teams across the world.
[00:00:00] Dan: You've probably heard about Agile teams and you may have worked in a development team using Scrum or another Agile approach, but how can these principles and practices be brought into the world of the business team? What are the benefits and potential pitfalls ?
[00:00:12] Dan: In this episode of We Not Me we talk to Nebel Crowhurst, a highly experienced HR professional who has used agile principles in her teams in multiple sectors. Her clear view of the benefits and her pragmatic approach to a potentially complex subject will make you want to try Agile with your team today.
[00:00:33] Dan: Hello and welcome back to We, not Me, the podcast where we explore how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond,
[00:00:40] Pia: And I am Pa Lee.
[00:00:41] Dan: and I think this is fantastic timing, Pierre, isn't it? Because, um, I believe you've just come off a, we're gonna be talking about Agile today and one of the jargony words around Agile, um, is a standup. And I think you've just come off a standup that isn't your own.
[00:00:55] Pia: It is. Absolutely. And um, this is a client that I work with and I, and I have a real privilege of being part of their standup, um, every week. And this is a, this is an incredible team that had as many teams do a, a huge volume of work. And then that ability to prioritize or, or not prioritize meant. There could be a lot of friction within the team trying to work out how you hand off different parts and the crossovers between different functions within the team.
[00:01:29] Pia: and what this team's, I think very courageously done is gone on a, gone on an agile journey. and this. This particular team is not based in Australia. Um, and so, you know, culturally it could be challenging as well, but you know, absolutely 10 out of 10 they've dived in. And now we have these really efficient meetings where, you know, we're now, we're now talking about we're gonna reduce the time because everybody understands this process of breaking down the task.
[00:02:00] Pia: Giving a clear update, making it really transparent and that ability to ask each other the questions about where things are at in the meeting so that you don't have to do it out of the meeting. You, you can Sort it out there. It's, it's really, it's evolved. It's sophisticated and I think that, you know, you, you and I have been on our own Agile journey when we were both in LIW and, uh, professional service business. It, it wasn't meant to fit. and there aren't many HR people who have taken this, uh, and really adapted it, so we just felt. That was a perfect conversation. 'cause there's lots and lots of HR that we're working with are absolutely overwhelmed by so much work
[00:02:45] Dan: And even more, I think this also illustrates more generally where even, you know, outside HR as well in business teams, um, agile, whatever this thing is, um, can be used in Scrum. You know, you and I use Scrum a lot and I think this is a great, great time to have this conversation with Nebel Crowhurst, who is the Chief people Officer at Reward Gateway. Um, she, as you'll hear in a moment, has. Huge amounts of experience in, um, in using Agile and Scrum approaches, um, in a number of different sectors. And so, um, yeah, it's a, just a really timely and, uh, wonderful conversation. Let's go and hear from Nebel now.
[00:03:22] Pia: Welcome to we, not Me.
[00:03:24] Nebel: Hi. Nice to see you.
[00:03:25] Pia: Oh, fantastic. Now you have, uh, a wonderful job title, uh, which is Chief People Officer, but you also have a, another role, which is Chief Appreciation Officer. So, uh, we really want to understand that role at Reward Gateway and um, and talk to you all things engagement and agile. So that's gonna be a really interesting discussion.
[00:03:47] Pia: Um, you probably know that. The way things work round here, we have to get through the, the arduous task of answering a very, uh, specific question, which Dan Hammond is going to ask you. Put you on the spot,
[00:03:59] Dan: welcomed about, lovely to see you. I've, uh, cut the cards and this is one that we haven't had before. Um, it, it might take some thinking about the song I would like to be played at my funeral. Is that, that's a bit bleak, isn't it? But.
[00:04:14] Pia: Oh, that's not a one.
[00:04:16] Nebel: Wow.
[00:04:17] Nebel: No, I tend not to think about my funeral, but, um, I suppose, um, I got asked a couple of weeks ago what my, favorite. Cheesy song is or uh, karaoke song. We did a team quiz. So I guess if we were gonna have a lively funeral, um, and this is, this
[00:04:32] Nebel: is a
[00:04:33] Nebel: terrible song, but one that will always get me up and dancing if we're a wedding or family event is Nolans, I'm in the mood for dancing, so I dunno what that is about me. That would, at a.
[00:04:42] Dan: That, that's an excellent choice. That's an excellent choice. Um, and I don't know, we, we, we have international listeners. I don't know whether they were blessed, uh, by the Nolan Sisters in foreign climbs, but that's a, that's a cracking song, isn't it? That's going to get you on the floor. Love it.
[00:04:59] Dan: Excellent. Um. A friend of mine who sadly died of had got cancer and died, he um, at the end of the funeral, the sort of walking out music when everything was wrapping up was, um, uh, another one Bites the Dust and everyone. And everyone sort of had this, there was this sort of vis, this sort of palpable sense of, haha, what a funny song.
[00:05:22] Dan: Oh no, I know what Mark's saying to us now. I know he's sort of saying, you are, you know, this is just an endless track. It was very, it was a brilliant, brilliant end. Very, very good. But, uh, I think yours would be a little bit more jolly, uh, than that. So. Excellent. Well, um, trying to make a really neat segue.
[00:05:38] Dan: Obviously that is towards the end of your life, right at the end, actually, let's face it, unless something's really gone wrong. Um, talk us a bit about the life to this point. Nebel a little bio in a box of Nebel Crowhurst.
[00:05:49] Nebel: Yeah, for sure. so, uh, work life. Uh, I've worked for some wonderful organizations in my career. I feel very fortunate. Um, started off actually in the travel industry, so sort of travel, leisure, hospitality. So I worked for many years, um, for Virgin, part of the airline. Um, had a great time there supporting, um.
[00:06:08] Nebel: The people team, um, and very much so in, in learning and development. So that was kind of like my start off in, in hr, um, and my HR career. Um, moved on from there. Went to work for River Island, which is a, um, a fashion retailer. Uh, another really vibrant, energetic, entrepreneurial, um, creative organization. Uh, and did some great work with a, a brilliant team, um, and wonderful people.
[00:06:32] Nebel: then I had a big shift, actually, I went to work for a pharma organization. So you go from kind of, uh, quite lively, um, upbeat businesses to what you would imagine to be very serious, um, but actually more creative than you would think.
[00:06:46] Nebel: So I worked for Roche, which is a huge global business. Um, but they were at the time that I joined them making some really bold strides. Um, and had some, some great leadership. Um, and were doing really, really fantastic work, you know, and also making a difference to society. Short stint in a, in an organization that supported education.
[00:07:06] Nebel: Um, and most recently, um, been for the last couple of years with Reward Gateway. Um, and we're a, we're a business that works and partners with HR leaders in organizations, helping them to make sure that they've got the best strategy in place for, their benefits. Um, their reward and recognition strategies, their communication strategies, um, and we, um, provide technology and software, um, as a solution, for HR teams to, make, make the best of.
[00:07:34] Nebel: the way in which they engage with their people and their workforces. So yeah, lots of, um, different types of industries, different size and scale businesses, and lots of other stuff outside of my key roles. So I get involved in a lot of things around our, um, people profession. Um, I support macmillan, um, with their people advisory board.
[00:07:54] Nebel: Um, so all sorts of different things, different types of businesses, and, uh, very much so with the common thread of people in hr.
[00:08:01] Dan: Thank you Nebel. It's a great, it's a great, um, it, it's a, it's a lovely story and just, I, I wonder if you might like to join in on a sort of conversation that we started on a couple of podcasts ago. We were talking about engagement specifically and engagement surveys and the, you know, the, the sort of pressure that, um, people in organizations are under.
[00:08:19] Dan: And we were. we were talking about this idea that sometimes engagement surveying people about their engagement and waiting for other, and sort of sending it upstairs and waiting for things to happen. Um, could itself be sort of disengaging, sort of, you know, sort of taking away autonomy. Do you wanna join this debate? Have you had any, what are your thoughts on that idea? And, um, where have you seen it work? Where have you seen the pitfalls? Do, do you muck into this, uh, conversation?
[00:08:46] Nebel: It's a good conversation to have and actually it's, I think one that's been going on for a while similar to the conversation that. I think when you think about engagement surveys historically, although I think a lot of organizations probably do still work in this way, it's that it's that very traditional approach of we do an annual or biannual. Huge survey with oodles of questions. That of course, then on the receiving end for leadership and HR teams, takes a significant amount of time to review, understand, look for themes, which then for the people that have shared their inputs, feels like an age before there's any kind of response or action taken.
[00:09:22] Nebel: and so, you know, it is great to see them move forward away from that kind of, um, annual approach to much, um, perhaps shorter cycles of time in which you gather employee voice, or, um, sort of shorter surveys set up. Um, so certainly, for me, we think much more about pulse surveys, so we deep dive into specific topics at a point in time.
[00:09:42] Nebel: It's needed. and actually most recently we've just introduced something just to try it out, which we've called, um, a vibe check, um, where every couple of weeks we just say to our people, how's the last couple of weeks been for you? On a scale of one to five right? Takes three seconds for them to say to us how, how they feel.
[00:09:59] Nebel: so I think we've gotta work a bit smarter about gathering insights and gathering employee voice. It's not just the, you know, one, one hit in the year of like, being bombarded with information and, you know, then, then having too much to know what to do with it and action plan against it.
[00:10:13] Dan: that's really, that's that. I love the idea of the vibe check. 'cause that that seems so real actually, doesn't it? You sort of have that. Engagement seems so highfalutin sometimes. You know, how engaged are you today? You're going on the tube or something? Well, I dunno. Uh, whereas of how's your, the vibe actually is something you do have a sort of, and when you go there to th think about the place where you keep your vibe ter it does actually have a reading on it, doesn't it?
[00:10:35] Dan: How you're actually doing. So that, that really sort of makes sense to me. And there's how's, I know it's early days, but ha have you get, had good pickup from that? Do people answer? You say what you can, but, um, is, how's, how's that looking?
[00:10:47] Nebel: Yeah. Um, so I think the thing is when you do a kind of annual survey, you put, you know, I know HR teams put your absolute effort into trying to drive everybody across the whole business, contributing and having their voice. And so you wanna get the highest levels of completion rates, which of course I still wanna do when we sort of do a, um, that kind of stock check.
[00:11:06] Nebel: we have lower completion rates with the vibe check 'cause it is more regular. I think that's okay. I, you know, it is new to us in the business, so we're sort of continuously, um, reminding people and, just helping them to see that it's just a, a very short, easy way for them to have a bit of a voice for us to get a bit of a flavor of what's going on.
[00:11:23] Nebel: So. really what you're looking at is themes and trends. You know, from my perspective, I wanna look at is there a particular area or department that's feeling the vibe a bit more than others? Is there a particular country's in a better place than others? And then you can utilize that with other data points to think, okay, what's going on for that particular team or that particular area that you might need to support the leaders in that area to perhaps do something differently or.
[00:11:45] Nebel: Or deep dive into it to understand either, you know, a team that is really feeling great and looking at what the success successes are there, or perhaps a team that's maybe the vibe's a bit lower and trying to explore that a bit more. So, um, yeah, we're, we're just, we're just sort of testing and learning with it.
[00:12:00] Nebel: We're quite a curious team. we're often sort of trying new things and see whether it works and see whether it doesn't.
[00:12:07] Pia: how do you review the efficacy of the action planning? So a lot is around the engagement is, is the collection of data. But as you said, sometimes that takes a long time to come back to the. Team, and then it takes a long time for them to get into action by which time we're back around to the next biannual survey.
[00:12:25] Pia: And that's sometimes why it just stays where it is globally. It's not, it's not shifting.
[00:12:30] Nebel: I think that's your approach. I think, um, we should have moved away by now of the data coming in and it only being seen initially by a key. You know, secret group of people. Um, we are much more in the place now whereby, you can enable managers to be able to have real time access to the data and insights.
[00:12:51] Nebel: So we have, ability for, for managers to be able to read the information immediately. Um, and see the results immediately so that you don't have that lag of the results having to be received by hr shared with senior leadership, cascaded back down again. It just speeds everything up. They've got the ability to see things in real time and then take immediate action.
[00:13:10] Nebel: and of course further more detailed action perhaps with the support of maybe a, a business partner or someone from learning and development.
[00:13:16] Dan: none of that surprises me having heard you speak and knowing you a little bit. And, uh, it brings us a little bit, it brings neatly to the topic, main con topic of conversation today, which is agile. so we get stuck into this, I think probably a good place to start is just as we often do, define the terms.
[00:13:32] Dan: What about, what are we talking about here when we think about Agile HR or Agile in business? What, what? Try to help the, can you help the listeners adjusters to understand what we're
[00:13:40] Nebel: Yeah. Yeah. I'll start with what It's not in my view. Um, what it's not is, working flexibly, or just sort of the notion of being a, uh, nimble decision maker in the business. So, often, um, over the years that I've had a, uh, an interest and a passion in Agile hr, I've perhaps joined events or. Um, gone along to, you know, networking things or online webinars, what have you that have labeled themselves Agile hr, and I've joined it and it's been much more of a discussion of, well, how do we make, uh, flexible working So Agile HR for me is much more a philosophy in terms of a way of working. there are of course some, um, roots and history in that coming out of technology and software development. and it's a way of enabling, um, a flow of work to be more effective, um, to deliver things, um, more quickly to the business.
[00:14:31] Nebel: Um, so it's, yeah, it's much more set of principles and, and philosophies to how we get stuff done rather than it just being, oh, we're a flexible bunch.
[00:14:38] Pia: it's a, it's funny how these terms could be misconstrued. and I think agile. yeah, has got, has got quite a varied perception of what it is. and like what was your journey to bring this into your HR practices? Like what was the trigger?
[00:14:53] Nebel: Yeah. so I mentioned before, um, uh, about the work we did at River Island. When I reflect back actually. I think, um, even before River Island in my time when I was working at Virgin, we were kind of doing it almost without realizing it because of the kind of culture and the entrepreneurial spirit of the business.
[00:15:08] Nebel: Um, but the real kind of deep dive into it was, and, you know, some real curiosity, um, between a few of us. in the, the HR team at River. Um, and part of that was because at the point in time I was at River Island, it was a real, um, turning point and the shift in, um, sort of moving away from your kind of high street retail bricks and mortar retail being your primary source of revenues much more into online.
[00:15:34] Nebel: And a lot of the kind of online retailers are really coming up being very competitive. And so. There was a lot of work going on within the tech and IT teams to sort of bring that to life and, and they'd started to utilize this agile way of working, which is great, and you kind of expect it in it, but it sparked some curiosity around, well, if it works for them, why not other teams?
[00:15:53] Nebel: how could this work for other departments? What would that look like for hr and how can we explore it a little bit more? and so that was just the start of it. So, um, understanding a bit of, uh, how it works, taking the time to go and, um, learn externally. So, um, getting a scrum master certificate, um, which at the time was an interesting experience 'cause very few people in HR were getting involved in things like Scrum and so we did the workshop.
[00:16:17] Nebel: Um, like I remember still the guy facilitating, tried really hard to bring in some HR examples to try and make us feel welcome and part of Crew. Um, they were just sort of, you know, you know, he, he didn't get the world of HR and we were obviously learning the world of agile and tech. Um, but it gave us a foundation to be able to think, okay, well what are the things that could work in HR and what are the things we could kind of experiment with?
[00:16:38] Nebel: and just starting to grow it from there. So, exploring other people that were perhaps in the same head space. So there was some great work at that point going on with the top, uh, team over at Sky, um, who weren't too far away from us in locations. So we went to meet with them and, and sort of share ideas and learn from one another.
[00:16:55] Nebel: And I think over those years now, it's kind of. There's a bit of a movement now. There's a lot more people that are truly, interested in, um, in this way of working and, and exploring it a bit more. So that was very much a starting point, but it's then become something that's continued through every role that I've done subsequently.
[00:17:14] Dan: Brilliant. And so Nebel, tell us what it looks like. So if we were to sort of come and observe, see your team in action talk, maybe let's just randomly say for a month, what, what will, what will we see, um, uh, in of, of that team? What will we observe?
[00:17:30] Nebel: Do you know what's interesting when I reflect back on the different organizations and the evolution of my kind of experience in Agile is it varies. So, um, when we were first experimenting it with Ryan, it was very much about scrum teams working in sprints, um, delivering projects faster by utilizing that, both working of things like daily standups rather than long, laborious project meetings. Then when I think about where we're at today, actually, um, within my team at Ward Gateway, it's much more about the principles of things like self-organized teams, and, um, shared accountability in terms of the way in which they, they work. It's utilizing. Like OKRs, so objectives and key results, and looking at those on a quarterly basis, it's, it's exactly what we were talking about earlier with the engagement surveys.
[00:18:14] Nebel: Actually. The fact that you move away from an annual survey and you move much more into pulse surveys, perhaps quarterly or fortnightly, whatever that might look like. That in a sense is kind of an agile way of working because you are working in. Shorter iterations, gathering insight, information and feedback to inform what you do next.
[00:18:32] Nebel: so it, it varies in the different environments that I've worked in and, and I think that's the joy of it. Um, I think if you work in tech, there's probably a purist element to it, which is absolutely fine because. That's fully their world. When you apply things like Agile to a different context like HR or indeed you could apply it to any area, project management, um, aside.
[00:18:51] Nebel: It could be finance, it could be, you know, any type of working area. you need to kind of think about which, um, which elements, which, uh, processes, which approaches will apply best to the context that you're working in at that point in time. And what do you need the most? Um, and adapt it a little bit and, um, explore with it.
[00:19:09] Dan: Yeah, that, I think that's, that's in a way a strength but also a challenge, isn't it? 'cause I, I, you know, it's sort of, if you have a rule book to follow, there you go. You're doing Agile and, and when we adopted Agile, we were actually having a conversation about this this week, weren't we pair, we think it's about eight years ago, um, that we
[00:19:25] Pia: People
[00:19:26] Dan: Um. People there was, there were tear there.
[00:19:29] Pia: was the first standup there. was.
[00:19:30] Dan: Someone, literally cried in the standup. It was, it was sort of, oh, I think this is, this is, this is going very well. I think a vi, a vibe check, uh, on that day would've been an absolute winner. Um, yeah, would've been gone. But also our coach, our agile coach that we we're using actually.
[00:19:47] Dan: Didn't take that. They sort of forced idea, some specific ideas on us which didn't really fit, our way of working and us. So that didn't work. And we actually, the, we sort of, it almost, the system almost, ejected the agile organism if you like. Uh, but at the same time, um, there are loads of ways of doing this, aren't there? There's lots of, lots of pieces that. you sort of a build your own, which which is itself makes it complex rather than a color by numbers sort of approach.
[00:20:15] Nebel: And what you have to remember is agile is an umbrella term for so many different things. So what you've just talked about there where you've had your agile coach and you've had your first daily standup. That is Scrum. And then within Scrum you've got the idea of using a Kanban board. So I think one of the other things that is a challenge is it's kind of got this language that can scare people off, but there's no need.
[00:20:36] Nebel: So although there is names and ways to describe the different ways in which you work within Agile, actually a lot of it is. A lot of it's common sense. You know, the principle of Kanban. What it is is a, a task list that, you know, is laid out in a format that helps you to work through that task list in a more efficient way, and, and have shared visibility of that.
[00:20:56] Nebel: So people need to not feel too fearful of the language that, um, sits with it. Don't allow that to be a blocker. but as you say, do enough, kind of research into some of the different aspects of Agile is the umbrella term, and think about what things I just, you know, just have a play with to start with.
[00:21:14] Dan: Yes. It's, it's, it's one of the issues, isn't it? Because you say agile itself is an English word that has meanings that was owned. You know, and if you look at, if any, any, any listener can do this, just Google Agile Manifesto and you'll find it's. Essentially one slide, these principles that came outta this meeting and it almost doesn't, it almost doesn't say anything.
[00:21:34] Dan: It's like a sort of v vague philosophy. So I think from that is born all this, these different meanings, you can see where, where all that comes from, which gives it hu wonderful sort of a philosophy and an approach and a, and a sort of lightness and, and options. But at the same time. You know, gives us that mean means that we have to own it for ourselves and, and, uh, choose how we're going to do this for ourselves and what we're gonna call things, as you say.
[00:22:00] Pia: have you faced resistance, like, because it is a behavioral shift that has to happen and, and what's that resistance look like and how have you got over it?
[00:22:08] Nebel: Yeah. That's why, I mean, that's why I laughed when you said someone cried. Not that I would laugh at someone crying, 'cause that's not kind, but. I laugh because it resonated. Um, because absolutely I've experienced resistance and that's because it's different. You know, we're humans and naturally we don't much like change.
[00:22:24] Nebel: Some of us, some of us do, some of us prefer not to. Um, and trying to implement a very different way of working when you're used to doing something in a very specific way for some is really not very easy. and so. When you say to people, especially if we go back to this example of utilizing some of the principles of Scrum, oh, we are not gonna have a monthly three hour, um, review meeting for this project.
[00:22:47] Nebel: We are gonna have a daily meeting for 10 to 15 minutes, and the first reaction is, well, I can't possibly fit that in every single day. I can't commit to that. I've got so many other things going on. And so this kind of resistance kicks in of some of the things that probably feel a bit different than uncomfortable.
[00:23:01] Nebel: Um, and the best way through it is, Just for a short time, be open-minded. Try and say some look. Give it a go. Give it a go with me for this month. At the end of the month, if it really still feels like it's not working, let's understand why that is and what we can do to perhaps adapt it. So if you can overcome the hurdle of just getting somebody to be comfortable, just to try it and say to them, look, if it's not working, it's fine.
[00:23:26] Nebel: You can go back. Go back to how you were doing things. What I found is in pretty much every situation, once someone's experienced it, they go, oh. Actually that was quite good. That worked. That was thoughtful. So you've, the hardest bit is just getting them to be, open to just give it a try so they don't feel like it's been forced upon and that it's gonna be changed forever.
[00:23:47] Nebel: That they've got the opportunity to give feedback. Because again, that's one of the key principles, you know, it's feedback loops, you know, whether that's within our teams when we do a kind of retrospective or whether that's within, um, our stakeholders when we're delivering a service or a product out to the business.
[00:24:02] Nebel: and, and you're doing a review. The feedback piece is so important, so enable them to feel like they can feed back on it. And the chances are over time they will kind of come along, um, on the journey. It's just for some, it takes longer than others, but absolutely there's resistance 'cause it's different and it's not how people necessarily are used to working.
[00:24:20] Dan: just picking up that thread. That transparency is, um, we've witnessed it. It's amazing and it's powerful. But that's at the same time, challenging, isn't it? Do do, is there a requirement of a base level of psychological safety here to make this, to make this work? Otherwise it can look like a sort of, it could appear to be a, uh, micromanagement project, a sort of vigilance. So, uh, surveillance. Thing, almost that level of transparency is actually quite challenging, isn't it? Have you seen that as well, and what's the, is there a base level of psych safety that's required to even try this?
[00:24:55] Nebel: There's absolutely a need for psych safety, for people to be able to know that they can be, um, kind of honest and open. so it is kind of, sort of. Setting the scene up front with everybody. So it is moving away from people feeling like you say they're being kind of, uh, watched over micromanaged. Because really the philosophy is self-organized teams and co co-creation and everyone is an equal.
[00:25:19] Nebel: So even when you're working as a team, a scrum team or whatever you wanna call your team, um, you will have perhaps a facilitator helping you to go through the meeting. You know, language of agile being scrum master, but you can call it whatever you wish. That person is no more important than anybody else in that team.
[00:25:36] Nebel: Um, and so there's a, there's complete, um, equality. Everyone's equal in the way in which they show up. Everyone's got, um, a role to play. Everyone's got, um, the ability to contribute and to deliver together, um, the shared accountability. So it's helping people to see that difference as well. I think what's harder actually is for those people that like to be managed, they want to be told what to do.
[00:25:58] Nebel: They want direction. I think that's actually, it's harder for those people than it's for the people that are like, oh, I don't, I don't wanna be like watched over, you know, people that ha enjoy autonomy and empowerment. This is ideal. Um, but the people that kind of wait to be told which task to do next.
[00:26:13] Nebel: That's actually, it's actually, I think, harder for those people because the principles of working in Agile is much more a case of there's a task to be done. Who's gonna do it? Grab it. Okay, let's go. Let's move forward.
[00:26:23] Dan: and over time, um, and this is something I've picked up from some agile teams, more in tech actually than, than our own experience of it. Um, c just can it become a sort of. What I've unflatteringly called a death march of ceremonies. So is there a danger that it can just, you know, turn into this relentless slog of, okay, stand up sta you know, retro sprint and it turns into it sort of.
[00:26:51] Dan: It can deviate away from this lovely self-managed, autonomous safe place to get more done to actually just a drudge. and if so, have you seen that? And if so, how can you avoid that? What are the, there's a sort of other aspects of team health that can sort of fall away
[00:27:07] Dan: potentially.
[00:27:08] Nebel: Yeah. I mean, if it's getting to the point where it's feeling unhelpful or a drudge change it up, you know, just, but just because the, just because the kind of, usual formula of, you know, working in sprints might be, you know, a two week sprint with a daily standup for 15 minutes. Doesn't mean that's how you've got to do it.
[00:27:25] Nebel: Um, so you could either take the approach of, well, I quite like the idea. We've got a kind of remote, disparate team and twice a week we have a 15 minute catch up just to, just to check in and see how pe, how people are and what's happening. That's you using a principle from Agile. Nice and simple. Um, you might take the approach where you say, day-to-Day reactive work. We don't necessarily use agile principles, but when we're working on a project, that's when it feels right to be able to put in place some of the, the Agile principles. So, I think again, it's a case of when you are doing your retrospectives or you are just reflecting, you know, it doesn't even need to be that, you know, it can just say, we didn't take some time to reflect on how things are going in our team or how we've worked.
[00:28:03] Nebel: You can kind of say, well, which are the elements that work well and which are the elements we wanna perhaps change as we move forward? So change it up, you know, this is a kind of. Spaces for you to follow. Not a, uh, not a, a perfect formula that if you don't do it exactly as the pure say, you should, that it won't work.
[00:28:17] Nebel: It still does.
[00:28:18] Dan: And it, and it has that element of retrospective and learning built into it, which applies to the process itself, doesn't it? So it's a, it should itself be a self, a safety mechanism if it's done right. If people feel safe enough. Yeah. Yeah. No, that
[00:28:31] Nebel: Yeah, and, and it's like you say, the safety's really important. So that space for people to feel like they can be really honest, I think you have to be mindful then, it is all about providing feedback and receiving feedback. There also needs to be a kind of shared respect for one another. That how you land that feedback is done in a, you know, respectful way that's supportive and not just people, you know, firing grenades at each other.
[00:28:51] Pia: And, what's your view on, executive and, and leadership teams? are they able to adopt Agile or are they too senior, have different work or it needs to be different?
[00:29:02] Nebel: Um, they can, if they want to. There needs to be an appetite. I mentioned earlier Roosh. So one of the reasons I chose to join Roosh, aside from it being, you know, a great career opportunity for me to be able to experience working as part of a, a large scale global organization. When I joined, they were on the cusp of wanting to introduce Agile.
[00:29:21] Nebel: I was like, oh, great. You know, this is something I can come in and, and contribute to and add value to. Um, but their approach, rightly so, was starting with leadership. And so enabling leaders to understand, um, what it meant to work in an agile way, educating them on some of the core principles. Um, designing the leadership program around agile so that they can understand, um, how they show up has an impact.
[00:29:47] Nebel: so there needs to be an open-mindedness from leaders. If a leader absolutely does not want to engage in this, it's, it's a hard one to convince advice. Um, but it's doable. And it's the same thing when we talk about resistance within teams. Again, it's a, it's a case of kind of persevering and helping them to kind of see the benefits.
[00:30:06] Nebel: Um, and you may need to flex and adapt how you do that, dependent on which leader it is because you know, you need to, um, show up, you know, at at the point they're at. and. Show them the benefits bit by bit. Um, if you're fortunate enough to have a leadership team that are, you know, really game, wanna, wanna get involved, wanna work in a different way, then that's, that's really, that's a real joy that makes life a lot easier.
[00:30:28] Nebel: Um, because they wanna get behind. It doesn't necessarily make it easy for them to adapt. You know, traditionally in the workplace, um, we see a lot of hierarchy. I see a real difference between leadership and hierarchy. I don't feel we need hierarchy in organizations. We do need leadership. People need.
[00:30:45] Nebel: Like they're being led, they've got clear path, they've got clarity on strategy. But that doesn't mean to say there needs to be a hierarchical commander control environment. Um, in fact, you can get far more from people if you have strong leadership that enables empowerment and autonomy within the business.
[00:31:02] Nebel: I. we're adults, and sometimes you go to work and we become no longer adults. We just become children that get told what to do. So it's that whole adult to adult environment. When we think about the whole principles of adult, parent, child.
[00:31:14] Dan: Oh Nebel, you're speaking our language now. Absolutely. Spot on. Love it. Love it. And, and I just very quickly converse it. I think you see sometimes people say. you know, hire people and get outta their way. It's almost says they don't need hierarchy and they don't need leadership. Actually, people don't want just you just to sort of leave them on their own.
[00:31:30] Dan: They need and want the conditions for success, and that's the role of leadership. So, um, lovely to hear you say that. So Nebel. Brilliant. an very nuanced view of agile, I think, which I think will really support anyone who's thinking about this. Um, but if someone wanted to start, um, someone listens to this and they think, you know what, that sounds amazing, where, where would you advocate that they take their first, what's a baby step here?
[00:31:53] Nebel: well, it is a baby step, so I get asked this question a lot, and my answer is always start small. take some small things that you might be able to adapt and just, play with it. I think, especially, you know, in the HR space now, there's so many more people operating in this way. Um, I would, my first step would be work out your network, your community, who are the other people that are doing this that you can connect with and learn from?
[00:32:14] Nebel: And so again, going back to the start of this journey. at River Island, you know, I mentioned Sky and the great work they were doing there, but the person that was a real inspiration to me and still is today, is Natal Dank. So Natal is, I, I think pioneering in the space around Agile HR and has, and has continued to be over the last decade or so.
[00:32:32] Nebel: it's her complete work. Um, and she's written some great books. Um, and so she's someone that you could perhaps look at and follow to be able to learn more because there are so many things now that you can join. You can go on courses and workshops and webinars that are specifically for HR rather than, um, kind of tech based, um, agile.
[00:32:53] Nebel: So start small, build your community. Um, learn from others to get some inspiration.
[00:33:00] Dan: yeah, and you, you may, you, you, you've used a book recommendation already so that that's, that's in the bag. But I'm gonna push, I'm gonna ask you for another one. Um, do you have a, this is our media recommendation. Do you have any other books, podcast, TV series that have inspired or entertained you recently?
[00:33:17] Nebel: Yeah, so of course, yeah, completely endorse Natal and support, um, the work that she does, and her books are fantastic. I suppose another book that really inspired me and is continue to do so, and I did read it quite some time ago. and that's a book by Emma Gannon. and she talks about the multi hyphen method or the multi hyphen career.
[00:33:36] Nebel: Um, and it's something that has always interested me and it, and almost, you know. It, it is kind of akin to the world of agile because agile doesn't necessarily mean that you have to work in a truly linear way. You kind of flow and you move in different directions. Um, and it's about the encouragement of.
[00:33:53] Nebel: Working in a way that you don't have to just have a single job, a single direction. You can have multiple roles that either compliment each other or feed your interests. Um, so you may have your core job that pays the bills, um, but then you may have other roles that you do aside from that, that, um, gives you more, kind of energy and passion, um, or you might do complimentary roles that support the job that you do today.
[00:34:18] Nebel: So. You know, for example, for me, I've course got my, my main job. But aside from that, I do, um, work where I sit on advisory boards. Um, and I enjoy that because I feel like I'm contributing, um, to something greater than the, the single job that I do. But, um, I also get, um, pleasure from that, you know, because I'm learning as well and I can take that back into business.
[00:34:38] Nebel: So yeah, Emma Gannon's book has always stayed with me, and, made me think differently about what careers look like.
[00:34:45] Dan: Wonderful. Well, the link to that will be the show notes. I think that's, that's one I'm gonna go and pick up. I think that's, uh, that's. That really makes sense. And it's all, I love those that have stayed with you for a long time as well. They, they're sort of really enduring, aren't they? That's, um, that's wonderful.
[00:34:57] Dan: We pick just a handful of these up I think, as we go through, don't we? but Nebel thank you so much for being on We, not me today. It's been an absolute delight.
[00:35:06] Pia: Yeah, and I, I think there's, there's gonna be a, a lot of our listeners who are in HR who will be listening to this, turning the cogs and, um, yeah, I hope, I hope that they feel inspired to give it a go, as you said, build a community, take the learnings.
[00:35:22] Nebel: Yeah, me too. Thank you.
[00:35:24] Dan: and if they do Nebel, will they be able to drop you a line? Would that be a, an app a just pushing it too far? May maybe If we have get there.
[00:35:31] Nebel: No, of course I can. Easiest place always of course, is LinkedIn.
[00:35:35] Dan: LinkedIn. Perfect, perfect. LinkedIn is great. Thank you. Well, uh, thanks again Nebel for being on the show today. It's been a, a real, uh, uh, just brilliantly insightful and, uh, a nuanced for you on this important topic. So thank you.
[00:35:47] Nebel: Thanks Having me.
[00:35:51] Dan: It occurred to me listening to Nebel there that, um. While she's been brilliant at taking slices of this thing, understanding and, and making, helping people to make a start. One of the great things about Agile or Scrum is that, it has many, many benefits. So, but that equally makes it hard to sort of. To draw a line around, if you know what I mean.
[00:36:12] Dan: As, as you said in the, in the top of the show, you've got a team there that is probably trying to achieve too much. So it helps you to minimize that and minimize the dependency so you get more throughput. There's a lack of transparency about who's doing what. Well, it does that, it um, it helps you to learn 'cause you do retros frequently and talk about how to accelerate the team so it builds a learning culture.
[00:36:33] Dan: All of these things come out of this. This approach that you could sort of put on one page if you wanted to. So I think that as it makes it super powerful, but also probably a little bit confusing as you come to it from the outside.
[00:36:47] Pia: Agree. And I think that when you are under pressure, because you don't normally look to agile when you feel like you've got everything totally under control. So your brain is thinking, I don't have space for this. And then if I lose, if I have to do and learn more things and I, and, and potentially even lose control.
[00:37:07] Pia: that would feel disempowering, you know? And you know, we talked about that on the show. Like the first time we did this in the professional services business, there were tears. You know, it
[00:37:16] Pia: was because you had to really become very open about the work you were doing and what you were focusing on, and if you were stuck. And that was quite vulnerable for
[00:37:27] Dan: so tricky. And that's where that safety is really needed, isn't it? And um, by the way, uh, I think to be clear, it wasn't you or me that cried, was it? Did you, you didn't
[00:37:35] Pia: No, well, not that time.
[00:37:36] Dan: No. No.
[00:37:37] Pia: Frequently
[00:37:38] Dan: Um, um, but I, you know, I, I was working with a team recently who pushed back quite strongly on this, and I think that it is, it is challenging when, um. People aren't ready, ready for it. And I think sometimes that transparency can be challenging if the safety isn't completely there. uh, but just that nature of change, which is honestly, I'm doing it this way, and the, I think Nobel's. Insight about just try it is so important. And also try it small because it's hard to grasp the benefits from the theory.
[00:38:09] Dan: You have to, it's something you have to do to really sort of see, okay, well this is good for me. 'cause it has to not just serve the organization. And the team, but it has to serve the individual as well, ultimately to, to that it has to be a really good environment for them to give them more clarity. and I do think there are, are huge payoffs.
[00:38:25] Dan: I feel that a huge source of stress for executives is the amount of stuff that they feel they have to do. And just putting some of that into backlog and saying, no, that's good stuff, but I'm not doing it right now, is a huge stress reliever. So I think the payback for the individual is huge. It may just not be immediately apparent as you go into this.
[00:38:45] Pia: And it's the shorter timeframes, um, the time boxing of things and then getting really clear on what those prioritization are. It, it actually does reduce, it does reduce the stress levels, but to begin with, um, it, it, it just feels like your brain's being. Bombarded. And I think there's a bit of patience.
[00:39:05] Pia: And certainly the team that I was with, I kept saying to them, this is going, this is gonna feel clunky, it's gonna feel harder to begin with. It's all work in progress and every week and, and I, you know, we could see it every week. Got easier. it. Got clearer. And, and the, you know, the simple things that you don't realize that you need to develop a skill in is defining.
[00:39:29] Pia: The task on, you know, on what we're actually doing and what that looks like when that task is completed. 'cause we just have sort of really open nebulous tasks that never get completed, aren't time boxed.
[00:39:42] Dan: you really notice that, observe that. Yeah. And you really observe that, that you put a think, right? What are you doing? I'm doing the marketing plan, let's say. Well, that's. that's, that's huge. It's got multiple parts in it and it goes on forever. So having that as a task is, is just not clear forever, everyone about what you're doing there.
[00:40:00] Dan: It's hard to collaborate with that, whereas chunking it down, saying, this month I'm gonna get my. I'm gonna be doing 50 interviews to get customer insights, to understand what, blah, blah, blah. You know, that's a really solid thing. And so I think all these, you don't really notice until you do it how, in a way, how vague we are about what we're executing.
[00:40:18] Pia: which is a clarity piece. And then we, and then, and then we wonder why we're spinning wheels or we feel under resourced or we've got tensions and it goes right back to that. Clarity piece, you gotta nail clarity, but it's hard work. It's, and it's not necessarily sexy stuff, but then it means that once everyone's really clear what those specific tasks are, then you, it's opens you up for collaboration.
[00:40:44] Pia: It opens you up for a different type to ask for help or
[00:40:47] Pia: support or.
[00:40:47] Pia: challenge
[00:40:48] Dan: Correct. I, I, I think the, the other thing that. Springs to mind is the, is what Nebel said about just fitting your team. And you know, while a lot of development teams have a very sophisticated approach to Scrum, you know, they have a scrum master, they have a product owner, they have specific roles, they, they have a business analyst who will be, you know, analyzing every task and how many story points are in there, or how much effort it's gonna take, it's a huge load because of the way they work. It's worth that load. But I think our experience is that in a business team you can lighten a lot of that and you can build something that's really fit for purpose.
[00:41:24] Dan: 'cause you know, so the actual. Investment you're making in running the system is really tied in appropriate to the task. So it can be really simple. So, um, I, well I know we both welcome a conversation with anyone who's exploring that to, um, to sort of share those learnings with them. So, very hope we very much hope we have a couple of conversations.
[00:41:41] Dan: I know it's a subject that's close to our hearts 'cause we've seen how it can unite teams and help them moving forward, which is, uh, obviously, uh, the goal of what we're trying to do here on we, not me.
[00:41:52] Dan: That is it for this episode. We Not Meis supported by Squadify. Squadify is the complete system to help your teams to connect and perform. You can find show notes where you are listening and also at squadify.net.Yed the show, please do share your, share the Love with your friends. We, not Me, is produced by Mark Steadman. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.
[00:42:12] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.