• Agile & Scrum Basics

“The way of working together is more important than the content.”

When young Marjans sits in school and has to make an assignment with her project group, she notices something: not everyone is contributing. And that observation, which initially manifests itself as mild annoyance, turns out to be a seed for focus in her work. The people side, the collaboration; these are the spearheads of the now experienced Agile specialist. Or as she herself adamantly dares to claim, “The way we work together is more important than the content of the work.”

So Marjans is someone who does not shy away from a bold assertion. Yet the above assertion is based on her real-world experience. She starts in 2009 when she first works with an Agile team. From the very beginning, that aforementioned people-side is important in her work. “Inspired by individuals and their interactions with each other over process and tools, I taught myself to walk up to someone instead of emailing,” Marjans says clearly. The result: a decrease in emails, more calendar space and thus more time to work on projects with a dedicated team. And now, 15 years later, Marjans has worked in various leadership roles as a project and program manager. “But Agile,” she says with a wink. In parallel with this development, she is taking a course in Systemic Team Coaching, and that, too, is fueling the humane course in her career.

My development: delving into didactics, reading a lot and taking courses

Upstream and downstream

Two beautiful and complex concepts. The upstream is everything that is visible in an organization. Think of a vision, change plans and an organizational chart. The undercurrent logically includes everything that is not visible such as organizational culture, trust and, for example, group dynamics. Exactly between these two force fields Marjans can be found and active as a kind of cement in the organization. “In my work I always start with team formation, convinced that after that content of the work and results follow,” Marjans says. With a special expertise in portfolio management and scaling issues, she now also fondly carries out Scrum Academy’s adage: high impact, happy teams. “This is something we both strive for and it feels right,” she says, when she adds a moment later that the green of the Scrum Academy corporate identity looks good on her, too!

Trust in yourself, the other person and the process; throw open that mind!

Face-to-face

Office politics, in large organizations and companies with a layered structure is a common phenomenon. So Marjans also encounters it in her work. So often with a complex organizational structure, it involves a lot of negotiation and collaboration to get something off the ground and achieve the goal together. What does Agile working change about those internal politics? Marjans: “When you ensure transparency of the work as well as socialize the processes with, for example, face-to-face communication in combination with supportive work forms in work sessions, you create new insights and understanding of the other person’s perspective.” In Marjan’s vision, this creates support and personal interests fade into the background. Taking steps, seeing each other, making meters and achieving immeasurably beautiful results together, that is what Marjans aims for at all times with her Agile working method.