As I sit down this evening to write this, I am now sitting in a hotel room overlooking the Danube in Budapest, Hungary, at close to 10:00 at night and daylight is almost over (almost time to call home!).

I left Kyiv this morning and have had a chance to look back and think about the almost four days I spent there, and what it means now (well, at least to me).First, the CSM Workshop was attended by about 20 people from Kyiv and other places in the world.

Most of the attendees worked for what I would consider “offshore” firms (you know, those great people that do work on an outsourced basis from the USA, Denmark, and other places?). It also included some direct customers of the offshore firms, which, when put together, created some awesome discussions and some new insights into the reality of working with Scrum.The course normally runs for two full days, and this was no exception.

When we got started, I took some pictures of the classroom setting. It was set-up lecture style and tables were spread really wide and used up most of the room (it was a good size for the attendees!). By the end of the two days, we took up about 1/2 the space and were sitting in “pods” — and people were mostly sitting with and working with people they were not sitting with the day before. I say this (it may seem obvious to some) because in fact this is a lot of what Scrum teams go through — or should — on a regular basis. I may have encouraged it a bit by making some suggestions, but did not force anyone to do this (hmmm… sound familiar as what we must do as a ScrumMaster?).

Day one went much as it normally does. I cover a lot of the “basics” of Scum, and the point of this is to make sure people understand — as a team or group — what the common vocabulary should be according to “the books.” In addition to this, I also inject my patented comments about reality-based Scrum…. “The book says this…. and you see bla bla bla a lot in reality.” I cover this more on the second day. One of the great exercises we do is called the “59 minute Scrum” — which is a simulation of a very non-technical based version of actually implementing Scrum. In other workshops, I usually allow participants to select which one to work on (there are three that I use, including things similar to “A Martian Tour of Earth”, “Doggy DayCare”, and “A Spam Brand Theme Park.”

While I presented this in English, I allowed each group or table to use each discussion time (for the simulations and break-out discussions) to be completed in whatever language they decided (there was a mix of Russian, Ukrainian, English, and more represented). This was helpful for each table but put me at a slight disadvantage (although I could tell when they were getting off-topic somehow [lol]). We debriefed all exercises in English.

And I had to remind myself to speak slowly. Sometimes I know I did not. Ug. I am passionate about this topic, and I can get to speaking quickly. I apologize (and apologizED during the workshop).

I decided to just assign the “Spam Brand” theme park to all the tables to make the discussions similar; also, when I asked about “Doggy DayCare” I got blank stares and heard crickets (for those that do not know this, in the US when people go on vacation/holiday they drop off their dogs at a place where other dogs get pampered better (usually) than they do at home OR people drop off their dogs to play at these places during the day while they are at work). For the “Martian Tour of Earth” — I joked that we may as well have called it “Mike Vizdos visiting Kyiv” (at least they laughed at that instead of the crickets and blank stares).

So we did Spam Brand Theme Parks (you know, like creating a Disney World like place based on that [insert whatever this really is made of] stuff called Spam (not e-mail spam — ug…. let’s see if email filters catch this one lol). It was great and there were some great discussions about this.

Lunch was great (some people did not like it). Liver. Yummy. If there is one thing I can say, i do still like to try the local food (burp… had a cup of Hungarian Goulosh tonight!).

We had a successful first day and I (like other evenings) went out with some of the local firms to discuss what “the real world” looked like for Scrum in their eyes (and of course eat some more great food (had rabbit lasagna).

Day 2 of the class went awesome and people asked engaging questions — especially when I take some time to shut up and pull people from the audience to become a “panel” (and a different voice) to ask questions from other people in the workshop who are currently implementing Scrum. Good stuff. All was going well until my last exercise of the day when I discuss how to deal with “middle management” (Chickens).

Looks of stares and the cricket sounding ensued.

Huh? I thought. And asked, “Are you serious?” Maybe it was my translation of the concept, I thought? Damn… every other trap I set during the class (to help learn!) worked. What the heck?? Why?

I asked, “You know… the guys Dilbert makes fun of?”

Ruh-oh. Same thing. Some people laughed.

Er. Um.

This topic usually takes a good hour and I need to cut people OFF.

Wow.

I am learning something. Live and on the fly.

Just like what I have been teaching!

Their general response was, “Mike, we are outsourcing companies. We do work. Nobody wastes time at [insert management bla bla practices here].”

Wow.

Then when pressed about Dilbert, i asked if they read Dilbert and just said to themselves, “Those silly [nice word] Americans.” The response was generally “Yes.”

OK.

New tact. No wind (I think that is the term lol).

I asked if they wanted me to review the practices that THEIR clients (since remember, we have flipped the perspective here from the view of someone who is “taking” work currently) go through at some of the large clients I work with. And I told them if it did not add value, I would immediately stop it. One hour later, the module was complete and I hope we all learned some new things from different perspectives.

We finished off the day with each of them (congratulations!) becoming a Certified ScrumMaster.

And we talked about the implications of what that actually could mean as the go back to their companies and start working with teams that may be implementing Scrum at their client sites (those who use off shoring).

This will be a topic of future discussion. I promise. I am learning a lot. And not from books, but by “being” here and talking to people face-to-face. Practicing what I talk about and teach.

We of course finished the day at a pub. More beer.

Then i left and had dinner with a host — Chicken Kiev.

Had to do it. When in Rome and all that…..

But.

NO vodka. I learned my lesson in a past life about trying to do that. Experience helped me there lol.

I do want to also take the opportunity to thank a few people who made the trip there a lot easier for me — including Alexey Krivitsky (organized the workshop for us), Tim Yevgrashyn (excellent host) and Marina (for managing the logistics of the apartment and transfers for me). Thank you tons. I look forward to coming back one day in the not too distant future.

I will leave the story of leaving the airport at Kyiv to another posting — or a beer sometime if you want to buy (smile). It’s a bit of a different process. And again, I learned more!

Wow. Fireworks are going off now. They must know I am here and are putting on a big party for me in my honor (I am totally KIDDING).

OK, I am going to go and try to call my family at home. Play some battleship online with my kid and see how life is going….

Gotta run….

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