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The Agile Within
Providing agile insights into human values and behaviors through genuine connections.
The Agile Within
The Power of Community with Kellie Tyler
Experience the transformative power of community on this episode of The Agile Within. Join me and Kellie Tyler, a seasoned Agilist who recently moved to the vibrant city of Nashville, Tennessee. Kellie shares her favorite local spot, Broadway and the historic Acme Feed and Seed, before diving into her incredible journey within the Agile community. Discover how local meetups like Utah Agile, led by Steve Ostermiller and Lee Henson, helped Kellie overcome early challenges, build confidence, and foster trust within her team, proving the immense value of a supportive network in professional growth and Agile practices.
Navigating networking events can be daunting, especially for introverts and ambiverts. Kellie and I unpack the unexpected expansion of the Utah Agile community in 2020 and share practical strategies for engaging in such events. From finding like-minded individuals on the periphery to leveraging the inherently welcoming nature of the Agile community, we provide actionable tips that even seasoned practitioners have used to their advantage. Hear personal stories and insights on how Agile luminaries have successfully navigated their paths, offering encouragement and tactics for those who find traditional networking intimidating.
The heart of this episode lies in the authenticity of relationships within the Agile community. Kellie reveals the importance of genuine interactions and the balance of giving and taking in community engagements. Learn how maintaining regular contact and sharing experiences can lead to not only professional advancement but also personal enrichment. We conclude with practical advice on building Agile communities through platforms like Meetup and LinkedIn, stressing the importance of bringing your unique perspective to the table. Tune in for an enriching conversation that highlights the indispensable role of community in the Agile realm.
Visit Acme Feed and Seed when in Nashville, TN:
https://www.acmefeedandseed.com/
Connect with Kellie on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellie-m-tyler/
Learn more about Agile Utah:
https://www.utahagile.org/
Learn more about Agile Nashville:
https://www.meetup.com/Agile-Nashville-User-Group/
Follow us on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-within
Welcome to the Agile Within. I am your host, Mark Metze. My mission for this podcast is to provide Agile insights into human values and behaviors through genuine connections. My guests and I will share real-life stories from our Agile journeys, triumphs, blunders and everything in between, as well as the lessons that we have learned. So get pumped, get rocking. The Agile Within starts now. Well, welcome back everybody. This is Mark Metze. With the Agile Within. We've got another exciting episode for you today, with a guest by the name of Kellie Tyler. Kellie, nice to have you.
Kellie:Nice to be here, thank you.
Mark:Kellie comes from Nashville, tennessee, and she's recently moved there. Kellie coming to Nashville for a day. What do I have to do?
Kellie:All right. So since I'm new and I'm going to answer in the very, very most touristy way possible, which is you got to go to Broadway. And if you're going to go to Broadway, the one place I would say to go is at the very end of Broadway, which is Acme. Feed and Seed be a feed store, and now it is a multi-level restaurant. They have live music, and when I came to Nashville for the first time as a tourist years ago, that's where my husband brought me, and so there's a little bit of fun history there as well. Now, if I am a long-term resident, I would like to hear from the audience what is the one thing, now that I've moved here, that is not the tourist thing. So I've moved here that is not the tourist thing. So I'm actually putting it back on your audience like reach out, let me know. What is the non-tourist thing that I should be looking for?
Mark:All right, a call to action. There you go. Listeners, Anybody who's familiar with Nashville, reach out to Kellie and tell her. I do love that story about the Acme building, though. Reusing old historic buildings. I think that's just a fantastic use of resources in a city. It just brings so much character, so that's awesome, all right. Well, Kellie is a longtime Agilist, and the title for our show today is the Power of Community, and, like we do with so many episodes, we'd like to start with some definitions. So, Kellie, tell us what community means to you.
Kellie:Yeah, so I found a really good, all-encompassing summary, if you will, of what makes us humans live in such a way that we want to be part of communities, dr Nicole Celestine. She's a researcher at the University of Western Australia and she has a good quote that says we humans are made to live and work with others in community, where we can thrive. We are social beings that have evolved to exist within communities, so to me, a community is a social unit where we share something in common, whether it's customs, identifying characteristics, values, beliefs or norms. Being that, this is the Agile Within podcast, we can talk about Agile communities and within the Agile community, we can have the product owner group, we can have the Scrum Master group, we can have the dev group, and we do. We do have those. So I think it's great to have those individual ones, but we also need to find time to come together as the all encompassing agile community so that we can lift and elevate each other outside of our silos as well.
Mark:That's something I haven't thought of is really sub communities that are even more specialized than the larger community, talking about the power of community and agile community. So thank you for that definition. Tell us, Kellie, how did you get started with getting plugged into the agile community?
Kellie:Thank you for asking that. So many years ago I was hired on as one of three scrum masters for a company and although there were three of us that were hired at the same time, the other two were off in a different part of the like. They were completely different part of the building, different part of the software, and so even though I had them to lean on, I was really alone. The problems that I was facing were not the same that they were facing and they also didn't actually the first time that I found meetupcom, which is alsoa really good resource to find these groups. So just from some Google searching, I found two local Utah meetup groups. One was Utah Agile and one was Salt Lake City Agile. They have since combined into Utah Agile, but Steve Ostermiller and Lee Henson were the two people I would say that kind of got these groups going.
Kellie:So in my quest to get some assistance with the problems that I was facing, I started attending Steve Ostermiller's Utah Agile meetup groups, and the power behind how he facilitated these groups was that it was an open agenda, also maybe known as lean coffee, so I was able to show up. I think they were like once a week or maybe once a month, but I was able to show up at lunchtime kind of list out all the issues I was facing. And this wasn't that I was necessarily inexperienced in my role, but it was. I was hired thinking that I was joining a team that was already agile and already knew you know kind of what to expect. And that was not the case. I was hired in to implement agile and I learned really quickly with probably within the first week I had all my team, which was about 20 people in total, and no product owner either, by the way, just me.
Mark:And.
Kellie:I kind of went around the room and I just said, you know, raise of hands who has been on an Agile team before? And maybe like two or three people raised their hand and so I knew what I meant to be a Scrum Master. I did not know what it meant to implement Scrum and Agile on a team. So that's kind of where you know all these questions stemmed from. And so just attending these meetups and being able to bring my questions it built confidence in me. It built my team trusted me because I was more confident and it just kind of took off from there. I ended up before I left Utah, I ended up serving on the board of Utah Agile and so that's kind of more of the story, but hugely valuable in that.
Mark:I would imagine that there are things that you could share with people that you weren't directly working with, that you didn't feel quite as comfortable sharing within the company that you were working.
Kellie:I think for me, like it wasn't necessarily that I didn't feel like I could voice a concern, it was more of I didn't have anyone else to ask, like I literally had no one else to even to ask the question to. It wasn't necessarily like I needed to vent about a particular person and my and I think the thing about when you get outside of your echo chamber at work you realize that your problems are not unique, that other people have experienced or are experiencing similar issues, and so you really get an opportunity to hear how other people have solved that problem and maybe your problems are unique because there's a specific nuance. But you can maybe you know abstract what the advice is that you get.
Mark:I find that it's really the same thing that we look for when we look for diversity of viewpoints, where we don't want to have everyone thinking the same thing and have group think and we're really trying to push for our teams to have diversity of thought and have everyone speak up. I would think that going to a community, you would even increase that even further by having even more diversity of input on problems.
Kellie:Yeah, because you know, depending on how large the group is that shows up for the open agenda, and I've seen, you know, maybe as few as like one to two people in addition to the facilitator, as many of like. In the height of the pandemic. We had enough. We did a virtual open agenda with Utah Agile and we had enough that we had to break into breakout rooms and had facilitators for each breakout room. So you know, you, utah Agile, and we had enough that we had to break into breakout rooms and had facilitators for each breakout room.
Kellie:So you can have quite a large group setting here and so you're able to get so much perspective from other people that have experienced same or similar issues in a different industry and their perspective on the issue. Maybe it gives you the answer you need, but maybe it just adds clarification to the question that you're even asking. That's also important is sometimes maybe you come with an issue and you're like I don't know the questions to ask to get the answer that I need. Getting that perspective from other people helps even form what questions you need to be asking.
Mark:So my personal experience is similar but different to yours. I've told this story a couple of times on the show. But when I transitioned from a development manager over to a scrum master, I was the only scrum master in the company and, like you, literally did not have anyone else in the company that I could that I could bounce ideas off of, that I could partner with, could do peer coaching. So it was really hard. So I had to go outside of the company.
Mark:The city that I lived in was not and I still live here is not tiny, but it's not a huge metropolitan area, so as far as an agile footprint, not really big. So we had like maybe one meetup in person that was taking place semi-regularly. I would say that was, I would say semi-regularly was the best. And then the pandemic hit and then everything was shut down and I really leaned into the global Azure community because all these webinars started up that were local to a city all around the globe, where people were meeting in person, suddenly had to open up and have Zoom meetings where they would open it up to anybody around the world. And I'm not saying those take the place of in-person, because it's very valuable to have in-person meetups. But I wouldn't have been able to make my transition if it were not for that global agile community, because I really had nowhere else to go yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
Kellie:We did um an annual planning at the end of 2019 for Utah Agile and we were, I think we set a target of like we want to grow in 2020, we want to grow our community to over a thousand, and, and then 2020 happened and we were at like over 2000 in a matter of months. Right, um and so it. I think that perspective of the global community is really interesting because suddenly we got to see how people in Germany are operating in this world, how people in Latin America, and I took my what was it? The certified scrum professional training. I took that online in the height of 2020. I think the benefit of that was also that, you know, there was someone from Germany, there was someone from Ukraine, you know, it's like we had people all across the world, and so, although that we do have similar issues, again hearing that nuanced perspective, like well, here in my culture, we can't exactly do things that way, and so, while much of that time was not great, there was that benefit of being able to connect on a more global scale.
Mark:So, Kellie, maybe we can move into another topic on this. So you've defined community for us. Tell us how you got started with the plugging into the agile community. So give us some strategies. Maybe tell us some stories about how you have plugged into the community, because not everyone, including myself, aren't the very outwardly extroverts and love just running to people and they're just the life of the party. Some people are more introverted. Somebody recently introduced me to a term called an ambivert and the best way to describe that is maybe I'm an extroverted introvert, if that makes sense.
Kellie:I think I get that from my dad.
Mark:But but yeah, what are some strategies that we can use, maybe for people who just aren't the type to normally just walk up to people and start talking?
Kellie:even a week ago. So new, you know, new to Nashville. I've only been here since what? The beginning of June, and in addition to meetup, I was using other websites to try and find networking. I want to get to know people, you know, and so I found this combined new to Nashville group and it was at a bar. But the bar was huge and as I'm walking in I can just hear the sound, the volume getting louder, and I was surprised.
Kellie:I found myself wanting to just leave I don't know if I'm up to this and so I kind of was skirting the edge of the group and I found a woman that looked like she was doing something similar and so I was like, okay, I'm going to go talk to her, because she looks like she's doing the same thing I'm doing where it's like skirting the group to try and find out where you can lie it in Right, and I think that's one that's.
Kellie:Actually maybe the first thing is like it's hard to approach a group that's already in a circle and talking, but maybe look for that other person that is also not part of a group yet and seek them out. In that case, that woman actually was looking for a friend and found her friend and then I was like shoot, there goes my person I was going to go try and talk to, and so I became the person that was just kind of standing there. And in that case I was fortunate enough to have someone come approach me, because I kind of had lost my I don't know my jazz, I guess. So I had someone come approach me and we start talking and, yeah, I just moved here from Utah and of course, like in this group of I don't know, it was at least a hundred people fellow Utah that had transplanted transplanted to Nashville 12 years ago and I'm like okay, how is it that in this like huge group of people, the other Utah in the group finds me?
Kellie:So you, know I would say like even as an extroverted person, I was struggling, like I did not, like I just want, want to get get out of there, and so, you know, maybe me being extroverted, I can seek out those people and not. You know, it's not like a saving thing. I'm not trying to save someone from their, their unease, but it's more of like a here, let me connect with you so that we can maybe together the two of us then go join a group that's already larger and talking.
Mark:And so you know, maybe that's what we can do, as the extroverted people is seek out those people. So I don't know about you, and certainly there are exceptions, but I have found, as a general rule, the Agile community be very, very welcoming, more so than other let's just say, other communities that you have, whether it be social or personal or what have you. I found that most people in the Agile community are very welcoming, very willing to reach out and talk, not, I'll say cliquish, not that they have these tight little circles that they stay in and really exclude everybody else from them. Yes, there are exceptions and they have those, but by and large, people are pretty welcoming and pretty approachable, as I have found. I'll tell you, I listened to a podcast episode this week for Agile, for Humans, and I guess I'm giving them a soft plug.
Mark:No, they didn't throw me some money under the table, but Richard Lawrence and Peter Green do a great job over there and Richard Lawrence, who's somebody that I really look up to, he's got to actually have over on the side of my table over here side of my desk. I've got his little breakdown of how to break down user stories and I use it all the time, break down user stories and I use it all the time and you know somebody that you look up to and he had an episode where he talked about he had actually given up on going to agile conferences and doing the pre-meets, the breakfasts and lunches and things, and he just had one bad experience and was like I'm just going to do breakfast and do meals by myself because I don't want to subject myself to that anymore. But he shared how he was reflected on that and asked himself what am I missing out on by doing that? Because, yes, my blood pressure does raise when I go to these and maybe I start my palms start getting a little sweaty and I'm just not quite sure how to approach people. That's just not my thing.
Mark:But after he opened up he found that he could build some relationships that he wouldn't otherwise have just by mustering up a little bit of I'll say bravery. I mean, he's a guy that really speaks very well. If you've ever heard him, he's an excellent speaker. So that tells me wow. Even if somebody like Richard Lawrence, if he has a problem putting himself in front of people and introducing himself and connecting with people, then it's okay for me to have similar reservations as well.
Kellie:Yeah, that's interesting. You mentioned him and that incident because I don't remember what year it was, but I was in Las Vegas for an Abdul meetup and I was feeling the same way Like I'm just going to go do breakfast on my own, I'm not feeling the conference pre-breakfast thing, and Richard Lawrence was at the table next to me by him.
Mark:Okay.
Kellie:And so, you know, I did kind of just like briefly talk to him, but that's so funny that it's like sometimes we're just not feeling it and I think that's fine. I think that you know, if it's going to cause you to be inauthentic, then just don't go, because that leaves an impression too. You know like people can pick up on inauthenticity. If you're just not feeling it, maybe just don't go. I will say, though, I don't regret sticking around at that event last week. You know like I wanted to bail the moment I got there. I don't, I don't regret sticking around.
Kellie:I ended up meeting two people. The woman I met we're going to have coffee on Friday. You know, who knows what will come of that, but go. But maybe if you're really truly not feeling it, then go ahead and give yourself the permission to bail. I have been that person that has noticed the quiet person in the room and approached them. I've done that a couple of times, and those women that I have approached are to this day my dear friends, and so you know as that again, that extroverted person. There is an opportunity there. What you were saying about, richard like you might build some really great connections just by reaching out.
Mark:I think you can tell sometimes there are some people that they are there, they want to attend the conference or the meetup or whatever event that you're there for, and they just want to get the information. They really are not. Maybe, like you say, they're just not feeling it in that day or whatever. Maybe you strike up a conversation with them and it's just pretty obvious that it ain't happening. They're just not having any of it and maybe it's just a personal connection with you or maybe it's just, yeah, they're just they're having a bad day or whatever. And my advice would be just don't let that, don't let one incident dissuade you, much like that story that that Richard shared. Learn from that and have some bravery, and you never know what what that might lead to. I'm really jealous that you were able to sit down side by side with him and have a have a conversation.
Kellie:Yeah yeah, that was kind of fun, but I was actually kind of glad. I'm like OK, so it's not just me that doesn't want to be off with a free breakfast.
Mark:All right, well, how about? So? We talked about, like, how to build new relationships, Kellie, what about maintaining relationships?
Kellie:Yeah, so one thing about communities is that in order to keep them going, you need to work on them. Just as with any other relationship, right, you need to not let too much time and space go by. So with Utah, agile in particular, and with any relationship, I would say you probably need to make contact. Once a month is probably a good, and I would also say you need to not always approach it of what can I get out of this, but also approach any relationship at any of these community events is it of what can I get out of this? But also approach any relationship and any of these community events is like what can I give?
Kellie:Like I'm here to share my expertise as much as I am here to learn, right? So you've got to kind of have this mindset of give and take. It's not just a I'm here to take, take, take. Like be prepared to share your own experience. And there's often there's been plenty of lean coffees I've attended that I really didn't have anything I needed to ask, like I didn't even fill out a sticky of anything to talk about, but when it came time for the discussion it was like okay, here's where I can participate. So, yeah, be prepared to connect often and then be prepared to give and take.
Mark:I feel like there's some listener out there, maybe a listener or multiple listeners that maybe need to hear this story and I'll go ahead and share it, and it involves you, Kellie. So this is probably a very atypical example of community. So when I was looking to move from a company where I had transitioned from a development manager to a scrum master, I did that successfully and I take pride in being able to do that, because I sold myself to the founders of the company and they saw the value of having a scrum master and they had enough faith in me to bring me on. But what I didn't have success doing is getting them to replicate that and bring on additional scrum masters into the company. So I began looking and one of the companies that I interviewed with was the company that Kellie was working at and she was the manager of that company and interviewed with Kellie and several individuals there. And I'll just tell you I didn't get the position. But things tend to work out for the best sometimes because I did end up taking a position where I was very fortunate and feel like I really found a team that I bonded with really well.
Mark:But I don't know it, just Kelly and I seem to have some level of. I just felt there was some commonality there and knew that I didn't want this to just end and just say, ok, thanks for the interview. I wasn't chosen, see you later, never talk to you again. And I wouldn't say that we stayed in touch every month for sure, but I don't know over time we just I would ping you, just find out how things are going, and obviously LinkedIn makes things much easier.
Mark:With social media, you can follow people and see what they're up to, what kind of things they want to share. So I share that story to our listeners to say that even something like a failed interview is an opportunity for you to build community. Let me be clear I haven't maintained a relationship with every person who's turned me down before. I don't do that, but on the occasion where there has been some level of connection, I felt like it was worth, that was worth maintaining and worth some effort. I have done it, and so see what this led to. This led to me having an absolutely fabulous guest here on the podcast that I'm very fortunate to have. So, kelly, thanks for your friendship and for building this little community that we have.
Kellie:Well, and I will say, you know, I think some of the things that we bonded over that may seem silly to people it's like we have a shared connection to the state of South Carolina. We have a shared connection to the love of Bojangles, which we joke about with each other Like I kid you not, Like I was dreaming that, like maybe you can ship me a Bojangles biscuit, Maybe you can just like put it in the mail. And now I'm here in Nashville that has a Bojangles and I'm so excited.
Mark:I'll have to put a link to Bojangles in the show notes for anybody who doesn't understand.
Kellie:You, I'll have to put a link to.
Mark:Bojangles in. The important is like it doesn't have to be just Agile. That brings us together, like you find those other little bits of connection where it's like, okay, we have that in common, we have this in common, like and yeah, we. Or visited. You may have mutual friends, you may know of people that know people that know someone, you may have gone to school at a similar school as someone else, any number of ways that you can be connected and where you really didn't know that you have. So those are some strategies that you can use as you talk with people finding out where they're from, maybe where they go to school, some of their connections that they have, who they follow. Maybe you have some mutual connections.
Kellie:Yeah, and that gets into. So communities form I pulled this. They form when one or more people wants to connect with others possessing similar values, beliefs, interests, and a group does not currently exist, or the community may form just as a result of being co-located. So co-location can look like a lot of things, but it could just be a natural formation of we're together in the same space all the time and so we form a community. But I think for you and me it does fall under that category of the similar values, beliefs, interests.
Mark:So we've talked about some of the benefits, but what other benefits have you found from community Kelly?
Kellie:I have found, and the science shows, that people feel more connected to their environment and the people in it. There's a sense of comfort and reward. It can also help with self-reflection. You know one example of when I have in the past attended a lean coffee and it brings something up in me, right, and I use that as an opportunity to step away, step aside and really, you know, take stock of what's happening, so that self-reflection is a really big component of it and then it also can have a positive impact on the broader community. So, for example, if we get back to a Scrum Master community practice or a very specific role community practice, the benefits will extend beyond just that little group. So that's another positive thing about participating in communities is that it will eventually affect everyone around you in a positive way.
Mark:So, in summary, how do we plug into that power of community?
Kellie:So there's five common grounds that form community, and those are a shared identity, a shared purpose, common objectives, shared interests or passions and common behavior. If you want to get involved in a community, I would say you know, check, meetup, check eventbrite, facebook, linkedin all of those resources. If you're not finding the exact right fit, start your own. Mutep makes it super simple to start a new group, even if it just is you and one other person in the beginning, you know it just takes that spark to start a fire, and so start your own thing if you're not finding the exact right fit, and people will come together. There are other people out there looking for the same thing.
Mark:What great advice. Quite honestly, that's kind of what happened with this podcast was. I was listening to lots of great podcasts but felt like maybe I had my own flavor to add to the community. And voila, here we are. All right, kelly. Well, if our listeners want to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Kellie:They can reach me on LinkedIn Kelly Tyler. It is K-E-L-L-I-E last name, tyler.
Mark:All right, great, we'll put a link to that in the show notes. So what Agile communities are you involved in right now and or have been involved in?
Kellie:Yeah, so just started to get involved with Nashville Agile. Tommy Norman hosts an event it's in person, it's not recorded, but highly valuable Second Monday and that's in the Baco building in Brentwood. So if people are locals to Nashville and want to attend that, we would love to see you. And then I will always plug Utah Agile. It's where my heart is. They have a mix of online and in-person events, so they can be found at utahagileorg.
Mark:All right, great, we'll be sure and put those links in the show notes. Kelly, thank you so much for being my guest. It's been a wonderful time, my friend.
Kellie:Thank you Talk soon.
Mark:All right, and that brings to close another episode of the Agile Within. We'll see everybody next time. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Agile Within. If you haven't already, please join our LinkedIn page to stay in touch. Just search for the Agile Within and please spread the word with your friends and colleagues Until next time. This has been your host, Mark Metz.