Welcome to our interview blog post, where we are pleased to sit down with Tomasz Potempa, an experienced Agile Coach and Scrum Master with extensive Agile and Scrum framework expertise. Tomasz has years of experience and has played a key role in establishing proper Agile workflows for teams and products, working closely with managers and stakeholders on long-term roadmaps.

Tomasz’s ability to establish an environment of support and trust that encourages complete team engagement is one of his core strengths. He appreciates the value of facilitating cross-training, mutual support among team members, and close cooperation and communication. Tomasz’s expertise extends beyond merely putting Scrum into practice; he works to foster an environment where teams flourish and people can realize their full potential.

Please get in touch with us via our e-mail or social media if Tomasz’s insights and experience appeal to you and you’d want to connect with him. Send us a message letting us know you’re interested, and we’ll help put you in touch with Tomasz. Let’s jump right into our interview!

WIN: What is your definition of Agile? How do you explain it to someone who has never heard of it? What are the most important aspects of it?

Tomasz: Agile is a framework to deliver better quality products/projects with much more transparency and a focus on customers while being able to adapt to the changes much faster.

Agile is a way of constantly thinking about how to do something better or in a different way. Some teams are more Agile, others less, but it is still a way.

I think the most important characteristics of an Agile approach are the willingness to try and common sense. Identifying aspects that work well for the project and rejecting those that don’t.

WIN: How can it benefit organizations/teams?

Tomasz: First and foremost: much more transparency. We can much easier check if we are not wasting time on useless things. We are able to catch risks earlier and prevent them. With Agile, work should be faster and better, prioritizing the customer and customer feedback. It should help create products that are what the customer really needs.

WIN: Who is an Agile Coach, what do they do, and why do organizations need one? 

Tomasz: The advantage of having a coach in your team is that they have a different point of view, capturing correlations and misunderstandings.

The coach can look at the project from a different perspective. Just because there are a few people in a meeting talking, doesn’t mean they understand each other.

It’s difficult to implement Agile without anAgile Coach or a Scrum Master. Agile is a path of continuous thinking.

WIN: Do you think Agile can be used in fixed-price projects?

Tomasz: Yes, it can. Very limited room for maneuver though.

It’s hard to be Agile when the client doesn’t want to be Agile. We can explain to the client that it’s hard to work with.Little to negotiate with the client if anything, but I still think that anAgile approach is possible with a fixed price. We can still have a roadmap and set milestones on our side.

WIN: What is a particularly challenging coaching experience?

Tomasz: Resistance in implementation. When I try to transparently show the actual state of the project, it often convinces people that the shortcomings will not help but hinder to delivery of the project.

Whenever I feel some resistance from the people,I show the benefits of changing their approach. How implementing the Agile method would improve their progress and simplify the process.

The team sees that they deliver more often after the sprint, business people see that the work is moving forward, and boom! A lot fewer questions about the timing of delivery.

It’s also hard to convince developers to plan their work. People who change their jobs every 2-3 years are used to the change, change is natural for them as opposed to people who have been working for a long time in a given company. They are often fearful and resistant.

What is the most important thing about Agile/Scrum? I say the willingness to try.

WIN: How do you measure the success of Agile practices in an organization?

Tomasz: The key to a successful implementation ofAgile methods is a common understanding of their practices. More often than not, the management team enforces an ‘Agile’ plan without considering the team’s inexperience in such work ethics and is surprised when the developers are inefficient. A large majority of companies push Scrum and Agile and think the work will be faster – it rarely is. Of course, it is better in various aspects, but most often not in terms of time. Everyone is focused on the development team but we need to focus on a culture of work in the company and cooperation with management.

WIN: What are some key skills that are necessary for Agile team members to possess?

Tomasz: Obviously, people should have adequate technical knowledge (as a Scrum Master, I do not decide, I can only suggest whether somebody is adequate for the job. I focus on soft skills). They should learn to communicate with each other and understand each other so that they can get along with respect. They should at least try to look from the client’s perspective on the product. Another skill is the ability to cooperate. To have good dev Team people have to be motivated.

Communication is vital. Often everyone understands the requirements differently – from the manager to the team.

WIN: How do you help teams stay motivated and engaged when working on long-term projects using Agile methods?

Tomasz: In order to answer that question we should learn about the source of a lack of motivation. It is caused by various factors and one of them is the absence of the ScrumMaster. After some time, planning gets worse in terms of quality. The team gets discouraged and tends to return to the previous work ethic. TheProduct Owner is adding more and more ad-hoc tasks. Obviously, everything is better as long as the SM is around; they suggest solutions and the dev Team takes their opinion into account. They are aware that something worked earlier.

As a ScrumMaster, you have to support the team, remind the team of the Agile methods, and show the benefits so the team doesn’t lose focus. You have to look at the project as a whole and take into account that different people work differently.

More and more people understand Scrum, but it’s still essential to keep the Scrum Master around.

WIN: Why is Agile not being implemented well? What can be done to prevent this from happening?

Tomasz: Lack of understanding on the part of management. Often Agile is forced solely on the teams, while the rest of the company stays in their old ways. These two ethics crash, and can cause many misunderstandings between an Agile team and the management.

The managers are there to try to understand the team, and to remove the obstacles that prevent them from working most efficiently – just ordering them to be Agile is not enough. Be the example/change you wish to see in your company!

WIN: Has Agile ever been applied from cover to cover(end to end) (in one of your projects)?

Tomasz: No. I think that it’s harmful that the ScrumGuide focuses on the “dev team”. They are supposed to deliver the value of quality quickly, but the people commissioning the work often don’t know what they want. They don’t know the value so how we can expect that developers will know? Developers see the advantages and disadvantages of working in Scrum very quickly. Customers often don’t have the time to interact with the dev Team or there is no customer at all.

To work in Scrum we should change things such as the structure of the teams and contracts with clients.

WIN: Up to what point can you use the name Agile Methodology? At what point do we "step out" of Agile into another methodology? What is abandoned most often?

Tomasz: Agile is a framework. It is up to us how to adapt it to our work. Without the name “Scrum” or “Agile” people still should synchronize in the team and react to changes quickly. The question is whether we call it Agile or not, it’s mostly a philosophical issue.

People don’t plan their work. Somebody is doing something but no one truly knows why and what for. Transparency and cooperation are key and the Agile methods provide us with tools on how to do that.

WIN: How do we mix Waterfall andAgile? Why do Customers want to mix them (delivery x price)?

Tomasz: Every client wants their project to be delivered fast, cheaply, and ready. Every client wants to plan expenses and keep an eye on what’s going on with their money. These two ideas don’t often mix well together.

The client has some idea of what their product is to be, and it’s often that they expect the development team to understand it exactly. That’s why it is important to have the customer be involved in the development process, to deliver feedback at the earliest possible stage. That way we can avoid arriving at a final product that is not to the customer’s liking.

This combination is difficult. You can be Agile to some extent, but it’s not a “book Agile” like everyone wants it to be.

As we continue to investigate the ever-changing world of agile project management, keep an eye out for more interesting interviews and news!

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