People can feel limited when challenged, which slows them down or keeps them from trying. It can be a real problem, but their fear might actually be in their imagination. Sometimes the only thing that’s holding you back is yourself. Survival rules can hinder…
People can feel limited when challenged, which slows them down or keeps them from trying. It can be a real problem, but their fear might actually be in their imagination. Sometimes the only thing that’s holding you back is yourself, argued Joep Schuurkes. Survival rules can hinder us; sometimes you have to break them.
Joep Schuurkes, software tester and Scrum master at Mendix, spoke about overcoming self-imposed limitations in his talk There’s More to You Than You Think at the European Testing Conference 2017. InfoQ is covering this event with Q&As, summaries, and articles.
Schuurkes told a story about a time when he started working at a bank as a tester. At the bank they were working according to agile and Scrum, something that he didn’t have any experience with at that time. As he likes to work together with developers and business analysts, he simply assumed that things would work out.
Initially there were some challenges, for example the daily stand-ups weren’t really effective and they had too many actions coming out of the retrospective. The team, including Schuurkes, focused mainly on doing the Scrum ceremonies as well as possible. He learned a lot about agile while working in the team and discovered better ways by trying new things.
You do not need prior experience with agile when you start working in an agile way, said Schuurkes. He started without a basic understanding and didn’t have an end goal in mind. Looking back he realized that by doing it this way he didn’t impose any limitations on himself. Schuurkes stated that “you don’t need to master agile immediately, you can start and improve your skills along the way”.
His current view on agile is that it’s mainly about creating a more humane workplace. Schuurkes said that there is still much more to discover on agile; he aims to continue learning new things and he knows his view will change as he keeps on learning.
Schuurkes said that you don’t need the perfect opportunity to try something as long as it’s safe enough to try out. You can do something which is good enough for now; don’t limit yourself because you feel you need to do too much, too soon.
InfoQ caught up with Joep Schuurkes after his talk.
InfoQ: Your talk at the European Testing conference is titled “There’s More to You Than You Think. ” What made you pick this title?
Joep Schuurkes : Since I became a scrum master about a year ago, I wanted my talk to reflect that and not do a “pure” testing talk. Then the question became: which topic am I enthusiastic about? Because that’s the only way I can do a talk; I have to feel a certain energy about the topic. And then I remembered this awesome tweet by Existential Comics : “What do you want to be when you grow up? ” “An honest, brave, compassionate human being. ” “No…I mean, how do you want to sell your labor? ”
Which resonated with me, mainly because I think that a large part of agile is finding more humane ways of working, allowing people to be their whole selves at the workplace.
