In the spring of 2013, I left my title and position of Global Scrum Leader and Principal Consultant at the large global consulting company called Capgemini to embark on a new journey as Partner of Ken Schwaber and Director of the Professional Scrum Series at Scrum.org.
In the spring of 2016, I terminated that exclusive work too, thereby again leaving a position and a title. It’s a strange habit, I know. I renamed my one-person company to “Ullizee-Inc” and I started calling myself an “independent Scrum Caretaker”.
In July 2016, I started the Scrum Caretakers Meetup with the intent was to build bridges between my (since 2011) professional home country, the Netherlands, and my (still today) personal home country, Belgium. The idea was to connect people from my two home countries around Scrum. I call myself a connector for a reason. I was aiming at bringing people in person together, regardless of their expertise or titles, to exchange, share and develop ideas and thereby contribute to creating (more) market for Scrum in both regions. Despite my financial and personal investments, it plainly didn’t work. One of my struggles was that people seemed to rely much on what I brought in, rather than me facilitating and supporting. Too much. I call myself a connector for a reason. I also felt there was not enough ‘give and take’ at the sessions. Despite having trained and coached so many trainers and coaches, while I was at Capgemini as well as at Scrum.org, it seems I wasn’t able to motivate or inspire them to join or to actually contribute if they did join. My main observation was that they felt that they had to protect their market share, rather than joining me in my belief that it is more fruitful to build market together. I stopped spending time on the Meetup group. Until the pandemic hit…
In the spring of 2020, I revived the Scrum Caretakers Meetup by going online and global, thereby broadening and expanding its scope and reach compared to my initial intent. Despite my limited activities, in 2023 the number of members surpassed 1k. Yet, the time I spent on the group started diminishing again. It was only in the fall of 2024, when I finally started engaging with the group again, that it dawned upon me why that had happened. Only then did I realize why I again had stopped spending time, energy and money on it since shapeshifting the initiative in 2020. There were still the reasons why I had stopped organizing in-person sessions some years ago. But now there was also the prolonged effect that working against the backdrop of the pandemic had induced. During the pandemic, anything had to happen online with the (sometimes unconscious) assumption that online=free (at no charge). Never having charged any money for the Scrum Caretakers meetups, I just continued that. But it became a common situation that 60-80% of the people registering didn’t show up. And this does not only apply to the Scrum Caretakers meetup. I then couldn’t and still can’t comprehend this overall attitude. Besides the fact that it is really not fun as an organizer, it is even highly disrespectful and a clear sign of a lack of commitment.
Having shapeshifted the Meetup group a first time in 2020, the time therefore has come for the next shapeshifting of the Scrum Caretakers Meetup. Thinking this through has taken me several weeks.
Acting as a ‘Scrum Caretaker’ means demonstrating not just in an interest in the process of Scrum but also acting upon a deep interest in the people aspect of Scrum and making the world a better place to work and live in. Remember how the process aspect of Scrum, ’empiricism’, and the people aspect of Scrum, ‘self-organization’, are deeply entwined as Scrum’s DNA (➡).
I strongly believe that not only any Scrum Master can and should be expected to act as a ‘Scrum Caretaker’, but any Scrum practitioner that is serious about Scrum and about taking Scrum to the next level, to move (their) Scrum downfield. If enough practitioners move their particular instances of Scrum downfield we will, in turn, collectively and bottom-up, start moving the global movement of Scrum downfield.
I have already limited posting, publishing or responding on public (so-called ‘social media’) platforms. It’s taking too much energy to distinguish the signal from the noise and clutter on those platforms. I prefer spending my time on more valuable work. So, more than only communicating more directly to the people subscribed to my Scrum Caretaker Courier newsletter and to the members of the Scrum Caretakers Meetup group, I have decided to remove the noise there too because it distracts and confuses me too much. I have already invited ALL people subscribed to my Scrum Caretaker Courier to re-subscribe if they really wanted to remain up to date. From the 4000+ people, less than 100 have done so far (less than 2,5 %).
Gradually it started dawning on me that, unfortunately, commitment in the current state of our professional world is primarily shown through investment; financially, not just time-wise. While my Scrum Caretaker Courier newsletter will remain a ‘no charge’ initiative (as is my Blog and my YouTube channel), I have decided I am going to activate the option of “Member Dues” for the Scrum Caretakers Meetup group. I expect a similar decline in members as the decline in subscribers for my newsletter. This is fine as I still have no mainstream or mass production ambitions. This is fine because I value value over volume. Because I value commitment and dedication. I value being surrounded by serious people, people making a deliberate choice. I did not start the Scrum Caretakers Meetup to end up with a stale majority of laggards and followers. I started this group to connect with audacious Scrum practitioners having the willingness and eagerness to actively engage in shaping the future of Scrum. That is a small minority of Scrum practitioners around the world.
The Scrum Caretakers Meetup is a group for true Scrum Caretakers, audacious Scrum practitioners who are willing to challenge the status quo.
I expressed this in following mission or vision statement:
THE Scrum Caretakers Meetup
IS A forum and a meeting place, hosted by Gunther Verheyen (independent Scrum Caretaker),
FOR a minority of audacious Scrum practitioners
TO actively engage, collaborate and uncover how to surf the Scrum Waves.
UNLIKE the masses and the stale conservative majority on other platforms
THE Scrum Caretakers Meetup members commit (to leading the herd and shaping the future of Scrum).
Fyi. Read here what I mean with the fourth Scrum Wave and why this requires courageous practitioners.