Following is an article from my latest newsletter, “The Scrum Caretaker Courier 13“. Subscribe here if you prefer receiving my news and updates directly.
With this article I’d like to update you on the different sorts of shapeshifting I seemed to have been initiating for the Scrum Caretakers movement and how it helped me think about shaping the future, creating a foundation for that future.
Warm regards
Gunther
independent Scrum Caretaker
Stages of Shapeshifting
2024 – The Scrum Caretaker Courier
By the end of 2024 I started noticing not just a steep increase in the amount of subscribers to my “The Scrum Caretaker Courier” newsletter, but also strange effects. Although I don’t see how subscribing to my newsletter would benefit potential scammers, hackers, intruders or e-criminals, but there was a clear growth in fake subscriptions. It showed in the responses after sending out each Scrum Caretaker Courier. A more stringent subscription process was needed as I also noticed how some regular accounts unsubscribed already after receiving the welcoming mail, saying it was “spammy content”. I found that quite funny because that message did not have any content, but merely a word of welcome.
By that time I had close to 5000 subscribers. I decided for radical action: I wanted people to actively and consciously re-subscribe for “The Scrum Caretaker Courier“. I unsubscribed all accounts and asked everybody to re-subscribe (through a 2-step process) if they wanted to remain connected and updated. I do need to admit that this turned out to be a manual effort of sending mails, which I hadn’t anticipated and much annoyed me. As all accounts had been archived (rather than erased) nobody would have to re-enter all their information. After a month, about 80 people had done so. Today, as I am composing this Scrum Caretaker Courier 13, you are one of 101 subscribers. Still, I feel much better addressing really interested people rather than a non-responsive crowd (no matter its size).
2025 – Scrum Caretakers Meetup
My actions for The Scrum Caretaker Courier got me thinking about the Scrum Caretakers Meetup and its 1000+ members too. I had started this meetup in 2016 to connect passionate practitioners in Belgium and the Netherlands via in-person meetups—and failed to do so. I revived and shapeshifted the group a first time in 2020 by going global and online. By the end of 2024 I had that nagging feeling of failure again by reflecting on the number of group members and the number of registrations versus the no-shows for the meetup sessions I was facilitating. It suffices to talk to other Meetup owners to understand that it is not unique to my meetup group: a small portion of members seem to be really interested, let alone register for events and an even smaller portion of the registered people actually show up. What might be unique is that I don’t feel like accepting that and abiding by it. There must be a better way.
In my mind there was a similarity with my Scrum Caretaker Courier newsletter. I concluded that for the Scrum Caretakers Meetup I also needed to walk the talk and truly enact my personal mantra of valuing value over volume. I decided for the Meetup to also focus on the engaged minority rather than a stale majority—not a move that I would have undertaken if I wanted to brag about large numbers, like corporations typically do.
In February 2025 I decided to shapeshift the Scrum Caretakers Meetup group for the same reason of asking people to re-subscribe to The Scrum Caretaker Courier : engagement over passive presence. I activated the option of “Member Dues”. It meant that all members were given a month to consider whether they wanted to remain a member by paying a yearly membership fee of 50€. I shared the value I envisioned offering to paying members, like exclusive discounts on my classes and workshops (quickly superseding the yearly fee) and scoops of new classes, workshops and presentations. It left the meetup group with no more than 12 members (myself included).
I want to explicitly thank following Scrum Caretakers Meetup members for their trust and confidence when they decided to pay and stay: Angela Spring, Christian Lapointe, Edwin Burgers, Katiana Villaréal, Marijn van der Zee, Michael Forni, Sandra Said, Shirley Santiago, Tim Dickey, Giovanni Tagliarini and Biplab Subedi.
And then, I decided to test out a trial offer of Meetup to upgrade my organizer’s subscription. That however didn’t live up to my expectations. I considered it not worth the money. But when I wanted to downgrade again, that seemed impossible without letting go of leadership over the meetup group. As Meetup’s support was not really helpful (to say the least) I decided to go for radical action again and plainly eliminate the group. So, you will find that my Meetup Group called “Scrum Caretakers” has…disappeared.
I will still offer the promised value for the former 11 paying members of the Scrum Caretakers Meetup obviously, but it will be at a different place than Meetup. Because, indeed, my thoughts around these operations were not being halted by the above steps and in the spring of 2025 I decided to take it to the next level, and capitalize on these events to re-shape my professional future with Scrum, use it to establish the Foundation(s) for that future.
Foundation (One)
I intend to initiate a new home for Scrum Caretakers around the world, which for the time being I would explain like a Foundation (One) for the future.
Fans of sci-fi literature might have already detect what inspired me to go for this terms. Others might want to have a look at the picture next door and check it out. There is however no further resemblance or similarity to any of the characters or events described in the fabulous saga by Isaac Asimov.
That did require (finally) coming up with a definition of “Scrum Caretaker”, because of the belief that there is added value in being a Scrum Caretaker.
Being a Scrum Caretaker requires going beyond the formal responsibilities of any other Scrum role by emphasizing stewardship and care for both the Scrum framework and the people involved. A Scrum Caretaker nurtures the environment, culture and mindset necessary for Scrum to thrive, focusing on long-term growth, organizational agility and the human aspects of Scrum. Rather than maintaining a process and team-centric focus, a Scrum Caretaker’s perspective is more holistic through stewardship of Scrum as a living system, upon a culture of people and values, aiming at long-term organizational agility rather than just team or delivery effectiveness.
In short, a Scrum Caretaker embodies a broader, more holistic stewardship, ensuring Scrum’s values and people-centric philosophy are deeply rooted and sustained, acting as a mentor and guardian for both the framework and those practicing it. And, while every Scrum Caretaker is a Scrum Master too, not every Scrum Master fully embraces the Scrum Caretaker mindset.
It also required updating the vision or mission statement I had devised for the shapeshifted but now eliminated Scrum Caretakers Meetup:
Much remains that I need to figure out for this new platform, this Foundation and home for Scrum Caretakers around the world:
- I might distinguish paying from free members.
- I might facilitate open, public sessions to continue what I did with my Scrum Caretaker meetups. A new name I am considering would be “Scrum Caretaker Hangout”.
- I might ask for a fee for a new type of sessions that I currently envision calling a “Scrum Caretaker Interactivent”. They will be a mixture of a presentation and a workshop. For the latter I am considering working with EventBrite, next to selling seats via my webshop. A first topic I have in mind is “Why Scrum Works”, inspired by the way it worked at the Agile Minds Romania Meetup.
- I might add community or forum-like capabilities to foster interaction and engagement.
- I want to look into a way of some integration with MailChimp to make account management more easy. I also use MailChimp for this Scrum Caretaker Courier.
Much figuring out will happen once we get going, not in upfront plans.
Foundation Two
I see my current website as my Foundation Two, the home from where I will keep working as an independent Scrum Caretaker via my business vehicle Ullizee-Inc. It should allow me to safeguard Foundation (One), the new (to be established) home for Scrum Caretakers around the world. If you’re into numbers, my website currently has 435 subscribed followers. They get a mail whenever I publish a new blog note.
I have recently spent quite some time on re-thinking and redesigning my website. What can you expect from it in the future?
- My articles and whitepapers remain downloadable for free.
- I have consolidated my descriptions of the Scrum Values (and all 25+ translations) and my Scrum Glossary on it (and all 25+ translations). The separate websites I used to maintain both will disappear by the end of 2025.
- Obviously, I will keep using my website to celebrate events like the release of the fourth edition of “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” and the third edition of its Dutch translation, “Scrum Wegwijzer”, and other announcements, opinions and excerpts.
- I will also keep sharing recordings of my speaking engagements (also available via my YouTube channel).
- It will remain the primary channel (shop) to get your seat in one of my online Professional Scrum classes and Scrum Pocket Classes.
Additionally, I will revert to my original intent when I started blogging in 2009 and share more non-Scrum blog posts as well:
- This will include stories from my personal life like I shared recently when I wrote about our life with a son with DMD and a son with Down. These were written in Dutch, so you might have to find a way to translate them.
- I plan to keep sharing other people’s insights that I feel are worthwhile sharing with my (English-speaking) network. I recently shared my translation of two articles written in Dutch: “Fascinated by a Blob.” (by Prof. Kristien Hens) and “Trans women are women. Not a different species, not a threat, just…women.” (by Prof. Piet Hoebeke).
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