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“Fascinated by a Blob.” (by Prof. Kristien Hens)

Kristien Hens is Full Professor in bioethics at the department of Philosophy of the University of Antwerp (UA). Besides teaching about ethics, biology and the environment, prof. Hens is actively involved in multidisciplinary research regarding these topics while having also performed influential work in the combined fields of the philosophy of psychiatry, mental health and neurodiversity.

Cover of the book 'Denken met microben' by Kristien Hens, featuring a simple abstract design and the title prominently displayed in Dutch.

An interview with prof. Hens in the print version of my newspaper De Morgen on 19 April 2025 attracted my attention. It was an interview about her newest book, called “Denken met microben”, that was published in March 2025 by Belgian publishing house Letterwerk.

Note: The interview as well as the book are in Dutch. Not having given it too much thought, I would intuitively translate the title of her book, described as an ‘essay’ also given its length and format, as “Thinking Microbes”.

The interview left me with high expectations and the determination to read the book. By coincidence, later that day, our son shared having noticed an interview with one of his lecturers in the online edition of my newspaper. He studies Philosophy at the University of Antwerp. The lecturer of the course “Japanese Philosophy and the Environment” that he was referring to is…prof. Hens. I shared my enthusiasm about the book with him and went out to buy it the next (working) day. Despite having tons of books I have and aspire reading, I decided to give priority to this one. Well, honestly, another reason might have been the prospect of meeting prof. Hens in person at an excursion that she was organizing for my son’s class by the end of April.

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Het einde van het tijdperk van Calcort: tijd voor een tussenstand in 18 jaar leven met Duchenne.

Ik herinner me als de dag van gisteren de dag in november 2007 dat ik het telefoontje kreeg van de kinderarts dat de uitslag van de bloedtest van onze oudste zoon bekend was. Het was natuurlijk niet letterlijk de dag van gisteren omdat we intussen mei 2025 zijn. In november 2007 was onze zoon net 6 jaar oud geworden. Als je een beetje kan rekenen, begrijp je dat hij intussen 24 jaar is en dat we bijna 18 jaar verder zijn.

Toen de kinderarts telefonisch geen details wilde meedelen, maar vroeg om zo snel mogelijk langs te komen voor een bespreking, wist ik hoe laat het was. Ik contacteerde mijn vrouw en per direct vertrokken we naar de kinderarts. Daar kregen we inderdaad te horen dat het gehalte creatinekinase in zijn bloed niet enkel een klein beetje verhoogd aanwezig was, maar gigantisch veel. De conclusie was dat hij, zoals onze kinderarts eerder vermoedde op basis van zijn houding en manier van stappen (de reden van het bloedonderzoek), een spierziekte had. Bijkomend genetisch onderzoek toonde afwijkingen in het dystrofine-gen aan en het bleek, zoals verwacht (want het is nu eenmaal de meest voorkomende spieraandoening bij jongens), om Duchenne te gaan. De Duchenne-aandoening is ook wel bekend als ‘Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy’ of “DMD” (de afkorting van de Engelse benaming).

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“Trans women are women. Not a different species, not a threat, just…women.” (says Prof. Piet Hoebeke)

Piet Hoebeke is a well-known Belgian Urologist at the Ghent Universitary Hospital and Dean at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the Ghent University. He is actively involved in multidisciplinary teams addressing sexual development disorders and gender dysphoria.

After some hesitation, Prof. Hoebeke decided to respond to the verdict of the British High Court regarding the position and rights of trans women in the United Kingdom. As you might remember, the court ruled that the definition of “sex” in the Equality Act refers to “biological sex” only, i.e. the gender as recorded at the time of birth of an individual. This means that the (changed) gender of the people commonly referred to as “trans people” is not respected, despite them holding a Gender Recognition Certificate and having had their new gender legally recognized. According to the British Court, trans women can therefore not claim access to spaces or activities that are ‘women only’.

Prof. Hoebeke shared his viewpoint on this ruling in an article published by Belgian newspaper De Morgen on 22 April 2025, in the print edition of the newspaper as well as the online edition.

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Definition of “Scrum Caretaker”

In the spring of 2016 I started calling myself a “Scrum Caretaker”. I had to come up with a job title after leaving behind my positions with the more traditional sounding titles of Partner of Ken Schwaber and Director of the Professional Scrum Series at Scrum.org (2013-2016) and of Global Scrum Leader and Principal Consultant at Capgemini (2010-2013). And, for that matter, all titles and positions I’ve held throughout my lifelong professional journey (1992-2010).

In that spring of 2016, as I renamed my one-person company to “Ullizee-Inc” (what I like to call my ‘business vehicle’ to bring my Scrum Services to the market), I started calling myself a “Scrum Caretaker”. Every other, more traditional sounding title felt silly, because, after all, my company was (and still is) just…me (one person, literally).

Some time later I added “independent” to my self-chosen title of “Scrum Caretaker” to emphasize that I am not a part of any fixed corporate structure with hidden commercial liabilities or intentions (after all, there is a reason why I never created some custom ‘framework’ and related certification scheme). In a next step I expanded “an independent Scrum Caretaker” with my mission “on a journey of humanizing the workplace with Scrum”.

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Scrum Caretakers Meetup: Shapeshifting 2025

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…

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De derde druk van de “Scrum Wegwijzer” is nu beschikbaar

Voortdurend op zoek naar nieuwe manieren om Scrum uit te leggen

Zonder het belang van mijn werk met eXtreme Programming verpakt in Scrum in België sinds 2003 te minimaliseren, is Nederland toch wel heel belangrijk geweest tijdens mijn ontdekkingsreis met Scrum. Ik genoot het voorrecht om vanaf 2010 in belangrijke mate in Nederland kennis en inzicht in het Scrum-proces te mogen verspreiden. In 2011 en 2012 bevond ik me, als Global Scrum Leader en Principal Consultant bij Capgemini, geheel onverwachts in het oog van een Scrum-orkaan die stormenderhand Nederland veroverde. Toen ik door mijn werk bij Scrum.org (2013-2016) een goed beeld kreeg van de mondiale verspreiding van Scrum, stelde ik verheugd vast dat Nederland wereldwijd (!) koploper was wat betreft de invoering van Scrum. Dat is het vandaag nog steeds. Dankzij de vele mensen, teams en organisaties waarmee ik sinds 2010 mocht werken, werd Nederland wat Scrum betreft zowat mijn professioneel thuisland. En zo voelt het nog steeds, anno 2025.

In 2013 creëerde ik, quasi op toevallige wijze, een licht en eenvoudig boek over het licht en eenvoudig framework dat Scrum is. Niet toevallig was dat op vraag van en werd dat boek gepubliceerd door Van Haren Publishing, een Nederlandse uitgever van IT-boeken en -publicaties. De eerste, Engelstalige uitgave verscheen in 2013 op de markt als Scrum – A Pocket Guide. In 2016 publiceerden we mijn Nederlandse vertaling ervan als Scrum Wegwijzer. De tweede druk van de Nederlandstalige editie, die in 2022 verscheen, was dan weer gebaseerd op de derde druk van de Engelstalige versie, die in 2021 werd gepubliceerd.

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The Scrum Caretaker Courier 12: About Time

Somewhere during the series of Corona-crises, I started with a newsletter to connect and remain in touch with interested people around the world (April 2021). Fortunately, I never intended it to be a regular newsletter, meaning having to release at a fixed interval. I would have brutally failed. Somewhere along that journey (of irregularly collecting and sharing little snippets of news and updates) I started calling my newsletter “The Scrum Caretaker Courier” and started numbering them (September 2022). I was hoping at some point to design my newsletter like the front page of a newspaper (a mix of articles). That never worked out, so I’m stuck with enforcing a linear reading exercise on my subscribers. What did work out, is the use of the color scheme that resembles an old, worn-out newspaper (text color #5F5948 on background color #EAE0C4).

At first I only sent my Scrum Caretaker Couriers to the official subscribers (via MailChimp integrated with my webshop, 4k+ people in the meantime). Sign up here if interested to receive my snippets first-hand. Then I realized I am also connected to interested people via the Scrum Caretakers Meetup group (1k+ people), so I started sharing a short summary and a link to the online version of my Scrum Caretaker Courier there too. And after I sent nr. 12 recently, I woke up (almost screaming) because I remembered that there are also quite a few people (400+) that have agreed to receive updates from my blog via e-mail. Did I already share that I have this unbearably slow-thinking brain? So, allow me to hereby address them (YOU) and all others just happening to stumble upon my website (YOU also). By the way, if ever you would be interested, there is even an historical archive available kept by MailChimp with all Scrum Caretaker Courier editions.

The Scrum Caretaker Courier 12: About Time

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The Impact Expected from Agile Alliance® Joining PMI

On 3 January 2025 the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the Agile Alliance® published an announcement that they signed an agreement on 31 December 2024 through which Agile Alliance® joined PMI, to be known as “PMI Agile Alliance” from that day on. I have no idea where the ® went but it certainly caused a lot of fuzz and noise on so-called social media. As I don’t really care and I don’t expect it to cause that much fuzz or noise on the workfloor, I wasn’t planning on joining any of the debates.

But, Frank Ray asked me on LinkedIn if I had any ‘take’ on this. Despite my initial thought “Not really”, his question was seemingly still enough to trigger me and to get me thinking anyhow (which is something to think about in itself). So, I decided I might as well jot down my thoughts quickly:

I am not involved in or associated with either organization, or their offerings. I never was. What strikes me most are the large, corporate structures that they both have in place. Too large, too corporate for me to feel comfortable with anyhow. So large, so corporate that I am not too sure about the extent to which they actually represent their practitioners and members. I obviously do know a lot of these practitioners and members.

I did find it interesting that Mike Cohn, one of the original co-founders of the Agile Alliance, shared on LinkedIn how the reason for this merger/absorption is the decline in revenues from events since the Corona crisis. Isn’t it fascinating how in general it is said that organizations need to become more ‘Agile’ in order to adapt to changing markets and business conditions? And that of all organizations, the home of Agile has been unable to do so unless giving up on its independence?

At the time of the creation of the Agile Manifesto (2001) and the subsequent establishment of the Agile Alliance (I know Ken Schwaber was also a co-founder but I have never been able to have a clear confirmation on who else was), the world of software development was “dominated by plan-driven, industrial views“[1], “in times when failing heavy-weight, waterfall approaches were replaced by heavy-weight, waterfall-like RUP implementations“[1]. At that time, the PMI certainly was part of the problem, and not of the way out.

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Increasing the Agility of Biotech Companies by Tuning their Scrum (Wisdom from Michal Epstein)

On 6 & 7 June 2024, I joined the Regional Scrum Gathering in Ghent (in my home country Belgium). Besides delivering the closing keynote about “Moving (your) Scrum Downfield” and having many hallway conversations, I also attended a few sessions by fellow speakers.

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