Tag: Scrum Caretakers

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A Foundation for the Future

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 As all accounts had been archived (rather than erased) nobody would have to re-enter all their information.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).

Banner image for 'The Scrum Caretaker Courier' newsletter featuring the title and subtitle.

2025 – Scrum Caretakers Meetup

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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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Creating opportunities to deliver value (as an Independent Scrum Caretaker)

I have wandered the fascinating realms of IT, technology and software development since graduating in 1992, except for the years of running a bookstore (1996-1999). I discovered an Agile way of working through eXtreme Programming and Scrum in 2003. It became my purpose, my belief and my core; spreading the Agile paradigm to help people create better products and humanize their workplace.

After a career as a consultant (2001-2013) and spending 3 years working exclusively at Scrum.org as partner to Ken Schwaber, in 2016 I decided to further my path as an independent Scrum Caretaker; a connector, writer, speaker, humanizer.

I’ve come to accept the difficulty of grasping what this holds. I understand the difficulty when people offer me positions and assignments, assuming I am desperate (for money, status, work). Regardless, through my self-chosen ‘title’ I consider the areas through which to deliver value to the world, to help that world become a better place to live and to work in.

  • “Classes“: Facilitating people’s knowledge and insights in Scrum through Professional Scrum Master and Professional Scrum Product Owner classes, and custom workshops.
  • “Events“: Attending and speaking at events.
  • “Writing“: Creating papers, a new book and blog notes (reproduced at some other channels).
  • “Consulting“: Working with teams and organizations, upon the non-negotiable requirements that it must be personal, about Scrum and serious.

Every activity involves plenty of hours of devising the right words and even many more hours of silent reflection, travelling mental cobblestone labyrinths. I don’t look for money for every single activity in every single service area. Context prevails.

From my standard offer of services:

Through my work I have come to appreciate the uniqueness of every person, team, department and organisation. It has inspired me to move away from fixed approaches. (…) I don’t require specific task descriptions. I require no title. I don’t post my assignments or expose the name of your organisation, unless you explicitly allow or ask me to do so.

Through the initiative of the Scrum Caretakers meetups, I see my experience confirmed that it is not easy being a Scrum Caretaker. It takes quite some intrinsic motivation, belief and dedication (a purpose) to give up (paid) time for mere collaboration on open-ended topics that rarely serve a commercial purpose. It did get me in touch with a lot of non-usuals suspects, outside of the threaded paths of ‘Agile’. The sheer beauty of that experience makes up for a lot of the sacrifices.

I am gratified for the opportunities I stumbled into through my years at work. It served me well in becoming what I didn’t know I wanted (or was able) to be. Most dots only got connected in retrospect, still making it seem as if there was a plan. There wasn’t. In general I had no clue. I still haven’t. But becoming an independent Scrum Caretaker did help me shift towards creating opportunities to deliver value, and help more people deliver value. Reciprocity.

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Introducing the Scrum Caretakers initiative

Discovering what drives me is a never-ending journey (1). Starting with eXtreme Programming and Scrum in 2003 was a life changing experience.

My work for different consulting companies (2001-2012) was spent on Scrum. I authored a pocket guide to Scrum in 2013. I went to work with the Scrum.org team and Ken Schwaber in 2013. In 2016 I decided to further my journey of Scrum on an independent basis.

Discovering what drives me is a never-ending journey (2). The stable essence is that:

I care about people. I care about Scrum. I care about helping people create better products and a more humane workplace through Scrum. I care about helping people re-imagine their organisations.

I detached myself from any fixed organisational structure. Of the tangible goals I had in mind, one was to start a community initiative for Scrum across Belgium and the Netherlands, the Scrum Caretakers.

Belgium is where some of my core insights in Scrum were created (2003-2010). Since 2010 however I have worked primarily in the Netherlands. Scrum is completely under-used in Belgium. Scrum is huge in the Netherlands, and splintered. I initiated the Scrum Caretakers community, currently already materialised as a meet-up group.

Anyone can join, from any place in the world, and have access to whatever it is we create. Actual get-togethers are organised alternately in Belgium and the Netherlands for the time being.