Why McPhee

When I started with team V, they were just starting their Scrum Journey. They had worked in Kanban mode and all the sudden they were expected to be a Scrum Team. I had the pleasure to help them in their journey from the very beginning and not all steps had been so fluent. After  half a year I had feeling we are not improving fast enough. There were pressure and expectations outside from the team. As usual I found myself to be the reason for that. I felt I haven't been expecting enough from the team, maybe even done too much on behalf of them.

I decided write a letter to the team. I considered different approaches and any of them didn't feel right. Then I got an idea: I write them letter from Soikka McPhee. I am used to work with teams who are either just starting or struggling with their Agile Journey. I don't say I felt being not wanted but somehow I saw that Nanny McPhee and her way of working were a match and immediately got  many ideas how to utilize Nanny McPhee's philosophy. 

So I wrote a letter about our journey, what kind of challenges we had face and what is there to come and signed it "Soikka McPhee".

Those who have seen Nanny McPhee movies  hopefully remember that in both movies Nanny had 5 lessons to teach.

In the first movie "Nanny McPhee" Nanny went to the Brown household to tame Mr Brown's seven bad-manner children. Her five lessons to teach were:

1. They will learn how to say "please" and "thank you"
2. They will do as they are told
3. They will learn to dress on their own
4. They will learn to listen (I am not sure whether this lesson was more for the father than for children)
5. They will be prepared to face the consequences of one's actions.

From these five lessons I couldn't easily formulate my own five lessons to teach or didn't really found any similarities what I have taught for earlier teams I've worked with. 

In the second movie "Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang" Nanny went to a farm to help a harried young mother who was trying to run the family farm while her husband was away at war. Nanny taught farmer's children and their two spoiled cousins five new lessons.

1. Stop fighting
2. Share nicely
3. Help each other
4. Be brave
5. Have faith

In these five new lessons I can more easily formulate my own lessons to teach but I am not quite there yet. With help of my ex-colleague I have started to rephrase the five lessons I as Scrum Master want to teach to my team considering all the previous teams and what I have taught to them. I can't wait my next letter to the team V explaining what are the lessons I want to teach them.

I want to look back and gather lessons from the past. I have myself learned a lot during these recent years when I have been working as Scrum Master or as Agile Coach. How have my own lessons evolved during these years? Teams have been different in many ways and tricks which have worked with one team have been doomed to fail with another team. 

These lessons, learnings and stories I want to share and this is why I now start this blog. I hope there is even one person who can get something for himself by reading my posts.