Blog Posts

Scrum Master Vs Project Manager: Different Roles, Different Individuals

A common misconception among those new to Agile software development is that the Scrum Master role is identical to the traditional Project Manager role. In reality, this is demonstrably untrue and differences between these roles is illustrated when we consider scope of influence and ownership. While there are some shared tasks and similarities between these roles, they are at their foundations, separate roles with incongruent fields of influence.

A Scrum Master is a facilitator focused intently on a Scrum Team and its deliverables. The term facilitator is used specifically because the Scrum Master does not lead the team, dictate the work they will do, or the order that the work will be done. A Scrum Master’s role is one of support. Decision-making powers within the Scrum Team are decentralized; the Scrum Master facilitates conversations that lead to solutions. The Scrum Master coaches the team and the Product Owner in Scrum processes, but does not make standalone task level or feature decisions. Essentially, the Scrum Master is embedded within a Scrum Team and is responsible for the work that the Scrum Team develops and launches.

In large projects with multiple Scrum Teams, a Project Manager may be positioned to track the project as a whole, managing project timelines, budgets, contracts, and risk. In this position, the Project Manager is a leader, a decision maker and is empowered with dictating the priority of work, cutting/adding features and adjusting resources while the Scrum Master is concerned with budget, contracts, and timelines as they relate directly to the Scrum Team and their deliverables.

The Scrum Master and Project Manager roles are both important in their own way. Each project is unique and as such, management should exercise careful consideration when creating staffing plans for non-development task owners. It may be that a project requires a Scrum Master to help facilitate execution, along with the dedicated contract negotiation skills of a practiced Project Manager. In this case, it would be preferable to have a Scrum Master who also happens to be a Project Manager selected for that role. Many times, the Project Manager and Scrum Master roles are staffed by different individuals to prevent overtasking and conflicts of interest that could break down the Agile process.

November 13, 2025
Five Steps for Improving Team Communication with Working Agreements
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from a colleague’s blog. The content has been amazingly helpful to me when working with teams, and I share the ideas of this post widely to attendees of my classes. The original site (https://www.ruralsourcing.com/blogs/five-steps-for-improving-team-communication-with-working-agreements/) has been experiencing hosting issues, so I’ve agreed to re-publish the original content here.

Smooth teamwork and collaboration are key when working in Agile teams. However, getting started with a new team can be difficult, whether you’re co-located or working remotely, as so many teams are now. This is where working agreements can come in. At their core, working agreements are a set of statements that define how a team is going to work together and be the most effective team they can be. As you can imagine, each individual is different, and each team is different, so there’s no “one size fits all” working agreement. Here’s why they’re helpful and how to get started on creating one for your team.

Why working agreements are so important

Working agreements provide a common baseline of expectations for every team member, allowing for transparent communication, which is now more important than ever before with so many teams having become fully remote. Unclear expectations within a team can foster resentment if someone is not acting the way others expect, however, we can easily get a team on the same page with an hour-long discussion to create a set of working agreements. Another benefit is to foster empathy and build relationships between team members. If the team doesn’t know each other very well, talking about how they like to work, both individually and as a team, can help them get to know each other.

How to build a working agreement

Working agreements are evolving documents and should be periodically revisited. To get started, all we need is an hour meeting and everybody on the team to be present and ready to participate. This isn’t the kind of meeting we want to schedule on a Friday afternoon after everyone is checked out for the week. These are the steps I recommend following when setting up a working agreement.
1. Before the meeting, create a board in your team’s collaboration tool of choice. Any of them will work just fine. Physical sticky notes, Miro, stickies.io, and Trello all work very well. Bonus points if answers can be hidden during step two to more easily reveal common themes among team members.
2. Start with a question or two to get the team thinking about teamwork and collaboration. Make a column or grouping on your board for each of the questions. Give the team 5-10 minutes to answer the questions. A few suggested questions to have the team answer individually are:
  - “I work best when…” ex. “I work best when I limit distractions”
  - “I value…” ex. “I value receiving feedback regularly”
  - “A high functioning team does…” ex. “A high functioning team is never afraid to ask for help”
3. Go over the responses as a group. Group them into common themes if any arise. The team will likely think of more things they wish to add.
4. Distill the previous groupings into a set of working agreement statements that everyone on the team is happy with. This might take some discussions or a few iterations of each statement to get things to a point everyone on the team is happy with. Try to limit the number of statements to fewer than 10 so they are easily remembered.
5. You’re done! Make your working agreements visible and make a note to revisit your agreement in a few weeks or a month as the team uses it.
Atlassian has a great working agreement playbook that is another good place to start. Remember, a working agreement can and likely will change while a team is forming and finding its groove. Below is a sample board after a working agreement session to give you an idea of what the result might look like.

Differences in remote working agreements

Working remotely doesn’t change the process for building the working agreement besides the tooling you may use and the topics you may cover. With the tooling above, you can easily replicate a similar feel to all being in the same room with sticky notes on a whiteboard. A remote team’s working agreement may look similar to a colocated team’s working agreement, but likely with different topics covered.

Some important remote topics to cover may include:
- Do we have core working hours where meetings should be scheduled?
- What are our primary means of team communication? (Email vs chat software)
- What is our response time on our chat software?
- Do we expect cameras on during meetings?
So you made a working agreement, now what?

Use it! Find a place to display it near your working space or on the team’s issue tracking board. Over the next few weeks, pay attention to your team dynamics and communication. Is your team following the working agreement? Are they working better together? What could be changed to help us build better software? Use your team retrospective or schedule a meeting to adjust the working agreement to any new needs that have arisen. Continue reviewing and refining it once a quarter or every six months.

The most important time to review, or even start over on your working agreement is when the team changes. If someone leaves or a new person joins, it’s a whole new team with different dynamics and personality interactions. It’s usually best to create a new working agreement, but a few of the previous statements will likely continue on the team’s working agreement. After all, creating a working agreement for your team is one of the best things you can do to avoid unnecessary conflict and keep your colleagues working efficiently. Treat it as an evolving document and don’t be afraid to keep reworking it to help your team function at their best.

About the Author:

Josh Schanke is a Principal Consultant and has been building software for over 10 years across a variety of tech stacks. He is passionate about solving problems, whether they be Product, Team or Technology. He has led many teams to improve how they work together and build great software. When he’s not working, Josh is relaxing with a good book, diving into some long video games, beating friends in board games, or trying some interesting beers at one of Milwaukee’s many breweries.
November 13, 2025
Need a new game to teach Scrum ideas? CardZinga!

One of the most popular exercises for teaching Scrum concepts (empiricism, self-organizing, etc.) is the Ball Point Game (BPG), and most Scrum trainers I ask say they’ve used it. If you’ve taken a Scrum class or two, you’re likely to have played it, too. (Here’s a link to a video I recorded in 2012 of a large team playing BPG.)

When playing the Ball Point Game, a team will organize themselves around the goal of getting as many balls as possible passed through the system within a defined period of time. There are a few specific rules / constraints, and groups will typically undergo three to five iterations while tracking their progress. It’s a fun, lively activity that introduces empirical processes and lays the groundwork for a more tangible exploration of Scrum.

In late 2018 I started looking for alternatives, and it wasn’t long before I came across the Lean Workflow Design Game by Nancy Van Schooenderwoert and introduced at the Play4Agile conference in 2011. It’s a useful and fun game; nonetheless, I wanted to extend it a bit, share a virtual version, liven up the name, and give it a home online.

And so, without further ado: CardZinga!

August 11, 2020
Need a New Year’s fix? Try my Top 10 Tips for Trainers
Are you a trainer with a passion for continuous improvement? Do you believe that lifelong learning is a key to satisfaction and success? As for me, I do a moderate amount of training each year, and one of the things I love about training is that learning goes two ways. Each time I finish conducting a session, I’m fascinated by the many new things I’ve taken away, whether related to content or process. So, if you are on the lookout for new techniques to sharpen your skills or set challenging goals, I would like to provide my Top 10 Tips for Trainers.

[NOTE: This is a copy of a post I made for Sharon Bowman’s Ning site where I’m a co-editor. Her site is by invitation only to those who have completed her two-day “Training From the Back of the Room” workshop, but this content should be valuable to my audience as well.]

1. Stay Positive

One of the most significant improvements you can make to your training is changing the way you think about it. Coming off a holiday break, it’s a great time to figure out how to adjust your mindset. Mindset has a powerful impact on how you experience your work and whether or not your training room is happy and safe place for you and your students. Positivity reduces fear and increases learning.

A couple things to try outside of work include creating a support group with other trainers and building mindfulness practices into your regular routine. Both of these activities will help you reduce stress, feel more purposeful, and actually become more productive and positive.

2. Spice Up Your Routine

Here’s another area we could all improve on. If your training class isn’t run well and your students aren’t focused, it’s pretty hard to get anything else done. You can attack this issue from a lot of different angles.

First, try one new technique from TFBR each time you train to keep things new and challenging for both you and your students. Going through the book and making a list of techniques you haven’t yet used will help you focus.

3. Build Fitness into Your Curriculum

Another spicy tip, make health a classroom affair. By integrating movement into your training activities, you surely get your routine out of any rut it may have been stuck in. Also, simply encouraging your attendees to take care of their bodies throughout the day or two might be enough of a motivator to get them moving more. And the more we get our blood flowing, the better our retention of the material. (Remember that trump about movement…)

Health-related Bonus: Think about your food. If you provide meals or snacks, try offering some alternative healthy foods. Sugars and simple carbohydrates will spike insulin levels, giving you immediate energy, but long-term brain fog. Instead, look to provide complex carbs: whole grains, nuts, carrots and veggies.

4. Get Students Involved and Empowered

Do you start your sessions by having students share their goals for what they hope to achieve? If not, you’re leaving money on the table. By giving your students more control over their learning objectives and activities, they will better take ownership of their learning and use their experiences and interests in a positive way.

Sharon’s 4-Cs are rife with opportunities to get your students involved, but C3 (Concrete Practice) is the motherlode. Here, your learners will actively be practicing their new skills and teaching each other, all while you observe from the back of the room.

5. Freshen up your Slide Presentations

Chances are, you probably use at least some PowerPoint in your sessions. But are you familiar with best practices for slide creation? Most people aren’t, and that means the world is chock-full of heinously ineffective slideshows, a.k.a. “Death by PowerPoint”

To start improving your slides, go over to Sharon’s blog and read her “Slides About PowerPoint“. In minutes you’ll start to understand exactly what needs to change about your slideshows, and you’ll be motivated to fix them.

6. Dress to Impress Yourself

Don’t worry. We haven’t turned this into a fashion blog, but I would like to share a valuable tip that you might not have thought of: what to wear. Don’t underestimate how feeling good in your clothes and wearing something you love can lift your mood and start your day on a positive note. And considering that we tend to be on our feet moving around for the better part of eight hours, comfort is key! So grab a few new, fun pieces to add to your typical outfits and turn the front (or back) of the room into your own personal runway!

7. Get Organized – Work Smarter, Not Harder

If organization is your issue, the first tip I can give you for getting more organized is to narrow that goal down to something more specific: Do you want to manage your time better? Organize your digital files? Pull together all the pieces of dozens of little training materials you have going on? Here are some tools that can get you started:

To organize your time, try Google Calendar. It might take a little while to learn it, but soon you’ll be able to keep all of your important events, daily tasks, birthdays, everything on it. And what I love is that it’s also synced with my phone, so I get reminders on the go as well.

To organize your materials (digital files), consider using a cloud-based storage platform like Dropbox or Google Drive.

To organize your ideas, a note-taking tool like Evernote can really help you keep all the pieces in one place.

8. Get Your Work/Life Balance in Order

As best you can, keep your work at the training site and enjoy your time at home (or in your hotel, or wherever you find yourself when you’re not at work). It’s tempting to tweak your slides or update your lesson plan in the evenings, but it usually only leads to exhaustion. Treat yourself with relaxation or exercise – it makes you sharper in the next session.

After extended time in the classroom, some people can’t let off steam unless they head to Vegas or Cancun. Others find a golf course or hiking path, or they may just unplug at home with family and a stack of books. Whatever your outlet, make sure it’s available to you in some form wherever you are. Making yourself happy will be better for you AND your students.

9. Plan Your Move Up the Payscale

You’re out there doing the work and getting better each session, making yourself more valuable by the hour. But have you considered adding professional development hours or graduate credits? Is there a new position you can move into? It’s vital to consider what your career goals are and take action before you get complacent!

Maybe there’s a certification you can work to earn. Often this is the absolute best professional decision you can make, significantly impacting the quality of your teaching. Even re-certifications can raise your expectations for yourself and drastically change the way you measure the quality of your training.

10. Set Goals & Avoid Autopilot Mode

I don’t mean your work and official achievement goals; I mean your own personal training goals. What are one or two things you think are important but forget as soon as the flurry of the training gets in the way? Keep a notepad handy (electronic is fine) to jot down these ideas as they spring up. Take time to focus on one achievable goal a month, perhaps setting aside the same date each month, and make improvement a priority.

If you made it this far through the article, you’re clearly interested in improving yourself; so if you’re not improving, you’re likely in pain. Let’s fix this by focusing on it. Start small, and make the goals SMART. Get an accountability buddy if you need to, and keep yourself off autopilot mode.

What resolutions will you bring to your trainings in 2017? Please share your comments with me on twitter @AgileCoffee.
January 7, 2017
Turning the page to 2017
It’s that time again, when we put high expectations and great hopes on display, usually a step or two above the accomplishments (good or bad) of the previous year. Like many humans, I catch myself in a pensive spirit in late December, and this session is no different from times past… except I’m a year older.

With that, I shall inspect my resolutions and proclamations from twelve months ago. Please be mindful that 20/20 vision and rose-colored glasses are both in full effect competing for dominance here.

I ended 2015 on a high note having transitioned off a 4-month consulting engagement and onto a terrific role at an outstanding company. I’d also fulfilled my kickstarter obligation by creating three decks of cards and delivering them to my generous backers. And, surprise! My abstract on pair-coaching was accepted to the Scrum Gathering in Orlando, while meanwhile our Coaching Retreat in San Diego was shaping up nicely. Yes indeed, 2016 was being teed up to be a great one.

photo art by @christhebarker

And it was, to a large degree, pretty great indeed. Sure, there was still all that crap we can gripe about: celebrity passings (Harambe), topsy turvy elections, climate scares, Mariah on NYRE, terrorism & #noestimates debates… and of course, losing Jean. But amidst all the mess in our shared dream, we also witnessed some pretty cool stories. The Cubs, afterall, won the World Series. (Being from Cleveland, that was actually pretty miserable – but hey, it made everyone else & Bill Murray happy – so on balance I’m feeling okay; especially considering that the Warriors blew a 3-1 lead in the finals, while LeBron and the Cavs delivered a miraCLE to the city.)

Other good stuff happened, too, didn’t it? Like the Tesla Model 3 unveiling?

Regardless, I had a pretty good year (World Series, notwithstanding). I got out another twelve episodes of the Agile Coffee podcast, although we’ve been silent since the summer. #circumstances, I suppose. Another personal bright spot was finishing the newest card deck: the Agile Coach’s Toolkit. I just this week sent off an order to be printed. It’s not another #leancoffee set . So 2015.

My volunteering took off. We had at least ten scheduled meetups here in Irvine, plus I made it to a handful of Paul’s Agile SoCal shindigs. We all pitched in to make Agile Open SoCal something to talk about, right on the heels of Don and Esther’s Coaching Beyond the Team workshop. The aforementioned Scrum Coaching Retreat in San Diego was a good time, and I got to speak at both the Orlando Scrum Gathering and at Agile2016 in Atlanta. #humbled.

It certainly could be claimed that the feather in my cap (ah-hmm) came in being selected to co-chair 2017’s Scrum Gathering in San Diego. This allowed Kim Brainard and I to visit Munich in October for their outstanding gathering. Ahh, good times.

As for my own personal development, I accrued a few hours of classroom sessions outside of these volunteer events. In April I took in Sharon Bowman’s delightful Training From the Back of the Room course, including the teaching certification. Additionally, I’m happy to have joined 29 others for five days with the crew from ACI for the Agile Coach Bootcamp this past November. Again, da chicken!

I think the biggest event from 2016 for me was that my daughter learned to ride her bike. Not only this, but she’s taken to it so well, riding nearly everyday in the alley behind our apartment. May we share many rides in 2017.

So, in tying up this rather dull, navel-gazing post, here are a few goals I have for the new year:
- get the new deck working with the online piece to generate something of value
- return to a decent cadence for the podcasts (and BHAG: launch a new one!!)
- pursue greatness on the job and in my community
- go for a few nice bike rides
All the best to you and yours in 2017.
December 31, 2016
Sign up now for Coaching Beyond the Team

Here in the USA, the summer travel season is heating up. Before you head off to exotic destinations, I want to let you know about a special opportunity right here in our area. Esther Derby and Don Gray are offering their outstanding workshop, Coaching Beyond the Team, in Costa Mesa, Sept 13 & 14. I feel this course will be invaluable for those of you in a scrum master or coaching role. The early bird price ends July 1. Details on the course below from Esther.

Have a great summer, Vic

Learn how to coach beyond the team

Agile coaches and Scrum Masters face many challenges. They have no authority to insist people listen or do, yet managers and executives expect organization-wide results from coaches’ activities. Managers have authority, but often need cooperation from others to achieve goals that cross reporting boundaries.

Discover the factors in the organization that are affecting your team’s ability to adapt to change and deliver value. Practice techniques to help others see how the environment is supporting or impeding your teams — and gain their cooperation to enhance productivity.

Through simulations and small group activities we’ll explore common organizational patterns and dynamics. By using discussion and practice, you’ll learn tools that will help you communicate the changes needed to unleash productivity.

When: September 13-14, 2016
Where: Costa Mesa, California
What: Two-days of interactive, experiential learning
Tuition:
$1175 special friends and family price through July 1
$1295 regular price
$1100 group price (limited to 4 from same organization)

For more information, visit www.coachingbeyondtheteam.com

May 29, 2016
Using Dominoes for Scenario Play

If you’re looking for a way to randomize a group and match them with scenarios for role play, I suggest trying dominoes.

I’ve recently been speaking on the topic of pair-coaching, and in developing my workshop, I’ve been tinkering with using double-nine wooden dominoes. The face of a domino tile is divided into two ends, each with a number of pips (dots)… or no pips at all. In the case of double-nines, the values range from 0-0 to 9-9.

Set of 55 “Double Nine” dominoes by Pressman

a set of Double Nines contains a total of 495 pips (dots) across all 55 tiles

(more…)

May 4, 2016
My TakeAways from #TBR with Sharon Bowman

In the days leading up to the Global Scrum Gathering (Orlando, FL), the Braintrust Consulting Group organized a two-day “Training from the BACK of the Room” (TBR) workshop just up the road from the Loews Royal Pacific Resort. It was a fast-paced, high-energy two days with Sharon Bowman and 32 attendees, set in a large, comfortable room perfectly suited for a unique train-the-trainer experience.

Before we began: the calmness from the BACK of the room.

I hadn’t previously met Sharon, but a year or so earlier I’d bought her book (Training From the Back of the Room!: 65 Ways to Step Aside and Let Them Learn), and I’d since begun dabbling with this accelerated learning model – combining brain science to training and (more recently) speaking & presenting. In fact, I was looking forward to getting a last burst of inspiration for my own presentation at the Scrum Gathering. (Spoiler Alert: I did!)

Different trumps Same

Jim and Tony came from China for the course… bringing translated copies of Sharon’s book.

Several of my colleagues from SoCal and across the internets had already been to Sharon’s class, so I was prepared to not sit back and be lectured to. Evidently, I was not alone. The other attendees came prepared to make connections both with the concepts and each other alike. And talk about diversity! We had no fewer than nine participants from outside of North America, and over one-third of the classmates came from workplaces with no knowledge of Agile/Scrum. The mix of backgrounds made for an uptempo, dynamic two days.

Sharon did not disappoint. Her 4 Cs, six trumps and myriad sources (Sharon reads a lot of books!) offer enough possibilities and permutations that you’ll never know what to expect. We stood up, stretched, and moved about the room; we spoke, wrote, drew pictures, played games and told stories.

This was not your traditional training. The projector was always on, but the slides were only to complement the learning, not to serve as the primary conduit to our senses. And you can forget about those lectures that drone on! We (the participants) probably spoke as much as Sharon, if not much more than she. We reaffirmed our belief that learners want to be engaged, and there are unlimited ways to introduce content to make learning much more interesting and effective than by lecture.

By prompting learners to access each other’s knowledge and experiences, you turn up to 11 the efficacy of connecting with the content and concepts. This course lets you discover how the human brain really learns, and this knowledge liberates you from any traditional assumptions you had about learning. You leave having practiced dozens of simple, brain-based learning techniques that you can use without hesitation the next time you train, teach or coach others.

Calling all Scrum trainers

Do you know any CSTs ®, or someone interested in becoming a Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Trainer ®? TBR is so practical for teaching about Scrum that it’s nearly a pre-requisite whether you’re starting a career as a trainer or simply find yourself facilitating groups and leading meetings. A number of us in the class are somewhere on our own journeys toward training designations, and we had a couple CSTs as co-learners over the two days. (Eight participants joined me after day #1 to record episode 46 of the podcast, and this was one big topic.)

I’ve seen this firsthand while co-training. By liberally applying TBR techniques in a CSM ® course, for example, participants more freely ask questions of their cohorts … and share solutions! They don’t have to be spoon fed; in fact, Sharon’s TBR methods improve learners’ ability to remember concepts and access resources well beyond any two-day session.

Bringing TBR to a place near you

How can you spritz up your own training experience? Do you work outside of a traditional Scrum/Agile workplace and want to imagine the possibilities? I encourage anyone who teaches, trains or mentors to consider attending a TBR workshop. Visit Sharon’s site – bowperson.com – for a current list of upcoming opportunities. There you’ll see that not all workshops are led by Sharon; there are about 90 of us (as of April 2016) certified to present her 2-day train-the-trainer program – the one I’ve described above.

Sharon, however, remains the sole provider of the certification class for TBR Certified Trainers (course and assignments separate from the 2-day workshop), and this allows for consistency among practitioners. (I also took on the additional work to become certified, and my own 2-day TBR courses are being planned for California and Arizona.)

Sharon running the TBR Certified Trainer session

I introduced a dominoe technique during my TBR Certified Trainer journey.

May 2, 2016
Pre-conceptions of Scrum Coaching Retreats
Are you new to Scrum Coaching Retreats? Wondering what exactly you’re signing up for? I was in that position last year, and I’d like to share my observations.

It is not a conference, as there are no sessions or speakers. It is Agile Coaches working in Scrum teams, diving deep into topics that they are interested in.
– Mark Summers, Scrum Coaching Retreats

After having served for many years as a ScrumMaster and team-level coach, I wanted to stretch myself a bit and discover what it means to be a coach. I’d attended a few local gatherings and Open Space events, but the notion of a Coaching Retreat captured my interest big time. The idea of surrounding myself with others who were (or aspired to become) coaches sounded like an opportunity that I simply had to have.

I signed up for the SCR in Seattle 2015 and began researching what I could from previous retreats. I became active in the google group set up for our event and began asking questions, and I discovered that most others on the guest list were asking the same questions as me.
- Do you have to be a coach to attend?
- Will this event teach you how to become a coach (or get certified)?
- Is it a passive experience where you show to listen to experts?
The answer to each of these three questions was “no”. Instead, I learned that each attendee would be expected to join a team to work on a project that will give value back to ALL attendees and to the greater Scrum community worldwide.

Cut to the chase: I went and had a blast. I’d never had such an effective three days with other practitioners, and the network I’d built was truly amazing! I refer regularly to the work that we did together – a terrific example of what a new team could accomplish inside a mini-scrum framework. AND the project had lasting benefits. I’ve used my team’s Coaching Dojo results (as well as the outputs from other teams) in both my previous engagement and my current workplace.

You can find more info related to Scrum Coaching Retreats on the Scrum Alliance’s website at scrumalliance.org/courses-events/events/coaches-retreats
January 9, 2016
Inside Out and the Check In core protocol
I’m checking in, Inside Out style: a bit more detailed than a standard protocol check in, but shorter than the movie.

I’m GLAD to use the Core Protocols – most particularly, the Check In . I’ve had the privilege to have met Jim McCarthy – what an amazing and passionate human being. I’m honored to belong to the Booted – an online community of about 400 caring individuals, organized by Michelle and Jim McCarthy.

Jim and Michelle co-authored Software for your Head, the seminal publication investigating the dynamics of contemporary teams. It’s this book that first introduced the Core Protocols to a wide audience. Michelle and Jim were both working at Microsoft when they met and began exchanging ideas on the person-to-person relationships within teams. Soon they set out to discover a set of repeatable group behaviors that would always lead to the formation of a state of shared vision for any team. Their work led them to create the McCarthy Software Development BootCamp, out of which ultimately came the protocols and the publication.¹

Of the ten core protocols (v.3.02 is the most recent version at this writing), Check In seems to be among the most practiced. It’s used to begin a meeting or “anytime an individual or group Check In would add more value to the current team interactions.”² The speaker will say “I feel [one or more of GLAD, SAD, MAD, AFRAID]” followed (optionally) by a brief explanation before ending with “I’m in.” This signifies that Speaker intends to abide by the Core Commitments.

This protocol fosters a commitment to presence, which in turn begets engagement, leading to high performance of individuals and, ultimately, of the whole team. As Michelle states it:

“[The] check-in is really two things happening at the same time. One is, it’s dealing with the emotions of the people on the team. So it gives you a structured way to deal with emotions and it can be used at any time… And the other thing that’s going on when you check in is you are saying ‘I am in‘ when you’re done with your check-in. And that means I agree to the commitments that you referred to. And, so there’s kind of two things going on when you check in.”³

– Michelle McCarthy, 12/3/12

I’m GLAD to have seen Inside Out with my wife and daughter this weekend. We love these Pixar/Disney movies, and Inside Out didn’t disappoint. My daughter is nine, so we can relate to 11-year-old Riley Anderson, the film’s protagonist, who’s actions are guided by the five emotions living in her head: Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness.

Rather than living out an advantaged “life of Riley”, the young girl soon succumbs to the stresses of moving to a new town without friends no sign of the moving van with her childhood possessions. Inside her control center, the emotions have mixed things up. Joy and Sadness have been whisked away from their posts and ended up on the outskirts of Riley’s brain. Until they find their way back with a bagful of displaced core memories, Riley will be guided only by Anger, Disgust and Fear. Not a good scenario to play out in her new surroundings.

As Riley’s real life crumbles around her, the islands of her personality (Goofball, Friendship, Hockey, etc.) similarly fall to pieces and crash into the the forgotten zone – the deep canyon where old memories and other remnants of Riley’s personality disappear forever – leaving Joy and Sadness fewer alternatives for returning to headquarters. The team’s journey is, appropriately, marked by emotions and covers a strange cognitive landscape. When they meet Bing Bong, Riley’s long-lost imaginary friend, they’re led out of Long-term Memory (an “endless warren of corridors and shelves”) and into Imagination Land (via a shortcut through Abstract Thought) to find the station – hoping to board the Train of Thought for the return trip home.

I’m GLAD and AFRAID to learn that these four emotions of the McCarthy’s Check In protocol are rooted in research by Peter Jay and other psychologists in the field of cognition.⁴ These four (Glad, Sad, Mad and Afraid) map well to the emotions guiding Riley (and all of us according to Disney/Pixar). Joy, Sadness, Anger and Fear each take a role in operating the control panel in our heads. Disgust is in there, too, but the McCarthy’s feel that four are sufficient to start the self-expressions. According to Jim, additional emotions can be constructed from combinations of these four.

When talking about caring (or passion), Jim believes that it’s primarily a sublime feeling. “That’s one of the bigger feelings, you know, motivational feelings. It’s kind of a mixture of glad and scared. We CARE about something, sublime, you’re caring, you’re caring – so it’s emotional primarily.”⁵

In 1980, Robert Plutchik developed a diagram (referred to as Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions ⁶) in which the X- and Y-axes describe these same four emotions. Like a color-wheel, emotions blend to create other emotions, or at least we can use their proximity to infer relationships. For instance, in Plutchik’s wheel, the area between Anger and Sadness is occupied by Disgust, another of Plutchik’s eight basic emotions. Similarly:
- between Joy and Anger is Anticipation, Interest & Vigilance
- between Joy and Fear is Admiration, Trust & Acceptance
- between Fear and Sadness is Amazement, Surprise & Distraction
The blending of Plutchik’s eight basic emotions yields eight derivative emotions. When Checking In, we can use these blends or proximities to more accurately state how we’re feeling.

I’m SAD and AFRAID that this movie so well encapsulates the power of empathy. One of the primary lessons of the film is the fundamental importance of Emotional Intelligence. Also refereed to as EQ, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand our own emotions and the emotions of others in order to guide our thinking and behavior and help support others when they need comfort. “Communicating our needs, empathizing with others, and solving problems effectively all require emotional intelligence.”⁷

Inside Out drives home the necessity and power of empathy with a very moving scene.⁸

While looking for the train station in Imagination Land, the team discovers that workers (Memory Erasers) are knocking down buildings. Rubble is being moved by big machines. Bing Bong sees his wagon in the mess.

“My Rocket!”

The Memory Erasers use a bulldozer to dump Bing Bong’s wagon deep into the forgotten zone. It is gone.

“Riley can’t be done with me,” utters Bing Bong, devastated.

Joy, focused on getting back to headquarters with the core memories, bounces up to a sullen Bing Bong. “Hey! It’s gonna be okay. We can fix this. We just need to get back to headquarters. Which way to the train station?”

Oblivious to Joy, Bing Bong laments “I’ve had a whole trip planned for us (he & Riley).”

Joy continues her attempt to force happiness. “Hey, who’s ticklish? Huh? Here comes the Tickle Monster.” No reaction from Bing Bong.

“Hey, Bing Bong, look at this.” Joy makes funny face – still no reaction.

“Oh, here’s a fun game. You point to the train station and we all go there. Won’t that be fun?! C’mon. Let’s go!”

Sadness sides up to Bing Bong. “I’m sorry they took your rocket. They took something that you loved. It’s gone, forever.”

“Sadness!” Joy admonishes. “Don’t make him feel worse.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s all I had left of Riley,” admits the imaginary friend.

“I bet you and Riley had great adventures.”

“Oh, they were wonderful. Once we flew back in time. We had breakfast twice that day.”

“Sadness!” implores Joy.

“That sounds amazing,” continues Sadness. “I bet Riley liked it.”

“Oh she did. We were best friends.” Bing Bong starts to cry.

Sadness stretches her arm around the friend. “Yeah. That’s sad.”

Bing Bong is sobbing candy tears.

“Ughh…” sighs an impatient Joy.

Bing Bong’s tears slow, then stop. He regains composure. “I’m okay now. C’mon. The train station is this way.”

Bewildered, Joy asks Sadness “How’d you do that?”

“I don’t really know. He was sad so I listened to what…”

“Hey! There’s the train!” [triumphant music swells up]

I’m SAD and MAD that one of my strengths is so often glossed over in hiring decisions. As managers, coaches and scrum masters, we’ve often been told that this “soft skill” is useful, but it doesn’t get nearly the attention of certifications and the many other bullet points on our resumes.

Without the practice of empathy, team members are stuck without emotional understanding, unable to “find the train station”. Our jobs as caretakers and team mates is to give account to these feelings, but tread lightly. Checking In is a powerful enabler of engagement, but no one is coerced to check in. And if someone checks in, passes (checks in without assigning emotions), or checks out, there need not be reasons attached. Further, others may not judge, shame, hassle, interrogate or punish anyone who passes or checks out. The reason is that we all have freedom, and our team relationships are built on the trust that these freedoms exist equally for all members at all times.

So when a team member expresses any emotion that does not resemble joy, it’s okay to let them be. Ask if they’d like to check in, but do not force them to. Certainly we must refrain from coercing them to be glad. When they want to talk, just being present – fully present – can be the most effective action to take.

I’m IN!

endnotes:

1 – from the back cover of Software for Your Head – see description at: www.amazon.com/Software-Your-Head-Protocols-Maintaining

2 – version 3.02 of Core Protocols – www.mccarthyshow.com/online/

3 – The Core Protocols – Interview with Jim and Michele McCarthy by Dan Mezick on Dec 03, 2012 – www.infoq.com/interviews/mccarthy-core-protocols

4 – ibid

5 – ibid

6 – Robert Plutchik’s wheel of emotions – Wikipedia – www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrasting_and_categorization_of_emotions#Plutchik.27s_wheel_of_emotions

7 – The Psychology of Inside Out: A Beautiful Lesson in Emotional Intelligence, Dr. Andrea Letamendi – www.underthemaskonline.com/the-psychology-of-inside-out-a-beautiful-lesson-in-emotional-intelligence/

8 – Pixar Animation Studios and Disney present Inside Out (2015) – Story by Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen. Screenplay by Meg LeFauv, Josh Cooley and Pete Docter. – www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/fullcredits
August 17, 2015