My Ideas For 2023

Roughly every 6 months, I use the Liberating Structure “Ecocycle Planning” to reflect on what to start, stop, and change. Although I also include things I do in my personal life, I’ll focus this article on work-related activities.

The purpose of Ecocycle Planning is to analyze the full portfolio of activities & relationships and identify obstacles and opportunities for progress in a non-linear way. It is based on the life cycle in nature.

Plants, for example, grow from seeds when they land in fertile ground (Gestation or Renewal). When the ground is fertile enough, seedlings will sprint that in turn depend on sufficient sun, shelter, and minerals to grow (Birth). When these conditions have been met, seedlings grow into plants that bear fruits and/or spread new seeds (Maturity). But eventually, even mature plants die and are composted to become energy for new plants. Or their removal simply makes place for new seeds to grow (Creative Destruction).

Activities may get stuck in the Poverty Trap or the Rigidity Trap. The first holds the activities that aren’t getting the energy and time they need to grow into something valuable, while the second holds the activities that are costing us energy and time while their value is diminished or diminished.

Some examples of how we used Ecocycle Planning are:

• To reflect on my personal usage of Liberating Structures;
• To help Scrum teams advance their technical practices;
• To support organizations with their Agile transformation;
• To spark innovation within organizations;
• To make relationships and personal connections visible.

The possibilities of using Ecocycle Planning are endless. Whenever you want to make the ‘forest visible, instead of only individual trees’, consider giving it a try!

My Personal Ecocycle Explained

Below, I’ll share the result of my personal Ecocycle. It took about 30 minutes to create it. Thinking about what to start, stop, and change isn’t something I only think about every 6 months. It’s continuously on my mind. As a result, creating the Ecocycle isn’t difficult, it does offer me a complete overview of my state of mind. And that’s very helpful to determine what to do next. For the sake of readability, I won’t add too much detail. If things trigger questions, confusion, or other thoughts, always feel free to reach out.

Gestation

Activities I’m thinking about doing but haven’t started doing yet

• Design a Liberating Structures Strategy (Knotworking) workshop. In the last 5 years, I hosted lots of in-company and public Liberating Structures Immersion Workshops. For many participants, it’s the first introduction to Liberating Structures. Afterward, they start using them to improve their meetings, workshops, and other types of gatherings. Over time, I received two types of questions: 1) how can I learn the 15+ Liberating Structures that weren’t covered in the Immersion Workshop? 2) How to use Liberating Structures widely within the organization, and not limit it to a bunch of meetings? So, I’m playing with the idea to design a follow-up Liberating Structures Workshop (probably strongly connected to Strategy Knotworking) that uses ±15 not-so-common structures to support participants develop strategies to get the most out of Liberating Structures.
• Redesign the Scrum Master stances. Years ago, Thea Schukken and I designed illustrations for the misunderstood and preferred Scrum Master stances. We used Southpark as a fun theme, not knowing and expecting it to become so popular. Over time, I not only changed the stances (removed ‘manager’ and ‘servant leader’) but also stopped actively using them. Mostly because the Southpark theme is a protected trademark, and it can be tricky to use it for other business purposes. So I’ll probably work together with Thea to create an alternative.
• Create new product kits. Creating material to support (Scrum) teams and organizations unleashing their superpowers is something Christiaan and I love doing. We started the webshop as a small experiment, but it turned out to be very popular. Instead of selling products separately, we shifted our focus to creating product kits. We already offer the Zombie Scrum First Aid Kit, the Scrum Team Starter Kit, and the Unleash Scrum In Your Organization kit. We’re thinking about designing new kits focused on product refinement, team conflict, and team culture. Stay tuned!

Birth

Activities I recently started doing

• Support coaches & consultants use the Scrum Team Survey. Last year, Christiaan and I made great progress expanding the Scrum Team Survey. One of the latest improvements is the cohesive set of features called the Coaching Center. This is designed to help coaching & consulting agencies effectively use the Scrum Team Survey with multiple clients.
• Facilitate the Scrum Team Survey’s coaching workshops. An important part of the Coaching Center is the related workshops. We offer 10+ workshops coaches can use with their clients to diagnose the results, identify improvements, analyze the organizational system, and develop strategies. Most likely, we’ll develop a training program to effectively support coaches & consultants using the survey, the underlying scientific research, and the related workshops with their clients.
• Provide in-company workshops. Last year, I slowly shifted my focus from public workshops to in-company workshops. Although I loved doing public workshops, they do require lots of preparation & administration and are riskier. Canceling a workshop due to another lockdown is an administrative nightmare. More importantly, a big advantage of in-company workshops is that it’s easier to develop a long-term relationship. Especially given the other products we offer, for example, the Scrum Team Survey. So although I’ll provide an occasional (annual) public workshop, my focus will be mostly on in-company workshops.

Maturity

Activities I’m comfortable doing and that provide value

• Provide the Scrum.org PSM II class. I’ll definitely keep providing the PSM II class. I still highly enjoy the class because it allows me to model all the stances of a Scrum Master: teaching, facilitation, mentoring, coaching, enabling change, and removing impediments. Everything with servant leadership as the overarching attitude.
• Facilitate the ‘standard’ Liberating Structures Immersion Workshop. Similar to the PSM II class, I’ll also continue providing the ‘standard’ Liberating Structures workshop. Over the years, I tuned this workshop into something that seems very valuable for anyone new to this concept. As explained earlier, I’ll probably develop an additional workshop that uses structures we don’t cover during this ‘basic’ workshop.
• Create illustrations with Thea Schukken. One of our most valuable and productive collaborations is with our visual illustrator Thea. She designed so many posters, images, and illustrations for us! One example is the poster we created for “10 Options To Start With Scrum”, I still highly enjoy watching it and love the many good conversations it triggered. Stay tuned for many new illustrations, we’ve got no shortage of ideas!

Creative Destruction

Activities I’m currently changing and rethinking

• Write blog posts on Medium. I love writing, so I’ll definitely keep doing that. I’m not super enthusiastic about Medium though. The design is perfect, and the process of writing is smoothly supported, but somehow it’s very difficult to grow a large pool of active followers. I’m not behind a paywall, but somehow my articles that go viral on LinkedIn, only get a few ‘claps’ on Medium. I consider Medium mostly an online library or database I can refer to. I’m currently thinking about how to make this more valuable for myself and the wider community.
• Host PSM II Retrospectives. About 6–8 weeks after a PSM II class, I organize a retrospective. Together with all the participants, we share the progress we’ve made since the class, share challenges we still struggle with, and identify improvements. Most sessions are run online. My struggle is with the tool I’m often ‘forced’ to use: MS Teams. I strongly dislike it, Zoom works so much smoother. But unfortunately, many organizations don’t allow the usage of Zoom. Due to MS Teams (and the fact that as a ‘guest’ I can’t use the chat, set up breakout rooms myself, and some other things), I need to simplify my session to an extent that I doubt the value. Or at least, it takes away my personal joy of running an online session.
• My collaboration with Christiaan. This is a good example to show that “Creative Destruction” isn’t something negative. I’m very happy with the way Christiaan and I collaborate, but it’s healthy to continuously rethink the way it takes place. Both of us have our personal ambitions, so at least twice a year we talk in-depth about what this means for our work at The Liberators.

What Didn’t Survive Creative Destruction

Activities that dropped from my Ecocycle because I stopped (or minimized) doing them

• Organize online meetups. I see lots of value in online meetups & workshops, and I fully acknowledge them as something that’s here to stay, but I’ve learned that I don’t enjoy organizing them myself. Instead, I rather focus on creating content, material, and products others can use for their online meetups. I’ll definitely continue supporting our local user groups, and will occasionally run an in-person meetup. For example, in the upcoming March, I’ll run a PSM II class in Denmark, and I’ll combine it with a meetup the day before. Win-win!
• Record podcast episodes. I gave recording podcast episodes a serious try, but despite the many attempts, I kept disliking it. The same goes for creating videos. I love listening to podcasts (I listen to them almost on daily basis), but I just don’t like recording them. It’s a stretch too far from my comfort zone.
• Do speaking engagements. Another example of something that I gave a serious try, but simply don’t enjoy. Also, I always wonder how much value participants really get from a presentation. Traveling to a seminar for only a 1-hour talk is a no-go anyhow. I’ll make rare exceptions for online presentations, but only if it adds value to a broader initiative. For example, they start using the Scrum Team Survey and are interested in learning more about Zombie Scrum, Scrum team effectiveness, etc. Instead of doing presentations, I rather facilitate a workshop. Much more enjoyable, at least for myself, and I’ve got a hunch that the same goes for the participants.

Poverty Trap

Activities I want to invest time in, but somehow, I just don’t do it

• Use unofficial Liberating Structures. Besides the 33 official Liberating Structures, there’s a wide variety of “Liberating Structures In Development”, priming activities, and punctuations. I use some of them, but there’s a whole spectrum of structures I haven’t even scratched the surface of. Despite my ambition, I somehow don’t do it (enough).
• Support the local user groups. In 2022, we gave the local user groups a serious boost. Many existing groups started hosting (mostly online) meetups, and we kickstarted a whole slew of new user groups. Despite the value I see in the user groups, I don’t invest a lot of time in them. Some of them are totally self-organizing, but others would benefit from more support. The support I somehow don’t offer and simultaneously I also don’t invest time in finding a different solution.
• Visit seminars and events. It’s been a long time since I visited a seminar, gathering, or event. Before corona, I visited seminars almost every month. Sometimes as a speaker or workshop facilitator, other times as a regular visitor. I don’t have the patience to join an online seminar. Even when I visited in-person seminars, I rarely join the sessions, I mostly liked walking around and talking to people. It was my intention to join Scrum Day Europe, but unfortunately, I got sick. So, yeah, this is something that’s really stuck in my poverty trap.

Rigidity Trap

Activities I want to stop, rethink or change, but somehow, I don’t

• Public Liberating Structures Immersion Workshops. Most likely, I’ll make the public workshop that’s scheduled for 27/28 June in Amsterdam my final one. I’m already playing with the idea for a while, but somehow never made the decision, so I kept doing it. It’s not because I don’t enjoy it, on the contrary, but because I want to create space for new things. So this isn’t super stuck in my Rigidity Trap, it’s close to Creative Destruction, but the upcoming months will show if it’s actually going to change.
• My role within the Scrum.org trainer community. By now, I’m a Scrum.org trainer for almost 8 years. Despite some downs, my membership has been very valuable. Scrum.org has offered me so many opportunities, it’s something I’ll be eternally grateful for. Yet I do feel I need to rethink my membership and prevent myself from becoming a trainer that pays their annual license fee but isn’t actively contributing to the community. If that happens, why be part of it? If you don’t get value from your membership, and can’t offer something yourself, what’s the point of your membership anyhow? To be clear: it doesn’t mean I’ll cancel my trainer license, I do want to explore how to make it more valuable. Because this is something I’m already thinking about for a while, but somehow don’t do, it’s stuck in the rigidity trap.

Closing

In this blog post, I shared my ideas for 2023. Something that I haven’t mentioned, but that’s probably the most important skill I’ve learned is to say ‘no’. This used to be something I struggled with a lot. Saying “no thanks” to requests for feedback, recording podcast episodes, joining meetups, etc. But I don’t find it difficult anymore. Mostly because I’ve learned what it makes possible: focus! Due to my laser focus on creating content, products, and a small selection of workshops, I was able to deliver higher quality, minimize stress, and continuously get cooler assignments. I guess that focus and the willingness to make difficult decisions, is my ‘secret’ ingredient for a healthy ecocycle.