Don’t just focus on the tech - agile projects need soft skills to be successful

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A successful Agile transformation needs storytelling as much as story points. 

I’ve led teams through half a dozen agile transformations and pilot programmes. I’ve implemented scrum in media agencies, scrum of scrum in banks, kanban for publishers. I’ve taught agile fundamentals and mentored wannabe scrum masters through their certifications. But there’s one core skillset that all successful agile transformations need - and I’ve never seen it on an agile syllabus.

Storytelling and presentation skills. 

If you want to empower an agile team to make decisions, fix problems and ship usable products, you also need to ensure they are able to present and defend those decisions - otherwise they’ll just get steam-rolled by stakeholders.

Let’s face it, agile approaches reward self-starter developers. In an agile team everyone is equal - some may be more experienced than others, but if you did the work, you need to be able to present the results in your team’s demo or showcase. It’s tempting to hide behind your product owner or scrum master but the developer that built it should share it.

Over the years I’ve worked with a lot of developers. Many incredibly talented people, often with heads for numbers and brains for logic. They’re often on the quieter side. Preferring to work with headphones on and communicate via instant messaging rather than out loud.

It can be a bit jarring for someone who has worked to develop a highly technical skillset to suddenly have to stand up and talk about it. 

This was one of the challenges that the product teams at a leading charitable organisation faced, after transitioning to an agile model around 2020. The teams were working well together, but every fortnight they all had to present progress at an open showcase that anyone in the company could attend. This meant that sometimes nervous team members ended up presenting to the CEO - and it didn’t always go well.

That’s why they called us.

We developed a multi-module course - the first iteration of our Storytelling for Business class - to deliver virtually (we were all still working from home avoiding Covid) over several weeks. We started with small numbers - 6 people per cohort, ensuring each person got individual attention and support.

And it worked! As our contact said:

“We engaged with [13 Times] to support our Product and Engineering teams with the delivery of presentations. They created a tailored, bespoke package of training to build confidence in the areas that needed the most support. The outcome of the training sessions has been so rewarding to observe. The teams are now communicating in a consistent way across forums, making it easier for senior members of the organisation to engage. Presentations are simpler and more impactful allowing teams to get the decisions they need to move forward faster.” 

Even better than that was the feedback from the course attendees:

“[The course] helped me build confidence in speaking publicly…I didn't think the story telling part was going to be useful at the start, but when I was writing my final speech and incorporating everything we had learnt along the way it all made sense and made writing it really easy.”

“This course was fantastic ... I admit I was sceptical at first but as the course went on I found it more and more valuable. I now have a much clearer understanding on how to get the most out of any presentations I need to do. I also feel much more confident in giving presentations and speaking in general.”

You can empower your teams with agile training and scrum certifications - but if you don’t help them build their public speaking confidence, you really are missing a trick.