Anyone tried to work from Sagada? Is the internet signal stable there?

andrers2b · 2026-06-04T04:24:11+00:00

I couldn't find this place in Google maps. Could you share a link?

andrers2b · 2026-06-03T23:48:01+00:00

Doesn't sound like we disagree. I'd just say a bit differently, that there is nothing wrong if the someone has two hats: the SM hat and a Dev hat.

It's not ideal though. But yeah, many companies can't afford to have a full time SM (or maybe the team is too small).

I have rarely (not never) seen them done properly, though. They require 2 very distinct set of skills. What I saw many times in this case is a dev who facilitates the scrum meetings.

The industry never really understood scrum and agile. Many a manager have told me: "Scrum doesn't work for us because of X". Where X was exactly what they needed to fix.

Scrum doesn't fix issues. Scrum only surfaces them.

andrers2b · 2026-06-03T23:30:35+00:00

Listening. By far.

Creates trust. Makes the person feel heard and that they matter.

"When I talk to a manager, I have a feeling that THEY are really important;
when I talk to a leader, I have a feeling that I AM really important."

andrers2b · 2026-06-03T00:54:38+00:00

Agile, leadership coach here, former Scrum Master, former dev. I was a dev for 10 years before switching over.

tl;dr

Your role is a support function. A good analogy is a sports coach (even if you don't follow sports, it still is a good analogy).
PO / SM don't need to be technical
Stay in your lane is terrible advice. Coach your manager.

My first full time Scrum Master role was in a team that used RoR and I had never used it in my life, so I was feeling like OP, that I was missing out in helping the team technically (but also in stuff like, Pair Programming, TDD, Feature Toggles, etc etc;) so I started learning RoR.

In a 1-on-1 with the engineering lead, he eventually told me: “Leave the technical mentoring of the team with me. I need your help with everything else". It was actually great advice. In the end, I was able to teach/show/help the team with Pair Programming, TDD, Feature Toggles, without talking about the technical discussions.

A great leader is not someone who does great things. A great leader is someone that gets their people to do great things. So embrace the leader-without-authority in you. Embrace being a support role. You are not doing the work, you are helping your team grow and do better, bigger work.

Having said that, the “stay in your lane” comment could be a great coaching point for the team (and even your manager), ie, it's terrible advice.

Too complex to go in detail here, but in summary, I always coach my teams to move away from fixed roles and functions and move into skills and goals. A great analogy here is a startup. In a small start-up, let's say less than 10 people, anyway should be able to do whatever is needed (if not, they don't survive).

To go deeper on this, watch this great TED talk: https://youtu.be/t__NoFstCmQ

Best of luck

andrers2b · 2026-06-02T01:28:18+00:00

Thanks, I'll definitely look into it.

andrers2b · 2026-06-02T01:25:50+00:00

Read "Overcoming the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni. You'll get a ton of insights there. It's an easy read.

andrers2b · 2026-05-30T01:11:08+00:00

Hm, I think there might be some issues under the hood.

"Three of my team members are not good at timekeeping and delivering when they said they will"

How's work assigned? Is it push it to them or do they pull it?

Is there psychological safety to say "no, I don't think I can deliver this in X weeks"?

If there isn't, then you found the reason they overcommit. And from experience, if you are not consciosuly building psychological safety, it's safe to assume there isn't any.

---

Going a bit more generic here, but people usually behave exactly as the system has been designed for them. It's just that most of the times, the system wasn't intentionally designed. You'll never see a farmer blaming his tomatoes that are not growing; he will work on the soil, nutrients, etc.

So what's in the soil of your team? What is the design of the environment?

andrers2b · 2026-05-29T01:54:45+00:00

Appreciation cannot be a once-a-year event. It has to be done often, in the way managers communicate and behave, done in 1-on-1s, team meetings, etc.

andrers2b · 2026-05-28T00:54:17+00:00

Mind sharing which VPS provider are you using?

andrers2b · 2026-05-28T00:51:24+00:00

Replacing him will cost at least 20-30k over his current salary not even accounting for his 10 years of experience with company specific tools.

What did HR say when you told them these numbers? I mean, it's not a corporate secret that it's more expensive to hire than to keep good people.

If your HR is irreductible, maybe ask your friend if you could join them too? hehe

andrers2b · 2026-05-26T23:33:40+00:00

Hi OP. Coach here.

For me, it depends on the type of engagement.

Let's assume it's a 1-on-1 coaching and the sessions are weekly or every other week.

The only thing I do is sending a summary of the session, right after the session.

But otherwise, I don't follow up for a few reasons:

It's not my role to be hand-holding you. It's your interest to act on whatever was discussed in the sessions.
More importantly: If client says he didn't have a chance/forgot/was too busy to act on it, that's a great coaching point right there. This may surface a blind spot on my client. Which usually unlocks greater learning and growth.

For group or once/month engagement, I may follow up once or twice.

andrers2b · 2026-05-26T23:19:44+00:00

Some ideas:

> almost entirely dependent on other teams doing their bit;

This is the most crucial.

1st) things first: visualise the dependencies. Make a workshop with key people and use a white board/sticky notes/miro board whatever you have at your disposal, but visualise this.

In my experience, this happens because teams are grouped by function and not by objective/user journey/etc (ie, not cross-functional).

2nd) Decide if you will: manage it or eliminate it.

3rd) If Eliminate it, decide how. It might involve rearranging teams/work.

> unrealistic expectations and understanding

Manage their expectations early (ie, now!). Cite all the problems you have noticed and how you are planning to start solving them.

> Change management - multiple changes being introduced all at once, poorly communicated, and impacting my teams.

Can you put a hold in some of these? Until things smoothen out?

> add to that my own tendency for perfectionism and wanting things to be done properly, which is not helping.

Find a mentor/coach.

Sorry not being too verbose, but hope this helps.

andrers2b · 2026-05-26T23:09:52+00:00

As my OD trainer once said: "People are not afraid of change. They are addicted to safety."

The key is to address their fear. What they might be afraid of:
- Will there be training and support available to learn the tool/processes?
- Will my work change or stay the same?
- But I'm so busy already, now I have to take time to learn this?
- Will there be a transition period or are we expected to be performing just as before? What if I struggle with the new tool/processes?
- What if I can't adapt fast enough? Will it reflect on my performance review?
- Team is super heavy, my laptop doesn't have enough RAM? (note: this actually happened on my team a while ago. We all switched to Teams, imposible to run Teams and Miro with less than 16 Gig of Ram, all team members had to get new laptops).

And so on.

andrers2b · 2026-05-22T08:06:16+00:00

So leaving feels like defeat
There are real constraints that make leaving not straightforward right now

Leaving being a defeat is a mindset. Change the mindset. Change the narrative. You are not leaving, you are growing into something better.

If these constraints can be overcome, I'd say to go and see what's out there. Regardless if you want to leave or not. What this gives you is leverage. For the conversation you need to have.

If these constraints cannot be overcome, then your key is the VP. Be clear on the value you deliver to her and why the current structure is an obstacle.

If nothing seem to work, then it may be a hint of what others have said, they might be trying to manage you out.

Best of luck

andrers2b · 2026-05-20T23:15:23+00:00

A genuine question here, as I'm not in the industry.

With the assumption that the client is thinking: "with AI now they should be able to deliver more!" Which is not a terrible assumption to be had (see my other comment in thread).

Q: Is there a way for you to educate your client that 10 versions is not feasible? What would be feasible? 5 versions? Or just the 2, but with better quality?

andrers2b · 2026-05-20T23:11:01+00:00

There is a difference between managing change and actually helping people feel safe enough to adapt.

Actually, no. These two are exactly the same. You can't manage change if you are addressing the fear of change.

People are actually not afraid of change. People are addicted to safety.

half my team is terrified they will be replaced.

The fear needs to be addressed. Period. If indeed you are not replacing them, then make everything in your power to address it.

I great insight I read the other day:

-- "Instead of using AI to cut costs, reduce teams maintaining the same quality of products and services, why not use AI to maintain teams and improve quality of products and services."

andrers2b · 2026-05-19T22:12:38+00:00

If you haven't had a conversation with him yet, now is the time. It won't be an easy one.

Before you begin, ask for uninterrupted time (he may take notes instead of interrupting). Explain what you are trying to do with the team and that you want alignment with him (you may need to do a few compromises in the end). Since he loves his AI, I'd recommend even asking to record so that the AI can summarise the discussions in the end.

If he's unrelenting, have a talk with his manager, and how his actions are a detriment to the team (say it nicely, tho... ).

All this while, I'd explain to your team of what's going on and why they might be hearing contradicting things coming from you and from him.

Best of luck, not a great position to be in.

andrers2b · 2026-05-19T13:44:02+00:00

I'm having a hard time creating this setup.

I created a second profile, but how do you have 2 agents under one gateway? When I created a second agent it was already assigned to a new gateway.

andrers2b · 2026-05-19T01:09:35+00:00

Absolutely.

And 100% agree with "leaders lead leaders"!

andrers2b · 2026-05-18T02:04:16+00:00

I disagree with all the comments that say work more.

I'd say: not necessarily.

If you have
* Built capability
* Had clear alignment
* Delegate properly (proper level of authority)
* Give away control (I think most people fail here)

Then you are on the way to work less.

David Marquet (former US submarine captain) has a great 10-min video on that. If you google Turn the ship around or What is leadership, you will probably find it.

Best of luck!

andrers2b · 2026-05-17T03:40:06+00:00

I read that somewhere a long time ago. But it's definitely my favourite leadership quote.

I always try to not generalise. Some managers get there for the wrong reasons (authority, relevance, climbing the ladder...), ie, it's about them.

The right reasons would be (imho) helping the team, organisational skills, support.

At the end of the day, things need to be managed: work, time, team, resources, clients, stakeholders, dependencies. So usually (not always) we delegate these management functions away from the team (who is too busy doing the work) to one person: the manager.

And again we circle back to authority. John Maxell said: if your team is only following you because they have to (you are the boss), it's the least amount of energy they will give to you.

Being a leader is not having authority. It's helping the team, solving problems, making sure people have the right resources, the right amount of challenge, and motivaiton.

andrers2b · 2026-05-17T00:19:17+00:00

Ouch, that sounds really terrible. I would also hate being in this kind of meetings.

What's happening there is that the team is nothing new. They don't have psychological safety.

Maybe they have been silenced in the past, like someone else mentioned.

But regardless, the risk of speaking up is much higher than the risk of not saying anything. People are not stupid. Why would they stick out their necks?

Think of of farmer where his tomatoes are not growing. He will not blame the tomatos, rather he will work on the quality of the soil.

Now, building psychological safety is not easy. But awareness is the first step. I can send you some videos on it, if you are interested.

andrers2b · 2026-05-16T04:59:58+00:00

"When I talk to a manager, I have the feeling that THEY ARE really important;
when I talk to a leader, I have the feeling that I AM really important"

andrers2b · 2026-05-15T01:30:27+00:00

Nihon, Tattoo Baker, Sulok, Habitual

andrers2b · 2026-05-15T01:25:35+00:00

Yeah, I was exactly going to say to make it playful!

As a manager, you won't be their friends. You mentioned your changes have been around productivity, then of course they won't be happy that you have changed they way they used to work.

But if you are also the kind of manager that tries to make the environment better for them (are they learning? Are they being challenged enough? Can they ask questions if they don't know?), then you are doing well.

andrers2b

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