Dr. Shirley Santiago

Everyone has a story to tell. Some write their stories in books, some in blogs, and some confine them in their hearts. I feel I have a beautiful story that is meant to be shared with the world.

Time went by so fast since my last Global Professional Scrum Trainers Face-to-Face Meeting at the Scrum.org Headquarters. My jetlag's now gone but the feelings from that awesome experience still lingers on. Allow me to share my takeaways from the last F2F: Mentorship. (This blog was co-written by Shirley Santiago and Jill Graves.) Mentorship: From Mentee’s Point-of-View Shirley's Point-of-View In the beginning, traveling on this PST journey felt like taking the road less traveled. There are ups and downs, multiple stops, different trails traversed, that often made it challenging for friends and family to comprehend why it was important for me to continue on this path. To help me along the way, I had someone who has had the same experience together with the support from family and friends. If you have read my previous post, you might have heard about Jill Graves. She has been my mentor since 2014. I don’t think I would be in this community if not for her encouragement and patience. I was at the crossroads of pursuing PST, but she, Peter Gotz, Steve Porter and Gunther Verheyen, were there to keep me going. I haven’t seen Gunther since the first time I saw him in the Train-the-Trainer event in 2015 but whenever I attend an F2F, I think of Gunther and the impact his support made on me. His one liner email that said, “I will help” changed my life and the lives of the many that I get to work with. But that's another story and I will save it for my next post. So why do I talk about my mentors in my blogs? It’s for the reason they they have made the biggest impact on my profession and on how I deal with the people I get to meet in my day-to-day life. According to Thesaurus, “mentorship is a state of being an informal teacher”. But experiencing it will be the only way to fully comprehend the meaning. My fellow PST, Char Beier, recently said, “Mentorship is a relationship”. Jill defined for me what MENTORSHIP is. Graduate school and my PST journey happened in parallel. Jill was there for me from the very start. I got my master's degree the same month that I got accepted as a PST. Jill was miles away during my graduation, but she was there in spirit. This one is for my family and for Jill Graves. And I'm proud that she's my mentor. We made it, Jill. Jill now heads one of the three Mentorship Tracks in the Scrum.org PST community, together with her PSF Co-steward Rich Visotcky. In this photo are Jill Graves and Todd Miller, who is signing up in the PST Mentorship Program. On the left is Jeff Bubolz, a new PST that we’ve recently welcomed in the community. Chad Beier, right, was his mentor in his journey. Mentorship: From Mentor’s Point-of-View Jill's Point-of-View If I were completely honest with myself – and Shirley – I would have to admit that I didn’t really understand the ins and outs of the mentor role. I did know that the PST journey is long and difficult. I did know that my own journey was eased by a fellow Canadian PST who agreed to mentor me through the process. And once my own process was completed, I knew I wanted to pay it forward to a future trainer candidate. Enter Scrum.org, who supported the mentorship initiative and introduced me to Shirley. Two strangers, living across the world from each other. We set-up an initial Skype call and introduced ourselves to each other. We awkwardly talked about what our mentor/mentee relationship could look like. And then we did the only thing that a Scrum Trainer could do. We just jumped in. Shirley and I began our relationship through regular Skype calls, emails and texts. We had no clue what would evolve but we trusted the process, and ourselves, and just got down to the business of establishing a relationship. We talked about our jobs, our families, our goals and dreams and our objectives. Some things were just so neat to me – particularly that Shirley and I were 12 hours apart and when we talked, it was a completely different day for her. I was mindblown. I was just settling down for the night and Shirley was already getting ready for work. How cool was that! On the PST journey, there are a lot of checkpoints. As Shirley prepared, I would offer advice and encouragement. If results required more work, Shirley and I picked each other up and got back to it. And in the end? Success! Shirley is now a valuable member of our trainer community and I couldn’t be prouder. And another thing. Did you know that it is customary for people from the Philippines to bring presents, "pasalubong" in Filipino? I didn’t. I am enjoying a new found love of mangoes! Shirley mentioned, above, the support I gave her on her thesis. This is the power of the mentor/mentee relationship for me. This was important for Shirley and so as her mentor, it became important to me. We quickly shifted gears and focused on her thesis. Following another ‘Scrumism’ – do what you need to do. Again – success. One thing I’ve learned about Shirley – there is no stopping this woman. And now? I am going to become her ‘ScrumMaster’ as she begins her PhD journey!! Did I have any clue that this is what our relationship would evolve to? None. And that is the true beauty of mentorship. Being in the Community PST Ravi Verma once said, “I have found my tribe”. Yes, I fully agree. Being in this community has been one of the best things this life has given me. Can't believe how blessed I am to be part of this family. The Journey Continues Do whatever makes you happy. Go and follow your guts. Make things happen. Mentor someone. Be more open. Blaze new trails in a road less traveled. Meanwhile, our journey continues.

It’s been a year since I joined the Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainers Community. 2018 marks my fifth year in teaching Scrum. Allow me to reflect on this journey. In the beginning, I would literally run to another building, which was at least a block away, to meet my colleagues very eager to learn Scrum. I would do this every single day, extending my work hours, but confident that this is all worthwhile. One time, a colleague asked me in the elevator where I was going. I said I’m teaching Scrum tonight. ”You’re just wasting your time”, he said. I shrugged it off, pretended I didn’t hear it. But as I was on my way to the other building, it hit me. Is it really a waste of time? What drives this perception? Time quickly passed by. And soon enough, batches of Scrum students graduated and later became certified. I wasn’t just the company’s Chief Architect anymore, I’ve added Scrum Trainer and Mentor to my profile as well. Both equally fulfilling. I get touched by people bringing me stuff like garlic, bottled vinegar, nuts, native delicacies, after spending the holidays in the provinces. To be remembered as a teacher warms my heart. It’s simply priceless. As in any other company, people come and go. But I really appreciate it when they go see me on their last day to say goodbye. I know each and every student by name, or at least their first name. Even after Scrum training, I get to see them in the office and some would approach me and ask about new Scrum topics. Some would share their experiences and challenges in applying Scrum. There are those who got inspired, and started mentoring others as well. In my first blog, I referred to this as paying it forward. I attended the PSM Train-the-Trainer class in Germany many years ago, but I still remember Gunther Verheyen, my trainer, asking me to reflect on what kind of trainer I hope to be. That I was to not look at teaching through its monetary returns but rather find that intrinsic reason on why I do it in the first place. My friend Steve Porter once told me, this is a journey. And there will be stops along the way; some better than the others. With each stop, we learn a little more, become a little wiser. But there is more – in each stop, we could try to touch someone’s life, by being kind and helpful. In mentoring others through Scrum, I have finally found my purpose.

Having been part of this recent activity, allow me to share with you my personal account of my first Global Face-to-Face meeting with the Trainers Community.

“Shirley, anything worth having is worth working hard for.”, that was how my friend Steve Porter from Scrum.org put it as I pursued my journey with Scrum. MY JOURNEY WITH SCRUM My journey started a few years ago when a friend asked me to provide Scrum training to their organization. I had substantial Scrum experience from my previous projects, and armed with formal Scrum Master training, I immediately proposed a training plan and developed training material. For some reason, the engagement did not materialize. Undeterred, I went ahead and organized a group of consultants within our organization who were interested in learning Scrum. They were going to be my “guinea pigs”, so to speak. After that initial Scrum training, other colleagues became curious. We were not just saving hundreds of dollars from not relying on external trainings, but, more importantly, we were gaining a lot of knowledge from sharing our experiences on different projects. This paved the way to building stronger Scrum teams, while also providing us with the opportunity to get to know each other and align our ways of working. The Leadership team suggested teaching the course from 6PM to 9PM so that more consultants could attend. Since we usually work on either a day shift or a night shift, this was the best window to hold our training sessions. At first, I had hoped to get 20 people trained and certified in Scrum. I thought initially that this should be enough to jumpstart our organization into Scrum adoption. I even thought that 20 was going to be a difficult feat. A stretch goal. What I really didn’t expect was that this was going to be an evolution. PAY IT FORWARD CULTURE Through word of mouth, more of our consultants asked to take the training. I ended up doing 9 training sessions in the first 6 months, including a special session for the management team. Now, I did have a day job, so I could not fathom being able to continue providing Scrum training. But things changed within the organization. After people were trained and certified, they began to pay it forward by coaching the next group of trainees. Management started noticing the benefits of this Pay-It-Forward initiative and eventually gave their full support and even provided sponsorships on the certification exams. This continued until it became the norm. This same culture also helped our new Big Data program to the point where the organization obtained a Platinum partnership with one of the biggest Big Data companies in the world. Every successful certification was an important milestone that we celebrated during our Townhall meetings. MY JOURNEY AS A TRAINER I can still clearly remember how the leadership team reacted when I said that I needed to go to Stuttgart, Germany for a Train-the-Trainer event with Scrum.org. I had decided to become a Professional Scrum Trainer with the organization, and this was one of their many requirements. The first reaction of the group was a plain “Huh?!!” which to me was neither a rejection nor an approval. I requested 5-day leave and asked my immediate boss to allow me to travel to Stuttgart. I was determined to bring the Scrum Master training to the Philippines. I wanted my organization to have formal and professional Scrum training courses. I wanted the best. I wanted these courses to be endorsed by Ken Schwaber, one of the co-creators of Scrum. Probably recognizing my persistence, I received formal travel approval and off I went to Germany. During the first day of training, I realized that I was the only one from the other side of the world. My classmates were from Germany, Spain, UK, Russia, Poland and The Netherlands. I wasn’t prepared for the culture shock but once I adjusted, I started to enjoy learning from the experiences of my trainer classmates; how they adopted Scrum and how they planned to use it to serve in their communities. From that trip, I also got to know Gunther Verheyen who was our trainer at that time. (Gunther, by the way, is the author of the popular book Scrum - A Pocket Guide.) He eventually became one of my coaches and a mentor in my journey with Scrum. FAMILY, WORK, BIG DATA, SCHOOL AND SCRUM After my Stuttgart trip, I took some time off and began to obtain more Scrum Certifications to improve myself as a trainer. I was also finishing graduate school at the same time and juggling my family responsibilities and my normal day job as an architect. My coach from Canada, Jill Graves, had not heard from me in 5 months and she reconnected with me to see where I was at with my Scrum Trainer goals. I guess she felt that it was time for me to get back to my Scrum Trainer journey. That email was quite timely as I was wrapping up my semester and just about to take my graduate school’s Comprehensive Exam. Over the next 4 months, I took my Comprehensive Exam, did my thesis, had my Scrum.org peer review, did a few more Scrum trainings and some Big Data Hadoop trainings. Looking back, I would wonder how all that was even possible but I persisted! I got a lot of help from my colleagues. They volunteered to conduct the trainings, especially in Hadoop. Needless to say I had a lot of sleepless nights but I was able to cope because of my peers. At the most critical time, we found support from one another. There was a TED talk by Margaret Heffernan entitled “Forget the pecking order at work” wherein she said, “Helpfulness means I don't have to know everything, I just have to work among people who are good at getting and giving help.”. When I heard this, I had goose bumps. SCRUM IN THE PHILIPPINES My entry to Scrum.org was a special and unconventional one as some people from the organization would attest. I did not come from a training company. I was from an organization that self-organized to adopt Scrum to help us improve our ways of working. We learned and experienced Scrum through the challenges and successes in our projects. My journey also taught me about a deeper meaning of humility. I welcomed all the feedback I received from my peers and used it to improve myself as a trainer. Just recently, I received a formal communication from Scrum.org officially welcoming me to their community of Professional Scrum Trainers. It means a lot to our organization and it is a great testament that with team work and a culture of helping each other, we can reach further than we can imagine. We will keep doing Professional Scrum and we will pay it forward to our community in the Philippines. This blog was first published on January 27, 2017 at http://www.rcgglobalservices.com/blog/scrum-how-it-changed-our-corporate-culture/