Unleashing Norwegian Construction Scrum: Insights from Bygglarm Conference Part 1

[00:00:00] Felipe: Boom. Now we're ready to begin. First and foremost, I gotta say thank you to Sindre and Odd Inge, your hospitality and generosity is unparalleled. We do some introductions. Tell the good people of The EBFC Show a little bit about yourself, and while the two of them are introducing themselves, ladies and gentlemen, please tap the description below for all the links and contact information for how to get in touch with Sindre and Odd Inge, you're gonna want to connect with them on social media, especially Odd Inge's, Norwegian only takt article, which you can translate. And we'll have a translation of that in English as well soon. Sindre is just super funny to watch on LinkedIn. So a lot

[00:00:43] Sindre: of energy, a lot of

[00:00:44] Felipe: laughing. Lot of laughing.

[00:00:46] Felipe: Yes. Lot of laughing. So who's gonna go first? Do.

[00:00:55] Felipe: Yes, I won your first.

[00:00:58] Odd Inge: My name is Odd [00:01:00] Inge. I work as a project manager in Consto, that's a building company in Norway. We got approximately 1,200 employees all over the country and starting to get big in Sweden as well. So it's quite exciting and I'm here to learn about Scrum. All right. This week.

[00:01:24] Felipe: Yeah. This week.

[00:01:25] Sindre: Yeah. And me, my name is Sindre. I'm working as a consultancy at XPRO, now Advansia Change owner. But I work as a potato and for the projects in guiding them into virtual design and constructions, IPD BIM. Takt processes like Scrum, using new tools to be get easier, better, and faster ways of doing

[00:01:53] Sindre: construction.

[00:01:54] Sindre: Did you say you work as a potato? Yes. Okay. I'm just making sure that I heard that [00:02:00] correctly. So for those the science nerds out there, you know that potatoes are amazing storehouses of energy. Yeah. You can power all kinds of things with potatoes. So if you, yeah, if your project is running low on power in Molde, contact Sindre and he will boost your power.

[00:02:18] Sindre: He'll boost you up. Where are we today, Sindre, where, what is this place that we're in today? We are

[00:02:25] Sindre: in the Molde Municipalities Citizens Lab. It's a place that the municipality of Molde has created to connect to the inhabitants of Molde and get outside of their own fortifications and silos so they can be a part of what the indu not the industry but the inhabitants is a part of, so we can easier get connected to

[00:02:49] Sindre: all of the people that works in municipality and also they can connect to the to the industries that works in Molde. So we are at a site that uses for [00:03:00] workshops and gather ideas and startups, and that's a great place to be. Just to start and creating ideas.

[00:03:08] Felipe: Yeah. It's called, INNOM,

[00:03:11] Sindre: It's INNOM, it's INNOM, in Norwegian, InnbyggerLaben.

[00:03:15] Sindre: That's the citizen lab and INNOM, it's what's called drop in. Yeah, drop. Drop in. Yeah,

[00:03:20] Felipe: Drop in. Yeah. Yeah. So we dropped in and our hosts dropped out. They said here's the studio. You know what to do. We'll be back. We have a meeting to go to and They said, ha det, ha det, yeah, and then they disappeared. Which is goodbye in Norwegian.

[00:03:35] Sindre: Yeah, they're probably looking around the windows now. Just, are I finished yet? Are I finished yet? No, we're not finished.

[00:03:44] Felipe: I'm just kidding. I think we have an appointment at at a sauna. Yeah. So we are not gonna go that long, but I wanna talk about the inspiration, I would love for Sindre to share the inspiration that I heard from bror min, [00:04:00] Jorgensen, how this conference got its name?

[00:04:03] Sindre: Yeah. We are at the conference, the Bygglarm, and we are now starting that and we are the first day now on Bygglarm and it's going to be tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

[00:04:14] Sindre: So it's a big happening, small town like Molde and the early vision of this was started with, we have to have some. That can connect us outside construction and building projects. We have to have fun as contractors, as consults, as owners together. And the idea was a construction festival that was boring name and boring.

[00:04:40] Sindre: And when I thought I pitched the idea to several people and. When we connected to MYLDR, which are a culture or event company he listened to what I said and he said, ah, this is somewhat like, bylarm. It's a city noise. Translated, and that's [00:05:00] concept where you have a lot of cultural concerts popping up in the city in one concentrated hour of the week.

[00:05:07] Sindre: And a lot of events happening and it's creates some noise in the city. And then we said, why not just call it Bygglarm? And it's it's sounds perfect for me. It's the concept of just popping up a lot of ideas, thoughts, events in little Molde and create this party together there where we can connect.

[00:05:30] Sindre: That's the vision.

[00:05:30] Felipe: Yeah, it's very cool. So Jørgen, just imagine what you would think of somebody that sings rock and roll with a nice Viking beard. And it just vibes with this is gonna be cultural, this is fun, this is connecting, this is putting heart into what we do. And and also thinking bigger.

[00:05:51] Felipe: Yeah, I'm super impressed. And that's what what led Sindre to eventually partnering with Odd Inge, and they have been just [00:06:00] like partners in crime and I feel like the two of you are like brothers and I just hope I could be like the adopted you're the big brother. Yeah. Or the far min. Yeah.

[00:06:09] Felipe: Yeah. There's an inside joke. Sindre gets very worried when I say my father in Norwegian and we can't talk about it, this podcast, but you can definitely leave a comment and then I might answer the question of what what I said and what's the meaning behind that. But I think I want to turn the tables on Odd Inge and love for you to share what your experiences were coming into construction and why you choose to do things differently.

[00:06:38] Felipe: What drives you to not just do what everybody else does.

[00:06:42] Odd Inge: I've been in this kind of industry since I've been 13 years old, and I've seen the fire. Fire extinguisher, people running around doing this, but, and I actually want to be quite good at it myself. I felt that it [00:07:00] wasn't good enough to, to just running around and putting out fires.

[00:07:05] Odd Inge: I think I started to get on personally how to not let the fire start. But I never had a, like a tool or something to put it in motion though. So when I met Sindre, he started with all this processes and post-its and all that, and I was fascinated. That is actually what a system to break things down.

[00:07:30] Odd Inge: And you could see the fires before they come though. I'm not running besides Sindre. I'm struggling behind him trying to follow him in footsteps where with his development in Takt and Scrum though. So yeah, that's my history.

[00:07:46] Felipe: Yeah, he's very humble. So like I, I've looked at some of the projects that Odd Inge has shared with me and it is best in class, and I'm talking about I've been to Ireland, Germany, [00:08:00] Sweden.

[00:08:00] Felipe: South America and United States and I put Odd Inge in the top 1% of all project managers that we should aspire to be. Doesn't

[00:08:08] Odd Inge: feel like that, but thank you.

[00:08:11] Felipe: Yeah.

[00:08:12] Felipe: What you heard in the stories that he's been doing this since he was 13. So a long time. I've only been in the business since about 18, so you have a five year head start on me.

[00:08:22] Felipe: When you come into this industry, you realize very quickly that It can be very difficult to be successful. And sometimes it could feel like we win by accident or we finish things with like you said with the fire extinguishers. Like things are literally burning all around us and we're just trying to get it done and we're missing some system way to have higher reliability, easier project delivery, and then, out come the crazy people with their sticky notes like Sindre and myself, we use a lot of sticky notes and even was probably 50 yards away from here. We had a [00:09:00] showing of the sticky note pulls, which I thought was amazing with your foreman.

[00:09:04] Felipe: Can you tell the story what we saw ing with Roy over the sticky

[00:09:08] Odd Inge: nose? Yes. Yeah. We had a method that if you drag the sticky note off in the wrong way, it will hang out from the wall though. And Roy knows how to not let it hang. And when you show them the worldclass tricks, jaw dropped.

[00:09:28] Odd Inge: That was fascinated. So I think I, Roy got a new hero today.

[00:09:32] Felipe: Yeah. And then we quickly invited Roy to join us on the sauna. Yeah. Because that's what you do when you're in Norway. Yeah. That's what you do. Molde has a, it's a small town feel. It's the, like the little big village. But I think the interesting thing is how friendly everybody's been and everyone's pitching in today we toured multiple different companies of people that are gonna participate in the conference as well as in the Scrum training that's gonna [00:10:00] start tomorrow morning.

[00:10:01] Felipe: And it was just fascinating to see that this conference, what you all are creating here is an environment where people can cross no matter what their background is, whether they're in supply chain. Whether they're in design geotechnical engineering, whether they're in a traditional general contractor or trade contractor, and just have an exchange of ideas and information to improve how we deliver here and make this the world class city that it deserves to be and is.

[00:10:37] Felipe: And if you ever get a chance to come to Norway, it would be a crime that you don't stop here in Molde. True. So true. Yeah.

[00:10:46] Odd Inge: Yeah. I would say, let's say the first year up on that project that where Sindre introduced me to post-its and stuff like that's, that was my first time. And I came from a family [00:11:00] business and my uncle with his, the old school way.

[00:11:05] Odd Inge: And it was quite a lot of resistance in him. But after a couple of projects he only wanted projects where Sindre where because he's only person that was not, who knew what he was doing, the rest was just idiots. So that was the message from the old school guy. And that's that says a lot. It does.

[00:11:28] Odd Inge: He's on the right path

[00:11:29] Sindre: there. And then the key is, as Jason, told me as clear as glass, we have to create stability in our projects. And the stability is not created by old methods like CPM or no planning or three weeks planning. The we have to have stability. And the only system that creates that stability in a good way is Takt.

[00:11:57] Sindre: And you can create a lot of [00:12:00] value by just touching into Takt just by touching into creating that stability. So you don't have to be a professional takt master to achieve value and achieve stability in projects. You just have to draw and start in implementing it and it will create value immediately.

[00:12:19] Sindre: And I see that the older guys and women that works in the industry. They understand this when you create that stability because they see beyond the post-it notes, so you have to not overprocess this system thinking to rule thinking. You have to go directly and be very pragmatic about what you're doing.

[00:12:42] Sindre: Create that stability. That's the vision, that's the goal. And then you can use weekly plans. You can use the micro plans, you can use all kind of obstacles analysis. You can use all the tools to create furthermore value, but just setting up that flow [00:13:00] in all those three dimensions, logistical, trade flow, and the takt zone flow.

[00:13:06] Sindre: You you will create stability and that's in an apartment, if you do a renovation at home, set it up in in Takt. You will create a lot of value. So I think it starts very easy. And just further on we, it's, I think it's amazing that we are only in the beginning of this and we already see so much value creation,

[00:13:33] Felipe: outcome.

[00:13:34] Felipe: Yeah, absolutely. The difference Sindre is talking about, and Odd Inge has got now, one project done that he started with, and then another one starting an historical renovation with young Kristopher. Yeah. And then we've got another one that you're gonna start to implement Scrum on. Yeah. After this week.

[00:13:54] Felipe: Super exciting. We'll be back, we'll be back in touch to talk more about that one when it happens. But the [00:14:00] everyday construction for people watching the show, you might not know that the vast majority of projects don't finish on time. And they don't finish under budget. And contractors that do finish, we actually, we went to a place today which will leave anonymous, but it's in nor somewhere in Norway.

[00:14:19] Felipe: And the project is done, right? Everyone says the project is complete, and yet we have scaffold outside the building. And we have ceiling tiles moved out of the way inside. So they're still running teleconference, communication wiring. Inside and construction's in full swing inside next to the people occupying the building.

[00:14:42] Felipe: But it's done. It's not done yet. And that project and stark contrast with some of the other people we've talked to this morning was using just the old methods of critical path scheduling or push scheduling where they're just pushing and saying phrases [00:15:00] like, we don't have time to plan. We have to hurry up and go.

[00:15:04] Felipe: And they don't finish. So if you're watching this and you find your project is in the state of not finishing, or when you finish, people are still left behind, refugees are still there on the site, finishing lists of things to do, you're not done. And you've gotta try some different methods like Takt and Scrum, so you can see the complete project all the way to the end in bite size pieces.

[00:15:30] Felipe: Very simple. So that people can work in a very reliable way and get done. You don't have

[00:15:36] Sindre: to work so hard. It creates because we have only touched into Takt, and I see. I don't see Takt without Scrum and I don't see, I'll drink to that. Yeah. But because you create stability with the Takt, but to create that stability, you have the, you have to have an agile way of focusing on what's important to build [00:16:00] that stability. Because if you do not do that, you have one person that creates the schedule outside the design team, outside everything, and it doesn't get synced in what you are building because the takt system and the takt plan.

[00:16:16] Sindre: It's the stability and that has to be synced with how the product is designed. If you are going to design it and do it design bid, build competition, then you have to do those syncing because you do not a collaborative model with the general contractor. So you have to have a plan that is buildable and to get that you need Scrum to work out the pieces to create that stability.

[00:16:41] Sindre: From a macro plan to the normal plan and down almost to the weekly plan. So you have to control of the risk factors from the building and if you do that, you have to use Scrum and focus on what is important, because you can't, if you're building a building in two years or [00:17:00] three years and starting with the design from the idea, you can't start with the end.

[00:17:06] Sindre: You have to start with the end as near as the end can be. The product you are delivering is not building. You're delivering information for decision, a business case or a solution for the user of the building. And that is product you're delivering, but the end product is the building. So you have to build this information maturity constantly all the time so it doesn't switch into.

[00:17:32] Sindre: Paper notes and there you are a killer Felipe with automation and creating this information flow that doesn't create those silos. And Scrum is a fantastic tool to use that break it up in pieces that we can manage and focus on.

[00:17:49] Felipe: Yeah, it just reminds me like as you were talking that. Just like in, in Norwegian, there's different dialects in ways to do it.

[00:17:58] Felipe: There's still [00:18:00] very unique ways to connect with the people and to reach across the silos and bring people together. And one of the really good things about Scrum and Takt and these collaborative ways to work is that it automatically lowers, it doesn't remove the silos, cuz you're gonna always have the specialists.

[00:18:17] Felipe: Yeah, Odd Inge is gonna be for a long time. Project manager because he likes that title. Eventually we're gonna replace that with Scrum Master. Yeah, but it's okay. You wanna just open up a window or create a doorway so that people can. Reach through the silo and connect. You just need a little window.

[00:18:37] Felipe: Yeah, a little port window. If that's all you can do is just start with something small and then later you can get bigger and bigger doorways. And then the future you can have a hallway and then we can just take the whole wall down and you still have your three sides of your perfection, of your, what your specialty is.

[00:18:54] Felipe: Cause we're always gonna have specialists. But we need places to, to come together, like you [00:19:00] said the tourig. The city center. Tig? Yeah. Yeah. Tig, yeah. Yeah. So we need like a city center where people can bump into each other and have the right conversations so that they can know, oh, I'm gonna be through here in this area.

[00:19:14] Felipe: Or why on Odd Inge's project do we not work on Fridays? We're gonna plan our work for a four day Takt versus a five day Takt and not have that lost time of the weekend or the overtime. And I loved yesterday. Oh, is this morning? It's been, yeah. It's been quite a long day. Was this morning Odd Inge was sharing like, if you work people too hard, they'll burn out.

[00:19:39] Felipe: Yeah. And the old way before your hotel Takt and that old way where people were working, like in the project we saw this morning, it's still not finished. People look tired. Yeah. And they get tired. What's been your experience with people working too hard?

[00:19:53] Odd Inge: They get sick days looking for other places to work. You lose your good people because they're [00:20:00] good people work hard because they don't wanna lose, if you can say like that. So they take all the weight on their shoulders. They drag it. Yeah. The rest. So those are the people that you break down first.

[00:20:13] Odd Inge: In that setting because they are feeling the responsibility and they want to reach the goals. So yeah, I, I think that's important thing. And when you work hard all week, you need the time on the weekend to spend with your family doing what you want to get reset for the Monday comes. If you can't do that, what's the point?

[00:20:35] Odd Inge: In my opinion. Yeah.

[00:20:36] Sindre: It's only work. Yeah. It's only work. It's

[00:20:38] Felipe: only work. Yeah. Teach that, from

[00:20:41] Odd Inge: Felipe though. It's only

[00:20:42] Felipe: work. Yeah. We talked about that in the car ride. Apparently at least two of us really like Star Wars. We don't know about the third person yet. We don't know if this person likes Star Wars like we do, you know what I'm saying?

[00:20:55] Felipe: But we said like in I don't remember which movie it is, but it's when in the making of Darth Vader. [00:21:00] He gets his arms and legs cut off. And I was telling Sindre that when that we were watching that movie at home. I paused the movie and I told my wife, I was like, you realize that he just got his arms and legs cut off for a job?

[00:21:12] Felipe: It's just the job. The emperor gave him a job to do and he took it so seriously. He sacrificed his arms, his legs, and his humanity for a job. And I was like, I don't know anybody out there. That's trying to have that type of hustle culture level. But we're not trying to have that. We wanna play the long game and be around and be significant.

[00:21:33] Felipe: So like we know the people, like we visited Norconsult. Yeah. Norconsult. We even talked about there's a gentleman there that's been doing geotechnical engineering and he's just turning 83 now and he's still having fun at work. He's still doing the work and right. If we want to be that long-term, able to contribute value, you cannot have like very intense moments where you're burning people out and you're sacrificing your family time.

[00:21:59] Felipe: [00:22:00] You've gotta be able to do the work, deliver the value, and then come back in, recharge, refresh. And start the next Monday. Yeah. The next plan, the next sequence of Takt, the next time going to the sauna, the next time we go to Bud and have the next buffet in the vanilla sauce.

[00:22:21] Felipe: No, you we're already clapped. We're clapped already. Don't overprocess. I just, now he's being a diva. I just felt like No, he's just being a diva now. See how addicting it's, yeah. Now when Odd Inge does this clapping that we know it's catchy, it's a thing and then it's over.

[00:22:41] Felipe: That enthusiasm is real. The way that he that's the way he talks everywhere we've gone. Mostly uninvited and we just walked into people's offices and Sindre starts talking to people like that and they just let us in.

[00:22:52] Felipe: No door has been locked to us in Molde. It's wide open. People come on down. Yeah. You wanna come to the largest construction [00:23:00] conference mixing of cultures and better ways to work. It's right here in beautiful. Molde. Yeah. It's love. It is love. It's a love conference. Yes. There will be music. There will be øl. Yeah.

[00:23:17] Felipe: Which is beer. Yeah. In case you don't know. Translated and vin for people that like wine as well as vann, which is water in Oslo. How do you say, water in Molde?

[00:23:31] Sindre: Vann. So Duolingo is that's Molde also. Yeah,

[00:23:34] Felipe: that's my my Duolingo. I'm on day three of a hot streak with the Duolingo owl learning Norwegian.

[00:23:41] Felipe: So this is, this is what happens when you go to Norway and you do Scrum in person. So back to Odd Inge, you were showing us an incredible Takt implementation on a hotel project that by all accounts, should have been easily [00:24:00] 14 or 15 months, in a live hotel with guests.

[00:24:05] Felipe: And your job was to renovate. Roughly how many rooms do you remember? 95, I think. 95 different rooms in a live working hotel. In what city? Kristiansund, the

[00:24:19] Odd Inge: neighbor city.

[00:24:19] Felipe: Kristiansund. So not too far from here. And you did it how fast? From

[00:24:26] Odd Inge: November to may,

[00:24:28] Felipe: I think it was seven months. I did the math earlier today.

[00:24:32] Felipe: That's what I remember. Yeah. Seven months, twice as fast on his first ever Takt implementation. If I do my job I will splice in the video from Odd Inge's office right now. Right now. Roll the video.

I just wanted to show, Jason that I've got Odd Inge Samuelsen here, Takt Master. He takes your class, [00:25:00] Jason, right here in roughly September, October, November, and then creates a less than one week Takt plan. Four day Takt plan, Odd Inge? Two. A two day Takt plan. He creates a two day Takt line. I see my Norwegian numbering.

Counting is not that good, Jason. So, so Odd Inge has to translate, uh, what is this number here in, uh, in English? One, one week. One week. No, it's a, I'm just messing with you, Jason. It's a, it's a one one week and every, uh, every section here is built to be four days or less, right. So that there's no working on, uh, Fridays.

Saturdays or Sundays, yes. Copy. Right. And then he's got, uh, areas where he could not Takt and he had the Pull he popped in from Miro, which I know you love. Jason, you can tell it's Miro from the little reveals on the stickies. It's not [00:26:00] mural, which I love. I love Mural. Mural, if you're watching this video, I am open to taking advertising from you at any time.

Shameless plug. Okay. But we love this Takt plan starts. Could you explain the innovation here at the beginning that we talked about? Yeah, this is the the trade actions that I couldn't fit in the Takt wagon, so I just threw 'em up there. I don't remember the word you had for it, but Yeah. I called it the, this is the, the cow pusher time.

Yeah. Where the train, the Takt train pushes the cows out of the way to let the train flow smooth through the entire station. Yes. Right. Which we said, uh, what do we, how do we say cow and, uh, Norwegian Sindre and push push. Cow pusher. My Google translates Sindre right there, 2.0. [00:27:00] This describes the floor of the hotel, and this is the room.

So kind of describe the process of, uh, doing all the software renovation and in the end they will have the washing because that doesn't start in the Takt, it just start with the washing and complete it. So this is the last time from that floor. Yeah, this is just so perfect. And, and the total time. We talked about, uh, this before the video started and I was asking Odd Inge, this is any, anybody that would schedule this in a typical critical path, method schedule would probably create a one year or longer project schedule.

And this entire schedule was done in about half a year, twice as fast, which is so powerful. Sindre was asking Odd Inge what would he do differently? And, uh, you were actually sharing something that the workers asked you to do. And could you just tell us one more [00:28:00] time, what was the innovation that you brought that the workers asked you for in the Takt communication?

 They asked for red lines in the start of the end of the week, so they will easier we access to, to sort out which area they're on. And I also increase the double size of the row thing because, uh, yeah, it's easier for them. Um, and I'm also not keeping orders or other thing on the main plan.

I will keep that on the backlog for the, for the management. So yeah, short version. He's keeping it simple. He's giving the people what they want, innovating and how they do the tact. This is, the mark of a Takt Master and what makes Odd Inge super special to me, which I gotta show he's right here because he's all about making the work easier, better, and faster.

Thank you.

[00:28:58] Felipe: Okay. [00:29:00] And then yeah, we've gotta get the behind the scenes from Sindre's phone as well. The video, taking the video.

[00:29:05] Felipe: It's

[00:29:06] Odd Inge: be interesting to see the outcome is it's gonna be,

[00:29:13] Felipe: the

[00:29:13] Sindre: image of this video is gonna be

[00:29:16] Felipe: multidimensional. I think we need some Scrum and Takt together. Yeah, there will be.

[00:29:22] Felipe: Now I'll have to shoot the behind the scenes how I edit the video later so that people can see from my hotel room exactly how I do it. What's my method?

[00:29:32] Odd Inge: Yeah I think I had to try it right away and I told Sindre that I was lucky cause the project started right afterwards and was a perfect project to, to try it.

[00:29:45] Odd Inge: And, but I felt very unsecured though. But in the end Lucky

[00:29:50] Felipe: me. Yeah, lucky him. And that that feeling, luckily for all of us, Odd Inge is the type of person that he's gonna act with courage. [00:30:00] And even though you felt uncomfortable doing something new, which all of us do, even I even Sindre.

[00:30:06] Felipe: If you try something new, you're gonna feel uncomfortable.

[00:30:09] Felipe: Yeah. And you're gonna, we want to see, if you're looking at me dead on, and if I go through everything like this, perfectly balanced, I'm not pushing myself to grow. I want to come a little askew like this, a little sideways. Just a little uncomfortable on the side. And that way I can grow stronger this way and eventually I can come back this way.

[00:30:34] Felipe: And if I do that professionally with the different things that I do, I will grow and become more valuable for my organization. More importantly, for my team, the people that depend on me, the trade contractors that put their trust in us to lead, and as well as for my family, because I'm feeding myself knowledge, gaining wisdom and experience that I'm gonna teach my son, who knows that this podcast is for him. [00:31:00] So that in the future when he becomes a general contractor or even smarter a specialty contractor.

[00:31:07] Sindre: But it takes a lot of courage. It's not hard, academically to start implementing either Scrum or Takt.

[00:31:15] Sindre: It's not hard to learn but to implement it, it takes some courage because you are often alone when you start with it. Oh, yeah. And you stand alone with your beliefs. And from my perspective, that was a belief feed on frustration from the other ways I've tested that I didn't, I did know doesn't work.

[00:31:42] Sindre: I had tried other methods. I tried the existing way of planning projects. I've tried the existing way of designing and leading the design of projects by doing the protocols from the meetings and just rewinding and go through them over and [00:32:00] over again and see, have you done that?

[00:32:02] Sindre: No, you haven't. Next week. Yeah. And then we go next. This is the frustration of I don't accept this. And that is what feeds that courage from my perspective. To stand there alone and say, I don't know all about Takt. I don't know all about Scrum, but let's start together and doing this. And then you have to take that position.

[00:32:26] Sindre: You have to, and that's the courage. And I saw that on Odd Inge when he went on the Takt course, he. Invested so much in it by himself. His personality grew a lot because he sat down, he perfection-ated his Takt plan. He said, this has to be a very good good plan. And he started to communicate it. He came over obstacles, personalities that didn't want to merge with it and then he has to handle them.

[00:32:57] Sindre: And that's the courage position because if you [00:33:00] flip over and you be some kind of neighbor land of us

[00:33:10] Felipe: and it's like a, could be an adjacent country. We don't wanna name any names.

[00:33:14] Sindre: No. But if you are if you are very touchy, then these changes are hard to stand in because you are often alone.

[00:33:24] Odd Inge: I think it needs a quite good amount of self confidence too. You're going to be a snow plow through the whole thing because you're the only one will believe that this is gonna work.

[00:33:37] Odd Inge: And if you don't have a stomach for it, it will break you down from the outside people, and some people are working against you and someone is not just believing you, but will give it a try. And I will judge you by your success or failure. So it, [00:34:00] I was lucky, had a success on the first one because people won't stand in my way on the next one.

[00:34:07] Odd Inge: So that's, I think that's what was a turning point for me. Yeah.

[00:34:12] Sindre: Get the first one done. And also, this is one of the pros with Scrum because tact is, A team system that's, it's a greater system. It's a bigger system that has, you have to have some kind of confidence in implementing it. If it's the first, and you have a lot of resistance outside, but Scrum, you don't start implementing Scrum in a team.

[00:34:36] Sindre: You start learning and experiencing Scrum for yourself. You start by scrumming your day, your week, and try to figure out the system for yourself. And then you don't talk about Scrum. You just do Scrum, and then you're in a position of being a project manager, and you implement that system, which you call Ninja Scrum, right?

[00:34:58] Sindre: It's a hidden Scrum [00:35:00] and you just do it and you will feel elevated because it works. It works. For your perspective, it works for a team. And of course if you scale it, it gets more complicated, but it's still the same system. So Scrum, it's much more easier to start if you don't have that courage.

[00:35:23] Sindre: So I believe that Scrum should be on academics on the bachelor's degree. For all project manager and engineers, you have to learn some as software engineers do. Because that you can start and implement on yourself from day one.

[00:35:38] Felipe: Completely agree. And Dr. Jeff Sutherland recently published a book just within the last week called First Principles in Scrum, and he told us on a call the week before the book went live, he said, I've gotta do a better focus

[00:35:54] Felipe: and all of you Scrum trainers need to do a better focus of communicating the importance of a [00:36:00] personal Scrum, which sins just was hitting on just perfectly. And I had 10 hours of flying in an airplane. I read through the entire book in 10 hours and here we are, not even seven days later and Jeff's already published an update to the book.

[00:36:16] Felipe: As he said in the book, you'll have regular sprints updating the book. So he's using Scrum to make a first principle Scrum book, which is encouraging people. To star with scrum by yourself, it becomes very fractal. Sindre said, if you do it and bring it inside into your experience, then you can just always be doing it.

[00:36:36] Felipe: A B S always be Scrumming. So true. Be scrumming.

[00:36:42] Sindre: Yeah, so true. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that this is one of the key takeouts that people hopefully will get from the Scrum course now is. To start with themselves, not pushing this system into other projects and trying to scale it without [00:37:00] knowing and having experience with it.

[00:37:02] Sindre: Cause I I am true to myself that I'm not a Scrum Master for per definition. I'm a Scrum doer because I don't measure velocity. Why? Because I meet resistance on that. I have to have more consistency in my methods before I measure it. So I have to get the process, the ways of working and the flow for working and the people with me on the processes.

[00:37:30] Sindre: And I say that we measure when we are ready and one project now we're going through this process. We are starting to measure the Sprints, we're measuring the Sprints in outcome and cost. So the Sprint Reviews, they they mark it up what was the result in the products and we see what was the cost immediately, what the cost.

[00:37:51] Sindre: And that is what we measure now. And I see next step for that team is to measure in story points so [00:38:00] we can forecast where we are going, not just being financial focused. We're also going to be a velocity of measuring ourselves to forecast if we are going to be more teams. So you have to, for my especially, you have to learn the system and you have to find your way of implementing it so it fits, so it gives you flow, not being a scholar example of Takt or Scrum and it just creates friction all the time.

[00:38:30] Felipe: Yeah. Sindre, as you're talking and Odd Inge said it yesterday people come together because of shared values and stay together like you can collide and bump into people. We've walked past hundreds of people on the street, but some people we've walked past and we've collected them, and now they're coming with us to Bygglarm and we're staying together.

[00:38:50] Felipe: Everything that you just mentioned on your philosophy and approach with Scrum to yourself and with your teams, I am a hundred percent aligned on, and that [00:39:00] this is the way. This is the way, this is the way, this is the way. Yeah. If you're watching this and you hear something, if you've read the Scrum Guide or if you practice Scrum and you disagree with what we're saying, then you're missing the point because right in the beginning on the current Scrum Guide, now it says that the system is incomplete by design.

[00:39:23] Felipe: So that people can fill it in and adapt it to suit their needs and the specificity of their teams. What does your specific team need? I will be training tomorrow and cover the idea of velocity and recently it was just last Monday and Tuesday, I was teaching a new team of Scrum, Master Scrum, and I said, in the velocity section, this is an idea that you may not come to

[00:39:50] Felipe: use for one or two years. It might take you that long. Some of you might start using this concept of velocity tomorrow. [00:40:00] I've had, I can count on one hand how many people have started using velocity immediately versus the people who have to come more slowly to the system because there are things to unlearn.

[00:40:12] Felipe: Unless you're like Sindre and Odd Inge and your frustration is so high, you're willing to unlearn faster. Remember that. Practice some grace with yourself. Unlearn. Make space for trying something new. Be courageous and disciplined. You forgot to mention how disciplined Odd Inge is. Yeah. Is extremely disciplined. Yeah.

[00:40:34] Odd Inge: Expect much of the yeah myself and those around me to be precise.

[00:40:41] Felipe: Yeah. That's very good. As they say in the Norway. Yeah. Yeah. You thought it was gonna be like really profound. That just means yes.

[00:40:56] Felipe: I'm only a level two. Duolingo owl. Yeah. My wings are not [00:41:00] even sprouted out yet. Yeah. When you get wings, which level? Yeah, you get wings I think like at level five. Okay.

[00:41:07] Sindre: focus.fly.

[00:41:08] Felipe: Yeah. Now I'm starting to spell and to write. Oh, that's, yeah.

[00:41:13] Sindre: The written part is hard. It's getting harder. Oh, yeah.

[00:41:16] Sindre: But in the Scrum system, we're in the Construction Scrum, we are a lot focused on the scrum master or the Agile coach in the processes in the projects. And of course that's correct, and it's very important to get the system, get the projects to get better. And the way I talked to it earlier for you, Felipe, is the part of the Scrum system where you have the visions, you have the metrics, you have the products, you have the strategy of the Product Owner part of the Scrum system because I am in the early stages of a project where we transform a building from [00:42:00] a business case an idea, a society demand or a need we created to a building a product who delivers this value. My, I see extreme value in creating some level of knowledge around the Product Owner for the building owners.

[00:42:22] Sindre: Cause we have building owners now seeking Scrum Master and they are very good at, okay, they can be an Agile coach, but for them, if we are going to create good projects, we have to start off correct. We have to start with the right, the goals. I see that also in the IPD and the VDC system I've been in. If you don't create sufficient and good goals in the start, that has value.

[00:42:49] Sindre: Then we start creating our own values and our own metrics in the system. That doesn't create value necessary. Because we are just, we have to have some [00:43:00] goals. The system says we has to have goals. So then we start overprocessing by creating metrics on building information modeling. Or we try to overprocess by implementing Takt systems that are huge or where co-located, where we not need to be co-located.

[00:43:19] Sindre: And then we try to build down this terminology of system, VDC, IPD, and then we can trash talk it afterwards because it doesn't succeed. The goals were not correct cuz the owner, Product Owner is the owner of the vision that transforms the vision into a strategy that isn't. It's a backlog. It's an epic that you as a product, as a Scrum Master need to implement into the team.

[00:43:46] Sindre: So if you start with a Scrum Master, you can start with yourself. But when, immediately when you start with the product, you need a good backlog. You need good products, you need good problems to take into the team or else to just process. [00:44:00] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:44:00] Felipe: So you need somebody to articulate. That vision. So a lot of people don't realize that the role of the Product Owner is to articulate the voice of the customer for the Scrum team for purposes of creating that backlog.

[00:44:15] Felipe: What should we do? What is the problem this building or this structure is gonna solve? Yeah. And then making that as clear and concise as possible. I can't help but use the background of the fjord behind us and we're talking about. Navigating ships and we went to visit Viking Sky. The anchor was there. Yeah. And we see the result of bad decision making, bad systems, and the calamity of things happening that almost sunk an entire cruise liner and what ships need.

[00:44:47] Felipe: Every good ship has a captain to steer, but every captain serves the customers of the ship that want to go somewhere. Where was the Viking Sky going [00:45:00] before it almost shipwrecked.

[00:45:03] Odd Inge: It was going out from Kristiansund, I think, and out.

[00:45:07] Sindre: Yeah, out. It was going to pause and they gave it a shot. But the forecast was bad.

[00:45:15] Sindre: So no other ship went out on only with Viking Sky. Yeah, with that

[00:45:22] Odd Inge: size. It should be, should have been no problem. Yeah, but the engine stopped. Yeah. Engine stopped with the sensor oil tank

[00:45:30] Felipe: due to something very trivial, but a lot of decisions were made. My point is that we've got a group of people that have paid and want some type of experience.

[00:45:40] Felipe: And the value, the people that go on cruises are like a little bit of a thrill seeker. And they like also comfort. It's not like mountain climbing people that mountain climb don't necessarily also go on cruises. They're different types of people. So the Product Owner of the Viking Sky, is the [00:46:00] person who's setting the direction and making the decision.

[00:46:02] Felipe: And ultimately in that situation was almost a deadly decision. Like we have construction projects, we've all worked on a project where nobody could articulate why are we building this? Nobody can articulate what's the most important thing to the customer. And like Sindre had just said, people make assumptions. Earlier in your career when you were a trade contractor, what would you say was the most important thing every day when you were operating a machine?

[00:46:31] Felipe: If you had to pick one thing, what would it be? I

[00:46:33] Sindre: think

[00:46:33] Odd Inge: it would be the maintenance and having diesel and everything like that. Because if one of the thing breaks or you don't have diesel, your day is

[00:46:44] Felipe: destroyed, your day is done. You can't do Yeah. What you do in the machine, which is do what? Making money.

[00:46:51] Felipe: The machine makes money, but what are you doing in excavation? What are you, what's the type of work?

[00:46:57] Odd Inge: Depends on it's ditches [00:47:00] for drains or parking lots or, yeah, whatever. Foundation for houses, so yeah. All types.

[00:47:09] Felipe: You see what that's my point Odd Inge. Yeah. Like when we, I

[00:47:12] Odd Inge: destroy

[00:47:12] Felipe: for the next person. Yeah. When I leave you to just guess Yeah.

[00:47:16] Felipe: What the vision is. You don't have a concise, it's definitely this, right? It's different for every project based on what their need is. And then from your perspective as an operator, the machine has to work throughout the shift and tomorrow. Yeah, because what happens if we don't maintain the machine?

[00:47:34] Felipe: Production stops. Production stops, and then we can't dig the ditch. We can't make the hole. We can't level the parking lot, we can't create the grade, we can't do the enabling work that allows for everything else to follow after. And Odd Inge knows that excavation is my favorite trade of all time. And if you didn't know that watching this, you would now know.

[00:47:53] Felipe: Yeah.

[00:47:54] Sindre: And also one thing I've seen is that a lot of projects[00:48:00] that doesn't fit the financial class or the financial goal for the owner. Has not have the goal in the start. So we start creating sub goals or subcultures. Let's say the architect or the design, they say, okay, is it going to be a nice building?

[00:48:19] Sindre: Of course it's going to be a nice building. And then they just design it and they drew it up. So we have a lot of buildings around here that are first drawn from the architect, and we see it's a beautiful picture. It's a beautiful building. And it's probably a signature building with all kinds of dimensions.

[00:48:38] Sindre: And it's an architect, very good solution. But then it meets probably Odd Inge, which a general contractor and the system demands that he's going to price it. And then he delivers his bid. And you see this is the twice the amount. Then it starts to [00:49:00] spin all this negativity around the project and the product and the owners get pissed and the consultants try to protect themself and try to,

[00:49:11] Sindre: push the contractor as a, as the troublemaker. And we start to create all this noise, unnecessary noise because we didn't have a goal. So if we could start with the goal that said, okay, that was that's the idea that I love about IPD is you have a target value. You say, this is the money that I have to use on this.

[00:49:36] Sindre: That's not no problem saying that, but you have to say, where are your priorities with this money? Where are you going to put it? Okay. If it's a fantastic facade, yeah, put it there, but then the rest can't be as rich and as popular as all. So you guide the architect with those goals, and so you do that with all of the [00:50:00] other parties and those goals are so necessary.