We say we want teams to own their decisions. But what happens the moment you actually hand people the pen, and they discover how uncomfortable that is?

Two weeks into a new role, Yves Hanoulle, who calls himself a “creative collaboration agent” rather than an agile coach, was working with a group of about forty people split into four colour-named sub-teams. Then an internal customer said any team could pick up a feature, except the yellow one. Yves stopped all work and ran a retro. The group quickly agreed on three teams instead of four, and spent a lot of energy blaming his boss and his absent predecessor for the original split. After lunch, Yves and his boss cleared every chair and table out of the biggest room in the building, and Yves explained the rules: “I would help you make decisions, but I would not make decisions for you.” Walk around in silence, form three circles, and stop moving when you’re happy.

Twenty minutes in, the loudest critic of the original decision pointed at Yves and said: “You should decide.” Yves said no, and reminded him of his own words that morning. What followed was a day of dynamics nobody had spoken about: a cluster of French-speaking colleagues who wouldn’t move, two people who physically blocked a third from joining their circle, a colleague in tears who was then welcomed with open arms, and the two most senior people choosing to split up. They finished at four o’clock with not a line of code written, and Yves believes they delivered more that sprint than if they had carried on.

This conversation explores what it means to decide how to decide without deciding the outcome. We dig into why people say “I hate this decision” when they really mean “I want someone to blame”, what removing speech makes visible, why a co-facilitator mattered, and the question Yves admits he never fully answered: what do you do with the truth a good exercise surfaces?

Key Discussion Points

• [00:01] Anything But the Yellow Team: An internal customer rules out one team, and Yves stops work to run a retro where the blame lands on his boss and predecessor
• [04:00] Chairs Out, Mouths Closed: Booking the biggest room, clearing the furniture, and the rules for walking in silence into three circles
• [06:00] “You Should Decide”: The loudest critic asks Yves to make the call, and Yves hands the morning’s complaint straight back
• [08:00] Language, Mentoring and a Blocked Circle: A French-speaking cluster in a Dutch-speaking group, and two people closing ranks on a third
• [12:00] Refusing the Checklist: Why Yves wouldn’t let forty people agree team criteria up front, even though they hated him for it
• [14:00] Deciding That We Decide: Andrew on the narrow but real authority of choosing how a decision gets made
• [24:00] Making Space: The colleague in tears, a five-minute chat with the boss, and a circle that opened up
• [29:00] The Signal Nobody Followed Up: Andrea asks what Yves did with the block, and why a day like this leaves a facilitator exhausted

Guest: Yves Hanoulle

Hosts: Andrew Harmel-Law, Andrea Magnorsky, Kenny Schwegler

Andrew Harmel-Law: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Stories of Facilitating

Software Design and Architecture.

it right.

Um, with, me, Andrew Harmel Law, and my two co-conspirators.

Andrea, do you wanna quickly say hello?

Yeah, that's good.

you did it.

Well done

Andrew Harmel-Law: Thank you.

And Kenny.

Yeah.

Andrew Harmel-Law: today we're joined by Eve.

Eve, do you wanna quickly, tell us who you are and then,

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: I'm Yves Hanoul.

I'm working as, yeah, what typically is called agile coach.

I try to use that term, as little as possible myself.

I usually call myself a creative collaboration agent.

but basically it's, helping teams work better together.

where it, in the beginning it used to be helping people inside the team,

and now it's more cross teams, helping cross teams and, yeah, making sure that

managers understand teams and vice versa.

And these days it's also, of course, with a little, um,

yeah, um, how would I call it?

Uh, AI friends in the mix or something like that to make sure

that we, yeah, we all collaborate

Andrew Harmel-Law: Yeah, Nice.

Exactly.

And so I know the story that you've, you, you're gonna tell us, but do you

wanna share the story with everyone?

'Cause I'm super excited to hear it

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: So I wanna talk about, something that I, I

think is about, well, I know it's, it's about 20 years ago, 20, 21 years ago,

that I was-- I just joined the team.

Uh, I don't even know, I think at that time was called Scrum

Master or something like that.

But it was officially one team, but it was 40 people, so

we wouldn't call that a team.

Uh, so it was kinda set up as, as four teams, four subteams.

They were-- They had colors as names, so there was a blue team, a red

team, yellow, something like that.

and on this, I think this was my second week, and, internal customers, this

is a large organization, mostly making software for internal, for internal use.

And one internal, customer came to, to me and said, "Okay, this

little feature, we, Ev-everybody, all, all the four teams can…

Well, no, three of the four teams can work on it.

The yellow team cannot work on it.

Everything else is fine."

I was like, this is not your call.

We're trying to, yeah, based on the thing."

So, so I went to my boss and, and said, "Well, look, we have to,

to deal with that, and, because this, this doesn't look normal.

It's, it's not normal that, people are not happy about, yeah,

a, a, a support of our team."

So we, basically stopped all the work.

I gathered everybody together to, to say like, "Look, this is a problem."

internally in the team, people already had something like, "Okay,

this is, this is not, not, not so…"

Well, people were not happy about some of that.

So, yeah, I would say some kind of retro thing that we decided, and I let people,

let's okay, what can we do about it?

And so they came up with the, the idea, let's okay, let's dissolve that,

that, that team, and let's reorganize.

And the one thing that came out of that, and that becomes important later in the

story, is that they said, "Well, the way the teams were selected, that was

your-- the, the person who was in your role before, together with your boss,

they decided these are the four teams.

And that was bad, and you didn't, they didn't do a good

job, and blah, blah, blah."

A lot of pointing fingers at everybody else, or basically my boss, and

my predecessor who was not there, who could not defend himself.

my boss who wasn't in the meeting.

but yeah, they, they blamed them.

okay, I put that aside, but okay, let, let's see what we want to do.

And, um, that part is less interesting for the story, but,

but it's important to know.

So they decided as a team, let's go for, And that was, maybe that is important.

They-- I, I let them have small little groups, having chats, and I think,

I think 60% of the groups basically came up with the same solution.

Let's not have four teams anymore, but let's have three

teams That was the easy part.

And then, okay, how do we create three teams?

So, I had just had, a training, a weekend where we also had to split

up in groups, for, for, for homework, and they did it in a certain way.

I hadn't debriefed it.

I had no idea how other people in my team of the, of the training felt about that.

But I was looking for a new way to organize, so I said, "Let's reuse that."

So I booked then.

So by, by that time, I think an hour or two had gone, and it was close to, to,

lunch break, so we took lunch break.

And in the meantime, I booked the largest room I could find in, in the office,

and I booked it for the full afternoon.

And, together with my boss, I removed all the chairs, all the

tables from it, which was already something that you shouldn't do.

Think again, large corporation.

So people don't like it when, when they hear tables and, and stuff move.

But okay, my boss was there, and he shielded everything off.

Uh, because this was also in a part of, um, of the building

that both of us have never…

Well, I was only there for two weeks, so I, of course, I

wasn't, hadn't seen everything.

But even he hadn't seen this floor, but he was able to, because he was

the department head or whatever, he was able to, to shield everything out.

so basically what I told them is like, "I told you when I came here that I

would help you make decisions, but I would not make decisions for you.

So what we're going to do is I would like you to walk around in silence."

So like I said, it's about 40 people walking around in, or in my

head it's 40, maybe it's 30, but it's, it's still a large group.

somewhere between 30 and 40 people.

"Walk around in, in the groups and, basically gather

yourself in three circles.

And when you're happy, you stop moving."

And so, okay, that happens a little bit.

There's a little bit of movement and, and not much happens.

It's, it's people keep thinking, and at some point things stop.

So I ask, "Are we happy?"

"No, we're not happy."

"Okay, move again."

And so that happened a few times.

and because they were not allowed to speak, it really was feeling the things.

And every time that I, that I stopped it, they were allowed

to speak, had ask a little bit questions or say a little bit things.

And at, I think the second or the third time, somebody points to me

and says, "Yves, this is not working.

You should decide because we're not getting anywhere."

Because by that time, I think, I don't know, 10, 20 minutes have passed

And I, I just remember feeling like, "Wait a minute.

We just discussed an hour in the morning that people complained

about my boss making that decision, that he didn't take good decisions.

I've been here for, what, two weeks?

I hardly know your names, so I'm not the right person to make that call.

I'm not going to do it, even if I would be…"

Of course, I have the ego to do these kind of things, of course,

because I'm there and I want to, to help out people, so there is a

part of me that wants to do that.

But because I was only there for two weeks, it was just literally impossible.

So, I- but I did remember that whole discussion, so I put back

and I said, "Look, that's, that's n- that's not going to work.

You, you, you were all complaining."

And especially the person that, that was saying that to me, he was the

loudest voice saying that my boss, so eh, eh, this is not going to fly.

So I looked him straight in, in the face, and I told him that, and I could

just see clicking and looking in his eyes that it clicked, and I saw some

other people nodding and it's like, okay, now they start to, to get it.

And so that thing changed a lot because there was a lot

more movement at that point.

still, a few things later, there is about three groups, but people

are not really happy about it.

So, and basically- I didn't understand the full dynamics at that time, but, but

my boss later, who was watching, was, was also looking a little bit and he

pointed out to me, "Yves, it's interesting that the, the, that fourth group where

people were complaining about, they're all together in one of the groups."

Um, but I hadn't-- I, I, I, I didn't say anything back to the group.

Um, but I watched it a little bit.

And indeed, the, the second time or the third time after movement, because

that group wasn't really moving.

The others were moving a little bit, but these really stuck together.

Now, you have to know, this is Belgium.

So in Belgium, we have, three official languages.

We have Dutch, we have French, we have German.

And, most of the people were Dutch-speaking, but that little

group was all French-speaking.

So very logically, they were grouping together because, well, they

know, blah, blah, blah, they could speak their own little language.

So at some point, one of the other big voices in the group was saying,

"Well, this is not working because they are all sticking together, and

they don't want to change, and they…"

That's again, a lot of blaming.

So I said, "Well, it-- I can see that.

At the same time, everybody can take responsibility.

And yeah, if, if, if you don't want that, you can, you can also move in there."

And, and so I pointed back at, "I don't want to hear the blaming part

because everybody is here in the room."

Well, no, it was not true.

There was-- I think there was one or two persons who were on holiday.

That was a little bit the tricky part, which, which I didn't like.

But okay, with 40 people having a day where everybody is there

all the time is already hard, and this was a crisis situation,

so we couldn't change that much.

but basically, I put them back like, "Okay, you're complaining

about people who are here.

You talk to me."

So that was also interesting.

People were talking facing to me instead of talking to each other.

Okay, before in the movement, they were not allowed to talk, but at that

point, they could still ask each other.

Uh, but because he was talking to me, I was also talking to him.

I said, "Okay, you can take your responsibility."

And then it really clicked.

I could see in his eyes like, okay.

And that person and another, they actually started moving with that,

and then that group dissolved a little bit and went in a little bit.

Um, what was really interesting and what totally shocked me is that,

um, one person starts to move out of that, that, that small little

French team, if I call it like that.

and he moved to one, and there was two other people who really

didn't want to work with him.

And basically they grouped themself and they blocked with the two of them.

They blocked them so that the third person couldn't join their little circle.

That was-- I've never seen something so visually clear like,

"I don't wanna work with you."

It-- There was nothing said because they were not allowed to say it, but

basically they blocked us like, "You're not coming into our little group."

so that was very, yeah, I had no idea, what happened there.

I, I didn't know the three of them, but it was clear that there

was something personal, playing.

Again, things moved on a little bit.

He basically moved to another group and, and yeah, things got,

resolved in the end where, we ended up with, with three groups.

there was more drama.

There was at one point one person who, who started crying, because

it felt so hard to make decision.

so that person had a little chat outside the room with my boss.

he was comforting that person a little bit and then came back,

I think five minutes where…

And very quickly after that, we had three groups.

and if I look back on this whole experience, would, would've been

if, if I, I, I stayed there for, I don't know, another year or something

like that, if I look back, could we had a different three groups?

Yes.

Was there a possibility that they were better?

Probably.

Could I have done it?

Definitely no.

Uh, there was no way that I would've created a better group, and I think

with all times, if you have to collaborate with, with people…

Oh, verily important.

the biggest thing that people pushed back, they wanted to

have a list of requirements.

What do we need to have?

do we have to have an architect and, and tester in every team or whatever?

They wanted to have that full list of decisions up front, and I refused that.

They really hated me for that in the first few movements.

but, but I- my reason was that it will take us, like, a couple

of days before people really agree on what should we have.

And I said to them, "You look for yourself.

What is important for you?

If you want to have a tester, if you want to have a senior or junior

whatever, you look for that for yourself.

And in the movement, when you have the groups, you look around and say,

'Is this what I would like to have?'"

If that's okay, you don't have to make it very open and clear about it.

Because me and Kenny, we might disagree on some of the details, but we might

still agree on, A, the total I like.

Yeah.

So why would we have to have all the details, huh?

I don't want to work with a person in a blue shirt or maybe

for, to just say something very, very stupid, and Kenny might like

working with people in a blue shirt.

So that's fine if we're both in a different group.

Kenny's happy, I'm happy, and we never have to agree on let's never have a

person in a blue shirt in our team.

That's, that's a decision that we, we shouldn't make so that's a

very short version of a full day.

But because I think it was 4:00 by-- So the, the, that customer came to me

somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00, so I had a, a chat, I think, around 10:00

with my boss, and we left the day, and I sent everybody home at 4:00.

I, I do remember that saying, "Okay."

and so that's another big decision, of course, because I basically decided

that a full group of 40 people would not write a single line of code.

But the end result was very clear, a team that was much more working

together, that really felt like, "Hey, this is a team decision."

It was hard, and I think that the, by the end of that sprint, we actually

delivered more software than if we would have kept working that same day.

Uh, so that's, uh, a decision that I took on how to make a

decision, a decision that I took.

Let's, okay, let's block this team, uh, to make a group decision.

Uh, but that's it.

Andrew Harmel-Law: that was super interesting.

Like, I'm just gonna make one comment, and then I'll-- 'cause I saw

Andrea and Kenny writing stuff down.

But like, like the decision that a decision is required, I think

is almost like the-- some of the most important things, right?

And it's interesting that you didn't decide that you or the

boss would decide for everyone.

You're like, "We're gonna…

I decide that we should decide," I think is a big deal here, especially

for like you say, like team dynamics.

Like who's in a team what the teams are and things.

I think that's very interesting 'cause I think, like you said,

right, it, it, it has a big impact on the work and how people work.

And also we might talk about the architecture as well.

But yeah, I think it's super interesting.

Go, Kenny.

yeah

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: Well, yeah, of course the, the

architecture we know, Conway's Law, that it, it has impact on how, how

things in the end, are, are shaped.

for me, I'm a big fan of a coach, a manager, a, a team

lead, whatever we call it.

We don't decide for them.

We, we do decide how to decide, and my decision technique was

walking around in, in silence.

And okay, there were some discussions at some point, but, most of it was in

silence, which is interesting because typically we always say engineers and

developers, they, they don't, they are not talkative people and they're, and

this is a tool without talking, and they hated it for, for a long time.

Andrew Harmel-Law: Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Like the, uh, that's the-- Yeah.

I, I've got a que- I'm gonna step aside for Andrea and Kenny.

But, um, like the discomfort of being like when you call people's

bluff and you're like, "You can decide," it's very interesting who…

Like, people will be like, "I hate this decision," but as soon as then you're

like, "Well, you can decide," they're like, "Whoa, that's not what I meant.

I just meant I want to blame you,

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: I just meant to blame you.

Andrew Harmel-Law: of it or do it myself 'cause it's hard, right?"

So Yeah.

Go, Kenny or Andrea

Yeah, I, I think that's the most interesting

bit what you're saying, right?

I, I'm not gonna decide for you, but I'm gonna help you decide.

And it's interesting that people are so, dissatisfied with someone

else decided, but then solution is someone else deciding.

That I think that was an interesting bit.

But the one I wanted to go into is, so you clearly had a subculture of French

speakers and Dutch speakers, right?

which in Belgium is a, is a huge thing.

If I look at where I come from, the Netherlands, we all speak Dutch.

We also have these subcultures, and I think it's interesting to see it visually.

But did you spot any other subcultures happening?

Because the thing I'm, I'm thinking about when you do this

is will these subcultures…

So we call it friends politics, right?

A little bit in, in, in Dutch.

I'm not sure if it's an English word, but we call it friends politics.

It's an exact translation, of Dutch.

But would the staying with your friends be actually the most optimal

Team set up because there might be too much of a social anxiety that people

don't dare to say, "Hey, I don't like you, Andrea, but you're very knowledgeable,

so I want to be in your team even though we're not friends," right?

But, you know, there's this trade-off between do I go where it's comfortable

or do I go where it's discomfortable, but it's the best for the, the

Did you spot any of that, and did

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: The,

into

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: just going into that, I think the word

with friends politics is cronism, or cronyism, something like that.

That's, I think that's the word you were looking for.

Andrew Harmel-Law: Yeah.

That's one

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: I, I heard that before.

Um, um, I didn't-- Well, this was the most obvious one, and this is the one

that 20 years later I still remember.

There were some others, and it, it, it, it should…

It's dangerous to say that it was just the French and, and, and the Dutch, but

it was very clear that there's, four French people really sticking together.

Of course, if you're 40 and only four French-speaking and

most of them are Dutch-speaking, that's, that, that is a, a risk.

there was, at least one more or less senior guy, senior person in these French,

and the three others were more junior.

So I think he was also kind of mentoring or wanting to mentor these people.

so there could be something more going on than just the language, but that was the

thing that I do remember most of that.

but there was definitely also, yeah, some other strong people that, yeah,

that, in the beginning wanted to stay together and in the end, and that's

maybe also another thing, one of the people that really s- was really working

a lot together, so two strong, two strong people were really in most of the

exercise staying together, and in the last edition or last version, they split off.

They actually went, with, on two different teams, and I think that was a little bit

what you were just describing, Kenny.

Someone realizing like, "Oh, this team will be better if we're

actually in different teams.

We like to work together, but it's good to have seniors in both parts

and, and we consider ourselves both the two most seniors."

Or no, I, I, I don't know if I think they…

I think now looking back, that these two were the most senior

people in the team, and they moved to s- to two different sub-teams.

and so they really, yeah, they decided, or one of them at least

decided, "Let's, okay, I put myself in another team where I can help more."

So do you, do you know, like, what happened after a

few weeks of this team configuration or even a few months or anything?

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: so that in, as long as I stayed there for,

like I said, more than a year, that the team composition didn't really change.

Um, um, there was-- Well, that's not really true because, so at some point, um,

um, there was, some layoff round, so we had to, to let go a couple people, which

by the way, I also did in a very open way.

I was told at some point we will have to let go, I don't know the

percentage, but let's say 10% of the team, or no, pr-probably more 20%.

I also called my boss and we decided let's take a little bit, I think half a day,

and I think the next day we openly said, "This is the thing that we had and, will

give us-- I will talk to everybody openly.

Give us two weeks and we'll tell you about the decision."

The fact that we didn't hide that, there was one person that was really

angry about that, but most peop- there was actually two people that came to

me and said, "If I'm already looking for another job, so if you want to get

somebody out, ge-kick me out of that."

Uh, so that helped also a lot.

So in that change, in that sense, it changed a little bit, but with, um,

how in the end, the, um, we only took, we, we took about the same amount of

people in the sa- in the three teams.

So the teams, the people who stayed there stayed in the same team

that they were at, at the end.

So in that sense, not much changed.

And later on, well, still many people called me later and said they really liked

that, the end of, yeah, the, the way the teams were organized and things like that

I have two questions, and it has to do with

power dynamics and maybe, uh, the, the, the I, I forgetting the name.

Uh, people who are not represented too much, right?

There's not usually the minority.

They're a minority, but they're more the minority.

so there were two people on holiday.

That's

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: Mhm

How did they react when they came back?

That was my first question.

I'm very curious about that because things are already

decided and they weren't in there.

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: Yeah.

power dynamic

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: I, I don't remember anymore how we represent.

I think we used a chair to represent them or something, so they actually,

people actually had to move the chairs.

Um, my boss did call both of them during the day.

so they were informed during the day.

but of course, there was not much to, to do.

and so they were basically, I think they were both on a different team

and both with a friend or something like that, s- somebody who, who would

say, "Okay, I will, I'll make sure."

So they had some conversat- That person, that friend had a

conversation with them also over the phone, if I remember correctly.

But there, I have to say, it's 20 years ago, so I might have, some of

the details I might have forgotten.

Um, I did have a conversation with them.

I think one came back the next day.

It was just a one-day holiday.

The other was a week or two, something like that, so.

But I did have a conversation with both of them the day that they came back.

I, I think I also offered them that if they wanted to change,

that they could move things around.

but basically that w- I hadn't, I w- I w- I had a hard time myself if, how

I would do that, because the best way would then be, again, to do the same

exercise, and I didn't want to use another day for doing the same exercise again.

So I was really happy that they both said, "It's okay, I'm

not going to change anything."

because that was in my head the hardest part, how would I solve this?

Yeah.

and then because those were out, but then in the group there might be

minorities or people who don't speak up or people who are like, maybe, not

part of the major higher rankings.

How do you make sure that

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: well, this is,

people also,

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: I did point out to the people that, Well, for me, this

is one of the things, the fact that you're moving yourself, that everybody keeps

moving, you don't have to explain much.

Yeah.

And it's not that somebody, some- Well, there is one part where I

said that people were blocking, but people never moved somebody.

I did allow that at some point.

I said, "Okay, if you would want to move somebody, who, who would you move?"

Because there was one complaint and I said, "Okay, if you

want you can move somebody."

But nobody dared to do that.

So there was not at that level trust that, and I'm not sure if

that would've been really healthy, but I did allow that at some point.

but basically, yeah, the, even then, if I would move Kenny or Andrea somewhere,

they might still move back to the place where they were or move somewhere else.

but at some point there was one person really not in any of the groups.

That's the person that started crying.

that was really at some point not knowing, having a hard time.

I would, I, I, l- now looking back, that's probably the person that felt as

a minority that didn't feel comfortable speaking up, taking a position.

but when that person, got, got out of the room, talked with my boss and came

back, that person took a position.

Yeah.

Because basically my boss, I, I, I, I wasn't there, so I don't know what,

what was said, but I, the feeling I have is that, or with the debriefing I had

with Geert, he, he said something to me that, if I remember, it was something

like, "Okay, you don't feel comfortable.

You want to go to that group, but you're not sure if people would like you.

Well, you just need to try it yourself again.

Take that responsibility yourself.

Put yourself in that group and see if they allow you."

And that happened not much after people blocked someone before,

so that person felt like, "Oh, I don't want to feel blocked."

But this is the interesting, this is a person that feels that, that, that is

scared and doesn't want to take up a position and people love that person.

They actually were making place for that person to join in where

that was a completely opposite.

and so that gave…

I, I saw, I, I saw the smile coming onto that person when going into a circle

and people making place and really feeling like, "Oh, I'm welcome here."

Yeah, so I think when you do this, it helps when you

have someone who can pick these people up when something happens, right?

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: I was really happy that I didn't do it

alone, that I had a co-facilitator.

Even it, it, it was dangerous to have Geert there because he was the boss,

so of course he, people might feel less safe with the boss being there.

But that was the only option I had.

And it's important, of course, to have a facilitator to do that, to also

sometimes pick up, "I see people."

I didn't say, "Hey, I saw you blocked that."

I wasn't sure how to, to handle that.

But basically that pe- that person moved to somewhere else, and that,

that thing got resolved without it.

But other things I literally said so.

I see that, uh, this, these people are, are not moving or you're not moving much.

You, you seem to complain about others, but you're not moving yourself.

Uh, how, how is that?

And, and things like that.

And I did push back.

I told you like I would give you tools to make decisions yourself.

Wasn't clear what that meant.

Well, this is one of these tools.

Andrew Harmel-Law: Yeah

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: back again, it's your responsibility

Andrew Harmel-Law: That's what's quite clear to me, Eve.

Like you and the manager are aware of the kind of like the anthropology

maybe like with a small A, not

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: Mhm

Andrew Harmel-Law: I'm aware Kenny's, wife is a proper capital A

anthropologist, I think, Kenny, right?

But, but like you're aware of the dynamics and lots of the kind of…

'Cause there's many levels of all of this stuff, right?

And you need to-- If you ignore lots of it or even some of it, it

can have a big impact, and I think that's maybe one of the reasons

why it was so successful, right?

And there was like

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: Yep.

Andrew Harmel-Law: you're catching people while

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: well

Andrew Harmel-Law: feeling, exposed and all that kind of stuff

and-- But, but leaving them with the, with the decision, right?

Not, not going, "Okay, right.

This is way too hard.

We'll just take it for you," 'cause that's what people…

The discomfort is what they were expressing, right?

As opposed to the fact they didn't want to decide.

'Cause this stuff is hard, right?

So,

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: Yeah, and I was happy or I was lucky to have

a boss that was really supportive.

He's now working as a really good agile coach, so he did have a lot of

these qualities already at that time.

so, yeah, I've, had multiple more opportunities to work with him,

and I could definitely see that he understands a lot of that dynamics

Andrew Harmel-Law: Yeah, I think that's a good quality of like…

'Cause I'm, I mean, I'm very like an-- I'm not anti-manager, but I think

like, like there's lots of people who become managers because of w- what's

known in the UK as the Peter principle.

You get pr-

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: Exactly

Andrew Harmel-Law: who get promoted, right?

And then you get given these people who you're responsible for.

But there are lots of responsibilities, right?

Like the UK we call it like pastoral care.

You're like making sure that they, you know, that, that if their life outside

of work gets complicated, you make sure that they can, you know, like that, that

they know where-- that they're supported and that, that you're aware of all of

their needs and all that kind of stuff.

And that's super important, right?

And this was like a very specific example of where they could give you,

they could offer that as a, as a, as a capability to the rest of the team, right?

But not do the deciding.

They're like, "You, you folks can decide, but I care that

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: Exactly

Andrew Harmel-Law: know that somebody thinks this, and we know that there's

history here, and we know that people speak, you know, primary languages and

different languages and stuff," right?

And then using like maybe reflecting, like you said, reflecting that back

into the team and acknowledging it out loud, which sounds bes- like another

thing that you did to, to call the implicit stuff out explicitly and

then say, "Right, these are all of the dynamics that you have to work with."

That's very interesting to me.

Andrew, you've got your hand up.

have maybe possibly a, a closing question, because I

think we're, we're about to, to kind of be at, on the kinda time.

And, and that's the…

You know, I keep thinking about, when you're talking this person

that other person blocked.

and, and I kinda think that's a very strong social cue for something.

And, and I can understand why not doing something during the day might be the…

It's like it's, you know, okay, that's, know, I understand why you would do that.

Also, alternatives are-- of them are great really.

But, did you do something with that information afterwards?

'Cause, 'cause it's like, you know, it just, it's a very, very strong signal,

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: Mhm.

for someone to

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: Ehm

kinda like, "Oh," you know, kinda, "Don't, we don't

really want to," they're like, maybe even kind of non-verbal kind of

language being like, "Ooh, kinda…"

to be like, "No, I'm blocking you,"

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: It's,

it's quite strong

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: Yes, it's, that person is still working at

that company because, yeah, I just had an interaction with them, with that same

company, a year ago, something like that.

and I discovered that, that, that person that was blocked is still there.

It's a person, what I would say a person that you need a manual to work with.

Um, it's, um, I'm not 100% sure if I would call this person a senior.

He's definitely a medior, but he's, he's not good at coaching other people.

He's very opinionated, um, not, uh, rather smart, I would say.

But you need some kind of manual to work with because it's, yeah, he has

some, some quirks, um, with that.

Um, and I had, I had a hard time with that person also working

together, at that moment.

but I could see, and what I've noticed a year, when I, when I noticed that this

person was still at that company, that he, he basically was anti-Agile and anti

working together in groups and whatever 20 years ago, and he moved a lot more.

he's, a big fan of, yeah, of some of the work of, Robin Mar- Robert Martin, Bob

Martin, and, and some of the other stuff.

So he moved a little more in-into that space.

he still has a manual to work with, but, he, he also calmed down in a sense

that it's, it's easier to work with that person now than, than 20 years ago.

so, but, there was already-- Well, there were still other things going on in

that company, and I still was working in myself, so I didn't do much with

that in, in the next couple of days.

I actually had to do much work defending, together with my boss

that we hadn't worked for one day, because that was also the other thing.

Of course, the person that complained most of that was that person that said,

"The yellow team can't work for me."

So basically, we did spend a day organizing that.

But this person, which is no longer with the company, by the way, so

that's also an interesting information.

He, he, I think he left, in the next couple of months after that.

Andrew Harmel-Law: Yeah

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: also interesting is that the, not

that same day, but I think the next week, I, I was at, an, an Agile

event and people were talking to me, "Oh, you're at that company.

I heard this and that happened."

Like, "How do you know this?

I was that person that did that, but how do you from an outside organization

have already heard that something like this happened inside our organization?"

So things moved around.

I, I, I, I personally didn't speak about that because I was

still processing everything.

Uh, but I realized there that people found that a really interesting story.

I was just trying to do my job basically, but But then later over

the years, I came to realize like, "Oh, okay, I did something that

is not so usual for people to do."

Andrew Harmel-Law: Yeah.

Yeah, that's…

Yeah, thanks, Eve.

That was fantastic.

there's a lot to process for me in that as well, actually.

I need to be thinking about it.

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: And I was dead tired at the end of the day.

I haven't-- didn't have to do much, but, uh, I had to do a lot.

I mean, I think everybody who does facilitation might understand

this, but I think it's also important to keep mentioning.

A day like this, you're completely exhausted at the end of the day,

even if you didn't say much.

There is so much energy, so much to process.

so yeah, there is still a lot that, that is energy that, that, yeah,

that you need to regain at that point

Andrew Harmel-Law: No, it's a good way to close actually.

So, yeah, thanks Eve for sharing the story.

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: You're welcome

Andrew Harmel-Law: And, join us soon everybody, for another

episode of, Stories of Facilitating Software Design and Architecture.

I'm not very good at remembering what the title of our own podcast is.

you

Andrew Harmel-Law: yeah, thanks Eve.

That was fantastic.

Cheers folks.

awesome.

Thank

Thank you.

Cheers

Yves Hanoulle (he/him) Europe: Welcome