Yeah welcome to everybody and cheers. So as Tom said we do run these sessions in person now again and we also went through the lockdowns we did quite a few virtual ones in our social distance in but generally they are natural about something we don't have a gender or a topic just talking about something it takes us to drink a pint of something record it stick it out on the internet and somehow people seem to enjoy it. Yeah we don't have a theme or a topic in mind one of the things that we're asking to do in the break area is just to have a chat think about some topics that are going on you might be interested in talking a little bit more about hearing more about we usually explain what we're drinking and where we are so this my background is a pub in my hometown of Cheltenham it's called The Restoration and it was a teenage organizer over 350 years old it's the older pillar of Cheltenham actually and I'm drinking this which is a collaboration between Broodog and a mental health charity called Sad AF. Now to me AF stands for something different than what it means on the tin and what it means on the alcohol free and so I've got a case of this it's um the hashtag is I am whole it's about mostly mental health and in particular seasonal affected disorder which has affected me the last time of year so cheers what have you got Mr Goddard? Well as Jeff will know I'm doing dry January and I'm really enjoying it so I've got um it is it's a copperberg a little I'm a big cider drinker so if you can see that's a little copperberg mixed berry alcohol free cider I think obviously yeah it's um it just tastes like fizzieribina really so it's um it's very it's like a child's like a child's drink really so um yeah that's that's that's what I'm on tonight in the chat it is indeed a bespoke agile podcast class very nice available with with other merchandise like an agile podcast bottle can we get one can we go on the website and order them yeah you can yeah that.com um so yeah the help whatever you want to talk about let us know in the channel which is yeah we'll have a little bit of small talk where you have to think about um so what's uh where are you for what's that pub you don't know where the pub is um we were trying to work it out by deduction there's a very stationary bar barman behind me who's not not not moved at all if people zoom in really closely on my uh on the bar there is some reference to London or the Thames I think but yeah it's it's uh I stole the photo from Google say I'm not sure where it is I was imagining that some of the the conversations today would be around the restrictions changing tomorrow uh because I imagine that's on people's minds I got that wrong today I thought it was today that restrictions had changed so I got on the bus and I got on the train without a mask on why is everyone still got their masks I thought I thought this had changed and and then I saw I googled it and I realized it was tomorrow and I thought I can't put my mask on now because I've been sat on the train for 15 minutes I basically made my stand of I'm medically exempt therefore that's why I'm not wearing a mask putting a mask on now would make me look sick so I stuck it out for the next 15 minutes but then wore it on the way back but I think because I checked I looked at the BBC website today I think the guidance for the guidance for working from home has changed so that's already changed I think but it's the masks on public transport and stuff and shops that changes tomorrow okay that changed last week didn't it yeah work from home changed on the day that it got announced didn't it yes it was pretty immediate that was yeah so there's for me that that was that was a confusing thing confusing message around the transparency so I guess so if they're going increase the restrictions then having some advance warning I think it's quite useful because people don't want to get caught out but if you're reducing the restrictions why is advance warning necessary I like you're going to get caught doing something and so that just confused people there we go so yeah I presume most of you are still working from home many of you thumbs up if you are going back to the office or thinking about going back to the office now restrictions changed nobody sort of maybe most people know probably hybrid working for us all isn't it well so that's that's the term isn't it but I don't I think hybrid working is going to be different for everyone so yeah I think the company I work for are kind of saying that office work is now now possible so you can go back and see office because the guidance changed but the company's still got their own kind of guidelines and and one of which is you know limit large gatherings of people and I kind of see that as the only real advantage of going to the office is having those kind of face-to-face interactions with larger groups so the appeal to going to the office isn't really there for me until the company's guidance changes yeah would large be seven I guess it's open to interpretation but I guess any more than four they're kind of suggesting is a large group I think it also depends on your the layout of your office doesn't it as well the idea that you know if you've got large open plan areas and big spacious high ceilinged meeting rooms then you generally will feel less less claustrophobic anyway and I think you know that will probably have a bearing on it it's basically a company you can go back into the office but you can't book a meeting room or a collaboration space for more than an hour okay limited by time that could be an interesting constraint right rather than how long how long is this going to take it's how much can we do it now it's about focus doesn't it I've only got an hour we're going to use it effectively absolute time boxing yeah we used to find that people banging on door we couldn't miss meeting generate you forget about those things you still have them there was it I don't know if it's true or not but there was um someone told me it might be like kind of one of these urban myths that in amazon they um they instituted a kind of a lean canvas policy for for meeting room bookings so if you really wanted the meeting room you'd have to basically fill out a 15 minute lean canvas in order to justify its booking and they found that you know people just didn't bother so there's loads of meeting room space because people couldn't be bothered to go through the process I didn't really want the room that much whether that's true or not I don't know what are those stories what were the consequences consequences of what well so I could imagine this would be upsides to that fewer unnecessary meetings but you could imagine some downsides where people who could have benefited from being in a room together didn't yeah we'll just go off we'll go for a walk go elsewhere it's not a bad thing so I mean for me I'd like to I like the experimental nature of it I'd like to know what the what the hypothesis was somewhere really cool I suppose it was to cut down on the unnecessary meetings the idea if you can't justify why you need a meeting on it in 15 minutes then you don't really need the meeting conversely you'd see that if there's an open meeting room then you just jump in it yeah so if that's not top of the agenda because you're all going to be staying at home and you have to stay at home or anything what else is what else is hot news hot topics for people in North Antioch any questions any any hot potatoes to throw in there I guess one of the one of the biggest issues isn't it about being remote is I suppose the engagement thing is I suppose like the cameras on thing and you don't I don't think people may potentially not as engaged maybe being remote I mean I was about to say is that the same thing David yeah so it's been a constant struggle for the last two years keeping people engaged in meetings and you always know when they're not is when you refer to them they go sorry I missed that what is it because they're off doing something else on the iPhone whatever yeah and are there any little tools I guess for keeping people engaged in meetings and it was harder for us actually for the first year of Barclays the network didn't cope so we couldn't have a video on a tool so they could be doing whatever in their PJs box of shorts dancing around who knows but uh yeah well certainly actually um we we were struggling with one of his messages and so um we know somebody our narrative school who is doing GCSEs who offered some one-to-one tuition and I picked him up from it the other day and I said that it was really good she kind of she explained stuff which was good but she also knew when I was zoning out and so she she brought me back sit in the classroom they'll be talking to somebody else and I just I'll zone out and I don't realize I've zoned out and like 20 minutes have gone by so but in that she knew when I was zoning out and brought me back with a question and I think that's that's the hard thing is in a room you can it's not about sensing I don't think it's a spider sense thing I just you've just got more cues to notice um but the snoring used to be a good sign one of the one of the best facilitation tips that I heard was um if you want to make sure someone's engaged before you start talking around that subject you'd say um so we're going to I'm going to start talking about this so I'm going to mention this topic and Darren I'd like to come back to you when I finish talking to hear what you really think so you you actually kind of call someone out before you started talking about it and then they're pretty much tuned into exactly everything you're saying when and they know you were waiting for you to finish so it's quite it's a bit it's more individual but it certainly helps focus that that person on what you're saying that's I like that technique and it it reminds me of that well it was while I was doing some maybe some some kind of neuroscience and LP type training or something like that was different areas of the brain and how even a really noisy room you can hear your name being mentioned across the room because it flags something when it gets your attention and you then lose focus and whatever conversation you were having because you just know someone over there was talking about yeah and and that whatever triggers there are because it's not just your name it's anything that you're interested in really and so there are probably a number of hot trigger words that you could you know your Darren brands or whatever could drop in subtly that will keep people on their toes but just keep activating that part of the brain but I my general tactic is short and sharp to look keep things up very very short and then we want another thing and then we want to wrap up and summarize or something like that so we were just talking beforehand I haven't I experimented with zoom training and I don't do it I don't like it it went okay but I like it Paul's doing both he's in the middle of an ab test at the moment so we did an in-person one maybe Tuesday and he's doing a virtual one Thursday Friday to see what the update is I've I've done virtual one-to-one coaching since before the pandemic they resume and that were brilliant in fact there were a number of advantages to that for me but training not so much workshops not so much I've turned down a lot of work because I'm pretty convinced it won't work virtually so I was asked to do the ways of working workshop which wanted to get at the root of basically these groups of people who work collaboratively and I just didn't think that would be resolved with everybody on zoom over in the camera so I turned it down um the yeah what was it so yeah I mean there are some there are some flags there that I can't share but in in general the dynamics that I was I was thinking about the behaviors and the engagement I would I would feel would need a lot more trust a lot more trust to be built so I think trust in general is lower when you you don't have physical proximity and you don't have physical contact and so I think if you've got a well-established group then they will make things work they will find ways around that and I think that will only get better over time and I think it's got significantly better because it had to get significantly better in the last 18 months but it's still a hell of a long way to go hell of a long way to go uh my worry so talking about this engagement thing is having been part of teams and organizations when this all started kicking off and seeing it throughout I've seen engagement levels I wish I'd sort of tracked that somehow I'm sure some people have engagement levels dropped significantly over the last 18 months because the honeymoon periods worn off people again a bit fed up with it the exceptions that they were making and the concentration they were making it wasn't sustainable for the long term and then you know I was saying to Paul I was reading an article by someone who was predicting that bar 2022 is going to be the year of the employee because they can basically demand whatever work conditions they want at the moment there's more jobs than people and employees are struggling to offer whatever they can to get talent she's worried that 2023 is going to be the year before she calls the employer regret because they're going to be saddled with very very flexible working policies and ineffective inefficient processes and disengaged isolated people but once you've got them out of the office it's going to be very difficult to get back and I don't know if there's truth to that but she was citing a number of studies around engagement productivity morale that we were a bit worrying if that's going to be the trend I think a lot of it is also is novelty for me as someone who I was really looking forward this week to driving to Cardiff just because not because it's Cardiff just because it's a it's a day out it's oh I've got a trip to I've got a little journey to do and I can you know do the things that I used to do I could put my headphones in and listen to music or whatever in the car and stuff and listen to a podcast on the way and come out for dinner and all these things that I think there's um I think there's an element of that that that people will miss that the idea of the social the time you know the journey to get even to get the journey to get to work the walk whatever is the cycle that the the commute yes it can be painful I appreciate that but there's um there is a benefit to that I remember being on a course a long time ago in BT and that they're a couple of what the course was but one thing I remember is it takes 20 minutes to decompress the day and your journey home is a great way to do that and the difference now for me and probably many of us is that our work is is not 20 minutes from our home it's become the same place so from a work aspect great you're getting more work done because you're at home but me personally I'm finding it very difficult to separate the two sometimes and and the lines have become very blurred and I'll be checking my emails well into the evenings and I'll be getting up early first a first thing in the morning the first thing I'm doing is turning my machine on at 7am which I would never have done before so the lines are becoming a lot more blurred and for me that it was refreshing maybe not it's not going to be every day for me but just to make have a journey to go somewhere do something and and to change things up a bit I think it seems that certain companies seem to be hemorrhaging certain roles because they're not offering fully remote as well but it seems there's obviously it seems that there's patterns in the sorts of people that are moving on for that reason but yeah we've lost a lot of people in certain roles for that reason who have moved into roles where companies are offering fully remote a lot of good talent as well yeah with those times I don't know the answer to this but I have a suspicion that some of that talent while being very valuable in many ways to that organisation may well never be a valuable member of an agile team because one of the reasons they want to be fully remote is they they want to work on their way they don't want to be part of a collaborative team who rely on one another and work with one another to evolve something and that's not to say that they're bad or bad at things or they're bad at things at all but it is a way of perhaps self-selecting into an environment that is more suitable to your personality perhaps do you do you have a gut feel of I mean I suppose it's difficult to say you know gut feel policy is that it should be a percentage split but do you have a gut feel based on experience of what a good policy would be not as a not percentage it might just be you know you know usually discretion to come in when it's it seems like an opportunity when you need to come in yeah what would a what would a policy look like would to treat everybody different to treat them the same so if I was running a company and I had I had product development team my belief is that an agile approach is the best way to build and develop a new product so I wouldn't want all those people spread all over the world I would want if I could I would want people in the same time zone in the same class but if I had work that didn't require collaboration then I would want the best people wherever they are and I think every organization is going to have a mix of those which kind of brings me on to Ian's question which is around working in an organization that's that's trying to be safe and worried that the organizational culture will be challenged and without wishing to do by any kind of legal challenge I would say I would probably say that my my suspicions would be similar to yours Ian and my my suggestion for leaders is to is to try and get some kind of very visualization of the organizational culture now work out what kind of organizational culture they think is appropriate for the space that they're in and then get as much real-time data as they possibly can to test whether the changes they're making are creating more stories that map to that new culture or more stories that map to the old culture they're always doing that they're not included within safe but they're always doing that and that kind of transparency and so there's a really good sort of answer in there which is we've talked to them about what what their what their beliefs are what their views are what their values are what they're hoping to get from us and that sense of transparency I think we've come back to that previous question from me but I'm hiring somebody if I was in that hiring position I'd be saying that this these are the beliefs this is how we operate this is how we believe we're going to deliver value so if you're going to join this organization this is this is what we've come one from where you happen to be there now a lot of people in their current organization probably didn't have that conversation so I feel for them that this is an opportunity to rebalance things or you know companies hiring humanly physically yeah and they're really struggling with it because like you said Jeff employees are demanding and there is plenty of other options that provide flexible working I think so I know another company that's that's been recruiting all the way through the pandemic um but they they had a pretty firm I wouldn't I wouldn't say it's as firm as the this other company but they wanted to hire hire people with the intention of saying largely by default we are an in-person on-site company okay we value people being in the office regardless really of their roles I think but that what they said was that you've got to try and anticipate and assume um by default where we would like to we want to be an on-site company but with we have we can be flexible if we need to be okay so if you need to be at home to take a parcel delivery on a Friday you know be at home on a Friday but I think the um the overwhelming drive was not exclusively but by by and large you're going to be you're going to be face-to-face with people in the office every day if we can now for me the key is has the rationale for that being explained and does it make sense does it land yeah I think it has yeah and what we see mostly in the news right is banks have told their workers they have to come back to the office now if the message is you come back to the office regardless just do it you're a you're our employee we you are contracted to we want you to therefore you will then even if it's the right thing it will be resisting um and that to me smacks of with a trustee which we then lead to a distrustful relationship but if it's a case of but it's poor saying that we understand things that things are difficult things have changed and we're flexible but this is this is what we need to be successful as an organization you might think that's a fair conversation to have and then you'll see these organizations some will come out of this and they will they will fail because they haven't approached it correctly some will not be able to replace the people they've got some will go too far the other way and and some people will probably make decisions that go too far because that's what we do and then it will settle down and when it does settle down there will be some organizations that are in a much better place some organizations they're in a terrible place and others that will be able to learn from their lessons such as the way of the other doctors another question from Josh um wanting to move from developer to project manager so you've done that paul haha paul used to be a java developer i was an amazing java developer well when paul joined when paul joined our team our boss described him as a java guru i was like the saviour of jeff i was described as yeah i was coming from Cardiff to Exeter or to Bristol big money transfer in the world of BT i was uh i was going to save that team and bring them into the about the time the 20th it might work out that way that didn't it didn't make no um moving from developer into project management some ways to find this project management uh okay i think there's got to be a bit of a passion i think there's got to be a passion for anything so you know be able to explain your why so why do you want to move and not why do you want to get away from where you are but why do you want to be with me because there's two different things um and then you know really think about yourself think about your answer there's um it's a really good episode of have a pig i mean all of the episodes are big really good but there's one where madame diselle the nursery teacher asked the kids what they want to be when they grow up and one of them says oh i want to be a police so yeah that's interesting why do you want to be a policeman so i can tell people what to do and what do you want to be i want to be a teacher okay that's really good why do you want to be a teacher because i can tell people what to do this and everyone wants to do a bit different job because they can tell people to do because kids can't tell people what to do right there they're always told what to do um and that idea well why do you want to be a project manager is it because you see you see what you're going to control and there's no bad or whatever so what is it about that you need want and then find the organization the context the domain that will allow you to have that and the good thing with project management is that it spans because i used to be a project manager as well is that it spans industry it's it's kind of transferable skills in that way so you can then you can always find some industry that is struggling for project management and get some just get whatever experience you can because for me it wasn't wasn't necessary if i look back now wasn't necessary around the project i found a lot of projects quite boring really but it was around the team it was around people i wanted to be i wanted to help coordinate people i think that's how i kind of got involved in that and i found i was quite comfortable talking to people so i think you're right jeff i think it depends what aspects of that role and also if you've got this choice josh but i don't know if it's whether it's within the same company or whether you're looking broader than that of different companies but i would pay a lot if i was doing this again now i would pay a lot more attention to the company that the projects were in um is it the type of companies are they doing the types of things that i want that i want to be part of and that will probably increase my levels of passion for it i think that's it that's how i do things differently now the agile side of me would would say don't worry so much about the time yeah so if you've got a job as a developer and there is the potential for this team to become more agile then project managers so when we the team we had thousands of project managers but we didn't have the scrum masters and yeah the idea was just get rid of the project managers and hire some scrum masters and the idea that in an agile team you've got basically self-managing teams so we're expecting the developers to do a lot more self-management not just of themselves but of their colleagues as well so you have you have the opportunity there to take more management responsibility without having to find a new role so you can test yourself you can grow your skills you can get some experience you can prove to all the people that you can take this kind of responsibility you can do this kind of stuff while still having a bit of fun messing around with some code. Anybody else have any advice on that? I think that's yeah i think that's good advice chef i mean i'm a i'm a developer become project manager becomes scrum master and i fight how many if you like writing status reports and rate reports and standing in front with all the nav and your ass kicked week after week then yeah whatever floats your boat but i was much more interested in kind of the looking after the team the people management helping them resolve their their problems although i was a developer i wasn't one to to say right this is the way you should be doing it guys it's like okay tell me how you're going to solve this problem what do you need from me to help you solve the problem what resources you need who do i who do i need to tell to get off your backs and allow you to do stuff that kind of thing so yeah as i said in the chapter it depends what you want to do as a project if you want to be a traditional waterfall type project manager there's loads of stuff out there i personally would say stayed a hell of a way from prince but so they each for their own is interesting might you're talking about the the ass kicking that you used to get as a project manager and i think it goes back to what paul was saying about being careful about the organization you work for because that sounds like a a cultural thing rather than necessarily all project managers are in the firing line all the time well just just look at the apprentice and i mean i don't watch it some of you probably still watch the apprentice the idea that the project manager is the one on the line right they're the most likely to get fired but they're also the most likely to get the glory yeah and and that that is that it's a cultural baggage that comes along with the term but it's sort of as mike was hinting at it's kind of old school because the responsibilities in a more agile environment aren't there but that doesn't mean that there are this doesn't mean that's the only way like so there are other other places where project manager will have kind of accountability we will have responsibility and that's going to be the right thing and so so finding those environments is is key to making sure you're not a fish out of water let's tell you you're in the right palm josh is asking why why stay away from prince i might be mike was probably half joking about that it's not as useful if you're going to be operating in an agile environment because it's very structured very formulaic it's it's the whole premise of prince is wrong it's projects in controlled environments so it's like who the hell works in a controlled environment in that all good environments are out of control that is a hell of a lot more effective and appropriate than others but there are two variables that will affect no matter what environment we're in one is people the people add a level of complexity for any environment that have hell control and the other is technology this technology is always evolving and always advancing it's never it's never stays the same it's never predictable so you're always going to have elements of unknown and prince can cope with unknown but it can't cope very well with unknown so i i moved that's why i went that's a mesh of golden training course in here but i studied the insta i think you had a choice didn't you jeff you had a choice between prince two and scrum i made a choice so i was booked on a prince course back in 2002 and it was so basically i was a project manager so i needed to get a qualification so my boss said what are you doing on the prince two book case and it was in somewhere i'll say somewhere in the uk and then and it was it cost i'll say 15 and i happened to find that there was a certified scrum masterclass in boston massachusetts but with the flights and verification came to less than the prince two course so i said i can get a project management certification cheaper than the one that you're sending and just like people's brain flags that when you hear their name when vt heard the word cheaper they didn't hear anything else it's cheaper brilliant do it so i managed to get my csn instead of going on my prince two but while studying for it i think there's a lot that you can take from it i think you can take a lot from anything as long as you're not looking to apply it religiously yeah so there's a lot in there in terms of organization in terms of critical path in terms of defense management but you could probably take out applying different circumstances we had a lot of resistance back in bt in the day um saying you know about scrum's lack of governance and things like that and saying well prince prince has governance and it was a long time ago jeff but i remember we did a piece of work where we just literally mapped one to the other i think it went through the whole prince framework or the the the prince methodology and we mapped every and we and we mapped every stage gate every process point to an equivalent part of the scrum framework showed it to the auditors and they kind of went okay and then got them off our back for a long time um it can do the same things you know it's not it can handle them but prince just tends to be more heavyweight and more time consuming and it comes with a big old man i thought he probably still just does come with a big manual as well one of the first things it said like i can't because they have different versions but basically with the p.m. but the project manager of audio knowledge is why i think it was assessing the big book but right at the start of that it used to i don't know if it still does it used to say only use as much of this framework as we need yeah but what we found was that if there was something in there and it gave somebody an excuse for it to be used so it always too much framework always too much process was being used um and it it stifles not just innovation but delivery as well because there was so many stench cases but yeah i don't want to i think i hate safe more than i hate prince i was going to say do you do you feel that safe has replaced prince as yeah as an overblown framework i'll tell you why duck because prince nails its colors to the mast to me it is what it says it is and it makes no apologies whereas safe is waterfall in agile clothing it's pretending to be agile and it's nowhere near there you go ladies and gents you heard that it's been recorded jeff i said that with a finger that's going to be all over the internet tomorrow jeff what's quoting that it's like a way of selling very expensive training courses and certification courses but certainty sells doesn't it that kind of thing so you know recipes sell people love those things it's very attractive to the right type of people anything else anything actually good questions and the topics throw it at the end of the any other curveballs in there i wouldn't mind looking back to the remote teams uh topic if we can just earlier on you said that you turned down a gig because uh uh because it was a team that had difficulties but it sounds like they were the team that was in the boat maybe um now and you said no if you've got teams established and then they go remote it you can work i guess a lot of us probably going to be working with teams that were creative during all this and they're never going to be together so i guess the question is how do we help them i don't i know you wouldn't necessarily take that job off so i'll hold you up you might you might not but what what would you do if you were a work team where they were spread across the country or several countries and they weren't engaged so i i i was slightly facetious when i said i turned the okay so the more accurate thing more accurate description was i told the client that they would not get value for money spending that money with them they should save that money um and as it turned out they've waited restrictions have changed we've now got it set up in person but what so i gave you that clarification because my default response is the artist so meet whoever it is that you're working with where they are and do the best you can so and i always look to get that so the caveat it's not really a caveat but i suppose the critical variable there is does that team want to make the best of that situation and i i think for most teams that have been hired into it yeah they probably do because they've they've brought into this with they've gone into it with eyes wide open and there was um i can't forgive me i can't remember the full name but there's a there's a retrospective tool which is a very short exercise but it basically asks people um whether they feel whether they turned up to this retrospective and feel like a prisoner or a tourist or whatever and i think if you've got people who are remote you feel like a prisoner it's much harder to help them and it's much harder to help everybody else so i think it's definitely possible don't get me wrong it's definitely possible to have a really fully functioning team fully remote because we've been part of them on ourselves we've seen it even before and that we've seen it's a lot harder it takes a lot longer it requires more effort and everyone but with that kind of attitude you've got there David with how can i help them you've just increased your chances of success i've got a question if i may be so wrong okay so my team has been established during the pandemic um i want to know what everyone's views are on being a wee bit dictatorial i don't like the use of that word in this scenario but i've forced my team's hand to get them to try it so for instance i've said to them all my expectancy is at least one day a month we will all be together in a place that works for the majority because they're all over the place in in the UK but without that nudge it wouldn't be happening so i work for a bank and we are going back hybrid so the expectancy from the board is two days a week but that's up to you what those two people look like so to get my team together and start collaborating do the odd retro pace instead of in my row i've said and i've given them two months notice but from march for the rest of the year that's tuesday the month we're going to be together so ordinarily you'd let the team decide etc etc so what's your views on how i've approached this without without knowing more about the team i can't give you a brilliant answer my instinct knowing you is that you've you've sensed the room and that that kind of would have been welcomed so there are some there are some teams at some point who and this could be quite a touch of subject for some teams this could be quite a almost a taboo conversation you've heard i'm sure you've heard the idea of the silent majority where the few that complain fill the air and everybody asks i don't really want to have an argument about it so as soon as one person says hold on a minute i've got i've got a different need here or i've got a different perspective and okay maybe i can maybe i can join forces i've got someone on my side and the idea of just putting something out there i i guess my instinct would be if i was going to do something would be to almost put my my feelings out there i say that i i find it really difficult never seeing people i really miss the connection i really miss being able to to actually think things through and talk things through with other people i would really value seeing you all every now and again does anybody else feel the same you're quite right though jeff but i did read the room and that is why i've waited in before the silent majority had their voices because i knew who they are and i know it's coming so i kind of went in before they had the opportunity to wreck it do you think they will try and sabotage it when it happens there um maybe and i know oh yeah maybe yeah well i'm hoping that the the being together for the remainder will outweigh that i can imagine scenarios where you could take the this is this is going to happen you could take that this is going to happen because i would like this to happen because please do this for me there are lots of different ways of floating things different ways of making a decision but so you know i focus a lot on what makes a team a real team and one of the things that i see makes a real team is every one of that every member of that team will put themselves out and lift it there yeah the needs of their teammates not all the time but sometimes and if something is getting together was really really important once and once it was really really important to one of my teammates even if it was just one i would feel a really crap teammate if i be taken and also the other thing i was going to mention is around without without treading this very thin like fine line here between um into manipulation but but trying to look at other instances where other team members have done something else to help someone else out other instances or examples completely unrelated as a team in a retro or talking about bringing it up in a retro instances in the last sprint where we have gone out of our way to make someone else feel better or to make to allow and then that that that draws out other instances where it's nothing to do with with being being in room together but we've helped each other out or we've done something that we didn't want to do to make someone else feel better or to make someone else's day go go a bit smoother and if the teams can start agreeing on the things that they've done in the past it won't seem like such an outlandish thing to do it again in the future different questions can get different answers so um as a as a brief example asking for a vote how many people want to come in once a month and you might get 50 50 um asking mike would you would you join everybody in coming in once a month for our get together i know you don't particularly want to but would you do that like directly asking uh maybe say to mike what will it take for you to agree to come in once a month different questions different answers and so one thing i know you're very good at series reading the room and so just these things make sense to me it's going to it's going to be lots of these conversations and i think it's just another part of our working agreements as a team if they don't come say i'll join you just tell me where it is i'll come and join you you'll be so welcome you know cool um we we were told we had an hour with you and i think we reached that cheers all and that's it thank you very much cheers bottoms up cheers everyone cheers


Stove and in case you missed it Thursday there was news pertaining to the Yankees new captain during an interview with 10 10 wins New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that Aaron judge will at some point be formally presented with a key to the city in recognition of his historic 2022 season Adams also said his team is putting together the idea of now and that his group is in communication With the Yankees you see some other written notable Yankees that have received it Bucky Denton 78 Joe DiMaggio in April of 1994 and one of the previous captains Don Mattingly in August of 97


Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Inna alhamdulillahi na'hmaduhu nasda'inuhu. Without a doubt, certainly all praise, thanks and gratitude belongs to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Na'hmaduhu nasda'inuhu and that's why we praise Him, we thank Him for things that He has given to us. And we seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our souls and from the evil of our deeds. And we seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our souls and from the evil of our deeds. Allah says this in His book.  What is the address? What is He saying? Don't you ever forget that Allah is in Allah's presence and He's watching you constantly. The way He deserves it, the reason I am emphasizing it because that's what it is. Don't you dare. It is very, very strong language. Don't you dare forget we just said because Allah's presence is always there and you find yourself in a manner that you are departing this world while you are not in this full state of submission. I tell you, this is kind of hard to talk and breathe with this thing in your face. So we'll do insha'Allah. Allah says something else in His book. And this is the part of the ayah that I want to talk about and address to you guys insha'Allah for the next couple of minutes or so, a few minutes. Inna Allah la yoghayru ma bi qawmin hatta yoghayru ma bi anfusuhim. Incredibly important topic for us, what we face today, the challenges we face today. Think about the challenges that you're facing today yourself, whatever the challenge is. Undoubtedly the question comes in your mind saying, why this? Why this to me? Why not? I'm making all sorts of dua. For God's sake, I spent the entire 27th night waking up making dua and I don't see any changes. So what's up with that? Allah says He is not. Certainly, certainly He is not going to change. Allah is not going to change the condition of a people unless you bring change to yourself first. What does that mean? That means point a finger to yourself first, understand. What is it that you do to contribute towards the change? We spend entire month, 30 days. I don't want to hear from a single person saying, I'm not capable of changing. That is not true at all because we demonstrated. We showed that we are capable of change. We did entire month. What does that mean? We change our habits. We change our approach. We change our sleeping habits. We change our eating habits. We change everything about us for the entire month. You can do that. What is the take to do the change? That's what I do professionally. You got to understand the reason behind the change. You got to understand why are you making the change. You understand the importance of that change, whatever that might be. I'm talking to you generalistically.  There is something that you want to make a difference. You need to make that change. It works on the individual level. It works on the societal level. We are often quick to point finger at something, but we don't understand it. So you have to understand what is the reason behind the change. You got to understand what will happen if you do not make that change. What will be the consequences? What will be the repercussion of that change not taking place? You got to understand the reason behind it. Then you need to understand something else. What's in it for me? That's an acronym everyone uses in a professional environment. Allah uses that over and over again in the Qur'an. He gives you over and over again reasons for change. Reasons why should you do it? Here's a great example for you. Have you heard Jannat in Taji Min Tahtiha Lanhar? The rivers, you have the castles for you. They are in a waterfront property where the rivers run underneath that. Allah is giving you incentive for change. Telling you that this is what's up for you up there if you do things in this world a certain way. You got to have the desire for it. You got to know the reasons for it. You got to have the desires for it. You got to then build the ability for that towards it that I want to. Now I know why. I know the importance of it. I have the desire to do it. I want to get the ability to do so. What are the tools that you need to make that change? Keep that in mind. If any of these things are lacking and we don't take any initiatives, things are not going to change. Why? Because Allah says so. He is not. This is one of the sunnahs of Allah. There are a few things Allah says in the Quran that He does. This is how He does. This is one of those things giving you clear instructions. Things not going to change for you unless you are the one who is initiating it. Unless you are the one to bringing that to yourself. I'm going to sit here. Pause. Make a dua. You make the dua too. In the second part of the Qudbah, I'm going to tell you a couple of other things that Allah says. Okay. You're like, where do I start? Allah tells you where to start.isten! Inna.. This was one of the things clear instructions given to you by Allah. Allah's sunnah. He says this is what He's doing. You should do this. Here's another thing Allah says in the Quran that He does, and asking all of you to do the same thing. And what is that? Inna Allaha.. Certainly Allah and all the angelic forms. You can imagine how many of them are there. They do something on a continuous basis. So here's the keyword, continuous basis. Not like you and I that we do it for a few minutes or one time or two times and we just forget about it. No, continuous basis. What did they do? They sent salam and salutations to our beloved prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So Allah is telling you, do the same thing. Inna Allaha Ya'mur bila adi wa l-Ihsan. No, that's the other one I'm going to discuss. Inna Allaha wa malaikada hui salloon al-Nabi. Ya ayyuhal ladina amanu bilaevers. Sallu alaihi wa sallim utaslima. Allahumma salli ala Muhammadin wa ala ala al-Muhammad. Kama sallayta ala Ibrahim wa ala ala Ibrahim. Inna kahamid majid. Allahumma baareka ala Muhammadin wa ala ala ala Muhammad. Kama baarekta ala Ibrahim. Wa ala ala Ibrahim. Inna kahamid majid. Rabbana laa tu'aakhizna inna sinna wa fta'na. Rabbana wa laa tahmila alayna. Israan kamaa hamaltahu alal ladina min qablina. Rabbana wa laa tahmila maa laa taaqat ala nabi. Wa'afu anna wa aghafil lana wa rahmna anta maulana. Fansurna anal qawmil kaafirin. Ameen wa rahmat gaya rahman rahmin. Whenever you make dua, please remember all our brothers and sisters around the world, especially those who are the victims of oppression today as we speak. So, change. You say, okay, I got you. I heard you. I want to make change. Where do I start? Hey, I'm glad you asked because Allah tells you where to start. And that's how the khutbah ends. Everywhere around the world. Inna allah ya'umur bil adli wal ihsan wa ita eid al-kurbah. Allah is telling you, these are the three changes you should make.  Be just. Okay, I want to be just. Where do I start? Wa ita eid al-kurbah. Start with your own family. Start with your parents. Start with brothers, siblings, grandparents, cousins, whoever they are. Start from there. Wa lehsan. And then find out where you are. Find your status quo, where you are here. The example that I have given over and over again. I don't get tired of it. If you are a C student, C student, you know where you are. Make sure to do things that you become a better student, a B student, an A student. That's what lehsan is. That's what you start. Those are the changes you make. Well, okay. What other changes Allah says? Inna allaha ya'umur bela adi wa lehsan. Wa ita eid al-kurbah. Here's the flip side. Wa yanha analfah sha'i wal munkari wal ba'i. There are other three things that Allah says make a change to yourselves. Any forms of shamelessness, avoid it with all costs. Anytime you come across two different rulings or you're not comfortable with the ruling that you're trying to dig for a loophole, avoid all that. And the last change is oppression. And that's what we make to offer that from Allah SWT to save all the victims. And you do not wanna become a victim of oppression and you do not want to become oppressor. And then we conclude by reading the ayah of Quran again and we do pray, insha'Allah. Inna allaha ya'umur bela adi wa lehsan. Wa ita eid al-kurbah. Wa yanha analfah sha'i wal munkari wal ba'i. Ya'idakum lehallakum tadakkaroon. Ra'aqeem al-salaah al-sprey, insha'Allah. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. Ashad wa la ilaha illa Allah. Ashad wa al-na Muhammad al-Rasool Allah. Ayy al-as-salah, ayy al-alfala. Kad kamat al-salah, kad kamat al-salah. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. La ilaha illa Allah. All right, I cannot tell you to stand shoulder to shoulder because we can't stand shoulder to shoulder. So stand straight please. As-Salaamu Alaykum. Allahu Akbar. Alhamdulillahi Rabb-la alamin. Ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. Maliki yawm ad-din. Iyaka na'bud wa iyaka na'sta'een. Ihidna siraat al-mustaqeem. Siraat al-nadina na'amta alaihim. Wa-ir al-mawdubi alaihim wa-l-attaa. Sabbih isma rabbika alal ladhi qalaka fa-sawa wal ladhi. Qadr fa-hana wal ladhi. Aqraja al-mara'a fa-ja'alahu qutha'an ahwa. Sa-nukriu ka fa la-tansaa illa maasha Allah. Inna huya'lamu al-jahra wa ma yaghfa. Wani yasrakal il-yusraa fa-zakirin nafaat al-dhikraa. Sa-yadzakar man yaghshaa wa yatajannabohan. Ashqa al-nadiyasqal al-nara al-kubraa. Tumma la'yamu jubiha wa la'yamu.


Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm standing under a weeping willow tree by the River Missbourne in the very pleasant Buckinghamshire village off Little Missington. We have been here before. We've been to this bridge before when I did my Missbourne series and we walked through Little Missington It was the first episode where we started at Great Missington. We walked down here to Little Missington but what we're doing in today's video is we're going to go and have a look at the parish church in Little Missington because it wasn't open when we did the Missbourne one and it is today So it's something I've always wanted to feature on one of my videos. It really is a lovely church So that's where we're going to go. So we just we come down this road. This is the main centre of the village It is a very small village. The church is that way I'll just quickly show you the village centre. I do really like this direction sign they've got though So it's high teeth that way, whole more green that way And it sits in any spring. We've got some snow drops coming out So let's just have a very quick walk up to the village centre and then we'll walk back down to The question that was asked quite a lot When I did the Missbourne series is where does the name Missington and Missbourne come from? It's fairly sort of Obvious that there's a link very similar words. Now. I've heard apparently it's an Anglo-Saxon word for the middle of the valley That's how I understand it to be So I believe that's where the word Missington comes from. So we get to here. Here's the red line one of two pubs in the village And then I just want to show you this that there's a See if there's a giant, is that a baboon or giant gorilla? Quite an unusual thing to find. There is of course a Red lion. It'd be nice to go in there for a pint, but we won't today. So this is the village centre If you go that way that'll take you down to Amisham. You can do a lovely walk through Shard Lowe's There's a bus stop. I'm not sure if any buses serve the village anymore So what I'm gonna do now, I'll take you back this way to the other end of the village We'll go and have a look at the church If you're thinking it looks like I'm in a Midsummer Murders film set I have said this a few times in my videos The reason it looks like a Midsummer Murders film set is because technically it is. They have filmed various Midsummer Murders episodes in Little Missington and some of the other surrounding villages. You've got some of the hilltop villages such as the Lee Which is a few miles up the hill in that direction This is one of the valley villages of the children's and there really are some lovely villages around the children's. I already do You know, enjoy spending my time exploring them. This house in front of us This has definitely been in Midsummer Murders I'm not gonna say which episode to can't remember off the top of my head But it certainly has featured possibly more than once. It's definitely been in at least one Midsummer Murders episode though That's where we started down there Taylor's Lane We're coming up here apparently this house. I believe it's an Elizabethan house It was a bridgely in the shape of a knee for Queen Elizabeth. That's what I heard once. So it's a really lovely house I think I believe it's the manor house of the village. So we come to this other junction There's the church more of that in a moment There's another Nice old-fashioned direction sign. It looks like it probably should Samish and bits broken off So you got Homer Green up the hill that way went over Ellesbury in that direction So there you have a few more that's the old vicarage in there a few more of the lovely houses of the village So as we now walk past this house the one I said has definitely been in Midsummer Murders We come towards the parish church and there's something really quite spectacular in this church Which I'm looking forward to showing you once we get inside Let's just go across the road So here's the church. It looks as though they've repointed the wall Around the church because they've put all this tarp hoarding over and it seems to be weighted down I assume that's to make sure you know the frost doesn't damage the pointing work But anyway, here's the church Really attractive building And What I want to show you is something very spectacular inside that the church is open So we just arrive at the church now I'm just gonna quickly stop filming to put my face covering all so let's go have a look inside We come into the church. I believe what they are showing is How to be a good Christian? But you've got to remember this is in an era where most people couldn't read or write So it's a bit like watching a cartoon. It's all in cartoons To show you, you know, how it would have been I'm gonna do If you have a look you can see certain areas of them appear To be missing have a look up there See how there's rather big areas, which I suppose what's happened is it's been whitewashed over the years Painted over forgotten about wouldn't it be nice if we could bring them back and see them as we were? Well with some modern technology We have a button here on top of the rain nature Wonder what will happen if I press this button Making a bit of a noise. I seem to have restored some of them I thought I could bring those ones back But I'm obviously not that as much of as clever as I thought I was but have a look at that Up there we have projected onto the walls Some of what is lost So, you know, it's really a nice feature that we can see, you know, what has been lost and what we You know and wouldn't otherwise see I'll just take you through here. This is the chance Here we get a bit of a close-up view of some of the That's much too cartoon like that. But some of the more decorative where it appears we got crosses if you can see them in And a bit more of it here to see what I'm saying about the white wash.  Oh, that stained glass window She's physically showing the battle. We've got the airplanes. That's why they've been shot out of the sky And you know, there we have bombs going off You can probably see the church has fairly recently had a lot of money spent on it And I remember I came here one time and they said always will be your last chance. I've looked in here for a while It's all gonna be restored and I think you know, they've done a great job of I believe in there, we're not gonna be able to go in there But there's like a private mausoleum and it has it's built in a different style So what we'll do I'll go outside walk around the outside of the church and There is to see there but before we go, let's have one last look at how At the touch of a button we bought back some of those medieval wall paintings So let's go outside. So I think that's a really really nice feature. They've got here So as you come out out here Take my mask off now As soon as we're no longer inside. So just go for a quick walk around the church yard And then I'm going to go for my own little walk probably along the Miss Bourne Valley So this is the cemetery the cemetery as we're most churches. It's outgrown itself So there's now another cemetery on the other side of the road Look at this. It looks like it's been snowing. It hasn't The snow drops have come out look at that Through the graves of the snow drops and just down there in the field the River Miss Bourne flows through there and Probably if a train went along now, we'd see a train on the ex-great central main line in a few Animals in the field Cows that's gone See the cows look at them all. Yeah, they're all looked up. Well one of them's looking at me He's seen me with a camera So, yeah, we've got cattle. We've got the River Miss Bourne. It is one right here. See if he wants to say hello. Hello Hello I'm just filming You're gonna be a star on YouTube you are But I think he kind of has what to make of me. I'm gonna leave him to it by probably her actually So let's just have a quick walk around the church So if you look from here, you can see the building see with the hip truth That's the one that I said is like a private mausoleum. It's built in a different style We'll have another look as we get to it and then just through here It's kind of in someone's garden, but since we can see it clearly from the church yard. I'll show it to you There's a really beautiful garden in there lots of snow drops and there's all these tributaries of the Miss Bourne Which so that's so what you see down there a Lot of water and that's not the main course of the Miss Bourne. So that will all flow into the main course of the Miss Bourne Here's that and that more so than somewhere in the church. We never actually went in that's that building I believe it's the families private mausoleum. I'll just take you around. We'll see the chancellery end of the church and then as I said, I'm gonna get go for my own walk around around the area Here's the Chancellery. So that yeah, that's the chancellery. This would be No I'm getting confused. Yeah, that's the chancellery. That'll be the other chapel. I believe yeah, and then that's the what been in all the South Isle So I hope you enjoyed this video Quick look at the little Missingdon parish church. It really is a lovely church. I really enjoy coming here And you know why not come out this way? Yourself and go for a walk and I believe in the summer they do do cream teas which also makes any visit to a church very nice So thank you very much for watching. Please do feel free to like subscribe and comment. Thank you very much and goodbye