You are techY podcast

Ellen: 00:01 
You are listening to the You are techY podcast with Ellen Twomey episode number eight.

Intro: 00:12 
Welcome to the You are techY podcast where it’s all about growing in your techy-ness so you can find the tech job of your dreams and now your host technology learning coach, Ellen Twomey

Ellen: 00:29
Jill Sanderson is a senior agile coach at dude solutions, a Raleigh based SAS organization providing operations management solutions to education, government, healthcare, senior living, manufacturing, and membership based organizations. Jill has worked in the agile space for many years, including eight years at minitab where she relaunched her career after staying at home with her two sons for five years. Jill started a Facebook group while at home that blossomed over 5,000 members and continues to this day under new leadership. Jill has a bachelor’s of arts degree in mathematics from Westminster college in Fulton, Missouri. She holds the following certification, CSM PMP, scrum at scale practitioner and Cal one certified agile leadership Jill has held various positions as a scrum master project manager and agile coach, including the title she now holds as senior agile coach. Jill, welcome to the show.

Jill: 01:35
Hi Ellen. Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

Ellen: 01:38
So, I already know a little bit about your background, but if you could start off by telling our audience about your career journey and the role that motherhood played in your career decisions, I think it’d be a great way for everyone to kind of get to know you and your background.

Jill: 01:54
Sure. I’d be happy to do that. So my early career was really focused on systems implementations. I worked for a couple of very large organizations such as Purina mills and Sara Lee bakery group doing SAP and support systems implementations. So that included doing work like business analysis, gap analysis, process documentation, and then also training and onsite go live support for a couple of weeks at a time when a new app plant was going online. So it was a great way to get my journey started and kind of just nipped the tip of the iceberg when it comes to project management. Then as you mentioned, I stayed home for five years, uh, when my boys were really small. And I think that that time was great for reflection as well as for, um, learning how to put myself out there a little bit more going into that uncomfortable zone, um, if you know what I mean? Right.

Jill: 02:50
Because it’s a little world, right. And that’s also the time when, uh, my family moved. So I was in a new environment where I didn’t know anyone. And that’s when I started that group that you mentioned the moms group. Um, and that was my own little project and I did it as a way to, um, help myself build a community. And what I learned is that by, by doing that and putting myself out there, I created a community where other people could connect. And that’s when I discovered that I really love helping people connect, helping people find others that are like themselves or maybe different from themselves and that they can learn from doing that and built up a community around them. And for me that’s really what I’m agile ways of working and scrum specifically are all about. It’s about the people. It’s about the teams that you build. It’s about growth and knowledge and sharing. And so as I reentered the workforce 11 years ago, they came a really solid foundation for me. I’m not just my experience being a mom, but the things that I did while I was at home, um, prior to reentering the workforce.

Ellen: 03:58
That’s great. And at the end we’ll, um, if you don’t mind, maybe we can share your LinkedIn information. You have one of the best, um, in my opinion, one of the best approaches to describing staying at, at home, which is of huge problem area. I think for all of us when we’re in it, when we’re in it, it’s like, okay, how do we say what we’re doing or what we’ve described? And of course you have this Facebook group, um, that you had, but even, even if some other people have different experiences, I think they can learn from you don’t shy away from it. You put it out there and, and, and you use it as a positive and I think that’s, um, that’s a beautiful thing that you’ve done. So I’d love for people to dig in a little bit more to understand because, um, your position now I think is, is not readily understandable to, um, to moms reentering in the workforce. Too many people in the workforce. Like how did you, so you’ve reentered with minitabs. How did you get from there to where you are today at in as a senior agile leader, a senior agile coach? How do you, how do you describe that journey?

Jill: 05:08
I was going to just say the word journey. It is a journey, right? So, so at reentering the workforce was exhilarating. It was exciting and it was terrifying at the same time because I had grown accustomed to, you know, where I was at for those five years at home. And I knew that I was personally ready for the next thing and I thought I knew what I was doing and what I was getting myself into. But until I, until I took the leap, I didn’t really know. And I had a couple of stumbles early on. Right. And so, uh, I’ve always been the type of person to exude confidence. And when you’re the newbie on the block, sometimes you have to ease into that. And that’s a lesson that I learned, you know, through a stumble. Um, I think that, uh, you know, just being open to new experiences and not afraid to jump in.

Jill: 05:58
And again, going back to what I was saying about starting that mom’s group, I felt like that gave me a little bit of something to stand on that, Hey, you know, I’m totally capable of doing this. I’m just going to reenter and you know, start this position, build an internal network, get to know people and just go for it. And you know, see what good I can bring to the organization. When I was at Minitab, I really started in a project management type of role doing the business analysis as well. And while I was there, they started adopting scrum. And for me it was, I was at the right place at the right time, right reentering. Um, we had a senior engineer and a senior project manager who were like, hey, there’s this thing called scrum. Why don’t we see if we can leverage it here at, at the organization?

Jill: 06:46  
So I was privileged to have the opportunity for an early introduction. Like I said, this is 11 years ago now. So by, by having that early introduction by, I think also not necessarily being an engineering at the time, but became more on the operations side of the house, working with our customer, facing employees. I’m talking about sales, technical support, client services, marketing and seeing them, um, and the challenges they faced while trying to adopt the agile principles and the scrum, you know, kind of mindset and way of working. Uh, there were a lot of starts and stops. But having the experience of working with lots of different teams and lots of different areas, uh, gave me a good understanding of the kind of openness that’s required. Um, you know, when you’re approaching a new way of working,

Ellen: 07:41
That is really fascinating. And so how did you, um, so what were some of the, um, decisions you made from that role into your role now? How did, how did, how did this role come to be that you’re in now?

Jill: 07:56
Great question. So I was with Minitabs as you mentioned for about eight years and toward the end of the seventh year, my family and I decided to relocate to Raleigh, North Carolina. And at the time I did start looking for a position down here, kind of felt like I was ready to move on. Um, and honestly didn’t think that my organization would be open to me telecommuting, but when I let them know that I was leaving, they said, Oh, do you think you could work with us? You know what, after you move. So I thought, why not give it a try? So that was a great experience because I did that for about 14 months and that really gave me that in person experience of being the telecommuter and increased my awareness of, you know, the attention that’s required to people who are telecommuting or even just working from home because that’s such a common thing these days.

Jill: 08:42
And people in my current organization has a work from anywhere policy. So, you know, once we got down here to Raleigh, I did that for a little while and started feeling ready for my next journey. What’s the next step? Uh, took a position with the company up in RTP that was doing, um, SAP implementations and migrations. So it was starting to draw a little bit on some of my really early career experience and this was a client facing role and I did it for a little while and decided that, you know, I tried something new that wasn’t for me. Uh, luckily I have great support and my, my home system and it was able to say, you know what, I’m just gonna step away from this regroup and try something else try what’s next. And that’s when I decided I was really going to focus again on the scrum master and agile coach role.

Jill: 09:31
And so I went to work downtown Raleigh for a company for about, I think it was just under a year and a half. Um, they had a, a couple of teams in Raleigh, but that was the smaller up their offices. We were working with a lot of folks in, um, San Diego as well as in Munich, Germany. And so having the opportunity to work with folks, you know, in another time zone, which I had done before at many tab, but baby.to this degree. Um, and also more in, you know, product and engineering was a fantastic experience. So those things all kind of prepped me, um, to getting to the point where I was ready for a bigger challenge. And when I started looking in the area in the Raleigh area and this position came up, I just thought, you know what? I’m going to put myself out there again. Let’s see what happens. And so hearing him, so for me it’s been about making very conscious choices. Um, knowing that every time I make a decision to leave, it’s not necessarily because I didn’t like it, but because I was ready for something more. So I’m really interested in continuing to challenge myself. Right.

Ellen: 10:40
That is so interesting. And so can you tell us a little bit about like what is your day to day look like? What do you, what do you do on a daily basis?

Jill: 10:49
It varies. To be honest with you. When I first joined the dude, which will be, it was last July, so i’m at almost a year. I spent a lot of time just getting to know people, uh, trying to learn and understand what the system, what am I walking into? And that was really important because I wanted to make sure that I didn’t come in with guns slinging and you know, just all should be doing this. You should be doing that. Um, who am I to say? Right. So I spent a lot of time doing that. And I would say the first three months or so really focused on just learning internal networking. Since then, I’ve been really focused on growing my internal team as well as working with leadership. Uh, so I consider my peers to be folks who are in director positions and VP or SVP positions here at the dude, whether they’re an engineering or product management. So I’ve had an opportunity to really understand what their goals and objectives are and to do a little coaching along the way too, which has been a lot of fun. Um, that’s something I love leadership coaching and I think that in any organization that’s trying to be successful with agile or any flavor thereof, that leaders always need to be looking in the mirror and asking themselves how are they contributing to either the successes or the failures in the organization.

Ellen: 12:13
Super. Interesting. Thank you so much for sharing. And, um, can you just to dig in a little bit. Um, I’m glad this is a topic you’d like because I find myself always explaining, you know, I, I explained agile from my own perspective and my experience and talking to many, many individuals across agile is that everyone’s experience can be a little bit different. And, um, I wonder if you can just explain, I mean, is there a difference between agile principles and scrum values and how does that play out?

Jill: 12:47
Yeah, that’s a great question. And you’re right, and that the interpretation by any individuals or collection of individuals can be completely different. I think that’s one of the beautiful, beautiful things about, um, about agility. So when we talked about agile, we’re talking, and I always bring it back to the agile manifesto, um, which turned 18 this year. So it was really based on a group of likeminded individuals and the engineering community, the software community coming together and saying, there’s gotta be a better way to do this. And they boiled it down to those, those four tenants in the agile manifesto where we’re putting the focus more on people interactions, working software, um, negotiation. And the 12 principles that support, uh, the agile manifesto are really focused on, you know, how we’re going to do those things. How, what actions do we see ourselves taking to be able to put the focus on the people on the working software, on the collaboration and the negotiation.

Jill: 13:48
So there are things like, um, welcoming change very late in the process. There are things like staying open to that, focusing on delivery, uh, focusing on frequent delivery, right? So when we look at that, those principles being the actions where scrum comes in with the values, uh, is talking about the behaviors that we want one to embody, to bring those principles to life. So the scrum values focus on things like commitment, focus, openness, trust. Those are behaviors that a person can and should ideally exhibit when they’re part of a system that wants to be agile. Because if they’re willing to be open to new ideas, open to failure, if they’re committed to the goals of the organization, if they can really strive towards that, that focus that’s required, not just any end game, but during that iteration, whether it’s one week, two weeks, or four weeks, those are, those are the, the values. Those are kind of those internal, uh, beliefs that a person, you know, has that drive their behaviors that can get us to the point of acting in a certain way. Does that answer your question?

Ellen: 15:03
Yeah, absolutely. I love, I love it. There’s so much in there. So much meat. So the, and the iterations by iterations, you’re talking about a sprint, right? You’re referring, referring to us at the time, a time segment of sprint, which is one or two or three or four weeks typically. So one of the things I love about agile principles and being in that environment is that, and one of the reasons that I do what I do is that I started in tech. Like I grew up in tech really, which is, which is funny for me cause I had very little exposure as a child. Um, and in high school, um, so when I, when I made the decision to, to major in computer science, that was a huge, huge leap for a huge, but, um, but since then I, you know, I was involved in tech and that, that was a couple of decades ago and you know, so people would tell me things like, you, you’re not going to go into tech.

Ellen: 15:59
You like people, you know, this, this and I, and I think, okay, that’s like an old way to think. But it’s true. I still hear that mentality. Oh no, I really like people so I can’t possibly go into tech. So one of my favorite things about agile when I read the manifest or the first time is like this focus that people really matter and they’re front and center. And, um, so I don’t know if I really have a question. It’s just to say that’s like one of my favorite parts of agile. I don’t know. I don’t know how you feel about it or you know, what’s, what draws you to it. But

Jill: 16:31
Yeah, I definitely agree. There’s a lot in the community, the agile community right now about wave two of agile, which is kind of bringing the focus back to the people because there are so many frameworks, um, not just you know, scrum, Kanban, et cetera, but also scaling frameworks now. And some of them are more rigid or less rigid and the applications of those frameworks can vary and sometimes people get lost in the shuffle. So for me personally and how I approach my work, it’s, there’s no right answer. Um, I think it’s always very situational, but at the end of the day we have to acknowledge the fact that, you know, regardless of what framework you’re using, the, the people who are actually doing the work matter the most. Now, there has to be a balance. There are, there are always going to be at guardrails, if you will. Um, you know, those, those constraints that we have to work with them. But everyone should be in an environment where they can bring their full self to work their whole self. Um, have an opportunity to share their thoughts and be heard. Acknowledging that those thoughts and opinions might not always be the ones that float to the top. Right. But if they have an opportunity to be a part of the conversation, that’s what I think is so important.

Ellen: 17:44
Yeah, absolutely. That’s great. I love that. All right. I would like, I, I so checked with you first and I know that you do a little interviewing and I’m always so interviewing’s always a hot topic, right? Like I totally get it if you, if you haven’t interviewed in a while, I don’t even think it matters. Even if you interview all the time, it’s like you always can do better or prepare. So, so you conduct some interviews and I want to know like, do you have like what are your one, two, three favorite questions to ask? Give us the inside scoop so we can, we can help some of these ladies out and make sure they’re prepared.

Jill: 18:17
Definitely. So one question that I really like to ask regardless of what role I’m interviewing for, because I do help my peers here as well is you know, what have you learned in the last week or two? And I think that was week or two. Okay. Right. Yeah. So recent because I’m always, I’m always reading and learning and there are so many different mediums by which we can do that these days. Whether you’re on, you know, social, whether you are listening to podcasts, whether you’re reading a book, you’re reading a blog. I mean there’s so much information out there. So I’m curious, what have people learned recently and you know, how have they, or how do they plan to apply that in their current position or in a future position? And I think that’s really important because, uh, we all know how fast the world moves, how fast tech moves.

Jill: 19:04
Um, how many new ideas are always out there. And I like people that have a growth mindset, um, you know, rather than that fixed mindset of there’s only one way to do things. You heard me mention earlier that I think that application of any ideology has to be situational, right? So where are we at? What do we need? Well, it depends, you know, on your approach, how many tools do you have in your toolbox? Right? So that would be my first question. The second question that I like to ask, and this is really kind of diving into some more specifics around scrum is not necessarily what’s your favorite ceremony, but which of the ceremonies on scrum do they see the most value in? And I will say that my response, my personal response to this has changed over the years, just based on, you know, experience.

Jill: 19:55
Uh, but I’m, I’m always interested in one’s perspective because you can use that to kind of dive in and ask for specifics around, you know, why, why do you think that’s the most important? What are your experiences then? So whether someone answers the retrospective or the planning session or the refinement session, I have the ability to then dig in a little bit and ask that person, well, how do you prefer those types of ceremonies be conducted? Or how have you helped to implement change so those ceremonies can become more productive, um, in light of perhaps a bad experience.

Ellen: 20:27
Right, right. No one ever says stand up. You didn’t mention that one.

Jill: 20:31  
You know, ironically, no. But again, there’s no, not necessarily a wrong or a right answer, but yeah.

Ellen: 20:39
Absolutely. Those are great questions. Thank you so much for sharing those with us. Sure. Um, all right, so this one is a, this is a two sided question here that I want to know. Even though I know your job is perfect and there are no negatives, I want to know, like what is your favorite part about your job and then what’s your least favorite part? Because I always think that they try to advise women, you know, understanding the part that isn’t your favorite is a really important component because there are always components. Like you can’t, you’re not going to love everything you do. This was not always clear to me as a 20 something. And so I think it’s a 40 something. I want to make sure that I, um, and I’ve learned that, that like, hey, no matter what job they’re going to be, things you don’t love, but make sure that those are things that you could like, you know what, I can, I can dig through those because the things I like are, are you know, fun enough or interesting enough, I’m passionate enough about them. So curious kind of that dichotomy for you. What’s your experience?

Jill: 21:33
Yeah, that is a great question and does cause me to pause a little bit. Um, as I, as I think about my answer, because I think anytime we think about the things that we don’t like doing it, it does cause us to maybe consider what are some areas where we can improve because sometimes we shy away from the things that are challenging for us. Right? Um, by nature I’m a driver. I like to move quickly, right? Which on one hand sounds very, you know, agile and scrummy and yes, we want to, to move quickly, but when we stop and think about the fact that, um, we do need to disclose down and include the people who are doing the work, um, you know, to varying degrees, um, I have to, so it’s not necessarily a part of my job, but just a part of how I work that I would say I have to adjust and reflect on.

Jill: 22:22
So as I’m working with, you know, people in my team, other leaders, they have different pace at which they like to work or just because of constraints within the organization, their constraints on how quickly we can move through something. Right? And so that’s a challenge area that I always try to give some love and attention to trying to gauge, you know, am I moving fast enough or am I moving too fast? So I would say that that’s probably a, not necessarily a least favorite or thing that I don’t like, but maybe a biggest challenge, um, in my job is pacing myself. Um, in terms of what I love the most, I’m a huge people person. I love people. I love networking, understanding, um, how all the different parts of the organization fit together and how people work together. And that’s something that I think I’ve been able to do pretty well in my current position is to get to know folks in other parts of the organization.

Jill: 23:16
And when I say that, I don’t just mean other leaders, I mean other people. Um, I’ve got someone here that I meet with once a month, um, kind of a mentoring relationship, which is exciting and I think benefits me as much as it does benefit her. And she reached out and asked for that, you know? Right. So that’s a cool opportunity. So I love being able to do that, but then also to, to seek out mentors as well for myself and the organization. And I think being able to, to insert myself, um, just not being afraid to walk up and say hi, introduce myself, which I did a lot of, again in those first couple of months has created the familiarity, uh, that is required to maybe, you know, ask for a little bit more or to engage in conversation a little bit more. So I, I love that about my job. I think that as an agile coach in the organization, I’m expected to be, um, able to do that kind of networking. So it’s a good thing that I like it. Right.

Ellen: 24:18
I think that’s great. I think that’s great for anyone. Um, and your challenge I, I share that would be, that would be my own personal challenge as well. So I empathize with you on that one. Um, well I, I, I really appreciate all of your authenticity and your beautiful answers. I just, I’d like if you could leave us this final question with just advice. I mean, I, I know that, you know, you’re a little bit further removed from this transition, but you know, what, if somebody is either staying at home with the kids or, or they, or more and more, we’re seeing people who take leave for parents to help their parents or, or they’re just in a non tech role and they’re like, I don’t know, like maybe they’re listening to this and they’re thinking, wait, I’m good with people and I can be in tech. Do you know, we like to talk about how tech can offer like a lot of meaning and flexibility and well-paid, you know? I mean, that’s, those are huge factors for people. But I think there’s a lot of psychology that people have to overcome to say, I can do this, this can be for me. And so what, you know, what’s your best advice for somebody who’s considering a role in tech? What would you say to them?

Jill: 25:29
I would say the best advice I can give is to just get involved. There are so many local communities and online communities that one can join where it becomes harder and harder to feel alone, right? So if you’re, if you’re willing to, to join a local meetup, I’m part of a local meetup here on the Raleigh area called the agile leadership network. Um, I go to events, you know, maybe once a month I get to listen to other people talk and share and realize that I’m not alone in the challenges I face. I know there are similar groups out there for women who are looking to read, enter the workforce. And what’s amazing about that is it kind of gets back to that community that I talked about at the start of our interview today, right? When you can find a community of folks who are in a similar situation and there are other people that are part of that conversation that can help and guide and mentor, you start to feel less alone and therefore less afraid and therefore a little bit more willing to, to do that risky thing, to take that next step.

Jill: 26:27
And so anything you can do to build yourself up, um, to be forgiving of yourself, maybe when you falter a little bit to find a little extra courage, um, to ask for a little bit of help is going to benefit, you know, tenfold in the long run. Give you, it gives, you know, even to this day, I’m a part of those kinds of communities because we never stopped learning, you know, and I never want to stop challenging myself. So I’m constantly looking for that same kind of thing for myself. So get involved.

Ellen: 26:59
That’s great advice. And I’m laughing because there’s a, there’s a post as you know, uh, you know, I have my Facebook group and there’s a post today about, um, asking people to get involved in a group locally. And I’m, I’m excited about the opportunity. I’m looking to see who, who joins in and they’re looking for some volunteers and help. And I, a lot of women in our group, that’s how they started. They’re like, well, I’m going to volunteer on it for our tech. Literally a meetup or us, you know, um, whether it’s a, this is RTP product camp, so it’s a product day or an event. I think that, you know, you can, you can, there are a lot of people looking for help to get involved. And so, um, I think that that’s great advice because once you see sometimes the fear factors just not knowing, you know, and then once you see, Oh, those people are like me and I’m, you know, I feel at home here. Um, so that’s great advice.

Jill: 27:54
Yeah. I think it also provides an opportunity to maybe try the hat on for a little while, right? When you have an opportunity to volunteer, you can explore different things. It’s maybe a little bit like doing an internship, right? So college students will do those internships over the summer or kind of work, study treated the same way, get involved, seek out to volunteer for different kinds of activities. Um, talk with different people. Ask folks to, Hey, can we meet for a coffee? Can I just pick your brain? What’s your day like? I’ve had people reach out to me and I’m always willing, Ellen, that’s how you and I first started our conversation. Hey, let’s meet for coffee. So, you know, those kinds of things are great. And the benefit of doing volunteer work in a group like that as well is that when, when a woman gets to the point of deciding to apply for that job and gets the phone screen interview and progresses through, you’ve got something recent to talk about. There’s not such a big gap. Right. So, Hey, I’m so interested in doing this that I joined this group. There are some volunteer activities that I’ve done.

Ellen: 28:54 Yeah, that’s a great point. I love that. Okay. Where and how can people find you if they want to connect?

Jill: 29:00
Yeah, find me on LinkedIn. Find me on Twitter. Um, I think you said you were going to share my LinkedIn, um, afterwards. Right. So my Twitter account is just my personal account. I’m not super active, but you know, from time to time I do share or retweet, um, you know, from folks that I share from folks that I admire and get insight from. On a day to day basis as well. So you can find me. My handle is @JillSuzsan it’s J-I-L-L-S-U-Z-S-A-N.

Ellen: 29:30
Jill, thank you so much for coming on today. As always, I love our conversations. You’re always still crisp and clear, but I have tons of insight in what you say and this is a ton of fun me, so thanks for doing this.

Jill: 29:42
Thanks for the privilege, Ellen.

Ellen: 29:49
Hey, if you enjoyed listening to this podcast, you have to sign up for the You are techY email list. Imagine being in the tech job of your dreams. Join me to get the strategies, training and never ending support to get hired. Sign up at youaretechy.com that’s Y-O-U-A-R-E-T-E-C-H-Y dot com. I’ll see you next time.