#6 How to stay agile in today’s fast-paced world with Jelena Vucinic

🎙️ Dive into the agile universe with our guest Jelena Vucinic, who is not only an Agile Coach by heart but also passionate about empowering women in tech. Get inspiration and practical advice on staying agile in today’s fast-paced world.

In this episode, you’ll uncover:

• How Jelena offers tech teams a view from the outside in.
• Her secret power and tips for staying agile in unexpected situations.
• Jelena’s take on women’s evolving role in tech.

Follow Jelena Vucinic on LinkedIn
Follow Sue Quackenbush on LinkedIn

Discover the opportunities at Dynatrace and take your career to the next level: careers.dynatrace.com

Transcript

We are very passionate about something we're building. And as an Agile Coach coming from the outside, it's basically giving a mirror to the teams, helping them be more efficient, collaborative, and adaptable.

Sue Quackenbush

Hi. Welcome to today's episode of Real Talks. I'm Sue Quackenbush, your host, and today's focus is really about what does working Agile mean? And today, my guest is Jelena Vucinic. And Jelena comes to us from Austria. So thank you so much for joining me.

Jelena Vucinic

Thank you. So it's a real pleasure to be here with you and to talk about agility.

Sue Quackenbush

Awesome. Well, let's start because I'm fascinated by your background, and I'd love for you to share. How do you and your role as an Agile coach really work with teams?

Jelena Vucinic

Yes. Let's start with basics. So first of all, to mention that Agile, in its essence, means nimble, quick, or easy to adapt. And it's used in project management, mostly in the software development industry, to navigate through unpredictable environments.

Sue Quackenbush

So do you have to have a development background to be an Agile coach?

Jelena Vucinic

I don't have personal development background in terms of engineering. Nevertheless, there are many of my colleagues who do, and I think it's helpful that they don't have it because then I don't get biased or distracted by the terminology that is being used in my background, these organizational sciences. So I'm often the one who is able to catch some, you know, facial expressions that are maybe showing some doubts or some question marks. And then I say, okay, what I'm hearing is there is option A and there's option B, So I don't even know what option A or B is about. But I'm able to ask them that question so they can then follow up with, okay, what are the benefits of option A, What are the pros, what are the cons, and what is the best in this particular situation that we can choose out of those two options?

Sue Quackenbush

Now, what strikes me is that your secret power is really real listening and how critically important it is to listen, truly listen to what's being said.

Jelena Vucinic

You're absolutely right. We are not often skilled enough in listening and we are thinking about having our own thought process behind it. What I like to do is very often to ask, Did I get this right? You know, to repeat what the other person said and just check in? Okay. Did I get that right? Is that what you meant? And just by doing this, it brings such a powerful connection to the conversation and gives the other person the sense of, I'm really being heard here. Someone cares about me, and that's what makes the difference.

Sue Quackenbush

Jelena, I'd love to get your thoughts on how could you envision using agile methodologies in unexpected challenges or situations that really have a lot of pressure and stress associated with them.

Jelena Vucinic

Actually, agility is perfect for those situations because agility helps to change courses quickly. So the whole point is having smaller pieces of work, incorporating feedback, and having regular communication through daily stand-ups or weekly meetings, weekly plannings, and basically responding to change instead of following certain plans.

Sue Quackenbush

And then any recommendations on books or media that people can learn more about becoming or being an Agile coach.

Jelena Vucinic

I definitely would first start with "Coaching Agile Teams". That's a book by  "Lyssa Adkins", my favorite. In addition to that, I really like "Jurgen Appelo's Management 3.0". It has a lot of various concepts that can help in different areas. But if we talk about podcasts like this one today, I would like to recommend the "The Agile Pubcast by Geoff Watts & Paul Goddard". It's a very interesting concept to guide, talk about agility, and share it with the audience.

Sue Quackenbush

Now that's great. And when you think about women in tech, and I know you're involved in women in tech, and for me I'll speak for myself sometimes I think, Well, wait a minute, I'm not a female in tech because I'm not a technologist, even though I've spent many, many years working in technology companies. And what would you say to some younger female students thinking about what they want to do with their life and to really consider technology.

Jelena Vucinic

I am so glad you brought up this topic because it is very important and dear to my heart. And you're absolutely right. I believe the first thing to highlight is there are many women working in tech and without tech background per se, and that's really an opportunity for all women. I strongly believe so because I have such joy working in tech, working with smart minds all around me without my technical background. And when it comes to what we can do about it, I believe we, as Dynatrace, are doing a lot. I am so proud that in Austria, we're organizing a, for example, breakfast with girls who are at high school, a technical high school, and we do it by having conversations and not just me but the role models. So my colleagues, female colleagues, having conversations with those girls and basically showcasing them and explaining to them what their career could look like. And we have a very diverse group of those role models. So some of them are engineers, some of them are more business-focused, some of them are in the marketing area, and some are in the coaching area. So really diverse, many opportunities that those girls can think about. And I think it's very important that we showcase those young women that there is opportunity. Another thing I want to highlight is the recent women's panel that happened at Perform. That was another huge spotlight for four incredible women telling the whole world and also hopefully the listeners, who are female ones, that you can be there, you can be on that stage, you can be a woman who is being on the stage, listened to and having a conversation in tech industry as well.

Sue Quackenbush

Well, that's great. And having moderated that panel at Perform, you're absolutely right. I mean, the women who joined me on that panel were amazing leaders, but their stories really brought into how to inspire, how to lean in and listen and really seek to understand and encourage women to really look at the tech industry.

Jelena Vucinic

I would like to speak from my experience as a woman in tech. That I feel welcome to speak up. I feel respected. No matter who is in the room, I know that my voice is taken into account. And in addition to that, I also have a great support system from other women in this organization. Meaning that I can go to some of my colleagues just for comfort advice. Exchange of information. And in addition to that, there are great mentoring programs that also women are part of.

Sue Quackenbush

Is there something about Agile you wish you had known earlier in your career? Or did you fall into this like you always knew this was what you wanted to do?

Jelena Vucinic

No, to be honest, but when I did fall into it, I fell in love immediately. Nevertheless, what I wish I had known before was definitely pushed to the uncomfortable one faster. So basically, to be agile, learn by doing as an inexperienced junior person. Sometimes you have a lot of doubts and fears, and you like to compensate for that by doing some over-planning or over-preparing. And while that has a purpose to give you comfort, nevertheless, the biggest learning I got this by actually doing something. So what I would, for example, give advice to myself is just like, just go for it. Just do it instead of overthinking over preparing. Don't be afraid. Push yourself out of your comfort and be faster with that learning experience you can get.

Sue Quackenbush

And with that, I just want to thank you so much for your time and for your thoughts on how we get more women in tech. So you, Jelena, thank you so much for joining me today.

Jelena Vucinic

Thank you, Sue. It was such a pleasure.

Sue Quackenbush

Thank you for tuning into today's episode of Real Talks. Subscribe to stay tuned on more episodes to come.