We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jessica Bahr. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jessica below.
Jessica, appreciate you joining us today. How did you get your first job in the field that you practice in today?
I am a Scrum Master and Agile Coach to software teams and enterprises, and it’s the career I never knew I always wanted!
I remember an elementary school teacher mentioning how important computers would be in the future and that there would be lots of “jobs in computers”, so we should consider learning more about them. This passing comment meant nothing at the time (the mid-80s) besides being a cool, futuristic prediction and a fun imaginary exercise for the class. It certainly wasn’t on my mind as I pursued more Arts and Humanities subjects in high school and college. I was more interested in answering: “Why do people do what they do?” and pursued those answers through political science, psychological, and religious studies. When I left college, I worked my way up the ranks in hotel management, only vaguely aware of the Dot Com Bubble and not yet turned on to “start-ups”, “software”, or “digital” anything.
The 24/7 needs of hotel management took a toll on my mental health, and only by accident did I transition into any kind of technical role after a friend of mine referred me to the same company where she found a position. I had just experienced the second mental/emotional breakdown of my life, and I was metaphorically salivating for something that would allow me a degree of work-life separation. (Balance wasn’t in my sights at that point.) After joining the tech industry ranks in a technical support role, I found I had a knack for thinking analytically and finding elegant and sustainable solutions to data transfer and processing issues. I loved what I did so much that I spent 11 years with that company, taking promotions and ending my tenure there as an account manager.
While working in that first technical role, I learned about Agile and Professional Coaching, both of which are what I understand now to be my calling. Helping people work better together is the practical application of the arts and humanities interests that I’d always carried with me but never knew how to build into a career. Looking back at that comment from my elementary school teacher, it seems so much more auspicious now, almost foreshadowing an opportunity that I wouldn’t consider for another 20 years!
In the time between then and now, there were two other moments that opened my mind to potential career paths, both at conferences I attended:
1) At a hotel management conference I listened to a successful hotelier talk about how he never graduated college. I myself left without graduating after 4 1/2 years, and before hearing him speak, I thought that without a degree I’d have to prove myself more than anyone else with a degree (if I’d even be considered a legitimate candidate at all). This person was living proof that success could be achieved without a diploma!
2) At a tech industry conference, I heard a woman implore people with “soft skills” to join the tech industry ranks because creating innovative solutions “requires more than just coding.” This opened my mind to the possibility that there was a place for my “humanities” interests in technology.
Thinking about my next steps, I chatted with friends about their carreer objectives and opportunities, and from those conversations, I obtained a Scrum Master certification and tried my hand at helping teams work better together. I then practiced my newly minted Scrum Master skills with my team while looking for an entry-level or Junior Scrum Master role. Happily, my community has a healthy tech industry footprint, so I was able to spend a little bit of savings on career coaching, and within one month, I was hired as a Jr. Scrum Master which included a 30% increase in salary and the chance to test my mettle with actual software developers. After almost two years with those teams and my confidence building, I began looking for opportunities to expand the work I was doing with individual teams to include programs at scale and enterprise Agility.
Not long after, a former coworker of mine reached out to me with a Sr. Scrum Master role at a Fortune 500 fintech company that I had been eyeing for a year (and had been passed over 5 times). When she shared with me her aspirations for the teams, I was excited to take the leap up in responsibility, influence, and pay (another 25% increase!). If I learned anything from this “it’s who you know story” it’s that one should not take current business relationships for granted. The resumé is more than just what is on paper, it’s the reputation and relationships one builds in the present moments that have the most to offer towards future success.
I am now living my best life, pursuing Agile and Professional Coaching opportunities, and I believe my success this far has a lot to do with the intersection of several of my personal values: making opportunities for myself, trying (sometimes failing) and learning, and openness to new experiences.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I am a Senior Scrum Master with Charles Schwab and have a coaching and mentoring practice for anyone looking to land their first Scrum Master role or improve their interactions with teams, peers, or leaders. Bottom line: I help teams work better together and individuals step into their own versions of greatness! I do this through customized solutions to ways-of-working issues, Agile Coaching, professional mentoring, and ruthless prioritization of self-care.
I have worked with support, software, and data science teams to improve their throughput, reliability, and predictability through sustainable practices by following a high challenge / high support model of servant leadership. I ask questions that peel back the layers of the status quo to reveal underlying systemic challenges and help teams create a vision of their ideal state while helping them craft a plan to get there. I use empiricism and transparency to have direct conversations about opportunities for improvement and how they can be captured, and I recognize and champion incremental change.
I take professional coaching and mentoring clients, and I greatly enjoy helping to expand their vision of what is truly possible for them.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
This probably applies to every field: practice and experience. The initial Scrum Master certification is deceptively easy to obtain, but the role of the Scrum Master is quite challenging and requires multiple competencies to master (coaching, mentoring, training, and facilitating). In order to succeed as a Scrum Master, one must embody servant leadership while protecting personal boundaries, expect greatness while educating new concepts, reflect back to the system while encouraging self-examination, and maintain executive presence and a sense of calm while working through challenging and frustrating realities. These cannot be taught in a 2-day workshop. Greatness in these areas must be pursued with vigor and constantly inspected for ways to improve. Self-management must be honed and patience with yourself and others must be practiced. This can be a thankless job sometimes, but one must be able to recognize and be able to build others up when needed.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Showing up and volunteering for things are the best ways to get people to notice your contributions and potential and learn your individual work ethic which is one thing you can’t know in a cold application process. It’s surprising how many people want to advance their Agile careers but don’t join any virtual meet-ups, attend coaching practices, or volunteer to help out when needed. It seems like a big missed opportunity to me. When you are the lone attendee to show up or volunteer, leaders will learn who you are and start to seek you out!
As a fledgling Agilist, I began attending Agile Austin (educational nonprofit) meetings and networking there. Not long after that, I volunteered to facilitate one of their monthly meet-ups for Scrum Masters. (I was actually recruited for my current position because an attendee of this meet-up referred me to the hiring manager when asked for recommendations.) I also attended biweekly and monthly coaching practices which had the double benefit of helping me work through some of my own self-limiting beliefs while giving me experience and practice with the coaching conversation.
I still find ways to help other people outside of my current job responsibilities because I never know where my next opportunity will come from. Every interaction is a block in the chain of my brand, because I want to ensure that the people I interact with now will ask me to work with them again later if an opportunity arises. In this business, a lot of people can use buzzwords and talk a good game, but folks remember those individuals who helped out when no one else would, and those are the kinds of people that will continue to be in high demand.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.agilebesties.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicagbahr/