Salum Abdul-Rahman: The Expert Who Couldn't Connect: An Agile Team Integration Challenge

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Salum shares a challenging situation where a software architect with deep expertise struggled to integrate with the team. Despite the architect's technical knowledge, his expert-based communication style and inability to justify reasoning created friction with other developers. The conflict escalated when the architect disengaged from teamwork and ultimately left the company. This experience highlights the importance of understanding organizational dynamics in large corporations and recognizing when separation might be the best solution for everyone involved.

In this episode, we refer to Nonviolent Communication, a topic we’ve discussed often here on the podcast. 

Self-reflection Question: How do you balance respecting expertise while ensuring all team members communicate in ways that foster collaboration rather than create hierarchies?

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About Salum Abdul-Rahman

Salum is an agile coach at Reaktor and experienced leader driving sustainable knowledge work. He is passionate about enabling teams to work with complexity and conflicts. Salum builds communities in and outside of work and has 18 years of experience working with software mostly as a consultant with the public sector.

You can link with Salum Abdul-Rahman on LinkedIn.