From Rugby Scrum to Servant Leadership: How “Scrummie” Paula Gludovatz at WienIT blends agility, gamification, and team health

Context: A DevJobs.at take on mindset, craft, and real agility

In our session “Paula Gludovatz, Scrummie bei WienIT,” we heard a career story that challenges some common assumptions about IT. The speaker, Paula Gludovatz (WienIT), is a career changer—and that’s exactly her strength. She studied History and Comparative Religious Studies, spent years in the social sector and in gastro-event management, is a lifelong gamer, and today works as a Scrummie at WienIT since September 2022.

What stood out to us: the way Paula mixes clear structure, practiced facilitation, and visible people-centeredness. She doesn’t describe her job as “management by checklist,” but as servant leadership with pragmatism, a love of learning—and a dose of play.

This devstory traces Paula’s journey—the turning points that led her into agility, and the practices she uses to keep her two teams strong. For developers working with Scrum, there’s plenty of practical detail here: from time-boxing and retrospectives to light-touch gamification that helps collaboration.

Career change with a point of view: from the humanities to Scrum

Paula opens with a bit of irony: “I studied something super important: History and Comparative Religious Studies. Has a lot to do with IT.” The joke is deliberate—but anyone listening quickly realizes why this background matters. It brings structured thinking, empathy, and reflection—all central to agile teamwork.

• Studies: History and Comparative Religious Studies
• Work experience: social sector, gastro-event management
• Constant passion: gaming in all its forms
• Ongoing education: Master’s in Game-Based Media Education and an expert-level certificate in Game Studies

During her Master’s, she recognized again how much she enjoys “creating, building, carrying out, planning, structuring projects.” After 13 years in the social sector, she made the call: retrain. She completed a project management program—and there she heard the key sentence.

The nudge: Rugby, gut feeling, and a teacher who saw Scrum

In a Business English conversation, her teacher told her: “I could imagine that you’d really like Scrum because you’re so goal-oriented, agile, and adaptable.” It clicked in more than one way: Paula played rugby for years—and “scrum” is a rugby term. Her gut said: follow this.

Timing met opportunity: WienIT was looking for Junior Scrum Masters—Scrummies. Paula applied—and got in. She’s been a Scrummie since September 2022. Her path shows what a career change requires: curiosity, love of structure, facilitation skills, and a commitment to continuous learning.

The candor in that line matters: technical depth is important—but not everything. In Scrum teams, surfacing issues, organizing help, and staying focused on outcomes and collaboration matter just as much.

Role and responsibilities: what a “Scrummie” at WienIT actually does

Paula summarizes her role crisply. She supports two teams, split “50–50.” Her stance: servant leader. She’s not the person who says “you must do this”—direction and prioritization sit with the Product Owner role, called Service Owner at WienIT. Paula ensures the work can be done efficiently, purposefully, and sustainably.

In practice this means:

• Provide structure: establish, reinforce, and adapt Scrum processes
• Prevent overload: realistic commitments instead of heroic overreach
• Make dependencies visible: plan for vacations, bottlenecks, and availability early
• Care for collaboration: facilitate, listen, defuse conflict
• Make meetings work: strict time-boxing, clear goals, focus
• Present to stakeholders: explain the roadmap and quarterly outlooks

One example sticks: “You want this project finished in May. Great. The only person who can build it is on vacation the entire month.” That’s not a critique of ambition—it’s realism. The fix: “Let’s close this in April.”

This kind of forward-looking coaching makes servant leadership tangible. It’s a “helping hand to the lead” that enables planning—without overriding the responsibility of the Product/Service Owner.

Facilitation with intent: time-boxing, focus, and dialogue

Beyond structure, Paula highlights her moderation work: she keeps meetings as real workspaces. A 15-minute daily shouldn’t sprawl into 45 minutes. In her words: “Let’s get to the point, please; we can talk more afterward.”

That clarity isn’t authoritarian—it’s team hygiene. Time-boxing protects attention and signals respect: we don’t spread ourselves thin. Developers feel this directly—in fewer context switches, clearer decisions, and better predictability.

She also leads meetings where “the work itself” is discussed—on technical, human, and economic levels. Agility isn’t just method; it’s the ability to see across perspectives. Product, team, and value need to be considered together.

Retrospectives with play: Serious & Agile Games, stars, and chocolate

Paula calls the retrospective her “most important meeting.” Every two weeks, 90 minutes focused solely on collaboration: What went well? What hurts? How do we improve? Here she draws on Serious and Agile Games and gamification processes. The goal: keep motivation high and make change tangible.

She shares a concrete ritual: collecting stars. When people execute their work well, they get stars—and after a threshold, a small chocolate snack from her “chocolate box,” which came from marketing. She’s still missing a sound effect for the box and jokes she’ll get to that.

What we appreciate: this is gamification done light—not infantilizing, but playful and purposefully limited. A small signal of appreciation that doesn’t amp up pressure. In teams doing intense cognitive work, a tactile, tongue-in-cheek cue can lift the mood—and that’s part of sustaining performance.

Here Paula’s background matters again: pedagogy, game studies, and game-based media give her a vocabulary for motivation and learning. In retrospectives, she creates a safe space that fosters reflection—and produces outcomes.

Making work visible: presenting roadmaps and quarterly plans

Because Paula enjoys and excels at public speaking, her leadership often taps her to present: roadmap overviews and quarterly previews (“what we’ll do in Q1”). That’s more than show-and-tell—it builds shared context and synchronizes product, engineering, and stakeholders.

For teams, this pays off twice: the ability to explain is the ability to clarify. Clarification reduces misunderstandings. Fewer misunderstandings mean more velocity—not through haste, but through shared understanding.

Access over gatekeeping: mindset first—yet certification helps

A central thread in Paula’s story is access. She had a first manager convinced that “no formal training is necessary—what matters is attitude and mentality.” That trust opened the door.

At the same time, Paula recommends Scrum certification if you want to call yourself a “Scrummie.” One practical detail: “Be careful which one you choose”—some certificates are for life, others require renewal every five years. Her advice is plain: “Get the life-long one; it’s simpler, one exam and done.”

This double view—mindset matters, certification helps—is realistic. It fits an agile workplace where learning, facilitation, and process fluency often drive more impact than a purely technical track. And still: a standardized grounding never hurts.

The Scrummie profile: big picture, stepwise thinking, gamer’s mindset

What does the role require, according to Paula? Three pillars stand out:

1. Hold the big picture: keep the goal in sight without drowning in detail.
2. Think in stages: “think in steps”—what must we do to reach the next waypoint?
3. Be able and willing to learn: adaptability as the essence of the role.

Paula uses a gaming metaphor to bring this to life: levels, upgrades, coins, crafting. Anyone who games knows the cadence: build skills, invest resources wisely, adapt strategy. That’s how effective product development works—not a straight line, but iterative progress.

Waterfall vs. Scrum: cadence is the differentiator

Paula draws the contrast succinctly. Waterfall is “very strict.” You talk to the customer once—and only see each other again when the product is finished. In Scrum, it’s the opposite: you meet every two weeks. The consequence: you can “work the project again and again” and adapt to new learning.

That’s the core of agile product work—nothing more, nothing less. Requirements aren’t fixed from day one; assumptions don’t always hold. Inspect and adapt every two weeks, reduce risk, and increase relevance. This only works when teams like Paula’s protect retrospectives, reviews, and planning—and when someone like her guards focus.

Practical takeaways for developers from “Paula Gludovatz, Scrummie bei WienIT”

What can teams put into practice right away? Our distilled notes:

• Plan around availability: make vacations, bottlenecks, and dependencies explicit in sprint planning.
• Treat time-boxing as a contract: 15 minutes means 15 minutes. Focus builds quality.
• Prioritize retrospectives: every two weeks, 90 minutes on collaboration—then follow through on actions.
• Use gamification lightly and purposefully: small, playful cues can lift energy without adding pressure.
• Practice servant leadership: make suggestions, remove obstacles, keep ownership with the Product/Service Owner.
• Explain work in public: present roadmaps and quarterly plans to align context.
• Build a learning cadence: grow skills, seek feedback, plan steps—the way you’d level up in a game.
• Choose certification pragmatically: if you get one, pick the life-long variant—less maintenance, more focus.
• Mind your language: “Scrummie” instead of “Master”—words shape culture. Be respectful, inclusive, and clear.

Team health is productivity: why Paula also plays table football

A small anecdote says a lot: “If they force me to play a round of table football, I have to—and they beat me every time.” She adds with a smile: “I win in other things.” It’s humorous—and it’s culture. Shared laughter, a quick reset, a different way to meet each other.

That’s team hygiene too: closeness without overstepping, fun without derailment. Leaders who stay human create space to talk about the hard stuff. For Scrummies, balancing structure with lightness is central.

The pattern: mindset, structure, adaptation

If we compress Paula’s story, we get a clear triangle:

• Mindset: “Attitude is the most important.” Willingness and ability to learn; caring about people.
• Structure: moderate Scrum events, hold time-boxes, clarify responsibilities.
• Adaptation: every two weeks, revisit what’s needed—and adjust course.

This triangle makes agility robust. It avoids dogmatism (“the handbook says so”) as much as chaos (“we’ll just improvise”). Paula navigates the middle: pragmatic, empathetic, focused.

For career changers: why this story is encouraging

If you’re entering tech from another field, Paula’s devstory offers multiple anchors:

• Non-tech doesn’t mean non-relevant: humanities and social work translate into facilitation and structuring skills.
• Learning isn’t a detour—it’s the path: “I go to my people who can program and ask for help.” That’s strength, not deficiency.
• Rugby or gaming—both help: metaphors and experience from other domains can guide you.
• Seize openings: WienIT looked for Junior Scrummies—Paula applied. Timing + attitude = entry.

Career change isn’t a slogan. It’s a cultural choice. Paula’s first manager chose access over gatekeeping. Teams become more diverse—and often more effective—when they do the same.

Our takeaways from “Paula Gludovatz, Scrummie bei WienIT”

Paula shows that agility starts as a practice, not a paper: listen, structure, facilitate, adapt. Her retrospectives with Serious & Agile Games, uncompromising time-boxing, the small gamified “chocolate box” gesture, and the clear separation of responsibilities between Scrummie and Service Owner all add up to a coherent picture of effective, respectful teamwork.

Perhaps the most important message for developers and agilists alike: overload isn’t heroism. Design the conditions—know availability, plan sprints realistically, surface blockers early. That’s not “soft work.” It’s the hard work that makes software possible in the first place.

Take that seriously, and agility becomes more than a method—it becomes a resilient way of working. That’s what Paula and her teams at WienIT model every day—with structure, mindset, and a wink.

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