Lord Krishna was our first Scrum Master who helped "Pandavas" to win the "Kurukshetra" war without using a single weapon. On top of it, he was the almighty with so many invisible powers, but he still guided the "Pandavas" through his servant Leadership.
Inspired by this concept, I have created a session to highlight the role of a "Scrum Master" and how can we make a Scrum Master a true "Servant Leader" without so much depending on authority or tools rather concentrating on simple things that can make his contribution to the team a true differentiating factor.
Topics covered in the task:
- Understanding the team formation stages
- 5 dysfunctions of teams
- Gauge the team members' behaviours
- How a Scrum Master can make his team GREAT
- Soft skills for Scrum Master
- How a Scrum Master help his team in various situations
- Importance of learning for a Scrum Master
- Scrum Master's backlog for his team's improvements
- Scrum Masters checklist
2. 2
1. MYTH: The best Scrum Masters already worked as a Dev Team member
2. FACT: The ScrumMaster must have courage to do his job
3. MYTH: The best Scrum Masters already worked as Project Manager
4. MYTH: The Scrum Master is the most important role in a Scrum project
5. FACT: The Scrum Master must have good interpersonal skills
6. MYTH: The Scrum Master is one of the decision makers for the project schedule
7. MYTH: The Scrum Master and the Dev Team estimate the Product Backlog items
8. FACT: The Scrum Master must protect the Dev Team from external interference
9. MYTH: The Scrum Master usually cannot change the organization she works for
10. FACT: The Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring that Scrum is correctly used
11. MYTH: The Scrum Master must manage the work of the Dev Team
12. MYTH: The Scrum Master should be the single point of contact to the stakeholders
13. MYTH: The Scrum Master is the Project Leader
14. FACT: The Scrum Master does not have any authority but has responsibility
15. MYTH: The Scrum Master decides when to cancel a sprint
Scrum Master Role – Myths & Facts
3. 3
Scrum Master Role – SHU – HA- RI Phases
Schedule Meetings
Team Assistant/Scribe
Daily 3 Questions
List Impediments
Moderate Meetings
Protect The Team
Diagnose
Remove Impediments
Team Interface
Assign Tasks
Decide Technical Issues
Evade conflict
Bossy
Talks Velocity, Timelines
Facilitate Meetings
Grow The Team
Progressively Delegates
Help Team Find Causes
Make Team Accountable
Teach F2F Communication
Encourage Collaboration
Constructive Conflicts
Trainer, Mentor, Coach
Cares About Motivation
Continuous Learner
Focus on Innovation
Change Agent
Agile Evangelist
12. 12
Ask yourself a question
“how do I learn?”
This is the starting
point to become agile
Tell me, I forget; Show
me, I remember; involve
me, I understand
Curiosity is the first step
for learning & ego is the
first blocker
Learning Pyramid with average
retention Rate
Learn & Make The Team Learn
13. 13
CROSS-
FUNCTIONAL
HIGH
PERFORMANCE
SELF
ORGANIZED
MOTIVATED
1. Encourage
secondary
skills
2. Arrange
training
3. Encourage
knowledge
sharing
4. Dedicate
x% of
capacity for
learning
5. Move
people
around
1. Introduce Pair
programming
2. Start TDD
3. Introduce
Refactoring
4. Start
continuous
integration
5. Aim for ZQC
1. Manage
their own
impediments
2. Time boxing
3. Innovative
Inspect &
Adapt
1. Team
building
activities
2. Select good
metrics
3. Celebrate
their success
4. ROWE
Scrum Master Backlog
14. 14
Morale is a multiplier for Velocity
An approach to success: Scrum Masters have to follow the below:
Protect – When there are obstacles from outside
Pride – For the good work done or when delivered great work
Empower – The team
Optimism – Process efficiency
Celebrate success – To make the moments memorable
Create happiness – Genuinely….
How we perform?How we feel?
An Approach To Success
15. 15
Agile is built on
RESPONSIBILITY
at all levels of the
ORGANIZATION
We as Scrum Masters, have to show the
responsibility at our level
Let our teams also feel the responsibility
by closely working with them by
addressing their impediments and protect
them and support them
Help the management understand the
Agile and be agile
Bridge the gaps at all levels through
information radiation
…..
How Can You Make The Difference?
These are some of the MYTHS and FACTS of the Scrum Master
SHU HA RI are the phases in Japanese Marshal Arts.
Scrum Master when they start career in the role, they will be in SHU phase
Next after having little experience they get to the next level but they sometimes use authority unknowingly
At the Nirvana (final stage) they develop lot of important skills that are required for Scrum Master role and become RI
When a team gets formed, this is the natural flow in the team formation.
It takes time to reach the final stage, it is natural
But, you as Scrum Master can compress that time.. How? Using the soft skills, coaching skills etc
1) Absence of trust. If the members of the team do not trust each other then they cannot be totally honest with each other.
2) Fear of conflict. Without trust people will not have the healthy debates that are necessary to arrive at better thought through decisions.
3) Lack of commitment. If the team have not aligned behind a decision then the individual members who did not agree with the final decision will ultimately be less committed to that decision.
4) Avoidance of accountability. If they are not committed to the course of action, then they are less likely to feel accountable (or hold other people accountable).
5) Inattention to results. Consequently, they are less likely to care about the group results (and instead focus on achieving their own goals).
Reference: https://slooowdown.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/a-summary-of-the-five-dysfunctions-of-a-team-by-patrick-lencioni/
According to 2013 VersionOne survey: 43% of Agile projects fail just because of PEOPLE problems ===
People mindset is important because agility is all about mindset. Individuals are well behaved but when they work in team, behavior may change
Leads to conflicts
Tacit knowledge
Silo based thinking
Focus on individual success rather than team’s success
Owning a part of the sprint goal and try to restrict themselves to that area
Lack of openness which is one of the most important legs of empirical model
Lack of courage
Effective management of 7 Wastes of software development
Effective use of WIP limits and make sure things are delivered based on value
Timeboxing the Scrum ceremonies
Ineffective retrospectives
Lack of importance to quality
Making the team truly cross functional
DOR & DOD
Productive sprint planning meetings
Also talk about “I know when I see it” for visible information radiators
Theory X and Theory Y: When the Scrum team contains more theory Xthe Scrum Master role is more challenging and he needs to struggle if his soft skills are not sufficient enough to tackle the situation.
Situational Leadership: Instead of always jump and help the team he needs to let them find the direction. This will help the teams to become self-organized rather than dependent teams
Decision making: When scrum master comes with domain or technology backgrounnd he generally tends to make the decision which is close to dectatorship type. In this case the SM has to really wear the SM hat rather than a SME hat and let the team drive the decision
Team building: One of very key soft skills especially for the SMs. I generally observed the SMs who spend more time with their teams, who truely behave like servant leaders have got great positive outcome from their teams. Going to lunch together with the team, having team outing events, conducting in house games will really help team bonding
Try to make people adaptable and flexible
Encourage the team to fix the problems without waiting for who broke it or who should fix it
Let the team be progressively elaborative
Let them take baby steps
Experiment and get feedback
Take interim inputs from respective stakeholders (PO, Team etc)
Conduct team bonding activities
Pair programming (not with 2 members sitting together with 2 laptops )
Play/fun activities
Have a name to your scrum team and T shirt with the logo
Have lunch together
Team outings
Create Results Only Work Environment
Scrum master is a very powerful role, so let the team understand this role properly and its responsibilities
Encourage innovation wherever applicable
Try to increase the collaboration
Encourage face-to-face communication
Appreciate team whenever they do a good job
Everyone in the team should have a common understanding of the vision
Share knowledge
Channelize the teams effort in right direction
Keep transparency through information radiators
Conduct SWOT analysis and address the weakness and threats through coaching techniques
Move people around
The Scrum Master Backlog will help to Make The Teams Stronger..Together
And long lived high Performance Agile Teams
=== Agile is built on responsibility at all levels of the organization ===
The biggest disability is not having tools, support, etc. It is not having self confidence and courage.
We are all courageous so we take the responsibility of changing the organization by showing a change in us
In order to have a healthy collaboration between PO and the Development team and to ensure every sprint on sprint valuable working software is delivered, you as Scrum Master have to demonstrate these characteristics.