The Dynamics of Team Coaching With ICP Agile Certified Coach

Coaching an individual varies largely from the process of coaching a team. What is a team? It comprises more than one person, and they collaborate to work. Thus, the coaching also needs to have a distinct approach. Nevertheless, the essence is the same; the approach and the skills play the distinguishing part.

What is team coaching?

One-on-one coaching focus on a single person, while working with a team needs looking after more than one factor. When you are coaching the team, you cannot focus on one aspect. You need to analyse first the dynamics of the team and the comprising elements. The way you coach them will bring on further opportunities to excel beyond their existing capacities.

Coaching concerns

Unlike individual coaching, when you deal with a team, you always look for an overall result. A good ICP agile certified coach uses the team to build a better bonding and understand the overall factors in concern. Focusing on individual needs leads to resource wastage in these cases. Instead, use your experience and practical outlook to manage the team essentialities while coaching.

Focusing factors

It gets tricky when you sit to jot down the factors to focus on while team coaching. It takes up combined effort to facilitate team learning as each one plays a part. Gain better insights and alter the ways depending on the goals. There is no single rule to stick to as the dynamics are changing practically. However, the critical factor to focus on always lies in the overall growth and improvement. There are a few things I would like you to consider when coaching teams.

·       Unpredictability concerns

Team dynamics are not predictable. Every individual act distinctly, and that is the essence of team building. Everyone has something different to offer and a varied capacity. Identify that and implementing ways to put that into yielding a productive outcome. Be comfortable in dealing with ambiguities and direct yourself in the right direction.

·       Boundary making

Setting a boundary at a one-to-one level is more effortless. With a team, you require a distinct approach. You get to explore more than one aspect while dealing with a group and agree to terms with that. Focus on gaining ground at three levels –

1.     Individually

2.     As a whole

3.     Organizationally

·       Consider long term

Expecting an immediate result with team coaching is unwise. It is easier when considered from an individual level. But with multiple factors playing a part, it is harder to reach a concrete goal at once with a team. Do not put too much pressure, instead be determined and patient. Introduce newer ideas and let them flourish with time so you can gain an impacting outcome.

Ways to provide coaching at your organisation

Functioning as a coaching leader at your organisation takes a mindful approach. When you coach a group, the coaching conversation needs to be careful. It should not exhibit a judgmental or pressuring atmosphere as it will act reverse.

·       Clarify first: Be clear about the performance and your aim. When a team gains insight, it is easier to act rightly in accordance. For this, clarifying what you wish to achieve gets an effective outcome.

·       Developing rightly: Developing through discussion is a productive way to look at the coaching. It successfully avoids difficulties while operating. Share and influence to coach them right. Do not hesitate in cases of ambiguity, instead asses the situations to drive them right.

·       Understand better: The critical step is to understand the team and then set the boundaries. Proper analysis on your part saves a lot of effort in the actual process. Organisational demands are constant but pressurising is not the solution. Instead, encourage productive collaboration to extract the best from the team members. 

Wrapping up

Achieving fast does not always mean gaining rights. Instead, work slowly but steadily towards accomplishing the overall goal. Remember the three key steps:

Introduce: Give room for a fresh perspective to find newer solutions.

Break: Alter the ways to refresh the usual way of thinking and acting.

Share: Providing a glimpse of your struggles makes the team identify with your more.

I have shared my views based on my experience. What has worked for you? What did not work for you? I would love to hear your perspectives.

Resource: https://www.tryscrum.com/blogs/the-dynamics-of-team-coaching/

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How to Use Scrum in Human Resources

Scrum and Human Resources (HR) - how do they work together? And what are the implications of using Scrum within HR?

In this webinar, Professional Scrum Trainer Martijn Magermans and Agile HR Expert Astrid Karsten, author of Toolkit for Agile Talent Development, will take you with them on a journey through agile HR from a Scrum perspective. This webinar is for both HR professionals with an interest in Agile & Scrum and for Scrum Professionals with interest in HR. Martijn and Astrid will explore how Scrum can be used in areas such as professional scrum master performance management, rewarding and compensation, the employee journey and more.

During this webinar attendees will:

- Get a clear understanding of what Agile HR is

- Learn how the Scrum Framework works in HR

- Learn how to make the first step towards increased agility within HR

About Astrid

Astrid started her Scrum and Agile journey as a frontend developer in several teams. By then she was already most intrigued about the “human” factor in development and high performing teams. She continued her career as an Agile Consultant, mainly focusing on agile in infrastructure and non-IT. Since two years she has taken a deep dive in the wellbeing of humans from different perspectives; leadership, HR, personal agility and of course the perks agile and scrum could give in those areas.

About Martijn

Martijn's mission is to connect people, processes and technology, putting people at the heart of the business. As an Agile Coach and trainer he helps clients effectively apply agile ways of working to increase business value, employee happiness and customer satisfaction. He's been passionate about agile product development ever since I was asked to head the development of a technologically advanced track and trace service used in hospitals. As a Product Owner he learned the benefits Scrum offered in controlling complexity and driving continuous improvement.

Resource: https://www.scrum.org/resources/how-use-scrum-human-resources

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Winning Office Politics-3 Tips That Scrum Masters Can Use

The term Office politics is taboo for many professionals, as it is pervasive at any workplace.

To put it simply, workplace politics centres on differences within employees at the workplace, differences in views and opinions, conflicts on various interests and perspectives, etc. Everything boils down to communications and relations in-between humans.

You don’t have to be intimidated by office politics. Great professional scrum master who have swiftly mastered the delicate art of convincingly winning in the field of office politics.

Here are 3 distinct tips that are helpful to make you victorious at your workplace:

Are you having a Choice?

An intelligently common reaction to any kind of office politics is either fight against it or resort to flight. It is a usual human reaction for surviving in the wild and has been in practice from the days when people were hunter-gatherers during prehistoric times.

If you want to be victorious, then you have to consciously select an apt response according to the situation you face. You have to recognize that irrespective of how bad the situations are. You do have a choice of how you actually feel and then respond accordingly. I know very well that this thing is easier said than actually done. So, how are you going to select? This leads to the next crucial point…..

Interpreting Self

Whenever there is a conflict, it is very easy to get completely immersed in it with a tunnel vision, and concentrating on prevailing differences. Such an approach is self-defeating. There is a high probability, in this case, that you will invite ever further resistance, by keeping your focus on differences in positions or views of people.

I would positively recommend the approach of self-interpreting. In this manner, you are able to successfully mitigate the existent risk, without appearing as if you are desperately fighting to win the conflict.

In order to achieve such a focus on various business objectives, you need to gauge the positive and negative attributes of each of the choices or options. Eventually, each employee wants the organization to be successful. If the business is unable to win, then no individual in the organization wins.

It is practically easier for a person to taste a piece from the humble pie and then immediately back off after realizing the selected approach is the most appropriate one.

When you gradually learn to steer the dynamics of the discussion in this specific direction, you would be also able to learn to disengage yourself from a barrage of petty differences, positioning yourself as an individual who is keenly focused on getting the right things done. Your boss would certainly appreciate you as a mature and strategic person who can be bestowed with responsibilities.

Concentrate on Your Arena of Influence

There are many issues, frequently, at the workplace, on which we don’t have any control. It is not an uncommon phenomenon to get entangled in corporate policies, mandates of senior management or client demands that affect the personal interests you have.

Such events are marked by gossiping/complaining, beyond our control. But think for a moment – other than venting out emotions in short term, what are the actual tangible results of gossiping? In most cases, there are none.

Instead of becoming frustrated or feeling victimized about the particular situation, you need to seriously focus on ways to influence the circumstance – here lies the importance of your arena of influence. I want to cite an example. I face such a situation in my company. I tackled it by shifting my focus in adding more value to community meetups, locally. I concentrated on creating a healthy community of different Scrum Masters, productively shifting my focus. Even though it is not a part of my job, it provides me with a platform to shift my attention and focus on my bright spots.

This technique is empowering, as it overcomes the feeling of sheer helplessness. It removes any kind of victimized feeling. It also shows you in good light, where other employees see you as an individual who can efficiently operate within the given limitations, with a self-motivating approach. At times, it is an incredibly effective way to strongly prove one’s mettle.

You may be not in a position to alter or determine the eventual result but, it is always possible to walk away by becoming aware that you have delivered your best in the given situation.

The workplace is full of constraints. With a balanced approach, your boss would admire you as a positive and insightful individual.

Resource: https://tryscrum.com/2021/05/08/winning-office-politics-3-tips-that-scrum-masters-can-use/

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Challenges For Shared Accountability-A Perfect Agile Coach Training

Last Sunday, I was talking to an Agile Coach. Naturally, we started conversing around “Accountability”. We exchanged some excellent thoughts and moved on to discuss the challenges for Accountability. In this blog, I will share my thoughts on Accountability.

In the recent 2020 Scrum Guide, Accountabilities has been emphasised and reworded for Roles. Even though there is no harm in calling roles, but the importance of mentioning them as Accountabilities holds the key as now it stresses the importance of owning the work and learning from it.

Accountability is typically associated with a single person so that the person owns up to work done. On not being able to achieve the desired outcome, the person owns it to learn from agile coach training.

Interestingly in Scrum, we have individual accountabilities — Scrum Master & Product Owner and Shared accountabilities — Developers.

Scrum Master — Accountable for proper implementation of Scrum

Product Owner — Accountable for Why & What — Value of the Product

Developers — Accountable for How — Instilling Quality in the Product

Now, what is shared Accountability?

Each individual is accountable for what they all do.

Each individual is accountable for the group’s actions.

It doesn’t matter how much an individual contributes, but each individual is accountable for the outcomes they deliver as a team.

Is it simple? Let’s look at it.

For the shared Accountability to thrive, it needs an appropriate environment for teams to have

Common Purpose

Open Communication within and outside

Collaboration

Continuous Improvement or Learning

Challenges in achieving Shared Accountabilities

Typically, Organisations today are operating in the Hybrid world that creates particular baggage in the below areas preventing them from achieving shared Accountability.

Organisation Structure

Organisation Culture

Leadership

Organisation Structure:

As the organisations grow, the industry trend to manage it by splitting into different parts. And the easiest way they organise is based on Specialisations, causing departments that hold the power of decision within their boundaries. Now when there is a need to take a collective decision for an organisation to deliver value, the decision making becomes ambiguous as it lies in different departments. Co-ordinating the decision making becomes an overhead and, at times, lead to power conflicts which is a significant constraint for the teams doing the actual work to deliver value.

Organisation Culture:

Schneider’s Model of Culture says, “Culture is how organisations do things to succeed”. Typically, most organisations believe that they succeed by getting and keeping control, like relying on hierarchies for stability and maintaining standards & procedures for every aspect. When encountered a problem that affects the entire organisation, the blame and finger-pointing emerge rather than finding a solution consensus. Then at the team level, thrusting them comply and follow directions.

Leadership:

Typically, the leaders of bureaucratic and controlling organisations exhibit reactive leadership, like being risk-averse and cautious over their actions, not challenging the status quo, complying with the operating procedures, and exercising control over collaboration.

If you noticed a pattern, all three challenges are interrelated.

Recommended Antidotes

To achieve shared Accountability, the organisation’s shared purpose alone wouldn’t be sufficient. It needs to unleash the power and humanising nature of the teams, understanding the shared sense of individuals.

This needs an organisation to organise around customers, which in turn helps teams manage themselves around value. On top of it, autonomy in decision making within boundaries hold the key. Or need to find ways to collaborate across specialisation driven departments and minimise decision making overheads.

Additionally, the organisation’s cultural beliefs should be supporting the purpose of individuals — succeeding by cultivating people who fulfil the organisation’s vision in which the leaders serve as gardeners nurturing the individuals.

Note: You shall explore, the tryScrum’s Agile programs to learn more about Organisation Structure, Culture & Leadership.

Resource: https://tryscrum.com/2021/05/05/challenges-for-shared-accountability/

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Guide to Building a Career as Scrum Master

Are you interested in becoming a Scrum Master, but you are yet to have any experience?

People frequently ask me – if I don’t secure a job, how will I gain experience?

In the last seven years, I have assisted several interested and enthusiastic professionals to become Scrum Masters. In fact, in my first job, at Hewlett Packard, I was a Software Engineer. I gradually elevated to the role of a Scrum Master.

In this blog, I will share my valuable experience in my journey towards becoming a Scrum Master. I would also share stories of various professionals, including women, who were successful in getting a Scrum Master’s job even after a career break.

The tips and strategies I will share helped several professionals understand both the fundamental and experience associated with Scrum Master’s role. Moreover, various professionals also experienced the essence of these concepts in their professional lives.

They became more confident in their job search, presenting themselves as better, more deserving candidates.

The job of an agile scrum master certification is both exciting and challenging. Once you take this journey seriously and succeed in an assignment, you would be content with the results. It makes me genuinely satisfied, as I feel that I have inspired some talented people with my experience.

Coming back to the core question – How is it possible to get the job of a Scrum Master without relevant experience – I would like to share ten valuable tips that effectively help you get the desired results.

A known devil is better than an unknown angel.

A highly productive first step is nurturing the willingness to experiment by finding the most appropriate opportunities under your current company. You need to be straightforward and request your employer about playing the role of a Scrum Master, getting associated with one of the teams.

You have to locate a team that is new to the Agile ways of working and try out few things such as:

Introducing the fundamental ideas of Sprint

Practising various Facilitation techniques to facilitate different Scrum events

Showing the stakeholders the functionalities and attributes of working software and getting their feedback

Introducing the concept of Scrum Board

Implementing a set of modern techniques to facilitate retrospectives

When you experiment with the activities mentioned above and strategies, you can obviously mention the details on your resume, enriching it.

Pen down a Plan for Personal Development

After you have already experimented with few basic Scrum techniques, it is essential to visualise personal development aspects properly.

For example, after a couple of years, you would like to be in a Scrum Master’s role, helping your Organization radically re-imagine the kind of work done.

A clear, crisp and well-designed plan is also vital for your mental health in the long run, which would help you progress further in your career.

Under the personal development plan, you can consider:

Setting clear goals for yourself

Smartly prioritising those goals

Marking the deadlines for achieving the set goals

Recognising threats, along with opportunities

Constantly developing your skills and expanding your knowledge

Utilising the support network you have

Measuring your progress

Your CV is hugely important – start building it

There is no need to panic if you don’t have any significant experience as a Scrum Master. But, it is pretty essential to particularly highlight the contributions you have made in various Agile teams.

For example, you can mention how the team benefitted from your practices.

My experience from the fields

“I had started my professional career as a Software Engineer. To my employer, I had expressed my clear and honest intentions to work in different Scrum teams. I expressed my interest to become a full-time Agile team member. I gradually learned the fundamental practices of Scrum. In my next job, I applied some of the Scrum practices that I could pick up. That was a genuinely defining moment for me, as an aspiring Scrum Master.”

It is highly essential to project your experience as a member of the Scrum team. Mention in your CV the exact practices that you had employed in the Scrum team. Talk about how did you slowly seed your thoughts in teams. Also, keep in mind not to falsify facts in your resume. Simply mention precisely the scrum practices you did and not the ones you did not.

Get appropriate training and get certified.

Earning too many certificates is not the answer to every question. Personally, I don’t vouch for it. But, acquiring a recognised credential certainly indicates two main things:

Strengthening the fundamental knowledge you possess

Creating a learning mindset by investing productively in yourself

I would recommend receiving a certificate from Scrum.org (PSM). You can also earn it from Scrum Alliance (CSM).

Some many other organisations and institutes provide certificates on Scrum. I don’t recommend any of those. You need to be alert from being tricked by an impostor. When searching for an experienced trainer, you need to get connected with someone who has previous work experience of being a Scrum Master.

Preparing Your Resume

This could be the trickiest part of your preparation. You have to ensure that your application, rather CV, gets shortlisted for the role of Scrum Master in a company that you have targeted. Companies nowadays rely on advanced software that screens resume. Hence, you have to take a highly pragmatic and professional approach.

You need to ensure highlighting some essential keywords while writing your resume, such as ‘Scrum Master’, ‘Facilitation’, ‘Retrospectives’, ‘Agile Teams’, ‘Metrics’, ‘Coaching’, etc.

Most modern software tools and products, including LinkedIn, will scrutinise and scan the resumes based on these keywords. Keep in mind to logically connect all these terms in your resume. Also, don’t forget to highlight some key contributions in your resume.

Doing all these things would increase the probability of your resume getting shortlisted.

Focus on the question – Why an employer should hire you?

Given all other achievements and qualities are on the same platform, a person with more experience would definitely get hired as a Scrum Master. Since you lack that experience, you have to innovatively highlight your attributes and stints relevant to the role you are applying for, making you a perfect fit.

For example, suppose you are applying to the E-commerce industry for the role of Scrum Master. Accordingly, you need to demonstrate your qualities and experience relevant to that specific industry. You can also highlight pertinent blogs you have penned for clients. It is also acceptable to mention a community event that you have organised or facilitated.

Finding volunteering opportunities in communities

If you cannot get enough relevant opportunities under your employer, you need to search for volunteering opportunities in various communities. 

This could be a non-profit at the regional or national level.

At tryScrum, our trainers were once community members. They began their journeys as members of our Studios before they became full-time Scrum trainers. Community forums help you in building a network among several Scrum Masters.

45% of all your opportunities will be from networking and relevant communities (Source: ‘The Stages of Scrum Mastery research’).

You have to become creative to gain experience. I have known people who struggled in the initial stages but never gave up, ultimately achieving the position of a Scrum Master.

Your Network is Your Networth

It is considered that good networking gets you the job that you are desiring and searching for. It is also a matter of luck – being present at the right spot, with the right people and at the right time.

Keep in mind that if getting your current job requires networking, then certainly getting a Scrum Master’s job would require even more vital networking.

Ensure that your colleagues and close friends know very well about your job search intentions. In addition, try to utilise the potential of various groups, forums and professional networks.

Be Patient

Patience is undoubtedly a valuable virtue. In conclusion, I would always say you remain patient in your job search. Shifting to an entirely new position in your professional career could take some time. You have to be persistent.

What is next?

Numerous organisations can help you get valid certificates and help you build an illustrious career. Remember that you have to keep on learning and expanding your knowledge relentlessly. You can explore the following:

Scrum.org (PSM II / PSM III)

ICAgile (ACC or ENT or CAT)

Scrum Alliance (CEC / CTC)

ICF (ACC / PCC)

CPCC (Co-active Coaching)

tryScrum Community Opportunities

Scrum Master Studio

Product Owner Studio

Agile Leader Studio

Resource: https://tryscrum.com/2021/04/30/guide-to-building-a-career-as-scrum-master/ 

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Biotech and Scrum: Rethinking How Biotech Innovates in the 21st Century

Scrum is commonplace in the software industry, but its ideas and principles can be applied to other domains and contexts. Can the ideas of Scrum help Biotech firms deliver more value, whilst navigating the complexities of innovation? Can Scrum work in an environment where experiments take time, failure is likely, partnerships are proliferating, and roles are highly specialized?

And will scientists actually accept this new way of working?

In this webinar Dave West CEO of Scrum.org talks to Tyson Bertmaring, MBA, Head of Partner Success at Dyno Therapeutics, and Matt Abbinanti, Ph.D., Senior Program Manager at CRISPR Therapeutics on how Scrum master course in Chennai works in Biotech.

About Our Speakers

Matt Abbinanti, Ph.D., Senior Program Manager at CRISPR Therapeutics

After a postdoc studying the electrophysiological changes in spinal neurons after spinal cord injury, Matt entered the biotech industry as a scientist for BioAxone Biosciences. Later, as Director of Research and Project Management at BioAxone, he was responsible for leading the preclinical development of small-molecule Rho kinase inhibitors from discovery stage through IND-enabling studies for the treatment of cavernous angioma, neurotrauma, and glaucoma. He made the transition to Program Management at CRISPR Therapeutics in early 2019, facilitating the installation of the Scrum framework for a high-performing research team and managing multiple alliances and research-stage programs.

Tyson Bertmaring, MBA, Head of Partner Success at Dyno Therapeutics

Tyson Bertmaring began his career as a United States Air Force officer leading teams across diverse environments, spanning from nuclear deterrence to R&D. Since departing active duty, Tyson has transitioned those experiences to serve R&D teams across both large and small biotech companies and alliances. He is passionate about experimenting with Scrum to realize the joy and achievement of others through fulfilling teamwork.  Tyson’s current experiment is enterprise wide at Dyno Therapeutics, a biotech startup.

Dave West, CEO, Scrum.org

Dave is the CEO at Scrum.org. He is a frequent keynote at major industry conferences and is a widely published author of articles and research reports, along with his acclaimed book: Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design, that helped define new software modeling and application development processes. He led the development of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) for IBM/Rational. After IBM/Rational, West returned to consulting and managed Ivar Jacobson Consulting for North America. Then as VP, research director Forrester research where he ran the software development and delivery practice. Prior to joining Scrum.org he was Chief Product Officer at Tasktop where he was responsible for product management, engineering and architecture.

Resource: https://www.scrum.org/resources/biotech-and-scrum-rethinking-how-biotech-innovates-21st-century

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When the Professional Scrum Master as a Teacher Becomes a Preacher

About five years ago I published the paper “The 8 Stances of a Scrum Master”. Although it definitely needs an update, the core of the paper is still relevant. In the paper, I describe the misunderstood and preferred stances of a Scrum Master. One of the misunderstood stances is the teacher. It often gets fulfilled in such a way the Scrum Master becomes Scrum police. A recent meet up in The Liberators Network triggered an interesting conversation between a couple of Scrum practitioners. Within their organization, Scrum Masters are not teaching but preaching. At first sight, the difference doesn’t seem significant. But from my own experience, I’ve learned that it can have a big impact on how Scrum is used within your team or organization. In this blog post, I’ll describe the difference between Scrum teaching & preaching, why it matters, and what you can do to improve the situation.

The Scrum Master as a Teacher

As we describe in our paper “Scrum: A Framework To Reduce Risk And Deliver Value Sooner”, it’s up to the Scrum Master to include the perspective of empirical process control and the quality by which transparency, inspection, and adaptation are taking shape in and around the Scrum Team. The Scrum Master is there to make the elements of the Scrum framework come to life in the team and the broader organization. For this, Scrum Masters adopt a number of stances, depending on the situation they find themselves in. These stances are the teacher, facilitator, impediment remover, change agent, coach, and mentor.

As a teacher, professional scrum masters teach and explain the purpose of the Scrum framework as a means to work empirically. They work hard to make sure that everyone understands how the artifacts, events, roles, and principles promote empiricism and agility. A Scrum Master teaches their team and organization how Scrum helps them to be effective in complex environments.

SM as a Teacher

The Scrum Master as a Preacher

The opposite of the Scrum Master as a teacher is the Scrum Master as a preacher. This is a Scrum Master who preaches the rules of Scrum without considering the context of the team, the unique characteristics of its environment, and the dynamics in the wider organization. The rules of Scrum are presented as dry facts that should be adhered to, without explaining why they are important.

It’s quite easy to spot the Scrum Master as a preacher because every conversation about Scrum remains theoretical. Often it’s not even a conversation since the only argument is “because it’s in the Scrum Guide…”

·       Why should a team use a Product Goal? → because it was recently added to the Scrum Guide.

·       Why can’t we talk about Development Teams anymore? → because they removed from the updated Scrum Guide.

·       Why isn’t the Scrum Master a servant leader anymore? → because according to the Scrum Guide (s)he “is a true leader”.

·       Why should we change “self-organizing” into “self-managing” everywhere? → because the Scrum Guide changed the wording

This of course slightly exaggerated, but this is how I perceive conversations with Scrum preachers. It’s not even about who’s right or wrong. The point is that preaching Scrum isn’t helpful for anyone. It’s rarely a good way to engage people in changing their behavior and understanding of how things work. Instead, it’s far more likely that you only create resistance by being pedantic about what people are used to. By doing so, you close conversations instead of opening them. As a result, the team will learn a couple of facts, but don’t understand why it matters, and how it could benefit them. The facts might stick, but that doesn’t mean they’ve learned something.

Three Characteristics of the Scrum Preacher

The Scrum Master as a preacher seems to have three distinct characteristics: lack of experience with Scrum, too much ego, and Scrum as the only tool in their kit. Let’s dig deeper into why lack of experience is a characteristic of a Scrum preacher, first.

Lack of experience

Teaching becomes powerful when you can put your knowledge into the context of a team. If you understand the impediments a team is facing and the environment they’re part of, you can offer a tailor-made approach. However, if you don’t have experience with Scrum, and don’t truly understand the situation of the team, all that is left is simply repeating what the Scrum Guide states.

In all honesty, I’ve experienced this myself as well. When I discovered Scrum about 12 years ago, I did understand the situation of the team, and due to my lack of experience with Scrum itself, my initial approach was to preach to rules of Scrum hoping to convince the team to use them. The result was that they actually followed the rules initially, and because they didn’t understand why it was important, the rules didn’t stick and were only used mechanically.

One of the movements I see in today’s Scrum community is that the Scrum Master role is considered a junior position by organizations and Agile consultancy agencies. These agencies recruit people without any Scrum and work experience, quickly give them a Scrum Master badge, and offer them to organizations as contractors. Although it’s done with the best intentions, the only thing these Scrum Masters can do is preach the Scrum Guide.

Ego

Let’s be clear: there’s nothing wrong with ego. It can be the fuel to get things done and help you achieve personal goals. It can also get in the way. The teaching stance puts you in a position of authority. You have knowledge about Scrum the team doesn’t have yet. So, explaining all the facts about Scrum to the team will feel good. Especially if you don’t have the experience yet, it gives you the feeling that you add value. Before you know it, you’re the companies thought-leader, how cool is that?!

I’ll confess that I enjoyed this status myself as well. Especially when I started to combine my Scrum Master role with being a Professional Scrum Trainer at Scrum.org. But the more experience I gained as a Scrum Master, the less I used the teaching stance. Nowadays, I rarely explain Scrum. I don’t consider it effective. Although there’s nothing wrong with teaching, it quickly becomes preaching. So I started to use a different approach on how to fulfill the teaching stance. Keep on reading if you want to learn more about it.

Scrum, Scrum, Scrum

As the saying goes: “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. So, if the only thing you know is Scrum, it’s likely that this is your number #1 recommendation as well. The Scrum Master as a teacher doesn’t only explain what Scrum is about, but also how Kanban, XP, or Lean can help. The Scrum Master as a preacher focuses on Scrum only. Other frameworks or methodologies are considered as ‘evil’ if taken into consideration at all. To spot a Scrum preacher, all you have to do is spend an entire day on LinkedIn and track the many discussions Scrum fanatics have…

When faced with complex work, Scrum is an excellent framework. But so is Kanban. It really depends on the type of work the team is doing, and their context. Maybe working in Sprints doesn’t make sense to them, and they would benefit to focus on flow only. Maybe a hybrid situation where Scrum and Kanban are combined works best. A Scrum Master should always have an open mind and explore multiple frameworks, methodologies, and practices. That’s what serving the team is about. The good news is that this is even described in the Scrum Guide ;-)

How not to become a preacher?

When I noticed that I became a Scrum preacher instead of a Scrum teacher, I made a couple of changes that I can definitely recommend to you as well.

First, challenge yourself to stop talking about Scrum (or Agile)! Whenever you explain something about Scrum to your team, do so without using any Scrum terminology or other buzzwords. You’ll notice that this prevents you to ramble the dry facts about Scrum but instead helps you to explain why it matters. We used this approach ourselves as well when we wanted to explain the purpose of Scrum in one illustration. The result is a comic that doesn’t talk about Scrum at all but does explain its purpose.

Purpose of Scrum

The purpose of Scrum explained without using any difficult terms or buzzwords.

Second, whenever you hear yourself say “because it’s in the Scrum Guide”, ask yourself why this was your answer. Be brutally honest. It doesn’t mean you’re wrong, it could be a signal of a knowledge gap. Which is fine. But instead of paraphrasing the Scrum Guide, take some time to do more research. Or even better: make it a joint exploration with your team!

Third, practice explaining Scrum to fellow Scrum Masters. Only by explaining something to others, you’ll discover if you truly understand it. Create or join a Scrum Master community in which you can safely practice. Help each other to hone the teaching skills, and to move away from preaching only. Often you need others to become aware of your own behavior. So ask a fellow Scrum Master to be your mirror.

Fourth, make teaching a joint discovery and exploration. Whenever you feel the tendency to teach the team something about Scrum, ask yourself “how can I make this a joint discovery?”. So instead of explaining the Scrum roles, artifacts, and events, use an exercise that helps the team figure this out themselves. Our webshop is packed with exercises that help you do so. For example, “Management in Scrum” creates a better understanding of the roles, “Scrum events & activities” clarifies the events, and the “Definition of Done exercise” shows why a Done increment matters.

Fifth, try other Scrum Master stances. Especially the stances of the coach, and facilitator. As a coach, you help the team grow by asking the right questions and to draw attention to the reasons for an empirical approach. As a facilitator, you help the team find the best way to make work, impediments, and team dynamics transparent. Done right, inspection and adaptation become much easier. So, instead of teaching the concept of e.g. Sprint Goals, make transparent what current happens without a goal, help the team inspect how it impacts them and why it matters, and encourage them to come up with improvements.

Closing

The Scrum Master is responsible to teach and explain the purpose of the Scrum framework as a means to work empirically. A common pitfall is that teaching becomes preaching. In this blog post, we described the difference, and why it matters. Preaching probably will only result in resistance to Scrum. You close conversations instead of opening them. So we offered you 5 ideas to fulfill to role differently. Give it a try, and let us know your experiences.

Resource: https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/when-scrum-master-teacher-becomes-preacher

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