Scrum Mastery

by Geoff Watts

great ScrumMasters also focus on how to grow individuals to the point where they are focused more on the team’s success than on their own.

One of the best ways to have and show empathy is to listen.

Great ScrumMasters also listen in a way that helps those they are listening to understand as well.

If I were to recommend one skill for ScrumMasters to practice it would be empathic listening. It is crucial and has a huge impact on team performance, dynamics, morale and progress.

A good ScrumMaster facilitates cooperation between people. A great ScrumMaster facilitates collaboration.

Lyssa Adkins describes collaboration as something where “each person gives away their cherished vision of what it ‘should be’ so that something better, something that none of them could have imagined alone, can emerge” [45] and she quite rightly points out that this type of behaviour requires courage and vulnerability.

consider improv games that you can play in the office (or at a local pub). Games such as “one-word storytelling” [46] or “the three-headed expert” [47] or “story spines” [48] are really quick and easy (and fun) games that can help teams get into the mindset of collaboration and practice that skill.

A good ScrumMaster encourages people to talk to each other. A great ScrumMaster encourages people to listen to each other

When teams adopt a yes, and mindset, they quickly recognise an offer from one of their teammates and build on it — this is the essence of collaboration and creativity. They find solutions to problems, ways around impasses and take solutions to another level.

Challenging the status quo is a big part of the ScrumMaster role.

In the early stages, the ScrumMaster’s focus is to help the “alien” Scrum team survive in the host organisation. Soon, though, the ScrumMaster’s attention must shift to changing the host organisation so that it not just tolerates Scrum teams but actively supports them. The ScrumMaster, in effect, must help create a new “way we do things around here;” one that is specifically designed to complement Scrum teams rather than the old way of working.

There is a fine line between disruptive and annoying. To be effective you must find ways to defend the team without alienating those outside the team. Respect and tact are very helpful in making a point without getting people’s backs up.

A good ScrumMaster will push for permission to remove impediments to team productivity. A great ScrumMaster will be prepared to ask for forgiveness.

Great ScrumMasters take the approach that, so long as it is legal, ethical and defensible in the pursuit of quality delivery, if the team need something then it is their job to give it to them.

This is why almost all of the great Scrum teams that I have seen either use physical tools (cards, stickies etc) or the most minimalistic tool they can find — and it’s often one that they have created themselves!

A good ScrumMaster protects the team from distractions. A great ScrumMaster finds the root cause of those distractions and eliminates them.

Mike Cohn says that organisations should “minimise the number of people required to be on two teams and avoid having anyone on three.”

Of all these options, the team thought that having a shorter, focussed sprint just concentrating on the Wizard Sleeves’ product backlog would be their preferred choice as this would reduce their context switching.

In the trial sprint the team actually delivered more in two weeks than they had in the previous four-week sprint, mainly because of a greater focus. Tony then used the empirical data to make a case to management for a change to how people were assigned to projects and teams.

The first thing that you will notice is that, by taking on three one-week tasks concurrently, it will likely take four weeks to complete them all. This is because of the cost of context-switching.

Though a parallel approach may make us feel like we are making more progress, we are actually in a worse position.

The serial approach, besides giving us a shorter time from task start to task completion, has another distinct advantage over a parallel approach: increased adaptability.

Teams can adopt simple rules to increase their effectiveness, such as, “everyone on the team must be at least 60 percent allocated to the team” or “No more than four people can be on two projects.”

A good ScrumMaster will help maintain team harmony. A great ScrumMaster will guide a team through disharmony to reach a new level of teamwork.

Darryl then displayed a really useful skill of a ScrumMaster—uncomfortable silence. He waited, and he waited, and when he thought he should say something to move the topic forward, he waited a little longer.

“forming” stage, a time when most team members want to be accepted and avoid confrontation and conflict wherever possible. The forming stage is both a comfortable and frustrating phase of team development.

It is also frustrating because, due to the lack of conflict, there is actually very little progress or teamwork.

When a team is “storming,” there is conflict. Conflicting ideas, values, principles and practices will surface as the team attempt to rationalise their identity and each person’s place within the team.

However, great ScrumMasters will use the conflict within the team to move them forward rather than backwards, even though it is almost always a painful process. Working through the conflict to a deep and meaningful resolution takes time and involves careful navigation. It often involves helping the team reflect on the values of each individual within the team and settling on or modifying some team values.