Scrum Mastery

by Geoff Watts

Great ScrumMasters will also find out what motivates the people they are serving. I was once asked in a workshop about what reward policies Scrum has built into it. When I responded with “there are none,” they then asked me what they should do about it. I posed them a hypothetical scenario: Suppose, at the end of the project, your boss comes along and says “Great job! That was a really impressive piece of work and it meant a lot to me, and the rest of the company. I would like to recognise your effort and performance but I don’t know how. How can I reward you? Name it...” I asked the group to think about it and then asked them what they would ask for. The responses I got included: • “It would just be nice if someone actually said something like that!” • Money • Time off • New gadgets • Company-sponsored social events • Time and authority to improve the team’s work environment • More autonomy over the team’s work • An opportunity to experiment with new tools or technologies And then one lady said: “It’s funny you should ask because just recently I got something that I didn’t know I wanted but, now that I’ve had it, I want it all the time.” The rest of the group looked at her and fell expectantly silent, as if to say, “What is this magical thing of which you speak?!” She explained that, at the last sprint review, the ScrumMaster had arranged with the product owner to bring along a couple of the actual end users of the product to see the latest features that had been develope...