Scrum Master - Agilonomics

Making the Case for a Full Time Scrum Master

June 22, 2023 No Comments

Many organizations continue to struggle with grasping the true value of a full-time Scrum Master. The role of a dedicated Scrum Master often faces scrutiny and is not fully understood. One common argument against having a full-time ScrumMaster is the perception that it’s not justified or affordable. Here is a conversation I had with a hiring manager who was budgeting for roles in his Scrum Team. Me[Amit]: “Hey Steve!”. “I heard you have decided against hiring a full time Scrum Master for your team?” Steve: “Exactly! We need to optimize costs and make the most of our resources. Hiring a full-time ScrumMaster seems like an unnecessary expense.” Me: “I completely understand the budget concerns, Steve. However, having a full-time ScrumMaster allows for dedicated focus and expertise, leading to faster resolution of issues and increased team efficiency. The impact on project success and customer satisfaction is remarkable.” Steve: “Hmm, I hadn’t considered that perspective. But what about the team’s self-organization? Won’t a ScrumMaster hinder their autonomy?” Me: “Great question, Steve! A skilled ScrumMaster empowers teams by coaching and mentoring them in self-organization. They foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and knowledge sharing. Ultimately, this strengthens the team’s ability to make informed decisions and adapt to change.” Steve: “Amit, thanks for your perspective. I’m curious to know if you have any data or evidence to support the value of full-time Scrum Masters? Some concrete examples or statistics will help.” Me: “I’m glad you asked, Steve! I’ve collected data over several years that shows significant improvements in teams with dedicated Scrum Masters. Let me share a few compelling insights with you.” I pull out relevant artifacts working with different teams in various organizations and show them to Steve. Me: “Here, take a look. The data clearly shows that teams with a dedicated Scrum Master demonstrate higher productivity, improved delivery quality and are happier. They help remove impediments, facilitate collaboration, and ensure everyone is aligned with the Agile principles.” Metric 1: Team Throughput (Velocity) This study working with a team shows average velocity increased ~20% in about 4 Sprints by transitioning to a full time dedicated Scrum Master and, it started to fall down when we switched back to a developer playing the role. Metric 2: Number of Defects per Sprint Another controlled study done over a 4 month period showed average number of defects moved up from 8(S1-3) to 13(S4-6) and then dropped to 8(S7-9) and dropped further to 3(S10-13) and stayed low at 3(S14-16) Without a full-time Scrum Master(1-6), the team faced challenges in quality control and defect prevention. However, with the roles and responsibilities of a dedicated Scrum master, the team raised impediments that helped them receive support in implementing effective quality assurance practices, organizing training sessions, and improving their skills. This resulted in a gradual reduction in the number of defects over time. Metric 3: Timely Delivery Initially, not having a full-time Scrum Master(Project 1 and 2), the team was challenged with coordination, communication, and working out dependencies. With the introduction of a full-time Scrum Master(Project 3, 4 and 5), they experienced improved collaboration, better communication channels, effective teamwork, trust, and camaraderie. This resulted in shorter project delivery times as we moved forward. Steve: “Well, that’s interesting. But can’t we assign these responsibilities to someone part-time? Keep that part time role dedicated to playing Scrum Master for an extended time? We have budget constraints, you know.” Me: “By having a full-time ScrumMaster, you’re investing in the long-term success of your teams. They become more self-reliant, adaptable, and resilient, which contributes to higher employee satisfaction and retention.” Steve: Deeply thinking….I see and couldn’t agree more. We need to break free from the misconception that a full-time ScrumMaster is an unnecessary expense. The benefits they bring to the table far outweigh the costs. Steve was convinced and decided to invest in increasing agility for his teams and organization. He decided to hire several Scrum Masters in full time dedicated capacity. The Scrum Masters were nurtured and empowered to play their roles effectively. Conclusion: The data demonstrated clearly, there is value in having a full-time Scrum Master. Honestly, there were challenges in the beginning. But, with time, the dedicated Scrum Master (nurtured and empowered) played a crucial role in improving team velocity, reducing defects, and shortening project delivery times. The support provided by the Scrum Master, including coaching and training the teams, facilitating effective teamwork and collaboration, improved team behaviors and allowed the team to overcome obstacles. As a result, teams improved continuously. Investing in a full-time Scrum Master does prove to be beneficial and impactful. It helps in achieving higher productivity, improved quality, and timely project deliveries. Remember, agile is not only about the process. If implemented wisely, it also impacts collaboration, transparency, and continuous learning. Invest in full time dedicated Scrum Masters. Support, nurture and empower them to see their full value. They will indeed help your teams achieve greatness!

Daily Standups: Facilitation Essentials With Agilonomics

How to facilitate effective daily standups

February 28, 2023 No Comments

Are your Daily standups routine, boring and unproductive? Daily stand-ups are a hot topic in the world of scrum and often create a sense of controversy. It’s not uncommon for teams to struggle with the purpose and frequency of these meetings. Some team members may feel uncomfortable with the daily routine, while others may be unclear on how to effectively run the stand-ups. It seems that everyone has their own thoughts and opinions on how these meetings should be conducted. But don’t let the differing viewpoints confuse you! In this article, we’ll dive into all aspects of the daily stand-up and discover simple rules that will help in facilitating effective daily stand-ups more successful. 4 Rules for Agile teams to make their daily standups effective Rule 1: Same time, same place One important rule of daily stand-ups is to have them at the same time and in the same place. Consistency is key! Imagine if you had to attend a daily meeting and its time and location changed randomly. Even if you added it to your calendar, you would probably still miss a few of them. This is because human beings naturally do best with rhythm and it can be seen in all aspects of our lives. Imagine yourself taking a train or ride at the same time and same place daily and that it changed randomly due to a number of reasons. How would you feel about it? Frustrated? Rushed? Missed reaching work on time? Feeling that the organizers and owners of the ride service should stretch out of their comfort zone, make standard rule and expect everyone to abide by those rules, right? Remember, people have busy schedules and multiple commitments in their work and personal lives. What helps us human beings is to establish a rhythm with things that are routine. So, to avoid disruption and ensure maximum participation, it’s best to stick to the same time and place for these meetings. Make sure everyone knows the schedule and adds it to their calendars. This will help everyone stay on track and attend the meetings regularly. Rule2: Start on time ” Starting daily standups on time is crucial for their effectiveness. “ This is because if you allow team members who are running late to dictate the start time, it sets a wrong precedent that can continue in the future. To ensure daily standups start on time, set working agreements and expect team members to adhere to them. Here’s one example from my experience. I was Scrum Master for a team where team members were consistently late for daily standups. To solve this, I brought it up in a retrospective and we agreed on some rules. The team decided that while the standup was scheduled for 10:00 AM, we would actually start at 10:02 AM to allow a two-minute buffer for team members to settle in. If someone arrived after 9:03 or later, they would put $1 in a piggy bank, which we called the food fund. This fund was meant to grow until we had around $20, at which point we would go to Starbucks together. This incentive worked, and the food fund stopped growing as people became more conscious of not losing their $1 on a regular basis. Another example is from Mike Cohn, who used to hand a heavy ball to each team member while providing their plans and updates. The “heavy” ball would create a sense of discomfort and members avoided long conversations while talking In one team I was coaching, the manager and product owner took a more stringent approach. He set a rule where if a team member was one minute late, they would put $1 in the piggy bank, two minutes late would result in $2, and three minutes or more would result in $3. One team member was unfazed by the $1 penalty, but when he started putting $3 in the piggy bank every day, he soon started running out of dollar bills and eventually started coming on time. These are just a few examples of how to start daily standups on time and ensure focused participation. Rule 3: Keep till 15 minutes One of the reasons many team members have a negative view towards daily standup meetings is due to the fact that if not managed effectively, they can easily exceed the allotted time. In my experience, I have seen daily standup meetings go on for over 45 minutes, or even an hour, which can frustrate team members who would rather focus on completing their work. To make sure this doesn’t happen, it’s important to understand the purpose of daily standups. These meetings are not for team members to give updates to their manager or the scrum master, but rather a time for the team to self-organize and plan their work for the next 24 hours. It’s also a time to call out any impediments and ask for help. The three rules mentioned earlier can have a positive impact on daily standups if they are implemented effectively and understood properly. However, if they are not, it can often be a result of the prevalent culture within the team or the entire organization. Format of the daily standup When it comes to the format of effective daily standup meetings, there has been some debate around the use of the three traditional questions. What did I accomplish in the past 24 hours? What will I accomplish in the next 24 hours? What is impeding me from moving forward? While some Agile practitioners believe these questions are too limited and can stifle creativity, I believe that they can be a useful starting point, especially for new teams that are just starting with Scrum. Additionally, even for high-performing teams, these questions can be of value as long as they help the team regularly track its progress through the sprint. What is important? Standups should be purposeful, allowing the team to plan their work for the next 24 hours and to call

What Does A Scrum Master Do?

September 21, 2022 No Comments

Scrum Master is a mystical role in Scrum. I say mystical because many companies and leaders are unable to comprehend the importance and essence of this role. As a result, the Scrum Master continues to be an under-appreciated role. Such leaders often ask, “What does a Scrum Master actually do? The developers or the team does the work. The product owner talks with the customers, stakeholders, business partners, understands the competition and the market, brings requirements etc., but what is the role of the Scrum Master?” I once had a conversation with a leader who questioned the Scrum Master role and wanted to get my insights [Leader] Amit, do you think we can cut down on the Scrum Master role? [Me] I asked him, “What do you think they (the Scrum Masters) do?” [Leader] Well, “they facilitate Scrum ceremonies and are supposed to manage the work?” [Me] Hmmm, “Manage the work?”, “What do you mean?” [Leader] “What else do they do? Does this need to be a full time role? [Me] “Who facilitates the Scrum events? Coaches the team? Inspires the team to self organize? Encourages them to plan to their capacity taking only what they can do and deliver to their commitments? Helps them to stay focused on value delivery? Communicates and re-communicates the vision? Resolves conflicts? Scrum Master Protects the team, and …” [Leader] “Hmmm, a lot of this effort is invisible, and we give credit only to the team and Product Managers who work hard” [Me] “Invisible?” [Leader] “Amit, isn’t it like, if your kids do well in their junior or middle school, they get all the glory? But as parents we work hard to help them be successful, but our work stays invisible, no?” [Me] “Wow, you got that right! What would you do with that knowledge?” [Leader] “I got to fix the deeper understanding of this role. I know some people playing the Scrum Master role are not doing it well. They do not have the passion, the deeper understanding of this role and/or may not be suited for this role. But there are others who are serving well in this role: their teams look happier, are highly productive, swarm over problems and find new ways to improve. We gotta acknowledge them, highlight their work, selfless servant leadership effort and take their help to grow other Scrum Masters!” With the advent of Agile and Scrum, the demand for Scrum roles, especially the Product Owner and Scrum Master, has been high. While Product Managers could learn to play the Product Owner role more easily, growing Servant Leader Scrum Masters has not been easy. As a result, the role is quickly or hurriedly filled up by project managers, program managers, or developers which does not bring the depth of this role to life. While the people filling up this role are humans (and, humans are inherently nice), there’s a number of reasons why they implement Scrum in a minimum viable manner. The passion for Agile and Scrum is missing, it’s done more as a duty The filled up role lacks the depth of Agile values and principles The servant leadership and essence of the Scrum Master role is not visible The result is that leaders do not see Scrum and Agile implemented wisely and will not understand the value of Scrum Master role-played in its full potential. Additionally, the minimum viable role then becomes a benchmark for filling other SM roles in the same organization. Who is a good Scrum Master? Related article: Ideal career path for Scrum Masters Succeeding with Agile with a well played Scrum Master role is much easier. At the depth of this role lie all the qualities of a good Scrum Master. These include: Striving to bring out the best in people without a personal agenda Meeting people where they are, and, patiently helping them succeed with Agile Empowering people and motivating, encouraging them to self organize but be always available to support them as they learn to grow and succeed Working hard to really be a “master” of Scrum and Agile Introspecting daily to see how to become a better Servant Leader These powerful traits of a good Scrum Master are often visible when this role is played by the right people: – passionate about Agile Principles, striving to uplift Human Values, and, Empowered. Such Scrum Masters demonstrate many (highlighted below) aspects of the role through their day-day work seamlessly switching between them with context: Coach Mentor Servant Leader Facilitator Conflict Resolver Impediment Remover Go To Person for the Team, Relationship Builder, etc. A key concept many miss out on is one that Ken Schawber explained years ago. The Scrum Master role played well brings about a balance or completion to the Scrum Team structure in that each of the 3 primary roles(Scrum Master, Product Owner and the Developers) hold a delicate tension with one another to keep a robust and healthy structure(relationship) This is analogous to a 3 legged stool or a tripod stand with all its legs intact. Imagine what will happen to the stool or the tripod stand when: One leg is short (analogous to the Scrum Master role being played ineffectively) OR One leg goes missing (analogous to the Scrum Master role not visible) OR Two legs sticking closer to each other (analogous to the Scrum Master role played by the Product Owner or a developer) In the first case, the table will be imbalance and unstable; In the second case, the table might tip over; In the third case, the table will be less effective That is exactly the state of many Scrum teams I have observed and on closer look, it does have to do with how the Scrum Master role has been set up!

Scrum Master VS an Agile Coach

February 8, 2022 No Comments

The reason for Agile Coach role being so much in demand is that, the growth of Agile and Scrum has been exponential in the last 7-10 years. The Scrum Master being such an important role could not grow with the same speed. As a result, the Project Managers, Program Managers, the TPMs, Team Managers and even the Developers stepped up as Scrum Masters for their teams. Lack of proper understanding of the Scrum Master role, especially the Servant leadership aspect, has resulted in ineffective Agile and Scrum implementation. Some symptoms of this ineffectiveness are: teams do not finish their work, they do not understand the meaning of commitment, deeper understanding of roles and responsibilities is not clear, self-organization is lacking, command and control and finger pointing are at play. This tends to push the team more into so much of doing rather than being Agile This is the reason why Agile coaching has become very popular. However, do all the Agile Coaches serve the way they are expected to? Or fulfill that expectation as well? No. Not at all. The People who succeeded with Agile and Scrum, are the ones who worked hard at Servant Leadership, Soft Skills, Professional Coaching Skills, deeper understanding of Agile Values and Principles. They patiently worked to help bring up highly effective, happy, cross-functional, self-organizing and empowered teams. These are the people who having worked as Scrum Masters for years stepped-up into the role of an Agile Coach, helping enable more and more people to understand how to play the Scrum Master role effectively. However, just like in the case of inexperienced Scrum Masters, many people have taken to Agile Coaching without gaining enough experience in Agile, Scrum and the Scrum Master role. They haven’t succeeded in creating greatness in teams but stepped up into the role of an Agile Coach and struggled to deliver as expected. This has brought a lot of confusion and reduced credibility for the Agile Coach role which has no clearly defined standards as in professional coaching. Let’s review the similarities and differences between Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches. To be successful in the role of an Agile Coach or a Scrum Master calls for Servant leadership, deep expertise in Scrum and Agile Values and Principles, a lot of passion for serving, and years of experience working with people and teams. Such people thrive among conflicts, have strong communication skills, are able to positively influence without getting impacted by the (negative) environment, build relationships with stakeholders, are innovative and creative on different ways of applying Agile – Scrum, Kanban, etc., (depending on the context) without violating the Agile Values and Principles. They are the overseer of the health of Agile and Scrum, catalyst change agents who can bring about change without getting impacted. What makes great Agile Coaches? The Scrum Master should ideally play this role for 3-5 years focusing on and succeeding with, maybe, just 1-2 teams and then may serve as an Agile Coach to enable other teams. This would help them stretch out of their comfort zone by going over and beyond the expectation from their work to create greatness in the wider organization despite having the same time constraints as other Scrum Masters do. Highly respected and sought after Agile Coaches never gave in to pressure and compromised Agile Values and Principles (even while playing the Scrum Master role). They found out ways to work around the system, and they kept a little Bernie Sanders of Agile alive in them. (Scrum Masters: Keep ‘A Little Bernie Sanders of Agile in your Heart) 3. The best of the Agile Coaches are exemplary Servant Leaders. They have Servant Leadership deeply engraved in their hearts. For them success and failure is first and foremost about people, and they are also committed to self-work (self-improvement), self-growth. Meaning, they invest a lot of time in contemplation of wisdom and practices to have high degree of Awareness, a strong sense of Belongingness with people and Charisma. This Charisma is where they have positive influence among the people they work without carrying any personal agenda. Does it mean that only great Agile Coaches have these qualities and not the Scrum Masters? No, not at all. Every once in a while, you will see a Scrum Master who has stepped to this level and sooner rather than later, they will be pulled into coaching multiple teams. A good Agile Coach will not shy away from playing the Scrum Master role when needed. As an Agile Coach serving for many years, I have done the role play and played the Scrum Master role many times to help new/learning Scrum Masters understand the deeper essence of this role. It is only when somebody starts to serve into the role of a Coach (Agile Coach) is where they really start looking in the competencies of Coaching. It is important for Scrum Masters who are passionate about their role that they invest some time learning the competencies of Professional Coaching. Example, Creating Trust and Intimacy, Asking Powerful Questions, Active Listening, Managing Progress and Accountability, etc. They need to work on understanding the importance of meeting the client where the client is, rather than wanting or pulling the client to where they think the client should be. These are some of the things that good Scrum Masters can highly benefit from learning. As a matter of fact, these skills are not only limited to Scrum Masters. Anyone who shows maturity in these skills can benefit in whatever role they are playing because these skills uplift the Human Values. Conclusion: There is no shortcut to success, and the same applies to playing the roles of a Scrum Master or an Agile Coach. Working hard at the foundations of Agile and Scrum, Servant Leadership, Professional Coaching, People Skills and Spending years together genuinely working on creating greatness in People and Teams will help you succeed in becoming an exemplary Scrum Master or an Agile Coach. Amitabh Sinha is a

Community of Practice for Scrum Masters

November 2, 2021 2 Comments

The Scrum Master is one of the most important roles of Scrum. It takes years to master this role and interacting with others serving in the same role can advance one’s progress. While there are many ways to grow into the journey of Scrum Master, and here is a link to my previous blog post discussing this (http://agilonomics.com/an-ideal-career-path-for-a-scrum-master/), one of the things that can help a lot is working as a community, popularly known as the Community of Practice for Scrum Masters, or Scrum Master COP. In this article I will share with you my experience for the past 15 years, In which I facilitated the Scrum Master COP for many teams, departments and organizations. I will also share with you how I made these practices engaging and successful. The first step of the community of practice would be to start with an invitation that helps the scrum masters in your group or department understand the value of coming together and sharing success stories, challenges, learning from and growing together. Logistical guide to hosting community of practice meetings: The very first Community of Practice session should include a game to bring out topics of interest and prioritizing them. I have often played an Agile game called “Thirty Five”. This game needs all scrum masters present to write one topic of their interest on a piece of paper and put it in the middle of the table. All cards are mixed up and everyone gets to pick a random card (ideally a card other than the one they wrote). The scrum masters are then split into pairs, where they converse and discuss the cards that they picked. They have to agree to split the number 7 between the two topics, using only integers. The value given to each topic depends on how important they are in relation to each other. For example, the split could be 4 for one topic and 3 for the other, 7 and 0, 6 and 1, 5 and 2 and so on. After agreeing to the value distribution, the two members exchange the cards and repeat the process 4 more times with 4 other scrum masters. If a topic was very hot and important for all, it could get 7 from all conversations in each round. 7 x 5 rounds equals 35, and that’s how the game gets its name. Next, bring all the cards together and prioritize them based on the voting by the community. This gives you an organic way of getting a prioritized list of topics with everybody’s buy in. In the very first community of practice, you may briefly want to summarize the result of this game, what each topic means, the number of votes each topic has, and some conversation about the process and how it can be improved. In the subsequent Community of Practice sessions, consider discussing topics from the prioritized list beginning with the most important one at the top (with the most votes), and have deep dives. I recommend the frequency of these COP meetings should be between 1 to 4 times a month (once in two weeks is an ideal when possible). How do you do deep dives (diving deep into a topic)? Remember, this is a community of practice, not one person doing it all. You have to engage the participants, make sure that everybody contributes and learns from the deep dive sessions. You can ask for volunteers among scrum masters who want to come prepared for the topic that will be discussed in the next COP session, and they can start by sharing what they have prepared. This process should always have a format which starts with playing an ice breaker game or “checking in”, diving deep into the topic, having engaging conversations, and coming out with takeaways. Takeaways become a powerful tool for reflection and transformation. As a facilitator of the COP (this role is ideally rotated), you can take some notes and publish this as an internal document on a confluence page or google drive, and share it with everybody. The sharing part is important because even the people or scrum masters who were unable to attend the COP session can review and benefit from the notes. As an Agile Coach transcribing the notes and adding additional examples and personal experience helps add value to the document which is appreciated and utilized by the scrum masters. When you facilitate the Community of Practice for other teams or departments, it would be highly beneficial to empower a local scrum master to keep the group together, making sure people are receiving and responding to the invites and that they are helped to overcome the impediments to be able to attend the COP. Some examples of impediments could be an urgent meeting coming up, or having too many things on their plate, etc. Try to secure a budget for food. It is very easy to get more participation if food is offered during these meetings. For one company I would do this for each site between 12:00 to 1:30 PM, which would overlap with the lunch time, sponsored by the leaders which helped increase participation. Although this is the community of scrum masters, feel free to open it to other passionate Agilists who work with the Scrum Masters, such as Product Owners or other team members. They appreciate it and provide unique contributes. It is exciting to see passionate people engaging together. All of the participants may not have gotten the chance to play the Scrum Master role yet, but may get inspired to do that in the future after being exposed to this practice. How to engage the participants in the Community of Practice? Do not bore the people with long lectures. Guide the lead who is owning the particular topic they would be driving in the next COP with some ideas of engagement. One of the most popular formats I have had success with is the use of 10-15 minute breakout session in which people

An Ideal Career Path for a Scrum Master

October 18, 2021 No Comments

An Ideal Scrum Master Career Path The Scrum Master role is increasingly becoming more and more in demand these days. This role is played by a variety of people. We may see someone in the development team playing this role, such as the technical lead, or a developer, or a QA person, or even an analyst. Alternatively, project managers play this role to support the scrum team. Many other people have dedicated their lives to playing this role as a servant leader scrum master. There are instances when this role is shared among different people in the team, and there are times when this role is rotated among the different members of the development team. Many times, because this is the role they were passionate about, some people who play scrum masters think about how to grow stronger and more knowledgeable as scrum masters or servant leaders. At other times, even while playing the role on a part time basis, an occasional developer may feel this is a role that they would like to pursue as a career option: servant leading and helping create greatness in their teams. Whoever that person is, if they want to grow strongly into this path of servant leadership, here are some tips that I can share from my experience. These tips can not only help you get hired as a Scrum Master but will also help you grow strong, and create a niche for yourself, impact a lot of people in your organization positively, and will also bring a lot of satisfaction and contentment into your own life. Ideal Qualities of Scrum Master First, never see this role as a means to quickly make money. What I mean here is, if you really want to grow as a scrum master, give the due diligence that this role asks for. Go deeply into understanding the values and principles of Agile, the Scrum Values of Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect and Courage, and what it means to be a servant leader. Work on your own self to grow as a professional coach. One of the many roles that a scrum master needs to play is that of a coach for the team. What does this word ‘coach’ mean to you? How can you be a better coach? This calls for a lot of self work. This self work will help you become more patient, a better listener, help you have more compassion, along with firmness. It will help you gain skills of conflict resolution, etc. and contribute towards developing good Scrum Master characteristics! Ideally, spend at least 4-5 years playing the Scrum Master role in its full capacity if you want to further your career in the same direction (from good to great). Don’t rush through the learning process. This will expose you to a variety of situations, challenges and problems, and help you tackle each circumstance as a coach and a change agent. Understand the essence of what is really expected from this role. Meet all your challenges as a Scrum Master to the best of your abilities, but never feel discouraged. Such an attitude will help you develop qualities of a good Scrum Master. One of the expectations from a Scrum Master is to challenge the status quo. Try to understand what this really means. As I started taking on the Scrum Master role many years ago, I fell in love with it. I came face to face with this phrase, “challenge the status quo”, and what it personally meant to me (after thinking a lot) is to never give up. It does not matter how many attempts you have made to coach a stakeholder (executive, manager, leader or a team member), the energy you put in each attempt should not be impacted if previous attempts did not bring about a change you desired. Even if they ignore you or fail to understand you, go back to them with the same kindness and firmness, and patiently coach them at the next chance that you get. This is similar to the metaphor of an ant trying to climb a wall. The ant may fall 20 times, but you do not see the ant rushing or giving up, it patiently goes back and tries to climb the same wall, until it finally reaches its destination. It’s the exact same thing that happens when you are a very patient, passionate, compassionate, and dispassionate scrum master. You will not feel discouraged because you got a “no”. You will go back the next time and very kindly help them understand from another angle the value of what you are trying to coach and what it brings to your organization, department or team. This is very important to understand. Too much passion can bring frustration in you and anger in others, so you need to make sure that the river of passion needs to stay between the two banks of compassion and dispassion. You will start to see that people are listening to you more, and you will be able to influence people more positively. People will soon start seeing you as a Scrum Evangelist and will reach out to you for guidance when other avenues do not show much encouragement and support Another tip would be to look into acquiring certifications. Do not see a certification as something that will help you prove your value to others, that the certification is the reason why you are good. Rather, look at it as a means to validate your knowledge or current level. You are already good, that’s why you have that certification. This is where most people need to understand the difference between the two approaches. Let your success with the Scrum Master role justify your certifications, and not use certifications to prove that you are great. But do go for certifications, there is nothing wrong with it! Have you noticed there are two kinds of Linkedin titles? One is where people put all their certifications in their title, and the

Effective Scrum of Scrums Meetings

October 10, 2021 No Comments

Scrum of Scrums (SoS) meetings are as popular as Scrum itself. The effectiveness of an SoS meeting depends on how it is implemented. There are a few agile teams that have achieved a high level of effectiveness with scrum. In the same way, there are a few teams that use the power of Scrum of Scrums the way it was meant to be. What was the original purpose of Scrum of Scrums meetings? Scrum of Scrums was meant to bring scrum masters or team representatives of different scrum teams working as a part of a larger project or product together. When several teams work together, it is very common to have dependencies on one another, and things like risks, impediments or blockers need to be discussed to help all the teams achieve their sprint goals. For example, Team B could be working on something that needs Team A’s help. Otherwise their goals will be at risk. Similarly, Team C may need to finish a dependent story which can only be completed once Team B has finished a story in their current sprint. Dependencies need to be clear. A common implementation of Scrum of Scrums is: the scrum team representatives come together once a week, they talk about the challenges and go back. However, they are not able to achieve their goals in the sprint for the items discussed in Scrum of Scrums. So how effective is this Scrum of Scrums? As an observer, it is painful to see Scrum of Scrums providing no great value. Here is a recommendation on how the Scrum of Scrums can be made more effective based on my personal experience of having implemented it very effectively in several scrum teams I’ve worked with over the last 15 years. Just like with all things Agile, I have inspected, adapted and evolved this process to provide huge value to the teams I’ve coached. At a recent client in Silicon Valley, having brought agile transformation to a department of 4 teams, I introduced the Scrum of Scrums after helping them establish other scrum ceremonies. By this time, these teams completed 4 sprints, had a stable velocity range, high predictability, a very healthy backlog being produced from user story mapping, collaborative stand-ups, powerful reviews and retrospectives. They realized they were struggling with dependencies upon each others’ teams, and despite the request for help, those dependencies or blockers were not getting resolved. This was the right time for them to be introduced to the Scrum of Scrums. The recommendations made were as below: The Scrum of Scrums is a problem-solving session, unlike the daily Scrum which is like planning for the day. The teams should meet 3 times a week (MWF). The suggested duration of the meeting was 30-45 minutes. It was important for them to understand that critical issues that need to be discussed with representatives of 3 or 4 teams would impact between 40-50 people, and so addressing them right there would be of huge value. The meeting is ideally held after each team’s individual stand-ups. The topics to focus should be dependencies, calling out any risks, synchronization efforts that need collaboration, blockers, etc. This was a forum to discuss how teams can work together more effectively, what has been done, what is going wrong, why and what the group is going to do about it. Each team representative would ask one or more of the following questions: What impediments does your team have that will prevent you from accomplishing your sprint goal or impact delivery plan? Is your team doing anything that will prevent another team from accomplishing their sprint goal or impact their delivery plan? Have any new dependencies between the teams been discovered? What have you done or what can you do to be unblocked from another team? What would be an agreeable ETA for you? (for you to be able to finish the work on time?) Who among the other teams can help your team to move towards this goal effectively? Who should attend the Scrum of Scrums? Although traditionally the scrum masters are the representatives to the Scrum of Scrums meetings, the scrum master can send another person who has more knowledge about the contextual problems their team is facing at the current time. The scrum master may also bring another person along with them and that is fine, too. We do not want a lot of people attending the meetings as this can prolong the discussions. It helps if the team representative to the Scrum of Scrums is a technical person, since a lot of the problems discussed in these meetings are technical. How do you track progress? I recommend the team create a Kanban board to track the issues that are discussed at these meetings. Instead of the teams creating additional tickets on this board, we came up with a creative way which includes labeling the issues any team is facing. These issues actually live on the respective team scrum or Kanban boards, but because of a specific label, they show up on the Scrum of Scrums (Kanban board) due to the query that was set up (JQL or Jira Query Language, in this case). The facilitator of this Scrum of Scrums maintains a simple excel sheet that monitors or tracks the progress as follows: *This is usually the person who raises issue and the person who teams up to resolve the issue Looking at above, you can see that the column 4 minus column 2 gives the cycle time (time it took for the issue to get resolved after it first appeared on the board). The overall goal is for the average cycle time of all the issues to be as minimal as possible. The idea of including the names of people involved is to help inspire others to collaborate and quickly resolve dependencies, thereby keeping the average cycle time to a minimum. How do you deal with dependencies outside your Scrum teams? How do you approach organizing the SoS

Creating Effective and Sustainable Teams

June 23, 2021 No Comments

High performing teams are a real possibility. They look, feel and move like a unit. A high performing team moves with an attitude of “us” and “we”, as opposed to “I” and “me”. Such teams fulfill the vision that Agile promises and are a delight to behold. But how do we create effective and sustainable teams? That is a million dollar question. Here are some thoughts on how to achieve such high performing team: 1) Serve and lead A servant-leader is motivated to serve and grow their people to become wiser, more independent, and with a sense of purpose. Their focus is on people, helping them reach their true potential, and ultimately creating other great servant-leaders. 2) Create a feeling of oneness within your team When team members are bound by a common sense of purpose, they “belong” to one another. “This is MY team, what can I do to make it successful?” Such teams operate as a well-oiled machine and move as a unit. 3) Help your team focus on bringing high value to their common cause or goal. Each member’s involvement and support is important, no matter how small or big it is. A good servant leader communicates and re-communicates the vision to the team and in the process of doing so, inspires everyone to contribute wholeheartedly. As a result, there is a sense of pride in the team for what they have accomplished. 4) Create transparency and visibility A good team realizes the power of making all work visible. They prioritize work, and execute with the big picture in mind (“Are we building the right product” to “Are we building the product right?”). They know their capacity and only take so much work as they can during a sprint. 5) Create an environment of trust and safety An elemental part of building a successful team is to satisfy their basic human needs of Trust and Safety. A servant-leader scrum master would create a working environment where personal bonding is easy to establish. 6) Adopt a more “human” mindset. Our actions reflect how we think. If we consider people as resources, it will reflect on how we treat them. People are humans, not resources. They have likes and dislikes, feelings and emotions, fears and anxiety. They respond to love and kindness and thrive when they feel safe and trusting. In the end, it is not about processes and tools, but about people. Remember, the first value from the Agile Manifesto, “Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools”?

Scrum Masters: Keep ‘a little Bernie Sanders of Agile’ in your Heart

April 26, 2021 No Comments

“Idealist: noun: 1. a person who is guided more by ideals than by practical considerations.” Keep ‘a little Bernie Sanders of Agile’ in your heart. Bernie, with his ideals on how to build a successful America, has always seemed a bit too idealistic, veering far off from how we’ve come accustomed to how America has been run by previous presidents. When you are first practicing Agile, it’s advisable to stick to the basics. It is important to implement the few basic guidelines without alteration. If you can, recall the Shu-Ha-Ri Principle so often quoted in Agile. Brushing through the Shu-Ha-Ri Principle, a Japanese martial art concept, describes the stages of learning to mastery. Shu (Follow and Obey) – This is especially important for a new team, a new Scrum Master or a Scrum Master working with a new team, to be able to understand the “what” and of the process. You need to learn and understand the fundamentals, techniques and processes without worrying too much about the underlying theory. Ha (Detach and Digress) – Detachment from the illusions of self. You have done it for a while and you understand what works and why they are meant to be a certain way. You are now understanding the theory and principles behind the fundamentals, techniques and processes that you have learned. Ri (Leave and separate) – you have become the master, the epitome of the subject (Agile in this case). All moves have become natural and you can start your own process unhindered without overstepping the (Agile) laws. It comes naturally. The problem is, these days most Scrum Masters immediately jump to the Ri Stage, modifying processes without going through Shu and Ha. You need to understand and experience success with the process before you can experiment and make the process your own. An example can be a Scrum Master who is starting with a new team, organizing their first sprint planning in only thirty minutes. As a result, the team goes on with planning the next several days. Another example would be, to skip the Sprint Retrospective without understanding its value, thus abandoning an important part of the continuous improvement cycle. To summarize, without having the experience of implementing Agile and Scrum wisely, it is not advisable to overlook the basic recommendations. How? By keeping alive ‘a little Bernie Sanders of Agile’ in your heart. There is a small idealistic feeling about doing it the way it was meant to be, before experimenting with the process. Like the saying goes, you have to know the rules before you can bend them. In the beginning, allow your work to be guided by the principles and driven by the values. The servant-leader Scrum Masters must be the overseer of implementing Scrum as it comes out of the box before customizing the settings. What have you experienced in your journey with Agile and Scrum? Have you followed the Shu-Ha-Ri Principle in your journey as you evolved your process? Amitabh (Amit) Sinha is a servant leader entrepreneur, visionary, mentor, trainer and coach. Amit is highly passionate about Agile, its principles, values, and the human side. Amit is a people champion and strives to bring out the best in his teams. Amit leverages his expertise in Agile, Scrum, Kanban and people skills to increase team effectiveness and happiness. See more

Scrum Master and Project Manager

September 4, 2020 No Comments

It is very common for Scrum teams to deal with a plethora of issues not to mention the transitioning to scrum itself. Where do you think these issues originate from? They arise from stakeholder management, team dependencies, conflicts among team members, pressure of meeting Sprint commitment, waterfall environment surrounding the team, command-and-control management, silos in the team, ambiguity in contracts, demands of reporting data to executives, etc. These issues pop up throughout the sprint. Well, now that we know the types of problems that can spring up for a Scrum team, guess, who is responsible to shield the team from getting diverted from these external issues? YES it is the Scrum Master. But how ? In a scrum team, a Scrum Master’s foremost priority should be to take care of the team and it’s needs first. He/She works towards helping the team to stay focused on delivering the committed work. In many scenarios, due to existing silos, a team may need to work with other specialized units like design or infrastructure team to constantly get their work going. Many a times, several teams need to work together to create a bigger product increment. This often results in companies investing in Program managers, project managers or other similar roles to support Scrum teams. It is also likely that many companies transitioning from traditional waterfall to Agile already have program and/or project managers. In such scenarios it is but natural that the Scrum Master and Project Manager will need to work together. How best the two can help the teams? One way could be for the servant leader Scrum master to play the role of a guide, a coach for the team and work cohesively with the project manager as they work towards a common goal of helping the teams succeed – that is be happy, productive and effective! Such a Scrum Master usually stays inward (team) focused while the project/program managers stay outward focused on handling stakeholders and the like. Who is the better superpower here? Scrum Master and Project Manager are both super heroes in their own world. A cohesive and collaborative working of these roles can no doubt help in building effective, high performing and happy teams. We call them superheroes in their “own worlds” because Scrum prescribes only 3 roles – Scrum Master, Product Owner and Development Team while the Project Manager role comes from the traditional world. However in many instances, the organizational needs and culture demand and support the Project Manager role in Agile and Scrum environments and Agile should be accommodating this need, as, after all the core principle of agile is adaptability and customer satisfaction. Although these roles appear conflicting, they need to align on the common (higher) vision of helping their team(s) succeed. This asks for them to work closely by having constant touch points as often as possible to divide and conquer the impediments blocking their team(s) and respond to any important stakeholder/leadership expectations or requests. In the case of a Scrum team with only 3 roles, the team members self organize to step up and help the Scrum Master attend some of the meetings and touch base to synchronize. Such teams are easy to create but rare as it needs a lot of discipline and strong servant leadership to inculcate a spirit of “shared responsibility and group accountability” Amitabh (Amit) Sinha is a servant leader entrepreneur, visionary, mentor, trainer and coach. Amit is highly passionate about Agile, its principles, values, and the human side. Amit is a people champion and strives to bring out the best in his teams. Amit leverages his expertise in Agile, Scrum, Kanban and people skills to increase team effectiveness and happiness. See more