English speaking scrum master for Mandarin speaking teams
I have been working in Hong Kong as an scrum/XP coach for over 2 years, the teams I’ve worked with have some things in common;
- For most of the team, English is their second language, though it is more common for the product owner to be English speaking.
- Co-location is rare, it is common for companies to outsource their development to Chinese developers, but still want their design and Product owners to be in Hong Kong.
These two traits, along with traditional hierarchies that are entrenched in these companies and my own tendency to revert to a command and control PM when under pressure have led to stand-up meetings that feel a lot more like status reports to me, than a chance to commit to each other and self organise around how they will complete the sprint goal.
In my new team, which is made up of entirely Mandarin speakers except for myself (scrum master) and the Product Owner, I’ve decided to ask the team to use Mandarin in the stand-ups. This is a large shift for myself and the product owner as it means we are unable to effectively contribute to the conversation.
What I’ve found
- The people I thought were shy actually aren’t. They just didn’t feel like they could contribute as they could not follow along properly in English meetings.
- I have no idea of the status day to day, which lets me focus on the process and HOW the team is working together, instead of being caught up in the solution and delivery, which shouldn’t be part of the scrum master role.
- The team isn’t raising as many impediments. This is potentially due to two reasons, 1. They are solving problems between each other with the renewed discussion in stand-ups. 2. They don’t feel like they can come to me for help as I’m not driving the interactions as much.
Take away
Allowing the team to speak their own language/the most common native language has allowed the team to find better solutions to the business problems given to them, given them more autonomy and created a self organising culture.