This post focuses on two Scrum values that reflect the human side of tech: respect and openness. Living these two values builds a foundation for healthy relationships with others, including our colleagues and our clients, leading to better product and service delivery. Read on to learn how devices affect respect for others and openness.
Respect
Scrum Team members respect each other to be capable, independent people
When we respect the team we work with, it allows us to focus on doing what is right for the customer. Being able to empathize with our colleagues and seeing them as our equals helps to foster mutual respect, yet research shows that our devices lead us to do just the opposite.
Most social media platforms - including those used at work - encourage us to compare ourselves to others. Think about the prominence of metrics such as number of friends, followers, or likes. This is known as ranking behaviour, and it undermines our ability to respect our colleagues as peers.
According to Dr. Anastasia Dedyukhina, empathy requires time and presence of mind to develop. It requires us to use the executive network of the brain, the same network used to focus on achieving our goals. But according to research, being exposed to too much negative news online causes us to experience less empathy as a defense mechanism. When we are online, we overload our executive network, denying ourselves both time and presence of mind to develop this critical human quality that affects both our personal and professional lives.
If you are looking for ways to strengthen mutual respect on your scrum team, start with the following:
Awareness: Pay attention to the ways that social media platforms encourage ranking behaviour and how this affects your communication and behaviour.
Cal Newport, in his book Digital Minimalism, suggests that the harm in using social media comes from replacing real life activities with digital ones. So use social media to enhance real life and not to replace it. For example, use Meetup to join an in-person conversation instead of spending time discussing issues on forums. At work, make an effort to connect with your colleagues in person.
Openness
The Scrum Team and its stakeholders agree to be open about all the work and the challenges with performing the work.
Openness allows us to make best use of everyone’s skills, build trust within the team, and quickly address challenges as they come up. But when we introduce devices into our interactions, they affect our ability to stay open. They do this by encouraging narcissistic behaviour and lowering the quality of our face-to-face interactions.
Our interactions with others are influenced by the medium we use to communicate. Digital communications miss out on advantages of in-person conversation, including body language, voice, tone, and silences. Missing out on this real-time feedback also encourages narcissistic behaviour — we talk about ourselves approximately 80% of the time on social media, vs. only 30% in person. By doing so we miss opportunities to be open to what others are trying to tell us.
Another way we close ourselves off is phubbing, the act of snubbing someone in a social setting by concentrating on one’s mobile phone. Research shows that it negatively affects perceived communication quality and relationship satisfaction. In one study, participants who used certain media types (video chatting, listening to music, and gaming) while interacting with others had lower scores on measures of empathy. Media multitasking during face-to-face interactions was also associated with lower levels of openness.
Openness in Scrum is challenged by technology because it often encourages narcissistic behaviour and lowers the quality of our interactions with others. Here’s how to practice openness in Scrum:
As often as practical, speak to colleagues in person. Otherwise use video conferencing instead of email or chat to enhance communication quality.
Create a culture of phone-free meetings and/or phone free spaces.
Avoid using phones while interacting with others. Even having a smartphone visible without using it decreases the quality of our interactions with others, affecting how open we are to their perspectives.
Technology has drastically changed the way we work. Many of those changes are positive, but in the spirit of the three pillars of Empiricism (Transparency, Inspection, and Adaptation) we also need to observe and address the downsides. In order to ensure our ability to practice Scrum and deliver value for our clients, we need to take control of our digital environment. Doing so will enable us to refocus on the core Scrum values: courage, focus, commitment, respect, and openness.
