Scrum Masters: Do or Do Not
There is no “ask someone else to do it because you’re unsure of yourself”
I’ve worked with a lot of scrum masters over the years. And, oddly, I’ve only just noticed a trend that perhaps I should have noticed much sooner. Many scrum masters, especially if they are new — but not exclusively, will ask an agile coach or someone else they admire to come in and do part of their job for them. Something like “Hey would you come be a guest host for our upcoming retro and do that awesome retro you’ve done before?” or maybe “I’d love to watch and learn from you doing… (this thing for my team)”
And looking back, I should’ve said no a lot more than I did to these kinds of requests. As a coach, it’s nice to be needed. But also, if I’m doing my job well, I should be looking out for how to maximize learning and experiences for those I work with. It’s literally in the first line of the agile manifesto.
We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it
By doing it. And helping others do it. Not by watching others do it.
I don’t mean this to sound harsh. If you’ve asked me to do things for your team, it’s fine! I mean you can learn things from attending other events and having a guest retro facilitator (especially if for some reason, you need to be a participant in your own retro instead of facilitator!) But what I want you to understand is that everyone has had to face these challenges before. If it’s because you’re a little timid or fearful or just unsure because you’ve never done something before, this hesitancy is a barrier to your learning opportunities.
Here’s my best advice for you if you’re feeling that way: “lead with vulnerability”. When you go to do that retro you’ve never done before, open the conversation with honesty. Tell your team how you’re feeling. Ask for their involvement and honesty right back. If it doesn’t go well, you can always pivot or just laugh your way through it.
In the end, however, I promise you will have learned something. Maybe something about yourself as well. And in your role as a scrum master or agile coach or any kind of agile leader, you need to be a little bit fearless or at least a little bold and adventurous because part of your job is literally to encourage others to fail and to learn through doing as the manifesto says. And as you are very likely aware, the best leaders model the right behaviors for their teams.
Now, I certainly don’t want to stop helping people. Please do ask for help. But maybe let’s work together leading up to the event to talk through how you’re going to do it and be successful. For a coach, there are many ways we can help others succeed. But if I’m doing my job well, I need to model the right behaviors as well: and yes I can educate and coach you into learning new skills but that’s where I should stop and then gently nudge and instigate you to try those new things and grow through doing.
May the force be with you always. #starwarsday
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Hi, I’m Brian Link, an Enterprise Agile Coach who loves his job helping people. I call myself and my company the “Practical Agilist” because I pride myself on helping others distill down the practices and frameworks of the agile universe into easy to understand and simple common sense. I offer fractional agile coaching services to help teams improve affordably. See more at FractionalAgileCoach.com
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