Dysfunction #5 — A Disengaged Scrum Master
In this series, I am going to reflect on what I have learned about Scrum and its large-scale adoption in a non-IT environment through my own revelations and indeed, failures, while working at a large UK-based company, rolling out its own flavour of Agile Transformation. Capital “A” and capital “T” intended.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com in February 2021.
In previous episodes to this series, I have touched upon various factors which might cause the downfall of Scrum as a framework. I have argued that for teams to work efficiently, they need to be not only cross-functional but cross-skilled as well, creating one single done increment together as a well-working unit. I have devoted two separate articles to highlight the need for empowerment/autonomy and independence. I have observed factors within the team and outside it, in the environment and have pinned down various circumstances that make Scrum difficult to thrive.
In my articles so far, however, there has been one area which I haven’t explored yet and that’s the position from which all the above observations were made — the narrator of these stories, myself as a Scrum Master. Finishing this series without reflecting on and exposing my own failures, without digging deeper into the role I play in these stories about an Agile Transformation would be a mistake, an oversight. So what’s my part in all this?
I respect any organisation that understands what they actually undertake when they embark on this journey and hires themselves a Scrum Master because in essence, they will be hiring someone that, by the nature of the role, will have to prove to be a nuisance. A corporate rebel. A court jester. A visionary. An untangler. An unbalancer. An outsider. An unconventional thinker. A misfit. A Scrum Master, by design, has to be all of this and many more because by adopting Scrum you have agreed that you will be employing a conduit who will work on disrupting the corporate status quo.
When starting an engagement with an organisation, good Scrum Masters might want to shift their attention to three areas: people, process and product. Obviously, one will need to feel connected to the people and how they interact and figure out whether or not Scrum would work in the given context and if yes, how. Also, you will need to be engaged with the product your team is creating and be excited about it.
When I joined, I felt passionate about the individuals and was truly enthusiastic about the journey that lay ahead. I loved telling people about Scrum and we figured out together how it might benefit them. We started our journey but after a while something became a bit stale for me, something was off: caring deeply about people and their interactions and loving Scrum did not quite cut it.
The problem was that I just didn’t feel the zing when I was thinking about the product we were creating: I had to realise, however painful this realisation was, that running and managing marketing communication campaigns for customers through various channels with the purpose of marketing products and services isn’t something I could throw myself into with full enthusiasm. I sorely missed software craftsmanship, I missed the quirky tangible intangibility of software.
Of course, when I was signing up for this role, I was fully aware of this but I thought my passion for people and Scrum would be enough for me to thrive and consequently, I let the disconnect between me and the product grow. The climax for this disconnect might have been when during a sprint-end meeting I asked kindly how the sprint had gone and my team looked at me with bewilderment, almost contempt: “ You don’t know what has happened?” and then explained me how some decision invalidated the efforts they had put into a project. And I stood there looking like a fool because literally I had had no clue.
It was a tough lesson but I learned it: loving people and Scrum will not be enough unless I can be passionate about the product we are building. Because then it will be easier for me to be in alignment with my team and will be able to facilitate the process of improvement. Through connecting to the product, I can also better understand what it takes to create it and it will be easier for me to be empathetic when it comes to impediments and blockages. Because caring about the product will just help me become the Scrum Master that I know I can be — I can become the awesome Scrum Master that my teams deserve.
Thank you for reading through the five dysfunctions of adopting Scrum. Hopefully you will not fall into the traps I have explored on this journey, but make different mistakes. Reflect, learn and move on. This is exactly what I do on a daily basis. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Good luck!
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
