We do Scrum but…

“Our Scrum Master doesn’t let us think”

Are you serious? — episode 33

I know a Scrum Master who knows EVERYTHING about Scrum. He also knows everything about Agile, Lean, Product Management, leadership and psychology. It’s as if he’d swallowed a library. On top of that he is a brilliant speaker and generally a great guy. And he knows that he’s this smart.

You would expect that he’s the perfect Scrum Master.

The thing is… he doesn’t listen to his team. No, that’s not completely true. During Retrospectives he listens to the comments of the team on the Sprint they just finished. But he forgets to ask the team their views and jumps to his recommendations. Because he knows best.

Apparently — with all his knowledge — he doesn’t understand that he isn’t acting as a true Scrum Master. Because a Scrum Master should know that:

“Development Teams are structured and empowered by the organization to organize and manage their own work. The resulting synergy optimizes the Development Team’s overall efficiency and effectiveness.” — SG

And that a Scrum Master assists by:

“Coaching the Development Team in self-organization and cross-functionality” — SG

and

“Helping the Development Team to create high-value products” — SG

“Coaching” can mean different things. You can coach in an autocratic style, using a ‘telling’ approach. But you can also use a democratic style, to encourage participation. Looking at how the Scrum Guide stipulates self-organisation it seems obvious to me that the democratic coaching style is the one suited for Scrum. However I don’t think that the Scrum Master that I am talking about intends to be autocratic. I think there is an other type of issue:

He isn’t coaching the team at all!

He helps the Development Team to improve, but he doesn’t coach them in self-organisation. He is trying his best to make his team the best Scrum Team around but does that by acting without asking. As Paddy Corry noted: by inflicting help, a mortal sin for a Scrum Master! Marty de Jonge remarked:

Although the intent is to help, actually he is manipulating the team.

The results of inflicting help

Inflicting help is catastrophic in many ways. Here are a few:

• The Scrum Master does the thinking. So others can think about other things and wander off, becoming detached of the discussion. They are limiting the team to the knowledge of one person. Even if one team member knows one thing that the Scrum Master doesn’t. In this scenario they won’t speak up and the team will miss that learning opportunity.
• It’s a given that when you are actively engaged in the discussion you take ownership, you feel responsible. If someone else is doing the thinking you easily see it as someone else’s problem on someone else’s plate.
• The Scrum Master may come with the wrong solution for the issue. With no questions asked (s)he can easily miss what is actually intended to be brought forward as an issue.
• The Scrum Master could also come up with the right solution at the wrong time. A team might not be ready for a radical idea that might work when a team grows towards it.
• It creates the wrong kind of relationship between a Scrum Master and the team. A team depending on their Scrum Master for ideas.

So then what?

Well, what about:

“Coaching the Development Team in self-organization” — SG

During the retro you can think about things like:

• Ask open ended questions — this allows people to express their views.
• Listen — don’t be the one that talks constantly, but listen often.
• Be inclusive — ensure that everyone is able to participate.
• Be affirming — respect someone’s observation. It’s their observation, regardless how unimportant or ridiculous you think it is. The team will decide if they find it important to be tackled.

Bottom Line

If you are a Scrum Master, don’t fall in the trap of thinking you know best. Be modest and respect the fact that others can have good ideas too. And don’t inflict help.

Instead be a coach with a democratic coaching style and help the team to be truly self-organising. For a new/starting team some more teaching and leading coaching is usually needed to get the team on the road with Scrum. Later on, when teams evolve, a more democratic type of coaching is usually more effective.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to bang that clap button. You can give up to 50 👏’s. Give it a try if you enjoy this article!

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