In today’s fast-paced, complex world, successful organizations rely on a culture of continuous feedback. Only then can they effectively adapt to organizational changes and operational shifts.

Alena and Her Scrum Masters

Let’s start with a brief story from a few weeks ago.

Alena, a PMO director overseeing Scrum Masters, regularly collects feedback from agile teams about their Scrum Masters’ performance. This feedback is a key organizational indicator of the Scrum Masters’ value and is considered part of the company’s agile transformation, emphasizing feedback’s importance and impact.

The feedback is gathered anonymously through electronic forms. Five Scrum Masters are rated by 15 Product Owners, each working with three teams. The assessment uses a simple 1-10 scale, similar to NPS surveys.

The results were excellent. All Product Owners expressed high satisfaction with the Scrum Masters’ performance. Alena concluded that the Scrum Masters were doing a fantastic job, as they were being rated by their primary ‘customers.’

Or were they?

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias occurs when people seek evidence to support their existing beliefs. If someone tells you not to think about a purple cow, you’ll start seeing purple cows everywhere.

In Alena’s case, confirmation bias might be influencing the results of the NPS feedback in several ways:

  • Consistently high ratings
  • Trends in the feedback over time
  • Team structures and relationships
  • Emotional dynamics during feedback collection
  • Timing and frequency of data collection
  • Pressure to give positive feedback due to the company’s feedback culture

There may be even more factors at play.

The Feedback Culture Matters

Organizational culture is crucial. Even if feedback is part of company values, if honesty results in emotional backlash or any form of punishment, the feedback becomes superficial. True feedback requires psychological safety—an environment where failure leads to learning and system adjustments, not blame.

In Alena’s case, since each Scrum Master was rated by three Product Owners, it was easy to guess who rated whom, making honest feedback risky. Product Owners might avoid negative feedback to maintain relationships and avoid retaliation, even if unintentional.

Avoiding honest feedback only increases the long-term cost of unresolved issues.

How to Improve Feedback Collection?

Use open-ended questions alongside numerical ratings. For example:

  • What should the Scrum Master do differently to improve your collaboration?
  • What behaviors define an outstanding Scrum Master for you?
  • When do you feel you don’t need a Scrum Master?
  • If you had to pay the Scrum Master from your product budget, how much would you pay?

Such questions help Scrum Masters (and Alena) understand the expectations and necessary behavioral changes better.

Open-ended feedback also makes achieving a perfect score nearly impossible, as there will always be areas for improvement.

Focus on Psychological Safety

In a complex world, changes can’t be designed and implemented from the top. They must be validated by those directly involved in the work.

Before driving any change, prioritize building psychological safety within teams to ensure you receive valuable feedback for future improvements.

What can you do today to make it safe for your colleagues to share the whole truth?