About the life of the agile team, relations, Scrumastership, responsibilities, and some good practices.
“KEEP CALM SCRUM MASTER IS HERE”
When I started in one of the company’s development teams, I had no experience with Scrumastership. The team was already formed and was in the “storming” phase. After coming into the team, we reset the team’s clock and started from scratch. We were working in some way of Scrum.
As a newbie, I needed some time to be comfortable with the setup and relationships going on. In the beginning, I saw some differences in what is written in the wise books and our practices. The team was great! Enthusiastic and motivated, but we were lost. We were supposed to find our own way of doing our work, and we were lucky to have a supportive boss who believed in us and was able to sell Agile to the organization at first.
Why am I writing this? So many people have asked me what I am doing all day, every day.
WHAT SCRUMMASTER DOES ALL THE DAY? SCRUMMASTERSHIP!
1.ORGANIZATION
First, I started with organizing the team events and ceremonies. What does it mean?
Book the meeting room and send out the invitation to the scrum team and, in case of reviews, to stakeholders. I chose to set it upfront so that everybody who needs to be at those ceremonies will have time and will participate.
The organization is one part of the whole process. Later, comes the preparation of the agenda, topics that need to be discussed, and ensuring that a responsible person will be part of the meeting to share our thoughts and be heard. Next, comes the preparation of materials and equipment needed for smooth meetings.
2.IMPEDIMENTS
I was in the company already for a few years, it was my big advantage. The team on daily stand-up mentioned their blockers, impediments, or anything else that made them feel some pain. I need to say I was and still am a “YES” woman. Good? Not Good? It depends on the perspective of whom you look at it. :)
My role was to remove impediments! Simple “tasks” were solved quickly; complex problems took a few days. I contacted anyone who could help me, even my boss if needed. What was the expected result? The development team was able to work without any blockers…
3.IMPROVEMENTS & RESEARCH
Even though we thought we were in a good way, we also had in our heads that we could not take it for granted. Constant work on ideas for improvements through Retrospective. It was hard for me to prepare it to get a higher value as it is possible. We started with the Retrospective board and Experiment Board, which helped us to make it visible for the team and the organization. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.
Scrum is a framework based on empirical process… learning by doing…TRY, FAIL, IMPROVE.
That’s what I was using, and consultancy and research were my BFFs (best friends forever). I was not the technician; I spent a lot of time getting to know “our” product. I read the documentation and tried to get information with value that helped me understand what the team was implementing. Of course, in case I didn’t completely understand or I missed something , I asked the team.
We need to find new techniques for ceremonies, new trends in agile, or anything helpful for us to try. I did my research.
4.FACILITATION
What about all the time-mentioned facilitation? In my opinion, it is a crucial part of this job. It is hard to be quiet at the right time and ask when it is needed to open a Pandora’s box. To be the one who starts the discussion regarding requirements or some emotional topic. Help them stay on track, not waste time with long discussions with no results, follow the agenda, and maintain such important time.
Last but not least, set the goal and purpose at the beginning of the meeting.
5.BUILD THE RELATIONSHIP
How much easier is to communicate with someone you like? To cooperate with someone you have common hobbies with? Do you prefer coffee with chit-chat and little laugh? Of course YES!
Me too! I am a relationship-based person. :) I have been focusing on building relationships with every team member, taking each and every individual as an individual who needs something different. This takes time, patience, a lot of discussions, and liters of coffee.
We started even jointly planning the trips and activities where we had fun. Gym, beer, dinner, comics, hiking, etc. I was happy to wake up every morning, go to work, be with the development team, work on our product together, and have fun. The atmosphere we created together was pleasant (not every day :) We are not robots or some sunny people), and we were happy to work in the team.
6.METRICS
I thought about what else could help us in Scrum. Some useful metrics can be used for visualization to be transparent and have a clear overview.
Clear overview not only for us but also for product owner and Customer who was not in our office but in a different location, for everybody in the organization who was interested in our work.
We were not ashamed of what we are working on, we were proud and we didn’t want to hide it.
7.OTHER ACTIVITIES
I mentioned my boss at the beginning. He is an important person throughout the story! Why?
He was the one who made it possible and even more. Development work is creative work. You are supposed to have a creative workplace. You need enough time and someone who cares! He brought a lot of ideas about improving things and making a better place to perform and grow.
We planned and organized various hackathons and conferences, and we focused on activities that helped us innovate and supported our willingness to be the ONE with value.
What I didn’t mention is mentoring and coaching. With each step, we shape our way, and we mentor and coach ourselves.
Everybody had an impact on everybody. :)
BE YOURSELF, DO YOUR BEST, FIND YOUR WAY!
